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EVE-Online RP Discussion and Resources => EVE Guides, Mechanics & Gameplay => Topic started by: Saikoyu on 03 Aug 2011, 16:13
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Read this first. (http://www.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid=944)
So I went ahead and shot my mouth off in the comments thread, with a semi-polite rant about how CCP really doesn't know how to let us world build. I started it differently, but really that is what it boiled down to. Honestly, if they asked me to re-design eve from the ground up, this is what I would do. High sec remains like it is, low sec becomes the pirate haven it already is, just supported, and null sec becomes player high sec where we create our own empires with all the tools that the NPC empires have, just more places to get isk. Gate guns, cryojammers, our own NPCs to help protect the system. Let the worlds be ours, the people be ours, let us cover the stars with their blood if we so choose. Honestly that is the only thing that would get me to go to null sec.
Maybe its just the RPer in me talking. Because we can't change anything else in the game. No matter what we want, teh Amarrian Empire will never fall or rise, the Caldari will never trimph or fall to the Gallente, the Minmatar will never be complete free or enslaved. But if we had our own space, where we could control all of the things the the NPCs (aka CCP) could, we could finally tell our own stories without limit.
Or I am just fed up with the world today and eve was a nice target. Sorry for the ranting.
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Outside of gate guns (something CCP has actually discussed in the past), don't you have that? But not with defensive NPCs: actual players. This seems better than a limiting vision of having NPCs protecting things everywhere, at least to me.
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To my point of view, no, players do not make up for NPC gate guards. One of CCPs points in this was that they want space for the little guys as well as the big guys. But the little guys will never be able to compete with the big guys if both sides have to count on player numbers. Yes I think it would be cool if you could do everything with players, but realistically that never going to happen on a scale that allows smaller alliances to compete with larger ones.
Honestly it doesn't have to be NPCs, but if CCP wants small alliances to complete with larger ones, without being pets of someone, there has to be some mechanic that forces the larger alliances into situations where the smaller alliance has a chance. Maybe gates that only allow so many people in per hour unless you are on the friends list, or gate mine fields. Something like that.
And honestly I think that if frontal assaults didn't always work it could get some more variety in the game instead of the all mighty blob.
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If they want the small groups to be competitive they should take a look at what happens in reality, how for example the cuban revolution thrown out its own (overwhelming) governement, how guerilla warfare works, etc.
-> Create many objectives that can't be covered by a single whole fleet, and open the world for skirmishes. Use the plex idea in FW (to do something different) : a big alliance will have moar people, but this also mean more systems and infrastructure to defend. Add real industry and infrastructure upgrade in nullsec : more you upgrade the industry efficiency, more "industrial plexes" spawn around in the system. They have to be defended. That way, a small dedicated opponent can definitly harass seriously an alliance where it hurts : the wallet and/or the time spent to build/rebuild.
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I think fleets are too mobile in 0.0. If you want the little guy to matter more, then make it harder for the big guys to stomp their way through 0.0 space. When travel gets tougher, the map gets larger, which gives smaller entities a better chance to get a foothold, as well as more of an incentive to invest it what youve got rather than simply trying to gain more territory.
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I have trouble envisioning any mechanics that give small alliances against larger ones simply because any benefit to smalls will also work for the larger ones. Larger entities have exponentially more trouble micromanaging themselves, but I do not think a correctly functioning mega-alliance will be seriously endangered or crippled by the acts of smaller organizations. Note I emphasize correctly functioning, most mega-alliances I've fought had all kinds of internal problems that were exploited against them.
The current alliance metagame I'm not familiar with, so take this as you will.
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Advantages don't have to exist on one single spectrum, best to worst. Multiple different "dimensions" can exist: already, money and fleet size will obviously favor larger organizations, as it should, but perhaps smaller organizations (or at least smaller fleets) can move more quickly and quietly, and large alliances must have various small installations that can feasibly be attacked by a covops fleet (e.g. black ops bridging in recons and SBs).
I know I don't have all the answers, but I personally don't see "moar NPCs" in the set that CCP will or should consider.
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Good lord, all we need is the ability for people to turn 0.0 into highsec. It'd be the death of EVE.
