CSM 13 began its duties today with our first official meeting with CCP.
As I noted I would do to those who made comments, I’m creating open issues threads for the various areas of space that players may have ideas, concerns or issues with.
Please use this thread for null sec - issues specific to that region of space.
Fixing fozzie claws does not include screwing up nullification on interceptors.
Hi Guy’s, just some suggestions:
Interceptors:
-Nullification
+5Au D-Scan Range per level.
(or)
+20% mwd boost for the first 5 seconds after coming out of warp.
(or)
Can see Cloakies on D-scan while cloaked.
T3 Cruisers:
-Nullification
+Can swap 1 module with another every 60 seconds, without a mobile depo.
Cyno Inhibition Tactic’s:
Dictor/hictor bubbles canceling/preventing cyno’s. Or changing cyno inhibitor module to 10 second deploy timer.
Local Minipulation Tactic’s:
Local interference mobile depo costs 20mil slow’s local intel channels by 5 seconds lasts an hour, deploys in 30 seconds.
E-war Change’s:
E-war loosing a little strength each tick, as the enemy ship’s software decode’s and secures against the e-war attack.
Some kind of scanner probes for detecting cloaked ships.
Claws are the only thing to attack the titan super cap umbrella at least a tiny little bit. Claws and ceptors in general have a ton of counters (other ceptors, insta thrashers, Cormorants, smartbombers, bait ratters, properly PVP battleships with competent PVP pilots, capitals, super capitals, titans, bait BS/BC with cyno support, assault frigates, and so on and so fort). The titan super capital blob has no counters at all except for more titan super capitals, which you cannot use for a roam.
If you want nullification removed from combat ceptors, titans and supers should be removed from EVE because they are the only reason why Claws are so popular.
The only problem with the Claw is its double damage bonus. A nullified frigate with 1000 volley is just dumb.
lol, now the interceptor are all fast taxi, it’s the biggest joke to have added that to the interceptor.
stop crying on the titan and super, they even have no insurance. 1b for 60b.
in addition with the tick server it is not possible of the gate camps.
the t3 and luxury merit nullification
Your view on ceptors is awfully incomplete. Ceptors are pretty much the only thing that can, for instance, invade Delve, kill something and get out again without being camped in and forced to log off until CONDI loses interest. They are also pretty much the only thing which at least manages to put a little chinch into the income stream of Delve by catching a select few ratters and miners.
Insurance is irrelevant. It’s about the massive numbers of ships that once were considered alliance or coalition level vessels. Nowadays, more and more people have several supers and titans in their hangars just for lols.
Then you are not good enough, simple. Under the right circumstances even insta warp claws can be caught. As the killboards show, ceptors are even with nullification by far not uninterceptible or immune to proper counters. Supers and Titans are immune to almost anything in Delve and other null sec areas.
It has less DPS than a Crusader at comparable engagement range. And Raptors with insta warp can shoot you at 60 km.
Ceptors are not the problem. The fact that they are necessary to do anything against an entrenched entity in an area at all in something bigger than 2 o 3 characters without getting roflstomped by 5 titans or supers is the problem. Claws are a symptom of the disease, not the disease itself. This is the disease.
No crusader is going to bring cap boosters to sustain fire for anywhere near how long a Claw can do with less fitting, better overheats, faster warps, or better falloff with excellent tracking.
This is why it’s preferred.
A Crusader with 4 Pulse Lasers and 1.94 sec align time is just as cap hungry as a typical Claw. A Claw is less stable if you run an enduring warp disruptor than a Crusader with the same warp disruptor when both don’t use their MWD on a target.
The reason why Claws are preferred is because they can use different ammo damage types.
But a Claw can still do it with AC’s or Arty. Also, what crystals are you figuring that dps on and what is its ehp?
Here’s the problem - in each of these situations, you have to both be in exactly the right position at exactly the right time, waiting precisely for the ceptors to land, you have to get lucky with the server ticks, and the ceptor (more likely than not) needs to make a dumb mistake.
