I propose adding the option to set range and/or size priority to MTUs. Instead of the fixed priority of closest first, can set the MTU to target farthest first. As well as setting filters to target specific wrecks and omit others such as a checkbox.
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Iâd like the MTU to tractor largest to smallest and those with loot over those without.
But youâll just be trolled by goofballs who will say no only because they donât like nice things for others.
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Negative feedback does have little to do with not liking good things for others. Some people think seriously about game balance and what consequences certain changes might have.
Adding to the MTU what you desire would enable people to tractor in the most valuable parts of any loot (aka full wrecks of the larges size) first. Which means they will have like 90% of the loot value already in the MTU whenever their site/anomaly is finished. Which again means they can simply scoop it and warp out, leaving the crap behind. No reason to stay any longer than the shooting itself takes, which again leads to less chance for others to catch them or at least disturb them and get large parts of the loot for themselves.
Especially in WH space often conflict arises over unlooted sites with MTUs in them, because there might be several hundred million ISK in them and even multiple MTUs still tractoring because the farming fleet clears the sites so fast. You would remove or at least vastly limit these engagements if you allow the MTUs to tractor in 90% of the value in like 10% of the time and I donât think thats a good change.
Last but not least, the MTU is an âafk gameplay optionâ, where stuff is collected for you while you can be docked, cloaked or even logged off. These options should always be highly inefficient and since you have an active option to be picky and fast with your loot (the Noctis), I see absolutely no reason for a change, especially considered the negative possibilities outlined above.
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If you want target prioritization, tractor beams exist. Thereâs even a specialised ship for that role, the Noctis.
MTUs make life a little easier by doing some dumb automated work, but even that is too much automation, if you ask me.
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I hear you on a lot of the points. One I would like to have considered though is solo gameplay. I for one do not have the time to join and dedicate to a corp, so almost all of my play is solo. Running L4s is a decent bit of fun in that regard, but what detracts from it is tractor beams.
The basic MTU reaches out 100km whereas my marauder is capped at around 48km. I end up clearing a room but then have to spend about the same amount of time flying within range of the kiting rats to tractor the wrecks. The MTU helps reach out and catch those far away wrecks but with it prioritizing closest first, I am fighting with it to lock up and tractor the closest ones first. Then stuck still flying around catching the other wrecks.
All that dwell time collecting wrecks is more boring than ship spinning. Kind of limits me to only a few missions a day.
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If Marauders got a buff to tractor range to 100km, then I wouldnât even consider MTUs.
I think this is an interesting point.
MTU range is better than regular tractor beams even on ships that are intended to use tractor beams like Marauders and Porpoises, or even the Noctis. MTUs pull from 125km, or even 175 for the âMagpieâ according to EVE uni wiki, where the Noctis has âonlyâ a 96km range.
I think thatâs strange, shouldnât manual tractor beams be better at pulling than automated MTUs, on specialised ships at least?
I would nerf MTU range and buff tractor beam module range so that the two switch places with respect to range.
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I have a dedicated Missionrunner for L4s as well and it seems that you do it quite inefficiently.
First: Looting is almost never worth it in L4s at all. You will always make more money in ISK and LP if you simply ignore the loot and do another mission in the meantime. Even if you use the loot/salvage for reprocessing or production, it would be cheaper to keep on running your missions and just buy the stuff you need from the market. Trust me, Iâve done missionrunning for years as my primary source of income, done the calculations multiple times.
Second: If you really want to loot for roleplay reasons, buy like 7-8 MTUs, keep like 4-5 in your marauder and drop one in each pocket of NPCs, then bookmark them. The huge cargospace of Marauders come into play here. Move on with your missions and once in an hour grab yourself a Noctis or a Salvage-fitted Destroyer and simply go collect all your loot in like 5 minutes. Iâd only do it in my main mission system and maybe the ones directly next to it.
Hint: If an MTU comes under attack, just collect what you can but NEVER engage the guy who shoots it, it will be bait to kill your Marauder most of the time.
Third: Only fit 1 Tractor Beam on your Marauder to quickly collect mission containers. Nothing else, itâs a waste of time. See #1.
Last but not least: The balance between Noctis, Marauders and MTUs seem okay for me, since you can fit multiple tractorbeams on the ships, select your wrecks and even keep moving while tractoring. You will be a lot faster than an MTU all the time if you want to.
