Extend de-cloak targeting delay to the usage of smartbombs as well

Currently you can use smartbombs right after de-cloaking, which makes using them in larger ships (and/or with multiboxing) an extremely easy way of killing (for example) explorers with zero chance of surviving, evading, defending, preparing or countering it, by sitting at a site and instantly killing anyone who come to hack the containers.

This makes killing way too easy, and I feel that such surefire ways of sniping players with no counters or ways of evading should not exist, as it is no longer PvP, just a one-sided deathtrap.

A delay would make smartbombs just like any other weapon in regards to what ships can engage targets immediately after de-cloaking. The current smarbomb-decloaking mechanic gives all ships the same privilige as black ops ships and stelth bombers have.

Have you tried smartbomb-decloaking?

It’s harder than it sounds and one of the very few ways to surprise and kill capable enemies. And the targets you can kill are extremely limited unless you have multiple smartbombing ships, because the Alpha damage of one smartbombing decloaker is hardly enough to kill the toughest shuttle.

Yes, if you have chosen to fit zero defences on your exploration frigate and are not paying attention you may die.

Some numbers:

  • A completely unfit Helios has 3k EHP
  • If I put together a T3C fit with a rack of large and medium smartbombs in the highs I’m not even getting half that amount as damage per volley.
  • There’s one volley per 7.5 seconds.
  • Targeting delay after decloaking is 5 seconds with good skills.

In other words, you have plenty of time to warp off against a single smartbomber. More time than if they wanted to target you.

Now if it was a smartbombing battleship they could one-shot you. But smartbombing cloaky battleships already have 0 targeting delay, so your suggestion wouldn’t change anything there either.

I don’t think this nerf is needed.

Against a single smartbomber you can just warp off after the first smartbomb volley. The only way they could get you is if they’re using multiple ships to kill you.

And if it’s an area where people hunt with two smartbombers in the assumption that explorers fit zero tank, a simple and obvious counter is to fit a shield extender or damage control and laugh as they fail.

The smartbomber who got your cargo-scanning zero tank Cheetah is multiboxing two ships on various kills.

If you had chosen to fit one tank module he wouldn’t have been able to kill you.

EVE gives us plenty of choices and you can easily counter this strategy with a different fitting choice.

2 Likes

If, as you say, instant smartbombs are “hardly enough to kill the toughest shuttle”, then nothing is lost with smartbombs being subject to a delay after de-cloaking, and at the same time we avoid the limited case where it can be used as an instakill device with no counters.

Perhaps a tanked exploration frigate can take one or two cruisers smartbombing, but there is nothing preventing there simply being more ships to perform the instakill - currently EVE heavily supports multiboxing and players are taking advantage of it in PVP, so it is not a question of whether or not this is a tactic that PVPers would like to employ or not, but rather whether or not they have realized it’s potential or not - we are constantly seeing different PVP and ganking methods evolve, and it is only a matter of time before this tactic begins gaining popularity, and exploration - which already is dangerous - changes from a game of cat and mouse to a game of invisible, unavoidable mousetraps.

The question here is about the inherent philosophy behind the mechanics of EVE, whether or not players should be able to create a situation where they have the power to attack other players from cloak and instakill them - not by using the ships created specifically for attacking instantly after decloaking, but by any ship using smartbombs, essentially getting around the de-cloaking delay.

I would argue that the situation above goes against the philosophy of EVE, where skill matters, throwing ISK at problems doesn’t work, and players don’t get instakill buttons on their ships.

If you warp to 10km to the site they can never get you with smartbombs.

If this is between gates, then you need not to warp in straight line.

There is always a counterplay, just because you don’t see it and you can’t think of it, is not a reason to nerf anything.

1 Like

At a first reading of OP I thought “hah, one of those smartbomb gate camps again”. But no, you weren’t near a gate, there in UF-KKH, that’s what the zkill entry says anyway.

