Player Features and Ideas Discussion

In the past, before there were nerfs to energy vamp modules, the Hulk was able to take down cruisers and destroyers whenever it got can flipped. Here is an example of one such Hulk.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndWUlntJ58U

Unfortunately, it is now only capable of taking down a stupidly-fitted destroyer after the nerf.

Since the Hulk is simply a mining vessel by the design and can defend itself against most ganks, there is no need to buff that ship. Of course, I am also not going to advocate buffing the energy vamps that were nerfed at the time. Instead, I would propose a new variant of the Hulk.

The Battle Hulk.

It looks just like the regular Hulk in terms of visual model design and paint job except it's not designed to mine but rather to deceive the gankers. For this, I will have to explain in more detail:

• It would have the same slot arrangements as the regular Hulk would except its PG and CPU would have to be tailored towards offensive and defensive modules rather than strip miners.
• It will be able to utilize only particular set special modulated strip miners that only one type of charge will be able to fit in: damage crystals. These will be the only crystals that will exert damage on the target as well as allow the strip miner to shoot at the aggressor.
• This particular Hulk will still have the same resistance bonus as its twin but none of the mining bonuses.
• Can fool ship scanners by introducing an optional deception module that only the Battle Hulk can use but will take up a significant PG/CPU to do so (thus limiting defense capabilities).

Of course, I want to emphasize that this battle Hulk should NOT BE ABLE TO MINE. This is after all a battle Hulk that is meant to deceive. The mining beam that would target the asteroid is really not mining anything at all but rather degrading the asteroid's ore content at a rate faster than how much a typical strip miner can achieve.

Those who wish to undermine the efforts of mining competitors could also use this to diminish available resources in a system or region with a sizable fleet.

This could make things interesting for gankers and add more risk to Hulkageddon as gankers would run the risk of ganking the wrong Hulk.

***puts on flame-proof suit***

Sounds fun, I like it, and I would probably be willing to fly one.

Stick a couple in a mining op, and every real hulk just became a bait ship in addition to it's actual mining.

Just drop the bit about degrading the asteroids, pointless.
You are not mining when you could be, that's enough of a penalty. Otherwise, we would need to visit other PvP ships the same way.

And the deception, make it necessary to have the skills to fly a Hulk normally, and then add a skill to battle fit a hulk instead.

Using the damage crystals instead of the mining ones? You lose the ability to mine with these in place. Done.

this is why its a bad idea, this ship has not offensive bonuses, and the only way to appear like a regular hulk is to drop tank meant to protect it from ganks.

hence -> the two fitting options are

~obvious tank, with tank
~hiding tank, no tank.

in the first one you appear to be an over tanked hulk to ship scanners. easy to pick out
In the second you can scramble the results of ship scanners and appear to be a regular hulk. But you have no additional tank to support yourself when the gank does happen.

Basically its a ship that either appears like a hulk and dies in a fire, or obvious bait is obvious.

As to the ore degradation laser system, it only has the "for the lulz" factor, it has no margin of profitability inherent in its concept.

@ Kusum

You're right about the offensive bonuses. I forgot about that. What would you recommend as an effective bonus: drone damage or bonus to damage crystals?

The reason I wanted to purpose the deception module to limit defenses is because I fear that having such a module with no penalties would make the battle hulk over powered. If a penalty on defense is not the way to go, what kind of penalty would you purpose instead?

The part you're forgetting is that people will instantly be able to tell what ship this is by looking at their overview/dscan. It'll show up as a Battle Hulk or whatever the item name is instead of a Hulk since they are, in fact, different items. There's no way to get around this without completely restructuring how the item database works, which CCP won't do for a ship that would be a gimmick at best.

Nice tank, but anything under 20k EHP is laughable to me when it comes to surviving gankers. Assuming a Hulk is tanked at 20K EHP mining in 0.5 space, it will only take 5 Catalysts to finish it in 10 seconds. Although, your fit is perfect for snagging some lone can flippers. The Battle Hulk should have more than that. After all, it's only purpose is to survive ganks and shoot back in time to killmail whore before Concord kills them.

Of course, given that the Battle Hulk is only designed to survive ganks and not generate profit of any kind except from manipulating the market through destruction of rocks, it's mineral/component requirements and insurance payout would be adapted to allow for appropriate pricing. 250mil ISK is too much for such a ship after knowing that it may die at any time to gankers during large events like Hulkageddon.

Like I said, this idea is meant to add flavor to the Hulkageddon event as this will separate the noob gankers from the professional gankers and could provide industrialists a method towards to cutting down mineral supply to jack up the prices.

@ MXZF

I just realized that. Perhaps CCP may figure out a way to compensate. But's hard to know for sure.

I'm a bit confused about the whole neutral repping and crimewatch. I'm gonna have to look up the patch notes to see what happens in this case.

I think you forget that i am not an advocate for this proposal at all,

However, were i to be, I say something like this,

The battle hulk starts with penalties, It doesn't have the maneuverability of a cruiser, the class that it is closest to, or the firepower. its general lack of pg/cpu and bad slot layout (for a shield tanking ship) means that its been gimped before its even fit,

With max skills, base PG/CPU
Hulk - 43.75 / 375
Arazu - 937.5 / 525
Lachesis - 1,000 / 562.5

caracal - 662.5 / 437.5
vexor - 843.8 / 337.5

While you did say that you wanted to buff those attributes from the base hulk to the battle hulk, you are looking at a hull that is little better then a caracal (slot layout, cargo, and resist profile) and in many ways worse, (max speed, capacitor, targeting range , sensor strength, align time, etc)

Pretty much everything that makes a warship a warship. because youd have to start from the design philosophy of pretty much being stuck in one spot while the enemy comes to you ,

~stronger buff to defenses,
~ewar strength bonuses things like tracking disruption and sensor damps,

to be honest im not sure what would be needed to make it into a viable ship without stealth nerfing another class of ships by making the battle hulk op in that area. as a warship platform its so bad for the majority of what it would be doing that you pretty much have to make it into a brick, and even then its only barely tolerable as a ship because of its lol factor.

It really is a hull that has worse stats then many t1 cruisers.
The max t2 tank, without implants is 36.5k ehp which doesn't have the fitting room for more then one strip miner. and uses t2 rigs.
the basic t2 tank on a caracal easily passes 40k (using 4 med slots, 1 low and two rigs)

battle hulk really needs to be rebuilt from the ground up, and not use the same stats as a hulk.