Stitch Kaneland for CSM 14

Council Of Stellar Management CSM Campaigns
, ,
21

That is a potential alternative. Although decreasing material costs for Navy would put them cheaper to produce than T1 in some case. Reducing their LP cost by a minor amount would likely have the intended effect.

My only concern with increasing material costs, especially in the current state of material/isk inflation, is will it increase the cost enough to provide proper progression? Material cost can be overcome by just pumping more minerals in. We already see this with capitals as their price continues to drop. Granted, i’d expect to see Pirate battleships still be more expensive with increased materials, but will we see adequate progression (200m → 350m → 600m for T1, Navy, Pirate). Or will we just be in a similar situation as we are now, just with maybe a 50-100m separation? People would still most likely opt for a pirate battleship if still only costs 50-100m more than current pricing over navy.

Addressing rarity will effect cost more than material adjustment. Previously, the machariel received a BPC drop rate nerf and its still just as cheap as its been. As it was a minor nerf. So I wouldn’t have much faith in a 7-12% drop rate nerf really effecting price to a large extent. 15-20% would probably be a better starting position.

The other issue, at least in regards to rarity, is it would be a slow change to pricing. As alliances like TEST/FRAT/Goons etc have stockpiles of those BPC’s to control the market. So even if changes were made via rarity changes, we wouldn’t see immediate changing in pricing. Material cost would help some though.

In theory, a compromise of 12-15% nerf to drop rate and material increase would be a good start.

Going with a larger drop rate nerf of 20-25% and moving some of that to low sec is also possible. As Its not an outright removal, just transition.

Is it not already that way? We know that these groups control the market as they can hoard the BPC’s. Its true the market does not show 100’s of Machs or Nightmares at a time, i think it would be a bit disingenuous to think that those alliances don’t have a stock pile of those BPC’s or ships available in some fashion to fall back on. Going strictly by market data for available stock doesn’t tell the full story in my opinion.

Which is why i’d like to start nerfing the drop rate from DED’s by a reasonable amount and then shift some of that % to low sec. More risk/reward, instead of having “krabhubs” in only probe-able escalations that anyone with a brain can warp out of when combats show up. Or game the escalation to where you have to go through 2 rooms of max spawns just to get to your target, who has already seen you and cloaked up or warped out and cloaked. Or cyno’ing a BLOPs to run the sites and jumping out when someone tries to scan you down. Escalation running is low risk even with huge payouts, which contributes to the overfarming of pirate battleships.

Nerfing drop rate and then moving some of that nerfed % to lowsec would help make it harder to farm in nullsec, but not completely remove the drop rate from the pool like a fixed % removal would.

Per my platform/campaign, i’m in favor of creating more conflict generators. Having krabhubs and easy ways to farm isk/bpc’s isn’t my idea of fun or engaging mechanics. While i will submit that we can’t remove them completely from nullsec, i’m not opposed to shifting the % around from nullsec to lowsec where things can’t be gamed so easily.

Fair.

I’m trying to understand your last statement here. It sounds like you have more of an issue with large alliances able to use Pirate ships as fleet doctrines, which you don’t agree with, since they are more specialized/niche ships, but have been adjusted for fleet fighting due to their cheapness/popularity. Am i understanding that correctly?

22

Make Eve Great Again! :wink:

+vouch

1 Like
23

Some details i’d like to add here to help give people more info on what i’d like to see that i’ve mentioned in OP but didnt touch on as thoroughly as i should.

Besides rebalancing of Navy Cruisers/Battleships to help LP/FW, other changes to FW id like to see:

  1. Prevent ships with a warp core strength greater than 0 from contributing to the countdown timer of plex. So, venture/ships with WCS would not effect plex timer

  2. Neutrals warping into a plex would become either suspect or have a mutual aggression timer (timer ends much faster than suspect timer but still allows engagement without penalty)

  3. Either remaking the novice to only allow t1 frigates and not pirate/navy, or creating a rookie plex for only t1 frigates.

  4. Force citadels to be assigned to a faction in FW space. If the systems flips, citadel goes into low power. Members of opposing faction cannot be given access, regardless of freeporting/access rights. If you are a neutral entity, you can place citadels, but without being assigned to a faction, neither faction entity can dock.

Wormholes:
Note: I currently live in lowclass and that is where my perspective/experience originates. I roam highclass for fights, but dont actively live in highclass. If you seek a candidiate for high class changes/buffs, i would recommend voting for either Cable Uta or other high class candidates as your primary choice. Just remember to vote for multiple candidates for the playstyle you’d like to be represented, dont vote only for 1 person. While im not a highclass, id still voice my opinion on anything that could effect all wormholes negatively.

Lowclass wormhole loot could potentially be looked into. Such as buffing drop rates in sleeper data/relic sites. Or adding COSMOS mats to those sites in conjunction to the typical sleeper salvage/loot.

Alternatively, like highclass holes, introduce drifter ships. Instead of battleships, make them a squad of 2-4 drifter cruisers. They wont have DD’s, but could be setup like a small gang of 1-2 logi and x2 dps. They would drop materials different than the battleships which could be used to create a new module (t2 bastion for cyno inhib on marauder, or a new cyno inhibitor module in general).

