CSM 13 - Null sec Issues/Suggestions/Ideas

Council Of Stellar Management Assembly Hall
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21

You’re missing my point - you’ve said repeatedly that Titans are a counter to interceptor gangs, and I’m saying that in my experience, outside of Delve, nobody is going to risk an escalation that way. You’re not going to “cure” the problem of supercaps dropping on everything with interceptor gangs.

Most folks with titans and supers have those titans and supers on alt accounts that they can log-in as needed, and aren’t wasting their mains on. Just yesterday, for example, we had a munnin fleet that was supplemented by 10+ smartbombing lokis in the event that we had to deal with an interceptor cloud. We never did. The guys on their mains in those Lokis had nothing to do, while the rest of the fleet got some kills.

Constantly asking guys to step into a doctrine that may or may not be used is an easy way to end up with folks not coming to fleets. It’s different with titans and supers, although the fact that people don’t get big fleet fights to use them is part of the reason why they drop them on interceptor gangs, too.

Tell that to Bombers Bar.

If you’re going to plan a dread bomb properly out of NPC null, you can spend the 10 bil on a Fortizar. And this also presupposes that you’ve got eyes in every NPC null system 24/7 and can see folks moving stuff in. Goons didn’t stop NC. from staging out of Gehi, did they?

Balancing the game based on extreme scenarios that don’t apply to 95% of the server is a bad idea. You don’t balance based on the extremes, you balance based on what the bulk of players are doing. Goons are going to min/max everything because that’s what they do. If, for example, you nerf Rorquals into the dirt because the Goons can clear a moon in an hour with 200 Rorquals, you’re screwing over a large number of players to “solve” a problem that won’t be solved given the economies of scale involved.

They are specialized. A Thrasher/Corm fleet is going to get decimated by just about anything else you throw at it. God knows I’ve killed enough MC corms over the years. Titans and supers can counter just about anything other than another Titan fleet, but like I said before, you’ve gotta get lucky to even get these in a position to fight interceptors that will simply warp off when the cyno goes up. And you’ve also got to get lucky to be in the right spot on a gate with a boson, too. Same with smart bombing battleships - I’ve lost more than one of those because I was out of position and couldn’t warp out fast enough before something tackled me. Even a noob ship can kite a smart bombing battleship. “RLML/HML/HBL/Blaster/Arty HACs” aren’t an effective counter to an interceptor blob. They won’t be able to catch them.

You can’t bubble them. You can’t chase them effectively without a fleet of the same ships. They can kite, they can get under your guns, they can sig tank effectively, do high alpha and escape before most ships can lock them unless they’re designed for instalocking.

You seem to be arguing that they’re an effective counter to the titan/super blob, while acknowledging they can’t do anything to do the titan/super blob, so I’m kind of scratching my head at that disconnect.

22

No, I said they are one of the counters. Please read what I write and don’t cherry pick what you want to see. That puts your competence as CSM in a bad light right from the start.

Those smarties are against drones, not against ceptors. And if you do not fit ewar or a whore gun to your lokis, you are doing it wrong. Lokis also have drones to whore. In general, this attitude that you wasted your time because you could not whore on kills is also why people hesitate to fly logis. This attitude is another of the null sec diseases.

Then you have not been in a Corm fleet. They can deal with a lot of targets due to their range. You do not need to be lucky to counter a ceptor fleet in a titan. You just jump to a cyno and light your smarties in the jump tunnel. Unless the ceptors have not taken range from the target when the cyno goes up, your smartbombs hit a lot of ceptors. But competent ceptors know that and thus take precautions. You do not need to be lucky to be in the right spot to boson a fleet. There are only few warp in vectors from other gates where ships land. You can’t miss them unless you are incompetent. Same goes for smartbomb BS. However, if the ceptors are competent and use pings, they are better than you. HAC and other cruisers are effective counters because they have the range and application to drive the ceptors away.

You can chase them effectively with ceptors and destroyers. If you had been in Delve when ceptors roam around, you would know that.

I argue that ceptors are the only way to mitigate the effectiveness of the titan super blob because they are harder to catch. Titans and supers can still easily counter them on grid by, but ceptors able to disengage from that fight without losing the entire fleet. It is not about that they cannot attack the titan super blob, I argue about that they can attack assets who think they are under the protection of that blob. I’m not entirely surprised you can’t grasp that. :slight_smile:

Yes, and how bad it is when you do not taking those 5% into account is blatantly visible by every MER in the last year. You balance that extremes can’t take place of this magnitude.