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The critical error of 0.0 sov warfare is that ease of conquest is linearly dependent on the number pilots in your fleet, regardless of hostile resistance whatsoever.
Undefended space = takes as long to conquer as defended space. This makes no sense.
The solution is a timer-capture system similar to facwar complexes, with timers scaled upwards to an hour or more for certain 'objectives'. Possibly a dependent tree of such objectives for contesting sov or removing sov in a particular system. Only one ship is required to successfully complete the objective, but practically, this is impossible as the enemy will be able to defeat such a feeble attempt.
Unless, of course, it truly is an AFK empire. Like many currently in existence. One merely needs to look up jumps per 24 hours in most 0.0 regions to see the level of depopulation.
The result of the adoption of such changes would be an immediate retrenchment of systems and stations held by the massive blocs. Empires would become compressed, concentrated, and centralized. Smaller entities, not restricted in gaining territory by the barrier of destroying deathstars and taking over outposts, can gain footholds and hold them.
Multiple objectives would require decentralized command and control. Specifically: more than one person with a brain would be required to conquer a system. This improves player growth, creativity, and makes a much more dynamic PVP environment for all ship classes and skill levels.
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Something else important to note:
Major resources such as Tech moons etc are dependent on holding sovereignty in those systems to properly defend them via cynojammers, jump bridges, etc.
If there is substantial pressure placed on AFK Moon Empires that operate through vast amounts of territory to hold these moons and profit from them, it is more likely that their territory will fail and they'll focus on fewer moons and defend those instead. The remnant would be up for grabs by other ambitious alliances.
More alliances with substantial moon funding = formation of greater number of 'small' player states in various regions of 0.0. This provides more dynamic cosmopolitical gameplay and higher degree of competition and conflict. More fun, more people log in. Positive feedback loop.
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Jules, do you think objective complexes should be "static" or locations/bonuses the defender can build up (not like a POS) and utilize.
For example, might these objective complexes provide certain resources/facilities currently only gained via a POS or Outpost? If the location is captured the capabilities the objective provides is turned off-line until it is either recaptured or the invader owns the system?
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The objectives would be player-deployed, as part of the process to begin holding sov in that system. Already we have two major 'objectives', the TCU and I-Hubs. Perhaps these should be switched to a timer-based approach, thereby alleviating the grind of structure-shooting presently in place.
Important to note: hostile structures like Blockade units could still be required to make the targeting of these objectives possible. This allows defense of systems viable, as it gives several hours of prior notice to the sov holders an attack is taking place. However, once blockade units are successfully onlined, there shouldn't be a massive penalty to the attacker to grind through several hours of shooting structures, waiting for more timers, then more shooting structures.
In hindsight, the changes I've suggested are actually very minimal, replacing unnecessary shooting with timer-based captures of facilities. However, that is still extremely important. Wheras previously a hundred or so pilots would be needed to gank an Ihub, now only 5 or so would be needed, a few people to deploy the blockade units, and a few to camp the TCU and Ihub. People that don't bother to defend their territory would pay the price.
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Pretty sure CCP is looking very closely right now at the idea of timer based objectives, even on existing things like TCUs and stations.
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While those changes would make it easier to *take* space with a small group, I don't see how that would make it any easier to hold if a larger alliance wants it. And unless you can take space in the span of 24 hours, they'll just bring the blob down the next day to roflstomp you for annoying them. so long as more ships/supercaps = victory, I wouldn't expect any changes to the SOV system to really change the nature of nullsec. Maybe the nature of sov war, but not really the map. Easier for the small alliances to take space? sure. But holding it is an entirely different issue - if you can take it quickly, they can take it back. Unless something is changed that allows a smaller alliance to defend its space against a superior force, I don't think much will change.
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Pretty sure CCP is looking very closely right now at the idea of timer based objectives, even on existing things like TCUs and stations.
Cool. Good to know they and I are on the same page. ;)
It's the only possible way to prevent conquests from being proportionally easy to the blobbage you employ.
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But honestly: doesn't it make sense that, in a frontal assault sort of situation, a 6000-pilot alliance can ROFLstomp a 200-pilot alliance?
