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[Lawrence Master-blaster]

Currently ECM is very all-or-nothing, you either get an absurd amount(40%+) to beat the Remnant at the game or don't bother at all. Because the range is only 0-10% most of the ECM - for you OR the enemy - is wasted. The bigger the range, the more relevant even small amounts of ECM become.

Also, currently even if you(or the enemy) completely loses the ECM war, well, 10% reduction in range is not that big of a deal. Especially if you also have ECCM on your ships which cuts the penalty in half.

[Grievous69]

Originally it was 0-20% and the change was made so that fights don't become steamrolls. You could fight human bounties with a ECM fleet and not worry about a thing, fights were very easy. On the other hand fights with Remnants were super frustrating if you didn't prepare for the ECM spam since now your long range ships are medium range.

I like the idea of the mechanic but range bands are such a vital stat in this game that can really screw hard with AI. Your ship that had no trouble engaging Remnants previously might become too cowardly and never truly commit to an attack if they get outrange by energy guns.

[CapnHector]

Fun fact: this would cut the range difference between a range 900 Large Ballistic and a range 700 Plasma Cannon with all relevant skills and hullmods on two capitals from 279 to 108 when the Large Ballistic is taking the full ECM penalty. Probably would mean just S-modding ECCM on every Remnant fighting ship.

The ECM endgame really is kind of weird. I'm trying out an ECM loadout on my Enforcer spam fleet. But even bringing 17 ships with the ECM package hullmod at 12 OP each and also the skill from tech it's still not enough to win the ECM battle vs a double Ordo at the start. Needs elite Gunnery Implants on all officers too.

[SafariJohn]

ECM should be proportional IMO.

5% vs 10% ECM should give 5/(5+10)*0.05 = 1.7% penalty for them and 10/(5+10)*0.1 = 6.7% penalty for you.

10% vs 20% ECM should give 10/(10+20)*0.1 = 3.3% penalty for them and 20/(10+20)*0.1 = 6.7% penalty for you.

The cap should probably stay at 10%.

[Zsar]

Given that ECCM is a thing I would go one step further:

• ECM reduces the opponent's range. Full stop. No interaction between yours and theirs.
• ECCM reduces range penalty of its carrier (no change vs. vanilla)
• a new, expensive mod (~Operations Center) reduces range penalty for all deployed allies depending on ship size of its carrier, built-in on Omen
  (Omens DP cost can then be increased to match its description, as it is now a proper asset on the field, even without strong weapons)

... I think at that point the OP would be perfectly fine. Fleets can include AWACS ships like the Omen or ECCM-equipped strike ships (Aurora, Fury, Sunder, etc.) to compensate and fleets not compensating will be utterly destroyed... which feels perfectly reasonable. It's like a fleet without shields vs. a fleet with all-HE weapons: Of course they will die.

[Megas]

I would prefer ECM to do what Sensor points originally did, extend the shot range of those that got the bonus instead of reducing the enemy.  Shot range is too short.  Would like guns to shoot further, not this nonsense of gutting shot range until ships are stuck with melee weapons to beat each over the head with.

Sensors used to extend shot range, then it was changed to damage bonus, now they reduce enemy shot range.

ECM could be another range extension (like how Nav works), and ECCM would be the missile boost (more speed, immune to flares).

[BigBrainEnergy]

My first idea here was to make every point of ecm count for half the range penalty so you need a 20 point advantage to reach the full 10% debuff.

But a simpler way to do the same thing is just cut all ecm values in half, so 1% now only gives 0.5% and so on.