[Ewar] How effective should ewar bots be?

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[Ewar] How effective should ewar bots be?

nullPointer

We will talk about Ewar in general terms as the ability to neutralize a single adversary for any period of time. The period of time is another point to balance. Primarily though we want to work out what level of effectiveness different ewar bots should have globally. How effective they should be with no skills, low tech modules, and how effective with full T4 and max skills.

One term used is "Perfect" Ewar: ewar that completely for the specified duration will disable the opponent. In practice this is a 100% hit chance of the ewar landing on the opponent.

The "sustained period" is how long the ewar can be applied continuously, perfect or not.

Now the question is, with light and mech ewars, mk1, how many bots can be Ewar'd by one ewar bot.

Light ewar: Perfect ewar? 0 skills/low tech? max skills/t4?
How long could light ewar sustain any ewar? on how many targets for how long?
Mech ewar: Perfect ewar? 0 skills/low tech? max skills/t4?
How long could light ewar sustain any ewar? on how many targets for how long?

What do you think?
What do you see Perpetuum-vanilla's balance achieve in these metrics? (Research!)

Discuss!

Gremrod

I think some rock - paper - scissors concepts should apply to ewar, maybe.

I think a max of 3 bots should be affected, ewar wise by a single ewar bot.

Rynikwiz-

I agree. Blocker and I have effectively used ewar and counter ewar fits and see it as a game changer in certain types of battles (eg when we were out numbered and at times out gunned. I know in eve there are those that see ewar as cheating, but they are nothing but misinformed.

I would like it if we even had faction ewar modules - eg Green, Yellow or Blue. So that they are strong against one and weaker against the others.

I think there is a place for ewar tunnings as well.

Dedicated ewar bots should obviously have the greatest effect and this could be with distance.

I would think max 2 bots affected (target and secondary nominated).

Anti ewar (ECCM) should also be effective and even a tunning for that as well

As such, ewar bot+t4 module+ t4 tunning+max skill = 90 to 95 % hit.
T3 + SAME = 70 to 80
T2 + SAME = 60 TO 70
T1 + SAME = 50 TO 60

Anti ewar could scale as well
Just some random thoughts to kick things off

Zortarg

we have to take a lot into consideration with the idea from anni to move ewar to the chassis slots instead of the head slots but of cource that can be interesting as well...
the number of modules you can use will be greatly cut down since we can not modify models and chassis slots.

in generall i think we have to buff the counter ewar side strongly.
so you have options to successfully ward against ewar. of cource everything comes at a price. and besides the fact that you have to use slots what will make you weaker in another area, you can also make counter ewar active modules that consule accu.

as for effectiveness:
having less modules avalible will greatly affect the ballancing.
i also think that a full skilled t4 pilot also should have a high chance to succeed.
if this still is too much then another option sould be to look at the cycle time. you can also increase that so with sensor amps you might get a faster lock and so also decrease the efficency of the modules.

Rynikwiz-

Well I have not heard a convincing argument for why there is a need to make the modules chassis. The current config seems fine. The issues have always been the relative strength of ewar modules verse ECCM and what bots should be able to use them.

Ville

I feel like it should scale like this:

0-10 skills set gives you a 0-30% effectiveness
T1-T4 gives you a 25-50% effectiveness

So T1 no skills equals 25% success against a target

A T4 with 10 skills equals 80% effectiveness.

T1 to T4 ECCMS should offer a 10% to 25% resistance. So a T1 no skill pilot couldn’t jam a pilot with 1 countermeasure. Also would bring overall effectiveness to 55% for max player.

ECM tuners should offer the same 10% to 25% based off the specific tier of module. Allowing a tuner fit ecmer to hit a 105% chance versus a robot with no counter measures.

I’m okay with 3 or more bits being ECM but I feel the better your chance to jam you shouldn’t be able to do more targets. So adding more tuners less targets.

blocker

Just further to Ville's comment, think not of how many bots can be jammed, but how many ECM's can you fit. After all one ECM = one bot jammed (with perfect conditions) so if you limit the number of ECM's able to be fitted then you limit the number of bots jammed. Or adjust accum consumption so fitting more than x number of ECM's becomes pointless because you just cap yourself out. I can see scope here for a bit more lee way for the specialised EWAR bots.
Also we need to walk a very fine line here. What may be perceived as being OP may simply be a matter of not knowing how to counter. It took us quite a while to work out a modestly effective counter fit to 77's expert EWAR projection and during that time EWAR felt VERY OP.

Rynikwiz-

I was thinking that ECCM at max level needs to be an effective countermeasure as it is a chosen anti ewar module that takes up a viable head slot.

