You can still drag it even if it doesn’t fit in the cargo of the ship doing the dragging.
And even if that’s not the case (I’m pretty sure I drag things into fleet hangars that don’t fit into the ship I’m doing the dragging on), they could use a T1 hauler with cargo expanders which is still not putting anything on the line.
Freighter sized.
This creates owning a freighter as a requirement for launching even the small (medium) structures, which might be too much of a barrier to entry for small groups.
I guess one way to get around it is by “assembling” a core into a bigger object (much like a storage can) once it’s installed, but that creates issues with counter-play when citadels get blown up. The attackers shouldn’t be guaranteed a core recovery just by virtue of having destroyed someone’s citadel. It should be possible for someone to steal the core in a reasonable manner, and going suspect isn’t reasonable because that hauler gets instantly destroyed by the attacking fleet.
In the GD complaint thread that some BF guy made about this, my solution was to change the single small core into multiple large cores. At least that way the attacking group would be able to recover most of the pieces, but would also need to put a freighter on the field to do so, giving the defenders who just lost their structure a target of opportunity.
This is all fluff perpetuated by EVE’s needlessly-complicated flagging system anyway. The game should’ve been designed with much looser engagement rules, but in a way that actively punishes the act of blobbing, e.g. “yeah, sure, blob our 5 people with your 150, we’ll just arm the antimatter bombs we’re carrying in our cargo holds that will take out everything in a 100km radius when one of us explodes.”
The problem is incentives. Humans respond to incentives. So we have to think about risk:reward for the content creators.
CCP added cores to incentivize destruction of citadels, particularly in HiSec where they are being spammed: A corp risks their own structure that they anchor (and losing this structure isn’t just losing the 1.5b+ investment in the structure, it’s losing the ability to declare wars for at least 24 hours unless you have a backup to XFer, and worse - it causes their wars to end prematurely with the “enforced peace” cooldown now applied for two weeks). Okay, so that’s a lot of risk on the part of the attackers. And those set of risks, at least for me, were acceptable because I could at least break even + make a few bil off cores and salvage.
But now I see there are a small group of, mostly Russian/Eastern Euro players, who make it their entire playstyle to use locator agents and follow wardecs around to loot cores. And looting these cores carries virtually zero risk to the roaches. They lose a Rookie ship. So here’s the problem:
If the core can be ninja’d so easily, with zero risk to the roach, then this incentivizes people to stop doing WarDecs, which works against the idea of cores being added to incentivize the destruction of Citadels hence serving as a mitigation for structure spam. Because think about it why should a group drop 1.5billion ISK into space in order to declare war, and put in the work for the timers, and risk losing their structure with all the frustration and inconvenience that goes along with it, only to have their loot swiped with zero counterplay?
This is part of the reason why there’s only a couple of groups doing this stuff in HiSec.
I’ve given this some thought the past day, and I really think this is a valid criticism of the current system and mechanics.
The only other solution I can think of: remove the structure requirement for delcaring war. This will immediately break up the monopoly held on WarDecs by the few large groups, allowing smaller groups to proliferate due to the reduced barrier to entry and the lower risk (which should come from the defenders). Groups will be free to enter and leave the “profession” more easily which means groups that start getting roached can take a break or move over to alts, so it makes the job of roaches at least a bit harder. And before people point out that it’s “not fair” - actually it would be more fair, because if a 5 man corp (probably all alts anyway) declare war on your 1 man holding corp, you can always join as allies and chase them off. Which you can’t do vs 300+ man alliance.
Of course, defenders can always roach back their own core using neutral alts. So the mechanics behind roaching still need to be addressed in some way.
Xuixien I agree this is a problem, I have a different solution.
If you go suspect for taking something that is not “yours” and you pass that item to another ship, that ship should also go suspect.
This allows for more counter play vs all sorts of loots ninjas. If you want to do the crime, you have to risk something beyond a rookieship or destroyer.
The original criminal could simply pass the items to an alt…and that would complicate things. Plus if you applied the logic that stolen property remains stolen…then some innocent person could end up going flashy for ‘handling stolen goods’.
That’s what the safety setting is for.
They always hand it to an alt in a hauler/orca. That is the problem, if you want to stop them you need to suicide the hauler.
Does anyone actually have safety on in highsec ? I mean…what good does it actually do ? I go around everywhere with safety off, and notice zero difference to having it green. OK I might shoot some Condord captain by mistake…but its unlikely.
You will notice it quickly if something goes wrong in highsec wars.
You will Piss of Mitch and Pete to high heaven if you are the cause for limited engagement because you do not have safety on green. Meaning that logi cannot rep or help people until the timer is done.
We use this tactic to get people that run red safety Concorded, or/and also stop them from being able rep each other due to timers. We had group concord their entire logi fleet because they accidentally repped somebody with a limited engagement and their safety was on red. With green the ship would automatically stop the cycles as it is not a valid rep target while on green safety.
