Player Features and Ideas Discussion

New article on The Mittani.
http://themittani.com/features/driving-meta-n1-and-logistics-cruiser?page=0%2C0

TL:DR: Massed logi means you either field hundreds of alpha ships, or dont undock.


My solution:

1. Logi reps have a stacking penalty - beyond a certain point, more repair nanobots on armor wont make it rep any faster

2. Logi only fully works on squad-mates, wing members get half reps, fleet members get quarter reps. Non-fleet ships get 10% of reps. A logi cruiser cant keep track of hundreds of ships CPU-wise, or something, so pre-programmed priorities kick in.

Solves a lot of problems.

Forces fleets to fly in meaningful squads. Reduces logi spam.

Discuss, but dont flame.

Or add new ships that have transfer disruption modules, which are more effective in reducing logistics than ECM boats. Could be racial shield, armor, energy and nos/neut.

even if you remove logi completely the larger group will most likely win. And the losing group will try to get more friends and the process escalates.

Before jumping to the point of developing a solution, I'm not sure that I even agree that logistics are the cause of the blue donut in the first place.

Given that logistics are a force multiplier that help smaller fleets engage larger ones, it's also entirely possible to argue that logistics has slowed the rate of fleet size growth, not increased it.

For example, in the flow-chart on page 2, if logistics were removed entirely from the game (the ultimate nerf to their ability), the current "Can I cripple their rep enough to kill critical ships?" would become "Can I bring a bigger fleet, large enough to kill critical ships?"

Logistics aren't the cause of spiralling fleet sizes, nor of the development of a stalemate at some point in the future in sov warfare.

In any battle the N + 1 situation will always exist, irrespective of what force multiplier ships are present. To beat an opponent fleet, you need a doctrine that is tailored to beat that fleet, or simply many more ships.

There are other reasons that fleet sizes have increased in sov warfare:

1. Improved server technology allowing larger and larger battles
2. More players since the introduction of logistics
3. Meta-gaming leading to coalitions large enough to put 1000+ ships on grid

In smaller scale gang-warfare when we are deciding whether to engage an opponent, logistics is certainly one of the factors we look at. But we also look at the size and types of ships the opponent has, who is the opponent, likelihood of escalation, the presence of e-war and whether we can manipulate the engagement to be in a favourable location for us.

Logistics is important, but not the devil that the article on TMC portrays it to be.

I personally lean to the view that logistics helps keep fleets smaller, not larger.

The only complaint I can think of with relation to logistics in it's current form is that is helps increase the length of battles. We've seen sov battles last more than 20 hours in recent times (TiDi effects involved in that also), but for the smaller gangs, I don't think there are too many people who would see the length of fights being an issue. In most of the related discussions I've read in recent months, the smaller the ships are, the more there is a need to find ways to make fights longer. Logistics at least helps with that, where other force multipliers like e-war are designed to do the opposite.

So to me, there is no problem with logistics that requires a solution. The author of the TMC article has drawn the wrong conclusions from the data and failed to account for a host of factors that have led to larger fleets. It's still a good discussion to have though.

Basically as it is how people played the game that has made Null the way it is.. (The Metagaming)

There isn't really any fix for it. We have two superpowers who will be super powers till the games dying days.. unless one managed to Metagame a character into the sov holding alliances of the other and do a BoB.

There isn't any game mechanic that will fix it

That's been claimed for years, but I simply don't believe it is true.

No mechanic is needed to fix it (and I agree that there can't be one) because people will always find ways to disagree eventually. In a theoretical blue donut, someone will eventually get sick and tired of the boredom. Wallets will grow fat and the funds will be there to either encourage a villain or support a major war once disagreement and resentment sets in.

the issue here , is what is to stop the remaining super power from just stomping on the upstart, and being the one superpower?

Reduce TIDI to one cycle every three weeks..

Even Goons will get bored then.

Plus it will give them all kinds of time to run their alt corps in high sec with their...erm CCP's new wonderful industrial contraction plan.

CFC online is gonna rock....for them.

Thread has been moved to Features & Ideas Discussion.

So instead of giving smaller groups a force multiplier, numbers should trump everything?

This is a bad write-up, but nice to see the biggest blob in the game thinks that the way to remove blobs is to make the the numbers of pilots you can field even more important. There is a counter to logi in the game already, it's called E-War and I heard it's very effective.