Well it has been quite some time since I've posted. I have been busy with some RL stuff as of late. I hope to make a decent post here soon on the upcomming changes being brought in with Dominion.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Saturday, September 26, 2009
ECM and why it does not need more nerf bat love
ECM... Such a hated or loved style of warfare depending on what side I'd the line you are on.
Well this pilot for one, is firmly on the love side, even while being jammed.
Let's first clear up some things about ECM that non jamming folks might not consider while they spew their hate and discontent over a subject they don't fully understand. I'll mostly be talking about the Force Recon ships. IE: Falcon, Arazu, Pilgrim, and the Rapier. Also the reported ranges are taking into account the same character with all level 5 skills to make for an even comparison of the ships, and the primary roll of the ship will be compared.
1) Tank or lack there of: The best of the best ECM ships are of caldari origin. This means that they are shield tankers and must use mid slots for their tank. Unlike any other recon ship in the game, caldari pilots must choose either better tank or more effective ECM. The other races don't have this choice as their tanking is done with their low slots, leaving the mids open for perfectly effective EWAR of whatever race bonus they get. The overall effect is that the caldari pilot is flying in a multimillion isk paper bag that T1 drones can decimate in little to no time at all. More on this a bit later though.
2) A thing called range: Now the gripe I hear most often when it comes to ECM haters is the range that the ECMers are effective from. The hatred was much worse before the recent patches, and while I agree the ECM ships needed to be closer to the battle, I feel that CCP may have over done it a bit. Now unlike all the other recon ships the ECM effect is done on a die roll while still in optimal range. This means that while the target painter, sensor damp, or tracking disruptor all just work while inside of optimal, the jammer does not. Their are rigs/mods that will increase the chance to get a jam, but at the end of the day it still comes down to a dice roll.
It complicates matters a bit more once you start to get into falloff. As most of us know, once into about half of your falloff range its about at 50% chance whatever is operating at that range is going to hit. This same principle applies to ECM, however its effects are much worse. Once a jammer is at half of its falloff range that 50% rule comes into play, but their is one slight issue with that. Since ECM is in and of it self a percent change, or dice roll, you are now making two chance rolls. The first is if the ECM will even fire at all, and the second is if that fire will be a success or not. So effectively, if your jammer had a 50% chance to get a jam on a target, it would now be reduced to 25%, while the other non-ECM EWAR folks still have a 50% chance of success.
As such, it becomes inefficient for an ECM operator to function outside of their optimal range, while other EWAR functions at the same efficiency as ECM half way into falloff. It is with this comparison that I argue that the falcon in fact has the least effective range of all the recon ships. The table below will show the fittings used in each comparison.
The fits were designed for pure range so a side by side comparison could accurately be conducted. The ranges where 50% of the time EWAR would be successfull are as follows:
3) Where art thou countermeasures: Interestingly enough, I think most people forget about ECCM, and the really interesting bit is that only ECM has a counter to it. Their is no such mod you can place on your ship to help it from being painted, damped or tracking disrupted. That is not the case with ECCM. Just load up your races variant ECCM, activate the mod, and you have just made an EMCers life much harder, since you have just reduced his or her chance to get a successful jam cycle on you. The best part is, that if your any race but caldari, chances are you have a free mid slot anyway. Sorry caldari guys, it sucks having to tank with the mid slots.
The other item of contest I hear a lot of is that once your jammed you are combat ineffective. While this is true in the majority of the cases, it is not always the case. You always have the option of F0F missiles if your ship has launchers, and then there is the great equalizer...Drones.
Drones will chew through a recon ship in seconds flat (refer to point #1) and they completely ignore if their 'master' is jammed. If a Falcon pilot is w/in drone control range (refer to point #2) and jams a ship that has drones out, those drones will happily remove said pilot of his ship, all the while the drones owner is 'helpless'. I have seen this happen on many occasions, and its a real delight...so long as its the other guys ECM going down. Also, the best way to counter act an enemies ECM is with...wait for it...ECM of your own. Most of the time they are focused on jamming you, giving you time to sneak your ECM ships in and jam them. I know this sort of lends it self to the old adage of if you cant beat them join them, but it works all the same.
Now these were just a few of the points that I could come up with for why the nerf bat should stay very far way from ECM. I didn't even touch on the fact that the other races ship get a dual roll bonus (IE: Neut/Nos, Web, Scram) while the ECM only get that single ability.
