How to use ECM

[Mikeck (OP)]

I ran into an NPR that uses missiles that far out range even my fire control and my active sensors. It will take a long time to research the items needed to match that. In the meantime, can I use ECM to jam their active sensors and reduce the range of their missile systems? If yes, how? Can someone point me to a thread if one exists? I searched but as you can imagine ECM use came up a million times

[Mikeck (OP)]

I found a thread in "mechanics" with some info, but what I'm looking for is some instruction. On where to put it, how big it should be.

[Erik L]

ECM only affects the ship it is on. It degrades the range at which enemies may fire at you.

[Nathan_]

ECM is always on, likewise with ECCM, you don't have to design the components, though research will make smaller ones available.

[Mikeck (OP)]

ECM is always on, likewise with ECCM, you don't have to design the components, though research will make smaller ones available.

 I'm confused...so I just research it and them the ECM component appears right? Put it on a ship and it always runs?

I guess if it is ship specific there is no way to design an Electronic warfare ship designed to jam enemy sensors?(absent maybe microwave weapons to destroy them)

[Nathan_]

Research it, put it on the ship, done. There is no way to jam enemy sensors, but you can reduce thermal and TCS signatures with cloaking and thermal reduction tech. Jamming is typically about flooding an enemy sensor with too much information to process, not making things stealthy.

[Mikeck (OP)]

Ok. Thanks

[Nathan_]

Lastly, they are really good vs beams, but not so great vs missiles, since mfcs can just be overbuilt to compensate.

[metalax]

ECM is always on, likewise with ECCM, you don't have to design the components, though research will make smaller ones available.

To expand on this, you only need one ECM module(barring any extras for redundancy) per ship, but you need one ECCM module for each fire-control and they need to be linked to the fire-control in the same way you link weapons to it.

[Mikeck (OP)]

Ok, so an ECM module and an ECCM module are two different animals...got it

[Arwyn]

So, to simplify;

ECM is a module that you mount on your ship. It works continuously (until destroyed) by reducing the range of the enemy fire control systems. The more advanced the ECM, the more the enemy systems are affected. You generally dont have to mount more than one ECM, unless you want redundancy, but there are usually better things to do with the weight and space.

ECM works best against beam fire controls. Usually beam FC targeting range is closer to the actual range of the weapon, so if you have a laser with a 250,000 km range, and the fire control is degraded to 125,000 km, the enemy wont be able to fire until 125,000 km.

Missile fire control are smaller and lighter, so it is MUCH easier to build a missile FC that seriously outranges the actual endurance of the missile. Most veteran players do this routinely for a couple of reasons. First, its means you can use those FC for longer periods of time, since your missiles will take a while to catch up. Secondly, there are other units using ECM, so its a cheap way to negate NPR ECM instead of mounting expensive ECCM systems.

So, if your planning on using it, one ECM on the ship and your good. If the bad guys are using it, build your missile FC to outrange your actual missile range by a good amount. For example, if your missile range is 50 million km, build your FC to target out to 75 million km. Its cheaper and easier than using ECCM.

[Zatsuza]

Hey folks. Quick question on Beam FCS--

my bread and butter beam FCSs tend to, as stated, generally match the weapon range with allowances for different types, e.g PD FCS, anti-FAC FCS... but it only gives 50% chance to hit at that range. So say I double the size of the FCS for range would it be possible to get 75~100% accuracy at the actual weapon range? It could help negate a bit of ECM, even if it is devoting a hell of a lot of tonnage to FCS systems.

Then again, lasers would still only hit for 1 damage, until they close to knife-range, so a change to particle beams for more stand-off potential?

[Nightstar]

Yes, bigger fire controls get better hit rates at low ranges. You do run into diminishing returns though. Remember that the effectiveness of your beams is the beams multiplied by the fire control, and work from there.

[SteelChicken]

Just a personal preference, I don't bother with much ECCM.  As said, the space can be used for better fire control systems which counteracts to a degree.   Sometimes though I have had issues with high-tech foes using ECM on their ships which effects by beam fire control greatly, so I don't ignore ECCM forever. 

Both have their uses, but I tend to spend more effort on fire control first, ECM second, ECCM third.