Saw this idea posted in the back of a Reddit thread and thought it merited further discussion. Should interdiction nullification be moved from combat ceptors to covops? Having spent the last few days mostly playing fozzie claws and in exploration, it seemed interesting.
For those now currently familiar with the mechanics, I’ll give my observations on exploration and sov war.
Currently covops frigs are not often used for exploration, particularly in kspace. Null exploration is mostly done by ceptors or Asteros. Asteros bring PvP and the ability to chase other explorers out of a site. Interceptors are safer for the more peacefully inclined as they are mostly immune to gatecamps and can try to pull range if they get tackled in a site. There is a tradeoff for the this as they will probably fail more cans due to lack of hacking bonuses, but with high skills it is still the go-to for non-PvP exploring. Covops lack either the security of ceptors or the PvP ability of Asteros. They used to be a cheaper Astero, but with t2 prices going up they aren’t so much cheaper as they once were.
Giving nullification to covops would cut out ceptors and make them the ultimate peaceful explorer. The ability to ignore gatecamps would give them a major edge over the Astero in terms of survivability and edge out explorceptors. The Astero would still win out for PvP and be able to push the covops out of sites though, so I feel this would actually create more of a trade-off.
For sov war the problem is basically that to win you have to capture a node with a single ship that can’t be repaired. If it gets blown up, you start the timer over. So, if you have a big enough mass for nullified ceptors you can pretty much warp in, 1 shot the guy capturing the flag and warp out.
Repeat. Over and over for hours. Covops can’t do this nearly as well, nullified or not, since they have garbage weapons and slower align time. You could take them down to 2 high slots without seriously gimping their scouting exploring ability and further reduce their weapons potential.
Any potential drawbacks I’m overlooking? Also I put this in PvP as it talkes about sov war but it could just as well go under exploration if anyone thinks it should be moved.
So wait… You want to give interdiction nullification to a ship that can already equip a covert ops cloak, combat probes, and a covert ops cyno? And it’s not a T3?
It would become the most ideal cap hunter in the game. Sounds scary and interesting but kind of over powered.
Seriously interdiction nullification and covert dump sounds… Interestingly over powered yet evil in so so many ways.
On a side note, I always do my mil exploration in a covert ops frig. It just works better.
To be perfectly I honest I have no yet done black ops, so I have no idea how it might impact that part of the game. I’m starting a discussion, not telling everyone I have the One True Idea to save the game.
The problem is, covert cynos work even if a system is jammed. So basically you are asking for a ship that could catch just about any cap.
Use a cheetah. Hi slot is cloak and covert cyno (even if dropped to 2 hi slots). Lows and rigs are for agility letting you cut align to under a second. Warp speed is at least 8 AU. I could get in system, by pass any bubbles and be lighting a covert cyno on a carrier faster than the carrier can blink. It really would help the whole death to caps thing.
You’d still have to actually scan down the ratting cruiser or whatever though, right? That gives a window for the cap to react, and you can’t fit the cyno and the probe launcher at the same time if it is busted down to two. Still, I should probably play that part of the game before I lecture on it.
Most caps are ratting in am anomaly. They show up as green sites you can warp to with out scanning. Just use dscan on a small angle and you could easily see as long as the anom is less than 14.3 AU.
I’m not saying it would be perfect but it really would help the death to caps. I got no complaints.
Yah I’m not quite so green I don’t know what an anomaly is. But tbh how much faster is it really? You can’t dscan down a single anom in a system with 30 while you are warping, and it only takes a few seconds to burn out of a bubble or be decloaked with a MWD cheetah. Granted instawarping to a ping/celestial is faster still and it would cut down a few seconds on the time to light cyno, which is a buff to hunters. Not sure how game-breaking that would really be, especially with stuff like intel channels but I can’t speak from experience.
Even with intel a 8 AU nullied hot dropping machine with under a second align time is gonna be in and out of the reported area faster then you could type it in the intel channel :shrug:
