So ever since the changes to Shuttles (Interdiction Nullifier) Nullsec changed in a way that makes no sense whatsoever.
You literally risk nothing as shuttles are basically free and now pretty much unkillable (unless smartbombed). Why would CCP give such an easy way to scout without any drawbacks?
If you fly trouh 0.0 almost every citadel have its shuttle buddy at all times. And people jsut use a shuttle to generally scout with as there is 0 chance for mistakes on the user side.
Sub 2 second align time makes it completely safe- with the addition of no furhter action required to be nullified.
Shuttles should lose the interdiction nullified ship bonus and have 1 High slot with the limitation of only be able to fit Interdiction Nullifier modules. This would increase the factor of user error and would add a minimum loss value to the ship. Currently scouting with a shuttle+pod means a top of 5000 isk lost. Or if you dont want to attach an isk value to it 2500 tritanium lost.
Giving it a bonus to the module or not is not my call but something needs to change with them. Traveling in 0.0 should be dangerous and not risk free.
Now that shuttles are interdiction nullified, shuttles are finally useful for their intended role: moving a pod quickly from one location to another.
Previously I never used shuttles, but used interceptors instead. I’m glad that shuttles are finally useful.
They’re very cheap and easily moved, but come with significant drawbacks to the other scouting options (T2 explorers and interceptors): no way to cloak or probe, very limited maximum velocity without propmod, no way to tackle and significantly easier to be killed.
Grab a smartbombing combat probe Proteus and one-shot those shuttles if you don’t like them. It’s not that hard, I even manage to kill shuttles that keep bouncing between bookmarks on grid.
A Scouts job is not to tackle or shoot or hide or tank or any of that. It is simply to get information on the enemy. Just to know whats where. And they can still give warpins. Make spots. And so on. A Shuttles is not meant to be used as an active element of a combat scenario.
Yes and you would still be able to do that with a click of a button on the Shuttle. The lack of it is the problem. As you said. “They’re very cheap” and actually hard to kill now. Which is the problem here.
Regural travel would not be affected by this but scouting would become significantly harder and would offer the ocasional player made errors. Errors that are non existent now as they cant be made.
Since bubbles make short of anything not nullified? Are you new to the game or im missing something?
The whole problem here is that they can bypass bubbles and instantly warp while costing close to 0 isk. You jumping into a system and getting killed in 61 second doesnt tell you much about whats on the otehr side of given system.
An avg ceptor costs what 35 ish million.
A Shuttle costs 5 ish thousand. You die and just sit in the next. And you can do that 7000 times to get to the cost of 1 ceptor. While you can get the same information in them.
“The shuttle only makes easier to move from point to point, which is exactly their intended purpose.”
And free active scouting is not.
Ps: Just by having them to use the interdiction module we can reach sometrhing like 35 Shuttle / Ceptor price. Thats way better already than 7000 Shuttle / Ceptor
Now that the shuttle is dead, if the pod survived he warps much slower and is no longer bubble immune. Then you kill the pod.
Now that person is transported all the way back to their medical clone station. And while shuttles are cheap, travel time isn’t free.
If you’re complaining that people can lauch shuttle after shuttle without travel time because you’re trying to do something right next to their medical clone station, tough luck. As we’re talking about scouting shuttles, this scenario isn’t really relevant as it’s not like people need a scout to see what’s happening next to their home station. Also if they’re home, they probably would be much more valuable to their allies in a ship that has combat capabilities.
I see. You have 0 idea of how 0.0 works. Or what people do there. Everything you say is irrevelant since you dont understand tha basic concept of scouting/0.0 warfare.
There is no better way to give information about a Person/Gang/Fleet anything that flies than having constant visual on them/follow them in their track. Now ofc you can do this in a Ceptor for 35-40 milion. OR you can do it in a shuttle for FREE. Are you traveling from A to B with ur shuttle to relocate ur pod? NO. You are actively scouting hostiles.
And yes its harder to kill a shuttle than it is to kill an Interceptor. So why should it be easier to scout with? Let it be their home station their citadel their whatever they respawn at.
Are you assuming every single point of interest to be bubbled 24/7? If so then yes, you are missing something:
That’s not what happens in game.
You can’t pretend the only difference between a ceptor and a shuttle is the cost. The ceptor can tackle, burn back to the gate, shot, etc…a shuttle can only warp away.
Like I said, it’s really easy to kill a shuttle, you just need the right tools.
As I have lived in 0.0 for four years now and I too was interested in how to kill all those scouting shuttles that appeared months ago after the nullifier changes went live, so I made a short instructional video for a corp mate that wanted to kill shuttles. My idea was to grab a combat probing smartbomb cruiser (T3C works well) and just warp to any moving shuttle on grid and one-shot it.
As I noticed it went really easy on the test server, I then bought the equipment on the live server and blapped a couple shuttles that were scouting on the T5Z gate in Delve.
Like I said, it’s really easy. You just need the right equipment, skills and knowledge to combat probe well, but if you have the right tools it’s much easier than killing any other ship.
A minor problem was a third guy in a diplomatic shuttle, as his EHP was slightly too high to one-shot him with my setup.
Sadly the war in Delve ended a few hours after I got my Proteus, so I sold it during the evacuation. I might rebuy it if I ever see too many shuttles again.
No. Im assuming any competent pilot/gang to have a solution to anything that tries to either attack them or run away from them except for when it comes to shuttles. Because by having them “Transport your pod from a to b” they have unintentionally become the go to sctive scouting ships. You dont understand the problem here. If something wants to tackle me it will have a pricetag on it. If something wants to scout me and see where i go / what i do it doesnt come with a pricetag anymore. Its literally free. Yes he cant tackle/probe but the title doesnt say “Muh huh tackle Shuttles” does it? We are talking about scouting. This has nothing to do with anything else.
You can kill anything thats afk it doesnt take much brain to combat probe an afk player. An active scouting shuttle wont sit there for you to combat it. You are expecting people to be stupid and sit still.
And yes a good ceptor pilot is close to unkillable as well.
But a bad shuttle pilot still comes with the 0 chance for user mistake.
You insta warp and you are bubble immune permanently.
These were moving shuttles warping from bookmark to bookmark.
Yes, the instructional video had a shuttle moving in a straight line, for simplicity. But I hope you know how to time the probes and smartbombs to catch people arriving at a new bookmark?
And im pretty sure you are the best smartbomb proteus pilot ever and got hundresds of shuttle kills. And they are now hurt so bad that they woke 3 jumps away and got in there next shuttle immediately.
