Tech I idea: SMB Industrial Ship

EVE Technology and Research Center Player Features & Ideas
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Reading another Industrial thread (which proposed completely OP Tier 3 Industrials), I started thinking what we might be missing. Personally I think on the high-end of Indus we are in a pretty good place. The one thing I would consider to change is how New Players can move their ships, as I remember it to be a soul-eating grind to just move from one area to the other if you don’t yet have the ISK or Skills for any more convenient option.

Creating a T1 Industrial with a decent Ship Maintenance Bay

could make the life of many New Players so much easier and take away some of the unnecessary frustation of doing 40 jumps back and forth for each ship. Something along the lines of up to 300km3 (Level V) would be decent enough to transport up to 2 Cruisers and 2 Frigs in one go - or something like that. You’d still need to bring Battleships one at a time.

Due to the relative small size of their SMB and them not having any Jump Drive, they wouldn’t compete with Suitcase Caps. Since a SMB can only transport assembled ships (and has restrictions to what such a ship can have in its cargohold) they wouldn’t even compete with DSTs. So I’m not sure what kind of downside they’d need to have other than the usual T1 Industrial restrictions.

Good idea, bad idea? Any opinions?

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New players don’t need to be doing 40 jumps with every single one of their ships.
If it’s for a corp, then the Corp should provide the transport, or just new ships at the destination.
If it’s not for a corp, then they don’t need, & in fact there are good reasons why they shouldn’t be hauling all their ships for 40 jumps.

This is a solution in search of a problem. Also Bowhead.

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Encouraging new players to put all their eggs in one piñata, i mean ship, for which they virtually certainly will not have the support skills, or the smarts to fit, is probably not the best idea…

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[quote=“Nevyn_Auscent, post:2, topic:11946”]
New players don’t need to be doing 40 jumps with every single one of their ships.
[/quote] If they want to move, they have to.

[quote=“Nevyn_Auscent, post:2, topic:11946”]
If it’s for a corp, then the Corp should provide the transport, or just new ships at the destination.
[/quote] “Should”, yeah. If for a corp, but who said that?

What exactly gives you the guts to tell new players they should stay in one place?

Would you mind naming some of these “good reasons”? I can tell you from experience that doing 20 jumps back and forth (makes it 40) as a New Player is still faster than grinding for these ships again at a new place.

Well, this happened to me, I’m not making this up. And no, it was not for a Corp, but to find other content in another area (mind you, that was one Highsec system to another).

There is no good reason to make it so incredibly hard for New Players to move their ships to another location. In fact we should encourage such behaviour, as it makes them learn more about the game.

Also please don’t forget that being a New Player might have - depending each persons playstyle - a lot of implications older players have completely forgotten. Such as: getting to know the game and its mechanics while slowly working your way up to be able to afford some ships. Also ISK (which means you can’t just undock, make 100M and go buy something new within 1 hour - mostly). And lastly, maybe some New Players have a certain sense of pride in their self-earned ships which might just make them stay in the game because they are happy with what they archieved so far.

Anyhow… you seem to have no other comment than “they shouldn’t”, which isn’t a valid argument for me.

Yeah… no. Bowheads cost upwards of 1 Billion ISK, have very long training time (for a New Player), they field a 1.6kkm3 SMB (instead of max. 300km3 I proposed for T1) and they can be tanked like the Capital Ship they are. Not sure, why you even mention this in comparison to T1 Industrials. It’s like saying “we don’t need a Vexor, because people don’t need Droneboats, because they could use Missiles and also: Thanatos”. Wtf?

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Yeah, I was thinking about that. On the other hand, this is happening nevertheless with other Industrials or any ship really. That’s why I was thinking to make it tanky enough to withstand the smallest groups of cheap gankers, so make them not overly interesting targets unless someone puts it full of T2 ships - which of course would be valid use, but would come with higher risk.

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Why not to haul all your ships. Because you quite simply don’t need them.
And if you are a new player even in a venture you can mine the value of a frigate faster than going 40 jumps most of the time. And your modules are all small, can be repackaged and fit in a single trip. At worst you repackage a couple of your ventures and replace rigs.
1 Industrial, 1 miner, 1 Ratter/missioner is all you need as a nest egg, at most. You don’t even really need the industrial.

And that leaves you a nest egg where you started to recover from if things go bad.

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Well I respect that this is your opinion, but that doesn’t mean people don’t want to keep their Caracals, Ruptures, Vexors and so on. I mean with having the absolute max of 300km3 SMB means you still have to spend a lot of time hauling if you want to move large amounts of ships - just gives players without the ISK/Skills for JF/Re-Buy/Haulers Service a little more flexibility and might just encourage them to move around more.

