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The New Target Breaker Module: Massive Impact on Fleet Fights?
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Reilly Duvolle
Hydra Squadron
#61 - 2012-03-27 13:25:28 UTC
If is is true (havent seen it myself) it will have a major impact on larger fleet engagements. And it will complicate fleet command which is a good thing, making wing and even squadron commanders having meaningful roles in the targeting process. My main concern is that right now, a massive logistic blob makes it very hard to kill anything without massive firepower or alpha (or both). Admittedly, calling multiple targets simultaneosly with fewer ship on each will also serve to dillute and complicate the logistic repsonse, but it needs to be balanced properly before it is fielded.

All in all, a very promising game mechanic which could really shake up larger engagements if done right.
Sky Liddell
Space Mermaids
#62 - 2012-03-27 13:43:08 UTC
It will either be a dud or it will be the next nerf.

If it proves to be a wasted slot that works 5% of the time nobody will fit them. If on the other hand all bettles become a never ending cycle of locking the combat could get pretty tedious.

There is also that issue of having Logisticals lose thier lock on you because your Lock breaker cleared the field.
Lord Helghast
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#63 - 2012-03-27 14:00:20 UTC
Love the idea, but if this is able to be fit to capitals it needs to have a capital and supercapital penalty like supercaps get a 500% increase in cycle time, and capitals a 200% in cycle time... especially considering the number of people it takes to take down a super.
TheButcherPete
KarmaFleet
Goonswarm Federation
#64 - 2012-03-27 14:05:23 UTC
I like all of these things but am disappointed by no mention of changing how cloak mechanics work. I really wish they'd say something like "Yeah we'll change something" or "f'k you it's fine, stfu". The silence is killing me :(

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Lord Helghast
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#65 - 2012-03-27 14:07:13 UTC
[quote=Sky Liddell]It will either be a dud or it will be the next nerf

If it proves to be a wasted slot that works 5% of the time nobody will fit them. If on the other hand all bettles become a never ending cycle of locking the combat could get pretty tedious

There is also that issue of having Logisticals lose thier lock on you because your Lock breaker cleared the field.[/quote

The logistics part is where its going to take skill you cant just leave the lockbreaker running or youll never survive, its basically a F*CK i'm primary! [-activate-] hope it breaks lock and you can warp away, if not let it cycle and drop it and pray reps are on you,
haysis
Imperial Shipment
Amarr Empire
#66 - 2012-03-27 14:23:36 UTC
Idk if anyone said it yet, but he also said TD's would work on missiles too. didn't give any details on that tho.
Herping yourDerp
Tribal Liberation Force
Minmatar Republic
#67 - 2012-03-27 16:19:59 UTC
this is good. instead of primaries we might have "kill ECM boats" or "kill logistics"
Petrus Blackshell
Rifterlings
#68 - 2012-03-27 16:33:50 UTC
Hmm... Target breaker + damps?

I have the sudden urge to train Lachesis.

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Hakaru Ishiwara
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
#69 - 2012-03-27 16:41:22 UTC
Ardamalis wrote:
IHaveCandyGetInTheVan69 wrote:
Why rely on hostiles using drones? logistics drones require a lock, have everyone deploy 5 small armor bots on the friendly primary and he could easily have 2000 locks just from friendly ships, would probably give him a guaranteed lock-break


This has been the issue with other proposals involving changes to targeting mechanics but I think this module idea that CCP is considering skirts around the issue quite elegantly.

If everyone can't primary one target, then dps is being split--multiple ships are being hit at once. Remember, this module only breaks locks, you can retarget easily. Unless a fleet has "hive mind-like" characteristics, its going to be next to impossible to lock everyone whose tank is breaking. This module would break the locks of friendly ships and those friendly ships would be constantly retargeting other friendly ships which takes an impossible amount of coordination to use effectively. The fleet can't keep up with 20, 30 or 40 broadcasts of multiple people who are low on hp.

So while fleet fights might last slightly longer because of friendly locking, I don't think we're going to be anywhere close to the issue of fleets being somewhat invulnerable to each other. Remember that this solution removes logistics locks too so that while no dps is being applied to you, no one is repping you also in the meantime as everyone is retargeting you.

Also, the issue of drones could be solved by having a successful lockbreak reset a drone's orders. The ship with the logi drones would have to retarget the vessel to have drones repair it again.
This scenario reads like a ******* nightmare for friendly logistics crews who already work very intensely to keep their mates alive.

This module idea must have been conceived by an CCP employee on a Meth binge one cold Winter's evening.

Yet another potential CCP-forced change on how subscribers play the game. Sandbox my ass. EVE's game "designers" are just as heavy-handed [and ham-fisted] as those in other online entertainment services.

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Veshta Yoshida
PIE Inc.
Khimi Harar
#70 - 2012-03-27 16:42:14 UTC
Herping yourDerp wrote:
this is good. instead of primaries we might have "kill ECM boats" or "kill logistics"

Naah, the lazy FC will just say "sort by name, fire free on top 10, spread it out".

Plays straight into the artillery paradigm though as a flock of those things provide maximum oomph for least amount of locks .. guess CCP wish to extend the Winmatar fad for another year Big smile
Petrus Blackshell
Rifterlings
#71 - 2012-03-27 16:48:48 UTC
Hmm also, stealth dictor buff -- you can't gank my dictor if you can't lock it.

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Mire Stoude
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#72 - 2012-03-27 16:54:41 UTC
This would also cause logistics and other friendlies applying effects to lose their lock as well. This sounds to be the most annoying module for fleet warfare ever devised.
Grim Vandal
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#73 - 2012-03-27 17:56:01 UTC
The lock breaker and the micro jump drive maybe should NOT be modules but be integrated in all sub cap ships.

