Chaos Era Continues - Cyno Update

EVE Technology and Research Center Upcoming Features & Changes
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2520

Except it doesn’t. And you don’t limit the practical number that can get to a fight. They can still gate into range. Two months ago, it took us all of 90 minutes to move the main bulk of our supercapital fleet 35 systems. And we weren’t hurrying. Given a little bit of tidi, and we’ve got the time to get anywhere.

And you know what we were using for cynos? Force Recons. This doesn’t slow those supercapital fleets down at all. And it doesn’t change them from an apex force to a support force, because as soon as they start to arrive, they are the fleet you need to deal with. Any other fleet on the grid isn’t as dangerous.

And really, there is no way to limit that number. There’s no way to limit the practical number that can get to a fight. Last year, when PL/FRT attacked the TEST Keepstar, we had our shield fleet there, while our armor fleet was in 6RCQ. And we brought the armor fleet back for that.

Think about that. As soon as TiDi hits, we’ve got the time to move our supercapital fleet from Cloud Ring to Tenerifis, no problem. If we’ve got the time to do that, we’ve got the time to position a half-dozen Falcons. And given the way TiDi works, lighting the cyno and having everyone jump happens well before enemy frigates can lock up that Falcon.

Spool-up time? Cooldowns? They don’t matter. Available manpower means the cynos will get through, if they have to. So trying to do that kind of tiny little ‘easy’ and ‘less painful’ change isn’t going to fundamentally change anything.

You have to change the ships themselves. Rip out supers’ ability to deal with anything smaller than a battleship. For carriers and dreads, make the cut-off battlecruisers. Shorten engagement range so carriers and supers can’t engage at freaking 10,000km anymore (because they still can). And even that’s probably not enough, because eventually, CCP’ll give them back all of that after people whine that their supercapitals should be the most badass things ever.

I’m personally still in favor of ‘just blow them all up’. Tell people they’re getting phased out. Build some week-long event where they can take their supercaps out there and fight against insane odds. Let 'em get some major payout for losing their supercapitals, so they feel like it was worth it. Let them petition to move their supers to a few designated HS systems, disable the jump drives, and then make them follow the same rules as Chribba and Max’s capitals: no gating, and you can’t lock up and interact with any other player ship in them, or you lose it. And after that week, anything that hasn’t been moved and designated as a kind of ‘museum ship’? BOOM. Gone. Blowed up. Don’t care where it was, don’t care who owns it, just nuke it.

But let’s face it, CCP’s not going to do that, so short of that… change their roles completely. As I said two months ago:

But… again, quoting myself here… we all know they’re not going to do any of those things. So they’re not going to fix the stagnation in null.

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2521

To clarify, I was talking more theoretically. Limiting the number on the field in some way would have the effect. How to do it is a different question. I don’t think the current proposed change does it, but it is at least a step in the right direction, and it should help content at the gang level, so I’d rather have it than nothing. For a more complete solution, I went with an abbreviated explanation because I’ve written about it in depth in the past and I didn’t think people would be all that interested in reading it. However, since we’re having a good conversation, I’ll lay it out:

Cynos would come in small, medium, large and capital varieties, with appropriate fitting limitations, or just hard limits on the modules, to prevent smaller ships from using an oversized cyno. Small and medium would have covert varieties. The cynos would have mass limits similar to wormholes. Once the mass is used up, the cyno still runs but nothing can go through it. The bridge would also be stuck bridging to the cyno for a period of time, even after the mass is used up, to prevent bridges from rapidly swapping between different cynos. The cynos would also have warm up timers, when the lighting ship is immobile, and the cyno is visible, but nothing can go through. They also could not be lit while you have a jump reactivation timer. A cyno could not be lit within 100km of another lit cyno. Jump freighters would have mass bonuses, allowing them to jump into smaller cynos than they otherwise would be able to.

This is more or less how the cynos would look:
Small: Enough mass for ~ 3 cruisers. 15 second warm up timer.
Medium: Enough mass for ~ 3 battleships. 30 second warm up timer.
Large: Enough mass for ~ 3 capitals. 1 minute warm up timer.
Capital: Enough mass for ~ 3 supers. 2 minute warm up timer.

Gating would still be an issue, but I feel gating has enough counterplay, particularly with stop and drag bubbles, to bring caps back in line.

Your approach would also work, and while I don’t agree with everything, I think the station-Titan idea actually sounds like more compelling gameplay than the current version of Titans, which are really just super-dreads with some random utility.

2522

I have a few questions for CCP Falcon.
Back in 2015 he posted about his opinion of Eve just prior to the announcement of Sov changes, Rorqual spam, mind numbing structure grinds, etc.
He was asked if he thought these changes were in line with his vision/opinion or did he feel development was moving away from it.
He replied with a simple “nope”

I’d like to pose that question again, with a little extra tacked on, while not expecting an honest if any answer.

What is your opinion on the state of the game today?
Are those responsible making the right decisions for the longevity of Eve?
Is there a plan to actually address specific issues or are we just going to keep seeing more and more ineffective changes that don’t really address the underlying issues in the name of “Chaos” (or as it should be called - Direct intervention by CCP)?

