Would be nice to have a deployable structure, say 50m3 in size with a 60 second anchor time, destroyable like an MTU, that will repair your hull. Would repair as fast as a medium hull repper (match up the meta levels).
Drones work if you’ve got a drone bay. Remote reps work if you’ve got someone who can fit them with you. A depot and a hull repper work too, if you’ve got an eternity to wait.
The anchor time and destroyable nature preserve the core tenents of hull tanking, while permitting the hull tanked ship to get underway faster after a fight. Getting underway faster means more content (the satisfying kind, not the “lol this dude’s already almost dead” kind).
But you are proposing it should be the same place as hull reppers. Unless you are specifically designing this to repair hull tanked frigates. In which case no. Because you are asking for faster reps for no real downside at that point.
ultimately mobile depots and hull reps are more than enough for this. Hull tanks are already borderline when it comes to balance. One of the balancing factors is they are hard to run for extended roams. for these you tend to be better off with shield or active armor builds. This is not a bad thing not every ship/playstyle/mod needs to be useful in every environment
You mean… other than virtually all of their remaining cargo space? Remember that hull tanking consumes cargo space as well.
And since it can’t be used in combat (unless they’re too stupid to shoot it), I fail to see why it needs a tactical downside such as the fitting of a local rep.
Yes, I do intend this for frigates. Medium reps from these would still be slow as balls on anything bigger than a destroyer. Amusingly, I was playing around with a hull tanked garmur fit… still nice and fast, way tankier than your typical shield fit, with the obvious drawback that it can’t really rep.
See… I disagree that you should balance a tactical element such as your buffer, against the duration of your roam.
Tactical choices should have tactical impacts. It’s like saying “you aren’t allowed to carry racial ECM modules in your hold, because you made the tactical choice to fit gravis”. No… if you made the strategic choice to bring other modules, and to swap those modules out at a safe time, the tactical benefits are yours.
In this case, you clearly couldn’t use this in combat; it’s a strategic aspect. Repairing out of combat should have no bearing whatsoever on the next engagement. The only time I wuold say that doesn’t apply is when you’re getting chased… in which case a 60 second anchor time makes the deployable useless to you (potentially even more dangerous).
you can also just bring the hull rep in your hold…
ofc it does a fight isn’t only the time spent on grid but everything that leads up to it. I know in blops we stalked a hull brutix gang until after it took two smaller fights then immediately dropped on them. while we may have been able to take them at full power being able to pop a couple of them early on definitely lightened the load on our logistics
You’re comparing a tomato to a bushel of apples here. A gang of hull BNIs has nothing at all to do with a solo/small gang of frigates.
The BNI has the potential to fit a great deal more rep capacity with MDs, the BNI has a substantially higher buffer that could still be present. They don’t need these, which was why I suggested only a medium-sized repper, and not a variety of different sizes.
Consider the exact circumstances of the engagement, but with hull tanked frigates instead of BNIs. Would a difference of 2-3k EHP have made any impact? You’d still have the ewar to scram/web them (because you know what you’re fighting, bring a rapier and an arazu).
No, it was an example I accounted for already. As I said:
Said BNI gang would have been able to stop and use MD to fit reppers. You absolutely would have known to drop on them then, especially then, because they’d have reppers fitted.
You were stalking them. That’s frequently going to involve chasing.
In the case of this deployable, it’d be a giant floating kick-me sign and the perfect time for you to drop on them. Assuming they’d used them at all… they’d have used depots most likely because they’d be able to rep faster that way.
I see… yes, I suppose I could fly a shield/armor tank. Or… I could suggest something that I contend has no impact on any specific engagement, and thus no effect on tactical balance. How exactly does the above refute that argument?
With easily visible mechanisms to keep it from being viable in combat, or in any scenario where you could rapidly end up in combat again.
but you don’t need to be getting chased it could simply be you deciding or getting forced into a fight when your to low.
rather than making a mistake that costs you your ship during the fight you simply made it before the fight started.
this one very much as an effect on not only the fight you are currently in (knowing you can rep easily after you can be more reckless) but every fight after
None of which changes. Even with a medium repper, it’s still going to take a few minutes to rep, after it spends a minute repping.
That’s 3 or so minutes that you’re floating in a single system, after you had a fight (and for most of that you’re going to have only a portion of your buffer). That’s plenty of time for someone to happen along and probe you. Obviously you’d need to start running, but if they choose to fight you, you won’t be able to rep.
Versus with a MD and a small rep, you can just keep pinging around until the cows come home. Landing a bubble on you wuold be virtually impossible if you’re smart with your pings.
Your level of recklessness in a fight, knowing that you can rep aftewards, is moot. In low you can just go to a freeport and rep up… does that mean that being reckless in low is okay but not in null? No. There’s no reason why being reckless in low should be acceptable but not in null.
yes… yes it does and this is a good thing. again it provides different gameplay depending on where you are as well as what you chose to fly. the fact that different areas of space reward or punish different tactics is not necessarily a bad thing.
With the exception of capacitor warfare in wormholes, and fozzieclaws (which they’re getting rid of thank god), I can’t think of any other examples where fits are rewarded or punished based on their fits.
I would counter that it is also not necessarily a good thing. The “different gameplay” you see in low vs null is the lack of bubbles, the prevalence of freeports (doing a lot more than just letting you repair).
Disadvantaging certain fits “because it’s null” feels like a shoddy reason at best. Runs counter to the idea that CCP promotes emergent gameplay.
no the different mechanics encourage more emergent gameplay. just like in a real ecosystem where different factors produce different organisms. and it lets the players decide what area they find is most fun for the way they play.
you also have mass limits and intel control that forces vastly different fleet comps and tactics than you find in null.
FW space you are far better off flying the smallest ship you can in order to have access to all of the gates. LS in general locations is very important as well as deciding if its worth you being the first one to shoot if on gate/station. gate guns also lead to different types of gate camp set ups not simple the lack of access to bubbles. HS as an entirely new host of rules and a vastly different meta. so yes each space is very distinct from the others
Disadvantaging something is a strange way of encouraging emergent gameplay. By increasing diversity, you allow the players decide what kind of playstyle they enjoy, without limiting them to a particular selection of space.
For example, you mention gate guns being a determining factor.
A player who likes to fly frigates cannot engage on gates. All that does is reduce diversity for solo pilots. A pilot in a gang will get initial tackle in a slightly more tanky instalocker and warp off once secondary point is up to circumvent this. At the end of the day, all you’re doing is disadvantaging the solo/micro frigate pilot in LS. That’s a good example of how “difference” hurts emergence.