[IDEA] EWAR rework

[Hoder_Daynari]

Problem statement

Current state of EWAR is a bit of a weird field of super overwhelming to absolute dogshit. This idea takes a look at the 2 which I think are currently problematic:

• ECM (aka jamming)
• Sensor Dampening (the one that could use some love)

The others all have their place in small gang, to large fleet setups. With EWAR there is often a theoretical potential that is often achieved in small gangs, but is close to impossible to duplicate on large scale.

Example of that is that 50 eagles get hard countered by 50 crucifiers, if they manage to all pick 1 target and have no overlap. Another example is often how prevalent EWAR is in the hands of highly skilled pilots with a massive amount of communication, think about the recent Anger Games tournament where both curse and blackbird are a favorite banned ship.

Secondly, I want to discuss the current polarization of EWAR. With every EWAR, there is a degree to which it is applied: a tracking disruptor eats up a certain % of your optimal and falloff range. A sensor damper takes away a certain amount of scan resolutation. All but one, ECM either does absolutely nothing, or stops you from playing the game.

Sure one can argue that over a certain span of time, ECM will equal out with the others, but this is a game of moments of opportunity. 1 random jam from your ec-300 drone, and you lose lock and your juicy target is out.

So let’s have a look a the two problem children and my suggestions for them.

Electronic Counter Measures, ECM

This is the polarized one, and the one that I think deserves a rework the most.

Currently the formula is the following: chance to jam = ECM strength of the jam / Sensor strength.

My suggestion is to get rid of this mechanic all together. Instead the following would apply:

Increase in cap recharge duration = ECM Strength / Sensor Strength

with normal stacking penalties applying.

So what does this mean: no more having your target warp out because of ECM, it is now no longer a black & white mechanic, and it’s still a great tool to be used against enemy logistics, however, they are less effected by it since they have a greater sensor strength.

The effect can be countered in a few ways:

• Shoot the person applying this to you
• Run cap chains which counter this effectively since these modules are unaffected by cap recharge rates
• Run ECCM script, thus increasing your sensor strength and thus reducing the effect of this EWAR
• Fit more capacitor modules
• Manage your capacitor better (aka use less active modules)

Pretty straightforward solution, increases the total time it takes for your capacitor to recharge, thus reducing your energy / second.

Sensor dampening

This one would have a very simple addition to it:

Drone control disruption script

, reducing the control range of ship if applied.

Default sensor dampening, unscripted would apply the following debuffs:

• Maximum targeting range reduction: 13,7%
• Scan resolution reduction: 13,7%
• Drone control range reduction: 13,7%

Load a script to double a specific type of disruption. Furthermore, make sure that drone ranges are checked. Once they go outside their control range, they just swap to a target within control range if aggressive or return to the original ship if passive.

Final thoughts

Triple the effectiveness of EWAR drones, double their volume, this can actually make ewar drones somewhat useful and not end up being horrible due to their stacking penalties on the 4th and 5th drone.

Burst jam and target lockbreaker bombs would remain untouched, unless you really want to do something with them, but I feel neither are really a problem in their current iteration and have very limited use-cases.

I know EWAR was changed in 2018 to allow you always to target the original target, but that’s just useless against EC-300s, nobody has time to deal with that 5 second jam and defang all those drones in an instant while the target warps off.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk, please discuss below.

[Daoden]

We already have capacitor EWAR we dont need to redue ECM, as it is ECM is in an ok position, not going to say its great but we dont need to completely rework it to something else.

Sensor damps are very powerful when used properly to a point it can cripple virtually any ship, certain ships bonused for sensor damps are also bonused for warp disruption range as well, its not hard to disrupt them at 60+ which is base drone control range with max skills and damp them so they cannot target you.

[Hoder_Daynari]

The problem for me is the inconsistency of ECM in both mechanics, where as all the other EWAR modules have stacking penalties, ECM is just a dice roll, and every module you get a dice, so you’re linearly increasing your jam chances.

With sensor dampening, sure keres is a boss in small gangs, but in there it’s almost exclusively run with targeting range reduction. As of right now there’s 0 ewar that targets drones, as such a script would change that. Adding the script could mean a small overall reduction in the base strength of sensor damps (~10% nerf).

Mostly looking for feedback on ECM, minus the lore aspect of jamming it’s a purely unfun mechanic for everybody involved and it’s entirely different from other ewar systems. My suggestion is to simply bring it in line, give it a niche interaction that allows for direct counters. Furthermore it promotes a higher skill ceiling by e.g. reducing the cap recharge of logistic ships, thus forcing logi wings to run energy transfer (amarr / caldari) logistics which require constant locking up, readjustment of the cap chain, etc, aka a higher skill cap.
So you could bring your ECM ewar wing vs scimitars but enemy can counterplay that by bringing basilisks, which would mean you would need to put your ECM on other ships such as the muninns which could then be countered by bringing cap injected HACs, etc.

It’s simply a game of play & counterplay, which is healthy for the game. Versus: bring the right colored jam and pray to RNG-jesus. Once your thoughts and prayers arrive, you simply cause rage inducing frustration with no real counterplay. The only thing you can do vs it would be to reduce the odds of being jammed, but as mentioned as before, it’s just reducing the chances of being jammed, and 1 jam instantly means total useless-ness, confusing, and literlally 0 counter-play once you’re jammed.
What are you going to do if you’re a logistics ship that gets jammed? Lock the griffin back? What good does that do?

[Gerard_Amatin]

You have two ideas:

1. To change ECM to be less binary (works or does nothing, based on chance) by turning it into a capacitor warfare module.

I agree that ECM is very binary and could perhaps use some change. But we already have capacitor warfare modules and ships dedicated to that: energy neutralizers and nosferatus. ECM as it is now is unique and we do not need another way to attack capacitors as we already have modules for that.

So I think turning ECM into another form of cap warfare is a bad idea.

2. To increase effectiveness of sensor dampening

I don’t agree that sensor dampening needs love. Have you ever tried tackling someone while you have a lock range of less than 4km? Have you tried locking up someone to apply repairs but taking more than half a minute to lock up the cruiser after they desperately broadcast for repairs?

Sensor dampening is very powerful when used right and can completely incapacitate enemy ships more reliably than ECM and is fine as it is.

[Hoder_Daynari]

Technically now there’s an overlap between ECM and sensor dampening as well, since they’re both messing with locks, so that’s already an interaction.

I feel that cap warfare is a lot more fun and interactive to play with compared to locking something or not.

Randomly losing 10 seconds (or 5 seconds in case of drones) a lock is super frustrating and once you lose it there’s 0 counterplay, just pray.
As I already shown, the interactions between the cap recharge time is actually something that only 1 skill affects, and there would be multiple counterplays towards this kind of EWAR.

Secondly onto the the point of overlapping with Nos & Neut, yes there’s an overlap, but they’re in essence a different thing as one would just modify recharge times at a greater distance where as the other one either steals or removes your capacitor at the cost of a highslot and does so at relative short range.

As for the drone part about sensor dampening, I don’t think that it would change that much, it would just be nice to have as an option. As you mentioned in almost every case you’ll run the range scripts in the sensor damps anyway.