How to solve over usage of the Capital Ships?

EVE Technology and Research Center Player Features & Ideas
1

Nowadays seeing caps dropping on you in every fight is the normal part of the game. But its also breaking the immersion and making low skilled pilots unable to enjoy the game. Surely with the lastest changes on last patches (jammers,range etc) this problem got lowered a little bit but still plagues the game.

Dont get me wrong I am not creating this tread because I just died to to a cap. Actually I am killing many of them (with friends and with the help of other caps) in the last couple weeks (check my killboard if you want last cap kill was like 10 hours ago) but still I think the cap usage in almost %80 engagements is kinda too much and CCP needs to do something about fixing it.

So what can be done surely CCP can be really harsh and put a huge stop to this insane cap usage but that can also disturb veteren players so small actions taken in weeks and months can at least solve some problems. Here is some ideas how to do it very slowly without angering cap pilots too much.

  • Increase the production cost and ore costs of the caps therefore their prices will go high and players will begin to think twice about dropping their caps in everyfight. How much increase we are talking about well %10 increase and maybe more in the upcoming months can be a good start.

  • Jump Ranges can be lowered and siege times can be increased so pilots will be forced to act more cautious.

  • Lower the insurance payouts more (I think this has been done before)

  • Make those ships little bit slower to fire or align etc (not too much)

  • Some new features about docking undocking and general usage

  • Some other ideas CCP and you guys also come up with.

Overall my suggestion is not to make caps completly useless but turn them into ships which is used in imporant situations. Rightnow we saw that its beign used in even 40 - 40 fights which can be considered small. With small adjusments this over usage of the caps can be lowered and veteran players also dont get mad too much.

Note: By using the word of Caps I mean Dreadnought and Carriers.

2

Reduce the availability of all ores…

Done. That was easy.

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3

Ow thats too much I dont agree I mean if you reduce all Ore avalability this can cause problems in every productions. So rather than messing with the avalability changing the ore requirements and productions costs of the Dreads and Carriers can be good solution. High ore and production costs along with longer build times is a good way to start.

This changes will make caps more expensive and more expsensive they get people begin to use it less. I mean they still use it but if the price goes up like %40 - %50 in 3 months well we wont see dreads flying everywhere right.

4

Right now there is a MASSIVE over production issue across the board. Look at the prices of T1 BS…it’s ridiculous.

Your point is not incorrect though but you are too focused on the the little picture IMO. The whole economy is totally borked at the moment and it starts with the over abundance of ore.

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5

I cannot comment on that because I dont have enough knowlage about the overall production of ships and modules. The things I listed was to fix the over usage of the caps thats all.

6

I know that I am going off topic but you can’t only focus on one aspect (ie caps) in a bubble. Time, more base minerals etc would do absolutely nothing to stop the big guys and their ship yards.

You might like this: https://www.eveonline.com/article/prg4uv/monthly-economic-report-april-2019
Some light reading :slight_smile:

Check out the “total mined by region” chart…it’s nutty…same for total production by region.

If you look at that raw data and total the destroyed value and compare that to the mined values, you will be shocked. Then add in the bounties and you will see that there is so much wealth in NE right now that it’s ruining (or borking) everything…IMO of course…

7

The issue is more that they don’t die very much or at the very least we are building them faster than we can kill them.

  • Nerf mineral income in general (probably with the rorqual), not because caps but because economy fudged.
  • Nerf capitals hit points (esp supers and titans). They just need to die more.
  • Lower capital mineral cost. (this takes away some of the advantage of big economic blocks like goons and makes fights more about fleet size)
  • Lower insurance payouts for capitals.
  • Maybe increase build time, esp supers and titans.
1 Like
8

Banned in Empire Space = True

9

The problem is that we have a massive supply and that would cut demand as losec dwellers would no longer use them, which means that capital ships would get even more disposable in nature in nullsec and W-space.

Personally, I say we take the opposite approach.

