Gillia Winddancer wrote:I already gave my suggestion on how to chance ECM once before - be prepared for a slight wall of text of pure wisdom:
Basically instead of breaking locks ECM "hides" ships depending on their signature radius vs scan strength/distance. The stronger the dose of ECM a ship receives, the bigger the ships will be that said receiver cannot detect and lock on to.
It wouldn't drastically chance ECM the way it works compared to how it is now, but on the other hand it would also NOT be a chance-based all-or-nothing module that locks out ships completely from the game. On top of that, the ECM would be a constant effect now just like any other e-war module instead of based on cycles.
Generally the idea is that a ship that is being ECM'd would quickly lose track of the small ships whilst still be able to detect larger ships unless he gets multiple stacks of ECM on his own ship. On the other hand it would require more stacks on a big ship than on a small ship to get the same results due to the sensor strength differences.
For even better complexity, make distance of ECM vs target AND any enemy ship vs target play a role. As an example:
Ship A uses ECM on Ship B from a distance of 100km
Ship B is now is unable to lock on to or see on the overview any ship that has a signature radius of X that is beyond distance Y. The smaller an enemy ship is, the closer said enemy ship can be to B without being lockable
If Ship A moves in to 50km from Ship B then the effect of the ECM will of course be stronger. If Ship A uses multiple ECM's, the effect will be stronger. Faction specific ECM's will naturally give an even bigger effect so nothing will change in that regard. Radar ECM vs Radar, Ladar vs Ladar, well you know this already.
This change would pretty much also make ECM true to it's name unlike the way it is now. ECM is all about confusing enemy radars after all. Breaking locks like it is in EVE now is not what I would call "ECM". More like an "EMP" weapon. The ECM burst module should in fact be renamed to an EMP burst to be frank.
The added bonus with this system is that it will give small roaming gangs using small ships an advantage if this is used correctly, which is something I believe was sought after in this blob-infested capital ship environment?
Well, that's my wall of text for now.
If that was adopted players would soon work out which small ships could attack which big ships using X ecm against Y type of big ship to always 100% make them undetecable at Z range. The trick then is to find a weapon layout that can kill the big ship from Z range. Once that is figured out it will work every time. It will be like being cloaked but able to shoot at your target as long as you keep range Z. If you can scram said big ship from Z range then you can kill them every time with that particular combo. There is no random in your idea!