All sounds a bit high-brow for me. I don't know how you'd explain this to the player in a concise and comprehensive way. I will say I like the idea of ECM reducing unmanned fighter range as well as weapon range, but it's a bit weird and might get noodly, again, when trying to explain that to the player.
It could be explained in a tutorial, just like how everything else should be. It could also be explained in the descriptions for the EW/CM skills and the ECM Package/Nav Relay/Ops Center tooltips.
Also I think that without the other changes or a bump in the number of enemies that use EW, drone engagement range being the only penalty doesn't actually address carrier supremacy, only serving as a situational nerf to large Remnant fleets and player drone swarms.
Is there any particular reason for unmanned fighters to have these penalties? Besides Sparks, none are overpowered or displacing other fighters in their niches, so it's not for balance reasons. If it's just so, I don't think it's necessary for all drone fighters to have. Some rare, strong ones could perhaps have a flaw unique to them, but giving all drone fighters such a disadvantage is mostly fluff for 5 fighters, out of two dozens.
I'm not just thinking about vanilla drones. Drone EW range penalties is
based on fluff, but it's fluff with a purpose. Unlike the 'crew per fighter' stat, which
is fluff, since there's no real reason to care about it. Giving the drones a long range penalty and slight short range bonus would work together with an EW range penalty to differentiate them from crewed fighters. Again, tag or hullmod to exempt certain wings if needed.
The biggest issue with your idea per se is that this would semi-force players into taking Electronic Warfare 1, if fighting Remnants. I think EW isn't really common for other fighters, but Remnants do typically have it. On the other hand, all ships contributing to ECM rating, except carriers, and ECM affecting fighter performance could be an interesting anti-fighter spam balancing mechanic.
In order for EW affecting fighter performance to have an impact on fighter spam, more factions would need to employ it, and I think they should since max level EW against a no-EW fleet is so powerful, same deal for CM, 25% global speed boost is huge. Having enemy EW and friendly CM be a serious consideration for the effectiveness of carriers when fielding them, while making carriers themselves contribute less to EW/CM and benefit less from EW (especially in the weapon and only-a-penalty-to-fighters department) means that a carrier-only fleet would become a dangerous prospect against an EW/CM using opponent as an enemy fleet having higher weapon range and/or speed while your carriers don't and have less effective fighters would be a serious problem, thus requiring more deployment points to be spent on ships to protect and screen the carriers, or more ordnance points to be spent on Nav Relays/ECM Packages/Ops Centers, thus indirectly addressing the fighter spam. Also, a tag to exempt ships that aren't primarily fighter based. Basically I'm glad you like that part, I should have made that the meat of the OP.
