I decide to use my Proteus alt to scout and provide max sensor strength bonus to help me from being jammed. I'm wandering around low sec and spot a drake. Setup to bonus and jump in my Brutix and go for him. My mid slots is a micro warp drive, scram and two OVERLOADED eccm modules and I have that new Gallente sensor strength skill at max.

132 sensor strength.

Drake launches five light ECM drones. I get one cycle of antimatter off and I'm jammed... for two back to back 20 second cycles. So with no way to apply any meaningful damage, much less hold tackle; I die to the Drake.

I come back with yet another Brutix two days later, attack a Cyclone. Out come the ECM dines when he starts to bleed armor. I get jammed and he warp away to a pos.

You know, I don't really mind being jammed by a blackbird or other ECM specialized ship, but these ******* ECM drones need to be removed from the damn game already.

I decide to use my Proteus alt to scout and provide max sensor strength bonus to help me from being jammed. I'm wandering around low sec and spot a drake. Setup to bonus and jump in my Brutix and go for him. My mid slots is a micro warp drive, scram and two OVERLOADED eccm modules and I have that new Gallente sensor strength skill at max.

132 sensor strength.

Drake launches five light ECM drones. I get one cycle of antimatter off and I'm jammed... for two back to back 20 second cycles. So with no way to apply any meaningful damage, much less hold tackle; I die to the Drake.

I come back with yet another Brutix two days later, attack a Cyclone. Out come the ECM dines when he starts to bleed armor. I get jammed and he warp away to a pos.

You know, I don't really mind being jammed by a blackbird or other ECM specialized ship, but these ******* ECM drones need to be removed from the damn game already.

Tears, glorious tears.....

I understand the frustration, I've been there.

Its well known ECM drones should more or less be completely removed from the game, the way they are now. Old and repeating subject in the forums. Generally speaking CCP know but they just couldn't care less... However, CCP_Rise may be able to change that in the future, as he always talked about how overall terrible ECM drones are to Eve as a game entirely, in his streams :-)

Try the sensor strength implants, they help. The lowgrade set only costs like 40mil total, and you'll feel a great difference vs ECM drones (won't do you that much good vs Falcons though).

132 sensor strength. . . .Drake launches five light ECM drones. I'm jammed . . . attack a Cyclone. Out come the ECM dines when he starts to bleed armor. I get jammed . . .

Then again the other night I put ECM drones on a dramiel 10 or 12 times and didn't get a single jam.

It's almost like random occurences aren't predictable

If it is such a great mechanic

18% chance, so it's not exactly out of the ordinaryGǪ

Can we see the math on that?

Chance to jam = 1 - (1 - Jam Strength / Sensor Strength)^Jammers

That's the formula I've always thought was correct.

1-(1-1/132)^5 = approximately .037 or 3.7 percent.

It's correct, but your result is for one drone, not for all five. You've missed the ^5 part.

5/132 = 0.03788 / 3.8% for a single drone.
1-0.03788 = 0.9621 / 96.2% for the ship to not be locked by one drone
0.9621Gü¦ = 0.8243 / 82.4% for the ship to not be locked by five of them.
1-0.8243 = 0.1757 / 17.6% for the drones to get a successful jam.

Can we see the math on that?

Chance to jam = 1 - (1 - Jam Strength / Sensor Strength)^Jammers

That's the formula I've always thought was correct.

1-(1-1/132)^5 = approximately .037 or 3.7 percent.

That being said, I can understand the OP's frustration at getting jammed by ecm drones so often.

I like ECM drones. But actually I think that when they jam the other guy, your lock on the target should automatically break as well. That would make them fairer.

Actually, ECM drones are seriously underpowered compared to actual ECM modules. Unlike regular ECM, there is (to the best of my knowledge) not a single module, skill or implant that can boost the power of an ECM drone (even the ECM drone skill only adds range to drones, which is very misleading). Regular ECM, on the other hand... can be boosted in all sorts of ways. It can also be countered in all sorts of ways too, and those counters work on drones just as well as anything else.

So it's not the ECM drones that need to be nerfed (if anything, they need to be buffed) - it's the ECM rules as a whole that needs changing. It's an all-or-nothing system, with a flat 20 second timer slapped on arbitrarily. It's silly and, by EvE standards, far too simple.

What I propose to ECM as a whole: Change the system so that ECM is rolled per weapon system. So if someone has eight turrets and you try to ECM them, your ECM makes eight rolls - one against each turret. If you've got a 25% chance then you will probably jam two of their turrets per cycle. A jammed turret cannot fire for one cycle, but the rest operate normally.

In this way ECM now becomes comparable to other EWAR methods such as SD and TD. It will be far more effective at weakening targets but won't likely result in total shut down. Remember, rolling against eight turrets means you're getting eight rolls - so you're actually eight times as likely to score an ECM "hit" ... but that hit won't mean as much as it used to. ECM now becomes something that works on a gradient instead of coin flip "no effect vs total shutdown" like it is now.

Actually, ECM drones are seriously underpowered compared to actual ECM modules. Unlike regular ECM, there is (to the best of my knowledge) not a single module, skill or implant that can boost the power of an ECM drone (even the ECM drone skill only adds range to drones, which is very misleading). Regular ECM, on the other hand... can be boosted in all sorts of ways. It can also be countered in all sorts of ways too, and those counters work on drones just as well as anything else.

So it's not the ECM drones that need to be nerfed (if anything, they need to be buffed) - it's the ECM rules as a whole that needs changing. It's an all-or-nothing system, with a flat 20 second timer slapped on arbitrarily. It's silly and, by EvE standards, far too simple.

What I propose to ECM as a whole: Change the system so that ECM is rolled per weapon system. So if someone has eight turrets and you try to ECM them, your ECM makes eight rolls - one against each turret. If you've got a 25% chance then you will probably jam two of their turrets per cycle. A jammed turret cannot fire for one cycle, but the rest operate normally.

In this way ECM now becomes comparable to other EWAR methods such as SD and TD. It will be far more effective at weakening targets but won't likely result in total shut down. Remember, rolling against eight turrets means you're getting eight rolls - so you're actually eight times as likely to score an ECM "hit" ... but that hit won't mean as much as it used to. ECM now becomes something that works on a gradient instead of coin flip "no effect vs total shutdown" like it is now.