Terminology:Electronic Counter Measures
 Terminology
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Electronic Counter Measures or short ECM
Usage in Vegastrike
What does it do
Electronic Counter Measures are designed to foil missile and torpedo attacks against the craft on which they are installed. Activation of ECM lets loose a barrage of electromagnetic noise, focused false radar/lidar images, infrared beams and altered signatures intended to confuse missile targeting systems by causing them to misjudge the size, location, and direction of the ECM enabled craft. While not necessarily 100% failsafe, such measures do reduce the number of successful attacks with such weapons. ECM foils an opponent’s attempts to reduce shields and armor on your ship as well as preventing the effects of more sophisticated attack methods.
The probability of jamming each missile aimed at a ship is directly proportional to this ship's ECM Rating. The missile will self-destruct (in physics/max_lost_target_live_time, default 30 seconds) after its target is lost. Practically, this means that guided missiles usually will be removed if launched at a long enough range, at medium range they will be more likely to act like dumbfire missiles instead (easy to dodge, but still explode if approach within their detonation range) and at ranges short enough that dumbfire missiles work well, ECM will not noticeably change anything.
Activation
ECM can be activated and de-activated using the 
key.
Energy consumption
The use of ECM is draining on your ship's reactor (consumption is ECM Rating x physics/ecm_energy_cost). Therefore, you will note that weapon and jump energy may reduce while ECM is activated. De-activating your ECM will help to restore those energy levels - or to restore them somewhat faster, if your reactor has spare capacity.
See also
- Manual:Combat:Counter measures
- Terminology:Missile
- Terminology:Torpedo
- FIXME Link to the various targeting systems like image recognicion/head/etc...
- WikiPedia:Electronic_counter-measures