Cloaky Proteus with smartbombs, everyone in nullsec knows about them. That it takes two to take your Cheetah down is already telling. One stealth bomber, fitted for solo hunting, would have been enough (and it wouldn’t use bombs or torps). You lost a Cheetah after what looks like a long hacking session. Perhaps they even got you in a hacking site, zkill doesn’t say of course. Pilot Llfe goes on. You get another ship and another day, shaking off the annoyance of a loss, try to analyze how they were able to get you. Or you don’t and take to the forums to question the philosophy of it all.

There are very few aoe weapons in the game, for good reason. Let’s keep it that way. Let’s also keep smartbombs functional the way they are. Their range is very limited by comparison to any other weapon, well within scram range, so skill does come into play.

EvE is an old game by MMO standards, with emerging gameplay, change of tactics, plenty of cunning, and more than anyone’s share of nerfs, buffs and changes to weapons, skills and hulls.

It doesn’t matter if there’s one person multiboxing, or multiple people flying a single ship. The end result is the same if the target makes the wrong decision, or the trap was set up perfectly.

If you venture out of hisec, which you seem to do on occasion, that is exactly true in wormhole systems, where indeed you have to act the mouse if you want the goodies, and be very very careful and very very fast, reducing exposure time while maintaining at least some movement. That you got caught in nullsec was perhaps because you ignored local - a bold move in a ship without any tank. Or you were just plain unlucky and got caught on a wh connection that was actively camped. And there are many other ways to get explorers in your sights, and only a few of those involve the use of cloaky ships.

Yes ! EvE Online is - ultimately - a battle of wits. Some traps are almost unavoidable, that is true too. We take them as they come and try to think of a counter.

If you think it’s easy to use smartbombs, try it. You’ll be surprised. Want to become good at avoiding being hunted ? Learn to hunt, even if it’s not your prime interest.

If you let a smartbomber within 7.5 km of you, that’s on you. Orbit the cans you’re hacking, that will make their life a little more complicated… As a traveler in dangerous space (according to zkill) you will navigate through traps and mine fields. Your knowledge of game mechanics and player tactics will let you keep your ship intact - most of the time anyway :grinning:.

By the way, some of the most memorable mass killings in EvE have been possible with smartbombs, but only when the right people were using them. The tactic of the pipe bomb is still possible, but rarely used because it is so involving on many different levels. It’s an excuse to give you a link to one of the most beloved player made EvE videos: RnK Clarion Call IV. You wouldn’t want to make that impossible, would you ?

All ships die, eventually. They are ammo for your purpose, whether you’re an explorer or a smartbomber.

Be smart, stay on the move, don’t ignore any intel, fly like you stole it.

o7

2 Likes

No, it looks like you misunderstood my message.

A lot is lost when smartbombs get a delay after de-cloaking, because it would completely remove that strategy from the game.

Give it a try, this strategy is a lot harder than you think for multiple reasons:

  • a single smartbombing ship has very little killing power
  • smartbomb range is tiny, it’s really hard to get into range of your target unnoticed
  • people can simply warp away if they survive the volley

Only when you fly a paper thin ship you are susceptible to such a strategy, and even then people have to bring multiple smartbombers to kill you.

There there are multiple things that prevent an instakill:

  1. people need to have multiple ships available.
  2. people need to bring the right number of ships.

Let’s start with 1. That guy who killed you used two ships to kill you because he is capable of multiboxing two accounts.
If I look through his other kills I suspect he’s often flying two accounts, him and an alt. But there also are kills where he’s flying with allies. I suspect he doesn’t have the capability to fly three smartbomb Proteuses by himself and wouldn’t have been able to kill you by himself if you had put on a single tank module on your Cheetah. He would have needed to coordinate the attack on you with 3+ ships from allies. (And why should a single paper-thin Cheetah survive an attack by that many ships?)

