Player Features and Ideas Discussion

To all those who think this is a good idea - I ask you to provide at least 10 km's of freighters of which you were part, then tell me that ganking freighters is too easy!

to those who think that they should be able to haul a freighter full of BPO's on AFK AP - EVE is about CONSEQUENCE! you wouldn't expect that faction/officer fit T2 BS to AFK AP through highsec, would you?

to those who are worried about their standard day-to-day hauling - do the research! (find out where the gank system is!)

to those who are worried about the high-value, infrequent runs - one of EVE's core principles is that teamwork should raise the reward: put someone in a scorpion with a set full of ECM's and an ECM burst, maybe more, they'll warp faster than your freighter, so you can easily keep pace, put someone in a web-frig, and if you're that keen, maybe some rooks too, after all, this is your most valuable stuff you're carrying, right?

If you're that worried, maybe the introduction of a second class of freighter - tankier, but with less cargo, would be a good bet, but, let's face it - the ganks are still going to roll in on the cargo freighters, because people are still going to be stupid enough to haul gankworthy loads through the ganking system of the day, simply because they haven't been bothered to check where ganking's are occuring, (they don't even need to check killboard - star map will do!) and avoid the gank system

+1 also they should do the same thing they did with T2 transport ships... Allow Freighters to be immune from cargo scanners.

The solution should be better protection in empire space against ganges from concord or fitting to freigthers to counter gangers. People will always find ways to do thing more effectively but this time CCP just gave gangers more tools and forgot to give any tools to freighter pilots.

And yes next someone will say that you can have an escort. Sure I can but I should not have one in empire cause there is CONCORD that is supose to protect me and they are failing.

Plus co-ordinading 10 player assaults are easy, much much easier that saving a freighter from their assault. And also someone was kind enough to make a forum post showing how it is profitable to do which also means something is wrong.

Oh i totaly agree with you about the part that you can never be safe and you should not but the tier 3 battlecruisers and new tactics found by pirates have made their lifes alot easier and profitable in empire and I personaly feel that in empire this should not be the case. Yes people should be able to do suisice gang in empire but it should be much much harder than it is at this moment.

Even you talk sometimes about risk vs. reward and atm it feels more like the risk is minimal for pirates while the risk for just hauling goods in empire is high. So I ask you this, which one of these two activities should be more riskier in empire. Hauling or pirating?

This is not about making freighters safe to AFK haul.

This is not about making freighters unkillable.

This is about balance.

With recent ganker fleet doctrines it is possible and quite common for a freighter gank to cost as little as 650M. 8 talos T1 fit with 16 rounds of faction ammo(only get to fire two shots before CONCORD shows, so 16 rounds is enough) subtract the value of the loot and salvage from those Talos, and you are left with about 650M.

A freighter is currently worth about 1.5B. 2 years ago you could get one for half that.

What does this mean in EVE?

There are gankers who Gank only to Pad their kill boards. With zero regard for profit.

With the current state of freighters you can gank an empty freighter and still destroy double the value you lost. This is unbalanced no matter how you look at it.

Freighters should by all means be gankable, but it should at least cost as much as the value of the hull to do so.

A freighter should require at least some cargo for it to be worthwhile to gank, killing an empty freighter should not pad your kill board, at the very least it should break even, with the cargo value creating the pad.

I am not saying that freighters are super easy to kill, only that doing so creates far to much value for the ganker.

You do not need to be AFK autopiloting to get ganked. In fact when they see a freighter getting escorted and webed for fast warp they just assume it must have valuable cargo to warrant such measures. Why wait for a cargo scan if you know it is worth ganking. They can and will specifically go after those ships. If they decide you are a target, there is nothing you can do to escape.

The few corps currently set up around Jita that regularly gank freighters in this manner use a combination of remote sensor boosters for insta lock and bumping techniques which do not cause agro, to prevent targets from warping off before the gank fleet locks them.

