Player Features and Ideas Discussion

That would be one way to go I suppose, but I'm not in favor of it.

I was merely quantifying the obvious, because it's easy to lose perspective in this. Obviously the number of low slots would have a direct bearing on how flexible the hauler will be and what it's max capabilities are.

Extra roles:
ship hauler
ore/mineral hauler
PI hauler

Or you can do the easy thing and remove all indys from the game and let an ore ship or two handle that.

keep in mind with an mwd it still has more ehp, cargo, and aligns faster than any of the t1 industrials. (so, in every way that matters)

Rise, i think what a lot of people want is a reason to cross train.

if I have minmatar battlecruiser V, I still get useful things out of caldari battlecruiser V.

But with your new industrial, if I have gallente industrial V, there is no reason for me to train any other racial industrial, as every race is pretty much identical.

Not that it is any different now, but I think people wanted something unique about each race.

It is now.

I am still very much wondering who these ships are for. Who's supposed to fly them? What's the typical mission?

They've got no prereqs to speak for, so they're easy to get into. Obviously, we need a "noobhauler", and they all fit that role well. Low prereq's, cheap hulls. My own meagre fortune was built largely out of trading Quafe across the Everyshore/Sinq border, I was a Merchant-Prince of Space Soda.

I don't think tanking your Indy's are optional if you intend to ply any of the traderoutes (Jita->Dodixie->Hek->Rens, Jita->Amarr). The value of the cargo you can carry without getting yourself turned into wreckage is related to the EHP of your ship, and - ignoring a discussion about how big the tank should be on either the tanky or the non-tanked version - the available EHP is going to restrict the kind of missions a T1 is suitable for. What kind of range are we expecting these to be used to haul?


Then we have speed, where the warpspeed appears to be the same for both versions (Unless I've forgotten how to read? I do that sometimes), which means that it comes down to slowboat speed and align time.

Align time is always time, but the differential seems small - even on the Jita->Rens run, the supposedly "faster" hauler is going to save how many minutes? If I'm not autopiloting, I'd say its about on par for a poorly-timed toilet break? If I am autopiloting, I can use the velocity differential to improve my speed. Am I autopiloting?

And what's the average number of jumps for a mission for one of these? Am I doing Jita->Amarr? Or Hek->Amarr?


If you want a low-training time, small investment way to get your loot somewhere where it sells better? Go for it. Wanna do it while you're watching the screen of your main, or cooking dinner by autopiloting? These'll certainly get the job done, with the added bonus of being capable of doing it on an alt with incredibly low skill requirements. Wanna move some materials in the My First Industry Job Kit? Have at it. Wormholes with mass restrictions? Here's your choices.

But that's pretty much it. Expanding your mining corporation? The Orca is more accessible than Racial Industrial V, and while it costs more than an Iteron, it is certainly worth it: The utility of the hangar, the size of the cargo bays, the EHP (the 3 flights of ECM drones *cough*). Manufacturing in Bahromab? Orca - need more cargo. Arbitrage between Jita and Dodixie? Orca - EHP to pass through Niarja.


If the primary concern is dev time, then yeah, this works great. No significant changes either way, and the art teams off-handed display of poor taste was brutally veto'ed (Look at this way guys, you design great ships! You might not like them yourself, but we do!)

But meh. Its not an impressive design. We've got 12 ships that all crowd the same niche, and there's no real reason why that niche should be the focus of T1 industrials, outside of not spending too much time on it now, when we might, maybe, at some point, Soon™, be rethinking the whole thing.

An orca with a MWD warps about as fast as any large cargo hauler, can haul a lot more, and can get over 200k EHP easilly. It costs more, but it's a lot less attractive to gank if you fit a DCII on it.

So unless you're planning on losing your high sec hauler to ganks, cost really isn't much of an issue. That doesn't even include the added bonus of being able to fit gang links or haul fitted ships. The orca flat out invalidates every single tech 1 industrial ship for high sec use, and will continue to do so with the proposed changes.

Observations/comments:

1) Mammoth is the one Industrial that most *looks* like it was designed to haul stuff, and fits the Minmatar design philosophy. No doubt the Art departments' instincts are to make any ship presented to them more beautiful or curious looking but they need to recognize when something is fine as it is, however 'boring' that might seem to them.

2) That some races pay more attention to hauling than others and thus have more variety of haulers is reasonable. Giving each an equal numbers of models is getting way too cookie cutter, and life is not that tidy outside of a spreadsheet. I do agree with the idea of some of the Gallente haulers getting specialized roles, though.

3) Things like align time and tank on an industrial are irrelevant for 90% of the population but certain groups pay close attention to those details and they do make a difference in places like WH's.

4) Enabling all Industrials to be driven at lvl 1 racial skill is beyond stupid. Right now Iteron V's are selling like hotcakes, and it's a good bet manufacturers are already stockpiling 1000's of Bestowers in advance of future updates after having seen this thread. The need to spend time raising a new skill to equip another races' Indies should exist as a counterbalance to perceived benefits of that target ship.

I came to this thread via "the Mittani" website after reading the article there to see exactly what my favorite CCP employee was doing with Industrials and though some of the new ideals that have been suggested look nice...I am kinda disappointed.

So before I make a real comment, and serious suggestion on what I would like to see in the way of Industrials(something I have great interest in) I will put some thought into it and then write my ideals down. Then come back and post them. :)

Have some good ideals - especially for the blockade runners.

Really like some of these suggestions. :)