Please don't call the EMP shield an ECM. It isn't! ECM (electronic countermeasures) is used to jam transmissions (usually radar). An EMP shield will physically destroy missiles, not jam their tracking system. You're just confusing the hell outta everyone by mixing the terms. Thank you.

An EMC just might trigger the missiles proximity fuse before the missile hits anything, so THERE! HAH!

/me dances
woo! WOO! I WIN! WOO!!!
/me falls over

EMC? Not only did you misspell it, but your information is inaccurate. ECMs don't trigger missiles prematurely. All it does is mess with the signal that's used to track a missile, be it from an airplane or from a SAM site. There is no magical electronic countermeasure as of now that has the capability of detonating missiles. You'd need something physical for that, since proximity detonators aren't trigger electronically.

But what you may be thinking about is the proposed "Star Wars" defense system that was meant to use a series of lasers via orbiting satelites to ignite ICBM warheads prematurely in space. My idea of an EMP shield is pretty much the same thing, except with a continuous electrical charge rather than a laser beam. Either way there are no ECMs involved.

Although... it's hard to tell whether you were being sarcastic or not.

/me strangles genka

Yeah, that would be nice... if you can fly and dodge very well... but are in a slow ship (like a rag) it would be nice if you could destroy all those homers with your gat... but if homers are also useless against rags... we're screwed... balancing would be necesary.

Back to the emp shield: It isn't useful now. But what about when ships are 700m long and move like roids?

roguelazer: Well, that's pretty much why I designed ECM the way I did (see my thread on countermeasures).

Urza: The advantage of an invisible shield of some sort (either ECM or EMP) is that you don't necessarily need to create and track an object representing the thing that destroys the warhead. An ECM 'shield' causes alot less lag than a mini-gatling would.