Taken To Task

In my post where I strove to point out that 200 km jamming Falcons were not as powerful as 150 km jamming Falcons, I was taken to task by commenter ReatuKrentor:

I'm curious, is gaining 3.92% more jam strength worth more for a Falcon then having a larger action radius? After 3 SDA's you only gain 2.83% and 1.06% from the 2 augmentor rigs(going from a strength increase of 156.93% to 163.08%). a max skilled falcon would go from 14.124 to 14.6776.
That doesn't seem all that significant to me over having a 200km action radius where you have 100% effect from jammers, instead of having 162 km.
Falcon novice but I know math(whelp).

My response:

If you boost the range of the ECM, you have to boost the range of your targeting as well. Hence its at least two modules/rigs removed, maybe more depending on skill levels.

In LurbyJo's case, she removed an ECM module and two strength rigs for the ranges, which while perfectly adequate for performance I'm sure, is a downgrade from maximum jamming capability.

And his rebuttal:

to make maximum use of your range ability without the range rigs you need a sensor booster anyway, falcon only has 150km base locking range.
But even if you don't fit ecm range rigs, I still don't really see the benefit in using the rig slots to boost ecm strength as the gain is so small after 3 SDA's. I would think you would gain more benefit from fitting different rigs, such as ecm range rigs or targeting range rigs or those rigs that reduce the recalibration time of cloaks(targeting systems stabilizers, -10% recalibration time)

Basically the point I think he is driving at is that fitting a Falcon out for maximum strength is a waste since stacking penalties on the Particle Dispersion Augmenter rigs and the Signal Distortion Amplifiers; in other words a Falcon setup for 200 km is statistically as effective as one set up for 150 km. Its a fair point and to be honest I never worked out the math, so I shall do so right now.

We will use my skills which are all at level IV in this area of expertise as they are more representative of a typical Falcon pilot than someone with all level V. Your mileage may vary. We'll also assume tech II / best-named gear (except the rigs), and start with 7 racial ECM mods in the mid slots of the Falcon. Furthermore, we'll attack a Tristan, Thorax, and Megathron in turn and assume we have only two Gallente specific ECM modules.

The first case is where all 7 ECM mods are on the target.

# of SDA / Rigs	On Racial Strength	Off Racial Strength	Frigate (10)	Cruiser (15)	Battleship (21)
0	7.776	2.592	98.5	89.1	76.6
1	9.3312	3.1104	99.9	94.4	83.7
2	10.95319	3.65106	99.9	97.6	89.3
3	12.20313	4.06771	99.9	99	92.6
4	12.54842	4.18281	99.9	99.3	93.3
5	12.68143	4.22714	99.9	99.4	93.6

The second case is where two on racial ECM mods and one off racial is on the target.

# of SDA / Rigs	On Racial Strength	Off Racial Strength	Frigate (10)	Cruiser (15)	Battleship (21)
0	7.776	2.592	96.3	80.8	65.2
1	9.3312	3.1104	99.7	88.7	73.7
2	10.95319	3.65106	99.9	94.5	81.1
3	12.20313	4.06771	99.9	97.5	85.9
4	12.54842	4.18281	99.9	98.1	87
5	12.68143	4.22714	99.9	98.3	87.5

As you can see, the stacking penalties really hit hard after the third strength boosting module/rig and since the Tech 1 rigs only give a 10% bonus their impact is really negligible in the first scenario, and still not very powerful in the second scenario.

So to answer ReatuKrentor I have to say you are quite right, even the third SDA gives minimal improvement over two and having a rig to extend ECM range and ship targeting range along with a Signal Amplifer II in the third low slot would be a perfectly viable setup (or any other utility rigs / low slot mods for whatever purposes).

While I was correct that there is a increase in the strength of the ECM, I was surprised at how little of an increase it was on the battleship especially. The extra percentage points are minimal at best. To LurbyJo, I extend a heartfelt apology for coming on so strong on my incorrect assumptions.