We all know that players experience is very important, and that mechanics who put the players in situations who make them feel that they cannot take any action are very frustrating. For example, the situation of players being jammed and being unable to do anything against it was addressed by a drastic change of the game mechanics.
Previously devs also looked for a solution for being perma-bumped in a freighter, and with no other game mechanic available to get out from that situation they tried to come with a 3 minutes limit timer for going in warp, but it seems that was not a viable solution.
What is suggest here is a very simple fix, with the main merit of being very easy to implement (as there are already similar mechanics in place), and who is not breaking any game mechanics.
The solution is a dedicated low slot module, who can be used just on freighters and b̶u̶r̶n̶ ̶a̶f̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶o̶n̶e̶ ̶u̶s̶e̶ have a spool up timer of 200 seconds. That will work like a one time panic button who can r̶e̶d̶u̶c̶e̶ increase for 60 seconds the m̶a̶s̶s̶ agility of the freighter by around 95 percent, allowing it to get in warp even while is bumped.
This way an old problem will get solved with very few coding and players will get a possible counter for being stuck even for hours in a frustrating situation, without any possible course of action at hand.
Another option is learn to fly your ship. I escaped from ransom bumpers several times while working for Red Frog. A bump will leave your ship moving fast enough to insta-warp so:
Right click your ship and Stop.
Look forward along the spine of your ship for a warpable object - anomaly, ore belt, structure, anything you can warp to.
When one of these passes within 15 degrees of your bow - never took more than a few minutes in my experience - right click, warp and you’re gone.
A Macharial is fast enough to catch you but it requires some luck and a ransom bumper will rarely bother - lots of targets who don’t know how to get away.
That said, I always flew within guidelines (1 billion ISK cargo value at the time) so was not an attractive target.
You’d be amazed how much junk there is in most systems - planets, moons, ore belts, etc… there is an excellent chance the “random walk” your ship follows after being bumped will bring something into view within a few minutes. People used to sell collections of bookmarks in Uedama and Niarga for this purpose - not sure if they are still available. If not, bumping doesn’t give you an aggression timer so you can always safe logoff and have your contract ALT scout the system before logging back in.
Occasionally you’re going to lose a ship - build that into your business plan. A lot of players make a good living flying freighters.
A competent bump will actually leave you far too fast to warp. Warp conditions are not Speed > 75%. They are 100% > Speed > 75% (Note, I can’t remember for sure if it is 100% or 125%, but it is a ceiling). Typical bumping keeps you well above this speed.
However… we can argue all day over risk/reward etc but the simple reality is that it is a terrible mechanic that isn’t fun. This is a game we pay to play, not a job we are paid to be at, and part of playing a game is that it should be fun. Note, Fun can happen when losing too, I am not saying we all should only ever win.
I prefer a different solution of full fittings comparable to combat ships (Obviously since bonuses will not be towards DPS then your DPS will never match a combat ship 1 on 1 using the same equipment), and longer CONCORD timers, to give a lot more actions to the defending pilots for them to perform while they are being ganked.
But regardless of solution, there does need to be some action taken. Perma bumping is one of the largest turn offs you can possibly imagine.
With all respect, you don’t know about what are you talking. It’s very easy for a bumper to keep bumping you in a direction were are no celestials, usually up or down and not on the system plane. Also they use an suicide alt in a newb ship, at 0 cost, and keep you aggressed and logged on as long they want.
A target lock is sufficient to keep a person from being able to safe log. No need to sacrifice a ship or go to the trouble of a second character when the bumper can simply lock the target themselves.
I find the idea that a ship needs to be below a certain % of maximum speed to enter warp to be a dubious claim. I have never heard of anyone webbing a freighter too hard to enter warp, or someone using the MWD cycle who was traveling too fast. Even half speed with a MWD is going to be 250% of your normal maximum speed, and you enter warp without a problem.
The solution is to give freighters 2 capital-sized rig slots. That would add a choice of either more tank, or faster warp out, or anti-bumping measures - capital higgs anchor rig.
It’s 4 years since I flew freighters so some things will have changed but bumpers used to want some return on their investment - either ISK or tears. It’s hard to imagine they now bump for hours with no hope of either. Our SOP was to fly within guidelines so the ship couldn’t be profitably ganked and ignore bumpers. If you can escape - great; if you can’t, logoff; never chat with them. If you lost your ship WFI covered most of the loss.
Giving freighters more fitting options - like the Bowhead, would probably require making the cargo hold a fleet hanger that can’t be expanded. The current configuration lets you fit for tank (bulkheads), capacity (expanders) or agility (stabilizers) and seems to work well.
CCP was working on a patch that would limit bumping - 3 minutes as I recall before the ship warped. I think that is a good idea. Not sure why it didn’t happen.
Or just make cargo expanders have a stacking penalty which would solve the issue of the last cargo expander being 50% of your cargo, and the fear of battleship haulers if you buff their cargo hold.
See above. As long as they have you target locked no safe log.
If you log out you loose a significant portion of health
They can use a corvette with a civilian gun to give you a timer.
So logging out is not a valid strategy.
What!? The only difference you have is when people turn off prop mods in fleets from my experience and often when I was in a cycle and the FC called to turn off prop mods and then did a fleet warp I would have to make a call on whether to turn the prop mod off. So what…, it will make it a bit more difficult to catch people.
Removing requirement of 75% of max speed for entering warp would imply that entering warp will work on a timer (that is dependent on ship mass and inertia modifier). The only sensible assumption is that timer will start ticking the moment you push that warp button meaning that any alignment is useless (you cant pre-align to warp out instantly). As fleet comp can have ships of varying align time - it’ll be easier to catch stragglers and almost impossible to fleet warp with full fleet.
Warping out during engagement if you happen to drop that tackle for a moment from yourself will be way harder as well.
And is that a bad thing? Hmmm on reflection you could be right in that it would not be worth doing this to adjust bumping. There are of course other options.
not necessarily. But it’ll hit hard small scale/solo PvP and you will never be able to tell where your target has warped off to. That change will affect a lot of things that require player’s personal piloting skill.
Not in anything passive tanked. The ship still gains the bonuses from the pilot in the ship, even if the player has logged out (ie. the character is still in the ship).
Active modules switch off if you log out, so then you lose that benefit.