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2523

I think the reason you will find a lot of people disagreeing with you is because a majority of nullsec wants things to be destroyed and for those losses to hurt. Not many people want tedious time sinks or discouraging use any ships.

Most people want capital fights often, they just dont want them as they currently are, or for the reasons they currently happen.

2524

Right, but this doesn’t address the underlying problem: as long as supers aren’t dying, there will continue to be more and more of them. And that means that things are more and more skewed toward defense. Skewing things toward defense means skewing things toward stagnation.

As for gating and bubbles… bubbles aren’t an issue when you can use Command destroyers to bounce them away. Right now the counterplay to ‘a supercapital fleet is going to come through that gate’ is ‘have your supercapital fleet waiting for them and hope you’ve got enough to make them not want to take the losses’.

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2525

This principal is the same whether you are gating a fleet of supers or attacking/defending sov or a structure.

More Supers wins, even if they never engage - This is what needs to be addressed.

If you could take 200 carriers and dreads to fight 100 Supers and stand a chance of victory, the ability of Supers to dominate is reduced.
Reality is, 100 carriers and 100 dreads are just killmails for 100 supers/titans even if both sides have enough logi the, in this case, “smaller” fleet wins.

Adjust carrier mechanics to move them away from being “anti subcap” and more toward “can kill a super if you have enough of them” - The balance of Supers vs anything else wins is reduced.

As has been said many times before - Subcaps kill subcaps - Capitals/Supers kill Capitals/Supers.

Yes this is great in principal but is much harder to bring about.

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2526

I’m not sure exactly what you’re getting at. If people really want things to be destroyed, why would they oppose a mechanic that lowers the threshold for those things to be used? Fear of escalation is the reason people don’t commit capital/super forces that often. If people want large scale capital fights to get forced a lot more, than how can CCP can make that happen with game mechanics without destroying the sandbox?

When you refer to tedious time sinks, I assume you’re talking about structure grinds, which I agree are an issue. However, I think that may be a somewhat separate issue. Capital power would still be an issue even if structure grinds were solved, and structure grinds would still exist if capitals were nerfed.

2527

Sure, but there’s no scaling against numbers once it hits supers. Right now, if there’s a subcap fleet about to come through, and you don’t know if you have enough subcaps… you use caps. There’s a step up. And if those subcaps get wiped out… it’s recoverable. If the defending group gets wiped out, it’s recoverable.

Wipe out someone’s entire supercapital fleet, and see if they recover. XIX and the DRF didn’t even lose half of theirs, and they haven’t recovered.

And, you know, having to move haulers all over the place as cynos.

2528

You lost me, I think you are interpreting the current meta vastly different than I am.

2529

That was my point regarding carrier/dreads - Lose a few hundred of those to kill some Supers, you can still recover.
Test and Co could probably field enough caps to be more than a nuisance to the Imperium and the losses are something they could easily recover from.
Ok, losing a “few” Supers isn’t going to hurt the Imperium BUT if PanFam saw Test do it and have an impact, even a small one - They might do the same, Imperium losses start to escalate as more pressure is applied from different areas.

I know this is too simple a scenario but given the tools Eve players can achieve amazing things - Look at what The Imperium has been able to do.
Now we need to find ways to fight back and not just at Goons :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: but every dominating groups out there who “have the power” to say - I dare you!!!

I’m being very selfish here - I want fights I stand a chance of winning

2530

Legacy probably could field enough capitals to be more than a nuisance to the Imperium’s supercapitals. If, you know, the Imperium was incapable of responding with regular caps of their own and supercapitals.

And, you know, if Legacy wanted to have to wonder if the Imperium might decide to leave them hanging the next time PanFam (now with 100% more FRT!) decided to come blowing up their stuff.

Don’t get me wrong: I want people to have the chance to win fights, too. I don’t particularly want to lose fights, of course, but the possibility is definitely necessary. I want to win fights because we fight better, not because nobody can afford to risk bringing their supers into where our supers will just drop en masse and boson a few hundred dreads to death in less time than it takes 200 dreads to kill 1 titan.

But as long as people can’t afford to lose their supers, that’s how it’s going to be. As long as the only way to attack a supercapital force is with a bigger one, that’s how it’s going to be. And none of the ‘Chaos’ even begins to change either of those thing. This isn’t chaos. This is stratification. This is the opposite of chaos. This is things getting more and more set in stone.

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2531

I get that, which is why i stated not just goons but all those groups.

Lets say Frat and PanFam decided to go blow up Legacy space and both Legcy and Imperium decide to field super killing capable carriers and dreads in over-whelmng numbers capable - Supers are all of a sudden not the “bring them for the win”.

All of a sudden subcaps (killing subcaps) capitals (capable of killing a Super, with help) become more viable. Sure everyone might just leave their supers at home but at least there is a real possibility of a fight.

The reason as you said that Supers are the apex force is because you need more of them to be a risk - If carriers and dreads posed a risk, supers become less of an apex force.,.

NB; I don’t want Bloc groups taken out of the game, I want them to be vulnerable

2532

I see what you’re saying, but I think supers will die more if they’re committed frequently in small numbers rather than rarely in huge numbers. In addition, gating supers, while possible, is slow, and this may allow for some opportunity for an attacker to bait supers to go one direction while they attack somewhere else.

I didn’t think CDs could jump away anchored bubbles, maybe I’m wrong, it’s been a bit since I’ve messed around with stuff like that. Bashing anchored bubbles is possible, but it takes time, and absolutely requires a subcap fleet to do it, meaning supers will be dependent on a fleet that can get punished by something smaller than another super fleet.

In short, I think supers being an indestructible, but slow and lumbering force is somewhat ok. Mobility can be used to attack where they’re not. If they’re still overpowered, more adjustments can be made later down the road.

2533

It’s possible, and it’s possible that I’m missing something. I’ve been away from the game for a bit, so maybe something changed to really shake up the meta. I haven’t seen anything that would suggest that, but I currently won’t dismiss the possibility that I might be wrong.

2534

That’s how things worked for years… while the supercapital forces built up and accrued. Now? Now it’s too late. We’re past that. The supercapital fleets are too big. Carriers might defang supercarriers, but they’ll be killed by hostile dreads while they do it. Dreads might threaten titans, but massed titan formations will just AoE them down with BFGs.

It’s too late to try to tweak things. This end-state has been inevitable for at least six or seven years.

As long as supers are necessary to hold space, they won’t be committed in small numbers frequently enough to reduce the overall size of the supercapital fleets fielding them. Won’t happen. It’s just not worth the risk.

Gating supers is not nearly so slow as you seem to think it is. A properly combat-fitted Hel or Ragnarok can move at Battlecruiser warp speeds without sacrificing its tank, and swap out 3 lows if it runs into a fight… then swap back and keep warping around like a Ferox.

If they really want to get moving, they can get up to a warp speed of 6.4 au/s.

Bashing anchored bubbles doesn’t take any time at all when you’ve got a few hundred supers to do it with. Wanna see something terrifying? Go watch the X-47 videos and realize that at the hull timer, we used CDs to MJFG an entire supercarrier fleet’s F/Bs across a few thousand km to the target.

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2535

When the decision is between losing a significant timer or committing a small number of supers, I think it may happen, but it’s really impossible to know unless there is some limit to the ability to escalate from something like this.

I didn’t consider the warp speed low slots. That is a good point. However, there are lots of ways to address that, from slower base warp speeds to disallowing the use of those modules on caps/supers. My suggestion addressed the cyno/jump aspect of the issue, but the design philosophy, that supers and capitals are powerful, slow, lumbering ships who’s weakness is mobility and the ability to respond to changing situations, could still apply.

When it comes to anchored bubbles, I was thinking more along the lines of bubbles on warp in. Even if you can burn them instantly, you still have to get the rest of the way to gate, or you have to send a vanguard fleet of something faster to burn them first, most likely subcaps, which can be contested.

2536

When the decision is between losing a significant timer or commiting a small number of supers, you will see groups start forming earlier, and committing a massive number of supers.

Hah. Those are exactly the ships those modules were introduced for. They came in with the capital module changes that added capital shield extenders, MWDs, ABs, and plates. Slow down their base warp speeds? They already warp at 1.5 au/s. You think the 15k posts in this thread and the 2 Blackout threads are complaints? Watch what happens if CCP tries to slow supers down even more.

Let’s look at how this gets laid out: If it’s a stop bubble, you hit the first one, and kill it. If you want your stop bubble to be effective, you put it around 70-80km from the gate. So the fleet is 75km from the gate. One or two of the CDs traveling with you to clear dictor bubbles bounces out to the side 200km. Warp the fleet to them, then to the gate. Takes all of about 30s, because you just cycle the 500MN MWD to get into warp in each direction.

If it’s a drag bubble… you still hit the first one. So if there’s a whole line of them, you’ve hit the one closest to the gate. If it’s too close, you just drive back to the gate. If it’s not, just bounce to the CDs off to one side again.

Just like a subcap fleet. Gating a superfleet is not as slow as people like to think it is. The biggest worry is bouncing, and if you’re doing a lot of gating, people will be paying attention.

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2537

Are you basing any of this off of things you have seen/been a part of or are these hypothetical scenarios bases on hypothetical player tendencies?

These are eve players. If you make moving supers tedious, they will still do it no matter how painful. They will just complain and possibly burn out. Everyone wants fights, but nobody is going to sideline the things they need to win voluntarily regardless of how painful and annoying they are to use.

There will be no “oh well we would need to have double the cynos so I guess we can’t do it” or “lighting a cyno is too risky I might loose 300mil” talk.

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2538

Intellectually I know your right - Emotionally I want you to be so wrong.

It has been a lot of fun over the last 15 years, I’m not sure i want it to end.
All I can hope for now is that CCP will bite the bullet and do something worthwhile.

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2539

Yeah, don’t get me wrong, this doesn’t have to be a terminal thing for TQ. But CCP needs to take the big steps needed, if they’re gonna avoid it.

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