Grappling Hook module for Abyss

EVE Technology and Research Center Player Features & Ideas
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For the TL;DR crowd:

New tractor type modules for Abyss

Grappling Hook module(Omega):

  • High Slot
  • ~2,000-10,000m optimal range
  • 3000m/s absolute tractor velocity or 500m/s relative tractor velocity
  • Can only grab node wrecks
  • Possibly Tech 2
  • Requires Omega

Grappling Hook module(Alpha): - Optional

  • High Slot
  • ~1,500-9,000m optimal range
  • 2000m/s absolute tractor velocity or 300m/s relative tractor velocity
  • Can only grab node wrecks
  • Has 50% chance to miss
  • Can be used by Alpha

It could be that I’m missing some obvious technique when trying to loot the nodes in the Abyss. I don’t know how others do it, but I’m flying around with MWD active going 1600+m/s, and approach wreck, hit open container, gotta wait till I bounce off wreck and return, cause EVE physics…, then then hit loot all.

( EDIT: @Ms_Steak pointed out that MTU can be used, and probably works wonderfully with afterburner style, but MWD style is just too fast. And other ideas have been addressed in further postings below. I still think the proposed module would still be useful for the speed player )

Doing this causes you to lose some of your defense because of lost velocity, and you lose immersion because your ship is bouncing back and forth to wreck, sometimes twice because server didn’t catch one of your commands, and frankly it’s just not sexy. Sure, you can cut your afterburner or MWD, or set a slower speed on approach, but then you’re still losing defense, and it’s still not immersive. And tractor beams suck for speedy ships, cause they can’t keep up with your ship speed.

And what I mean by immersive is that the Abyss is all about speed and scenery (for others maybe about loot, sure whatevs…). Wouldn’t it be cool to be able to speed by a node wreck, activate a module to catch it, make the turn to swing around in the direction of the next target, and reel the wreck in and loot it on the fly, in one fluid motion? Now that would be sexy! Plus there would be some added level of interactivity, as it would require some decent timing to hook the node.

I tried some practice passes, and often some of the nodes are on small/medium asteroids. It seems like the passing/orbiting tolerance around them is about 1000-5000m without bumping into them, so that’s why optimal range on the modules posted above have an indecisive tolerance, would need actual testing to find sweet spot.

EDIT: The proposed module should have a tight enough optimal range to occasionally miss and require good timing and active piloting, but not miss so often that it is frustrating. Therefore the ‘Perfect’ run through all three rooms of the Abyss should feel like an achievement.

It seems like the module should be Omega level. I put up an alpha version that has a mechanic that it would miss half the time for giggles. Neither modules are a necessity, granted. For me at least, it’s about keeping up the momentum and having an amazing fluid experience.

Any constructive feedback would be greatly appreciated.

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To avoid bouncing off/flying through something you are approaching (wreck, cache etc) some manual piloting must be done at high speeds. Change your trajectory to near the cache instead of approaching it and hit stop ship when you are close enough to wind down next to it. Alternatively start a close orbit and lower your velocity manually when approaching then raise it again when finished. Practice helps.

Also to stop your ship the fastest possible way without interference, click full throttle in the direction opposite of your current course then stop ship. Using this method in conjunction with over-aligning (clicking many degrees past your intended warp path to hurry your ships nose in place using tactical overlay while already at high velocity) and other hidden ship controls will help you in much more than the Abyss. Sorry I digress just my advice.

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That technique is called mobile tractor unit that CAN be deployed in abyss. You just fly by and break caches casually as you shoot enemies.

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Thanks for the feedback, and those are some neat techniques that I’ll have to try. But for the Abyss, slowing down is what I wanted to try to avoid.

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All this time, I thought I read in a few places that nothing could be deployed in Abyss, so I never even bothered trying. Was MTU deployment intended behavior? I’d hate to get used to doing something only for the devs to take it away later.

