However this form of EWAR would be diametrically (dunno if that is the correct term but it sounds good ) opposed to tracking disruptors in that this ship improves the defenses of friendlies instead of reducing the offensive capabilities of enemies.

A ship using TD's is also defending itself from the enemy. A ship using inverted TP's is only defending it's squad mates leaving itself vulnerable. This vulnerability is balanced out by the fact that inverted TP's would do something TD's can't. Which is effect missile ability to apply damage.

It's an interesting mechanic that I think should be explored and can easily be achieved by simply adding an "Offensive" or "Positive" sript and a "Defensive" or "Negative" script.

He is right, a "negative" (sig decreasing) TP would definitely NOT be the same as a Tracking Disruptor - although it applies to the same formula and may have the same effect if the bonus is same.

If there were negative TPs, imagine this:
You have a "negative TP Recon" in your fleet. Enemy fleet calls targets and uses focus fire to destroy one of your ships.
Now you can use these defensive Target Painters on your buddy under attack to reduce his sig and shield it FROM ALL incoming gunfire.

With Tracking Disruptors you would need 1-2 TDs on EACH ENEMY SHIP in this situation.
And by the way, the worst thing about Tracking Disruption is - given you would have brought enough TD to disrupt all 20 enemy ships - that there is no really good way to coordinate TDs so each enemy gets one.
Focus fire is easy, the opposite is not!

A negative target painter would be an effective counter for the ever-present "focus fire" tactic - the most basic of all maneuvers. Enemies would be forced to split fire to reduce the dampening effect on their total firepower. So even a negative TP with a weaker bonus than the typical TD would be an invaluable boon in any bigger fleet fight.

Not sure how accurate this is but it explains the tracking formula and references signature radius a little. The way I see it is if a weapons signature radius is larger than the ships signature radius is there a "Chance to miss" even if the target is stationary?

If you are looking for a new E-War effect that does somehow cripple an enemy ship without doing actual damage.... what about reducing agility?

Ok, this is more another type of propulsion jamming and does not reduce offensive capabilities, but reduced agility could
-help dictate range
-prevent aligning (and thus warping without actually being a warp jammer)
-make people cause boundary violations in Alliance Tournament *eg*
-break maneuvers

Tired of that puny Dramiel orbiting you at a ridiculous speed?
Just turn on your agility-nerf-mod and watch the wannabe-tackler dash away straight from you unable to maneuver...

Wait. Straight away from me? That means close to zero transversal? :-D -> POOF.

This was one of the suggestions that came up in internal brainstorming as well, unfortunately it actually has the exact same effect as a tracking disruptor since sig res and tracking are both equal in the tracking formula.

If you think sig and tracking are the same, then you don't understand ratios, multipliers and other basic math.

I've argued for years that the formula needs to be rewritten so that signature is affected by range just like dilations occur in real life and that signature needs to be added to, not multiplied to the tracking ratio.

How about you look at some EFT dps graphs comparing 30% tracking bonus vs a 30% target painter before you go around insulting devs and posters?
.

VIGIL:

Frigate skill bonuses:
7.5% Bonus to Target Painter effectiveness per level
10% Bonus to Target Painter optimal range per level

What about adding benefits that a TP provides? Right now it increases the size of the target. Your gang buddies can lock it faster and hit it harder. What if it could also decrease a target's shield or armour resistances?

This was actually an excellent suggestion and make TP's as interesting as ECM can be (Damps are still going anywhere or situational and makes me sad)

Crucifier looks great, maulus decent. Friggin Griffin (had to!) looks a bit overpowered, not because of the ship's bonuses, but because I feel ECM is overpowered.

Why not add a new ECM statistic: "Jamming Duration". Say an ECM module's cycle time is 30 seconds, its "jamming duration" might be 10 seconds. Thus, there is a 20 second period in which the targeted ship can lock during each cycle. This will allow the jammed ship(s) to fight back to some degree, without heavily nerfing ECM. Being the E-War race, Caldari will still retain the power to immediately disrupt the operations of an enemy force, but make them less useful in prolonged fighting.