OR even better

Introduce more ship slots which can only be used by utility modules such as: auto target, micro jump drive, lock breaker, ship scanner, cargo scanner .... aso.
While more modules is always a good idea, the fitting systems in EVE cant really handle them anymore.
Right now if you gimp your ship with eg. an auto target module you suck beyond believe.
Vincent Athena
Photosynth
#74 - 2012-03-27 18:37:12 UTC  |  Edited by: Vincent Athena
It interesting to consider how this will impact use of other modules. I am going to assume the lock breaker breaks an attempted lock at well, resetting the lock timer to full time. (This is so the lock breaker is useful even against alpha fleets).

How do you know to activate your lock breaker vs the alpha fleet? You see a screen full of yellow boxes. So the alpha fleet needs to fit passive targeters. Surprise!

If it takes longer to lock me than the cycle time of my breaker I can never be shot. Thus I want my side to use remote sensor damps, and the other side will want to use sensor boosters. Also the other side may want to use painters so when they do get a lock, its effective. And my side will want to use tracking disruptors to reduce the chance of that lucky lock being effective. This new module may make other forms of ECM worthy of consideration.

Small ships have the advantage of a fast lock. More chance they will get in between breaks. The lock breaker gives more of a role to fast locking ships.

In fact this could be extended to the cycle time of the lock breaker: Make it take longer to cycle on bigger ships. Then we could have no restrictions on what ships it is fitted on. OK, a Titan can fit it. But everyone can lock and shoot the Titan between lock breaks. If this were done, what the lock breaker would do is make everyone with a targeting time longer than the breaker cycle time ineffective, and everyone with a shorter targeting time would still be effective.

Edit: To avoid driving everyone click crazy, I think the lock breaker should not require everyone to manually retarget. It should just make the ship you have targeted go from "targeted" to "being targeted" without any additional clicking. Also consider any other modules that were running on that target would go to "hot, waiting" mode, and auto-restart once the target is locked again.

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Ardamalis
State War Academy
Caldari State
#75 - 2012-03-27 21:00:51 UTC  |  Edited by: Ardamalis
Vincent Athena wrote:
How do you know to activate your lock breaker vs the alpha fleet? You see a screen full of yellow boxes. So the alpha fleet needs to fit passive targeters. Surprise!


I had forgotten about that:

Passive Targeter = counter to Target Breaker


It would still be feasible to alpha ships. Of course, one could always keep their lock breaker cycling but that has its own minor inherent dangers.
Markus Reese
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#76 - 2012-03-27 21:06:09 UTC
Quite honestly, it sounds effective at breaking up the blob, but it needs to be scaled to the targets locking onto it. More targets, more effect. Otherwise it will just get damn annoying.

To quote Lfod Shi

The ratting itself is PvE. Getting away with it is PvP.
Petrus Blackshell
Rifterlings
#77 - 2012-03-27 21:22:38 UTC
From a discussion with a friend, we came up with a suggestion in order to prevent the target breaker module from being an easy GTFO-button that becomes mandatory on all PvP and PvE fits: you cannot warp while it is active. That way, you can GTFO if you get out of range in time, or mwd+cloak after activating it, or simply use it to screw up the enemy fleet's primary-calling, but you can't use it as a "this fight is too much for me, time to push the dishonor-button" mod.

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Alavaria Fera
GoonWaffe
#78 - 2012-03-27 21:29:35 UTC  |  Edited by: Alavaria Fera
Veshta Yoshida wrote:
Plays straight into the artillery paradigm though as a flock of those things provide maximum oomph for least amount of locks .. guess CCP wish to extend the Winmatar fad for another year Big smile

Yep. Anyone who's been fighting us knows we now use the 1200mms. The 1400mm camp might come back. And of course fit sensor boosters.

Call primary secondary etc, and make sure you prefire your 1400s so that the moment you get a lock it goes off. Beautiful. If the target lock can break locks in progress, no problem, just keep on locking as names are called. After 10 or so names give a break so everyone's back to unfired guns and can prefire to begin the next cycle. Once your guns go off it's a good number of seconds until its ready to fire again, long enough that you could get jammed and your guns would be cooling down for most of it.

In 10% Tidi, you might be able to prefire your guns, start locking the targets you're given and then go get a drink and return for the next cycle. The change definitely will hurt people who do their damage in increments every 1s or whatever rather than dumping 40s worth on the target the instant it gets locked.

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Gevlin
Pator Tech School
Minmatar Republic
#79 - 2012-03-27 21:44:48 UTC  |  Edited by: Gevlin
i think this is great will prevent the insta blap.


FOF missle blobs though might appear


allow the person getting the aggro - ie FC to tank others

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Ardamalis
State War Academy
Caldari State
#80 - 2012-03-28 18:04:52 UTC  |  Edited by: Ardamalis
Petrus Blackshell wrote:
From a discussion with a friend, we came up with a suggestion in order to prevent the target breaker module from being an easy GTFO-button that becomes mandatory on all PvP and PvE fits: you cannot warp while it is active. That way, you can GTFO if you get out of range in time, or mwd+cloak after activating it, or simply use it to screw up the enemy fleet's primary-calling, but you can't use it as a "this fight is too much for me, time to push the dishonor-button" mod.


Most fights big enough for a target breaker to be effective will generally involve bubbles--dozens of them. I'm not so sure that its a worrisome issue for pvp.

PvE might have some potential for abuse and should be restricted from working on npcs in my opinion.