Also, what is most efficient placement of MTU, near gate? And my ship is faster than MTU tractor beams, so I’ll have to do some trial runs to see if it’s as efficient and can keep the speed up. Unfortunately not till tomorrow… And thanks for the feedback.

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Not sure where I got the misinformation on MTU’s inside Abyss, but thanks for the info. I tried it out and I suspect it would work great for afterburner fits, but the MWD fits are just too fast.

It’s mostly the last leg to the last node, I can pop the node and still fly up to it and then all the way back to the MTU and still be waiting around for quite some time before the MTU reels it in. Sure, I can just stop and grab the last node before the MTU does, or even while it’s still reeling it in. But then I still have to stop and pick up the MTU, which continues to ruin the immersion.

I could pick up the more expensive MTU with the faster tractors, but I have other fits and ships that can go over 2000m/s, and that doesn’t count the speed boost from dark abyss.

Personally, I think the ideal experience would be to speed to each node, grapple the wreck, make the turn to the next node, loot the wreck, and repeat till you fly into the gate. And the suggested mods should help with that. No stops or slow downs, just one fluid immersion. Hopefully CCP can envision that too.

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What I do is actually take the fight with me and go to a tight orbit, usually 1 km, around the cache, pop it, loot, continue the fight as I move to my next movement point.

While at orbit I take a single pop at the cache and loot it very quick. Sometimes I do have to backtrack a bit but its not that bad.

I should add that on my PvE account I have a wreck / loot specific overview tab. this helps me out quite a bit.

Also, regular tractor beams work for the cache wrecks. Not the cache before you shoot it, but the wreck. So you can shoot it with a single round or volley, then head towards it and either orbit or engage with tractor.

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I’ve tried that for afterburner style fits and it works well, and thanks for your feedback.

The problem is for my MWD style fit, going at 1600-2000+m/s I just have too much momentum to orbit within 2500m. I’m usually just out of reach at like 3000-5000+m orbit unless I slow down, which is what I didn’t want to do.

Also, a lot of the bonus nodes are on small/medium asteroids and you’re most likely going to bump into them when trying to orbit too closely. And the regular tractor beam is just too slow, if you don’t slow down to under 500m/s you’ll just see your loot get further and further from you.

Ideally from what I’ve tried, I would need to orbit the node/asteroid at about ~5000m to avoid bumping into it, whip around into the the direction of the next target, grapple the node wreck with the suggested mod and reel it in to loot, then repeat, until flying into the gate. I think this would be the most fluid experience for the MWD style of players, in my personal opinion.

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The MWD does not have the same align penalty of an AB, meaning while using it you are actually a lot more agile. I also use AB most of the time, but at the times that I do use MWD, the way I do it is tightening the orbit, make a sort of “parabellum”. Basically you start with something like 20-25km, then go down to 15, then 5 km, then the close. Alternatively, you can just simply switch it off for around 2 cycles as you approach.

Takes some practice as you have to determine your “landing” distance for your specific ship and fit. this distance also changes if you are just coming to a stop from a straight approach or curved one. So go do some sec missions or something in your Abyss ship to see how much you need to appropriately land, then take that into Abyss.

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That does sound like a pretty slick technique, and I’ll give some practice runs a go outside and inside Abyss, but I only do 2-3 Abyss/day so it may take me a bit to get back to this.

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Since it is easier/faster too loot they would need to lower the amount of time in the instance to compensate.

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This sounds reasonable. Or make the map bigger. Either way is fine. For me, the module is more about the immersion experience.

CCP would have to balance out completion times compared to MTU usage. I suspect higher tier Abyss it may not matter as much, since you’re probably looting stuff faster than you’re killing off enemies.

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They would also have to lower the drop rate on the abyss items because with shorter times people would do more instances, all the while adding risk free loot to the economy.

And no, PvE is not risk, unless of course the AI is smarter than you.

