EVE General Discussion

Disclaimer: this is a drunk post.

The arms race. We've had one in recent history, the past (20th) century demonstrating the rapid and aggressive adaptability of technology. Technology is a funny beast. It grows faster and faster. An exponential level of advancement. Arguably this is a continuing effect.

World War I: Infantry waves, trench warfare, brutal artillery. Stalemate-breaker: Tanks.

World War II: Blitzkrieg warfare, tanks, aircraft and carriers. Stalemate-breaker: The atomic bomb.

You see what I'm getting at, don't you?

We've been using the same goddamn weapons since the alpha/beta, bar a few exceptions like doomsday weapons. But there has been no arms race. Sure, the ships gradually and laboriously slowly get better... when Eve started, we had T1... a few years later, T2... and a few years after that, T3...

But they're still using the same damn guns. The same old, stagnant weapons we started with. They may get a % bonus to damage or RoF that's greater than lower-class ships of the line, but they're still using... the same weapons.

No scientist in New Eden appears to be working on NEW WEAPONS.

Here's what I'd like to see:

The Amarr Empire, after decades of technological collaboration with the Caldari State, discovers a method of projecting a particle free vacuum-beam through which an anti-matter beam can be channeled without the risk of anti-matter encountering matter until it hits the target. These weapons produce intense blast and kinetic effects upon impact.

The Caldari, employing exotic particle research involved in the creation of Amarr tachyon beams, invent a new tachyon-shielded warhead that slips through space instantly and arrives on target the second it is fired.

The Gallente, who strategically prefer defense over attack, combine high-explosive knowledge from the Minmatar Republic with their own drones, to create deployable self-regenerating minefields filled with seeking bomb-drones that function like a warp-bubble that hurts.

The Minmatar, thanks to their close relations with the fading Jovian empire, have secured exotic matter warhead technology never before seen among the four empires. These warheads are often unreliable, but when they function correctly, are devastating; capable of converting an Apocalypse battleship into a burning ball of exotic matter with a few solid strikes.

And here's the most important bit: this shit shouldn't be fair. Every few months, there should be a new breakthrough. A new weapon, just invented, that gives one empire an edge over the others... just long enough for the next counter-weapon to be developed.

tl;dr: New ships are nice. We want new weapons too. ("Like" this post if you agree, or post insults if you don't.)

Like 60% of the fun gone right there.

I, too, want to render 90% of Eve's ships and weapons obsolete and worthless. That sounds like a really good idea.

These are not superweapons. Nor am I suggesting they should be. They should merely be new options - roughly as effective as present weapons, but with new and never-before seen capabilities that force the community to adapt rapidly, rather than stagnate with the same tired old options we've had since day one.

capable of converting an Apocalypse battleship into a burning ball of exotic matter with a few solid strikes.

Look at the weapons we started Eve with. Beams, pulses. Arty, ACs. Rails, blasters. Missiles.

Look at the weapons we've gained since then. Bombs. Doomsday. Up-scaled capital versions of the same crap we had before. Sentry drones are somewhat new too, I guess. It's like no-one is trying to invent new methods of killing each other - highly unlikely for a game full of creative humans. Why haven't the Amarr, in the decade of arms development that came prior, not addressed their EM/TH dependence with an alternate weapon system that does explosive/kinetic? You'd think their scientists would have come up with a solution to this glaring tactical hole that didn't involve using Valkyries or a launcher with exp missiles, wouldn't you?