SuperCaps idea and how to stop size creep

EVE Technology and Research Center Player Features & Ideas
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TLDR:

I propose that supercaps should have a monthly operating cost in order to present a strategic choice to alliances as to how many they should use at one time.

How many Titans and SuperCarriers are there in Eve Online? I’m guessing thousands if not more and this has become a problem in the eternal epeen race that is EVE. Titans are the new battleships, while BS’s were meant to be the heavy hitting ship fleet class while SuperCaps were strategic assets that were only available to the major alliances.

Now, rather than CCP blowing up every SuperCap in the game (a drunk Jovian did it), I have a different idea on how to put some sort of ceiling on SuperCap creep that keeps going on. It’s not making them weaker or easier to kill, in fact you can make them stronger. Rather, it’s to take a real world analogy and apply it EVE.

The modern day equivalent of the Titan is the aircraft carrier. But why doesn’t the US (or any other country) have a steadily growing fleet of aircraft carriers that would be in every port eventually? That is because aircraft carriers are extremely expensive to maintain, crew and service. The ship cost itself is a minute fraction of the total lifetime operating cost of the ship. In EVE, all we have to pay is the upfront cost and then the ship is free to operate (other than jump fuel of course).

What I propose, is that all SuperCaps should have a maintance requirement bill that needs to be paid every month in order for them to be active. For example, an alliance would have pay 1.5 Billion ISK per month for each Titan they have in service. (These would be individual bills, not a lumped sum bill) If the bill is not paid, the Titan in question shuts down in space (or dock) and goes inactive until the service bill is paid and it is reactivated again. This would present a choice to an alliance as to the amount of SuperCaps they can afford to operate at any time.

A major alliance can have 100 titans going for a major operation, but if they put that many on the field, then their cash reserves would rapidly dwindle, making a quick victory a necessity. Or they can activate a fewer number of titans and keep ISk reserves ready for the long haul, or to activate additional titans (or Supercarriers) as needed.

Lastly, the SuperCaps will have a reactivation period where the bill is paid, but the ship cannot be used. It takes time for personnel to be recalled, supplies loaded and systems checked and readied. So for a Supercarrier, it can take 10 days to activate, while a Titan would take 15 days to activate. This would discourage rapidly turning supers on or off just to save on the cost of operating them. You can turn them off, but realize that they could be out of action for awhile and you are left vulnerable, making the number of supers active an important strategic decision that an alliance would have to make. On the flip side, you can have a 3 day grace period for example, where you decommission your super, but it will still remain active and the decision can be turned around so that the super can dock up or if there is a sudden surprise attack or the war suddenly swings you can reactivate your ship with out the activation period.

Anyways, these are some ideas which I think can bring an important strategic layer to how supercaps are used.

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Super caps and titans should be removed from EVE. They add nothing fun or enjoyable to EVE, but only annoyance and tidi lag fests.

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Any corp or alliance that have supers and titans can easily afford a paltry 1.5 billion a month per ship…

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Any upkeep mechanic is going to be harder to pay for small groups than big groups.

The concept is un-workable.

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This will never happen. Close thread. :thinking:

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rrelevant, small groups have a much smaller proportion of their firepower from supers/titans anyway.

Without upkeep the capital buildup will be endless, they simply aren’t destroyed as fast as they are created. How can any faction ever compete when that other group has been hoarding titans for 10 years? Even if you have more income now you will not catch up. It demotes even attempting to upset the status quo.

A supercap/Titan isk sink is badly needed.

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You don’t need an isk sink for these. You need a sink for the actual ships. The isk side is really not relevant to the number of ships.

Make it so the ships get blown up more. Not some silly tax situation.

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This isn’t true.

Small groups will still have wealthy characters that can fly supers. They may not deploy them as much but they still use them ratting, defence and bridging. Smaller groups will have more supers/member than the likes of goons and panfam which get hundreds (thousands?) of new members each year, have new pilot programs, alpha friendly fleets, srp etc etc.

So it’s actually the opposite of what you think.

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While the ISK side is not relevant to the actual ships, it is relevant to the Alliance or Corp using them. Wars are not won or lost by the number of ships dying, but in wallets being emptied in trying to replace them. Once the money runs out, then members need to go rat or something in order for them to keep fighting and that’s usually when things fail cascade (at least in my experience).

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An argument invalidated by cormorants and thrashers. You can whelp those into a sun until our own sun goes apeshit and eats up half the solar system… you’ll still have isk left over.

They aren’t fun to fly, but heaven help the poor bastards that have to fight 150 of those, over and over again. It’s practically impossible to not be isk efficient.

(edit: wars are won by breaking the enemy’s interest in forming up. Which is why we see so many blueball encounters).

As echoed by others, a tax will do nothing but hurt the groups that you’re trying to help (smaller groups). The ones that can drop 500 of these won’t have any issues paying any tax that wouldn’t completely cripple the smaller groups.

What you need is more reasons for them to undock and engage in content. More reasons to undock means more fights. More fights, more death. More death, more super tears.

They need actual supercapital content. Stuff that only they can do (with any hope of success unless you meta the ever-living shit out of it). Put it in nullsov where the big boys all live, so that it doesn’t impact npcnull or lowsec.

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I don’t think you comprehend how rich these alliances (and the players in them) really are.

If you can afford an 80-100b titan… an extra 1.5b a month really is trivial. It’s not going to be the deciding factor if you field a titan or not. I’m not close to buying a super… but 1.5b a month is not a meaningful sum to me. To make it meaningful to the wealty… it would destroy the ability of less wealthy groups to compete.

the way to stop super and titan proliferation is to make them blow up more.

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The 1.5B is just an example. It could be 5 Bill/month, or 5-10% of the Titans value. Also, you can ramp up the cost with the number of Titans/Supercarriers that are active. It can start at 5% value/month, then if there are more 10 Titans active, then it goes up to 7% value/month and so on. There’s a lot of ways to slide the scale as needed, the overall concept is the same.

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The amount of the tax doesn’t really matter. Because the fact is by the time it becomes prohibitive for a group like Test or Goons, it gets way more prohibitive for those trying to build up to challenge them. The amount of isk in those large groups is staggering. You end up creating a bigger gap, not a smaller one.

Also, when you try to have a tax rate based on number in a corp or alliance… you just cause the creation of shell groups. It’s trivial to have each person put a super/titan alt in a 1-person shell corp to keep taxes low. They’ll still show up to fight for their “real” alliance objectives the same.

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Ultimately this is not the first time this suggestion has been made. The same arguments were made for and against, and the thread lost steam.

Another thing to consider, is what yuo want to get. Do you just hate supers and want them all gone? Or do you want balance?

People that hate supers hate them a lot. They want them gone. And they’ll always be disappointed because they aren’t going anywhere. So if that’s your goal, I suggest one more attainable… like balance. Except among capitals, supers and titans are reasonably well balanced.

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How do you count the titans/super? In corp/alliance? Sure let me create a few more alt alliance/corp so I can dodge the tax. Most super pilots are alts anyway so their presence in the “core” corp/alliances isn’t 100% critical.

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I disagree with the idea, because it sounds miserable. I want supers to be awesome, and something that people strive to be able to fly because they’re so powerful, not a tax.

In my opinion, the issue with supers right now is not that they’re too powerful, it’s that it’s too easy to use them en masse. Nerf the ability to jump in your entire super fleet at one point in time, and they’ll start taking on more counterable roles, like specialized support to cap fleets. Do the same thing with caps, and they’ll stop being an I win button to every subcap engagement.

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