Battleship rebalances:

Currently, other than sig resolution buffs, i’d like to see some mild EHP improvements. This can be accomplished in a couple ways:

  1. Create XL shield extenders and 3200 armor plates with fittings appropriate for battleships, but very hard to fit on anything else (or just restrict them).

Rough numbers would essentially double the HP values over LSE and 1600 plates. So an XLSE would give about 6k HP and 3200 would give about 8k HP.

  1. Alternatively, we could give all battleships a role bonus to increase effectiveness of extenders/plate HP values. So a 50-100% bonus to buffer modules would acheive a similar effect. Though could be OP with how easy it is to fit LSE/1600 plates on a battleship.

  2. In addition to these, we could also look into doing some HP value movement. For example, on a Raven, removing some armor and hull, and shifting it into shield to give a stronger shield tank.

I’ll add this info to OP in an additional section.

24

Stitch,
what would you think about removing escalations from nullsec anomalies entirely? That way DED and unrated DED complexes would be probing only and would certainly reduce the amount of pirate ships, making them more scarce in the process.

The idea is to give pilots hunger for DED complexes in highsec but rewarding the time spend looking for a gold-mine in low and nullsec.

No DED complex higher than DED 4 and 5 should be an escalation anymore and only the pilots actively probing for them should be given the award of a pirate ship / blue mod.

25

I dont mind DEDs/escalations themselves since the other mods they drop are good. Just want to control the pirate battleship bpcs. Nerfing their direct drop rate and LP is probably best way to curb their price away from navy battleships.

1 Like
26

Had a good discussion with you this evening. I like your ethos and style Stitch, you have my vote.

27

Speaking of, I hope you could ask CCP to look into some LP stores and modules. Removing the tags from the modules and increasing the LP point and isk requirements for those modules would make them accessible and CCP can set a target price for them.

I am not saying all tag requirements should be removed but was thinking about the removal from the modules but keeping the tags as requirement for module copies in the LP stores.
Then modules like Khanid Navy assault missiles launchers and ballistic controls could make their way to Sacrilege and Damnation killmails and a thukker tribe ballistic control would no longer be a modules of legends of the ancient times.

And before I forget, giving LP stores across New Eden (not limited to highsec of course) a little love would also create a valid isk sink where everyone would want to get their isk destroyed in the process.

28

I approve of this product and/or service.

1 Like
29

Hey,

What is your stance on cloaky camping / Local Chat / Intel programs such a near 2 / general Intel available to krabs.

1 Like
30

In the games current state, I don’t mind it. Its a necessary “evil” to attempt balance around things like Near2/local/instant intel.

Its balanced in some areas of space such as HS/LS/Wormholes. I think there is a lot of room for manipulation of local in nullsec, especially with a large majority of nearly risk free isk making being focused there.

At the base level, i’d prefer to see at least a local delay in null sec (won’t show up until you decloak, or just a basic 30s delay). From there, as my campaign is also focused around pvp/content generation, i’d like to see a structure deployable by sov entities. It cannot be placed on grid with a citadel, in anoms, belts, near POS structures or any other area that can be gamed.

We’ll call it the observatory for discussion’s sake. Until an observatory is placed, there is no local. Once an observatory is placed, local will be present, but with delays. You can then reduce the delay time based on upgrades. It would never full remove the delay, but could be reduced to 5-10s for example at max upgrade. Upgrades could also be added to send out a decloaking pulse once every 12-24 hours (but would use slots to local delay upgrades), as cloaky camping is no longer seen as a necessary evil.

The reason for this is because the observatory is its own structure, it can be attacked at any time. Once you attack it and put it into reinforcement, then local is delayed/removed again. This gives incentive for the locals to defend their structures/space and not just dock up waiting for the bad pvp men to go away. It provides punishment and adds risk back into them just going and krabbing and ignoring anything in system now with a delayed/removed local.

As local can be directly effected through this structure, that would mean that cloaky camping is no longer a necessary evil. While it could still be done, it would be harder to cover large swaths of space of afk alts (unless of course you consistently shut down observatories :wink: ).

People are all quite resourceful, and I don’t think we can ever fully get rid of easy intel. I hate Near 2 and intel programs.However, there will always be work arounds, but i think more effort should be put in for that intel, instead of a bot/alt/program to ping players about hostiles.

At the minimum, i’d like to see local chat logs removed/encoded/stored elsewhere, as then that prevents data scrapers to use for local bots/intel. Whether or not that is feasible or would mess up CCP’s data metrics, i can’t say for certain. But the fact its so easy to access for bots/intel programs is an annoyance and something I would see as “low hanging fruit” to address.

1 Like
31

I would like to see some changes with LP to navy ships and Pirate ships (decrease on navy, increase on pirate). As for modules, its a bit tricky as the tags are also a source of income for people in FW (FW NPC’s drop all tags). So when people need x100 tags for a module, the FW economy/demand can remain strong and provide a source of income for players in lowsec and in certain highsec missions.