This change would make ECM less effective against smaller ships - a small ship will have a low sensor strength, so it will still be initially jammed, but it will have a high scan resolution to relock after the "jamming duration" is complete. While a single ECM ship is currently able to "perma jam" 4-6 frigates, it would now lose the ability to keep them jammed. On the contrary, large ships have more sensor strength to prevent jam, but once jammed, will have greater difficulty locking the ECM ship. Marauders will still 100% suck vs ECM (lol).

If this change were implemented, I can foresee the idea of "staggering" the cycle of your ECM modules so one activates at the other's mid-cycle. Even still, this change would effectively double the amount of ECM needed to "perma jam". Or, it could force "solo" pvpers to bring in their arazu alt (scan res sensor damps), in addition to their falcon alt, in order to beat that one missioner. Looks great on killmails, really!

If nothing else, the falcon would be forced to fight more like an ECM stealth bomber, especially because it would be particularly vulnerable to high alpha weaponry. And holding range will be more difficult for ECM ships, since MWD inflates sig radius, making it easier to lock during the ecm cycle's off time.

And heck, vigil pilots won't be primaried, so they can use their badass TP bonus on an ECM ship, making easier for their buddies to lock him mid cycle ;D

I like the idea, it also solves the problem of other disruption ships needing more coordination to jam multiple targets. What if TP did not have a stacking penalty, would that make it worth its salt in fleets?

It's not like being turned down in a vigil will keep a minmatar pilot from pursuing the "e-war" (I use this term reluctantly) path.

Perhaps instead of regarding target painting as ewar, we should be thinking of it asway to bypass ewar. It's already a counter to tracking speed TDs, although nobody uses it that way. What if painting a target forced it to be lockable, even if it's out of lock range or beyond the max number of targets? Then the vigil's range bonus would be extremely useful. Instead of fitting sensor boosters a sniper fleet might rely on their painters to allow them to lock at long range. An ECCMed up painter might make a good counter to ECM in small gangs

Perhaps instead of regarding target painting as ewar, we should be thinking of it asway to bypass ewar. It's already a counter to tracking speed TDs, although nobody uses it that way. What if painting a target forced it to be lockable, even if it's out of lock range or beyond the max number of targets? Then the vigil's range bonus would be extremely useful. Instead of fitting sensor boosters a sniper fleet might rely on their painters to allow them to lock at long range. An ECCMed up painter might make a good counter to ECM in small gangs

shouldn't ewar frigs have a greater targeting range as they have now? If you look at the specs of a TD or ECM... its totally underused.

not as good as a recon but somewhere inbetween so you can have a second usecase for them

I really like these changes.

The Maulus might now be able to fit 2 damps and run them while using a MWD. I am a bit concerned, though, you aren't able to really fit any actual offensive weapons. The key with damp frigs is, a) stay at range (yay perma-MWD!), b) stop the enemy hitting you, c) do damage. The third is sorely lacking.

The Vigil....mmmm. More speed? This thing will go faster than most ceptors when nanoed. The scan res buff also makes it more awesome as a cheap ceptor. The problem, as always, is the TP's weakness, but with 5 mids you get to stack in multiple painters plus a MWD. Or scram-web-AB-MASB-Invul and turn it into a brawler.

A single ionic field projector rig, after skills, gets a winter Crucifier up to 100km targeting range, which equals its 100km TD optimals.

Perhaps instead of regarding target painting as ewar, we should be thinking of it asway to bypass ewar. It's already a counter to tracking speed TDs, although nobody uses it that way. What if painting a target forced it to be lockable, even if it's out of lock range or beyond the max number of targets? Then the vigil's range bonus would be extremely useful. Instead of fitting sensor boosters a sniper fleet might rely on their painters to allow them to lock at long range. An ECCMed up painter might make a good counter to ECM in small gangs