Make Salvaging Great Again! Noctis Buff + T2 Variant

EVE Technology and Research Center Player Features & Ideas
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Industry has interested me since I first joined Eve, and in particular the Noctis for some stupid reason I can’t explain.

The Noctis was originally a trade-off from using a salvage destroyer, but was always kind of overshadowed it isn’t that much faster at salvaging (if it all) but is far more costly and vulnerable. Then MTUs came out and caused the complete obsolescence of the Noctis for all but the nostalgic crowd (yes, MTUs are slow but the set-it-and-forget-it nature more than makes up for it), and the colour scheme change was a further gut punch in my opinion.

Without further adieu, my ideas/suggestions/whatever:

The Nerfs

  1. +20% CPU requirements for all Small Salvager and Small Tractor Beam variants - Slight decrease in the utility of the salvage destroyer, forces fitting trade-off
  2. -25% range on MTUs, however I’d consider a role bonus buff to the Noctis and new T2 ship in lieu of this (see below)

The Buffs - Noctis

  1. CPU 300 → 340: to deal with the above Salvager/Tractor Beam nerfs
  2. Inertia Modifier 1 → 1.5, Mass 14.64M → 6.44M: the Noctis is very clunky compared to the Porpoise which is the same hull type. This makes the align time 40% slower than the Porpoise instead of nearly 100% slower.
  3. Scan Res 90 → 120: because we’re targetting (subcap) wrecks, which are small.
  4. Targeting Range 75 → 100 km: Because the tractor beams can reach out further than you can target, which is kinda useless. Could be reduced from 100 to 80 if MTU range is nerfed as above.
  5. New role bonus: 25% bonus to tractor beam range. Not necessary if MTUs are nerfed as above.
  6. New role bonus: 25% increase to salvage chance. Because it’s a dedicated salvage ship!

New Ship: [Insert Name Here] - Blockade Runner Noctis Variant

ORE Hauler Bonuses (per skill level):

  • 5% reduction in Tractor Beam duration
  • 75% bonus to Tractor Beam range and velocity
  • 5% reduction in Salvager duration

Transport Ship Bonuses (per skill level):

  • 25% bonus to ship cargo capacity
  • 5% bonus to targeting range
  • 5% bonus to warp speed and warp acceleration
  • 20% reduction in Cloaking Devices CPU requirement

Role Bonuses:

  • 25% bonus to tractor beam range. Not necessary if MTUs are nerfed as above.
  • 25% increase to salvage chance
  • Can fit Covert Ops Cloaking Device and Covert Cynosural Field Generator
  • Cloak reactivation delay reduced to 5 secondsImmune to all Cargo Scanners
  • 90% reduction to effective distance traveled for jump fatigue
  • 75% bonus to warp speed and warp acceleration

Statistics:

PG: 400MW, CPU 380tf, Capacitor 2,800GJ

Slot Layout: 8 High (0 launchers or turrerts), 3 Medium, 5 Low, 2 Med. Rigs, 400 calibration

Velocity: 185 m/s, Inertia Modifier 1.0, Mass 5.8M, Warp Speed 3.5 AU/s

Drones: 50 m³, 25 Mbit/s

Target Range: 120 km (could be reduced to approx. 100 km if MTUs are nerfed), Max. Targets 10, Magnetometric Sensor Strength 15, Sig. Radius 200m, Scan Res. 240mm

HP: 1,900 shield / 2,400 armour / 3,500 hull

Cargo: 1,850 m³

Shield Res: 10EM/20THR/40KIN/50EXP

Armour Res: 50EM/35THR/60KIN/50EXP

Original Noctis release (Incursion Expansion) colour scheme

Notes:

  • A sort of “heavy blockade runner”, a straight-up upgrade of the Noctis with more tank but less cargo and slower align than the other blockade runners
  • I’m not good at names so make some recommendations
  • Stats obviously open to tweaking, I’m not 100% sure I have all my base formulae correct
  • Target range and tractor beam role bonus depend on if MTUs are nerfed or not
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Noctis nerfs: No. Noctis buffs: #1, #2 and #6 - yes. I’m all for a T2 Noctis.

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if im not blitzing i use the noctis and mtu combo.. mtu can do all the looting then the 8 salvagers within one rotation, everything is salvaged.

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I agree salvaging should be made great again.

I do not think buffing the Noctis is the solution.

In fact, a year ago or so when I bought and tried a Noctis to salvage, I found it to be an incredible ship not only capable of salvaging a tractored grid faster than one of the more commonly used cheaper salvage destroyers, but it also had far more cargo to loot everything and on top of that was able to quickly pull a grid together faster than any mobile tractor unit can, and salvage it at the same time. Pretty good if I had to quickly salvage a grid in a couple of minutes before closing the game!

I sold the ship.

Not because the Noctis is bad, but because salvaging was not worth my time. Yes, I gained salvage at incredible speeds, but the value of it just wasn’t worth it and that time was better spent doing other things.

The Noctis is a fine ship and is not in need of buffs, the problem of salvaging is in the low value of salvage.

Relic sites inject a lot of salvage into the game since before I started playing and never have I seen salvage be as valuable as I heard it be in the past; salvage prices have dropped a lot since then. Worse, much more recently Sov hub exploration installations made these relic sites significantly more common in null sec, which dropped salvage prices even further.

Abundance of salvage loot is the main salvage issue. There is too much of it in the economy for the demand, and much of it not entering the game through the act of salvaging at all.

Give people a reason again to gather salvage and the Noctis will once again be a very useful ship.

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Whole post on this kinda thing..