The Q-Ship isn’t supposed to be a merchant vessel. Its both a decoy and bait, to various degrees.
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I get that it is supposed to be bait. But after it is introduced it is only bait in HS. It is not bait in LS and NS.
And yeah…a war ship, there is no warship in EVE that can take down a fleet of ships or even part of a fleet. Maybe give it the tank and fire power of a tier 1 battleship…at most.
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Then it’s a pointless mechanic, because transports die to massive gank fleets, not single opponents. Any ship that would not be utterly broken in 1v1 is going to die instantly against a gank fleet.
The only useful bait “q-ship” would be a cheap ship that appears to be a more expensive one. For example, a T1 frigate hull that appears on overview and in space as a freighter. It would still instantly die, but it would cost essentially nothing and bait the gank fleet into expending the cost of a full gank on something that offers zero profit. But even that is a pretty niche role and not really worth wasting developer time on, as there would be little to gain from flying such a ship other than the satisfaction of “LOL YOU FAILED”.
It looks like an easy target, but its not an easy target. Doesn’t matter where it is, looks the same.
The response time in 0.5 space for CONCORD is about 20 seconds. What a co-incidence that the extra resist mode of an Advanced Damage Control on AF and HAC last the same duration?
Transports die to massive gank fleets because the reward of the gank is so great compared to the relatively low cost of the ships involved to pull it off.
If you build it, they will come.
Yes, exactly this as the present meta is too easy for the gankers to get an accurate cargo scan, ship scan, divide EHP by 20 and that’s how many DPS worth of gank is needed.
Imagine the huge amount of salt that could be mined, it would make the Dead Sea look like spring water.
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What does that have to do with anything? A gank fleet has the advantage of carefully calculating out exactly how much damage they need to do before CONCORD arrives, and an activated module isn’t going to help you one bit if you insta-pop before you can press a button. Surviving a competent gank fleet once you have landed on-grid with them and allowed them to open fire is impossible. To change this your hypothetical ship would have to have such obscenely high HP that it would almost certainly be exploited and break balance in anything but a suicide gank.
Imagine the huge amount of salt that could be mined, it would make the Dead Sea look like spring water.
I can imagine it, and I can imagine how utterly pointless it would be for CCP to spend developer time on this. You’re talking about a ship that provides zero direct benefit to you. It can’t make you ISK, it can’t kill enemies, all you can do with it is hope that you convince someone to spend money on a failed suicide gank and laugh at them. And to do this CCP would have to make fundamental changes to the game code for things like the overview, the ‘show info’ box, etc, to allow a ship to appear as something that it is not. The reward for this investment of developer time is that some people get to fly a troll ship and get a few lols before they get bored of trolling for zero gain.
So no, this “salt” is not worth investing in when CCP has much better things they could be doing with their time and effort.
(Reiteration of concept.)
Phase one
New modual, “Lead lining”. Prevents cargo and ship scans from being able to see into the cargo bay and ship load out. Ship looks like it has no cargo or moduals fitted.
Phase two
New modual, “False front array type 1” (Used in conjunction with “Lead lining”) Tricks ship scanners into seeing a different load out of moduals.
New modual, “False front array type 2” (Used in conjunction with “Lead lining”) Tricks cargo scanners into seeing a different cargo than what you actually have.
Phase 3
New modual, “Signature distortion” (Used in conjunction with “Lead lining”)
Makes the ship appear to be another ship on D-scan that has close to the same signature.
Phase 4
Introduction of the Q-ship
With it’s built in array of fun. 
That seem like a good development introduction?
You ask me? I am not here to judge. Every idea deserves its own thread. Spend time ironing out the idea, then let the wolves loose on it.
Also… module* : - )
You are seriously ignoring the context of my comment and how people actually play the game.
A freighter right now is an easy target…as such nobody flies it from gate to gate in NS without first checking to make sure the route is clear.
So, seeing one you know it is an easy target.
After the introduction of the q-ship you also know with a high probability that seeing a “freighter” is no almost certainly bait…obvious bait. It ceases to fulfill it’s role in those instances. Only in HS would it be possible to “bait” people. And then probably only gankers.
And ganking is as Merin describes it. Right now if some players want another player to die it is just a “math problem”. Figure out the necessary DPS and apply it. That’s it.
Now, could there be a way to inject some uncertainty in there? Maybe. Is that a good or a bad thing? I could see how if done “right” it might be a good thing. But that is the tricky part, IMO.
The same thing could be largely accomplished by letting freighters fit a single high slot module that accomplishes the task of spoofing your tank and cargo contents. Now I look like I’m full of a huge amount of cargo value and have cargo expanders but in reality I have nothing in my hold and 3 reinforced bulkheads fitted and now the gankers will slam an ineffective gank fleet into my obelisk…
This is a garbage argument. CCP could give a WTFBBQEVERYTHING ship and then I could generate enough tears to make the Dead See look like spring water. It would also be stupid.
I ask you out of respect for your logical answers and decent dialog, constructive criticism and previous experience with using you as a wall to bounce Ideas off of. 
The same thing I do with everyone who offers a sound source of inspiration and insight.
