Player Features and Ideas Discussion

This idea is based around gang links and how they are used. The goal is to reward someone for being an active gang link provider and also reward them for being on grid. This is not to say that off-grid gang links should be removed from off-grid support, this tactic should remain a viable and well used tactic for those with alts. What the idea is meant to do is to make gang links viable for the active player and not just alts. Please read all the way through the main idea before posting, I’m looking for feedback that either supports the idea or changes it for the better. All trolling will be totally ignored and I will thank you for bumping my thread back up to the top in your attempts to troll me. Also I’m not going to be making any numbers of how this should be balanced, it will make you all look at how it would be overpowered. I will go to great lengths to mention how these can and probably would be balanced to remove and super powers from the game before they would be even considered being created.


To start I want to talk about the gang link changes that will reward the active pilot for being on grid. The idea is that a new gang link class is created that is focused and supports only one ship with each link. This creates a logistical like support role where you need to have an active player supporting his fleet. These “focused” links would need to be balanced in a way that stops super stacking with an off grid gang links, such as. When a remote gang link is being activated on a ship instead of stacking over the fleet booster’s gang boosts, it replaces them.

I personally think that these remote gang links should be restricted to boosting command ships and t3s. They should also use less power grid and CPU so that many can be fit and allow the user to tank his ship, also when these modules are in use the command ship or t3 will not be able to be remotely supported in any way a lot like a heavy interdictor or a triage carrier. The remote gang links would use more cap and have longer cycle times, this would create moments of opportunity for the opposing fleet to remove these ships from the field.

What the aforementioned traits would create, are situations in which the pilot of the command ship needs to make decisions on who needs what and when they need it. With longer cycle times he is limited to giving one ship, one thing for an amount of time and he can’t change his decision. This makes target changing more viable in a fleet, hit one guy and force the command ship to save him, then hit another while the command ship can’t help, or even hit the command ship whilst nobody can help him.


This idea needs some other balancing qualities, here are some of my own ideas but I’m not sure if even I agree with some of them myself. One idea was to reflect a partial amount of the remote gang link back at the command ship or t3 to improve his survivability, yet I don’t want this ship to be invincible, that is overpowered. Another idea is what other effects should happen to the command ship or t3, should his speed be hindered? Maybe increase their signature radius? I can’t decide. What should happen if he is jammed or damped out of lock range (on that note how much range should the remote links have?) should the gang link run until it’s done or should it end right away? I think it should continue otherwise people would just jam themselves or unlock targets to allow support to save them. But, on the other hand if it ended right away it would make people less likely to attempt to jam them. Also, yes of course unlocking the target should remove the effect. Also last but not least, should a pilot need to be in fleet for the command ship to provide his focused bonuses to him?


Thank you for reading, give me some helpful feedback please. Constructive criticism is also welcome, if you think the idea is bad, tell me why and please try not to be an arse about it. Also please don’t say it is over powered, I’ve gone to great lengths to make it so that cannot be the case, and I won’t get a second glance from a dev if it is unbalance able so keep that kind of opinion to yourself please.

The problem with this is that it doesn't reward the active pilot, it would remain an alt's job. The idea is not to hurt off-grid boosting, but to create and active, enjoyable role for a player in a fleet. Right now it is either an alt's job, or a side job of a fleet member who does nothing but turn it on when they come out of warp.

This is pointless and dumb. You already need to remain on grid in real fleet battles in order to stay with the fleet movement and keep links online at the right times.

Also, the entire point of ganglinks is that they're u]gang[/u]links, given to everyone in the fleet because everyone needs them. What you're describing is just a set of remote attribute boosters, of which we already have many.