Player Features and Ideas Discussion

People are losing their collective minds over having to deploy a Rorqual in a belt, and one of the arguments I keep seeing is how Carriers don't have to lock themselves in place for five minutes. While others are pointing at one Special Cookie and asking why they can't have their own Special Cookie, I want to ask, "Why should Carriers have a Special Cookie at all?"

In order to provide the strongest boosts, Rorquals have to siege.
In order to provide the strongest damage, Dreads have to siege.
In order to provide the strongest reps, FAX's have to siege.

Bring Carriers in line with Dreads, FAX's, and Rorquals by making them siege for five minutes in order to receive their strongest bonuses.

Before people point out that ships such as VNI's and Ishtars can run PvE in nullsec anoms "almost" as well as Carriers and that highsec Incursions are even easier, this is an imbalance in risk for the sites themselves (for nullsec anoms) and the type of space they're in (for highsec Incursions), and not with the ships themselves.

Now, the easiest way (and the way I've seen a few folks suggest) is by giving the NSA a siege-like property, but this itself runs into the issue that the NSA can also be fit to Supercarriers.

As such, the proper way would be to bring Carriers in line with Dreads, FAX's, and Rorquals in terms of out-of-siege abilities, and give them a new Siege-type module akin to Triage, Siege, and the Core that can be used by Carriers.

You say it "comes from Reddit" even though it has been brought up several times in the comments of the dev post on boost changes. Congrats.


I should have been clearer: I don't agree with making the NSA the siege module. Rebalance carriers and the NSA (yes, so soon after they were already rebalanced) and take away their special "we don't have to siege" cookie to bring them inline with the other three capitals.

We're talking about the Rorqual, not the actual mining ships. The purpose of the Rorqual is to provide buffs. To provide its best buffs, it sieges. Just as FAX's and Dreads can do their job without sieging, but can do so significantly better when sieged, so too does the Rorqual.

The Carrier is a special cookie that others are pointing to and saying they want their own special cookie. The best way to stop having to provide everyone with special cookies is by getting rid of the one currently-existing special cookie. In other words, make carriers have to siege.

Perhaps I wasn't being clear. I'll try again: Take away their special cookie and balance them around having to siege just like Dreads, FAX's, and the Rorqual.

Simply making them have to siege without any other form of rebalancing around it would be foolish.

Herein lies my issue, and my complaint. It's less about what one ship can or can't do and more about what other people are using that singular aspect as an example of. People have been boiling away everything else until the one feature remains (essentially, "carriers don't have to siege, so why should we") without taking into account anything else about it.

My reaction to that stripping away of everything else is come at it from the other direction: using a singular, unique feature as the basis of an argument is as much an argument on why that unique feature shouldn't exist as it is an argument for why it should exist on something else.

It's as if four people all had balls, but three had a blue ball and one had a red ball. One of the three with a blue ball then starts making a fuss about how they want a red ball. If you give in and give them a red ball, you risk the other two with blue balls wanting a red ball of their own. If you give in, what was previously a unique feature is now a common feature, and you have to balance around it being a common feature. This will take significantly more effort (rebalancing three ships around it).

If, instead, you give the person with a red ball a blue ball, you're still changing only one thing, but now instead of having the risk of the other two fighting for change in the future, you have everyone on a level playingfield. There's no reason for them to fight for a red ball when nobody else has one.

In terms of the Rorqual, it gets is best boosts while sieging, but can still boost (and, after the update, will boost better than an Orca even while out of siege) while not sieging. If the need to siege is removed, then boosting while not using the Core needs to be removed, or at least weakened significantly. Look at what happened with freighters as an example when freighters wanted to be able to fit some tank: they got what they wanted, but it came with a price. They can fit a better tank with a smaller cargohold (and because of this, many simply fit for more cargohold, anyway, completely negating what was being fought for originally).

To use a cliche, you shouldn't be able to have your cake and eat it, but that's exactly what's being argued for.

Siege/Triage modules are about commitment. I think this thread is about carriers having commitment. I like that. They currently stand out among capitals as ships that aren't required to make a minimum time commitment when using their wonderful abilities.

I'll give you my bottom line. I'm OK with carrier ratting. I'd be more OK with it if the carrier was committed for.... say 5 minute chunks while doing its ratting thing so that I could enter a hell bubbled dead end null system and not be disappointed that my truly elite and well practiced D-scan abilities are totally worthless as the local enabled carrier pilot is allowed to warp off immediately upon my entry into system.

Adding a siege type module would put some risk into carrier ratting and add commitment to a fight when a carrier enters into honorable pvp combat.

Get rid of local and I'll say a 'no siege carrier' is OK. Right now they have it both ways.

TL/DR: Broken risk averse null carrier ratting sux - the time commitment of a siege type module would make carrier ratting acceptable. I WANT TO GANK MORE THAN AFK / POORLY PILOTED RATTING CARRIERS.

OOOOHHH so its just a rant thread then

but it wont do that because 99% of the ppl ranting in that thread are not going to read this thread forcing a potential unique/interesting idea off the first page

your right so why not just allow any old rant thread

With fatigue there is already plenty of commitment for you to get talked

As for the draw back carriers use their movement to tank other capitals particularly the armor dreads who have reduced ehp to compensate for this. The use of a carriers for hit and run is also one of the only reasons if not the only reason to use them over haw

The risk is getting dropped while having your fighters out. How much money is a full squad of t2 fighters again?