And that’s only for individuals. You get a cloud of interceptors and, other than smartbombing T3Cs that catch them when their FC isn’t paying attention, the chances of them getting away with minimal losses is extremely high.
Claws with their damage bonus are a problem, sure, but it’s a problem with clouds of every other kind of interceptor, too. Their nullifcation + potential instawarp capabilities make them exceedingly difficult for anybody to deal with, and they become frustrating gnats that are difficult, if not impossible, for a fleet not specifically constituted to fight them to handle.
The idea of a combat nullified ship that is unhittable by most cruiser+ ships, and uncatchable by anything other than a specifically fit ship that is only good for that purpose is a bad one. Every other ship with nullification has to give up something significant to get that nullification. Shuttles have no weapons, T3Cs give up tank and damage, etc.
My idea was that interceptors should remain what they were originally intended for - fast tackle and scouting. They get nullification, sure, but only if they don’t have weapons fitted in their high slots. You fit a weapon, and you lose nullification. That gives players the choice of what they want - a fast, high alpha ship, or one that’s nullified and able to scout/tackle without worrying about bubbles.
Cyna’s work well :] the warp speed bonus really helps in this regard, if more ship’s had better warp speed than a saber we would see a lot more raids into delve.
I would not mind if the high damage interceptors had their nullification removed. But please don’t touch disruption range bonused interceptors. Crusader, Raptor, Taranis, Claw. <–dps
A much bigger question would be: Should Null sec become, or be, safer than High Sec?
There isn’t much you can do against a very large swarm of these damage interceptors, but any 5 normal interceptor can be chased away with one high tracking/explosion velocity medium class weapons cruiser. Or you can fight 2 or 3 off for each one long-range small weapons destroyer hull. The truth is null sec is not prepared or willing to defend itself against these tiny bees. You show up in these and they go somewhere else, guaranteed.
Here’s the problem: With the massive titan super cap proliferation, you have more and more ships in position exactly where they need to be a lot of the time. I have also had situations where Corm fleets hunted us throughout Delve with the massive JB network, or titans dropped on us through a cyno on the target VNI which smartbombed us to death while it was still jumping into the system and was not yet visible to us. You can be in the right spot at the right time very easily. Don’t make it look like it’s hard.
Then fix the titan super cap blob first. Without it, you could also use other ships that are arguably more fun to use than ceptors because they require more piloting skill. With it staying as it is, ceptors are pretty much the only way for fleets to get into an area, cause a little bit of damage and get out without losing everyone to the above video’s scenario or have every body log off.
It is not exceedingly hard. All it requires is a FAX on a tackled carrier, for instance. Claws cannot overcome the FAX remote repairs or self rep of the FAX unless they have staggering numbers.
Insignificant amounts of tank, utilty and DPS as your own nullified covert loki fleets for Rorqs prove. And shuttles are not nullified.
Since when is this a problem? You have to specifically fit for a fleet to counter it since time immemorial. Not to mention that there are lots of counters to Claws, as I mentioned above. A Claw fleet that is being hunted by another Claw fleet, for instance, cannot do anything because the defender Claws are on the attacker Claws’ target in no time. And depending on how the attackers are fit, the defender Claws can even catch them because in many cases the attacker Claws are not perfectly insta warp fitted in favor of more tank and DPS.
That’s a crap choice because it removes the only viable counter for meaningful mayhem in heavily fortified regions or constellations of space. Unless CCP fixes this massive fortification, ceptor fleets are the only way to have a meaningful impact on such a region. As these ceptors also have numerous counters (whereas the titan super cap blob has only 1), there is not even a balance issue.
I very much doubt that assertion. Try that with 30+ people and throughout Delve, not just a system or two around your WH. RaAas and imda will love those killmarks bonanzas.