Even a freighter manually piloted, with a escort putting a triple web on it has very little chance of escape. If they decide you are their target. They bump you off alignment, and can insta lock you. Often they will sacrifice a insta lock neutral ship to tackle a valuable freighter while the fleet gets in place. There is nothing you can do to escape. An escort fleet is useless as they can not fight back until the freighter is dead. Once they attack, the freighter is dead in about 10 seconds. Although it will often spend a couple minutes getting bumped around while the fleet gets into place before the first shots are fired. You can try using webs to insta warp but even then you only got a 50/50 chance with a well organized camp.

These high sec gate camps have become as dangerous as low sec if you are flying a freighter with anything decent in the cargo bay. And you do not need to be AFK autopiloting to get caught. Even with an escort you are lucky to get through if they decide to go after you.

Before you comment again on how a freighter pilot has control of the value of their cargo, go back and read the part again, where I said an EMPTY freighter is worth double to cost of the gank fleet required to kill it. The freighter pilot can do nothing about that.

I hate to come in on the side of pirates in this....


But exactly how many players do you think would be a fair number to destroy your single ship?

I'm guessing you could easily evade their attempts to gank you if you applied the same sort of effort in preventing your death as they do in causing it. I could be wrong, it's not a game I play, but can 7 T1 Logi ships rep enough to keep you from dying to that second shot? If not, you have a complaint that I can support. Ties should always go to the defender.

I think part of the real issue here is the need for some fleshing out the non-combat ship lines. Freighters are good enough for their intent, but something a bit sturdier with half to 2/3 the cargo capacity might be in order. I could also support adding fitting to freighters and specialized modules that cost % cargo space for additional structure and structure resist.

I support changing freighters in the following manner:

Give them 8 low slots & 3 rig slots.... reduce their base EHP to ~100k EHP... reduce their base cargo hold to 60-80k m3.

If you fit your freighter for max cargo... you'll carry a bit under 1m m3, and have an 80k EHP tank...
If you fit your freighter with only a dcu and max cargo... you'll carry 850-900k m3, and have about 150k EHP tank....
If you want to tank your freighter.... you can.... but you sacrifice speed, agility, and potential cargo hold to do so...

In other words, I'd give players a choice on how much tank they want to fit, verse their agility/speed, verse their cargo capacity...

I do NOT support simply increasing the stats of freighters....

p.s. don't even ask for a highslot... while cyno freighters would be interesting... a cloaking freighter is unacceptable!!!
p.s.s. while mids are come and go, freighters should have soo much mass that you can't use the mwd-to-warp to circumvent align times.

Surely with that logic, it shouldn't be possible to destroy ANY ship without putting at least it's value on the field?


(Also, if I just did the maths right, it'd take your 8 talos about 3 minutes to kill a seiged moros. Not exactly impossible.)

An Orca is a capital ship.... Many miners fit it out to haul... leaving it with about 85k EHP.... It takes 4ish talos to destroy that... It could also be fit with a dcu and a bulkhead giving it more EHP than a freighter.... (200+k EHP). Its this choice that I'd like to see for a freighter pilot. The cost of 8 Talos used to destroy a freighter is irrelevant... The only thing that is relevant is that freighter pilots lack the choice on how to optimize their freighter to their purpose.... If you are hauling trit around, 150k EHP and 1m m3 cargo capacity is quite reasonable... If you are hauling 425mm Railgun 1's.... it is imbalanced, and using more than 10% of your cargo space essentially makes flying your freighter unsafe.

ORCA also do not cost 1.5 billion isk.

Giving freighters the ability to fit modules exchanging Cargo capacity for EHP or Speed is certainly a good option, But the fact that a freighter can be killed buy sending less than half its value in suicide gank ships at it is far from irrelevant.

As stated in the other thread on the subject, A freighter can not be allowed to hit 1,000,000m3 cargo as it would then be able to haul packaged carriers and dreads into high sec.

I am not apposed to changing freighter to have some low and/or rig slots. But they would have to be balanced in a way that the max cargo with the absolute best modules available would still be below 1,000,000m3. This means that the average pilot even if they fit for max cargo would have less space then they have now, unless they spend the isk on those elite modules to max out their cargo. There is a stoyline cargo expander. Not sure if it adds the same cargo space as the T2 variant. i thought there was also a DED one that is only available through contracts that offered 30% cargo expansion.