Point 2, people need to bring the right number of ships.
They saw a Cheetah on dscan and knew they could one-shot an untanked Cheetah with two smartbomb Proteuses. They would have failed and you would have lived if you had chosen to fit different and had put on a single tank module on your Cheetah.

You died because of your fitting choice. What I see is someone who is too lazy to adjust their own fit with one easy change to fix their issue. Someone who prefers instead to call ‘nerf’ because they got killed by something.

Hypthetically, what will happen once smartbombs are nerfed and next time your Cheetah gets killed by the exact same guy without targeting delay using a different strategy?

Will you learn then or will you cry ‘nerf’ again? Nerfs until everything that can kill you is removed from the game?

Personal note: as an explorer I would not have decloaked with Muffcobb in local. One look at their zkillboard tells me enough to skip the system they’re in, because this person is hunting explorers as hobby with all tricks available.

2 Likes

:joy:

Please, learn to play instead of asking CCP to nerf people who can kill you.

5 Likes

This has nothing to do with bittervets. It is the opposite extreme.

no. learn to deal with it, because if you don’t we end up nerfing all weapons into oblivion because someone feels oppressed by them.

The new strategies for killing players that people come up with never ceases to amaze me…

Everyone seems weirdly focused on trying to make me seem like a noob who’s crying over a lost ship. Bittervets? Anyway, it seems to me you don’t do much exploring - especially in stain. Loads like what I was carrying are perfectly normal cargo after 30m-1h of exploring, nothing special, the good loads are between 400-600m. This particular ship pulled over 3b in loot from stain before this happened. The amount of ISK lost is a drop in the ocean in my wallet, a very small portion of my daily profits, and my primary thoughts afterwards were “how did they do it so fast? how can that even be countered?” rather than “omg zomg cry ragequit”.

After asking around and figuring that smartbombing cloaked ships are all acting like they were stealth bombers or blops and that there is no real hard counter, I came to the conclusion that this kind of behaviour is specifically meant for stealth bombers and blops, not every ship out there. Wanna keep doing it? Do it in a stealth bomber or blops - nothing is preventing people from doing just that, but if you want the capability, you gotta get the ship that’s capable of it.

Let’s also keep smartbombs functional the way they are

Sure, lets do that. But lets keep decloaking limitations on ships that have them. I’m guessing this oversight has not been corrected because it has not had much bearing on the big picture of the game. Balancing them keeps them perfectly functional, it would just prevent you from making any ship have the ability to start blowing stuff up immediately after decloaking (based on every other mechanic of the game, that was not really intended). The devs can correct this if they know better.

Their range is very limited by comparison to any other weapon, well within scram range, so skill does come into play.

In the problematic use cases, no. Skill has nothing to do with it. Unless the user is a complete blockhead, it’s a free kill with nothing the opposing side can do aside from only playing when the game looks like a single player game, with zero danger anywhere - what’s the fun in that? I switched from WH exploration to nullsec exploration for exactly this reason; WHs are very empty and there are so little PVPers there that it isn’t dangerous at all (unless holing 5 jumps from jita >_>).

No other PVP situation works like this - pretty much every strategy requires the opponent to make a mistake of some kind that you take advantage of if you want an easy kill. I assume we both agree that is the way it should be: No free meals, you gotta work for it.

You’ll be surprised. Want to become good at avoiding being hunted ?

Don’t worry, I’ve learned my lessons from being blown up and I’m very good at avoiding being caught - I use tactics that are more advanced than in any of the guides or sites I read on nullsec/WH survival. The problem in this case is, that the only way to not get caught, is to become the kind of a scaredybear who doesn’t plays the game in single player mode. Only hack in systems with no players? No MMO content for either side then, I don’t think that’s a good direction for the game to take.

From this experience I changed my stain-fit to be able to tank multiple cruisers smartbombing, but it doesn’t remove the underlying problems: This can be countered by simply adding more ships (and the only counter is “don’t play the game”, plus it still makes every ship behave like a stealth bomber or a blop, when it comes to smartbombing.

