Allow Capital Ships, Supercarriers, and Titans in Highsec

EVE Technology and Research Center Player Features & Ideas
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Game Mechanic Change: The ability for Capital ships to activate and travel through Highsec stargates, this would be the only mechanic change in this proposal.

Why this should be implemented?

I have always been a believer in the need for different regions of the game to work together, especially with the very large and realistic game economy that EVE Online has. I view capital ships as the shiny toys that everyone wants, they are effective, they are big, and can serve as great content generators. In addition, I also love to see capital ships get destroyed in fights, not only because of the fun that such fights tend to cause, but because destruction of assets is healthy to the economy, as it stimulates demand in order to replace that which is lost.

Therefore, I propose to allow Capital ships all the way up to Titans to be allowed in highsec. The only change will be the gate mechanics, the superweapons would be banned, both for balance and for lore reasons, cynosural generators will also be banned, in order to force decisions between travel and useful fits, and all capital ships will not be allowed to dock in NPC stations, carriers must use fortizar outposts, and supercarriers and titans must use keepstars, hopefully causing many fights as groups strive to drop outposts to escape their capital tombs, and to make a capital in highsec an expensive toy, both in purchase, and in storage.

In addition, since capitals will only be able to be built in lowsec, nullsec, and wormhole space, with supercarriers and titans being exclusive to nullsec builders, this would help to buff the recently nerfed nullsec region, as the vast highsec demand can only be met by nullsec alliances with upgraded solar systems. Does an alliance gain riches by selling these ships to eager highseccers, or conserve them to further their own fleet strength? Finally, this would help increase the revenue for CCP Games, as players with deep pockets would want to show off their new toys by buying plex, helping to increase revenue.

Flaws in this proposal include more power to capsuleers for missions, incursions, and invasions. This can be countered by having missions be buffed with extra high speed frigates that exclusively attack fighters, to add annoyance to the mission runner in exchange for his new power, incursions are now limited to only one spawn at a time, meaning mass contests and friction between capsuleers, and invasions can easily have a dreadnaught that spawns in presence of capitals, similar to a wormhole escalation.

In addition, presence of capitals for the highsec wars would help drive up demand for capital ships, both to kill structures and defend them. This would also open up an avenue for nullsec alliances to wage war across the game, as striking your rivals capital reserves in highsec, and controlling key solar systems with capitals, is now a valid option.

Thank you for reading my proposal, I hope it helps you to both think of new ideas in order to improve this great game, and to come up with improvements in order to make my idea even better.

EDIT: I would also combine this proposal with a broad nerf to total capital hitpoints, reduction in starting resist, and increase in mineral cost, to better balance cost with effectiveness. A high end battleship is around 500m-1.5B isk in value, thus the tank of a carrier shouldn’t be that much greater than a battleship, instead the price gives you jump drive capability and increased damage and application vs a battleship. Same with supercarriers, several million hitpoints and an increase in mineral cost is balanced, compared to the price of a frigate through a battleship. Having such a high jump from battleship to capital ship is arguably the biggest contributor to the capital supremacy doctrine that dominates the nullsec meta.

EDIT: Another balancing feature that would help make CCP money is to release a ‘licensing’ fee for each capital that you want to enter highsec. This license lasts until you leave highsec, and will be on a scaling feature, say 1000 Plex for carrier/dread, 3000 plex for a supercarrier, and 5000 plex for a titan.

8 Likes
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All that would achieve is make RMT with ships way easier.

In HS they will be a content dampener - staging HS wars will become that much harder and group with most caps/supers wins.

If anything supercapitals and rorquals should be banned from LS as well.

10 Likes
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You saw how capitals wrecked null and thought;

‘Thats what high sec needs. A way for older players to make even more risk free isk over newer players and a way to oppress newer players in wardecs’.

12 Likes
4

Of the roughly 8000 accessible systems in Eve, only the 1090 highsec systems ban capital ships. Why do people want to homogenize the game, isn’t it more interesting when things work a bit differently in each region of space?

11 Likes
5

This is a bad idea and you should feel bad for suggesting it. You don’t need to own a structure to own a titan. Do you really want Titans in a part of space where the only way to kill them is to gank them?

