Player Features and Ideas Discussion

5000 EHP / 72 seconds = 69.44 dps required to kill an MMJU before it can be used.
25000 EHP / 32 seconds = 781.25 required to kill an MMJU before it can be used in its first iteration.

That's quite a reduction. It's enough that even an LML kiting frigate will be able to drop one of these before anyone can use it. That's quite pathetic. I'm confident that a middle ground can be found in terms of activation time between "tanking a Vexor at point blank" and "dies to Condors".

The lengthened activation time doesn't make a lot of sense either. This is a deployable with a tactical function, and sitting still for over a minute while it fires up is not going to be viable for most ships.

Consider: 10000 EHP / 32 seconds = 312.5 dps or 15000 EHP / 32 seconds = 468.75 required to kill it before it can be used. That's not some staggering amount of dps, but it's not trivial to kill off either.

One of the most interesting potential uses of the MMJU was to alter the kiter vs brawler dynamic away from something badly skewed in favor of kiters. The current iteration is basically pre-nerfed for most practical uses.

Seems a bit heavy handed of a nerf.

FW is plagued with farmers who "conquer" systems by using swarms of disposable frigates fit with warp core stabilizers and cloaks. What was intended to do a "top of the hill" mechanic to encourage fights has turned into a semi-AFK farming endeavor.

On the other hand, complexes also give a great opportunity for people to lay traps for others who don't pay attention. Using cloaky drone-assist Tristans, being kite-ready in a Condor or Slicer, or even just sitting a few ships on the landing point inside the plex is a big tactical advantage.

That is where the MSI comes in. Those who attack a complex are at a disadvantage that is sort of mitigated by guessing at the defender's ship(s) from d-scan. With the MSI, a cloak/WCS farmer looks exactly like a frigate gang -- like nothing. Because people don't like to take wild chances on missing info, they will almost always avoid going in. This both reduces PvP and encourages farming, neither of which are things that FW need.

I'm not sure I buy it completely myself, especially after the changes, but that's the argument as I understand it.

Yay changes! Let's see how I can bittervet these up.



The good: longer use range, minimum distance to other MJUs, no jump while cloaked.

The bad: much longer duration and much lower EHP might have made them very hard to use (if not useless) in actual combat situations.

The EHP. I know frigate duels, and 5k ehp is trivial to burn through in a minute in most T1 frigates. Against a stationary structure, it should be even more so. Of course, in a 1v1 that would require dedicating all DPS to the structure instead, but when more ships or bigger ships with drones get involved, getting rid of a MJU would be as trivial as "get this damn T1 tackle Rifter off me", if not moreso. What do: Some middle ground in the EHP of the structure, perhaps. I get that this low EHP is supposed to make it so Incursus's cannot escape Condors for free, but it impacts other uses negatively.

The activation time. 1 minute activation time is a huge time to spend activating this module! Not only would anyone who can travel over 1666 m/s be better off just burning away instead, but the minute you spend activating the MJU:

• You are helpless to navigate, and things with poor tracking and great damage will wreck you (e.g. beam lasers)
• You have a signature radius bloom
• You cannot cancel it so you're stuck for the full minute

Someone who's smart about taking advantage of this would even wait to scram you until you were about to jump, to keep you helpless and sig-bloomed for as long as possible.

Perhaps lower this some? 30-40 seconds at maximum is my guess on the "sweet spot".
Okay, it was explained to me that this is the onlining time, not the spool-up time. Still, it could stand to take maybe a tiny bit less time to be onlined, but it's not necessary. The EHP is the only big issue now.

Overall. Between the tank/activation changes and the various bug fixes / clarifications / tweaks, this is a far more usable module now. As in my first post, the fine aiming that the MJU requires is still not possible due to Eve's alignment mechanics, but looking over that at other uses, this is much closer to a balanced, usable state to provide mini-"shortcuts" between different points on grid.




THANK YOU, for the first point. Wrecking the enemy's intel should never come at a low cost. This change alone goes miles to making this module have a place in Eve.

More good stuff: distance to wormholes, even easier to scan down, higher build cost (repercussions for using it for PvE easy-mode, while still very usable in PvE), increased volume.

Questionable stuff:

1 hour time limit. Seems a bit low. I think the original 2 hours was good, and makes even more sense given the tweaks. The reduction to 1 hour feels unnecessary, and might even impact the module's interestingness: lower lifetime means space will be less littered with abandoned MSI's, which is less mystery and fun.

100 km distance to another MSI: Why? What's the reasoning behind this? So POS modules cannot be covered up with MSI's? So MSI's cannot cover each other? I don't understand why this figure is longer than 30 km.

Bad stuff:

Probes disabled for people inside the MSI. Why? Probing (especially combat probing) is a resource-expensive, difficult, and time-consuming endeavor that doesn't even give you instant accurate results. Why not keep it in so people inside the MSI are not completely blinded, given they expend the effort necessary to see?

---

Thanks for the iteration, CCP Fozzie. I should not have doubted you . Keep it up!

Petrus covered a lot of the ground I wanted to cover: namely, that in this incarnation, the MMJU is useless to deploy under fire, and borderline useless to deploy at leisure. Frigates, destroyers and cruisers can slowboat the 100km in the same time or less, and if everyone anchors on the fastest ship, they'll all arrive at the same spot; battleships can fit MJDs and get there faster. That leaves battlecruisers, Orcas and freighters as the principle beneficiaries of the MMJU. But the latter two rarely need to jump 100km if no-one's around, and since anyone trying to kill them can slowboat 100km at least as quickly as they can use the module, or kill the module before they use it, it's basically useless to them, too.

So, uh, it's good for battlecruisers, unless they're under fire.

What am I missing?

I think people putting up MSI's with bubbles in the center is a very good thing. I see no reason to prevent this, as it adds an extra layer of risk to anyone that wants to get intel on the MSI, and it goes very well with bubble camps and similar activities.

Not that I like super-safe OGBs at all, but a scram and some webs solve this easily enough.

Petrus the 1 minute activation time is how long it takes for it to anchor, not how long it takes to jump. The spoolup time is still 12 seconds.

Also the fun of accidentally jumping into another ship/the tower could make for a hilarious mistake of the ship flying back out of the bubble in a random direction.

Do we have confirmation of whether scraming the ship trying to use the MMJD stops it or not?

If it doesn't, it really should.