The trick should be for the 200-pilot alliance to find ways to harass its larger opponent via guerrilla warfare and such. Right now, there's no infrastructure vulnerable to small, quick strikes, and supercapitals mean that a large fleet can move faster than a small fleet.
But I have no problem with the idea that an mechanized infantry division can overrun a light infantry platoon.
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The hit and fade stuff makes sense, and would be great for smaller alliances, but it stil remains that any small alliance could not take and hold any territory, becuase it would be ROFLstomped. And that smaller alliance might want territory for moons, or super-cap construction, etc.
Maybe a re-difination of territory or sov is needed. Or something that says that you can be sneaky and moon mine or build cap ships, just not as well as if you held sov, so now smaller alliances can sneak around building and mining, and the larger alliances have to chase them down if they want them to stop stealing stuff. Like the Rebel Alliance verses the evil Goonswarm, I mean, Galactic, Empire.
Oh, and could be a good introduction to an actual mothership kind of deal. Smaller alliances could buy this ship and it could be mobile, or do any one thing that a POS does, but only one thing at a time. And only works like that in null sec.
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The hit and fade stuff makes sense, and would be great for smaller alliances, but it stil remains that any small alliance could not take and hold any territory, becuase it would be ROFLstomped. And that smaller alliance might want territory for moons, or super-cap construction, etc.
Maybe a re-difination of territory or sov is needed. Or something that says that you can be sneaky and moon mine or build cap ships, just not as well as if you held sov, so now smaller alliances can sneak around building and mining, and the larger alliances have to chase them down if they want them to stop stealing stuff. Like the Rebel Alliance verses the evil Goonswarm, I mean, Galactic, Empire.
Oh, and could be a good introduction to an actual mothership kind of deal. Smaller alliances could buy this ship and it could be mobile, or do any one thing that a POS does, but only one thing at a time. And only works like that in null sec.
Yes, good examples.
Anyway for your first point, if you put in place some size and/or numbers limitations on industrial/infrastructure/military complexes and stuff like that, you can't roflstomp anymore. A bigger alliance would just be able to hold more systems because they would have the numbers to defend more infrastructure. Okay, my idea is very basic, but you get the idea.
Another thing : timers are lame. I am dealing with this daily in FW, trust me, its fucking boring. Use more evolved mechaisms, like escorting assault boarding companies to capture space structures (or killing them if you are on the other side), for example.
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EDIT : speaking of the mothership revamp, I would love so much to see limitations on supercaps use. The big deal currently is that they are too much powerful compared to standard caps, making the latter more or less useless when you have money to field as many as supercaps you want. This is wrong. Before that, we had weak motherships, that were not used because they were not very better. In either case, whatever you do, one kind of ship or the other becomes irrelevant.
To fix that, I do think that supercaps should be unique ships on the battlefield, much like a commandship or a command T3 ship : you just need one, more means they are useless.
- You could have motherships like their name truly means : commandships with great fleet bonuses (not the same as commandships, it could be very various : mining, industry, bonuses on capitals, POS, TCUs, etc). Motherships could also be like moving POSes : when in "reinforced mode" (with some kind of reinforcing module, like triage or siege), they would be unable to move or fight anymore, but they would get the ability to project a POS forcefield, allowing more time to an endangered fleet to recover or call for help. They could also be a new kind of production facilities, in which you put A LOT more resources than for a standard ship/ammo/ modules production but where it produces them faster enough to be of some use on the battlefield, or in siege situations. I want to see motherships like in homeworld.
- Titans ? I would like to see a damn tracking penalty on doomsdays. If the target moves of even 0.1 m/s, it should miss. So they could only shot capitals on siege/triage, or structures. With the jumpbridge ability, the titan is the offensive variant of the defensive/jack-of-all-trades mothership.
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So how hard would it be to implement a mechanic, with various exploration sites that scales to how many people fleet warp into a site when it is first discovered? Probably to be controlled by the warp in at the acceleration gate.
For example, I scan out a mining site by myself and am looking for some solo mining. I go back get my hulk and spend then next few hours clearing out the site.