By the way, some of the most memorable mass killings in EvE have been possible with smartbombs, but only when the right people were using them. The tactic of the pipe bomb is still possible, but rarely used because it is so involving on many different levels. It’s an excuse to give you a link to one of the most beloved player made EvE videos: RnK Clarion Call IV. You wouldn’t want to make that impossible, would you ?

That’s a long video. From the parts I looked at, there were none that required smartbombs to be available immeditely after decloaking - in some of them, a few ships might’ve managed to escape in the very beginning, but that’s all. All of the things in the video that I saw would be perfectly doable even with a delay on the smartbombs. Blops also still exist, and obviously they would not have the delay, just like they don’t have a targeting delay (doh).

To summarize: Nothing of value would be lost with a delay (to those who have a targeting delay after decloaking) and null/wh hacking would remain a cat and mouse game, not a “i can catch you 100% of the time” boring dice game. I have not heard a single argument that would hold under scrutiny for why this change would be bad;

“Don’t play the game if other people are present” is not an argument, it’s an MMO for crying out loud;

“You can’t do this and that fun thing anymore” doesn’t hold, as they can still be done.

“You’re a noob crying” doesn’t hold, I’m very good at exploring and I haven’t lost anything of value.

This argument has basis in the philosophy of the game itself - it’s a PvP MMO, it shouldn’t have 100% certain tactics that cannot be prepared or guarded against (both stealth bombers and blops have their weaknesses and do not have a 100% chance to kill the exploring frig), but rather an ever evolving competition of coming up with counters to each other. There is no counter to “Imma sit here with my 5 smartbomb ships and just wait until you come in, then you dead”. Every death in that video caused by smartbombs were caused by mistakes made by the fleet - sloppy mistakes that even I don’t make when I run around -, not because the tactic had a 100% success rate.

Hypthetically, what will happen once smartbombs are nerfed and next time your Cheetah gets killed by the exact same guy without targeting delay using a different strategy ?

That’s perfectly fine, that kill has nothing to do with what I’m talking about and if you do not understand that, maybe you should lose the attitude and actually try to understand what I’m saying.

:joy:

Please, learn to play instead of asking CCP to nerf people who can kill you.

I kept my personal opinions of you just that, personal and outside of the suggestion discussion. You seem incapable of separating your personal feelings from the discussion of the issue - are you perhaps in high-school (see how constructive this is)? What’s next, you try to hide behind some ridiculous argument that since I have antipathy towards you, the arguments I brought up around the issue are moot? Think again. If you think this discussion is about getting other people to join in on your derision instead of discussing the matter, that says more about you than the matter at hand. If you wish to continue down that line, please do so somewher else than this topic.

The really funny part for me was I didn’t even know it would uncloak a ship! He asked me how I did it and instead of him flipping a switch, I paid him for his loss. We chatted and I paid him double as we figured it out. I miss those kinda players…

The really funny part for me was I didn’t even know it would uncloak a ship! He asked me how I did it and instead of him flipping a switch, I paid him for his loss. We chatted and I paid him double as we figured it out. I miss those kinda players…

I have done that too, when I was starting out and didn’t yet understand the ways of PvP. It’s funny how you label a person based on one post - but you do you.

I have clearly presented the arguments for the change, if you wish to argue them, please do so and leave your derisive quips to chats and mails outside of it.

Thank you for replying.

There are a few factors that you haven’t mentioned so far.
The interesting one, tactically, is the fact that you had time to get away from the smartbombers, namely the delay they have to target you - minimally 5 seconds with max skills, not zero as you would with e.g. stealth bombers. That is the time that you can still move freely, and get into warp. They cannot point you while they’re still on their targeting delay timer. 5 seconds is plenty for a covops frig to get off the grid, or at least get into warp.

The situational details, where did they get you, what were you doing, are still left unmentioned as well. It would perhaps bring those 5 seconds targeting delay they had to sweat through before pointing you into perspective, or why you ignored local intel. You see, that makes all the difference.

