Grendelsbane
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Posted - 2009.01.12 16:37:00 -
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Edited by: Grendelsbane on 12/01/2009 16:41:23
Edited by: Grendelsbane on 12/01/2009 16:39:57
The biggest problem with electronic warfare in general in EVE is that their concept of it, and how it works, sounds like something someone's grandmother or 5 year old kid thought up.
The EVE e-war system is seriously lacking in depth and complexity compared to real, current technology, and has only the most superficial sci-fi basis. It's the straight up fantasy MMO buff-debuff game with technical sounding terms slapped on top.
Take a look at the e-war setup in Independece War 2, a game which is overall creepily similar to EVE. Your ship has a certain signature, indicated by the brightness of a light-bulb symbol in the HUD; this is changed by type and amount of weapon fire at the time, type and amount of propulsion operating, specialized e-war modules and active jammers, and even whether or not you are radiating with "active" sensors. Your ship also has a certain amount of sensor sensitivity and accuracy, based on type, sensor upgrades, whether or not you're being acted upon by enemy ECM, and most of all whether you are using active sensors or passive. How far you can spot or target someone, and vice versa, is based on a combination of these two things. It permeates the entire game, it works, and it makes sense in terms of real world physics and contemporary technology.
With real technology, large vessels have by far the most powerful sensors - high wattage radar with a long range and great sensitivity - but in e-war terms they're lit up like a christmas tree when their sensors are in active mode. The decision to radiate or not is important. On the other hand, small vessels (particularly aicraft, and stealth aircraft) have less powerful sensors that have shorter range and less power, but they're far harder to detect. Large vessels often can't detect smaller ones without radiating, but the small vessels with their inferior sensors will still detect them first if they do radiate.
EVE has this partly bass-ackwards; aside from actual sensor strength and targeting range, larger sensor platforms just suck, being slowwwww to target, not even counting target size (as opposed to real systems being fast and accurate within their operating range, but making the large platform visible to others far outside their detection range; think playing hide and seek at night using a flashlight). E-war and ECM is, generally, simply a matter of singling out one opponent and hitting him with generic magical de-buff beams with technical-sounding names. No broad jamming, no concerns with stealth, no meaningful trade-offs in detection speed vs. your own visibility. If you're on the grid, you're on the overview, period.
It seems to me that there were obviously no Tom Clancy fans around when they laid out EVE's e-war and sensor mechanics; they simply make no sense, other than someone just pulling technical-sounding stuff out of their ass to slap on standard fantasy MMO gameplay. The hilarious irony here is that CCP needs to read "Red Storm Rising"; Clancy fans will get the joke.
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