EVE General Discussion

It depends on what you define as content, you perhaps feel that bumping a freighter for 3 hours is content for the freighter pilot, in return I think that making this SB sap come in having seen an MTU on scan and then having it pulled in before he can blap it is content. The question is whether that content is fun for both sides or one side.


This CODEling is a prime example of content is one sided trying to say make it fun, yet in reality they just love to have some poor sap in a Golem at the mercy of a Proteus with a neutral RR and you sitting there unable to do jack, of course being smart you did not fall for it. Perhaps you can set up to kill the sap and good luck to you , but often you will go to the effort of setting up the trap and he will see it and refuse to bite, after all the SB saps content is to have you helpless when he has covered all the angles. So much for content... LOL

If you want to take a shot at this guy, your reinforcements have a few options:
Bring a gunfighting ship, preferably one with mediums or smaller. If you have artillery, you might be able to alpha him off the field. If you're going to close scram range, go autos, pulse, or blasters. Anything bigger than medium is going to stand a good chance of missing outright unless he's nice enough to hold perfectly still (or you can web him down/paint him).
Bring something with (R)LML. Anything bigger will have damage application issues against frigate pests.
Or bring a drone boat. Since those are only locked into whatever size you put in the hangar, you can load some light drones and not have a problem with damage application. Drone boats also have fitting room for cap warfare mods or a couple of missile launchers. And, when his buddies arrive arrive, you can swap out drones to a size which can deal with the new threat better.

Cap warfare mods will be of little use against the frigate, because he will probably have a nos: if you neut him out, he'll leech your cap energy to keep his other stuff on. His buddies are likely a different story: their ships are almost certain to have something you can turn off.

You're stuck with whatever hull you've been using to whatever, because any change is a strong hint that something's off, but you can change your fit to something a little more aggressive. Or, if you're in a marauder, put a battery + some nos on, because people like to neut those out.

If/when you do engage him, you'll get a limited engagement timer. Point your mouse at it, and you will know who else can shoot back at you, and you will know if you brought too few friends before his reinforcements arrive. He (or his FC) could always fleet invite more friends after the shooting starts, so don't trust the first thing it says too much.

Whining because other players don't just lay down with a bag over their heads on your request so you can kill them just shows that you have absolutely no idea how the game works in Highsec. This is all about preparation and trying to control the environment. He has all the time in the world to prepare since the Manti guy will probably use the same pattern for his attack over and over again. And he has a lot of resources to get intel about the guy.

If you just PvE with two uncloaked Falcons and a logistic ship nearby he will obviously not bite, since he is trying to control the engagement and only an idiot starts a fight he will lose with certainty.

The trick to all of Highsec is obviously to make your enemy think he controls the engagement while his is not. The Manti guy is doing this by presenting what seams an easy target for a battleship. He will bite if he thinks he is still in control of the engagement because he does not suspect a trap. I don't say it is easy to trap him, and it may result in just wasted time and effort, but this is a game, and it's pretty much all wasted time and effort from the start. So the real question is: do you think it is fun to plot against him or not? I mean if you only get joy from grinding ISK all day then maybe not. If you however enjoy spaceship action and strategy you may actually enjoy it very much.

Just don't be too hung up on the outcome, it may turn out that he suspected the trap and made some preparation on his own to get the control back you think you took away from him. Make sure you use only ships you are comfortable losing. T1 ships with insurance are cheap as hell and you should really not care if they blow up.

The difference between a good and a bad player in Highsec is the understanding of this simple truth: that preparation and control is everything.
The anti-content people do not understand this, they are are too busy complaining, whining and standing in their own way to get something done. They think CCP has to change the rules to change the current situation in a way which gives them the control of the environment, that preparation is not their responsibility. They do not realize that people who try to control the game will obviously adapt and the situation will be much the same after the change.

Content is content. Players are suppose to make things happen in this game. Sure, you can teach new players to be so afraid of loss to not ever try anything other than to squirrel away more virtual resources for no real reason, or you can teach them to enjoy the game by interacting with other players and making things explode.

CCP made this series of deployables only generate a suspect flag for exactly this reason. You want to use them to benefit from their income-boosting abilities but at the risk that someone will come and try to explode them. This conflict driver is a perfect and simple manifestation of the basic risk vs. reward design of the game and should be used an example in an Eve Online Game Design textbook if someone ever gets around to writing one.

The stealth bomber pilot is generating content by attacking your in-space asset. You have the choice to take that fight and shoot back to defend your asset, or you can decline the fight and scoop your MTU. It is perfectly understandable if you don't want to risk your expensive PvE Golem in such an engagement, but a suspect flag means your friends, or anyone else can come to the defense of your structure and shoot the interloper generating more content, which could possibly Butterfly Effect into something even greater. Content begetting content.

