Unique Ships? Implementation Strategies

EVE Technology and Research Center Player Features & Ideas
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Basic idea is pretty simple: Seeding unique and limited quantity ships, structures, or mods into the game (ex. The Palatine Keepstar)

Thoughts, critiques, bumps are all welcome!

Goals:
-Make limited run, highly powerful ships/mods/structures to serve as strategic ‘Flagship’ items
-Make usage of these items strategically viable (ie. not economically prohibitive as in the Palatine or Maxed Abyssal-Officer equipment)
-Satisfying implementation mechanics

Implementation Strategies:

-Region Locked, Single Run BPC’s, Seeded on Death-:
The item can only be produced from single run BPC’s. Once the item is destroyed, a fresh single run BPC is seeded. The BPC can only be seeded within a particular region/constellation/system/location/station.

Commentary:
This offers a fresh incentive to control a particular region or system. The item can maintain economic viability for the user, because the item is recoverable so long as the seeding region is controlled. Material costs can be tuned to keep the item viable, but avoid abuse.

-Limited Quantity, Indestructible Build Material:
The item requires a specific material to build. A limited quantity of this material exists in the game. The material is guaranteed to drop upon item destruction.

Commentary:
Limits the quantity of the item while avoiding prohibitive expenses. However, this implementation strategy will make it’s use unlikely in uncertain combat scenarios, and may make it vulnerable to becoming a collector item instead of a strategic tool.

Other implementation ideas are welcome!

edit 2: unique items are not protected by asset safety and cannot enter NPC stations. This prevents these unique items from becoming locked by collectors

Final Thoughts:
I think this would offer some interesting new content and incentives for sov warfare, putting large strategic value on any system that provides these powerful and unique tools. The idea is perhaps ship centered, but I don’t want to limit the application. This is coming from a desire to see interesting and special vessels see real use in conflicts, instead of displays of vanity or wealth. Previous attempts to achieve this effect with capital ships, and now faction capitals fail due to balancing issues. The ship will either be over-tuned and too ISK efficient resulting in it’s eventual widespread and ubiquitous use, or will be unusable unless recovery is certain. This avoids the most powerful-expensive ships from being used as trump cards or game-changers and instead being used as a display of absolute confidence or showmanship.

I also hold that this idea would probably be most interesting if the unique items provided powerful strategic options (positioning control, powerful fleet buffs, specialized system wide effects), as opposed to overwhelming raw numerical advantage. They can also serve as a platform to enable interesting features that would otherwise be impractical due to server load issues.

Certainly such ships would also be interesting with a feature such as Manwithdog’s suggestion.

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Cash for AT-equivalent ships. What could go wrong?

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You’re saying you can’t buy AT ships from other players?

Don’t get me wrong, I think the idea tries to fill a bucket that is already full and -1 it for that.

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Sure, although some AT ships are perma-parked and will never become available. Not that it matters, because you could never confidently undock most anyway.

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I agree, ultimately these will become collector items only. Especially with a limited drop rate… anyone who will fly them will eventually lose them, until eventually it is only collectors that have them. That bucket is already full.

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I see where you’re coming from. The potential for the items to find their way into the hands of a collector and get stuck there is high, especially for single run items.

What are you’re thoughts on these unique items are not covered by asset safety, and can thus always be recovered by destroying the station they are stowed in. I suppose it would only work for super-class vessels which already have restrictions that prevent them from accessing indestructible stations.

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Limited time existence? BPC exists for 48 hours upon drop. If not used by then becomes corrupted and new one can drop. Ship can not dock anywhere. Used ship explodes after a month.

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Limited-time ships… Yeah, no.
Almost as bad as limited-time SKINs.

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Thoughts on removing asset protection for them, and only introducing super-capital hulls of this nature to avoid indestructible stations

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Sounds like we’re adding more than just hulls to the game at this point. Feels like a whole lot of “except if” circumstances.

If it blows up on its own after a month, it’s worthless. You’ll find it, build it, maybe use it but probably not if it costs anything significant.

If it isn’t protected by asset safety, you still have to be able to blow it up. Good luck blowing up the primary staging for goons (for example as they’re the biggest group). That’s of course assuming you know where it is (quite possibly adding yet another exception to the rules to advertise its location).

And then you have to consider balance. Just because there aren’t many of them, doesn’t mean it can be a pwnmobile. AT ships are still reasonably balanced and due to their 0% chance of ever appearing again, most pilots will simply not fly them.

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