A pilot maxed out with skills with an ECCM should have more chance than 55% if a maxed out ewar pilot gets 80% and 105% with tunning. But I am open to alternative views.

I also like the suppression modules as well, but I am not sure of the % hit rate on them - do we think they should be the same as for the ecm stats?

Zortarg

i think making eccm a active module instead of a passive will be a option.
so you will loose accu while you have it active. and yes it then has to be way more effective then what we had in the past...

nullPointer

Zortarg
This is the kind of changes that not only tackle a tricky balancing problem but make the fitting strategy more interesting and adds more decision making for the pilot, in fitting, and on the field.
It adds opportunity for the necessary ECCM strength to balance against a superior ECM, but can be balanced with its active accum tradeoff we can ensure protection is not unlimited. Unlike armor resists, having the passive state be a viable fitting strategy, even with active (expensive-accum) capabilities adds the variety and strategy we are looking for.

BunkerkindAnni

IMHO there should be a dynamic resistance that builds up the more often a player is succesfully hit by any form of ewar, and that fades away over time.

this could be implemented by having a secondary buff, increasing sensor strength, apply to the target on every successfully hit with eg. an ECM.
the buff needs to have a longer duration then the cycletime of a single ECM, and should be allowed to stack a reasonable amount of times to be effective, but not to often because you don't want to count like 20 individual buff timers for every player affected by this.

this can work even for EnWar

quite

As a mainly ewar player I though it had some balance in its meta. Personally I enjoyed the ewar scene as a 'backline/supportive' player. Although it seemed disconnect from the rest of the frontline. Alot of the current changes are pretty drastic compared to the old hotfixes. Compared to where they left the game, I felt ewar nedded a bit of range reduction, a slight nerf on a couple modules and like Zortarg suggested, ECCM being active rather than a passive resistance buff. Come some more PvP will be a lot more clear on whats overpowered and what need some relevance.

DjNotNice

Checking in on you guys and glad to be downloading perp again! ECM is big for me. I like the idea of cycle time. I dont mind ECM being very effective against a single target and even limiting ECM modules to one per bot unless it is an ewar bot. The strength is what always gets debated but the problem is strength will always be an issue by adding another tuner or another ecm all together.

I really like the formula Ville put up where a max skill ewar pilot would have 80% effectiveness before eccm. I'd further that thought with also changing cycle time. A jam breaks a lock but doesnt prevent you from immediately locking the target right back so sensor boosters can also counter an ecm better than an eccm in some ways. If cycle times were increased so that a small bot could fight bigger bots that do not have the best lock times without a sebo (thus removing a slot for eccm) then a light bot should be able to have a good chance of breaking a targets lock to get the chance to disengage or at least fight back for the time it takes to be locked again.

The argument I see is the fear of multiple ecms permanently keeping a target jammed. If a player cannot be attacked by more than 3 ewar modules (a typical ewar bots fit to ecm and sensor damp to lock out a single target) and the cycle time on those ewar modules was increased as well as power consumption comparable to cycle time, then I believe it would make it so the ewar bot could counter one larger target almost fully unless they fit the eccm (passive sensor strength with active burst for quick recovery) and sensor amps. I think you all have valid ideas and should bring them all to bare.

If ecm cycle time is lengthened to where even a large bot with one sensor amp and no eccm can lock and fire several shots before being hit with ONE eccm and having a 50/50 chance (assuming its not max strength character) to miss the second jam then it really makes a wide range for ecm to be unaffective as well as being a more situational module that I think it should be in. Perma running ecm shouldnt be a valid tactic for any but the ewar mechs and highly skilled players. Jam strength is good. A player with good skills should have at LEAST a 50/50 chance to jam another solo pilot with his ewar unless they fit an eccm (in which I would prefer the scenario where ecm activation cost high so it cant be perma run and has a longer cooldown but still giving an 80% chance to jam target unless guarded against ecm).

TLDR; ECM shouldnt be perma run except by the best mechs and highest skilled pilots but the effectiveness of one module should be good for burst uses. A solo player should have a good chance of getting one jam off to disengage if the target does not have eccm or a sensor booster to lock and web it before it runs.

No one likes being perma jammed but it should still be possible. Everyone likes seeing the random ecm on an artamis that hero jams when it counts or a group of 3 assault bots working together with their one ecm module allowed and fitting one ecm and the other two using damps so they can overwhelm a heavy unless its fitted for eccm and sensor boosting (will not completely protect but the assault bots could essentially run and use terrain until catching a jam cycle then they engage.