i was wondering, i do like the idea of a cloaked ship with maybe a camera or two linked to their designated target callers so they have more information as a sort of operating platform using a birds eye view of the bf; i think some people used to actually do something similar fc’ing from a cloaked falcon back in the day but it really does require teamwork, which is why i like the idea.
im pretty much with you on the no to this ship bit, it doesnt really add anything to the game tactically; in reality it look like its intention is to take more tactical decisions away from fleet fights…?
We may all agree or disagree with ships changes, since it may buff or nerf ships we love or hate, but it’s ok, shakeups in meta is a good thing. But CCP’s and Fozzies’ taste for gimmick modules developing into gimmick ships is the worst thing happened to that game. That Monitor ship is just a big facepalm saying that current CCP dev team can’t into game development. What’s next? A ship that gets ECM resist if it’s not in fleet for solo players?
You couldn’t sniff out a spy if it’s yourself with that insight, XD… not even considering alts. -.-
Stop getting personal against him and go back to the topic.
Bingo. We already have ships for commanders. They are called Command Ships. We simply don’t use them as FC vehicles (as more than one is required to cover all boosts for a given fleet).
But Command Ships bring insane (but not unkillable) resists to the party. I fly all the CS and even in giant fleet fights I am rarely even targeted because it’s such a waste of time to try to get by my crazy tank.
There could be a new FC version of a command ship (like a navy faction variant) with reduced combat abilities in exchange for even more tank. Just more buffer since you’d already have crazy resists, the buffer would just make it impossible to snap-kill an FC, but again could be ground down if you really wanted to.
The point is deterrence…just like with my CS, the other FC isn’t going to bother shooting at something he knows has probably 90%+ resist profile. You’re better off killing the DPS ships of the line or trying to smash the logi.
This seems like a job for Command Ships, if not variant then some combination of modules/rigs that accomplish the same thing.
Edit-- who is this for anyway? We rarely lose FC’s as it is. If you fly in large scale fleets, then you also fly with a ton of logi, all pre-locking the FC.
It seems much more useful for a smaller fleet to not simply have their FC erased by a larger fleet. Big fleets already have whole logi wings.
To be able to use probes you need a cargo hold. CCP specifically stated that they didn’t want this ship able to carry any cargo, and I think that’s a wise move. So, unless you wanted CCP to specifically add a new type of cargo hold that is for scan probes only, scan probes on this ship are a no-go.
Besides, it’s a tradeoff. If you want this uber-durable-ewar-resistant FC ship, you’ll have to have someone else do your probing for you.
Lugz is actually my main, i dont like big fleet fights because mostly its one dude rubbing his epeen thinking their overly special at the game; they are slow, labourious and more often than not, not team play. You basically get used like a drone, an f1 monkey; im not a monkey and im not highly risk averse. I play the game.
But yeh, doesnt mean i havent done them or i dont understand the mechanics; im a big believer in actual tem play, one should not be posting on reddit about how wonderful they are at having won that battle seemingly single handedly, they also should not be looking at only their own survival; thats not much f a team player if you ask me…
You can have 1 set of probes loaded in the launcher. No cargohold needed. Id be completely willing to trade off the ewar immunity and resistance for the probe launcher. Just give it a good sensor strength and a max lock range and we gucci.
Did CCP change how probes are recovered, or is a ship with no cargo space still unable to recover probes? Because if it’s the latter you better hope that your fight doesn’t move over to the next system.
I believe it already has the max possible lock range, before skills, so even damped it will get out pretty far.
Alas, I see that no Devs took the time to read my posts about “Head Shooting” from last year. And I think it was only the 5th post in the relevant forum section on this new forum system (good job btw Web Dev Team).
This design for the FC Monitor Flag ships is lazy thinking. It does not address things like warps speeds and warp accerations or ship speeds when burning around on grid. In some cases it is going to be too fast IE when the rest of the fleet is in battleships. And then for frigs and destroyers, it is going to be too slow. When your fleets is a load of t1 frigs. And speed is your friend in warps. Having a fat cruiser slowing your warps is not good. It’s not going to going to be able to enter faction warfare “Small” or “Novice” sites. Not all major mega fleets fights happen in 0.0 space. And tt still going to get 1 shotted of the field by a enemy fleet of MACs if it is target painted and web scrammed. It needs a whore gun or something. I know why it has none right now. Dev team is worried about “Directing Drones”. But folks want to be on that killboard too (I dont care myself). Build costs and ISK values for buying the ship seem far to high.
In the end. The CSM failed here. They did not help the DEV team see the pitfalls or the long term issues of just adding a 0 damage capable ships with a big tank.
Here is my well thought out plan that addresses the issues that I have laid out above.
I like how all of the arguments against this ship are just propping up the original post’s content.
“The goal here is to add a new option for FCs who are concerned enough about headshotting that they are willing to make other sacrifices in order to combat it.”
“We also don’t want this ship to become the “default” FCing ship and therefore reduce player choice.”
So you want probes and cargo room. Go fly a command ship. Choices. No sacrifice.
You won’t be able to recover probes but you could pull up to a nestor or capital ship or just dock and put more in. Like @CCP_Fozzie doesn’t seem keen on giving it much I see this as a compromise where we meet halfway.
