Give all ships with 3 or less Utility slots a built-in ECM module.

[DemiserofD]

ECM is a rarely used module, because it's hard to use and often useless. It basically does the exact same thing as Point Defense, only manually activated.

The only place it could potentially be useful is on Small ships (or vs torpedoes, but that's so specialized it might as well not exist). Unfortunately, small ships are so limited on Utility slots, they really can't afford to take an ECM, and a Point Defense is going to be better anyway in most cases.

So, what if all small ships had an equally small, built-in ECM? It could be justified in that smaller ships, with smaller signatures, can use a smaller version of ECM, while larger ships need a utility-slot dedicated version.

This would make ships more durable against Homing Missiles, which are actually a decent threat against them, and will broadly encourage the use of ECM earlier in the game, which will lead to moderately more usage in the lategame, as well, since players will already have the prerequisite skill.

You could even do the same with some 4-utility ships, potentially, making hull tanks slightly more viable, which would be neat! Particularly the Federal ships, which currently see a mild lack of usage.

 

[Darrack]

You pretty much summed it up in your opening sentence, from a Solo point of view its as much use as a chocolate fireguard against PVE ships.
Even if it was free and didn't take up a slot personally i still wouldn't use one.

O7

 

[DemiserofD]

You pretty much summed it up in your opening sentence, from a Solo point of view its as much use as a chocolate fireguard against PVE ships.
Even if it was free and didn't take up a slot personally i still wouldn't use one.

O7

It still wouldn't be a terribly commonly used module, but it would see SOME use, and that's the objective. ECM is never going to have a huge niche, so making it take up an entire utility slot, when they're incredibly limited and versatile and powerful, is their biggest flaw. Compare them to an engineered shield booster and there's simply no comparison, so why would you EVER take an ECM?

But if it's free, you don't need to make that choice! And then, maybe, just maybe, it might see some use!

 

[gorankar]

They were somewhat useful prior to engineers. The game sort of passed the ECM by.
It's not a bad thing. The universe changed a bit. I do still have a button dedicated to ECM on my throttle though. Not sure I would ever use it to be honest. Only use case I can think of is preventing reverb torps on a large trade ship. 2-3 PD and 3-5 boosters with seem a better choice even then due to PD also working on groms..

Rather than making them standard equipment, how about improve their functionality. Have it not just be missile homing, but also disrupt targeting and electronics of ships in range. Not enough to have them lose shields or anything, but more like just garbling their hud, or even just radar, for a few seconds, with a chance of breaking target lock. Maybe increase the cooldown a little to prevent people spamming it. There are ways to make it relevant again. I don't think making it standard equipment would make it more common for people to use it the way it is really.

 

[Rebel Yell]

ECM way better than PoD in PvP.

They're not the same... PoD has a niche use against flechettes, mines and seekers (and you need 1 PoD vs. 2 hardpoints, so 4 seekers are covered by 2 PoD and they must be placed in the right spot on the ship otherwise they can't engage the missiles/mines).

ECM works flawlessly, no matter of the placement, vs. seekers, p-hounds and torps.