Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Again, the reference to suicide ganking, as if other possible uses were either meaningless or ignored.

The attacking ship is NOT suicidal because they fitted this option. It IS taking a significant risk.

The stabber described above, can be effectively fitted to have resistances to kinetic damage, and still retain a speed of 363 m/s.
Armor: 86.2 %
Hull: 60%

Assuming the same details of the ramming attack, (The armor and HP remain unchanged by the fitted items) the results can be quite different. The ship in the previous example had no other items fitted, and was a bare hull as flown by a skilled pilot.

The Stabber would have 1,192 armor remaining out of 1,625 original, and no structural damage.
Quite notable, is that the shields of all ships involved are unaffected by all of this. Still at 2,000, minus any damage taken outside of this example.

Unless Concord showed up, or player ships prepared to counter this loadout, this ship has the ability to repeat the attack, albeit with reduced effect. 2,817 damage from the combined armor and hull remaining, down from the original 3,250.

If they took things to the maximum effect, which might be a balance issue to consider limiting, the stabber could in theory also fit a 100mn AB, as well as three warp disruptors.
(In theory, as most players are not all level 5 in associated skills)

It sounds powerful on paper, but as most understand that does not come across perfectly in game, and a ship set to counter this tactic would be even simpler to fit than this.

A ramming module would be new, but that should be its own thread, IMO. Tucking it in here on collision damage in general could be seen as a thread hi-jack.

But does it make things that were a bad idea a year ago into a good idea today?

Not really!

Mine was in it's own thread originally. I understand the superficial connection by ramming / collision, but the wide difference in mechanics involved create a night and day divide otherwise.
(I never saw this thread, created three days before mine, until someone posted a cross link in mine)

Something the ISD never considered.

This thread started with a general observation that maybe collisions in general were worth revisiting.

The ramming module I devised, is specific in forcing a user to forego all other primary weapon systems.
Since they have no backup plan, and a ship with a solid armor tank is generally less agile than it's peers to begin with, this ship can also be countered very effectively.

And once countered, it is effectively a popularity contest over whether it survives, since it depends on other pilots either helping or attacking it for this detail. Killmails would soon follow, either way.

Shield tankers are also notoriously more agile, with faster speeds.
Put simply, they would be less vulnerable, since they would be harder to catch, even while being less defended with their armor.

That stabber, in the example, is a shield tanker by virtue of having higher shields native to it..
(Same number of mids and lows, offer similar opportunities to improve in either direction.)
The augmented version I described in the second example, had no plates fitted to increase the amount of armor, just to make it more resistant to kinetic damage.

A maller, by comparison, would deal 5,000 points to the stabber's 3,250... but the stabber has a base speed of 363 vs the maller's 244 m/s.
The stabber would not survive a hit from a ramming maller, assuming bare hulls with theoretical max skilled pilots.
But, the maller can't force the stabber to sit still, meaning the encounter would often result in the maller being kited while being pounded into small pieces, likely by some autocannons stabbers seem to like using.

I'd much rather have a simple agressive module. Maybe a new propulsion module, so you can't activate it together with other propulsion modules. When you activate it, it boosts the ship speed by a certain amount and you are unable to turn it until the cycle is over. If the ship using it collides with another ship then some damage is applied.

EDIT: Maybe an EM/Kin damage combination, since there are no weapons that deal them both.

It is worth pointing out, that this ramming module is NOT the same thing as enabling collisions.

The ship which mounted the ramming module, is the one who determines the damage exchange level. It's current existing armor and structure creating the amount of damage involved to both ships.

If a small ship has it equipped, then it deals 100% of it's current combined armor and structure to the other craft, and taking 75% of this same specific number as a blowback effect.
(Note: if less than 100% destroys the target, then the lower number is taken, and 75% of that is applied as blowback instead)

The other ship involved, not having this module mounted, takes that damage against it's own armor, as modified by it's kinetic resistances, and then any remaining is applied to the structure.

This damage, on both sides, is kinetic, and subject to to being reduced by plates and damage control units, as normally handled.

