Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Hello space people, today I want to talk to you about bumping. Relax, I'm not advocating its removal, only an adjustment to level the playing field a bit. Bumping has its place in the modern game for knocking ships out of alignment to prevent warp, but in high security space it's being abused more and more.

Bumping mechanics make sense in a way, if you think of it as a field of energy around a ship (inertial stabiliser etc) which is positively charged. Bringing two together is like pressing two positively charged magnets together, flinging them apart based on mass. I haven't read the lore on this, perhaps this is how it actually works in Eve's universe? Anyway.

Full disclosure: I recently lost a freighter in highsec. I was autopiloting, but not afk (working actually). I leaped to the keyboard when I saw what was happening and thus began a thrilling cat & mouse chase across two systems. A loss is a loss and it was an exhilarating (non)battle, but the issue I have is neutral bumping ships that never gain aggression play a pivotal part in the process, yet cannot be countered short of complete avoidance. Yeah it takes some skill to bump effectively, but multiple machariels is a bit much. Conflict and contest is good for the game (actually the core concept of the game), but you can't declare war on NPC corp pilots and there's no legal way to deal with them in this situation.

Alternatives to bumping such as collision damage mechanics won't work because of eve's indirect flight control model. It's far too easy to accidentally bump into someone and the carnage would be epic. It's not going to happen.

So here's my idea: When you bump into another ship while a propulsion mod is active, you gain a suspect flag.

That's it. You can still bump with NPC corp alts but you're going to have to defend yourself. If you've got plenty of backup, this shouldn't be a problem. Either that or bump without a prop mod, which is far less effective. Activating a prop mod in highsec would require setting one's safety to 'partial', but I think a case could be made for preventing collisions with NPC's from generating a suspect flag.

Ships can still fly around under conventional propulsion & running into each other by accident with no effect, which is important for docking areas outside of stations etc. (I'm looking at you, Jita 4-4). If a prop mod is active when the hit happens, there's a high degree of chance you've done it on purpose and that's an aggressive act. Prepare for a fight. If you don't want to be flagged, don't run a prop mod.

Projected Impact (excuse the pun):
Nullsec, no impact.
Lowsec, will be the same as shooting someone, flagging you as a target. Perhaps a good ice-breaker.
Highsec, bumping as a means of 'passive aggression' will only work if you avoid switching on your prop mod. It can still work to some degree but is far less effective. Pilots may be able to time the deactivation of their prop mod to bump a ship right after it switches off provided their skill is good enough.

Due to the need to set the safety system to 'partial' to use a prop mod, it's possible people who like using them while in highsec may accidentally do things to make them suspect, which creates 'content' (and wrecks, which are also content). Wars become slightly more interesting, assuming people actually undock to fight. When fighting in someone else's space, a modicum of restraint on speed may be required.

Oh, and I don't expect anyone who makes use of the impunity offered by current mechanics to like this discussion at all. Your ire is expected.

There are many counters to bumping already.

but i like warping my orca into a large asteroid and it bouncing out of it at 5km/sec its soo funny and entertaining

Somehow I doubt so...

And more bleating....

I like the OP's suggestion. Can it be abused? Yep. Is the present system being abused? Yes. At least the OP's suggestion would make the passive-aggressive bumpers work for their fix of irritation.

And what are 5 Warrior going to do against a Machariel or a Stabber? Or a swarm of Catalysts. It takes longer for you to lock all of them than it takes time to kill you.

And what do you do with Courier Contracts? No one wants to pay for the money you theoretically owe those who escort you, which means they either work for free (and we all know how keen the vast majority of EVE players is about working for nothing in return. ) or the hauler has to further reduce their already meager income and pay the escorts on their own expenses without any compensation from the customer. I'm really looking forward to that.

If you're bumped, safe logoff gotta work. They aggro you to stop the logoff, and sacrifice some hardware. ie. you can keep a freighter from warping with a noobship and a gun (intentional fail-gank)

This keeps the old ransom gig alive (time to sing a song?) but you gonna bring Concorde in for the sacrifice (making the bump & gank mechanic more challenging, but still doable).

It's a subtle shift, no new exploits. Nothing changes if the pilot is afk. A pilot active at the control shouldn't be treated the same as the afk wanker, that has never been fair, imho.

i don't give a **** about high sec nor care i about freighters but tell me do they also work for freighters? i cant think of one besides webbing which isn't a complete counter but it makes it harder sure also not use auto pilot would make the chance smaller, but lets be honest here if a freighter moves and a fleet waits for them its chance of survival is not that good.

and freighters is the nr 1 target in high sec with this bumping strategic

tell me i am wrong

you want a auto pilot that tries to evade a machariel with MWD hitting a floating skyscraper that has the speed and agility of a turtle good luck with that