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Well, for people like me that sometimes don’t “cheat” by going to SiSi or looking up fits, the Abyss has been an isk sink. I’ve personally lost at least 700mil isk worth of assets in the Abyss. Do I suck? Maybe. But I’m just one of those people that like to test things to their limits sometimes. I’ve been fascinated by how far I can push viable T1 cruiser fits, then pirate cruiser fits, and then T2 cruiser fits (whenever I’m Omega). And each tier of Abyss is a significant boost to enemies, so you’re probably going to find the limit to your fit sooner than you think. And even with the losses, the learning experience has been my kind of “fun”, probably not for everybody though…

The Abyss does have optional PvP, where it’s possible for both combatants to not make it out alive.

But I’m perfectly fine letting CCP decide the merits of Abyssal content and how to balance it. The content exists, and I’ll enjoy it as best as I can. As I’ve mentioned before I’m just here to address the potential of the “Abyssal experience”.

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TL; DR

After having tried your technique, I still feel the proposed module would offer the best speed experience. I also have some observations but they need to be broken down:

  • The ‘parabellum’ technique is for very advanced players
  • Multi-tasking and information overload
  • Satisfaction of a ‘Perfect Run’
  • Large Abyssal assets

Due to these, and that the module is not a ‘necessity’, I would propose it as a convenience mod, much like the plain tractor beam is just really for convenience.

The Parabellum Technique

This is a very cool technique, and again, thanks for sharing it. I tried it in conjunction with the tractor beam and occasionally got some stunning results. But unfortunately with the speeds I am working with, I figure there is at best 3 seconds to get your two commands of ‘open container’ and ‘loot all’. And maybe the reason it can be sketchy is cause of the server ticks within such a short time frame. I can see this technique being made into a racing loot catching sub-game in EVE, and with a lot of practice would be awesome. But then again, maybe there is already such a game and it’s called ‘criminal activity’, of which I may try to practice for… :joy:

Multi-tasking and information overload

Personally, I am horrible at multi-tasking, I am a very focused person. The Abyss already has enough activity going on, like watching enemy, your direction, your stats, managing multiple weapons, and targets, and then adding a maneuver that requires micro-managing is overloading the experience for me. In fact, because of the information overload I nearly missed an amazing visual which I will share at the end.

Satisfaction of the ‘Perfect Run’

After all that practice, it got me to thinking of the concept of what exactly is a ‘Perfect’ speed run? In my opinion, it would be as I have mentioned. Speeding to each node, grapple the node wreck, make the turn to the next target, reel in and loot, then repeat until flying into the gate. However the optimal range tolerance for the proposed module should be tight enough that it requires some timing and piloting skills and result in some misses. That way a ‘Perfect’ run for all three rooms in Abyss should feel like an achievement, but not so many misses that it’s frustrating. I’ll update that concept in OP.

Large Abyssal assets

In the past, I was running afterburner fits and I had never paid much attention to asteroids and other assets in the Abyss cause I never really had to interact with them when I could just pull in the node wrecks with a tractor beam. But now I realize that all the bonus nodes are always at least attached to a small/medium asteroid, and occasionally a large asteroid that the parabellum maneuver likely would not be able to handle. Not sure if these large asteroids are associated with certain types of Abyss, but I did come across one in all three rooms in a row of an Electrical.

And in another instance, due to micro-managing of the maneuver, I almost didn’t get to appreciate an amazing sight. I ran into a ‘forest’ of asteroid pillars, the first time I ever came across it. I bumped into a pillar, which snapped me out of my zone, and realized I needed to actively fly through the ‘forest’ to get to the node. That was friggin awesome! That asset needs to appear more often! And that’s where the suggested module would still be useful. Flying through asteroid fields and still be able to turn and burn and grapple node. That would be such a great immersive experience!

  • P.S. If somehow the CCP artists and level designers get through that wall of text to this… Thank you!!
    I didn’t really appreciate it much before, but since I’ve recently started flying to and through the artwork all the time now in the Abyss, it is absolutely amazing! Keep up the great work, and I hope to see more!
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