Or I scan out a mining site, but there are 12 of my friends in corp who are ready for a nice relaxing couple of hours mining away and BSing. We warp to the site and activate the gate as a fleet, there is now 13 ish times more minerals in the asteroids or more asteroids, and we spend about the same amount of time but probably a little faster with fleet bonuses clearing out a reward that is the same as if we did it solo.
I don't see why this couldn't be done for many different exploration sites. Though there would be problems with dumb people opening sites solo and ruining it for others, but if the respawn rate of the sites was good then it shouldn't kill the whole day's worth of sites.
Not at all hard, it turns out :)
I approve of this development in a general, non-nullsec related sense.
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I really like the idea of making the Super-Capitals more about being bases of operations.
The Titans become the offensive mobile bases/stations and the Motherships defensive mobile bases/stations. A large combat oriented corporation might maintain a few Titans and a few Motherships for campaigns. "Light POSs" with some production capability (ammo, rigs, modules, maybe even T1 Frigates, Destroyers, and Cruisers) depending on the configuration. They should not have research capabilities.
As for scalable content based on PCs present... I am not sure that is a good thing or aligns with the idea that teamwork is required to succeed in nullsec.
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At present, most exploration content is done by solo players or at most a dude and his scanner alt, yes? So scaling would allow for the introduction of teamwork to the money-making process. I suppose it's not required, but at the moment it's nonexistent, and it increases the "can", which is one of the stated design goals.
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I think part of the problem there is that we have lots of ships that are very powerful and exploration content developed when Battleships, especially fleets of Battleships were a big deal.
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Many of the more remarkable wars and battles in the past were between 1:3 odds or worse forces, and the 1 winning over the 3.
Now, of course, if the 3 has its shit together, and is competent, uses strategy, and is properly deployed to engage the enemy effectively, they will win. But if the 3 is a blob of slobbering key-pushers, The 1 can and will win.
The timer mechanic shifts the current conquest from "right click, jump to cyno, press F1, Press F2" (jump in dreads, siege, fire guns), to more pervasive, dynamic combat that requires movement, maneuver, and strategy. For example, if the enemy decides to prioritize the defence of a particular objective, and concentrates its forces there, instead of the enemy, which deploys the same number of ships to all objectives simultaneously, the defender can defeat one fleet and move on to the next ala Napoleonic Corps warfare, marching down the enemy's line of battle with concentrated fire.
Above all, the key is to make it more interesting and dependent on player creativity and skill. That is the only salvation to 0.0 warfare.
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I have trouble envisioning any mechanics that give small alliances against larger ones simply because any benefit to smalls will also work for the larger ones. Larger entities have exponentially more trouble micromanaging themselves, but I do not think a correctly functioning mega-alliance will be seriously endangered or crippled by the acts of smaller organizations. Note I emphasize correctly functioning, most mega-alliances I've fought had all kinds of internal problems that were exploited against them.
The current alliance metagame I'm not familiar with, so take this as you will.
One thing I'd mention. The meta of EVE has changed over the years quite a bit. At one point in time, a group that was well-skilled and organized with the best hardware could make an impact on the battlefield against superior numbers. Mercenary Coalition comes to mind as such an entity. That's no longer the case though. It's also no longer the case that there are any sorts of ships or technologies that are limited or rare on the EVE battlefield, and this is where numbers began to win out. Resourcefulness and skill don't matter in an EVE where every alliance can field 500 drakes and you see groups dropping fleets of supercapitals that put the BS gangs of yore to shame. At that point it simply becomes a numbers and wealth game, and in cases where both sides have numbers and wealth, it simply boils down to leadership and morale.
While there's something to be said for leadership and morale winning the day, when the test is to see which alliance disbands first due to the mind-numbing grind of sov warfare, it's also not working.
I certainly don't have suggestions or I'd already be making them, but I'd just like to note that there actually was a time in EVE where a smaller group with the top-of-the-line technology, leadership, and high-class pilots combined with deep pockets allowed them to make an impact on the battlefield against much larger enemies. If nothing else, that made for more interesting battles and more interesting politics. It wasn't just about who could recruit the most drake pilots, it was about who could afford the allies that would have the most impact, or who could press the intel advantage or use espionage and subterfuge to annul the advantage granted by such a group.