23

Come on, dude.

That’s not our doctrine - our doctrine is specifically to use those lokis to kill fleets of interceptors. I know it, I’ve done it. It requires timing, a good FC with good probing skills, and the element of surprise, but when it happens, it’s great. It doesn’t happen that often, though. It didn’t happen yesterday.

I’ve killed plenty of them. One of the reasons we rarely use that doctrine outside home defense against bombers.

Even incompetent ceptors can evade most of these issues. That’s the point - they have so many benefits they can use to get away and not get killed. That’s the reason why there are issues with them. The only suggestion we are talking about here, though, is nullification.

I’ve been around Delve when ceptors roam around, and I’ve been around Querious when ceptors roam around, and I know we chase ceptors out of our pocket and we rarely, if ever, catch them unless we can get a jump bridge ahead and know the route they’re going on, and they’re stupid.

Feel free to take a look at my killboard if you want to see that I actually PvP. I would look at yours, but you appear to be using a forum alt.

Oh, I’m grasping what you’re saying completely: you don’t want an issue that a large number of players think is an issue addressed because it will impact your playstyle. Where have we heard that before?

24

Then it’s a flaw of the doctrine. However, I also know that your chemo lokis are very good at killing ceptor balls when they combat probed them without the ceptors noticing. Killboards are full of evidence for that. So this time you didn’t get to use the toys like this. This not a flaw of ceptors or lokis. This is player battle.

Even if you are competent, without completely warping away from a lit cyno, you cannot evade a titan that lights smarties while in jump tunnel. You also are successfully prevented from attacking someone if a Claw fleet or Corm fleet chases you. You are also successfully prevented from attacking someone if a cruiser fleet chases you. You are under the false assumption that defense ops need to result in kills of the attackers. That’s wrong with you.

You see, you do not grasp the situation at all. Those 2 statements show that clearly. It’s not about impacting my play style. It’s about being able to do at least a minuscule damage to the money printing machine. You see, Delve produces more value than The Forge, Delve rats more than the next 5 or 6 regions combined. Delve mines more than the next 5 or 6 regions combined. Yet, Delve only has barely 50% of the destroyed value of The Forge and still less than Domain. It is not about impacting my play style, it is about balancing the cluster. Delve ought to be the region with the most destruction happening by far. What prevents this? The super cap umbrella. What enables at least a bit of damage in the region? Ceptors. As said, you do not grasp the situation at all. Thank you for clarifying that fact, however. I appreciate it. :slight_smile:

25

You have said yourself that interceptors “…are the only thing to attack the titan super cap umbrella at least a tiny little bit.”

This is fundamentally moving the goal posts. If you’re concerned about Goons and their industry capacity in Delve, that’s one thing. But nullification on interceptors has almost zero to do with impacting that, as you have expressly noted multiple times in this conversation.

This isn’t about me “not getting it” - it’s about you missing the point about why folks outside of Goons dislike nullified ceptors.

Nobody is going to fix what’s going on in Delve (if it needs fixing) with a gang of interceptors. That’s not at all what we’re talking about here.

26

How pedantic. If you fight someone with something their main force is weak against, even though they can’t attack this force directly itself, you are STILL fighting against them when you harass what it is that the are showing up to defend, which is that industry backbone and mining+ratting machine. How do you not see how these share a relationship? Catching ratters and rorquals is THE ENTIRE POINT of most interceptor fleets.

27

And you can still catch ratters and rorqs with interceptors with no guns on them that remain nullified. That’s the point of my suggestion.

Fast tackle is the most important role for ceptors, and nobody is really arguing against that. At least, I’m not.

28

At least you didn’t deny that interceptors have anything to do with the capital response this time. Or split hairs about how they are ‘fighting’ effectively without having to shoot them.

Progress.

29

Delve is no where near as tough as your suggesting lol, escaped from a 30man inti gang and 40man hurricane gang as well, if you play it smart they cannot catch you. Hint: blobber’s get lazy and forget to be smart.
Quite a few system’s: not just 2 around a wh:

30

Yes, the umbrella, not the ships. Attacking the umbrella means being able to hurt the guys covering under it while they think they are safe. You missed that by as much as you missed anything else I said.

