Hipster Dude
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
2
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Posted - 2012.08.10 13:35:00 -
[1] - Quote
CCP Fozzie wrote:Michael Harari wrote:Increased drone velocity is actually harmful, since it makes the drones overshoot.
Also for gods sake, fix ecm before you start buffing ecm ships. As for the second part, I have plans. 
Perhaps there could be stronger bonuses on effects like target painting, but proper counters to them. For example, one can fit ECCM to boost sensors against jamming. Perhaps a low slot module like a "Metamaterial Composite Hull" would permit defense against target painting (the exact behavior of real life stealth bomber hulls to protect them against detection). The module could also reduce signature radius, making sig tanking on unexpected ships a possibility.
ECCM should probably do something more than just provide a little more protection against jams, just like the recent buffs to capacitor batteries provided some protection against neuts/vamps, to incentivize their use. Currently the modules don't get fit on many ships other than logistics because the mid slots are so valuable and an ECCM is completely useless to a pilot if he never encounters a jammer.
Jammers are excellent, but the ships they're put on are extremely fragile. This seems to limit them to skirmishes, in my experience, since larger fleets can't be jammed enough to keep these ships from being swatted. Perhaps a special type of cloak could be made for these ships which permit cloaking even when being targeted, but cannot be turned off during their cooldown and only run for one cycle. This gives the jam ship the ability to do the job they're meant to, and possibly even survive a larger engagement to justify their hull cost. Of course, the typical mechanic for decloaking a ship (closing range) would still work and it could be quickly killed. For the duration of the cooldown, all of the other modules could be disabled and warp drive put offline (forcing the ship to remain on field), but the cloak could give a speed boost to the ship while engaged like cloaks do with black ops ships. Perhaps this cloak would only be available to Force Recon ships. Tactically, the cloak gives the pilot a get-out-of-jail-free card, but also renders them temporarily helpless if they're caught, and might even be used to get into position a bit better (the speed boost while under cloak).
Sensor damps should probably be made stronger and do something which aids close-quarters fighting. Unlike jams, which are always useful, damps are too limited to one fighting style (and, face it, how often do any of us see sniper fleets?). Plus, they offer no benefit at all for Gallente blaster ships, and railguns are generally regarded as sucky. I can't think of anything to fix this, so perhaps someone more clever than I am could make suggestions for them.
I haven't used tracking disrupters, so I won't comment on their efficacy in combat. |