Wait.. what do you mean? My Vagabond sees unmasked heavy at over 1.2km. If the heavy is masked I still spot him at 700-800m.

Anyway, you are completely missing the point here, Arga. This thread is not about vets going head to head. Vets will adapt to changes without problems.

This issue was raised in a thread that handled new and old player gaps. I started this whole ewar ordeal to let devs know that if they want new players to have even a fighting chance against us vets, they need to put power back to the bots newbies are usually fielding: mechs and heavies.

Either nerf EW or give better tools to counter it. Ewar right now is too passive and too powerful.

This topic has touched a nerve...

I'm glad you agree, because if EW was LOS, that's exactly what you would have to be doing.

Edit: Oh, lemon got it.

90 days of specialization is about where a new player can be relatively competitive in group settings against 180+ day specialized players.

EW will never balance out, because it is a 'support' skill. A single demobbing cam II is very scary, unless it's alone. Then it's just irritating.

An ewar and a dps together is awesome, but now it's about balancing how bots work together, not about EP levels.

Maybe just lowering ECM strength? Makes ECM slightly less effective, and makes ECCM more effective at the same time. While still allowing ECM tunings to be used to give the higher change of Jamming. But at the cost of the number of modules you can run.

The balancing for active eccm would have to be spot on I think. To avoid it being a mandatory thing.

But I do like the idea I think...

And ECCM Nexus.

I'm not calling it out of balance because of the EP gap only. The EP gap is there and there's no way around it.

What I'm trying to show you is that the ewar mechs are simply too powerful. They are too powerful because their jam chance is too high, sensor strength bonus provided by ECCM is too weak and you don't need any line of sight at all, often making it close to unkillable.

Passive gameplay that gives advantage to anyone fielding it in large numbers, 1 of these bots can shut down 2 enemies. Because of not needing much focus, strongly advocates multiboxing(again field where vets shine) and forces newbies to split their already low EP pool between combat and EW mech skills just to have even smallest chance to compete, effectively making the period until they reach effectiveness in PVP even longer.

I'm repeating myself here..

This is my point exactly, why does the ictus and tackle have to stand out in the open, when vagas and Zeniths do not?  make it equal across the board,  LOS for all, or no LOS for all.  Make it fair.  Or you could balance the current system to bring vagas and zeniths more inline and balanced against the other bots on the field.  Either way I don't care, just something needs to give.

I really like Homers (I think it was his idea)  of long and short range EWAR.  make short range EWAR as effective as the ECM's currently are, but they only have a short range, make the long range version much less effective but allow it ti hit out to 700+.  Same for suppressors, even do it to Neuts/Drainers to bring everything inline.

Then make LOS a requirement for missles, if all ewar should be the same then all DPS should be the same too.

This isn't my arguement, simply extending yours.

I will however concede that ewar probably needs to be balanced, its not an issue right now because of the low popluation, so just wait until it is an issue then address it.*

*STC Trademark reply used without the owner's permission.

Whoa slow down here.  Were all getting our britches in a wad here.

Me personally I think that the problem lays in the Sup/ECM tuners.  Adding them in give good bonus, but very little draw back.  I would suggest looking at those first, and increasing the drawbacks to them.  Bringing them inline, as with one tuner you get the chance, (100% Percent chance) to jam a heavy, and nearly 100% chance to jam a Ewar.

I personally DO NOT think you should ever, EVER have a 100% chance to jam anything.  (Suppressors should I agree there).  Now I think you should be able to get close, but that should in tale excellent skills, and multiple Tuners.

As it stands now, 1 tuner is all you need.

As far as Obi's Idea I think it might have merit, it would make fleets more specialized.  All of which I like.  (Short and long Ewar Stuff)

I dont think anyone is asking for a nerf it to hell and back.  Just to take a look at the numbers, take a look at the jam chances with and without tuners.  Then go from there.

I would be fine with this so long as a Dmg was increased on missiles to counter the loss of the LOS bonus of being able to shoot over some cover.  The reason that missiles get the semi no LOS bonus is because they are the single worst DPS weapon on the field, they also have the slowest firing speed.  Also, I wouldn't go so far as to say missiles are not LOS.  If missiles were truly no LOS you could shoot them from anywhere (Like you can with ECM's and Supp), but you can't.  I doubt anyone would argue that missiles are overpowered either.  EW on the other hand is extremely overpowered.

And on merkles point, why are the ECM and Supp tunnings badass and have almost no drawbacks, but the Enwar tunning for the ictus increases the amount of accum used by a significant amount.  That seems incredibly unbalanced.  Either make all the tunnings increase accum usage by the same amount, or make the Enwar tunning not use accum like the ECM and supp tunnings.  Plus the Enwar tunning is a leg slot which for a accum heavy bot like the ictus is a HUGE drawback when coupled with the major increase in accum usage.  I never use them for this very reason,  I would rather have a re-charger.  Not to mention the fact that the reactor needed to actually use one is rather substantial, especially considering the fact that every (non logi supported) ictus MUST have an injector on it.

This is true, except for the fact that your Offensive capability is inversely proportional to your defense.  The more neuts you use, the less defense you have, and if done incorrectly you can basically kill yourself in an ictus. Or you can not use your neuts and have a great shield tank, but what good is that?  This is not the case with Zenith/Vaga.  If you have an injector, you will never cap yourself out in a Vaga/Zenith.  This is does not apply to the ictus, even with an injector and re-chargers you can cap yourself out extremely fast.