But alas, such is the life of the poor ECM pilot. Misunderstood by many, hated by many many more.
Well this pilot for one, is firmly on the love side, even while being jammed.
Let's first clear up some things about ECM that non jamming folks might not consider while they spew their hate and discontent over a subject they don't fully understand. I'll mostly be talking about the Force Recon ships. IE: Falcon, Arazu, Pilgrim, and the Rapier. Also the reported ranges are taking into account the same character with all level 5 skills to make for an even comparison of the ships, and the primary roll of the ship will be compared.
1) Tank or lack there of: The best of the best ECM ships are of caldari origin. This means that they are shield tankers and must use mid slots for their tank. Unlike any other recon ship in the game, caldari pilots must choose either better tank or more effective ECM. The other races don't have this choice as their tanking is done with their low slots, leaving the mids open for perfectly effective EWAR of whatever race bonus they get. The overall effect is that the caldari pilot is flying in a multimillion isk paper bag that T1 drones can decimate in little to no time at all. More on this a bit later though.
2) A thing called range: Now the gripe I hear most often when it comes to ECM haters is the range that the ECMers are effective from. The hatred was much worse before the recent patches, and while I agree the ECM ships needed to be closer to the battle, I feel that CCP may have over done it a bit. Now unlike all the other recon ships the ECM effect is done on a die roll while still in optimal range. This means that while the target painter, sensor damp, or tracking disruptor all just work while inside of optimal, the jammer does not. Their are rigs/mods that will increase the chance to get a jam, but at the end of the day it still comes down to a dice roll.
It complicates matters a bit more once you start to get into falloff. As most of us know, once into about half of your falloff range its about at 50% chance whatever is operating at that range is going to hit. This same principle applies to ECM, however its effects are much worse. Once a jammer is at half of its falloff range that 50% rule comes into play, but their is one slight issue with that. Since ECM is in and of it self a percent change, or dice roll, you are now making two chance rolls. The first is if the ECM will even fire at all, and the second is if that fire will be a success or not. So effectively, if your jammer had a 50% chance to get a jam on a target, it would now be reduced to 25%, while the other non-ECM EWAR folks still have a 50% chance of success.
As such, it becomes inefficient for an ECM operator to function outside of their optimal range, while other EWAR functions at the same efficiency as ECM half way into falloff. It is with this comparison that I argue that the falcon in fact has the least effective range of all the recon ships. The table below will show the fittings used in each comparison.
The fits were designed for pure range so a side by side comparison could accurately be conducted. The ranges where 50% of the time EWAR would be successfull are as follows:
- Falcon = 74km racial, 50km multispec (both optimal)
- Arazu = 108km (63km optimal + 45km falloff for 50% die roll)
- Pilgrim = 119km (101km optimal + 18km falloff for 50% die roll)
- Rapier = 108km (63km optimal + 45km falloff for 50% die roll)
3) Where art thou countermeasures: Interestingly enough, I think most people forget about ECCM, and the really interesting bit is that only ECM has a counter to it. Their is no such mod you can place on your ship to help it from being painted, damped or tracking disrupted. That is not the case with ECCM. Just load up your races variant ECCM, activate the mod, and you have just made an EMCers life much harder, since you have just reduced his or her chance to get a successful jam cycle on you. The best part is, that if your any race but caldari, chances are you have a free mid slot anyway. Sorry caldari guys, it sucks having to tank with the mid slots.
The other item of contest I hear a lot of is that once your jammed you are combat ineffective. While this is true in the majority of the cases, it is not always the case. You always have the option of F0F missiles if your ship has launchers, and then there is the great equalizer...Drones.
Drones will chew through a recon ship in seconds flat (refer to point #1) and they completely ignore if their 'master' is jammed. If a Falcon pilot is w/in drone control range (refer to point #2) and jams a ship that has drones out, those drones will happily remove said pilot of his ship, all the while the drones owner is 'helpless'. I have seen this happen on many occasions, and its a real delight...so long as its the other guys ECM going down. Also, the best way to counter act an enemies ECM is with...wait for it...ECM of your own. Most of the time they are focused on jamming you, giving you time to sneak your ECM ships in and jam them. I know this sort of lends it self to the old adage of if you cant beat them join them, but it works all the same.