If this were simple collision, (assuming equal ship density all around), the larger ship would always overwhelm the smaller ship with it's superior mass.

The ship mounting the module has weaponized it's inertial dampeners, which is why the ship is a kinetic weapon, while the relative velocity of the two vessels has no meaning once the ramming damage is calculated.

I would like to think you are clever enough, to see the logic pitfall you just placed yourself over, here.
By assuming my design was shortsighted, you fail to realize it insists on players to fit cautiously.

The ability to counter something, in EVE more than many other places, is done at the cost of fitting a more useful module you may KNOW you can use.

OF COURSE the mid slots have an obvious use for shield tanking ships. The stabber I reference from familiarity uses at least one of it's mids for an extender or booster.

For a DST or industrial, they would likely be sacrificing a low slot(s) to enhance their armor profile, slots which have obvious value for cargo expanders.

Did you assume the fitting requirements were drawn randomly, despite this module having no power / cpu fitting requirements, while demanding an unheard of 400 calibration and exclusive presence in the high slots?

Why would you expect a painless fitting option to counter this?

You are assuming it is unbalanced, because you are not absorbing the intentions of the design.

First, let's cover this ground. I can make the mistake of assuming common understanding of details far more often than is reasonable. I know from real life this confuses people already, so perhaps I have been negligent here.
If so, I apologize.

First, this is not a collision mechanic. It requires a similar means of delivery, but then a missile often needs to hit it's target to have an effect too.
This takes the inertial dampeners on the ship, and weaponizes them. The things that let an interceptor have that rubbery bounce off of a freighter, rather than making the pilot in his pod into the equivalent of an egg scrambled inside of it's shell.
Now, they are reversing themselves upon contact to inflict damage rather than to prevent it.

The field in question, only exists covering the intact physical components of the ship. This is why the sections which take damage no longer support the field moving forward, as they lack the integrity to leverage the fields energy that it needs.

Now, as it is leveraging a kinetic attack against the ship it is in contact with, the inertial dampeners are discharging the ship's mass against the armor and structure of the other vessel. The other vessel is trying to cancel this effect, naturally, but the ramming module enables the ramming ship to overwhelm an equal section of reinforced armor and structure, using the opposing ship's own dampening fields as the conduit.

As can be imagined, this is a violent and drastic discharge flash of kinetic energy, requiring the entire hull to act as a parallel conduit in order to avoid being neutralized. For this reason, all of the hard points need to be included completely, as they represent the focal points of the ship's structure. The same logic that makes them useful absorbing the stress and energy of primary ship weapons, also makes them the key required points for this discharge.

Rigs: This module requires overwhelming integration into the ship, exactly the same way a ship's rigs need. The reinforced inertial dampening conduits normally hidden seamlessly into the hull, are tripled or more in many areas. They are also insulated against blowback, and channel the return surge of energy as if it were external in nature, allowing the ship's own defenses to absorb as much of this energy as possible.
(It blocks 25% of the energy's return surge, and channels the rest to the outer superstructure so it can be dissipated by such reinforcements as the ship has, such as kinetic resistance plating and hardeners)

The module effectively demands exclusive access to the hull and superstructure of the ship, in short, which takes into account the high slot items as well as the rigging.

The fitting consequences eliminate the options to fit most other weapon systems, and secondary rigging modules often valued for their benefits in many areas.
It also makes the ship reliant upon associates for support, as these sacrifices often expose it to faster vessels able to counter it and fire upon it from safe distances.

It can be a devastating alpha strike, but at a cost of being easily countered, if it is anticipated.

That's exactly what EVE's ships don't have, a mechanism to prevent collisions. If there was anything of the sort a freighter wouldn't accelerate beyond it's own capacity when bumped by a MWD cruiser. What happens is that the kinectic energy from the cruiser is being transfered to the freigher http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOuOt4QYM18, this only happens in a direct collision. IMO this should only happen as an agressive maneuver, by the use of a module built for the sole purpose of transfering kinect energy to another ship's hull. This same collision should inflict damage. In my concept that damage could be EM/Kin for balance reasons but it can be justified by being both the kinect energy of the collision and the EM energy from the shields.