Player Features and Ideas Discussion

A global collision damage introduces a lot of problems already mentioned in this thread. The two main ones being: accidental collisions at trading hubs and criminal flagging.
The aggressor should be in advantage because that's the way it works already. People bump other ships to get an advantage, that is putting their targets out of alignment. It's cool, but looks incredibly dumb because ships take no damage even though there is an incredible amount of kinectic energy being transfered.

EDIT: I'm not disconsidering that the attacker could take some damage too (nor that the damage is based on the ship specs). It's a speceship collision after all.

A kamikaze ship?

If you see only that, you have not understood the concept at all.
And an open ended blanket statement such as:

This avoids recognizing the fact that no weakness, (unless improbable and arbitrary circumstances are forced regarding it), has yet to be suggested.

Specifically:
The ramming module will NEVER destroy the ship it is mounted on.
It may weaken it significantly, if the fitting is terribad, but it specifically will never destroy the ship it is mounted on.
It cannot, due to the math involved.

It also relies heavily on escorts, since it is in many ways a limited weapon with great vulnerabilities.
Anything with an alpha strike capability of this magnitude demands limits to be balanced. To be able to mount any weapon system in addition to this module would be insanely overpowered, as would allowing rigs to further enhance such a ship.

Your requested analysis of that 2x2 fight, the ramming ships effectively counter each other, and depending on fitting choices, they either are destroyed, or left as trivial players on the field.
The normally equipped ships would be the ones deciding the outcome, because the ramming ships are never dominating when they have been anticipated so completely.

Raw and often random collisions, by contrast, are more often than not disasters for both sides, with scavengers snatching up the wreckage as the only likely beneficiaries.

This ship is NOT stripped of it's ability to fight.
The stabber from the second example could repeatedly ram, holding it's own in a fight equally as well as a normally equipped vessel.

Like any other ship in EVE, if you can anticipate it's offense, you can effectively neutralize it. If you can anticipate it's defense, you can stomp over it roughshod.

For comparison:
If I fitted a stabber with medium turrets, and loaded those up with EMP ammo, you could simply tank to resist EMP.
If I fitted the same stabber with an omni tank, you would probably be best off loading thermal, or possibly EM, as the shields and armor together are the least protected from those directions.

This stabber, (as a ramming ship), is centralized into being kinetic, and it's offense and defense together are so cross connected, that defending kinetic while loading up EM or thermal also works very well.

And just like how a point is countered by a stabilizer, or a bubble is weak against T3's nullifier, a simple and commonly used webifier can make this ship suddenly vulnerable and at risk.
Is it completely a lost cause?
No, clearly not, as a pilot still retains full shields otherwise. If they are concerned about defense, they can boost with omni, or possibly whatever hole their hull type is most exposed by.

All of a sudden, that shield tank has value all around, as ONLY a ramming ship can bypass it, and the ramming ship can be blocked by webs, which also fit into a mid slot.
Oddly enough, shield tanking ships tend to have plenty of mid slots, meaning they will be able to spare one more easily than say... an armor tanking ship which has about half as many available.
This gives shield tanking ships a fitting advantage, especially if concerned over a ramming ship as a possible threat.

Shield tanking ships can prevent ramming damage more effectively than armor tanking ships, while armor tanking ships can endure damage more effectively. Each side has it's own unique advantage.

An EFT battle simulation which includes a hypothetical module?
I wish!



Of course, people only fit a countermeasure IF they expect it is going to be needed.
For instance:
If every ship fit stabs, then a tackle would need to be overwhelming, possibly only workable in some cases by hictors.

What is more likely, is that like a game of rock / paper / scissors, you will try to anticipate your opponent.
If you are wrong about needing a web:

1. And you did not fit one while encountering a ramming ship, then you need to avoid them in order to avoid damage. If you are faster, win! While if they remembered webs, being faster often may not be possible.

2. And you DID fit one, and never encountered a ramming ship, then you wasted a mid slot on something you could have used for something else.
Hey, look at the bright side, webs can be useful for many other areas at least.

The bare hull in the original example, obviously, would be a given.
Here is the fitting for example two:

[Stabber, Stabber ramming1 copy 2]
Damage Control II
Armor Kinetic Hardener II
Energized Kinetic Membrane II
Kinetic Plating II

Stasis Webifier II
Stasis Webifier II
Warp Scrambler II
100MN Afterburner II

[empty high slot]
[empty high slot]
[empty high slot]
[empty high slot]
[empty high slot]
[empty high slot]

Plug that into EFT, set the default pilot to all level V for hypothetical maximums, and the details column should be the same as mine.

(I actually made a bare copy for reference, which is why this version is named copy 2)

Now, I can fly this as is, but I run out of cap sooner than the all V pilot.

From that 2x2 thing you suggested two days earlier?

Unnecessary.

The ramming ships would end up neutralizing each other before any probable significant damage could be applied from the other two ships.
(The shields of a ramming ship may not be much, but would be enough to insulate them this long at least)
Each ramming ship delivers 100% of it's armor and hull as exist at time of impact.
Each ramming ship receives as blowback 75% of this figure.
Assuming a reasonable discrimination towards hulls most suited towards damage, as you suggested reasonably enough, the ramming ships would probably be flying the hull most optimal for their attack.

It took an excel doc, but the upshot ends up being that regardless of which hull is selected for the normal armor and shield BS's, both sides want to be flying this Hyperion as their ramming ship.

