Just a note from a new player: the description on ECM does not make it obvious that it makes you harder to be seen/shot at. In fact, the description made me think it applied to hacking.
Good point--the description was written back before hacking even was planned to be included as a mechanic
(Side note: Any utility that has anything to do with hacking is of the Hackware type.)
That said,
Their description definitely needs to be more clear as to their purpose.
I didn't want to reveal precisely how they work, at least not in the description itself, since that says a bit too much about the AI. I instead plan to provide that information via another themed help system to come. Then you'll have an even better idea of what it does in terms of affecting the AI.
I'll look at the current description and make sure there won't be any confusion with hacking.
In terms of general description cleanup, one other bit that bugged me (and only because I ran into the one part before the other) was the upgrade to the sensor array, which says it "needs a sensor array to function." Which is true enough. But I had to scratch my head for a second and go "ok, so...these other sensors I have...do they count?"
I think the quickest solution here is to capitalize the other two part names in the descriptions so that you know they are proper nouns which refer to something specific. (There are other reasons I'd prefer to not change the names of those parts themselves, and this could be a satisfactory workaround.)
(Mid-post thought: rename "sensor array" to "scanner system"? ("scanner array"?) That's what it does, it scans robots.)
There is also the Scan Processor, which gives more information about robots as well but operates alone by processing data from your default sensors.
If we could get a UI tweak that would highlight the names of parts like the Terminals do for Queryable keywords and give a dropdown on what that thing is. E.g. I could mouse-over "[sensor array]" and get the description that would show up on the sensor array, similar to how we get a description of various stats, like heat, damage type, or load.
Unfortunately such a system wouldn't have a broad enough application to make it feasible, as throughout the entire game there are only two item pairs that work like this Sensor Array-Signal Interpreter and Terrain Scanner-Terrain Scan Processor.
Also unfortunate for beginners is the fact that both pairs are available right from the start :/ (In general I've tried to design it so that special/additional mechanics don't appear until later in the game.)