Care to elaborate ? Or did you panic and didn’t hit the buttons ?

That is just plain wrong, as explained to you by several people. There is a good reason why smartbombs have the attributes they have, and that is that those attributes guarantee counters for alert players. It’s easier to get away from a smartbomber than it is from any other cloaked attack in a hacking site.

I’ve never used a smartbomb in 13 years of EvE, simply because I prefer other ways of attacking. But I wouldn’t want to see smartbombs nerfed with a use delay because someone wants to make them just like any other weapon. You seem to think that blops and sb’s have a privilege. Perhaps they do, but they also pay a price, via their attributes just like smartbombs do.

2 Likes

There are a few factors that you haven’t mentioned so far.
The interesting one, tactically, is the fact that you had time to get away from the smartbombers, namely the delay they have to target you - minimally 5 seconds with max skills, not zero as you would with e.g. stealth bombers. That is the time that you can still move freely, and get into warp. They cannot point you while they’re still on their targeting delay timer. 5 seconds is plenty for a covops frig to get off the grid, or at least get into warp.

Smartbombs specifically do not have the 5 second delay. I’m arguing that they should (unless used by a ship that doesn’t have the dellay).

The reason I died is because they came out of cloak and boom, I was dead.

Perhaps they do, but they also pay a price, via their attributes just like smartbombs do.

Which is exactly what I said before. They pay for that privilige, which is why it should not be available to other ships by the use of smartbombs.

I have to ask: What is it that you think I’m proposing?

4 posts prior his reply you are replying to + email to Gerard Amatin all indicating that you are a carebear who can’t accept a loss.

It even seems you were lying about the way you died or rather left out important details such as that it wasn’t oneshot and you had plenty of time to get away.

Maybe because that’s what you do?

1 Like

It seems that people gave misleading answers then when you were asking around.

Instant smartbombs is not behaviour specifically meant for stealth bombers and blops. Instant targeted attacks are specifically meant for stealth bombers and blops.

Smartbombs are not targeted attacks, so restrictions that apply to targeted attacks like cloak delay, ECM jams, damps and the likes do not apply.

Smartbombs instead have other restrictions, like a severely reduced range and low damage per target.

It’s only a free kill if your ship isn’t fit to withstand smartbombs.

I think you’ve been ignoring the text I wrote above, but I already said that a single damage control or shield extender on your frigate would have let you live through the first volley, giving you 7.5 seconds to warp away to safety if they’re using smartbombs.

That’s not what I meant when I said to avoid that system.

You shouldn’t ignore each system with people in it. But what you can do is to spend a couple of seconds to get to know more about each of the names in local. Copy past their names to Zkillboard and then decide to decloak or not.

Only hack in systems where you suspect you can deal with the locals.

I have hacked relic sites when I knew a player hunting explorers was in system. I knew he had been using an Astero before, which unlike a bomber or smartbomber doesn’t have the time to kill me before I can get away, so I went and started hacking cans to see if he was awake.

I only got one can before it turned out that the Astero pilot was indeed awake. I got away and went to the next system.

When I said “do not hack in systems with people who can kill you” I meant looking the people up and see if their strategies counter yours.

You want to rely on the targeting delay to keep you alive? Good choice! Now make sure that the people hunting you aren’t using bombers or smartbombers. The guy who smartbombed you is usually hunting with a zero-targeting delay Nemesis and Widow.

I would not have decloaked to hack in their system.

I’m surprised they used smartbombs on you instead of their usual Nemesis+Widow combo, but I guess he was just having fun exploring new strategies.
Maybe another explorer had just passed by in a 10MN warp-core stabbed Metamorphosis who got away from the Nemesis and they had to find a new strategy to counter such gameplay. Who knows?

The beauty of EVE I think is that there are many ways to catch and kill someone and equally many ways to counter strategies.