It inflicts over 23k of raw damage, yet between being hit by it's twin and it's own blowback, only actually takes 2,505 from each of it's mutual attacks, (That is round 1, each successive round is slightly less damage due to this loss)

[Hyperion, Ramming 1]
Damage Control II
Armor Kinetic Hardener II
Armor Kinetic Hardener II
Energized Kinetic Membrane II
Energized Kinetic Membrane II
Reinforced Bulkheads II
Overdrive Injector System II

Stasis Webifier II
Stasis Webifier II
Stasis Webifier II
Warp Scrambler II
100MN Microwarpdrive II

[empty high slot]
[empty high slot]
[empty high slot]
[empty high slot]
[empty high slot]
[empty high slot]
[empty high slot]

[empty rig slot]
[empty rig slot]
[empty rig slot]

It moves at 1,042 m/s for the period of just over a minute, while the MWD is active.
Being webbed, is of course, necessary here. After being triple webbed, the expected speed is only 66 m/s.
(After the MWD runs out of juice, less than 10 m/s)

Here is the kicker.

I set up a Scorpion against an Armageddon.

Now, the math becomes kind of fuzzy, but the upshot is both BS have kinetic defenses, etc.
The scorpion ONLY needs to match the Armageddon in number of webs, meaning it has 6 slots free for tanking and propulsion.
And while both have their armor set to mitigate against kinetic, the Scorpion has free slots to make it's shields whatever it likes. That's 4 slots to either expand or harden those shields with.

What it really comes down to, is how do battles normally result when fighting shields vs armor tanking?
The ramming ships? They are locked in their own little death spiral, being webbed to the point where the only thing they can expect to make contact with is each other. And it doesn't matter who makes contact, as previously explained, the ramming module on both fire when either makes the required solid contact.

There is no clear victor in this contest. The ramming ships, however are both lost assuming neither attempts a successful escape.
They really are vulnerable once countered by webbing.

BTW: the math and the excel doc alone was interesting, calculating how things would progress.
Once it became clear that the ramming ships were not going to be significant, it became a simple match of armor vs shield tank, with the armor side holding a slight disadvantage.
(Both ships went for kinetic armor defense, while only the scorpion retained shields capable of resisting other directions, as a result of having more mids available)

This would be fun to participate in, in my opinion.

Not for nothing, but when someone anticipates an attack perfectly, and both sides are able to neutralize each other to this degree, what would you expect to be any different?

Something like this needs to be predictable within certain details, or else it takes skill and planning out of the picture, and leaves only random events.

To be interesting, one side cannot know for certain what the other side is bringing to the table, or else you either get a stalemate or a coin toss. Much of conflict is the result of players making a best guess about what they will encounter, and planning to either defend against this, or exploit a weakness for their own advantage.

The results more often reflect how good they were at this planning, than many other possible details.

Nag'o, when you set up a point to challenge an argument, please try to avoid exaggerating details in order to force the result you want. That is called a straw man argument, and is something designed so you can demonstrate how a point fails.
But, when you need to stretch details in order to produce that failure, you did not really beat the argument, you just beat the exaggerated version of it.

Neither the Scorpion nor the Armageddon go down quickly, and this presumes you used mallers with foreknowledge to bring points and webs to lock them down with.
Why would you expect an armor omni tank result to be different than others?
And if the geddon pilot knew enough to kinetic tank, then the scorp pilot get's equal credit, and can go further by webbing both cruisers to a safe distance with which to annihilate both.
The geddon might have difficulty, if they guess wrong about how many webs they need, but can still achieve the same results.

Are you assuming the shield fit BS to not have considered this attack? If so, and assuming the cruisers have gone to the trouble of being prepared for this obvious gank, why would you expect the detail of being a shield BS to be any different than an armor tanking one?

Even if they are unprepared, there may be only a 25% difference between the armageddon's combined armor and structure, and the scorpions. Assuming these two cruisers were both mallers, and prepared for a BS gank, neither BS would survive.

The armageddon MIGHT take a few extra hits to kill, but that is all. They have similar amounts of hull structure, and once you blow through an omni tanked level of armor, it goes fast too.

And this is assuming both were putting on a DC2, which while sensible is not a universal detail for everyone.

Your two cruisers, by optimal fitting, would not be able to alpha the scorpion. It would take multiple hits, even assuming the scorp had been omni tanked instead of kinetic.

And assuming they had a fleet on hand, as you state, the use of the ramming module becomes a meaningless detail.
Webbed and pointed, you could almost kill the BS with snowball launchers, let alone any other weapon system.

This is not something new, ganking a BS under these conditions can happen already.
Calling a weapon system overpowered because it can do something already possible multiple other ways seems disingenuous, don't you think?

You object to the speed of the damage taking place, apparently.

You already have a 'fleet' locking it down, and we are assuming it was not prepared enough to defend against this threat.

I am pointing out that an armor tanking BS is equally dead, not just a shield tanking one.
I am pointing out that this result is not exclusive to this ramming module. A BS locked down well enough to prevent escape can be taken down many different ways. Your original description already uses three pilots, at minimum. Four, if we add in another cruiser.

I can think of many ways that three pilots can take down a battleship, quite effectively.
I cannot think of many weapon systems this vulnerable to being countered, and beaten, by a pilot forewarned to expect it.

If you expect and try hard enough to see something, you probably will. But that won't give you an objective result, simply the one you expected.

I will grant you, under the right circumstances this can be effective. That does not make it overpowered, or even unique.
Add to this the fitting sacrifices required, and the vulnerabilities that result, and many would describe it as being underpowered.

I would ask that you be more open minded, and keep in mind the limits of this weapon system along with the strengths.