I don’t know enough about mining to discuss ISK/h of Ventures, but afaik in order to make money you still need to haul/sell the Ore, don’t you?

Again what people need is their decision for the most part. Not everyone is happy to follow certain beaten paths like you suggest.

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What people need doesn’t change just because they ‘want’ to do something.
And if someone wants to go off the path then they should expect it to be harder.

Additionally if you are discussing someone with significant numbers of cruisers you are no longer talking a ‘new’ player, and they should have plenty of isk for a Hauler service. And you can only fit 2 cruisers into your proposed ship, which means you only save 1 trip and still have to make loads of trips.
For 26 jumps (One way from where I am, not sure if that changes things) I can have up to 845k hauled for 42.5 million cost. If you join their channel you may find someone with a Bowhead also who can haul even more for you for the same price on specific negotiation, I’m just using their old calculator with plastic wrap to make rigged ships possible.

So yeah. Either they are so new it’s super cheap to get new stuff where they are going, or they are experienced enough that current services should fill their needs.

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I cannot but disagree. We need a T1 Industrial with a Ship Maintenance Bay exactly for the reason that there are Players who are older than 2 hours in-game and younger than 1 month and moving a small amount of fitted ships should well be within the possibilities of early game play.

Current mechanics punish New Players who want to move their staging. New Player should be encouraged, not overly punished. And yes, for you and me 42.5M is a joke, but for new players it often isn’t. Just because you have a few T1 cruisers doesn’t mean you can afford hauler services.

Edit: and of course using a T1 industrial to move 2 Cruisers and 2 Frigates or the like should also be a viable option for older players.

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If you can afford a few cruisers you spent more than that buying them.
If you decide you don’t want to pay then you can spend time moving them.
If you are talking frigates instead it’s super cheap to get them at the other end.

None of these ‘think of the newbro’ arguments are valid, or particularly viable, since unless it’s DST levels of tank it can still be worth ganking if someone feels like it. And if it’s DST levels of tank you have gone overboard.

And they also impact negatively on players currently operating in EVE who have found a specialised niche, since you will be lowering the value of transportation. Plus removes some of the value and purpose of the Orca, which happens to have the SMA size you are talking about already.

So yeah, it’s not needed, and at best it’s self interest where ‘you’ want this for yourself and don’t want to invest into something long term to do the job. At worst it’s putting words in someone else’s mouth.

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Hm sounds more like YOU are the one with a self interest in not having such ships. I might use it in niche cases, but for the most part I guess I have better options, such as paying someone to do that kind of job or re-buying everything or buying any capital hauler and doing it myself. My so-called “self-interest” is that I would like more options for people to move around, because I have the sense that it would be good for the game.

Neither Bowhead, DST nor Orca are T1 ships, nor are they in any way comparable to the ship I proposed. Neither of them would be put in a bad place because of a T1 Industrial that can haul some basic ships. The Orca specifically has way more tank. Your comparisons are bad.

Your argument with this ship lowering the value of transportation is utter nonsense. Such a T1 Hauler would be no alternative for hauling more expensive ships, unless people are happy to take high risk of being ganked. Nor would it be any competition for professional haulers, since high-value cargo would be too much risk in such a ship and low-value cargo would be… well low-value and low-pay.

But I get you, you don’t want it, you don’t like change, maybe you want Newbros to suffer. Okay, thanks for your opinion. I’d like to hear others.

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Uh. Bowhead and orca are very specifically t1 ships. Orca only takes under 3 weeks to train for from scratch last I looked also.
Now seriously. If you can show factually that a large number of legitimate new pilots actually NEED a ship hauler and cant use any existing method, including hauling a few packaged ships in a normal industrial then this thread has a touch more point.

But since ccp have specifically tried to make distance matter and it not be easy to relocate all your stuff between this the multiple existing measures to do this adding a niche ship where you haven’t even shown there is a significant spot where it even matters is just silly

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Yeah right, T1 ships technically, while Bowhead is also a Capital sized ship and requires ASC V and while Orca is both cheaper and quicker to learn, it is still not a ship comparably to what I propose.

Following your logic you could also say we get rid of the entirety of specialized T1 haulers, because people could haul PI, Ore and such other high-volume cargo in any non-specialized hauler or “just take a hauler contract”. That’s unreasonable, that’s all it is. This whole “proof that someone needs it” logic does make even less sense if I’d take away any random ship. Prove to me that people need Titans if they have no Titans, because Titans don’t exist. Your entire argument shows no good reason to not do it, solely the bad reason of: change is bad, no one needs change.

I provided what I think are advantages in the opening post.