However I am sure with Wrecking Machine all logi pilots are on green anyway. So you being a silly sausage cannot be safe if you are attacked.
I disagree with this. The real reason why there’s only a few groups of people doing this is because most of the players who are interested in piracy/mercenary/PvP gameplay have quit because the game has become too soft.
This is quite literally what my friends, who have stopped playing over the course of the past several years, have told me. They’re not planning to come back. A decade or more ago, the ratio of players willing to engage in PvP was much higher than it is today. Today, the population is like 95% miners, mission-runners, and DED farmers.
The solution is very simple: make war eligibility/citadel ownership a requirement for anyone who handles a core. So they can steal one if they want, at the cost of a more powerful military force instantly putting a war vote through on them. No need for messing around with convoluted suspect flag mechanics.
And your solution would completely obliterate high-value/high-volume ganking like freighter ganking, because a suspect freighter has a zero chance of survival.
Would make for interesting counter play for Freighter ganking, maybe people would setup outside of the usual 2 choke points.
Just make the wreck belong to the victim and the killers’ corp/alliance. No suspect for looting…
Your solution would still make it practically impossible for third parties to steal loot, which shouldn’t be the case. Everyone should be able to do anything, with meaningful consequences.
Wesley’s idea is bad because it would severely restrict suicide-ganking (as pointed out by Aiko many times), because a suspect freighter is guaranteed to die to pretty much anything with weapons. There’s no ability to assist a suspect freighter in any manner, whether by repairing it, or shooting at its attackers.
Your idea is similarly flawed because it would eliminate the ability to steal cores, although it’s not quite as bad because the ships needed to steal cores are smaller/faster, and therefore have a chance at escaping.
A much more interesting and gameplay-friendly solution would be to have a “stolen goods” mechanic in the game. For example, stealing items wouldn’t confer a suspect flag (it’s kind of silly that you can execute someone for taking a piece of ammo from an NPC wreck that doesn’t belong to them), but the items are marked as “stolen goods,” and the only way to offload/repackage them is to do so at a citadel that you own. This means that thieves are required to own property that can be attacked through legitimate war, so players who are annoyed with the thieves can actually take revenge on them that causes the thieves tangible damage.
We can even give new life to the insurance system this way, as it would be possible to “insure” ships and stations so that anything that drops from their destruction is tracked to the termination point at which it is repackaged to prepare it for market sale. This would in turn create a vibrant “black market” community in which shady players trade each other these stolen items for personal use, in order to avoid having to repackage them at a station. Which could in turn fuel a bounty-hunting profession in which licensed player agents can go after players using stolen goods on their ships (hello, ship and cargo scanners!).
Imagine how much more fun this would be than just getting a 15-minute “everyone can beat on you” timer that you have to inconsequentially wait out at a station before moving on to the next theft? Actual game design.
This would certainly be a nerf to looting, and all associated gameplay. Looters are generally in transport ships, and they will generally die without CONCORD protection. The only way this would work is if it became possible for people to defend suspects.
So I propose that we go back to a situation in which logi are able to repair suspects, and if someone shoots at a suspect, then other people are allowed to intervene in support of the suspect. Make EvE great again!
I’m confused about why wardeccers don’t gank the corvette? Surely you can kill the corvette with a thrasher? They can’t loot the core if they don’t have a corvette.
Could we fix the core problem by making the core turn anyone touching it flashing yellow and making its transfer time between cargo bays much longer , then it would not come down to sneaky rodents wipping it away.
As there’s plenty of gankers about , can’t war decers take a small group of gankers with them for a cut of the isk from the core, I’m sure some lurk around here now and then that would be happy to kill a rodent or two , it’s also a fixed time the core drops so should be easy to co-ordinate
Tether…its the bane of our existence…cant gank the looter or hauler while they are tethered which is what happens 85% of the time.
If there is no tether, we gank em (or bump them…sometimes we are dumb and leave gank chars too far away).
Is it really though? Without tether they would just dock somewhere, so with tether you have more opportunity to kill them. Yes, most targets are tethered, but without tether most targets would be docked up. So I don’t see the problem with tether, it reduces the issue of session change lag and encourages people to undock.
This is so over-stated as an issue, in any case it is one way the defenders can cut their losses by scooping it themselves. So those that attack structures have to have a dedicated loot scooper and be quick about it, control their DPS and make it hard, that is all.
As for loot scooping through and into a DST and the tethering which was one hell of a buff to ganking, both are lame mechanics which give too much advantage like unlimited bumping did.
I notice that they are giving you the silent treatment, I would take that as a win. 
It is however very childish.
NB. As for winning, I was on the winning side last night even though my Manticore was Snuffed Out, was a bit of a Train Wreck. though… Second highest damage on the Fortizar and I was not using polarized launchers…