Of course that doesn’t mean some things could be tweaked for LP values, but i think we’d need to look at the bigger picture and see if that will effect other things, like making them too cheap or easily farmable and effecting the market.

One thing that i mentioned in my campaign which kind of goes along with what is discussed is COSMOS/Storyline modules. I’d like to see these iterated on, mainly by having their mats/BPC’s drop from data sites or possibly lowclass data sites. I’d like to see storyline/COSMOS items go through proper progression. So making faction modules cheaper, kind of start stepping into storyline/COSMOS module territory. Also if data sites add 1 run BPC’s for faction modules (to help curtail faction module price bloat from abyssal bricking), we’d need to take a look at that in comparison to making them cheaper through LP stores as that might effect their price even more and actually create a surplus. Whether thats good or bad, i couldn’t say at this time. Just something to consider in the scheme of things.

32

Great to see you running! You’ll have my vote!

1 Like
33

You might find my original recommendation a good read as it touches on some of your points about the Marauder’s namesake.

One thing to keep in mind is that Bastion is not always a necessity to be on. Marauders are actually very mobile with the MJD bonus and are all range/application bonused to their weapons. So they can cover a fairly large swath of space in damage.

Im not a fan of them having inherent warp core strength. Combat ships should not have the ability to ignore tackle, this makes them abusable by things like bots/farmers just sitting in a site and being immune to tackle. A ship capable of tanking 3-10k dps shouldnt also have warp core strength as well and mjd bonuses.

As far as physical changes to marauders, kronos needs a 5th mid and a little more cpu on the golem.

Giving them a cyno inhib mechanic with or in conjunction with bastion makes sense for the hull, as bastion already locks you down and maxes out your tank. This opens up new roles for the ship class that needs some as its currently outclassed by rattlesnakes for level 4s and is obscenely overpriced for what they do in their current state.

34

Don’t want to derail your campaign thread; you do have some good ideas, but I am still mystified by the love of the RS in level4s. Don’t get me wrong, it runs them fine and probably is the to go to ship for drunken level 4 running. However, it suffers from numerous flaws that makes it substandard (imho) to any Marauder:

  1. It is a dual class weapon system (usually), meaning that damage is dealt at 2 different speeds, one of which is always delayed (missiles).

  2. It maneuvers like a wounded oil supertanker, even with a mwd It’s sluggish and eats cap when using the mwd There is no MJD bonus.

  3. There is usually little room in the highs to place a tractor beam and must rely on an MTU to gather all the loot instead of cherry picking those ones with loot or good salvage. There is no tractor beam range bonus.Since the ship depends on drones for much of the damage, a player must wait until the enemy is completely defeated before he releases his salvage drones. Since some missions have 22+M isk in salvage, this is sub-optimal.

  4. The cargo hold is noticeably smaller than a Marauder, meaning that more profit is left on the table or requires a return to the area with a salvage ship. Wasted time; extra effort. Blitzing using a Mach is cheaper and faster if going that route.

I agree the Marauders are over priced, especially for a hull that is super specialised. Anyway, good luck with the election. Keep the ideas flowing.

35

Interview on Talking in Stations.

1 Like
36

I love that interview of yours, Stitch!

You speak exactly how I would have and think very much alike, which is pretty rare.

1 Like
37

What are your views about emergent gameplay broadly and high sec ganking specifically? If CCP were to table a motion that made a playstyle completely obsolete, would you challenge that even if you disagree with the playstyle and, if so, how?

38

Emergent gameplay is what makes even unique/fun in my opinion. EVE is a sandbox, so emergent gameplay should be left to run its course, until it comes into situations where its game breaking. 500MN HICs for example, were pretty clever of whoever initially found out about it, but it was a pretty game breaking bug/mechanic. The old skynet mechanics of a carrier sitting in a POS and assigning fighters to an insta-lock procurer was amusing, but also a broken mechanic and got nerfed/removed.

As far as high sec ganking, i’m neutral on it. I think its a necessary evil in the current EVE economy. Ships need to die, everywhere. Otherwise, who is going to buy ships from producers when everyone is perfectly safe and never lose ships. I don’t have any objections to ganking. That being said, if something was fundamentally broken to the point that it was either exploiting mechanics (like avoiding concord), or being highly abused that effect player retention, then i would be on the side that it would need a nerf/change (War Dec corps).

In its current state, i see no need to change ganking.

It would depend on why it was being tabled. Like above, if it were breaking things and could not be balanced appropriately to risk/reward then i would not challenge it. If it was an added nerf to a playstyle that was being made to appease people who aren’t familiar with game mechanics then i would challenge to provide more insight/perspective.

That being said, in the end it is ultimately CCP’s decision on what they want to do, i can voice an opinion to try to provide some perspective, but if they’re going to do it anyway regardless of what is said, then it is what it is.

39

Got my vote(s).

1 Like
40

Hi Stitch, thank you for taking the time to do an interview with me on your candidacy, I wish you the best of luck with your campaign!

3 Likes