As Interbus is pretty much the only major/medium faction that does not seem to have it’s own associated ships (other than a special edition catalyst and shuttle), should they be given their own line of ships? As a neutral faction dedicated towards transport their ships should probably be designed (at least in lore) as a primary dedicated hauler or perhaps hauler-escort, but for it to find a niche in the Eve universe it would probably need a very strong secondary use as well. Any of you have any good ideas for this line of ships.
Personally, I think the overall design could be done in one of two ways, like with the Sisters of Eve, as pirate Frigate, Cruiser and Battleship (astero,stratios,nestor) or like Society of Conscious Thought, with special-edition Destroyer, Battlecruiser, Battleship (sunesus,gnosis,praxis).
The second option would be quite unique as having transports in those size categories, while still being pilot-able by everyone regardless of good skills, and so would be interesting. Of course as a pirate line, it could even be a good opportunity to use it as the Minmatar/Caldari faction ships, as you just need to say that they were the primary research contributors towards the development of the ships.
Add a new concept of convoy talented ships.
Frigate - Bonus to Web helping the big haulers they’re Convoying into warp.
Destroyer - auto-target what has aggressed the big hauler they’re Convoying.
Cruiser - Crazy bonus to remote hull repair to the big haulers they’re Convoying.
Battle Cruiser - Anti-warp disrupter (remote warp stabilization?) to the big haulers they’re Convoying.
Battleship - Anti Bumping Field (Remote Inertial Stabilization) for the big haulers they’re Convoying.
Because Eve doesn’t have enough ships, skills and tricky mechanics.
I would much rather see haulers that are functional at self defence to at least a moderate degree.
Gameplay has shown that escorts simply are not a viable option in the game, because they require someone to sacrifice their time to simply get your cargo from A to B. The Opportunity cost of this is too high compared to other things so the only way ‘escorts’ work is multiboxing. And a system which is designed around multiboxing as an assumption is bad.
So haulers getting upgrades to self defence makes a lot more sense for good gameplay.
A Thought I had was for a ‘combat support hauler’. So, a ship with a fleet hangar and good defense like a deep space transport, but could play a utility role to a fleet engagement. One way this utility role could be implemented would be for it to have a bonus to non-combat drones. So, Ewar, Combat Utility and Logistic drones would get a boost, perhaps in a Gila-like way.
Then again Interbus is suppose to be neutral, so perhaps even giving a combat support role to a ship that is associated to them is a little out of theme.
Neutral doesn’t mean they never fight, it means they never take a side in a faction sized conflict. So that idea could work.
I was more thinking haulers all becoming more DST style, so while one on one a hauler loses a fight, a convoy of them becomes moderately scary.
Of course, if they added the Ewar, Combat utility and Logistic drone capabilities right onto the deep space transports themselves, perhaps even with just their own faction ewar, then my idea almost become moot, unless the idea also gets brought to the frigate and battleship sized ships as well.
I hadn’t thought of it before, but it would be nice if there was a convoy mechanic that allowed the ships convoying a hauler to not get a sec hit in high/low sec when they are defending their official designated hauler to protect. The opportunity to kill some gankers/pirates with no downside sounds good to me.