There are absolutely no statistics to what new or not so new pilots really need. All we can do is make the best assumptions possible and realize that there is no good reason not to make it a tad easier for players to relocate fitted ships, if they are happy to take the risk/reward/cost calculations everyone always has to do anyway. Will it significantly improve the experience New Players have? I don’t know and to my knowledge there was never any such in-depth super accurate data taken for any other ship. So why start being so anal about it now? All that matters is that there could be a good use.

Distance already matters a great deal and in no way would a T1 SMB Industrial make it matter less. You still have to do a significant amount of hauling if you decide to move a huge amount of fitted ships this way. You still can’t quickly move entire fleets with this kind of ship. You have to use gates, you can’t jump to cyno with it etcpp.

Right now you can’t even move one fitted Destroyer in any normal racial T1 hauler.

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And this is the bit where you are wrong. This question about role comes up every time a new ship is suggested by either CCP or the players. And not always as mildly as I’ve been putting it.
Your examples of the specialised haulers are also wrong, as they were originally normal haulers pre ship tiericide a number of years ago, and were kept because CCP didn’t have a good reimbursment/replacement plan for them, and players wanted to keep the unique hull shapes in the game as some of them were very iconic hulls for EVE. They however would be very unlikely to be made now as new hulls.

You have also forgotten about the magic of jump bridges.

Though yes you can’t move a rigged destroyer in a T1 hauler, but the number of other low cost options available either solo or by interacting with other players is already high, plus we have two haulers viable for all areas of space already also that can do the job, all be it at more cost.

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Ships in a Ship Maintenance Bay act like double-wrapped cargo. Their contents can’t be scanned. That might sound good on paper but it just paints a huge “gank-me” sign on the hauler especially if the ship has the paper-thin tank of a T1 industrial.

If you’re moving a ship with expensive rigs you really do want a hauler with enough tank to convince the gankers to find an easier target. If you’re moving frequently enough that the cost of rerigging is an issue then you need to rethink what you’re doing.

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Good point. The whole gankability point is totally valid, I agree. Although gankers might check char age, Killboards etc. to make an estimate on wether or not it will be worth the while to throw in 100M+ to score the kill or not. It would become a valid problem at least for older players though, as gankers could assume anyone hauling a pricey ship might have pricey fitting as well.

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If that is correct and I’m sure from where you’re taking this, it wouldn’t mean such a decision would be wise. A number of these ships are heavily in use and entire sections of productive activity in EVE (Epithal for PI, Miasmos for Mining) depend on them. Giving ships meaningful roles isn’t a bad thing you know?

Ok, now I know you are trolling. Jump Bridges are for Nullsec only and they don’t solve any transportation issues within any other kind of system.

Ok then tell me, how exactly are you going to cost efficiently move an assembled T1 Cruiser or T1 Destroyer from Point A to Point B for 20 Jumps back and forth? For the example of Highsec you have only two options: Orca and Bowhead. Which hauler pilot is offering to transport upwards of 100km3 in these ships for anything below 0.5M ISK/Jump for 40 freaking jumps, esp. if this is not between major trade routes, but between random systems?

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By shoving my pod into it and flying it?

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I remember when I started to play, I had to move all my stuff about 30 jumps from where I started. It was a pain moving all of the hulls I had (even if the biggest was a coercer), since I had no isk to pay for Red Frog or anyone else… so I moved them 1 by 1

I support the idea of making a SMA hauler, but I would make it a T2 with a tank similar to DSTs but without any of the hardener/repair mod bonuses and a bigger sig/slower.

Why? Having newbros fly a T1 ship gankable by a vexor and whatnot isn’t a good idea (all the eggs in the same basket and all that), but making it T2 would mean the pilot should know how to tank. (And t2 is like 2.weeks training)

It would basically be an entry-level bowhead and wouldn’t replace orcas… since orcas can do a lot more stuff than a simple ship hauler (links, mine, bait, rep, etc.) Besides, not everyone can/wants to spend 1b+ on a slow ass ship (I did because it actually was tactically advantageous, nothing more)

That’s my 2 cents on the matter

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I remember, vaguely, back in the day doing L1s in my Rifter, getting a Thrasher (Ganked by Ginger Magician on its maiden voyage), moving my stuff to a new agent for L2s in a shiny new Rupture, then onto a new agent for L3s (ugh, the Cyclone circa summer 2005, so bad)…

I recall it being quite a ball-ache, and they were my ships. I wasn’t selling! Back and forth, farting around with shuttles, frigate, destroyer, cruiser and my Hoarder. Meh.

I think this is a great idea. Newbies don’t know about red frog, they don’t know buddies with Bowheads yet.

I see a strong use-case and no real downsides. It will have an OK tank too, since it doesn’t need expanders. If they did lose the hauler, Rifter, Thrasher and Rupture to a gank, it wouldn’t be the end of the world either.

I’d keep it T1 though.

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