Hmmmn…
Then, perhaps a (blast) from the past is in order? ;3
Is the combat nereus still viable? if so there’s your Q ship.
Note that IRL the Q ships you are taking inspiration from were not combat ships as such, they were refit merchant ships to ambush individual submarines or small vessels.
Nope, they where purpose built off of modified existing merchant ship designs.
They had triple hull construction… TRIPLE!
Even ICE breakers and modern warships don’t have triple hull designs!
Few warships ever had triple hulled builds.
The expense of building a triple hulled ship is 1 and a 1/2 times more expensive than building a conventional double hulled ship.
Not combat ships my foot!
‘Heavily Armed Merchant Ships’
I’ll correct myself, they were combat ships in the sense they had guns and a very specific engagement plan. Put them against any dedicated combat ship and they would die. Quickly.
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Depends on the dedicated combat ship I suppose.
Is not a U-boat a dedicated combat ship?
“they were combat ships in the sense they had guns and a very specific engagement plan. Put them against any dedicated combat ship and they would die. Quickly.”
Would not all combat vessels die quickly outside there specific engagement plan?
AKA: Operational parameters.
“The Q-ships’ cargoes were light wood (balsa or cork) or wooden casks, so that even if torpedoed they would remain afloat, encouraging the U-boat to surface to sink them with a deck gun. The crew might even pretend to “abandon ship”. Once the U-boat was vulnerable, the Q-ship’s panels would drop to reveal the deck guns, which would immediately open fire. At the same time, the White Ensign (Royal Navy flag) would be raised. With the element of surprise, a U-boat could be quickly overwhelmed.”
The original Q ships were merchant ships, but heavily armed. So not a ship built solely for the purpose of combat in that sense.
The OP was asking for basically a ‘combat beast’ masquerading as a cargo ship, my point is that Q-ships were never combat beasts, they were ambush hunters attempting to take out sole enemies.
And seriously, is the combat nereus still viable? I haven’t seen them for a while.
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In WW1, mostly yes.
WW2 was a bit of a different story.
But look at this chart
and tell me that indi ships of those sizes could not easily be converted into full on warships.
I mean…Damn!
Look at the size of them!
You could have the ones with just enough and others that would be scary.
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Design principles for combat ships and cargo ships are vastly different. Cargo ships have large open spaces for handling and storing cargo, critical systems are not designed for combat. Combat ships are much more compact in terms of critical systems, typically are built around a weapon system of choice, and typicallu have relatively few open spaces internally.
Retrofitting a cargo hull into a combat ship simply wouldn’t be feasible. You can put more guns on and enhance some defenses, but it would never be close to a combat ship of the equivalent size (or even half the size) as it simply isn’t designed for it.
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To expand on Corraidhin’s post…
What you are proposing is the equivalent of take a cargo van, slapping on some armor plates and machine guns, and expecting it to be able to fend off something like a Marauder.
The cargo van may have more protection than before… but structurally and performance-wise, it won’t stand up in a straight fight with even something half its size because it simply wasn’t designed for it.
edit: The following youtube clip is case and point.
“Manchildren making a Bond Car”
(note: Granted, the guys on that show typically do things in a half-ass fashion for effect… but it kinda proves my point in that making a “civilian vehicle” operate like an actual war machine requires some serious modifications.
Which bring me to this:
The whole concept behind Q-Ships (historically speaking) was that it was too costly (or not efficient) for a U-Boat to use its main weapons against a supposed cargo vessel. After all… a U-boat would only carry so many torpedos, would need said torps for an actual engagement against a real combat ship, and was most vulnerable when surfaced (see: when docked somewhere).
Instead, the U-boats would surface and use its deck gun to sink the cargo ship.
Or try to capture and loot the ship (so the sub could operate without going home for longer).
Both made the U-boat uniquely vulnerable as pretty much anything with a heavy calibre weapon could mortally damage it.
And this is where the Q-Ship came in.
But even still… Q-ships typically took just as much damage at they dished.
Eventually the concept was scrapped because it was more efficient to build actual dedicated combat vessels and have them protect (and risk losing) flimsy cargo ships… rather than retrofit an existing cargo ship.
.
Within the context of EVE:
I have only one question to pose for you; if a single ship like this can bait in and kill and/or fend off a bunch of attackers… what is the point of an actual combat ship?
Conceptually you have designed an actual combat ship. It simply appears as something else.
So your idea falls into 2 camps: Either it will be…
- strong enough to actually fight other combat ships… in which case the very people you seek to use this against will use it against you. It will also obsolete all other haulers of the same class if it can still haul just as much (or slightly less) as they can.
- it will only be strong enough to fight something that is comparatively much smaller/weaker than a combat ship of the same class as the Q-ship… in which case you have effectively recreated what already exists: The Nerus and other Tech 1 “tanky” haulers.
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The torps were still for sinking cargo ships, just when the sub had to be submerged due to other threats being present. If a real combat ship was present then the sub would maneuver to fire with torps and run before the combat ship could turn to engage.
The deck gun was simply more economical to use when it was ‘safe’ to surface and engage that way.
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Fair point.
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