Anything that might make the above a possibility again is something I could get behind, because frankly even sov warfare was more interesting to follow when it wasn't simply two sides grinding themselves out of the game until only one is left, but several groups with wildcard entities and less predictability when it came down to who would eventually win out.
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The smaller, better equiped, better pilot thing reminds me of when AHACs were rampaging around eating battleships and such like despite being outnumbered. Obviously, a counter was eventually found to this (drakeblobs that can keep range or huginns in an alpha fleet). But at this point, I'm not sure if there's anything in the game that makes this possible again - maybe when t3 frigs come along?
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I remain heavily convinced that a significant portion of what Bacc describes is the result of a significant inequality between the supply and demand portions of the games. While Exodus gave us mining barges, they were incredibly expensive at first; similarly, Exhumers appeared in Red Moon Rising, but were rare because of the nature of the T2 BPO lottery.
With Revelations I, however, the invention process combined with increasing minerals being pumped out by L4 missions, 0.0 belt rat loot, and those already-existing mining barges resulted in an ever-increasing number of Exhumers being dumped on the market, in turn increasing the process. It's been going this way ever since.
Perhaps I'm unfairly laying things on Exhumers as well - L4 missions, FW, PI, and the Dominion 0.0 changes all resulted in ISK and minerals pouring into the market for comparitively little effort. The end result of all of this has led to one point: There is no longer any struggle for resources in EVE Online. Alliances do not hoard T2 supplies solely for themselves because it's a poor economic policy; the mineral required to build a titan or supercarrier can now be acquired in weeks or even days rather than months; a relatively new character can go from zero wallet to hundreds of millions of ISK in a relatively short term.
Furthermore, without supply being an issue anymore, it is no longer possible to strike a single, killing blow to a hostile alliance (yes, I'm aware of the potential of inducing failcascade, using a spy to run off with all their stuff, etc... I'm speaking of military, conventional blows, a la Lotka Volterra loosing their baby titan). Hell, the supply glut means that even massive fleet battles with hundreds, if not thousands of ships lost are rarely crippling to the looser.
/rant
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There was an attempt at something like that a few weeks back when PL was going at Goons, they tried to buy up every huginn on the market and cripple the alpha fleet that needs those webs and painters to hit ahacs and tengus. There was a tempororary (at best) shortage of them, and then everyone saw the spiking prices and flooded the market. There is simply no way to completely take over the supply. Admittedly, the market is probably still feeling the shocks from that, T2 prices are up across the board, but that just means more iskies for the producers.
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Its fun to read all these and in some way nod in approval or wonder just how much i (or others) can understand and portray emergent mechanics of many players involved with one another. I bet CCP is in much theorycrafting as any of us.
So i just wanted to add a few views of my own.
For me, one of the big dissapointments with EvE fleet battles, be epic or small gang, is that there is little option to actually "flank" an enemy fleet. And in reality, with the current 3d mechanics of the engine, when we warp out in space, it does not matter if you are up or down or left.....as long as you are in range and lock it, you can fire and therefor battle against each other. But you can hardly "outrun" or "outflank" your opponent. I always wondered why regions did not provide for multiple alternative paths inside them to flank opposing fleets through the use of "sideway" gates and routes....... Chokepoints you say? of course i would love to have those, but between regions...not in constellations, nor in single systems in the middle of the dam whole region. it would also make regions themselves a more distinctive location, with plenty of people travelling around it, with very specific entry/exit points with high-traffic. Such a change is drastic, since it will alter the entire cluster landscape but i cannot stop wondering how many fleets would get smashed with such geography.
Also, on the topic of holding terrrioty, it also seemed strange that a sovereign nation could put up their flag "anywhere", just place a POS and no matter wether it was 5 or 25 jumps away from the nearest claimed system, it was the same. For me territory benefits should come to those who have are able to set a contiguous border and hold it on their own. I would not remove the option to actually put a POS anywhere you want, but in order to really get the benefits of Sov holding, it should be a contiguous "land", and therefore recognizable by other sov holders (specially CONCORD and the Empire in political context).
