YES!

Nerfing TD's!

Also, I like the thought of being able to skill up to be more resilient against ECM. That's going to be nice.
The range nerfs also aren't bad, that'll be nice to force them to be a little closer.

I like that Damps are getting fixed... but they can be really farking annoying. Unlike ECM, they almost never miss.

The TP's are nice. Still not as useful as other Ewars in most situations, but when they do get used, they'll actually get used to better effect now. No complaints there.

All these moaning about some lvl3 skills to learn, that's amazing. Patience is virtue, and such a boost to ECM protection is really worth it IMO.

I think they should seriously consider doing the OGB nerf in much the same manner that they implemented the early FW changes. Except with less warning.

Like none at all.

TBH, I hate this.

More skills that aren't really fun for anyone (takes time out of my queue, trolls the ECM pilots) instead of fun stuff. At least cut them down to rank 1 or 2 tops, that way I don't waste TOO much time.

Why shouldn't you make sacrifices to train useful skills? Make that decision between Wing Commander 5 versus all sensor compensation skills to 5? Yes please!

Hey everyone, thanks for the feedback so far.

One change to report at this time, we're extending the range boost to the Kitsune as well.

I'd also like to address the questions about why we've chosen skills as the route to increase sensor strength. Compared to just nerfing the base values of ECM or increasing the sensor strength of all ships, using skills provides new choices that players can make about priorities. Decisions like whether to train your sensor compensation skill to 4 or get and extra level of surgical strike, whether you should train another race's sensor corp or focus on your favorite race in order to specialize, are the kind of choices the skill system is designed to create.

We also believe that providing skills to help defend against things like ewar gives useful tools to players. With the introduction of these sensor comp skills there will be skills that mitigate every form of ewar except target painters. As we move forward I would not be averse to adding a sig radius reducing skill as well, as part of a general movement towards making signature radius more noticeable to everyday pilots.

As for the choice to make four skills instead of one, a basic premise of the eve skill system has always been that a newer player can overtake an older player in ability through specialization. Instead of making older players unbeatable the skill system is intended to use generalization and increased options as the benefits for older players, while giving newer player the option to be just about as good as anyone else at specific roles and specific sets of ships while they work towards adding more options for themselves. The four skills allow a newer player who focuses on one race first to get the same resistance to ECM as a much older player while only investing 1/4 the SP. Players are also welcome to broaden their scope, and training the first few levels of each skill will be a very quick affair, while getting them to level 5 for the last 5% bonus would require significant investment.

To answer one other question we're getting about unprobable ships, these skills will not make any ships unprobable since becoming unprobable was made impossible a little over a year ago. They will however make probing ships more difficult and some ships may require higher skill levels and better equipment to catch.

What I am proposing is a modification to the ECM formula GÇô or rather, a second formula which applies only when the jam is successful. I am not proposing any changes to success probability. If the effect of ECM is addressed, then the current probability mechanics are actually quite balanced. This second formula, in the event of a successful jam, is as follows:

L = 20 * (J / S), L <= 20

L is Length, or the duration of the jam effect, while J and S remain Jam strength and Sensor strength, respectively. L has a ceiling of 20, which means that an ECM boat with ECM strength greater than its target's sensor strength (think Falcon vs. frigate) will jam the target for 20 seconds but no more than that. What it means for larger ships - Battlecruisers, for example - is that when a jam succeeds, its effect duration is less than the module's cycle time. To perma-jam a target will require more ECM modules in concert, and the odds of a precious gap appearing between jams is much greater. This allows ECM victims to retaliate against ECM users and also gives a de-facto buff to ECCM modules (which not only decrease ECM probability but also duration).

However, any successful jam, regardless of ECM strength, will successfully break a lock.

I might not be able to offer an alternative way for how ECM is supposed to work, but those four skills are just poor design.

If you train Signature Analysis or or Long Range targeting, you don't do that counter damps primarily. However, training those 4 anti-ECM skills would mean people "have" to train them soly for the purpose of countering ECM.

Just +1ing the perception of the addition of four "obligatory" skills that don't add any perceived value to the game (yeah, perceived as Learning skills V2 here as well). Ofc I'll train them, but meh, looks like bad design.

Damps suffer from the same flaw of game mechanics: severely overpowered when stacked in excessive numbers against one single target, while being OK when applied as intented (1-2 per ship).

We also believe that providing skills to help defend against things like ewar gives useful tools to players. With the introduction of these sensor comp skills there will be skills that mitigate every form of ewar except target painters.

But they'll be mandatory and we all know it.

Further, ALL other ewar mitigating skills serve some purpose other than EWAR and often are part of pre-req's for other skills/ships/etc anyway.

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Perhaps alter the ECCM modules to be scripts to either reduce duration/pump up sensor strength instead? People can choose to increase their odds of no jam at all at a risk of normal jam length if it fails, or accept assured shorter jam duration whilst not mitigating the jam odds themselves?

Edit 2: Why don't ECM'd targets automatically reacquire the targets they had locked? Seems unnecessarily punitive to re-add lock time. Perhaps coupled with the changes I suggested above things may be a bit more sensible?

Yeah, i like the new skills. Good luck trying to jam my ECCM fitted guardian with these new skills... Hope you like slug fests

I fly Logi alot by myself and generally agree here, but I'd make those skills effecting the ECCM stats.