wanderer, on 06 February 2014 - 03:17 PM, said:
I mean, would a module that extended ECM an extra 16m out be useful?
Again though, the difference is negligible. For it to help, you're talking about a missile volley that would've been out of range of the old AMS, but is now within the range of the new one. Since it's at the edge of he circle though the missiles will only be in range for a fraction of a second, which means at best a single missile will be shot down out of the volley.
I mean, sure, one missile is better than no missiles I guess, but will it really make all that much a difference that your buddy took an LRM49 to the face rather than an LRM50? Me personally, I'd rather take something like Target Info Gathering so that I can see the crit side torso on that LRM mech faster and perhaps take out half his weapons systems before he can even fire that LRM50 volley at my buddy.
ECM, on the other hand, is totally different. ECM doesn't depend on time spent within the bubble, it works on a "If you're in, it's covering you completely" model, and therefore any range extension works at 100% effectiveness. I don't run any ECM mechs, but if I did, I might consider a range extension of 16m because that would allow the team to spread out that much more (especially since the bubble increases in diameter by 32m) and be less vulnerable to the constant Arty strikes that people love to shoot off. ECM and AMS are just completely different support systems in that respect.