This is some good insight, although I do have one change proposal. I think that the Noctis should have its range and speed increased by 80% per level instead of 60%. This will make tractor salvaging a lot faster and, if the MTUs all got a slight speed hit, would really upen up the Noctis to specialized salvaging roles like post-fleet-fight cleanup.
I am aware that looting and salvaging is very inefficient compared to blitzing or just burning through. I do use the loot to process for industry or sell the expensive stuff.
As far as your point to dropping multiple MTUs, I feel like this is a bad idea and far more risky and inefficient than regular looting. It would only take one griefer with a scanner to realize what you are doing, and if anything just decides to go get some easy MTU KMs. At 20mil a piece, all it takes is one griefer to find your 5 MTUs and set you back 2 hours of missioning on a good day.
Thats fine, but then please understand that asking for a buff for a non-efficient strategy that you intentionally choose despite knowing better alternatives will not find much support. Because the negative side-effects for many other players clearly outweight the benefit of buffing the MTUs to work better in your special scenario.
I do it all the time and usually lose 1 MTU every some weeks to a griefer pirate. They cost like 10M a piece, not 20, and are even cheaper if you build them yourself. Also if a loss of 5 MTUs for together 50M sets you back 2 hours of missioning you are doing something very very very wrong. In a Marauder you should earn between 100 and 200 Mio ISK per hour depending on the missions you do and the way you use the LP, means even IF someone manages to kill all your 5 MTUs, it would be a loss of like 20 minutes gameplay. That will not happen very often and given the time he invests to scan down 5 MTUs and grind trough their hitpoints, he may very well deserve the bit of crap he can loot out of them. In the end he wants bait you into attacking him with your shiny marauder and not giving him that success is entirely up to you.
Also if you are afraid of that happening, it means you want to play a risk-averse style. But risk and rewards should be balanced, which means it is completely okay that you donât earn as much money/loot whatever compared to someone who is willing to take more risks.
In the end it is up to you. Please donât be offended, I just want to help you with my experience of like 10 years of missionrunning in HighSec for the purpose of making quick money to burn it in PVP.
But I honestly feel before CCP changes the game in the way you suggest, you should consider learning a lot more about the profession you do and so enabling yourself to make a LOT more profit than this MTU change could ever give you.
A little condescending assuming every player should be performing at maximum efficiency at 100-200m/h. Some of us just want to play for fun.
Then go have your fun doing it the way you like, but donât base your suggestion on the claim that you âhave to wait for so long because your MTU does not tractor in all the best wrecks fast enoughâ. Because you donât have to wait. You can simply keep doing your missions while the MTU does its job. You seem to be simply too afraid to leave it there, which is in my book not a good reason for CCP to change the MTUs, considered the already lined out negative side-effects or other areas of the game.
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Have you any input on the fact that MTUs can pull much farther than any tractor on any ship? An alternative to the whole MTU thing I stated at the top that you have artfully ignored.
I think the âbooo, change badâ crowd is less about not wanting nice things and more about âif you donât play the game the way I do, you are badâ and ânooo donât change anything because Iâll have to update my 18 excel pages to calculate how to get 0.0008% more isk grinding efficiency.â
I like it. Seems like a simple idea that helps out people who arenât multiboxing salvagers and reduces the need to keep swapping back and forth between ships.
The arguments that the change supports AFK play seem misplaced to me since an AFK MTU will gather everything, so order doesnât matter. This change would benefit people who want to put down an MTU and have it tractor the wrecks they care about so they can scoop it and move on.
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MTUs are automation and therefore enable AFK gameplay, where a player drops an MTU, goes AFK to grab a coffee, then comes back to get the loot out of the MTU.
If you want to pull and loot specific wrecks first: use tractor beams, which requires action from the player and cannot be done AFK.
Any change that improves use of MTUs instead of tractor beams supports AFK gameplay.
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They can be used AFK but if they are then you donât care about prioritisation. priority matter when you donât intend to loot everything. Tractor beams also require free high slots, which most ships wonât have.
MTUs are there as a way for players to pull in loot without having to swap out ships or fits. Just because they can be used by AFK pilots doesnât mean they are AFK. If that were the case then modules shouldnât automatically cycle and drones shouldnât auto-aggress and auto-salvage. In my opinion this idea reduces tedium and thatâs a good thing.
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