I agree.
I only hear this ship being requested from a minority of Big Block FC’s crying away on coms,
while taking up to mutch FC action from their fellow FCs.
I’m not sure that adding sooo specialized ship will benefit the EVE in any way… EVE had been always great for it’s endless variety of tactics, fitting ideas and possibility to make something special, that might surprise the enemy and let you win in unfavorable conditions.
The ship, that will be possible in only 3 variants: AB+MWD, AB+MJD and MWD+MJD, without any additional modules, with omni-tank, and literally zero other usages, is just bad. It looks like a crunch, that only limit the gameplay and does not add anything new. It is not more, than a waste of ship designers and modelers working hours. You do not want to invest in completely new ship and receive so little value.
There could be a lot of other ideas, to solve the head-shotting issue. And I’m sure, they may not only solve it, but also add new value to game.
As an example, I can propose two sort-of ideas, which definitely not perfect, but IMHO are better than monitor.
Make a new Tech-2 Battleship, on a basis of T1 Tier-3 Battleships(Rokh, Abaddon, etc…), call it “Flagship”, which would have ultra-long locking range, heavy and highly-buffered tank, that makes it extremely hard to kill with fine-managed logistics in grid(but yet, possible, if logistics disrupted or destroyed), but low DPS(ex. like T1 cruiser) and high price, that will make very inefficient(but yet possible) usage of these ships as a main fleet format or for krabbing/ratting. These ships also might have some unique bonuses and/or penalties.
Pros:
this approach is relatively soft, and will not heavily affect the current gameplay, if properly implemented, but yet will add something new to it.
good logic and consistency withing the ship-tree: you have special “tough” battleship as a flagship, and the battleship class have it’s heavy-armored T2 version, like AC’s, HACs and commands in their respective ship classes.
low effort, no need to model new ships – you might just re-skin and slightly modify some details of Abaddon, Hyperion, Rokh and Maelstrom.
Cons:
There shall be, but I can’t see any, you tell. But from my point of view, there unluckily be any, that could not be solved by ship’s attributes and their proper balancing.
Add a new module, exclusively for Cov-Ops (or, perhaps, ships that can use CovOps cloak), call it, for example, “Command Module”, which can be activated while(and only) cloaked, that grants 250km locking range, 12 targets and ability to lock while cloaked, but prevents any other modules to be activated, and renders ship immobile. It also may stop working if ship is decloaked(by pilot or foe), and cannot be activated until the ship is cloaked again. And also, even if inactive, may add some penalties to the ship.
Pros:
hard approach that, will drastically decrease the chance of headshotting during battle, but yet provides the FC all information he needs, while FC still can be easily killed if found, or on the march near the gate.
This module is near useless in any other situation, since it only allows you to know the range and HP’s of target, so should not heavily impact the balance.
Allow sort-of normal(but limited?) combat usage of fitted ship, so the pilot would be not a “shooting duck” if alone.
Almost zero-effort to implement.
Cons:
Kinda tricky to properly balance and elaborate right characteristics.
As I’ve said before, I do not consider both of these ideas as a perfect or even mature, but they might be as a some start to some really good addition to the game. Unfortunately, extremely niche-ship is not one of those.
If they add a whole gun to this we are going to see hundreds of these show up in system during big fights. You’ll see all the kill collectors in the world causing TiDi for little risk while the main fight goes on. I think the lack of offense is sadly necessary for this concept.
Dude, we lose FC’s all the time. Put Thomas, Jay, Asher, Sothrasil, Kendarr, or any of the others who’ve been around long enough for the enemy to have a clue, and watch 'em pop when they get volleyed. Single fleet on single fleet, it’s less likely, but when you start getting into decent-sized engagements with 4-digits in local… the FC bench better be 3-4 deep at least.
I think this thing is neat and something I’ve been asking for. I like the limitations for the most part.
However, whenever I think about balance or additions to the game I always consider how much it encourages you to run an alt. I hate multiboxing, and really think players shouldn’t feel forced to do so.
Not having a probe launcher on this ship isn’t going to “make people take tradeoffs”, it’s going to make them run a probing alt.
I don’t think ccp is in the business of trying to get people to sub more accounts to run alts (unlike some tinfoil hatters), so I think this should be taken into consideration.
I can’t think of a reasonable situation where this ship would be OP with a probe launcher in other uses. It’s still very slow, can’t use modules other than prop mods. It can’t tackle, it aligns slow as heck. I think adding a probe launcher is a pretty reasonable change that most relevant FCs support. As it stands, without probes, it’ll be used only by folks who a)have probers supporting them (which is a pain due to the way fleet command trees work) b) are either unskilled or in the situations where probes aren’t great (though this ship is also not great in situations where probes don’t matter) or c) (the most likely) people with probing alts.
I think we should try to encourage the kind of gameplay we want to see by reducing the effectiveness that alts add, especially in large scale PVP. Adding a probe launcher to this ship, and restricting it otherwise either via straight module limitation, ammo bay, etc etc, is basically the one thing I’d ask for. I couldn’t give two shits about fitting a gun, my fleets killboard is my killboard <3
