Player Features and Ideas Discussion

During war world 2, the united states had a type of ship called a q-ship. Other nations had simular ships by other names. Id like to see them added to the game.

During ww2, one of the biggest problems for freighters were subs. Due to lack of armor and weapontry, they were sitting ducks outside of convoys. If a ship developed problems and had to fall out of the convoy, it was seldom lucky enough to reach port. Because torpedoes were so expensive, most of the time the sub would surface and sink it with its deck guns (much cheaper). This is where the q-ships came into play.

The navy would take an old ship that couldnt keep up with the convoy's and load her cargo with balsa wood or ping pong balls (light weight water tight balls that were mostly air). Then they would seal the hatches so that air couldnt excape it. They would increase the armor invisibly be low the waterlines to help protect against torpedoes. With everything below the water line sectioned in small area, a hit would not take on much water. Above deck what appeared to be cargo containers were in fact armored gun emplacements and depth carge launchers. What appeared to be simply safe targets for subs were infact sub hunters and chasers.

With the resent anouncement that hulkageddon would never end, I think its time to make people think twice about attacking "safe" targets. The game IS all about combat isnt it? What this new class of ship would be is a freighter that carries a small cargo, or a miner that has a tiny (for its size) cargohold. It appears to look exactly like ever other freighter or miner, but it cant do those jobs well. Instead it has armor out the wazoo and a few guns, or drones for attacking. Electronic and mechanic skills spacific to this class of ship allows it to "spoof" other cargo. Instead of showing 5 mil of cargo, a q-freighter would show 500 or more, depending on your skill levels. Instead of a q-miner showing 100 m3 or or it would show as carrying as much as a normally full miner ship of the type its based on.

Obviously these could not be t1 ships. They would have to be built using the ship type they were meant to be mimicing. New pbc's would have to be researched spacifically for these types of ships. Im thinking these should be t3's but thats not set in stone (of course). Perhaps they could be some what individualized, with the person choosing to give up hull space for drones, gun hardpoint, armor, missile hardpoints or electronic as they choose. Race preferences would of course have some say in the matter, but I believe it should be fully up to the players.

Imagine the fun of watching a pirate gang jump your miner in low sec, and watching their communications when suddenly your miner explodes in drones or begins firing missiles at them.

Im sure the pirates that read this will hate it.

Imagine the fun of running a freighter into jita showing a billion and a half cargo of modules, and getting attacked by gankers, and watching them get swatted by concord without ever denting your armor.

Gankers would of course hate this.

The point is, it would all be a new way of fighting. These ships would appear to be innocent haulers and miners, and can still could be killed, BUT it would allow those that enjoy a bit of dirty fighting to have a new way to find targets.

Christ I hate these silly decoy ideas.

It's overly complicated, it doesn't really solve anything and it would never be used. Unless you really think you're going to sit in a belt for hours straight until someone fail suicide ganks you?

As for outside of high sec, if you get caught off gate you're still going to die. If you get caught on gate, you're probably still going to die. Unless you have a cyno, in which case you should have just put it on a drake like a normal person.

I don't think you get it, in fact I'm certain you don't. The fact that you believe a sigil would be attacked on gate entering low sec by frigates suggests to me you've never been in low sec before?

As for having the same mining ability as a normal miner... Lol, just lol.

OK... let us examine where your idea may potentially have uses and then let us consider what is already in the game versus to what you are trying to introduce and see what we come up with. Finally, we can thereafter determine whether your proposal actually gives the game something new and useful or proposes something that will not be used and would therefore cause a waste of time to implement.

Option 1 - High-Sec

- The 'q-ship' as it currently stands in your proposal would be a decoy miner/industrial/whatever with some of its original usefulness intact (i.e. it could still mine but with much lower yield) but with new offensive capabilities to deal with: a) war targets and b) suicide gankers.

> What is stopping you from tanking/fitting your current mining ship or freighter to withstand a gank or fight back? You would sacrifice yield/cargo space, but you could technically do it and this option would not require a completely new type of ship.

Option 2 - Low-Sec

- Besides the above option, except with the replacement of option b) from suicide gankers to pirates, you could use this new ship to bait others as well perhaps?

> What is stopping you from tanking/fitting your current mining ship or freighter to withstand a gank or fight back? You would sacrifice yield/cargo space, but you could technically do it and this option would not require a completely new type of ship.

Option 3 - Null-Sec

… I think the point is well and truly made, but:

> What is stopping you from tanking/fitting your current mining ship or freighter to withstand a gank or fight back? You would sacrifice yield/cargo space, but you could technically do it and this option would not require a completely new type of ship.

So, if you consider the possible applications of your proposal, the conclusion is simple and inevitable. Though perhaps your idea sounds like it would be useful and/or fun - it really adds very little to the game and in fact doesn't introduce anything inherently new or suggest a new aspect of the game that isn’t already in use.

Thank you for the history lesson, there were some aspects of the q-ships that I did not know about, but that is unfortunately about as useful as your proposal gets.

And this is better than a mining rokh because...?


Hell, you can get a battleship to have several thousand km3 cargo if you want a tanky hauler, or you can just plate up a DST.


Also, other than one fight off Australia that ended with both ships sinking, did q-ships or armed merchants ever actually take out warships?

Let me tell you about these cool modules that CCP only recently introduced that allow you to do something pretty similar:

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Live action demonstration of the modules in action

How about something way simpler.

Put out a variety of mining lasers and strip miners, DONE.

Put out a skill that lets you use these weapons on ships instead.

The strip miners could even have specialty crystals like amarrian beam weapons.
(Picture a Hulk with scorch crystals)
Your mining yield would seriously tank, but the moment Joe Ganker warped in, you could shoot back at him.

Exhumer specific armor: Throw in a role bonus that barges and exhumers can mount this armor type. Eats precious slots used for mining yield.

lol, he said you would.

...beside the point and really has nothing to do with the idea.. If this irrelevant arguement the only debate against this idea, I say go for it.

Actually I have and I was attacked by frigates. Several of them infact. Just because thats not the way you operate doesnt mean thats not the way anyone else does. I used sigils in the example because its on the level with the frigates. Bestowers would be on the level with destroyers and cruiser. itties would be on the level with battleships and higher.

Since the q-miner is built using the same frame and everything of the miner, it would have every ability it has SAVE the cargo space. Otherwise it would be obvious what it was and would never be attacked.



Then you have no idea what the point of this is.

Currently, your either a carebear miner, or your a fighter, possibly setting around doing nothing but waiting for your friends to get attacked.

IM suggesting a way that people can be in the middle. They arent carebears and they arent just setting around being bored to death waiting for anyone to attack.



Even the maximum tank wouldnt survive that long against a fleet of gankers. Thats why they do it. They know that they will concorded, but they will destroy the miner or freighter first. The people this are aimed at, want to fight back, not just wait for concord to get into the mix.



Once again, even the best tanked miner or freighter will not survive long and freighters have no way to fight back. This is aim spacifically at those that want to fight.



Thats only because you dont see the picture. No matter how much you tank a miner, hes not going to survive against a fleet of gankers, and no matter what you do, a freighter cant fight back. The best he can do is run.

Thanks for at least reading the histroy lesson.