A like for the thoughtfulness of adjusting your proposals.
I see Sol typing so I’ll hold my reply… 
3 Likes
Et tu, Brute?
I’ll stay away. 
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If I may suggest Archer,
re-read your proposals with other areas of space in mind (lowsec, wh, null) and consider how they would be affected. The best solutions are almost always simple, and universal.
ie, tethering my capital/supercap…?
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I had those in mind from start to finish 
I might not have started this explicitly but:
- Warp jam proposal (mechanics identical to Upwell POS docking/tethering prohibiition) would extend to NS/WH as well, disrupting undesirable behavior outside of empire space. This was intended. Simple, uniform mechanics.
- I was actually ONLY thinking about capitals when I thought about LS/NS. I wasn’t even thinking about the Bowhead or Orca. Again, this is intended. I am not looking to make exceptions here. If you are tethered, you cannot support your fleet - end of story. Disruptive to existing gameplay? Heavily - but for the better. This change is on par with removing HAWs from Titans or wardec immunity in terms of gameplay disruption: ultimately it’s a good thing but with a short-term, soon-to-be-forgotten period of butt-hurt. Simple, uniform mechanics.
I am making no special HS-only or Bowhead/Orca-only rules.
I am at fault for failing to state that it was 100% intended for these impacts to apply universally outside of HS into LS/NS/WH and onto capitals as well, but I have considered these thoroughly.
Worth pointing out: if a fleetmate and mothership are tethered and the fleetmate wants to board a ship in the ship maintenance bay, the mothership can launch the ship. Likewise, the mothership can recover into its maintenance bay an ejected ship. Hence, it isn’t a fatal arrangement if, for example, the capital were too big to dock at the POS to give/receive the ship to/from the fleetmate. So it permits some legitimate existing uses but it eliminates a lot of the bullshittery. You want bullshittery? Let’s make it inconvenient/hazardous.
Things could be so simple …
… yet for some reason not everyone’s a target by default.
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The first part I can get behind and have endorsed it already. Sufficient tackle on a ship should prevent it from boarding in a maintenance bay, as is currently with Upwell structures.
The second part I cannot endorse in this thread. It is far beyond what the OP proposed, and has far-reaching consequences for playstyles I do not claim any knowledge or experience with. You yourself admit such in your post.
And with that said I’m out.
o7
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Never would have thought to do that. Props to P I R A T for thinking of it.
Why are people against the ability to shoot the Orca/Bowhead?
I don’t think too many are against an orca/bowhead/etc. being a legal target, just that the proposals to get to that state have problems in the current form as expressed.
So far, the proposals boil down to:
1. STATUS QUO
| Advantage | Disadvantage |
|---|---|
| * No change needed | * Seems cheesy to be able to stow ships while in a fight |
| * Smart players who know the mechanics, have an advantage | * More whine threads will come now this has been highlighted once |
| * Solution already exists in game (bump the bowhead 2500m away) |
2. PREVENT STOWING IF POINTED/SCRAMMED
| Advantage | Disadvantage |
|---|---|
| * Simple | * Not pointed/scrammed ships can be saved at the point the fight is lost, faster than warping |
| * Prevents chickening out once committed | * Hard to counter |
| * Consistent with Upwell rules for docking |
3. MAKE NEUTRAL SHIP SUSPECT
| Advantage | Disadvantage |
|---|---|
| * Easy to understand | * If a player has their safety green, but can be made suspect from the actions of another player, that breaks the simplicity of the existing safety mechanics. Needs further changes to make this work |
| * Will stop the use of Bowhead/Orca for this immediately | * Tethered ships still get a free pass that needs further changes to fix |
| * Awox | |
| * The more changes that are needed to fix the above, the more complex the system overall becomes |
3. CAN’T STORE SHIP IF HAVE LIMITED ENGAGEMENT
| Advantage | Disadvantage |
|---|---|
| * Simple and is slight modification of existing mechanic | * Has impacts outside highsec that requires additional restriction to highsec only change |
| * 5 minutes to kill instead of 1 minute |
4. CASCADE LIMITED ENGAGEMENT TO NEUTRAL SHIP
| Advantage | Disadvantage |
|---|---|
| * Simple to understand the impact | * Requires change in how limited engagement timers work |
| * Allows neutral ship to become the target | * Stops all remote assistance to fleet members that engage the neutral (ie. boosts and logi) which can then be used to advantage by war targets |
| * Requires additional changes to tethering to deal with use of tethered neutral ship | |
| * Can be used for awox without additional changes to the toggles on ships with bays | |
| * Provides no change for Orcas/Bowheads used to prevent ganks (despite being suggested for this too) | |
| * The above creates a two-tier system |
In relation to the 2nd disadvantage there, there are a number of ways this can be used to advantage by the war targets that put their ships in the bowhead to begin with. For example:
- When the other fleet engages the neutral and loses boosts and logi, warp back, pull the ships back out and re-engage much easier than before
That’s one example, but there are a couple of other good uses of the proposed change to defeat the OP even more completely.
3 Likes
For those claiming this to be an exploit: people have been doing this since before 2010, calling it an exploit now that a certain group of players are using it too is just hypocrisy.
On the Orca inheriting a flag: i don’t think it should. Not only does it open things to being gamed or awoxing, but suspect or limited engagement is insufficient.
If i hunt someone down in a cruiser during a war, and they store their ship in a neutral Orca, that Orca has assisted in the war which is ‘criminal’ in every other case. So i can shoot the orca, but that would be a very bad idea in a lone cruiser. I can’t call in boosts and i can’t call in logi to support me so my target shouldn’t get the support of an Orca.
So if it gets any flag, it should be consistent with other support and cause a criminal timer for the orca. Or…scramming should just straight prevent ships being swapped or stored.