Painting the aggressor as doing something wrong in a game where players are suppose to aggress each other is short-sighted and unfair. I sometimes wonder what these rabid carebears would think of Eve if they ever got their carebear paradise where all PvP was consensual and players were unable to interact with you without your permission. Eve would be a depressingly boring game consisting of a bunch players silently grinding resources that no one would ever need given you would be unable to attack anyone else (or lose anything non-consensually) without their permission, and why would they ever give permission if they might lose?

So OP, the MTU is a content generator but you still have the option to choose to play with the stealth bomber pilot or not. Treat it is an opportunity to shoot back and make some of your own content, or not and just use a Noctis or your Golem to salvage, but realize you are not intended to be isolated from the other players in highsec. CONCORD is not there to protect you or your assets, only punish those who attack illegally imposing a cost on them. In fact, some devs at CCP have been throwing around the idea to make the other new structures, like Citadels and their relatives, shootable without a wardec and just generate suspect flags. I'll guess we'll have to wait and see if they ever move on that.

In any case, everything is working as intended.

First of all calm down ganker.

A little story for yah, I was moving stuff into a low sec system to jump into null, being hard to kill and all that I had my scout perched near the gate watching it. I pick up a Myrmiddon on scan, little play with the D-scan and I know that its an off grid perch, he obviously has a scout on the other side watching for people bringing stuff in. My corp mate is in that system so I get him to jump in a Maelstrom and ask him to warp to the gate. In comes the Myrmiddon, I tell my mate to warp back to the station, Myrmiddon warps off. Rinse and repeat 5 times, after the sixth time he logged off in disgust, we were laughing our heads off. I could have quite easily killed him, but it was more fun play with him. So I understand where you are coming from.

The new structures will bring meaningful content, we agree and the better rewards produces more risk etc.. All good...

The SB goes suspect and cloaks up when he spots your friends, unless of course the friends are already setup in their own cloaky stuff. Hopefully the Golem does not have its bastion module on, because he needs to get safe for the real PvP ship that will come in. As I said if he gets a sniff of any threat then that content is not for him.

Did I say anything about right or wrong? Did I say that hisec should be a combat free zone, nope, that is just you projecting your own thoughts onto me and saying that is what I think, I don't. My interest is on game balance, for example the bumping issue is all about game balance.

The OP can chose a number of ways to interact with the SB player, one of which is to try to blow him up, or he could wind him back up, remember this is a sandbox, and winding him back up can be just as much fun as shooting him. You are I am afraid leaning towards shooting him as being the only way to interact with him, and that is not the case.

Funny enough I suggested that POCO's should be made shootable with a suspect flag being the only event when they made POCO's availabel to players in hisec. Interesting game play possibilities will abound if they go down that route. Though the current structure of hisec will not be able to sustain it, but would be interesting to see how that develops, personally I would go for it.

GD is literally the worst place you could possibly have made this thread. Now it's full of dumb replies from people like Dracvlad who have no idea what they're talking about.

He's not whining, he's pointing out the futility of your suggestion. You are saying that by setting up a trap he can bait content out of the attacker, but invariably the attacker is not new to it (as this guy obviously is) so the attacker won;t fall for the bait. Effectively you're saying he shouldn't listen to people telling him to ignore the attacker and play the way he likes, he should instead waste time baiting the attacker into a fight which the attacker will ignore anyway, wasting even more of his time on even less content.

To be quote honest, if you enjoy action and strategy you don't generally live in highsec.

That a good player just plays the game and enjoys it however he wants while a bad player tries to dictate how others should play.

Highlighted the root of the problem here lol. In then 87.5 or so % of New Eden that isn't high sec, shooting someone who is screwing with you wouldn't be a question that needs posting about. The last time a guy that shot one of my MTUs got dogpiled by me and 15 of my closest friends less than 30 seconds later with no f'd up timers getting in the way. That's what one gets for daring to disrupt my Shekel Stacking...

The screwy, convoluted and hard to understand high sec security mechanics are the real problem, because those mechanics are just begging to be gamed by more knowledgeable players. In fact the more knowledgeable players use those mechanics like a club, and people like the OP are the baby seals.

I'm looking at Manticore fits and I just don't see the price vs. return bait and switch here.

Even a cheap fit is around 60m ISK. EHP is around 2K-4K, nothing stellar.

A crappy gank Catalyst could down this thing in a second or two without point/tackle. My T2 Cruiser could vaporize him in the same time frame at 15K.

So if the game is to get downed and come back with a stronger ship, it's mitigated by just leaving after you clobber him or having friends... all of this has been pointed out though.

With such easy counter tactics, I'm not sure what the bait and switch game is of the baiter though. Would you actually find enough suckers with enough loot to pay for you losing a 60m ISK ship all the time? I know HiSec is low return for risk, but man, that's pretty terrible math and a lot of confidence (or foolishness) on the baiter's part there.

Salt is a very valuable commodity.