I’ve been playing for just over a month, and I’ve recently been trying to get into solo PvP. (I know, it’s a bit too early due to my great SP disadvantage, but heck, I have no problem losing a couple of ships for the experience.)
So I create a jump clone, leave my implanted clone behind at the home station, go hunting for a few hours, and long story short, I get podded. I’ve had my adventure, and now I want to log off in my main clone with the higher skill-up rate due to implants. But To my surprise, there’s no way I can get back to the good clone for 24 hours! I can’t get back to it if I self-destruct either!
So I’m only asking myself: "Why?! If I’m paying for the clones and there are bodies on sale, why not just buy one, have some fun in it, get back to my main clone and upgrade skills at a rate I’ve dearly paid for?!
One particular effect of this feature is that, at least in my case, I’m going to do less PvP as a new player (knowing that I’m so dependent on the implant bonuses for upgrading the essential skills, even if just for a day). Another result is you’ll see fewer players in general that are willing to get into PvP and risk ships solely because they might lose much more than that. Dear devs, fix this, and I’ll pay for many more ships to lose in the low sec. (More fun in general, believe me!)
The solution is to stop caring about the min-max SP clone with implants because it’s a waste of time and you’re only really saving like 4 hours a month or something dumb like that.
Oh, and you can just swap clones with no timer in a citadel. So you can cough up the money (and potential wardec eligibility) by just planting your own Astra + Cloning service.
Train Infomorph Sychronizing to reduce the clone delay.
Additionally, you can use an Upwell structure (with a clone bay) to transfer your clone immediately (provided you don’t already have a clone timer active). So jump into a clean clone in Upwell structure, go pvp, get back to Upwell structure and back into your training clone. EZPZ
+5 implants will improve your training speed by 25% over no implants and a default neural remap.
Combine +5 Implants and a remap that puts all points into two attributes equally (i.e. 24 Perception, 24 Willpower), and you’ll train approximately 44% faster.
Combine +5 Implants, a 24/24 remap, and master at arms accelerators, and you’ll train approximately 95% faster.
Add in skilling sprees, login rewards, and all that, and you’ll definitely get over twice the training speed.
Add in some SP Farm toons, and you can pack on ridiculous ammounts of SP.
Now, to be fair, I took advantage of the Absolute Injection Augmentors from christmass 2018, but I have a four year old character (almost to the day) that has 145 million SP (an average of 36.5 million SP a year). And, I don’t even think that I worked that hard to get him there.
Of course, there are no skill requirements for fun, and player skill level is more important than character skill level, but here’s a video series about everything SP related for those that are interested.
Also, yes, use a citadel to avoid the clone jump timer.
Taking the above maths. +3s are 15%. That’s 108 hours over a month. Or approx 4 days. Your earlier maths was way out and it is a heavy price for a newer character busy trying to train all the support skills up has to pay.
As always the answer is simple, remove attributes, have a fixed training rate no matter what skill, and make implants all about boosting an in space activity.
For my entire eve career I’ve just stuck with +3 and don’t sweat it if I get podded. They are cheap enough to replace and once you stop worrying about absolute max SP/hr the game gets more fun.
No they are a defining component of EVE and reward players willing to risk it.
What is terrible are those with the attitude of If I am unwilling to risk the investment in faster training then everyone should be restricted to the lowest common denominator.
Are you taking into consideration the time he’s not in his training clone and going around PvPing like he says in his OP? Or is this one of those “well if OP was SP farming his one character and never undocking” scenarios?
Since we are discussing opportunity cost incured by PvP clones clearly we are comparing a month in an empty clone vs a month in a training clone. Surely you understand opportunity cost.
Also you made this claim
Which the maths clearly says is false.
In short, just stop backtracking, your claim was wrong, move on from it.
The point that was being made was not specifically the amount of time being saved, but rather that the effort spent to try and min max the SP gain while also trying to PvP is in excess over the minor benefits that OP should just suck it up instead of complaining about it.
Not only is there already an option in-game to do what he wants (i.e. jump clone timer-less clone swapping in Citadels), it’s more effort for CCP to implement the changes he wants than it is for him to just play smarter.
@Scoots_Choco I’m not complaining, sir, you are. Right here on this thread, at least. I’m observing a problem with neutrality. Even if it’s four hours a month, it’s not too defensible.
Stop running your mouth in short bursts in response to a well-thought and felt idea written carefully. When someone presents a problem, the last thing they want to hear is its non-existence.
I hereby thank all of those who provided solutions and insight from different angles.
CCP has a BAD history of simplifying the game and cutting out playstyles. A long time ago you could only have jumpclones if you had high standing with the NPC corp that owned the station. So, there were some public servants that set up shell corps that you could join for a day so that you could install clones - then they would boot you so that they could maintain their high corp standings.
CCP then decided to just let anybody have jumpclones, and completely killed those corps that took a long time to build up and were even semi-famous. Your proposal seems similar to that. You have n option to have instant jump clone swaps. You want to cheapen the game in order to make it slightly more convenient (and so that you can have zero risk, rather than near-zero risk). Of course people resist what you are asking for.
I cant remember the guys name but I remember having to jump into LS near jita where he had a rorqual with a clone bay that was used to make jump clones. It was cool emergent gameplay.
Once again, I don’t mind risking ships or assets. And Of course there are always paths to playing smarter despite restrictions. I’m not asking for anything to become any simpler… I just don’t know why I can’t switch to my main clone (now that I don’t have access to an upwell structure with a fueled clone bay) when it’s right next to me on log off. It’s a limitation for no apparent reason.
The solution could be as simple as letting you go to sleep in your most valued clone.
It’s a decision point like many in the game. Everything is a tradeoff. Do I risk my more expensive clone or wait out the timer? Do I use my subcap clone when there is a change I’ll get called up by my alliance to support a big fight defending our space in my capital ship (and clone).
Do I use an upwell structure for no timer but then there is a risk if the structure goes boom I lose my clone?
Pretty much every decision in EVE has real risks and real consequences. It is one of the cool things that makes this game unique.
Like I mentioned above, just throw +3’s in all your clones and call it a day. they are cheap enough to replace if you die and you train fast enough you won’t really care after awhile.