2 Likes
Wow, what a great post! Thank you!
You forgot “everyone will do it eventually”, which completely voids this:
Looks like the best solution would be removing CONCORD!
Let’s see.
Bumping isn’t a solution. We have three orcas and one bowhead. With the bumper being busy with the first, we’ll just warp in the next. Forces every side to escalate endlessly, which is ■■■■■■■■. Wanting more conflicts to happen means that game design can’t center around those who have the most resources. The average joe is who keeps everything running, not the big groups. An economy exists thanks to the middle class.
If (ProtectionButton == Green) then “■■■■ off, you can’t do that at all.” It may or may not be more than one line of code, but it’s unlikely to be overly stressful. Simplicity never has been relevant regarding CrimeWatch 2.0 mechanics, despite what devblog propaganda made people believe. It’s not an actual argument for or against any change. An argument would be “this would require too much additional code, potentially tanking performance”.
What CCP actually said was “It worked for the last decade, but we want stupider people in the game who can’t deal with the higher levels of danger and aren’t necessarily acting with even a modicum of thought, so we have to make the game safer for them and protect them from making potential mistakes.” That’s all that “simplicity” was about. It’s just as intellectually insulting to every old and non-stupid new player as is simplifying a language because “children struggle with it”. (yes, that really is a thing and politicians who cause such changes should be hanged.)
If (ProtectionButton == Green) and (Player == Tethered) then “■■■■ off.”
That definitely requires a lot more processing power than any of the other cases.
No matter what, this mechanic either changes now …
… or when everyone’s using it.
Yeah, definitely dependent on how many bumpers you have. We faced off against a group that bought in 30 bumping stabbers and machs 2 days ago, +48 ships to fight us with.
Was fun, but they definitely could have handled a couple of bowheads/orcas.
The alternative being to bump any battleship that pulls it’s damage. There is 60 seconds before they can store the ship, which should be enough for a smart fleet.
That group is far away from being “middle class”.
Yeah, Korean lowsec group with a heap of structures in highsec. We’ve killed 13 of their structures so far, but really enjoying the fights.
They are good to fight and always put up a good fight as well, whether it’s in war or in lowsec.
Lots of fun to fight them.
They ended up with 120 in system by the end of a couple of hours fighting.
Your post …
… reads …
… like a Trump speech.
VA … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDrfE9I8_hs
I’m glad you’re having fun with fights and I’m glad these groups exists,
but I’m also glad when CCP doesn’t design game play around them.
@Scipio_Artelius your “summary” post did not capture the discussion in an objective and complete fashion. It misrepresents a lot of the proposals (whether this reflects a lack of understanding on your part or was deliberate I cannot say), was completely biased, and not written in good faith (that much is known to be true).
Exploits are timeless. What was an exploit then is an exploit now unless changes cease to render an exploit. I’m sure you will find older threads from years ago mentioning this, too. (Even I remember discussing this specific issue on my Discord a few months ago.) CCP takes forever to change things - that doesn’t make exploits less relevant or more acceptable over time. Fortunately CCP are monitoring this thread specifically (per earlier reply to thread). It means we have a chance to change it NOW despite it meriting change earlier.
The conversation thus far unfolded in a number of ways here:
- The “suspect timer” proposal has some momentum but also opposition. It suffices to say it’s being ironed out further to see if it can address concerns of nay-sayers. Among concerns are if it is even necessary in light of other proposals (which could technically co-exist but are probably sufficient without suspect timers and less problematic)
- Suspect flag would not prevent ships from being stored/swapped, but the “warp jam” proposal would prevent this from happening consistent with Upwell POS docking/tether behavior blocking warp jammed ships.
- “Tether = No reship” proposal suggests motherships shouldn’t be able to help fleet by permitting reshipping and be immune from harm simultaneously (they can still eject ships from ship maintenance bays and scoop ejected ships into bay while tethered) - this would address exploitative behavior for tethered motherships. The concern is that this would disrupt behavior far beyond Bowheads/Orcas in HS into capitals in LS/NS/WH - personally I consider this to be a healthy disruption in that I do not think this behavior should not be occurring with caps in LS/NS/WH either.
- The “inherited limited engagements” was found to be problematic and revoked.
Disclaimer: not intended to be comprehensive. Contains mild bias. 
I hope nobody considers this to be desirable gameplay where bumping should necessary to achieve basic goals. Bumping for throwing off alignment is clever emergent behavior that enhances gameplay, but bumping to get a entity that should be targettable but isn’t targettable? Really?
And yet… the number of times I’ve heard this as the “solution” to the “non-existent problem”… alongside “well, why don’t you just suicide the 500k+ EHP Bowhead?” - because my enjoyment from playing EVE comes from the majority of HS fleets being primarily composed of suicide gank Tornados, right? Isn’t that what we all pay for (through $$$ or time/effort → ISK → PLEX → Omega)?
I see you often trying to be reasonable, but you keep falling back into this rather weird carebear-ish mental state where you ruin things for yourself with nonsense like this. I honestly believe you can do better.
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It was. The post is already long enough as it is, which is why it is a summary, and what the things boil down to. It’s just paraphrasing the main bits of each proposal, not a complete restatement of them.
Long posts need TL;DRs for anyone to really read past the first couple of lines, or to skip to the bottom.
Biased, of course. Every post in the thread is, but certainly not “not written in good faith”.
But sure. If you think it wasn’t in good faith, then that’s your interpretation, but if others find the summary useful, then great for them, and you can go ■■■■ yourself.
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I’m being facetious 
.
Facetious: treating serious issues with deliberately inappropriate humor; flippant.
If I was serious in being of that mentality, you would know 
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