Finally on the issue of capitals and supercapitals. My view is very simple actually
Dreads: Gun Heavy hitters, both against structures and other capitals, siege cycle shorter (2-3 mins?). Best jump range.
Carriers: The logistics/supply backbone, up to 5 fighters only (no damage bonuses), fighters being defensive drones against capitals triage cycle shorter (2-3 mins?). No ability to use ganglinks at all. Best jump range.
SuperCarriers: The offensive backbone, up to 10 fighters/fighter bombers (5 from skills, 5 from supercap skill bonus on ship) and bonuses to them, no ganglinks at all, no jumpclone or ECM burst abilities. Average jump range
Titans: The command forward base, Ganklink centric (with uber fleet bonuses?), with DD, clone vat bays, and portals. Plenty of hangar space (30-40 BSs in maintenance hangar) and corporate hangar (equal to a POS hangar array), with up to 5 fighters. Worst jump range.
Removal of rigs to all caps/supercaps (in itself is just nonsense that i can rig a 14km long ship). In my less than well informed view, this could balance capships bewtween themselves and against sub-cap fleets, suddenly the spider tank holding the large supercap fleet has a weak point, the carrier, and they can be neuted and destroyed by subcaps.
As for the development of 0.0....well........i can't say much, but would love to see moons changed to degrees of metallicity, so you get random quantities of moongo up and down (ie: an uber moon gives tech/dyspro/caes and next time another result with mixed stuff centered around one of the particular rarities), with moon miners placed outside the POS shields so they could be sabogated but not destroyed. It would solve the technetium bottleneck and would also give an average "value" to a moon, but not absolute isk value per hour.
Would love to see destroyable outposts or the ability to set Treaties, but those features might be so complex that i wonder how such game tools could actually help 0.0 somehow.
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Dreads: Gun Heavy hitters, both against structures and other capitals, siege cycle shorter (2-3 mins?). Best jump range.
Carriers: The logistics/supply backbone, up to 5 fighters only (no damage bonuses), fighters being defensive drones against capitals triage cycle shorter (2-3 mins?). No ability to use ganglinks at all. Best jump range.
SuperCarriers: The offensive backbone, up to 10 fighters/fighter bombers (5 from skills, 5 from supercap skill bonus on ship) and bonuses to them, no ganglinks at all, no jumpclone or ECM burst abilities. Average jump range
Titans: The command forward base, Ganklink centric (with uber fleet bonuses?), with DD, clone vat bays, and portals. Plenty of hangar space (30-40 BSs in maintenance hangar) and corporate hangar (equal to a POS hangar array), with up to 5 fighters. Worst jump range.
What is the difference between your supercarriers and your dreads ?
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Not Bruno, but looking at this, if this were to happen, I would say this is what fleet doctrine would become.
Dreads and Carriers become the premire strike fleet again, as they have the best range and compliment each other. Dreads can cycle out of siege in time to be repped by the carriers going into triage. However, I don't think you could take territory with these, neither has staying power. So, mostly the first strike or raiding fleets with these I think.
Supercarriers become the heavy hitters, but with reduced range they are more ships that you have to either support (fuel dumps) or keep close to home. If I were running everything, I would be tempted to use them for defense, and not send them out unless I was in the final stage of a battle to take something.
Titans again, I would use as a forward defense base, to support the supercarriers. With bad jump range, I doubt I would ever use them for attack, unless the need for shock and awe won out.
I don't know what it would do about sov, but it would give dreads a role again, I think.
EDIT: Just adding on an idea that came up five seconds ago.
Personally, I would love for carriers and super-carriers to fit their roles better. Carriers are really nothing more that extra large logistics ships, so really make them that. Most of the bonuses are related to that, so keep that and let the fighters be something like putting light drones on a Guardian. Sure you can, but why? Then on the other side of the coin, make super-carriers less super. Make then dockable like carriers, give them about the same HP as carriers, etc. However, give them the ability to assign their fighter bombers as well as fighters, maybe even give them more fighter or fighter bombers to play with. Then, instead of dropping in with the attacking fleet, they jump to someplace else in the attacked system and assign their dps. When the attacked force sees the fighter bombers, they now have the choice of killing the dps, or trying to find and kill the carrier.
