3/17/22 - Singularity Updated - Rorqual Conduit Jump

EVE Technology and Research Center Upcoming Features & Changes
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Hello Fellow Capsuleers,

Some time ago you saw a glimpse of plans for the Rorqual to get the ability to conduit jump with other mining ships, to help it get mining fleets into position with ease. These changes are now on singularity and we’d love for your assistance in testing them.

Along with these changes we’ve done some large scale refactoring of how the jump harmonics code works with the goal of allowing us to add and change jump functionality with ease in the future (what can portal/conduit, what ships can use which beacons, what ships can take the conduits and all such things relating to jump mechanics). Everything should continue to work as it did before, with the exception of the new Rorqual changes in this build.

As of today those changes are now on Singularity to test! You can find the new Rorqual module under the name of “Industrial Jump Portal Generator”. This module functions similarly to the Black Ops module in that it allows for the Rorqual to both create a ‘bridge’ for other mining ships (barges, mining frigates and exhumers), as well as conduit jump with them to the destination. The Rorqual is also gaining the ability to jump to industrial cynos!

Please try out this new module, give us your thoughts and let us know if you run into any issues.

Questions and Answers
Q: How many ships can it take with the conduit?
A: 30

Q: What types of ships can use the portal / conduit?
A: Exhumers, Barges, and the mining frigates (venture, endurance, and prospect)

Q: No Porpoise?
A: Not at this time, under consideration. It was just a bit odd to include the Porpoise but leave out the Orca.

Q: Won’t this make it too easy to yeet a mining fleet to safety?
A: The conduit jump cannot be used while the the Indycore is active - this limits the chance that they just instantly blink a fleet out to safety and should allow for tackle / dictors to get into place in most cases. If players take to sitting non-indycore rorqs in belts as an extra means of escape, that too would be a risky move as there’s a potential to zone out and be too slow (and the risk of being caught by a blue scout is high). I think in this case we’re still happy to have the rorqs out in space and capable of being caught.

Q: Won’t this open up the possibility for people to drop battle Rorquals?
A: Given that rorquals are more vulnerable outside of asteroid belts and FAX aren’t able to follow them through it may simply be okay to open room up for this to be a possibility (they could have done it already with recons, this is just a cheaper cyno option). A group that becomes know for doing this frequently opens themselves up quite wide for a counter drop and is likely to lose a lot of Rorqs. Particularly at the current price of capitals, this seems like an okay balance.

Q: Wait, so it’s called the Industrial Jump Portal Generator but it doesn’t actually jump Industrials?
A: Yeah. We agree that’s a bit confusing and the name is likely to change.

As with anything we’ll monitor and adjust if any of these things prove to be too strong.

Known Issues in this test build

  • You cannot currently create a corporation
  • Directional and probe scanner windows are not working at this time
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How cool! Now my Rorqual friends can jump my 25 bucks Retriever around.

19 Likes
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I don’t think allowing them to jump to indy cynos is the best idea given their offensive capabilities.

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I think it’s kinda whatever, after all, 10 marshals can also currently jump out of that cyno.

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been kinda dumb that the capital indy ship can’t jump to an indy cyno…i’m happy with this change

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how many ships can be moved and what ships can be moved with the bridge/conduit jump?

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It can take up to 30 ships - only Exhumers, Barges, and the mining frigates (Venture, Prospect, and Endurance)

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I’m really happy to hear the Rorqual is getting an industrial jump portal generator!

However, I’m sceptical about the conduit jump part of it. Have you considered the negatives of a conduit jumping mining command ship?

1. Competition with PANIC as a defensive action, yet without the content

The Rorqual currently has a PANIC, which was designed to protect their fleet temporarily until defenders have formed to fight the attackers, which provides content for both roaming groups and home-defense groups.

The Conduit jump would fill a similar defensive role, except it just pulls all mining ships in range to safety (including the ones that aren’t paying attention), which means the roaming group and defenders will be without fight.

The PANIC was designed with a good purpose, and I’m afraid this conduit jump will replace that purpose with a far stronger defensive play which is far less interesting for everyone else involved.

2. How the Conduit jump takes fellow fleet members, regardless of them paying attention

As there is no confirmation window, a Conduit jump takes all fleet members within range.

All fleet members, which includes:

  • the miners who forgot to pay attention because they’re watching netflix,
  • the 30 multiboxed barges/exhumers
  • fellow miners on a bio break…

The Rorqual pilot would just takes them all to safety, instantly, with one click.

Conduit jumps therefore provide easy scalability, a platform for heavy multiboxing fleets or AFK mining fleets where just one player or client has to pay attention.

