So this sort of came to be the other night and I have been meaning around on how to formulate it, not sure if it’s going to be well received but I’ll try my best here and see what sticks.
There will be several preface here and look for the +'s if you want to skip down to the suggestions
First is the identification of what I see not so much as a problem, but rather there being a real lack or a solution or method of going about end game exploration and the nomad life style of eve. After browsing the forms for some times, dating from recent to the way back ago, there are many people who had at some point given the nomadic life a go in eve. Most of these were done in orcas, stratios, or with the recent change to the t3 cruisers the tengu. But I noticed majority of these nomad livers had to do so with multiple accounts and or alt to accomplish various tasks. The most notable of all was the mother ship pilot, normally flying orcas or a bowhead, and then the main who would follow suit with them. The other alternative was to do it in a straight tengu which with refitting ability made it very viable but not possible for extended periods of time, with only 460m^3 or cargo before ammo, and a Depot you were strapped for space.
With that said this led me to the idea of what if there was a way for a single player, or possibly a small band of players, say up to 5, to really touch one of the fun aspects of eve, exploration in both the data/relic way and just traveling the stars. One of the biggest draw backs to the game for new players is the fact that for a good while you are stuck in a region tied to a home station until you can really get your feet wet and even then there is still a sense of being tethered. What if instead there was a way to truly be able to experience the nomad life in eve with out the need for multiple accounts and alts, something that’s not very appealing to most people that are just starting, or for a small group of people.
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Enter in a new module called the frontier module which can be fitted to carriers, dreadnaughts, freighters, orca, bow head, and a potential new ship expadition ships. This module would not be stackable with the siege module and would come in 2 variations, and basic frontier module and the covert ops module.
When fitted, a ship can activate it’s frontier module and begin to anchor itself in place, this process takes between a min and 30seconds depending on skill. Once complete the fitted ship becomes unable to align, move, or warp, similer to the bastion module of a maruader. While activated the ship receives a bonus to it’s scanning probes, increased defenses, and a bonus to drone range, more importantly while activated the ship then acts as a mobile Depot does for members of the fleet or the ship pilot itself. Butore importantly and unique it allows the current pilot to undock into a ship that is currently in it’s fleet hanger and the anchored ship then becomes more like a mobile Depot and allows the player to then explore and begin operations in the area with the mother ship being the mobile base of operations. As a single player they can set up, and scan down location with the modeuls bonus to scanning, then undock with what ever ship they need, with larger ships able to hold a myriad of vessels for what ever they need.
Now the covert module would be more for a solo player, it would work just like the above but would not give the ship any defense, or drone range bonus, instead the covert module would cloak the ship while in frontier mode when nothing is within 2k m, this allows the single player to be able to confidently leave to the rest of the system and do what they would like and able to return to their mother ship.
Then that leads to the suggestion of expedition ships. These would be a new xl ship size that could either be for each empire faction or for soe and Ore. These ships would specialize in the role of useing the frontier module. With a native bonus to scanning, a fleet hanger of around 600,000~750,000m^3 able to fit a series of cruisers and frigs or even a single large battle ship and a smaller secondary vessel making it also perfect for the incursion runner looking to move goods around as well. With an emphasis on defense and not so much at offense.
The goal of these would be to appeal to explorers who want to go beyond just flying into a worm hole and scannig what they can and leave, or wanting to be tied down to a station, this is for people who want to pack up and love across new Eden, only making occasional trips back to empire space or where ever to sell and rearm with out the need for having the manage multiple accounts, or alts, something as said not appealing to new players.
Now you may think this is rediculous your asking for a cloaked space station with increased defenses! While yes that is in a nut shell what it is, a mobile home, it still is not this invincible ship, while activating and deactivating it’s frontier module it’s very vulnerable as it does not receive any buffs to defense. While players interact with it they are at risk of getting found and killed as well as is the case with depots.
Well no one would want to go for them, a tanked bow head with increased defenses!? Pass! I would agree if that bow head was also not carrying a host of juicy exploration ships and more.
So that’s my idea of a new mechanic in the game, to give solo, nomad, small gangs a nice little, semi safe, mobile Depot/ home to explore in. To warp into a nice little work hole unpack and camp for the day and site run, to fill up their holds return to mother ship and sail back home. Thank you for reading if you did, fly safe.