It is hard. You are talking about one single area of space where you should expect bad things to happen if you go there. 90% of space that isn’t Delve, you’re going to have the run of where ever you want to go, whatever bad luck you may have encountered in Delve notwithstanding.
See above. Most areas of the game, nobody is going to risk an escalation by dropping supers on a 10 man interceptor gang.
Which is another problem that needs to be addressed - FAXes are too powerful.
Everybody has multipurpose doctrines that can handle more than one type of opponent, because you don’t always know what you’re going to get. Interceptors in large numbers (10+) are only counterable by specific doctrines that are designed to deal with them and them alone, and that’s a pain in the ass to plan for. You literally will force 1/4 or more of your fleet to fly ships that they may never get to use in a fight because it’s just a planned counter to an interceptor cloud. That’s not fun.
Blops. Dread bombs. More NPC nullspace in null regions. There are other ways that are far more fun for both sides than just interceptor clouds.
This issue is bigger than just for folks roaming Delve. We can’t expect CCP to balance the game based on one particular region that accounts for a tiny percentage of the game.
You keep arguing that these blobs have numerous counters, but as I noted before, every single one of these counters is so specialized that they’re useless for fighting anything else. That’s not fun.
Because you do not need to drop supers on 10 interceptors. 
10 ceptors can be countered with 10 ceptors or few cruisers. See, that’s wrong with null sec. You need to counter the tiniest bit of opposition with supers. And that is why Claws must stay as they are until this disease is cured.
But forcing a fleet to log off because the out gates are bubble screwed and camped by boson titans is fun? Besides, if you think in this way you are missing the points of the term “home defense fleet”. If someone argues like this, you should school them on the the meaning of this term. Not to mention that, as you and many other people constantly claim, ceptors are such a rampant and widespread threat that makes the usage of such special fleets pretty much a daily happening and not a once in a life time occurrence.
If someone argues like this but owns a super which they get to use every other blue moon, these people clearly have issues with perspective, as home defense fleets against a allegedly rampant threat are used way more often than their Aeon against a once per year or quarter attack on a Keepstar. This might be something to dwell about.
BLOPS cannot attack supers or titans. You would need staggering numbers and that would trigger just more titans and supers dropped on you. Dread bombs are costly and difficult to move into a given area. And you cannot just drop them willy-nilly repeatedly during an evening. Plus, you can easily nullify them by camping them in in a station. Your 2 counters are pretty much neutered. Next try.
Then you are not paying attention. This one particular region takes everything CCP does to the very extreme and exposes all the flaws in everything CCP does in all their glorious flawedness. You have to balance things with this kind of group (this is by no means only limited to Delve. TEST is just as terrible when it comes to that) in mind because they will wreck every balance that you think works in an environment with fewer characters playing.
They are not specialized. You can use Thrashers and Corms against other attackers like Cruisers and Bombers as well. You can use the titans and supers against other attackers like BLOPs, cruisers, bombers, dreadbombs as well. You can use Smartbomb BS against other attackers as well (it is very much possible to smartbomb the hell out of a cruiser fleet and it is glorious), besides you the point that you can rat in them very effectively. You can use bait BS/BC to counter other attackers as well. You can use RLML/HML/HBL/Blaster/Arty HAC against all sorts of attackers. You can use assault frigates to counter other attackers as well. Every counter against Claws is versatile and usable against other attackers and ships. The counter against the titan super cap blob is not. If you cannot use them for other purposes or against other attacker formats, this is an individual problem, not a problem of lack of options.
Wow. Did you not know that people call this new CSM the imperium CSM, or what the industry graphs show for delve in the economics reports? You’re looking at the wrong pie charts, my friend. This is the place they WANT to poke.
Sure, of course they do. But the point I’m making is that Delve doesn’t care about interceptor gangs. They’re going to drop supers on whatever the want anyway. The problem with ceptors is not in Delve. It’s everywhere else, especially areas that don’t have a supercap umbrella.
Folks in Delve aren’t the ones with the biggest concerns about ceptor nullification.