Why are you here to ask removal of such counter strategies instead of asking for ways to counter them with the tools you’re given?

Living through two smartbomb Proteuses as explorer is not an impossible task, it’s easily doable if you fit some tank. The only downside of that strategy is that no amount of tank would have saved you if they had decloaked the Nemesis instead.

1 Like

I recently got caught doing explo by a guy in an astero who had a backup alt (brutix). The astero had tackle. Probed down the site I was running with core probes (not combat) and I was only really half paying attention and got caught.

The astero had active tank. for a while it seemed like I was breaking through, then I wasn’t, then the brutix landed on grid and I knew I was done.

You have to bail even if it’s normal probes.

edit: In hindsight, I probably should have switched aggro to the Brutix immediately, as the Astero had me pointed but was dealing no damage. If I could have broken through the Brutix, the astero would have either had to hold me until the alt comes back with a different ship, or let me go.

(1) because of the way your ship was fitted, (2) the way you flew it, but especially (3) because you ignored Local and wanted to hack in a system that had potential attackers in it - whatever they were flying. ’

That’s at least three mistakes, and away from hisec a single mistake usually means you become someone’s snack sooner or later.

A kinder way of saying it would be that you were unfamiliar with certain tactics of potential attackers, hence failed to prepare for it. It’s an opportunity to grow in the game, not to complain about the cunning and prowess of other players, and certainly not to call for nerfs to compensate for lack of experience. Perhaps it should also be mentioned here that you do not even understand smartbombs.

That players who use any cloaked ship, irrespective of hull and cloak type, can’t initiate cycling their smartbombs for the duration of their theoretical targeting delay due to decloaking, even though smartbombs have nothing to do with targeting. You make that proposal with your “conclusion” that anything with zero delay on its use after a decloak should be confined strictly to the realm of stealth bombers and blackops battleships. You also seem to assume that escape should always be possible. No, it shouldn’t. It wouldn’t be fair. The specific use cases of smartbombs are already sufficiently limited.

That would be the obvious solution to not getting ganked in a site. In fact that has been used for the past two decades… At most you can push the limits by taking the time to look up the dudes that are in the system on zkill, and see what they’re about. You took chances, you lost a ship. Learn from it.

So you watched “parts of Clarion Call 4”, but failed to understand the use of the smartbombs in that tactic, the fact that the fleets were always bridged in via a titan bridge, and that any delay would have meant failure. Perhaps you watched the wrong parts. Or perhaps you are in denial, which is about the worst position to be in with a game like ours.

So be careful what you wish for ? It seems PvP happened, and nullsec delivered, with a nice, artful pvp kill - although we obviously and profoundly disagree on the art involved in getting that kill. Perhaps you have been too lucky in w-space, and it was high time you paid your dues - as we all do from time to time.

And by the way, cloaked ships do not need to “sit cloaked in a site” to get you. They only need to have the site probed and properly bookmarked, and use their dscan to locate you with precision. That is how hunting grounds are prepared in advance. Most hackers have their attention on the minigame trying to get the loot, not on their dscan. They would not even notice an impending attack by an uncloaked ship (like the previously mentioned interdictor that will throw a nice bubble on you).

You do not recognize that smartbombs already have their price via their attributes (range, damage and cycle times). And you want to slap them with a second penalty for being used on any cloaked ship rendering them useless. If smartbombs were such a marvelous weapon system, they’d be used to run combat sites 24/7, wouldn’t they.

People went out of their way to help you understand and grow as an EvE pilot, with counters. What you do with that advice is your decision. The rest, as they say, is salt.

2 Likes

You probably can hack a 1.000 cans successfully before dying to a smartbomb trap, even in populated systems, so I don’t see a problem that needs fixing.

How should anyone catch a very cautious hacker, if that way is removed? BlackOps can never lock before they warp out and StealthBombers can’t hope to engage any Astero, Metamorphosis or Pacifier successfully…

2 Likes