2 Likes
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No, there may only ever be 1 veldnaught

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It would make for more interesting conflict with regards to highsec wars, especially in the attack and defense of structures. But this would allow for more wars, more combat and destruction, and a reduction in massive citadel proliferation, as it can now be easily killed with capital ships. Finally, dedicated mercenary attack and defense services can now have more influence both as instruments of attack and defense, especially those with capital fleets.

You are correct however in the concept of capitals being vital for wars. I think that can be one of the flaws of my proposal.

1 Like
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Wardecs only occur now if both parties have structures. Many newer players will not be in corps that are wardec eligible, thus they will not be burdened by wars. And the main faucets of highsec income, both incursions and invasions, can easily be looked at to prevent mass amounts of income, more than what is currently provided.

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Because the difference of space is mainly the activity. Highsec is the starter area and the area without constant pvp, it is also the land of civilization, the activities reflect this, both missions, trading, mining, and helping to repell incursions and invasions. Lowsec is more lawless, and is great for small scale pvp with mobility, and pvp among capsuleers who help empires with their skirmish wars. Nullsec is fully lawless, and a place where capsuleers can build both great ships and empires, and fight for control of solar systems. For the players who are great traders, incursion/mission runners, or plex sellers, they shouldn’t be punished by not being allowed to fly the high end ships because of their location.

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You do not have to work a structure to have a titan, but it won’t be able to dock in an NPC station, and thus will be a tomb for your character. Thus the demand for keepstars across highsec will vastly increase, and since their superweapons will be disabled, they will only have XL guns and HAW guns for defense, which can easily be countered with tracking and missile disruption.

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Legacy capitals only exist because capitals were once allowed in highsec.

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I’m 99% sure in a previous update CCP made titans immune to EWAR. Whether or not it rolled back is another story. Do you have any experience at all with the ships you mentioned?

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They are heavily resistant, with an 80% reduction in weapon disruption, however not immune. Thus while still powerful, with enough weapon disruption they can be countered.

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Double posting here but:
Actually yes they should for one Highsec doesn’t belong to us it’s territory for the empires who have already blocked us bringing in both capital and super-capital ships for protection of Their interests. Plus there’s literally nothing to do with them in highsec anyways

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No worries you are responding to my argument. In the lore the empires already have significant counters, both super large titans, and concord protection that instantly shuts down our capsules connection to our ships and makes them very vulnerable to attack. Doomsdays and cynosural fields will be disabled, meaning that the ships will be severely weakened from their optimal projection in nullsec. And with the new tax increases in order to defend against triglavians, allowing supercarriers and titans to be bought and sold in keepstars in empire space could help raise revenues for the empires, with them no minding so long as the capsuleers cannot use superweapons or cynosural beacons for travel.

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Redundant thread. A very similar topic to this one is already being discussed here (and actually has been for some time).

Reported.

1 Like
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Not redundant, your idea is much more limiting than mine. You do not want supercarriers, rorquals, or titans in highsec, my idea proposes that. You don’t want capitals to do PVE, my idea allows that. And finally, you want restrictions of highsec sec status, permanent suspect status, immediate empire retaliation, if standings are not good enough, effectively, your idea has too many restrictions and penalties for the game to derive a benefit.

The only change that will be had is for capitals, supercarriers, and titans to be able to activate highsec stargates. Nothing else will be changed, the limiting mechanics of no doomsdays, cynos, and docking for supercarriers and titans should still remain for balance purposes. I would think of my idea as the way to promote yours, you want to try and promote carriers by making them nearly useless in highsec, however the best gameplay is always gameplay that benefits both the player, with his capital ship, and the community, with the content that can be derived from it.

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Terrible idea for reasons already stated.

-1

3 Likes
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So topics as diverse as probe scan mechanics, local, heat damage, and actual cloaking can get merged into one mega-thread about AFK cloaking because it’s all related and redundant, but since we’re both proposing allowing capital ships into hisec just by different ways that’s all fine and good and we should just let topics proliferate and dilute the overall conversation?

Well, CCP gets the final say obviously, but I hope you can see where I’m going with this…

EDIT: And it’s not only redundant with my thread, it’s redundant with this thread too.

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Sorry, but this is very detached from reality.