Correct, it is not going to be fixed by ceptors. But neutering ceptors, which are the only real contributor to destruction in that particular region, you remove a vital risk element from null sec that causes at least a tiny bit of risk while leaving the defenses, which have grown out of all proportions as they are. You can’t just neuter one “problem” and leave all the others as they are. That is what you and all the other people arguing for nullification removal argue for. And that is something I absolutely do not agree with because it removes risk from the most profitable and supposedly least safe area of space.

That role needs DPS to follow up on the tackle. Good luck getting that to the tackled target without nullification while roaming throughout the region and not just counting on lucky WH entries.

That works sometimes, but you can’t count on that all the time in order to cause mayhem in such a productive area. And try to roam around in this fleet setup all over Delve. Good kills anyway. :slight_smile:

31

Killing an AFK VNI or maybe a Raven/Rattlesnake ratting with interceptors is about as good as you are going to get. Anything larger than that you won’t be able to take down in a short enough amount of time before a response fleet hits, forcing the intys to scatter.

That’s not attacking the super cap umbrella. That’s barely annoying it.

I don’t see how removing weapons from interceptors, is going to make null sec less safe. Ceptors will still be used for fast tackle, which is their primary use now and always will be.

That’s literally what every balance pass does.

Fast tackle grabbing a target and staying alive long enough for the rest of the fleet to get there and fight is fundamental to every roaming fleet in the game. You’re acting like every single system in nullsec is bubbled and gate camped 24/7. We both know that’s not true.

32

Because you misread something? Removing weapons from ceptors makes null sec more save, not less. And that is what I said. I do not understand where you read that garbled mess. It is also not the primary role of DPS ceptors as they do not have tackle bonuses. Their role is to apply some DPS and that’s exactly what they do. Fast tackle is the role of the tackle ceptors.

It is something. There’s not much else you can do in this EVE where everyone is pushed into the most unfun and hideous ship class of them all. But it is better than nothing, which would be the result if nullification of DPS ceptors was removed. But that’s what the CSM wants anyway.

33

Nullsec complaining that frigates are too strong is as bad as highsec complaining about ganks. Just pay attention and align out. That simple. Isn’t that the equivalent of telling someone in highsec to fit some kind of tank?

34

It was a typo. I mean more safe.

35

Why are capitals so effective against subcapitals? Is this the problem? The overall balance pendulum has swung back and forth on this question, in the past.

Take a look at this 2011 dev blog, when the nerf bat was swung at capitals.

3 Likes
36

It’s because of fighter tracking, there is no ship that can get under its gun’s and so naturally no effective counter, the only way that would even come close would be if your ship goes over 4.5k/s so maybe a 100man retribution gang pimped and drugged out might be the only thing that can handle fighter’s.

The game was a lot more balanced fighter wise before they went and gave it super god like tracking.

1 Like
37

for years I have never catch interceptor -2 second warp, it is a shame to have added nullification, it became very secure to travel and move large values in it.

I use a stiletto with 6200 scan resolution, with booster, fiber optic connection,
but because of the ticket server is completely impossible to catch and if the person uses a ping no battleship can kill him.

For me this is normal that expensive or special ships “is this ability” (luxury or t3).

for me it must be removed first,

and also add to the smartbomb the same graphic effect ball as the cyno, because right now it’s all flat and complicated.

good day all :slight_smile:

38

I could see an Adv. Combat Probe, that gives you a limited range warp-in on a cloaked ship. Nothing so small that you decloak the camper, but gives you a chance to combat this tactic. And fully limiting this said adv. probe to JUST emissions from a cloaking field would seem fair too.

In EVE, be it HS, LS, NS, or JSpace, there has always been a risk to reward effect, every time you undock you run a risk, you make it to your desto, unscathed, reward. With cloaked Campers, once in system, they sit with no risk, absolutely sure of their immunity to your fleets, slowly destroying the ADM of that system, thus making entosis easier for their fleets.

They should share in the risk just like the rest of us! (didn’t mean to take over your post Sierra, as a NS resident, I loath the camper!)

1 Like
39

Everyone does its the lowest form of pvp in the game and isn’t even fun for the gate camper it just passes the time. " O yay I pressed f1 on another ship, back to watching youtube."

40

Remove local chat from Null Sec and it will create much more pvp action and excitement within a very stagnate and stale area of the game. Also, that solves your cloaky camper problem, you won’t even know he’s there.

2 Likes