Player Features and Ideas Discussion

these are the changes id like ameded / removed:



cloaked ships decloaking each other is a terrible mechanic for soo many reasons that have been stated in this thread already.

bomb speed reduction alongside the above cloaking change completely removes the ability to use advanced tactics to hit fast moving Overpowered fleets like ishtars. and tbh an Eve with less ishtars is a better eve in all honesty.

Hey Fozzie,

With the cargo change in mind, and going beyond Bombers as torpedo platforms, can the size of torpedoes be reduced, perhaps to that of cruise missiles? Torpedo BS fit for PvP have a very hard time exploiting missile ammo diversity when 1,000 units of ammo takes 100m3 of the cargohold (torps are 0.1 m3/u).

Thanks,

SC

Several things and please do consider that I never was part (but victim of..) a bomber fleet or any large fleet, since I like doing things on my own.

That said, I do however also like to fly with buddies I made and they like having me on comms and in their small (small as in less than six ships including me) gangs.

So while I cought up reading here this one thing came to my mind to circumvent decloaking each other:

You haz bomber fleet with your buddies, let's say you haz 50 folks in your fleet.

Now you divide your fleet into smaller wings of 7x7 + one in a Covert Ops frigate or else known as fleet commander.

Let's take a closer look at wing one. Wing one has member a, b, c, d, e and f and they are real people and they know each other.

Your fleet commander is in a position to tell 7 people were and what your targets are but he sits there and does his not-afk-cloaking thing of observing.

Now all of your seven wings with your seven sub-wing commanders, which we will call a1 - a7 from now on are in command of your cloaked bombers and your not-afk-cloaking fleet commander only oversees the targets fleet movement or non movement and tell a1- a7 what to target.

Back to a1.

A1 provides a warpin for wing one. b1 warps to a1 at 10. c1 warps tp b1 at 10 and so on. Since you are all cloaked NOBODY will see you.

A1 can now position his ship to the first target(s). As he is done positioning, he call wing one to approach him. b1 - f1 appraoch a1 and decloak each other and press 'launch dah bombs'.

a1 is so clever positioned that he is the first to warp away, b1 follows at 10, c1 follows b1 at 10 and so on.

Hell okay that's really complicated to write down.

and that kinda sucks when you are a small WH corp and can only dedicate one carrier to a fight meaning you need triage most of the time but i think a reduction in capital void bomb effect for triage/siege and then improve that resistance at the T2 level should be balance-able

Consider balancing the torpedo launchers / charges rather than nerfing the cloaking mechanic. Currently almost everybody uses m4 launchers and faction torps - why are there no more interesting options? T2 torps only have a small niche in extreme range engagements but the current bonuses to T2 torps could more interestingly be rebalanced into new launcher attribute (see below). This would provide meaningful differentiation within a missle launcher class and force people to make more interesting trade-offs in charge selection for bombers, instead of the de facto standard. Further this could tie in well with the upcoming module tiericide project and provide a meaningful distinction between launcher meta levels beyond simple fitting requirements!

Missile DPS application is a complex and contentious topic; the below suggestion provides a logical and easy to understand addition which provides an alternative to a more comprehensive missile rework but still providing both a powerful balancing tool as well as a new set of meaningful choices to the player.

Consider this:

New attribute: Missile mass
Inversely impacts the speed/damage or range/damage balance by a set amount per tier, small, med, large etc. Smaller missiles should excel at hitting faster but the comparably larger large missiles take appreciably longer to arrive (more mass therefore slower) and must make a more meaningful range/speed/damage trade-off. Missle mass can either be dedicated to payload, speed or sacrificed for longer range. The choice of split could be launcher class dependant rather than offering 3 set options in each case as some considerations such as range are of greater utility to a given hull class.

Currently T2 missiles focus on a split between range, sig based damage application bonus and damage; by shifting this attribute to the launcher T2 missiles themselves may then provide more meaningful choice to the player.

• Rapid - Fast moving, lower DPS - imagine more of the torpedo body is 75% fuel 25% payload (higher ROF?)
• Medial - Average speed (lower than current), average DPS ~ 50:50 range/speed (significantly lower stats than current)
• Destructive - Slow moving, higher DPS, greatly limited range

Combination of a scaling factor attribute such as missile mass in the launcher ensures that launcher types remain distinct but within a class a meaningful choice need be made as to the focus and play-style that is to be adopted. The potential for launcher class overlap is something to monitor but isn't of itself a bad thing. That way you will see everything from brawling high DPS hot drops to 100km torp broadsides from sniper bombers more frequently and would diversify rather than restrict gameplay choices!


The downside to re-adding proximity decloaking for cloaky ships

As it stands the changes provide meaningful game play to non-cloaky fleets but destroy an essential component of cloaky fleets - this need not be the case.

Everything seems fair except cloakies decloaking one-another. Consider this from a balance perspective, the role already requires extensive coordination and positional awareness to even be effective in combat, maintaining that means moving about and doing so in a group without inadvertently decloaking each other is nye-on impossible with even a single squad let alone a bomber wing. Decloaking out of position is death as it should be, the cloak is your 'tank' but this is not balancing, nor a nerf, this is legitimately class-breaking and seems incredibly short-sighted.

Eve is meant to be about risk vs reward. Trade offs. Tactical decisions. Cloakies decloaking each other removes the singular advantage they held making them significantly less useful in an engagement without adding anything meaningful to that play-style or the cloaking mechanic. Previously this behaviour was deemed a bug IIRC and returning to that behaviour rather than balancing or encouraging a more diverse means of play via constructive changes seems like a step backwards.

The role of the Cov Ops class of hulls is to facilitate surprise attacks, the decloaking change doesn't add risk to their use, it just renders them an near complete liability in anything but hot drops! Their effectiveness vs. battleship fleets needs balancing, few would argue with that, but this surely isn't the best way to do it. Rather than negatively impacting a much enjoyed play-style why not consider a more constructive change that deals with their imbalance without nerfing the enjoyment of using them into the ground?

Relative impact on legitimate vs isoboxed bombers

Comments about the validity of isoboxing aside, the changes as they stand are a nerf to human fleets which need to organise significantly more to prevent a friendly decloak whereas this limitation is quite easily side stepped by isoboxers. This then makes isoboxing bombers significantly more effective than human bombers and that is a worrying trend indeed. Other means of balancing bomber DPS as I have described would achieve the end goal without creating this situation and would seem to provide a much more elegant solution.

Not sure I'd go as far as to say headshotted - I did a lot of cloaky stuff with cloaking as it used to be and its not insurmountable to operate with far from it - but the older cloaking mechanics felt incomplete/work in progress and how it is currently just works, feels like a polished system, going back to the old mechanics feels to me like a huge step backwards.

This is exactly what I meant earlier. For a larger entity like SSC having dedicated smartbombers or multiple carriers might be feasible but for smaller entities it isn't. They will simply lose one more option to have a chance against larger numbers.

For us on the other hand it could mean that we a guaranteed to win all fights against smaller entites relying on capitals because we can just bring a couple bombers (ideally multiboxed by a single person) and guarantee neuting out their carrier without risking expensive Bhaalgorns and such.

"Cloaked ships will once again decloak each other if they come within 2km."


i like how the changes you keep making in the game, drive away new players patch after patch, maybe some 1 needs a hug or *cough* a chill pill as your not really making it easy for new players are ya buddy?! see ya down the job center mate !

indeed it took me walking away and being re-introduced to the problem to see it

This is a good idea.