While I do understand that these massive industrial ships should improve mining fleets - and I completely agree with that - I do still think that those individual miners should be responsible for their own safety.

With a conduit jump these pilots won’t have to be paying attention to the game anymore, they just let the Rorqual pilot deal with that.

Industrial conduit jump versus industrial jump bridge:

An Industrial portal generator is awesome and I’m glad you’re adding it! It can do everything you want the conduit jump to do:

  • bridge a mining fleet directly to the ore
  • bridge a mining fleet directly back home

Yet it does all those awesome things so without the negative effects of the conduit jump on the game:

  • No competition with PANIC as ‘defensive’ option, as a bridge takes time and puts the Rorqual in danger if a hostile fleet is approaching
  • Requires other miners in fleet to be paying attention in order to make use of it

My recommendation:

Yes, please add the Industrial Jump Portal Generator!

But please reconsider the conduit jump ability. It isn’t needed and as far as I can tell, the negative consequences for the game outweigh the positives.

1 Like
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Will I be able to buy exhumers on the neocom store to go with my rorqual?

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Why is “content” for pvpers always more important than efficiency and functionality for indy players? Aside from borking the entire indy process for most indy players, CCP’s insistence that indy players always remain pvp’s number one go-to for “content” is the reason so many indy players have given up. Screw the pvpers.

5 Likes
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@NESTExec I don’t know if you have noticed, but this entire game is about doing PvE in a PvP universe. Every ship is designed with stats both in a PvE and a PvP perspective. That doesn’t mean PvE ships can do PvP well, but their stats are such that the interaction between PvE and PvP is interesting for all people involved.

I’m no PvP player looking for PvE players for content. I’m an EVE player who wishes to see balance between all aspects. I do both PvP and PvE and I believe there should be a balance between the two, where it would be bad for the game if PvP was too strong, but also bad if PvE was capable of completely ignoring PvP.

Conduit jumps for Rorquals are a step in the wrong direction, I fear.

2 Likes
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Any chance to include porpoises, at least specifically for the bridge functionality? Hard to imagine mining fleet without one :smiley:

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Worst case you put the Porpoise in the SMB and the Porpoise pilot in a Venture. :wink:

(Oh wait, that only works if the Rorqual is coming too. For smaller fleets that wouldn’t work…)

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Battle Rorquals jumping out of Ventures incoming!

Are you sure about that?

I mean, it’s great that the capital industrial ship can now jump to industrial cynos, I always thought it was a bit strange that it couldn’t. On the other hand, because of the combat capabilities of Rorquals it kind of made sense not to go back to a situation where cheap <1m ships can summon big capital ships to fight.

Anyway, I guess this kind of already is possible with an extra step if you first jump in a Blops to light the cyno for the Rorqual. A bit extra hassle, more things that can go wrong, limited 8 ly instead of 10, but it is possible.

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These things have all been considerations.

Competing with PANIC as a defensive action

The conduit jump cannot be used while the the Indycore is active - this limits the chance that they just instantly blink a fleet out to safety and should allow for tackle / dictors to get into place in most cases. If players take to sitting non-indycore rorqs in belts as an extra means of escape, that too would be a risky move as there’s a potential to zone out and be too slow (and the risk of being caught by a blue scout is high). I think in this case we’re still happy to have the rorqs out in space and capable of being caught.

Battle Rorqual Drops

Given that rorquals are more vulnerable outside of asteroid belts and FAX aren’t able to follow them through it may simply be okay to open room up for this to be a possibility (they could have done it already with recons, this is just a cheaper cyno option). A group that becomes know for doing this frequently opens themselves up quite wide for a counter drop and is likely to lose a lot of Rorqs. Particularly at the current price of capitals, this seems like an okay balance.

As with anything we’ll monitor and adjust if any of these things prove to be too strong.

5 Likes
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Thanks, that covers my concerns!

(Well, it didn’t cover my point that AFK fleet members can soon be saved with conduit jumps, but I guess fleet warps could do the same right now. :stuck_out_tongue: )

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This was considered but left out because we didn’t want to include the Orca (just due to concerns about this being too strong a tool for material transport). I know that may sound like an odd reason, but they’re related ships in a sense. I’ll think on it.

3 Likes
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Considering the Porpoise is meant as a low mass and maneuverable unit, I think it would make some sense for it to be able to indy portal/conduit jump, with the explaination for the Orca not being able with it being too massive to be transferred with the power and fuel available to the Rorqual

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I like how current cap price don’t seem to be an issue In the FAQ =)

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That’s fair, if you did I’d probably be here like “Hey, but why not orca since porpoise can?”. :smile:

But I’ll tell you why - it’s schrodingers capital, so it’s too heavy for such operations :smiley:

2 Likes