Robot Robot
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Posted - 2009.05.03 14:11:00 -
[1]
 Originally by: Vassai
Edited by: Vassai on 02/05/2009 11:38:00
Maybe its time to rebalance ECM itself not just drones?
Make ECM modules capable influancing sensor strength. For example, you have signal strength 10 and Multijummer can reduce it by 15% (20% for racial jammers). If the module applied at its optimal the strength will be reduced to 8.5 or lower (8.6 and higher) in case of faloff.
Stacking penalty will be also applied to ECM modules.
This wil influense the capability of ships to lock certain ships or ships with a certain signature. For example you have to have signal strength 10 at least to be able to lock ship with a signature 300m.
10 - 300
12 - 400 etc.
This will make smaller ships vulnerable to ECM and larger ships will be still able to lock smaller ships but may not lock larger.
In this case 2-3 ECCM modules fitted in a ship will make ECM useless because of stacking penalty.
In this case we will have 2 results:
1. Jam will become predictable.
2. ECCM module will be more needed against ECM than it is now.
Regarding to the drones - stacking penalty. 4 heavy drones = T1 multifrequency jammer and the 5th drone is useless because of stacking penalty.
this is a good idea, though backwards. things with small signature radius should still be harder to lock than things with large ones. also, it should scale with ship sizes. i love the idea of jam strength being a flat subtraction from sensor strength and there being a slow degradation of what kind of signatures you can lock on to (and breaking existing locks of course).
non-randomized ECM with a concept of being "partially jammed" is exactly what people have been asking for.
a single point of sensor strength should be enough to be able to lock any thing with the same signature radius as your own ship or larger. this means that, while frigates will be particularly vulnerable to being jammed (as they are already), they will also be the most effective while partially jammed. in fact, unless they're trying to get a shuttle, an inty or a pod, being partially jammed will have no effect on a frigate.
then (just throwing out numbers) maybe every five points of sensor strength allows you to target something that is half your signature radius. so a battleship with a sig radius of 320 that has been jammed down to 5 points of sensor strength can target a 165 signature battlecruiser, but not a 140 signature cruiser (unless it's MWDing....). if the battleship had only been jammed down to fifteen points, then it would still be able to target a 42 signature tristan, but not a 36 signature taranis.
of course, this might mean that some battleships and capitals might need to have their sensor strength increased slightly so that they can still target interceptors when unjammed (though a quick glance through EFT hasn't yet turned one up that has this problem). Also, the jam strength of various ECM modules and drones will certainly need to be tweaked, and possibly a stacking penalty introduced.
PROS:
Non-Randomized ECM effects
Partial Jamming mechanic means that being jammed doesn't necessarily remove you from the fight completely
buff to small ships (particularly ECM frigates)
Makes ECCM more measurably useful
CONS:
might be too easy to put small ships sensor strengths to zero (could be fixed by just making it so that sensor strength can never be reduced past 1. this will however have the effect of rendering interceptors effectively immune to ECM. it will also mean that jamming a blackbird won't prevent it from continuing to jam a battleship. whether or not these are bad things is an exercise to the reader.)
other cons? I can't see them, but i'm enamored with this idea right now.
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