Player Features and Ideas Discussion

With the rise in piracy activities against commercial freighters in empire space the leaders have looked to CONCORD for answers. Since CONCORD has such a vast space to patrol they have be unable to protect these behemoths from these pirates that have come to be known as "Suicide Gankers".

Since CONCORD has been unable to reduce their response time sufficiently to protect these defenseless behemoths, they have submitted a proposal to the 4 major empire factions. As we know, CONCORD has access to far superior defensive technology that has been deemed illegal for use on any ship not in active CONCORD service. It is this technology, some believe to have been acquired from elite Jove R&D agents, that makes CONCORD ships indestructible by modern standards.

CONCORD has proposed to make a small part of this technology available to the empires on the condition it only be used on Commercial freighters that possess absolutely zero combat capability. The technology offered is essentially a striped down version of a CONCORD subsystem similar to a damage controller. It is incorporated directly into the ships hull and does not require a module slot. This damage controller system is always active, and can not be disabled or removed from the ship.

The proposed technology provides Omni resists bonuses to the three primary defense layers of the ship, providing a 10% boost to all shield resistances, 12% to all armor resistances, and 50% to all hull resistances. The incorporation of this subsystem into each factions freighter hulls may cause a small reduction in the base hitpoints of each layer, but the overall effect is a ship with much better defensive capabilities. CONCORD believes allowing this technology to be used on Commercial freighters will help these behemoths to survive these pirate attacks long enough for CONCORD to respond and provide aid. At the very least these pirates will have to step up their game to continue this outrageous theft in empire space under the protection of CONCORD.

CONCORD is awaiting a response from the Empires, and will only release this technology to them if the decision is unanimous.

/the end

We all know freighter ganking has drastically increased since the mining ship revamp. I do not seek to make these ships ungankable, but just to make it a little less profitable to do so. Currently a freighter can be suicide ganked by only 8 Talos, a small price for the potential loot drop. These ships are large and slow, they can not effectively be protected against a well organized strike. They need a little more defense then they currently have. I felt that a story that would give a lore based reason for the revamp would be more effective than just saying give freighters more resists.

Even if they were only increased to the point where it took 12 Talos rather than 8 to gank them, at least freighters could again carry 1 Billion isk worth of cargo without becoming a loot pinata. Over the years were have seen both new ships added as well as older ships getting more powerful with each balance pass. Combine this with the creativity capsuleers have put into their fleet doctrines and the current ehp of freighters is just not enough. Freighters have gone relatively untouched since they first appeared in EVE. It is time for them to be brought up to current standards.

this is where u fail.

8 talos is not a small price, its near a bil. and the co-ordination required to pull something like that off is not easy to do. not to mention the scouts and looters that are needed for the gank to happen. there is a lot more than 8 ppl involved. and there are no guarantees of it working.

and what is the 'potential loot drop'? it can be anywhere from nothing (because no loot is guaranteed) to trillions of isk. if u want to balance a freighters tank to its 'potential loot drop' then u better make it so the freighter can tank 20 titans at least.

and as for ships not being able to be protected by an organised strike? have u even tried? or do u just afk haul by urself?

they dnt need any extra defences, you need to think about what ur doing, what ur hauling and whether its worth the risk or getting some extra help for. if u afk hauling with billions of isk in ur freighter and haven't prepared anything to mitigate risks, then it is a damn good thing there are gankers to deprive the foolish of their assets so that smarter players can reap the rewards.

a brief and incomplete list of how to discourage ganks:

- Carry Less. This is by far the easiest and most effective way to avoid ganks. bearing in mind how many ppl are needed to perform a gank, you have to be carrying so much isk so that 1) roughly half of its value is enough to cover the cost of all the ganking ships AND 2) makes it worth while for everyone involved to get involved. the moment u start carrying less, everyones share of ur loot gets smaller and u look much less attractive for a gank. its always better to take several trips, or use several freighters, than to risk losing everything at once.

- Avoid Systems. there are countless resources that will tell u the hot spots for ganking, or failing that, just ask friends or on the forums in GD. the precision needed to execute a gank requires the gankers to set-up before the freighter is even in system. they cannot quickly relocate to catch a freighter using a different route.

- Escorts. If ur carrying a ton of isk and really cannot split it and u think u may be targetted, then call some friends to help u make the trip safer. Daredevils with 90% webs will put u into warp in just a few seconds rather than half a minute and scouts can jump ahead to identify potential threats before u get there. ontop of this, ECM ships or logi ships can turn an effective gank into a failure. ganking is a very precise calculation of damage vs tank. if u over estimate the tank of the gankee then ur covering the cost of someones ship and splitting loot with them when they dont need to be there. if u under estimate the gankee's tank, then u wont kill ur target and the whole effort is wasted. jamming someones ship or just repping a couple thousand HP can ruin a gank.

Looters will also go suspect (and usually the only thing that can loot a freighter is an Orca or another freighter), and escorts are free to attack them.

