Radarjammers, are they currently OP?

[aceface]

Hello. I'm just posting a quick poll because I'm curious what everyone thinks.

Spoiler: my opinion

I think that radar jammers are way to op for the costs currently. They make it so that you can't be locked on at all, glorifying heatseekers, and promoting singleplayers and putting down fleet warfare. I can understand that there should be a module like radar jammer that nullifies the lock on ability, but I think that it should consume more power. For example on the server elwyn eternity gravypod put a smart adjustment to the radar jammers so that they require 20energy per block. Then a ship that can avoid lock on is substantially more limited in terms of its firepower. I think that this would be a lot better than the default config of 5energy per block.

A second argument I have to say about radarjammers current power consumption being overpowered is that there's nothing special about them. Any ship can jam now. A "jamming ship" is no longer a thing.

A third and final argument I have against radarjammers power consumption is the fact that Schema himself said that he changed the radarjammer power comsumption was done because the new hp system will make it so that you dont need to know where the core is. So now you can use radarjammer to "simulate" the hp system. I am cool with that except that it makes people not able to lock on. This to me seems very overpowered.

tldr, I think radarjammer should consume 20energy per block because its op and schema said that he made it low so that its harder to know where the core is on a ship.

 

[Kelpaz]

I find radar jammers to be completely fine.

 

[HerrColonel]

Yes I think they are fine
Last time I checked AI can fire lock-on missile on jammed ships anway

 

[Krougal]

They seem more broken than anything. At 50 power per unit of ship mass, their power consumption is higher than any other defensive system save the also broken cloaker. I'm also not seeing them do anything vs the AI.

It should probably be redone to be like all the other effect systems in the game; radar computer, radar modules. Same for cloaker. Also cut power use if going to modules. Scanner also made to work in the same fashion as the counter-counter (because 1 antenna is as good as 1000 right now).

Possibly instead of just not allowing player to lock, make it harder (honestly the whole lock-on system sucks).
% chance for homing (and swarm) missiles themselves to lose their lock based on your total effect mod.

 

[godmars]

Don't think it's broken. It's almost a necessity for smaller ships to keep them from being instantly vaporized, IMO, especially on servers with ratcheted up movement rates where a pixel on the horizon can fire missiles over 10km away then warp out before you even realize whats happening.

As far as what they do VS AI:
While it doesn't really affect the AI's lock-on ability, it does significantly cripple their accuracy with all other weapons and you can get much closer to them without actually being detected.

 

[aceface]

the thing is though, the power consumption is so low that the softcap thing on power doesn't really affect it. common titans can sustainably radar jam. increasing that consumption for the jammer would make it so that smaller ships would be a bit more viable.

 

[CyberTao]

I'm just gonna point out that the reason that power cost for jammers dropped so much was as a way to prevent Coredrilling, a stand in solution until we got the HP system, which is coming next major update. It should have an increase in costs then, unless it gets forgotten about.

 

[Kelpaz]

the thing is though, the power consumption is so low that the softcap thing on power doesn't really affect it. common titans can sustainably radar jam. increasing that consumption for the jammer would make it so that smaller ships would be a bit more viable.

I don't know what you consider titan but last time I tried using one on a 1,6 KM long titan, it drained all it's 1000M+ power battery.

Any ship big enough to reach energy softcap in my experience is pretty easy to see with my own eyes, not to mention that the ships I build usually cannot use radar jamming at those sizes.

I've experimented with small radar jamming stealth frigates only to discover that while good for reconing and scouting they have no means of carrying decent firepower for anything above fighters, I am not scared of small ships using them nor should anyone be.

 

[Snk]

No, they're fine. They should be able to avoid heatseakers also, imo.

 

[Krougal]

the thing is though, the power consumption is so low that the softcap thing on power doesn't really affect it. common titans can sustainably radar jam. increasing that consumption for the jammer would make it so that smaller ships would be a bit more viable.

Why does everyone consider the power consumption low?
Let's say a 10k mass ship. Radar jammer power consumption is 500k.
5000 ion modules, 60% bonus, 100k pps.
10000 pierce, 80% bonus, 100k pps.
5000 punch, 15% bonus, 50k pps.

Not going to go into all the other effect modules, although if you added ALL of them with enough to get max bonus, power cost is 460k. I think the power consumption is acceptable for what it does, and the fact that it's a single block. Increasing consumption would make it so smaller ships couldn't use it. It doesn't make them more viable, it makes them less viable.

 

[aceface]

Why does everyone consider the power consumption low?
Let's say a 10k mass ship. Radar jammer power consumption is 500k.
5000 ion modules, 60% bonus, 100k pps.
10000 pierce, 80% bonus, 100k pps.
5000 punch, 15% bonus, 50k pps.

Not going to go into all the other effect modules, although if you added ALL of them with enough to get max bonus, power cost is 460k. I think the power consumption is acceptable for what it does, and the fact that it's a single block. Increasing consumption would make it so smaller ships couldn't use it. It doesn't make them more viable, it makes them less viable.

what im saying is that with the current way of how power works in that after 1mil e/sec its a lot lower, you can still add enough power to radarjam a 100k mass ship. if the cost is higher then its impossible. thats how it is, and how players use it on elwyn eternity.

 

[AtraUnam]

So increase the power consumption to exactly 25e/block, that puts a hard cap on how many non-power blocks a ship can have and still perma-jam. Even better make the power consumption around 20e/block so that ships of essentially infinite size can still perma jam, but only at the cost of having up to 80% of their mass be power blocks.

 

[Krougal]

So increase the power consumption to exactly 25e/block, that puts a hard cap on how many non-power blocks a ship can have and still perma-jam. Even better make the power consumption around 20e/block so that ships of essentially infinite size can still perma jam, but only at the cost of having up to 80% of their mass be power blocks.

What's the point of keeping the jammer in the game at that point?

 

[EricBlank]

I honestly don't think they're overpowered, either normally and especially not on elwynn eternity. Having played there for once, I can say the pirates, and players, make it a freaking terrifying place when you first start out, when you're too broke to slap on shield after shield, and have no friends, or worse, someone is looking for you or you're making blind jumps across the galaxy to gods-knows-what sectors (which is honestly my own damn fault for not checking if I'm going to exit warp right on top of a pirate station or some players' home world, but hey, a second chance is appreciated.)

That said, the hide and seek, stealth and detection mechanics definitely aren't complete yet. I can only really assume that the cloak/jam devices are a stand-in for the intended systems that will be implemented later, and I'm actually grateful that we have them at the moment. I didn't notice a significant drop of viability in stealth craft on elwynn eternity, so it must not matter when you're dealing with small craft.

 

[Effane]

The jammers work 'okay'. Maybe the instant switch to turn them on is a bit of an issue since you think Scanners would pop them offline for more than a UI click by the player. They can be used on large ships and 100K is not a large ship, that is roughly a light cruiser which is technically a capital ship but barely. You are not likely going to be firing weapons, running thrusters, maintaining shields and keeping the jammer up for long on a ship of any size. Little ships below 10K can radar jam for long periods of time... but they sacrifice a lot of possible firepower.
This is the default code currently.

<PowerConsumedPerSecondPerBlock>5</PowerConsumedPerSecondPerBlock>

A 100K block ship would consume 500K power to sustain this. That is half the power softcap, which means they cannot sustain firepower for very long on 50% power. I do like the idea of a slightly higher energy cost, but need to run the numbers and theory craft that a bit.