But that is mostly me and my dislike of something called a "carrier" being in the front lines of a fight.
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What is the difference between your supercarriers and your dreads ?
If both were on the field at the same time, it would be like comparing a harbinger with a myrmidon. Both do the same, but use different weaponry.
However from another perspective, which is operational range, dreads become more flexible. You deploy "insurable" caps to make beacheads (once cynojammer is down) into enemy territory and then bring in the supercaps to provide fleet projection. Titans become the staging mobile base moving behind the front lines, but can also serve as reinforcement to the offensive or defensive fleet (that is if uber-ganglink bonuses are accounted) to hold position.
However my suggestion does not completely resolve one issue, proliferation of supercaps. Carriers logistics might become the weak link , and therefore other supercaps might be endangered if their tank-backbone is taken out, but you really don't put the supercaps at risk.
I've been trying to come up with some answer to that, and the only concept that spurs to my mind is "a parked supercap". In all intents it would be quite the juciy target for any confrontation, but it would require some sort of mechanism to lock the ship in a sort of POS array solely to one character. And not have it "floating" inside a POS or "tied" to a char for the rest of its eve game life. If that would happen, then i bet we would see some more risky fleet maneuvers to target strategic goals inside enemy lines.
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Carriers: The logistics/supply backbone, up to 5 fighters only (no damage bonuses), fighters being defensive drones against capitals triage cycle shorter (2-3 mins?). No ability to use ganglinks at all. Best jump range.
Why only 5 fighters and no damage bonus out of curiosity? Right now a carrier's damage is so inconsequential as to not matter. A carrier 5 Thanatos is 1250 dps. By comparison, an RR Geddon is 1150. That's not particularly out of line with anything IMO.
Removal of rigs to all caps/supercaps (in itself is just nonsense that i can rig a 14km long ship). In my less than well informed view, this could balance capships bewtween themselves and against sub-cap fleets, suddenly the spider tank holding the large supercap fleet has a weak point, the carrier, and they can be neuted and destroyed by subcaps.
I don't see how this would change anything about spider tanking at all. You don't cap rig carriers for RR abilities as much as you do for fast jumping. Strip the CCCs off of an Archon and you can still run 2 CRAR for 27 minutes if you circle-jerk 2 CETs with another Archon. With implants that's probably cap stable, and in particular if you have the bonus from an Avatar or even simple Damnation bonuses you're probably cap stable. What it'd probably do more than anything is gimp the Niddy and Thanny enough that major fleet battles would be taken over heavily by Archon/Chimera and/or you'd see the Chimeras go more cap-battery fit (you can armor tank a Chimmy to get more EHP than a Thanatos and have it act as a cap battery by using all of its mids for recharge and highs for cap transfer).
I can see the argument applying to trimarks on supercaps, but I'm not entirely sure nerfing their EHP significantly would really fuck with their survivability. Ultimately it's more about who has the bigger force to rep/kill hics/cap up than who has the bigger buffer. If you're tackled/neuted/don't have the DPS to simply chase them off the field, you're going down whether it takes 20 seconds or 10 minutes. That said, my personal uses for my Nyx differ widely from what most major alliances do with theirs, so a lot of what I'm talking about is theorycrafted too. But I can tell you that my t2 trimarks on my Nyx are wholly irrelevant. The only time I was in danger, no amount of tank would have saved me. My fleet doing the right things and their fleet derping is what saved me. In short, I'm not sure how removing the rigs would substantially change the current supercap meta.
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What is the difference between your supercarriers and your dreads ?
If both were on the field at the same time, it would be like comparing a harbinger with a myrmidon. Both do the same, but use different weaponry.
So, I also suppose supercarriers prices would get in line with dreads prices ? Because in the current state of things, nobody with a sane mind would use a myrmidon that costs 20 times more (600M), and would instead use a harbinger (30M).