I say let capitals into hisec. Not all of them, and not everywhere, but open up the market for hisec dwellers. That would increase demand and balance out the market forces making them so cheap.

(This post is partially tongue-in-cheek, especially since I’m leaving off the massively long list of limitations I think would have to go along with hisec capitals, but it’s still something to think about.)

10

I really like this idea. All of the capitals that my alliance currently owns, we’ll have gotten super cheap, and anyone else who tries to catch up with us will suffer the huge increase in cost.

This is very concrete and well thought out.

11

That just allows what is basically unneeded ship creep to continue to screw up low and now add high.

That totally falls into the liner progression trap.

12

Oh yeah, it’s fraught with other issues that make it probably not worth doing, but purely from the standpoint of drying up the oversupply of capital ships to make them less disposable, it should work. (In theory.)

(I did say my comment was somewhat tongue-in cheek…)

EDIT: The post where I talk about allowing caps in hisec is here. I didn’t mean to go off topic, so lets shift any further discussion over there. :slight_smile:

13

Nullsec will just make more…

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14

Yea for a time it may benefit you and probably all other Alliences but you guys will keep losing it (everyone loses their caps from time time) so eventually in weeks things will settle…

15

It’s really cute that you think capitals still dry up in a span of weeks.

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16

Fight capitals with capitals. A carrier cost you as much as a bling fitted rattle.

17

I totally get where the “think of the children” arguments come from. We need to encourage new/low skilled players.

At the same time though, if there also needs to be unique play for the veterans of the game, because otherwise what’s the keep them anchored to playing?

They support the game for a long time and then if there’s nothing for them to enjoy, why stay?

We potentially end up losing more vets, while still having poor retention of new players and the active community continues to shrink.

So I don’t thknk the answer to help newer/lower skilled players is to nerf capitals.

Capitals dropping on sub caps has been an issue, but the right approach should be in my view, to:

  • Ensure capitals are the right counter to other capitals
  • Make capitals less useful against sub capitals
  • Ensure capitals are not overly vulnerable to sub capitals as a result of the above point

If capitals are poor at applying damage to sub-caps, then the motivation to drop them lowers. However, they don’t want to become so bad that the best counter to caps is a sub-cap fleet.

It’s a difficult thing, but just nerfing stuff across the board doesn’t seem the right answer.

In some ways, beefing up the ability of capitals to take out other capitals, then making sure they can’t apply well to sub caps but aren’t at risk from sub caps, should separate their use.

Jump fatigue is good, but while that allows smaller groups to use capitals without being dropped from across the map, we have less chance now of having the next B-R battle. If only we could find a way to let capitals move big distances sometimes (eg. increase the null-null wormhole spawn rate again, with mass limits that allow capital fleets to move through).

I don’t know what the right answer is tbh, but I don’t think nerfing capitals is it.

18

But doesn’t this change WAY too many parts of the recipe when all you really need to do is change a core ingredient(ie ore availability)?

If you make Supers rarer due to manufacturing hardships then they use of them also becomes much more selective…and that will trickle down though all ship types…

19

Maybe, but unfortunately the cat is already out of the bag as far as capital proliferation goes, so trying to get it under control again is going to have advantages and disadvantages no matter which approach is chosen.

If for example, minerals are made rarer so they are more difficult to build, then those groups that already have them have a huge strategic and operational advantage over those that don’t.

In a couple of years time, the current political landscape will then favour the status quo even more, because it will be harder for new groups to rise to a state of being able to challenge the existing nullblocs.

That seems like a recipe for more stagnation, or total dominance along the current lines that can’t change.

I’m not sure that is a fair approach to trying to control capitals. It just hurts players and groups that will join and be created in the future.

20

You are right about the cat bit…but I would put forth that a drought of resources would be a huge catalyst for conflict and intern thin-out the stockpiles (of everything). This will take months (a years?) to do it “fairly” though…but it could be as simple as turning down the taps and let things balance out naturally.

I’m a big fan of the KISS principal so…