And that was my point above about not nerfing for best case.
The cargo issue can be solved by making a significant amount of it a special hold rather than base cargo. Or just finally give cargo extenders a stacking penalty which then allows a rebalance of cargo space in all the larger ships including larger combat ships who have artificially low cargo space just to stop 8 cargo extender battleships.
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Ideally stacking penalties should apply to rig hp modules, after all they are all % bonus and not a static bonus like armor plates.
Always thought that was odd.
In the past they lowered it so that net net there is no change.
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That isnât entirely true across all the variables involved.
And doesnât work when you consider such a wide range of options that rigs would give.
You have to average it out across all possibilities or you end up with a nerf no matter how you rig it.
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This is why I think the idea is basically bad and pointless.
Hauling gameplay is currently pretty bad. The entire ecosystem is designated prey and predator setup. It doesnât make for engaging gameplay. This was recognised for low and null with jump freighters a decade ago. I donât understand why everyone wants to keep forcing the already recognised terrible gameplay on high.
This is not to say ganking as an idea is bad or that there is an issue with how much happens. itâs to say ganking as it happens atm isnât an engaging experience. And one of the things that needs to change is getting away from the modern idea of mega ships that have nothing but cargo space and nothing else on them. And more towards dynamic eras of history for inspiration such as gold galleons and ww2 engineering tanks.
Rig slots on their own wonât achieve this, not really in disagreement there, but there sheer idea that a freighter should just be a giant shuttle and have nothing but what the bare hull comes with is a huge problem.
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Of course nobody said that low slots would be removed in process.
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So, just wanted to point out two more things:
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You keep talking about increased signature radius as if it would be a significant penalty for freighters or jump freighters. Freighters have capital ship sized signature radaii (over 10,000), which means that sucaps will already lock them pretty much instantly, and subcap weapons will already do the maximum theoretical damage to them. In return for an effective non-penalty, freighters and jump freighters would gain the ability to increase their shield resists EHP (either resists or hitpoints) or increase their warp speed. That essentially gives them something for nothing (aside from the ISK cost of the rigs), so this change isnât just about âincreasing flexibilityâ, itâs a straight-out buff.
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You also speak of reduced velocity as if it is a significant penalty for freighters or jump freighters. Unless youâre autopiloting (in which case, you deserve to get ganked), this is also not a significant penalty. Assuming an Armor Rigging skill level of IV, each T1 armor rig will slow down a freighter or jump freighter by about 4-6 m/s. In exchange for that pittance of a speed reduction, freighters or jump freighters could receive a massive boost to their armor EHP (either resists or hitpoints). While not as egregious as the signature radius example above, this would most definitely benefit freighters and jump freighters a massive amount more than it would hurt them, so, again, this wouldnât be âincreasing flexibilityâ, it would largely just be a buff.
I understand that you say youâre not asking for a freighter buff and that you say the rig penalties will offset their bounses, but what youâre asking for is actually a freighter buff in practice because the rig penalties in these two cases donât even come close to offsetting the bonsues when you apply them to a freighter or jump freighter.
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Because it is a get over profession.
Fly big shuttle, win.
Want something more interesting? Do something more interesting.
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Itâs not that I want to keep forcing boring gameplay, itâs that the proposals for making it interesting range from âconvoluted mess that wonât work in realityâ to âprobably breaks the gameâ to â**** off farmer trash, you arenât getting PvP removed from highsecâ. Itâs easy to come up with general ideas like âmake it like piracy in the age of sailing shipsâ, itâs much harder to turn that into viable mechanics that donât break a dozen other things in the process. So, while the system as it is now isnât perfect, it at least functions and that is a decisive argument for keeping it.
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Thatâs a good argument for not doing dumb changes, but not a good argument for not taking a look at the whole system. Yes itâs not easy to do a big change, but letâs at least admit the current design does suck, even if we are scared of changes breaking other things.
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Sure. I admit that the current system is pretty boring, itâs just not an area that seems to have a high potential for successful improvements and therefore I donât think CCP should spend any developer attention on it.
So⌠you donât think a system where industrials could do things like viably form up into small convoys with enough firepower to kill gankers, solo gankers can easily find solo targets, where reps and overheat have enough time to matter and where player knowledge and skills have an impact at gank time (as opposed to the what do I bring question) is a desirable gameplay situation?
Just you know⌠checking that you actually feel that sort of gameplay has no value because that seems to be what you are saying.
No, Iâm saying that I donât think that there is any chance of creating that gameplay, at least not without making massive (and extremely risky) changes to the entire concept of highsec. This is exactly the kind of thing I just mentioned: the idea sounds great as a one-sentence description, but when you try to turn that into actual game mechanics you run straight into near-impossible obstacles.
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Yeah. I disagree that those obstacles are near impossible. I think you are way overstating things.
Yes it is a significant change, not just a number tweak. But hardly the first time in EVE thatâs been done
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And I think you donât understand how the presence of CONCORD enforces the current approach to ganking and prevents any other approach from being realistic. You can make changes that adjust the cost of ganking a target (and therefore the number of targets and rate of attacks), but unless you remove CONCORD the only viable way to kill a target will be suicide ganks using overwhelming DPS to kill a target without any chance of failure.
(Now, if you want to talk about removing CONCORD thatâs a valid idea, but I think we both know there is zero chance of it ever happening.)
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I suppose thereâs a second option: completely change the map to make most highsec into lowsec or NPC nullsec, break up all large highsec regions such that any hauling trip outside the local area requires leaving highsec for at least some of the route, and remove jump freighters entirely. CONCORD stays, but it is effectively taken out of the picture by moving all of the relevant activity into places where CONCORD doesnât exist.
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Significantly increasing the concord timer achieves the same goal without needing removal.
And, as I have already explained, it causes massive problems elsewhere. All you do is trade a lower rate of freighter ganks for a massive increase in attacks on everything else in highsec, quite possibly to the point where it is impossible to do any meaningful PvE anymore because any combat PvE ship will be promptly destroyed and looted the moment it undocks.
And even in the context of freighter ganking everyone is still probably going to use the same basic tactics, just with slight adjustments to the fit. As long as the end result of an attack is still destruction by CONCORD whether you win or lose anyone with any sense is only going to attack when victory is guaranteed. Making the gank ships fit token T1 basic armor plates or shield extenders is hardly a meaningful change.
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Yeah⌠The fact you call having to fit armour plates tokenâŚ
Of course. If CCP are going to keep running events which buff gankers industrials clearly need a buff even in the current system.
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