Bots just seem to teleport around randomly and the position on the screen doesn't seem to have much to do with where they are with regard to being in/out of cover

Tbh, I don't think there is any combination of ewar strngth/sensor strength values that would suddenly make ECM a fun mechanic.  And despite all the accusations and drama I don't think anyone here actually wants it to be nerfed into the ground.

Also, with the current mechanics, inefficient ECM is still gonna be disproportionately more useful to the side that can field more bots.  You will still get situations where a bunch of small bots will be able to take down a heavy without any risk of being shot.

Would it be possible to try a bare bones version of an area of effect ECM mechanic (kind of like interference but with a chance to break lock) and let people just play with it on the test server for a bit? 
Maybe players will like it, maybe it will be horrible, but if it's not too difficult to code and doesn't put too much stress on the server, just maybe, it's worth giving it a try?

+1 for separate threads

Detection
Sounds like an interesting change, Not sure if the masking penalty is large enough but small steps is always good.

As for extreme cases, with the detector, people have made alt accounts with the singular purpose of having maxed out detectors.  These detectors are then used to direct whole gangs so in this case, the extreme is the norm.

Ewar
+1 for no new extensions that give a bonus regardless of what you fit, it's not wow, we don't want to keep raising the level cap. Imho it's better to let players diversify and specialize instead of just becoming generically better.

Can't really tell how ewar will work from just reading that there will be a 2% extension, please give us at least a couple of weeks to try it out on the test server first. Like Ville said, what is the end goal here in terms of how effective you think it should?

Also, I am glad you guys are looking at it but I think the main problem with ewar is the way it works rather than with the exact values used. It seems to me that just tuning ewar strength is a choice between two situations:

1) ewar is so nerfed that people switch to energy warfare instead

2) ewar dominates the gun fight so that shooting becomes an afterthought once one side has managed to lock the other side down.

Usually one side will have a numbers advantage, this is normal for open world pvp.  Imo the goal with ewar should be to help people even the odds rather than create helpless targets (and yes I have been on both sides of this).

One idea is to turn ecm into a debuff (like the suppressor) that has some chance of breaking lock every second.  This debuff could be limited to one per target.
I would love to see jamming affect an area around a targeted bot or tile.  This would make it much more tactical (with appropriate balancing ofc).

They are not all empty
http://sequer.nl/killboard/?a=heatmap

Just playing devil's advocate here but by that logic we should remove all the betas except Norhoop

The current beta layout is horrible to be honest.  It's like the beta islands are dead-ends just tacked on to alpha-2s as an afterthought.  I know this is kind of a side-effect of gammas being removed but it would be nice to have more beta islands to roam around anyway, even with gamma in place.

Seems like -more variety of islands- is something that a lot of people agree on.

Painted zones does sound like a pretty neat solution.  Although it could mean very different things depending how big you make them.  Maybe the sizes/numbers of painted zone could also vary island by island just for variety's sake

Also, would minerals and plants grow (spawn) inside the painted zones.
As much as I loved my little noralgis garden on Bergers it seems kinda silly that it should be safe behind turrets and choke points.

Another idea, maybe NPCs could stay out of the painted zone.  Undocking into an observer spawn was always kinda funny when you have 100s of friendly turrets around you but can't move because a hostile NPC mech is stuck inside your defensive maze.

Things to think about I guess.

Back to the original topic

Why not just rename the bloody things from - perfect - functional - damaged -
to - shiny - pointy - strange - or - complex - regular - simple -
or whatever other combination of three words.

This way people will stop thinking about why the hell you can't turn a functional fragment into a damaged one by hitting it with a hammer.

Only if you have very similar numbers of ewar on each side.  Once one side starts to win it becomes easy to lock down the smaller force.