Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Escort Mod -
1. I'm not trying to solve a problem or prevent player activity (i.e. you lovely gankers!)
2. I want to add the ability for haulers to hire escorts (which means maybe they fly with more expensive cargo ) While not preventing the ability to still gang up and take their cargo from them.
3. I want to create an escort service (not that kind! put your exotic dancers away) where corporations can contract out their services to "escort" transports
4. Increase the PVP (shared aggro flags, see below) when attacking escorted transports
5. Do not limit the ability for small gangs to gank the stupid and unwary. (I don't want to make a risk free environment!)

Let me start by apologizing if this idea has already been presented. I looked through the Commonly Proposed idea area and didn't see it. If this is an old, hashed and rehashed idea, please just comment so and move on.

One other consideration before you read my idea. Please look idea in several lights: Consider if this was a done deal and was being implemented. What impact would it have on you, on others, and how the game is played? What would you do to improve the idea? What are its good points (none, okay :-) or bad points (maybe too many to list) What are some alternatives? Would this be of game play value?

So why an escort mod instead of a Shield Transfer mod? Good question. The Shield Transfer mod is a reactive mod, it doesn't really help against a first strike. Additionally, it doesn't really pose a lot of risk to the sender. They just lose cap and if they're in a chain, even that can be negated.

Okay, so with that in mind, her I go...

• Consists of two modules. The Escort Module and the Receiver Module.
• Escort Module (high slot) only available on Cruiser and BC sized ships (active module).
• Activation cycle 30 sec
• Range 5km
• Reception Module (low slot) only available on Transport class ships (passive module). Note, by being a low slot it removes an Expanded Cargohold slot
• Only two ships may transfer shields to a target ship at any one time
• Escort ships when activating their module on a targeted ship with a Receiver Module, lose all shields while transferring 50% of their base shields to the targeted ship
• Escort ships shields do not regenerate while Escort module is active
• Shield values on the targeted ship stack and can exceed the base value of the transport by 200%. Unused shield transfer sits in the queue until it can be used or the Escort ship's module goes offline or the ship(s) move out of transfer range
• Although transport ship shields cannot go above 200% base shield capacity, if additional shield transfer is available in the stack, this is automatically added when the shields drops after a 1 sec delay. (This means the transport can be alpha'd if the attackers use appropriate force to overcome 2x the normal transports shields, plus normal armor and structure.)
• Shared aggression timer: While the Escort module is activate, any aggression against any ship results in an aggression timer for all ships. (i.e. if a ship attacks the transport while the escort ship is transferring shields, the escort gets an aggression timer against the attacker as well as the transport getting one.)

• Example: Escort ship targets the transport ship and activates the Escort module which then transfers 1/2 of the base shields of the activating ship to the target ship (can stack on the target ship). The target ships shields are at 100% (700 hp), and the Escort ship has 1000 base shield hit points (no modifiers). The transports shields are now 1200 hp (700 + 500) while the Escort's shield hit points drop to 0.

Eh... there's already a ton of different ways to protect your cargo.

For instance an alt in a Scorpion can fit 6 jammers with 2 sebos. If we say each Gank Talos costs 75 million, and if we assume you jam 33%, that's 150mil ISK extra cost for the ganker. At 50% drops, that means each Scorpion you bring along increases the minimum cargo value that's worth ganking by 300mil.

Logistics makes this even more of an advantage. Rarely do gank squads have dozens of extra characters waiting to join the frey just incase ECM is on grid. As such escorting freighter cargo with 3 Scorpions would require an extra 9 Talos on average; something they don't just have sitting around.

If you don't like ECM, we can consider the nature of instawebwarping + web range bonused ships. Savvy pilots cannot be caught if they know what they are doing with this trick.

To be frank, this seems way to limited and complicated to be of practical use.

Its an interesting concept... but definitely needs to be thought out a bit more...


I could definitely see this as a possible route for "specialized fleet commands/bonuses" and warfare links in the future though...