Some fun balance team wants to look at is:
Make other dictors more viable
More types of bubbles
A Triglavian dictor where the bubble gets bigger over time
Tech I versions of dictors and recons
Dictor bubbles with webbing effect or ewar effects instead of warp disruption
Webbing dictors could help combat the evasive coward meta
Increases damage done to Capital within the field generated by the probe
Any constructive comments would be helpful, I’ll be updating and reworking this post as I get feedback from people, as well as potentially make it a consolidated post as a result of moderator guidance.
Player Features & Ideas
Proposed use cases
Impacts and Balance considerations
4.1 Balancing use at scale
4.2 Impacts on solo/small-gang
4.3 Impacts on meta
4.4 Current game direction fit
4.5 Cost
4.6 Economic impact
Longer timers but smaller warp disruption ranges. Mostly for niche uses in interdiction in cases in which catch and drag bubble can be deployed when opposition fleets are further out (in terms of jumps).
Thank you for the comment however, I do take the point about ensuring “skill” is an important factor in interdictor piloting.
I described one potential niche use of a warp disrupt probe with a longer flight time and shorter range. The uses of the others potential variant would likely be different. Mostly the proposal is one so that the range of options available to interdictors is greater.
It takes an incredibly long time to reload probes already. Why would any dictor in their mind go around swapping probes for different ranges?
FCs in fleet fights also know that bubbles from dictors are 20km by default, so that helps them hold a consistent variable in a fight. If the dictors are all randomly using different range bubbles, it just causes confusion.
In the context of a fleet fight, it certainly would be possible for interdictors to coordinate bubble variants. It increases the complexity and potential confusion involved in interdictor use.
As a group interdictor pilots, and even with the reload time of the interdiction sphere launcher, it is quite possible that you might want some portion of those interdictor pilots to fit the short flight time, longer range probes in order to disrupt warps in time for other interdictors carrying more standard probes.
Detailing all of the potential uses of new warp disrupt probes is difficult however, because they will be used in inventive and novel ways.
So your entire suggestion can be summed up as “here is my bad idea, I won’t explain why the game needs it or how it should be used because people will come up with creative ways to use it once it’s implemented.”
Your response here doesn’t seem very constructive. I’ve explained one of the novel ways in which some of potential variants might be used. I think part of making any suggestion is admitting not being able to anticipate all the novel and inventive ways of playing that people will find. As I noted at the start, I’m also interested in the suggestions of others here and their feedback.
This change will shake up the Battleship meta of EVE Online and open up new and exciting tactical options for crafty players to use! It can also give Capsuleers a chance to stay in the fight longer… unless you opt to use your nimble ship to escape from the battlefield and leave your fleetmates to their fate!
With further changes to battleships so that they find more widespread use, the choice of ship in the frigate escape bay will likely be an actual factor in some fleet fights. Mostly this post is about responding to a stated intention by CCP to “look at” interdictors and explicitly consider new bubble type and provide a space where we can have some input there, and discuss the potential consequences, both negative and positive .