The ecm beam will attempt to jam the rockets from fighters, ignoring the crapload of missiles/torpedos coming at it. How about the beam prioritizes targets based on threat level?
In fact, why are rockets jammable at all? Aren’t they dumb fired?
It is true that this beam doesn’t do any fancy calculations to determine which incoming missile (including rockets/ torpedoes) to fire at. of course, changing this would make the beam more effective, but possibly this needs doing as I don’t notice people talking about using it much.
Is the ECM beam not popular?
Um… i sometimes use ECM beam, especially in missions.
the ecm beam is about 5 times as powerful as the other PD xD
give it a tryout. it refires uber fast.
I think missiles have to present a more credible threat for people to start picking apart the PD options. Right now, it’s too easy to rely on heavy shields to bring you into range of enemy missile ships with your short-range wrecking crew, provided you pack at least 2 engines in your cruisers. As a result, we don’t seem to be getting very many missile-heavy challenges.
I tend not to use it simply because I don’t use point defense of any kind. I’ll use the slot for more armor, shields, or engines instead (only rarely will I use all my turret slots for actual turrets). The module itself is quite power-hungry, but due to the fact that an ECMed missile will keep flying around for a long time (preventing a second shot) it may be better than shooting the missile down.
Regarding the original poster’s issue though, I think all PD-related modules might be a just little smarter about which targets they shoot at. A single squadron of double-rocket fighters is better at decoying Cruiser PD than any number of Decoy Missile Launcher modules.
I’m a big fan of the ECM beam, the high refire rate and higher range than Point Defence means a single one can stop the vast majority of regular missiles.
I haven’t used the ECM beam yet, but I assumed it wasn’t as effective as PD. Now that I know this, I’ll be sure to try.
Again, the problem is that many of the specs don’t make it clear how effective something will be. I don’t have the specs for this in front of me, but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t mention how often an ECM beam “hits” (works). In order to know how effective it is, I’d need to know fire interval, range, and how often it hits. I should be able to compare this to other PD so that I can choose appropriately.
In the end, if the player uses any kind of anti-missile module, it will come down to a comparison of cost and effectiveness. Maybe ECM is twice as effective at 3 times the price? Maybe it only works on slower missiles but “hits” more often?
Hmm, the stats for the module seem to contradict what other players have been saying about its rate of fire. The “fire_interval” for it is 1000, compared to 800 for regular and automated Cruiser PD modules and 700 for the Hi-Speed version. It does have slightly better range though, 400 compared to the PD modules which can shoot 380, 310 and 370 (for regular, automated and Hi-Speed, respectively). Tracking speed is quite a bit less (2.2 vs 3 or 3.2 for the others), but I’m not sure exactly how this tracking speed relates to missile speeds (which don’t seem to be measured with the same units as ship speeds).
I do agree with you that more module details should be visible in the ship editor. Fortunately it appears to be easy for updates to be made to those (the displayed fields are numbered in the module definition file).
I’ve found the ECM beam works very well. It seems to send whole incoming clusters of missiles off spiraling into space before they even get to my cruiser’s shields. I dunno if rockets are actually dumbfire or not. If they are the ECM beam should ignore them and have no effect. What about Plasma Torpedos?
There doesn’t appear to be anything in the data files to indicate that rockets track their targets any differently than other missiles, with the possible exception of the “has_splines” parameter which only the Cruiser Rocket Launcher has. I think that is what causes a rocket to veer back and forth on its way to its target, but I’m not certain.
Splines == curves so yeah, that’s probably it.
no PD weapons affect plasma. The idea is that plasma torps are just a big ball of energy, so they can’t actually have their guidance system hit or confused.
What about a cruiser anti shield missile? I.e. fast missiles that do a bit more than the usual 30ish damage but have poor armor penetration with excellent shield penetration. That would give missile people one more weapon in their tool kit. It also opens up missiles as a valid shield killing option at range. Essentially you are trading an armor piercing warhead for some extra speed and more explosive yield.
Example:
Name Armor Pen. Cost Crew Req. Damage Fire Interval Has Decoys HP Max Range Min Range Speed Power Consumed Shield Pen. Tracking Speed Weight
Pulsar missile Launcher 5 145 12 45 1750 Yes 105 1200 450 0.26 5 66 0.9 120
Yeah, I’m finding a significant lack of shield penetration too. The only weapons with decent shield penetration are the plasmas (long range, slow tracking, slow firing) and a few short-range lasers. Once I get shields down, almost anything will tear armor asunder, but I’m having a lot of trouble getting shields down, especially on ships with 2 or 3 shield generators.
The only way I’ve gotten around shield penetration is using fighters, but that’s a tactic that doesn’t work well for me in survival (they die too quickly).