- Orca's. these ships have unscannable bays that do not drop. they can tank like a freighter, enter warp faster, and actually warp faster. true they dnt have quite the capacity but, for carrying expensive gear, they are excellent for secure and faster hauling.


Any of these methods can and are deployed by freighter pilots. if u simply refuse to even put the effort in or want everything without any risks, u just aren't playing the right game.

TL:DR

its not the freighter that needs to change. its You.

Pretty much agree with this thought orcas are now scannable just fyi. Usually if you stay below 2 billion isk its not worth ganking imo

LOL, and you say I don't know what I am talking about.

Orcas fleet hanger, (corp hangers in ships are gone now, replaced by fleet hangers) are not only scannable but also drop loot.

This happened several months ago. Around the same time the mining ships got buffed and freighter ganking more than tripled.

If I have to tell you where to look to see the freighter ganks than you need far more help than I.

Soon every ship in this game will have been updated, rather than being so butt hurt over a suggestion that freighters get a small buff, why not actually offer a reason why they should not.

WWWWAAA I want to keep ganking freighters for profit is not a good enough reason.

Anyone who does not acknowledge the increase in freighter ganking recently either has not been to high sec in a while, or is just trying to protect there ganking profits.

There are so many freighter gankers around Jita right now they are actually fighting over ships to gank.

so i overlooked the orca. i use one and didnt even know that.

eve kill shows me just as much freighter ganks happening 2 years ago as last month. unless u can show me something i'm missing, the hype areound freighter ganking seems more likely to do with the spotlight the goons campaign received rather than an increase in frequency.

and i have offered a reason why freighters should not get buffed. they dnt need one. i use my freighters all the time, ive never been ganked, not once. and from the kill mails i've seen, i can see ppl who have gone into known hot spot systems with stupid amounts of isk in their holds. they deserved it, and the loss of half of their stuff has made me more money for being that much smarter than them.

ive never ganked a freighter myself, nor did i ever say u dnt know what ur talking about. ur more likely just lazy, lonely and want as much rewards without risk as u can whine for.

I have an alt that runs a freighter daily and I think this is a bad idea. First, Concords job is not to protect and serve. They are not the police. They are the judge, jury, and executioner.

Second, 8 Talos is not something to scoff at. At the time I'm writing this, the hull itself costs 85 mill in jita. 8 large blaster at say 4 mill a piece comes to 32 million. That's 117 million and we haven't fit rigs, mids, or lows. At 8 of these we have already crossed 936 million. That's nearly a billion in guaranteed losses. Chances are, they are not going to attempt to gank your freighter unless you're carrying well over 1 billion in assets that they can hopefully loot. If you are carrying that much, then it's your fault for accepting that risk when you undocked. Very rarely does anyone gank a freighter just because.

That is where you are wrong. You forgot one of the key factors in the GOONS freighter ganking handbook.

Even if the freighter is empty, those 8 Talos can be loot and salvaged, as well as the freighter could be salvaged. According to a Goon I talked to a while back a freighter gank fleet of 8 fully fit Talos was about a 680M loss once factoring in the loot and salvage of the ganking fleet. The Goons can gank a freighter with only 800M worth of cargo and have a very high chance of breaking even.

basically anything over 1 Bil is pretty much guaranteed to be a profitable gank. Although they generally target the stupid haulers with several bil and make a real killing. They got last week with over 21 Bil in cargo, If I recall right, about 16 Bil dropped. This is not just kill board padding they are making huge profits.

The thing is when there are so many hauling loads worth so much, why should the cap for getting thru safely be only around 800M. Even if freighters were buffed to the point they could carry 1.5-2 billion isk worth of cargo, there would still be plenty of gank worthy targets out there.

It just does not make sense to leave them as weak as they are.

People said the same thing about mining ships, but they were revamped and beefed up significantly. Even to the point when properly fit they can not be ganked for profit as they once were.

Freighters are even easier to balance as they have no fitting slots, you can not be creative fitting them. they are what they are.

if mining ships were worthwhile to buff due to excessive ganking, then freighters are as wel. I never had a problem with my mining ships getting ganked, yet CCP found it necessary to buff them. From my point of view freighter need a buff more so than mining ships did.

Almost everything you have said could be equally applied to mining ships. Yet they WERE buffed. Freighters will be too. It is only a matter of time. I have simply told a story that would justify the change without going against the lore.

EVE is an evolving place, just like the real world. Things change, ships get upgraded, and made better.

fair enough, we will see what happens.

There was an idea going around a couple years ago about a T3 Battleship hull that would have subsystems for mining, freight, and even blackops style jump drives. Such a ship could if so desired, be set up as a mini freighter, even a mini jump freighter.

That I believe will never happen. But a freighter buff I believe is imminent.

How many webs does it take to make a freighter insta-warp again? Oh yeah... not many.