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I can see the argument applying to trimarks on supercaps, but I'm not entirely sure nerfing their EHP significantly would really fuck with their survivability. Ultimately it's more about who has the bigger force to rep/kill hics/cap up than who has the bigger buffer. If you're tackled/neuted/don't have the DPS to simply chase them off the field, you're going down whether it takes 20 seconds or 10 minutes. That said, my personal uses for my Nyx differ widely from what most major alliances do with theirs, so a lot of what I'm talking about is theorycrafted too. But I can tell you that my t2 trimarks on my Nyx are wholly irrelevant. The only time I was in danger, no amount of tank would have saved me. My fleet doing the right things and their fleet derping is what saved me. In short, I'm not sure how removing the rigs would substantially change the current supercap meta.
What it would nerf is the ability to logoffski a fleet to save it. knock the EHP by 30% or so and it's just that much easier to take them down before they disappear. Not a big deal for your use, since you're not in a position to survive by logoffski, but for fleets including a lot more supers, it matters. Sorta.
Personally, I have a bigger issue with the same rig that fits a BS fitting a Titan. Make XL rigs and I'll be happier.
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So, I also suppose supercarriers prices would get in line with dreads prices ? Because in the current state of things, nobody with a sane mind would use a myrmidon that costs 20 times more (600M), and would instead use a harbinger (30M).
uhhh good point, but i didn't try to put it that way. I was just trying to say that both ships serve the role of DPS projection, yet they use different guns.
Supercarriers have their Fighter bombers, Dreads their turret guns.
So, tyring to be fair to your point i suppose all caps/supercaps should have the same jump range, and therefore you will be able deploy them both to defensive and frontline engagements.
Still, none of my suggestions actually make caps/supercaps die as often as they should :cry:
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The second bit of the 0.0 blog. (http://www.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid=946)
I don't know, some of these things sound interesting, even if I think that the major null sec alliances will game or control all of them sooner or later, unless CCP completely breaks the game. Really I think that CCP has this all wrong though. Why has their focus always been to get everyone to move to null sec? Everything about null sec from CCP has always seemed like they have some sort of metric about population in null sec and they won't get a bonus if there are not enough people or something. And if this is a sandbox game, why is null sec the only end game. It seems with these blogs they are trying to please everyone and will therefore please no-one.
I posted in the smallholding thread that the idea wasn't really good for the scale of null sec. Honestly, High sec is about the NPC empires, null sec is about the player empires, nothing in either place can really be done about individules or small groups. But something like smallholding in lowsec I think would be great, simply because almost everything in low sec is small groups, excepting FW. So you could have one small group trying to set something up, and another small group can try to tear it down, balanced (as much as anything is in EvE) and simple.
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FW is also "small", the largest blobs are 50-60 peeps at most but such large fleets are very rare.
The usual is 15-20 and sometimes even less when it comes to plexing duties (4-5 the usual).
I would love to see "sovereignity" for small organizations in low-sec, and sovereignity for large organizations in null-sec.
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I jumped out of my chair and did a little dance when I read about the NPC 0.0 ideas. Fuck yeah. Do want! It's pretty retarded that at around 8.00 faction standings Angel rats decide they can still fire on me. I try to hug them and tell them I love them but it just doesn't work T_T
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Some bits of that looked like decently good ideas, and there were some things which sounded kind of cool but I thought might break down in the long-term... and then there were some bits that made me kind of go "Have you people ever run a nullsec alliance? Ever lived in nullsec? Ever watched how they work there?"
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Provided some feedback in the Industry thread. It really lead to me saying re-look at how Starbases work and making it so that the untrusted can help run & operate expensive stuff like Starbases.
Other than possibly redistributing moons (OMG I know), I do not think much needs to change on the raw resources end to make T2 industry in 0.0 mostly self-sufficient. The real trick is making that option more appealing than high-sec (or low sec :( ).
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Sorry for the double post, but I think it is worth it.
Based on what I have read, CCP is trying to guide player activity. CCP Greyscale gave kudos (http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1565835&page=2#59) to a concept presented by Holy One.
My issue with the statement by Holy One is that there is nothing stopping player alliance leadership from moving down this path other than will/desire to do so.
The tools may be cumbersome, but in my opinion the means to do so is present.
I have posted a longer version of my response in the thread. I thought it worth discussing here, the idea that player decisions & policies, not game mechanics shape null sec.