Now these were just a few of the points that I could come up with for why the nerf bat should stay very far way from ECM. I didn't even touch on the fact that the other races ship get a dual roll bonus (IE: Neut/Nos, Web, Scram) while the ECM only get that single ability.
But alas, such is the life of the poor ECM pilot. Misunderstood by many, hated by many many more.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Capsuleer + BlogPress = Mobile EVE Blogging Fun
Well today I just found another application for my iPhone that just rocks. It's called BlogPress, and when combined with Capsuleer, it makes for the perfect mobile EVE blogging platform.
Now I can keep up to date with all the latest EVE happenings, and blog about my EVE experancies all from the comfort of my couch, or any other object designed for sitting upon =)
Now I can keep up to date with all the latest EVE happenings, and blog about my EVE experancies all from the comfort of my couch, or any other object designed for sitting upon =)
Saturday, August 22, 2009
A narrow ecape
HED is a wonderful place. Where else can you go from the safety of empire space directly into the wild wild west otherwise know as null sec. I'm sure there are other systems out there, but I just happened to be this particular system.
I had just jumped into HED from another 0.0 system. I was on my way back to empire space, and wanted to get there as quickly as I could. I was fully expecting a camp, but I guessed it would be on the high sec gate, vice one of the random 0.0 gates. Well I guessed wrong, and when the screen loaded, I was in the middle of two huge bubbles with a fleet of around 9 folks just waiting for me to decloak so they could rip the hull of my ship.
I was waiting for my moment, and I didn't have to wait long. Another ship decloaked and the other fleet wasted no time in jumping on the poor fella. Seeing an opening, I took it and lit the afterburner II and headed for the closest exit of the bubble. It was about this point that I realized that I hadn't updated my clone, and if I were to be podded, I would lose over 1 million skill points. It just got serious.
As soon as I decloaked I started taking fire. To bad for them they were blaster boats and I was outside of their range. Upon exiting the bubble I was already a quarter into armor and was being warp jammed by a single Jaguar.
After aligning to a belt, I noticed the Jag had made a big mistake. He had closed to within web range. A quick click of the targeting systems, a few seconds later, and the jag was being smashed with 5 T2 Ion cannons and a web. If I was going down, I'm taking this guy with me.
His Jag was taking a beating, but by now I was just starting to get into hull damage. Well as luck will have it, he didnt feel like dieing that day and warped off at 50% hull thereby freeing me from my warp scam.
The long and the short of it is that I was able to get out of 0.0 with 85% hull left, and the first thing I did once docking up was to update my clone.
"Sir, I dont think we are going to make it out of this one" said the comms officer aboard the Gallente Thorax 'Popper'.
I had just jumped into HED from another 0.0 system. I was on my way back to empire space, and wanted to get there as quickly as I could. I was fully expecting a camp, but I guessed it would be on the high sec gate, vice one of the random 0.0 gates. Well I guessed wrong, and when the screen loaded, I was in the middle of two huge bubbles with a fleet of around 9 folks just waiting for me to decloak so they could rip the hull of my ship.
"Well then, we shouldn't make it easy for them" said Nick Riddick, captain of the 'Popper', smiling ever so slightly. He lived for these moments.
I was waiting for my moment, and I didn't have to wait long. Another ship decloaked and the other fleet wasted no time in jumping on the poor fella. Seeing an opening, I took it and lit the afterburner II and headed for the closest exit of the bubble. It was about this point that I realized that I hadn't updated my clone, and if I were to be podded, I would lose over 1 million skill points. It just got serious.
As soon as I decloaked I started taking fire. To bad for them they were blaster boats and I was outside of their range. Upon exiting the bubble I was already a quarter into armor and was being warp jammed by a single Jaguar.
After aligning to a belt, I noticed the Jag had made a big mistake. He had closed to within web range. A quick click of the targeting systems, a few seconds later, and the jag was being smashed with 5 T2 Ion cannons and a web. If I was going down, I'm taking this guy with me.
His Jag was taking a beating, but by now I was just starting to get into hull damage. Well as luck will have it, he didnt feel like dieing that day and warped off at 50% hull thereby freeing me from my warp scam.
Activating the warp drive, Nick Riddick thought to him self "Not today friend, not today".
The long and the short of it is that I was able to get out of 0.0 with 85% hull left, and the first thing I did once docking up was to update my clone.
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