Can someone please quickly update me about tomorrow's change of VM? I understand that attack pattern omega will no longer counter it but VM will still lock down a ship? So how does one counter it?

It will shutdown 3 systems (Engines, Weapons, and Aux) in a random order. It's countered by skills that repair damage subsystems (Engineering Team, and maybe EPtX).

10x for the info.

• Viral Matrix has been updated:
Instead of a hold, Viral Matrix now takes three subsystems offline in a staggered duration.
The best case duration for a subsystem being offline is approx 7.2, 9.6, and 12 seconds for versions I, II,III respectively.
The subsystems affected are Weapons, Engines, and Auxiliary.
The order that the subsystems go offline is determined randomly upon each use.
Engineering Team will repair subsystems that are offline.

this is a quote from salami inferno.
I was able to test it out on tribble, but only on the dealing end, VMing some other npcs and players, and it is now annoying, but nothing to fear anymore. It can clearly give you the tactical advantage in a fight and the chance to finish an opponent or escape, but it won't make you a definitive kill if you get hit by it and can't remove it. Its annoying, not life-threatening.

The Aux and Weapons disabling you might be able to work around, but I feel like your Engines being gone can be killer. You won't be able to turn to cover your downed shield arcs, leaving your opponent free to pop torps all up in your hull.

true. but the effects come in at different times, randomly, each lasting only 4-6 seconds.
So you are only for 4-6 seconds a sitting duck. Annoying, but survivable.
It can give you the edge like I said, to finish a kill, or escape the death, but not make you a 100% kill like the old VM did.

So Engineer Team fixes it, not Science Team?

Yes, VM has been moved from SciTeam to Engineering Team. However, I'm not sure whether just one EngTeam will repair all of the damaged subsystems, or just one.

Cool, now since one of the main reasons for taking Science Team was to counter Viral Matrix, does it still make sense to have it and if so why?

Thanks!

You need science team now to counter subnucleonic beam. SNB will kill your buffs, you can't counter that, but also increase all cooldowns of all abilities greatly - which you can counter with science team. (my SNB increases cooldowns by 245% for every skill used the next, I think it was 40seconds)

And of course you still need it against Jam Sensors and scramble sensors.

You could change from 2 science teams to 1, but would keep the 1.