see reddit. pirat got their ass handed to them and took the cowards way out by storing their ships in neutral bowheads to reduce their losses.
they were aggressed, and scrambled. it is broken that a player in combat can store their ship in a neutral bowhead to escape their loss.
you should not be able to escape any kind of combat by storing your ship in a neutral bowhead. using this to escape war losses is a joke. it is made worse by the fact that the players abusing can afford to take those losses they just are so massively risk averse that they use every trick in the game to avoid loss.
I agree, the bowhead should take on all of the timers relating to the capsuleers who ships onboard to it in space.
If the capsuleer is a valid war target then the bowhead becomes valid.
A bowhead loading up a ship in station isn’t loading a Capsuleer occupied ship so doesn’t become a target - neutal hauling isn’t a problem. Evasion of consequences is.
It would probably be easier and more fair just to prevent switching or storing ships while tackled. Probably station docking too, as it already is for Upwell structures.
and let us be clear. pirat should have lost dozens of more ships, worth around 2 bill each. these guys had them scrambled, they were toast. instead they evaded tens of billions of losses thanks to a method of loss evasion that should never have been allowed to exist in the first place.
@Cheseburg this should definitely be discussed by the community. You might want to move this thread to the EVE Technology and Research Center > Player Features & Ideas subforum where it might get more visibility.
I think it should be possible to store ships in ship maintenance bays under when aggressed under certain conditions, but the conditions would need to be fleshed out. @Black_Pedro mentioned being tackled should prevent this (similar to docking/tethering at Upwell POSes now) - that might be a sufficient condition for all use cases as it is simple and spans wardecs in mixed fleets and suspect/criminal timers, so I am inclined to agree with him. I’ve come up with other less-suitable alternatives that highlight why that solution might be best:
Ships with ship maintenance bays would need to set their security to yellow in order to permit those in limited engagements with non-criminals and non-mutual wartargets to drop their ships. A lot more Bowheads (and potentially Orcas) could die in HS if this were enabled. This means that they could go suspect due to actions not taken by themselves but rather fleetmates, so this is probably a very bad idea since it goes against the principle that suspect/criminal flags are raised only by actions directly performed by you rather than indirectly performed by you via actions taken by fleetmates.
Combatant who deposit/swap ships during a limited engagement goes suspect , thereby allowing others to legally attack him. Perhaps an exception could be made for ORE mining vessels (and shuttles?). This exception could at least apply to the Orca/Rorqual if not other ships in HS/LS. This is potentially a cure-worse-than-the-disease situation in which combatants may be forced to fight it out to ship destruction (or ejection) before getting a new ship from the ship maintenance bay if they don’t want non-war targets attacking them when engaged by mixed fleets where not all opponents are war targets but would be willing to kill you if you went suspect. This doesn’t address the core problem, however: the blingy ships continue to be protected by the neutral Bowhead/Orca in HS. In particular, if the now-suspect combatant doesn’t have a new ship/pod of great value, this suspect flag isn’t much of a punitive measure.
Combatants cannot swap ships when aggroed. The problem with this is obvious - if all members of a fleet are aggroed simultaneously, then they’re collectively neutralized in their ability to swap ships with the Bowhead, making it useless and taking away this gameplay element. Perhaps this restriction could be HS-only since a mothership in LS can always be tackled and killed, albeit illegally at worst (the best a Bowhead can do at that point is tank long enough for reinforcements to arrive).
I think everyone can agree that the status quo is unacceptable: a neutral Bowhead/Orca in HS should not prevent you from scoring legitimate kills against blingy ships that you would have otherwise gotten had they not been present. While I am sure there are several other alternatives available, of all the ones I presented I believe the one presented by @Black_Pedro is simplest and best: if you’re warp jammed, you can’t deposit or swap - behavior on par with Upwell POS docking/tethering.
If I had to guess, I would imagine most people would disagree with “in combat in general”. The tackle restriction would be on par with Upwell POS behavior that you have docking permissions at: you can dock if you are aggroed, but not if you are scrammed or have a weapons timer active. I didn’t mention weapons timer in my last post, so it is worth considering if that should be a factor. I’m inclined to say no. I think scram should be the one and only condition.
if scram is the only condition, pirat will go on abusing this whenever possible. sure it will reduce their ability to do it, but they may still save some. i don’t know. could work. i suppose if not scrammed they would just warp off anyway.
not just scrams, warp disruptor too should prevent storing your ship.
Scramming enemies isn’t abuse, it’s PVP, it’s desirable gameplay, it’s the end goal of EVE. All roads lead to PVP in EVE. Everything CCP is doing in EVE is to stimulate emergent behavior that promotes PVP and leads players toward PVP or at least PVP-preparedness in terms of defensive capabilities. This is true even for war immune mining in HS when it comes to PVP-level trig rats dropping in on belts.
I think it is safe to say that tackling is the #1 form of EWAR in any competent PVP fleet, with few exceptions. There will be no significant increase in tackling just because this change goes into effect because almost every competent PVP fleet in existence in tackle-heavy anyway. I doubt seriously any competent HS PVP fleet is going to go “better throw a few more tackles in there in case the enemy uses a Bowhead” if this change goes in effect. Besides - this change is a strict improvement over the status quo. There is literally no downside to it.
“Oh ■■■■enemy is using a Bowhead we need 3x more Lachesis” - no one is ever going to say this
While this type of issue needs to be resolved there is a simple solution already in the game. Leave highsec and then suddenly the BS mechanics there don’t matter. I don’t see them bringing neutral bowheads to curse lol.
As annoying as this mechanic may be, especially when you neither expect nor are prepared for it to happen, note that the conditions under which a ship may dock in an Orca or a Bowhead are the same as docking at an NPC station. In particular, they cannot do that if they have a weapons timer.
I’m telling you this because it could very well be that CCP changes nothing in this regard other than maybe prevent docking when warp scrambled, so it works the same way it does for docking in Upwell structures instead, which would sure make more sense, but that’s it. I wouldn’t hold my breath hoping CCP will ever make that mechanic any more restrictive than the way docking in Upwell structures work, whatever that way happens to be.
Anyway, what you need to do as long as things work the way they do now is keep that possibility in mind and be prepared to deal with it in case it happens, e.g. by having a pilot (which may also be a neutral) ready to bump any Orca or Bowhead that might try to do that.
Like many other things in EvE, this issue seems a big deal when you totally don’t expect it and are unprepared for it, but you may adapt and learn to deal with it when you understand how it works.
in order to permit those in limited engagements with non-criminals and non-mutual wartargets to drop their ships. A lot more Bowheads (and potentially Orcas) could die in HS if this were enabled. This means that they could go suspect due to actions not taken by themselves but rather fleetmates, so this is probably a very bad idea since it goes against the principle that suspect/criminal flags are raised only by actions directly performed by you rather than indirectly performed by you via actions taken by fleetmates.
, thereby allowing others to legally attack him. Perhaps an exception could be made for ORE mining vessels (and shuttles?). This exception could at least apply to the Orca/Rorqual if not other ships in HS/LS. This is potentially a cure-worse-than-the-disease situation in which combatants may be forced to fight it out to ship destruction (or ejection) before getting a new ship from the ship maintenance bay if they don’t want non-war targets attacking them when engaged by mixed fleets where not all opponents are war targets but would be willing to kill you if you went suspect. This doesn’t address the core problem, however: the blingy ships continue to be protected by the neutral Bowhead/Orca in HS. In particular, if the now-suspect combatant doesn’t have a new ship/pod of great value, this suspect flag isn’t much of a punitive measure.