Player Features and Ideas Discussion

For a brief period the Noctis was the bees knees for salvaging and looting. Prior to the Noctis we used the Catalyst and then moved up to the Hurricane for it's larger cargo capacity. However, the recent changes to loot negate the need for a large cargo hold, making the Catalyst now feasible for larger missions. That fact removes two of the main advantages of the Noctis, cargo capacity and speedy skill train. Leaving just the bonus' to tractor beams and salvagers. This is offset by it's price tag and lumbering agility. In these days of gank, the Noctis must feature high on the victim of choice list and I for one find myself pulling out my old Catalyst, rather than my Noctis for many salvaging jobs. That's if I bother to salvage at all.

I believe the time is ripe for a cheaper alternative to the Noctis. Here are three ideas that I want to throw out for the community and CCP to consider/discuss:

1. Give noobs ships a tractor beam range or a salvaging bonus. This would actually make them useful, while at the same time encouraging new players to salvage which is a great starting profession.

2. Add a rig or module that would increase tractor beam range.

3. Add a new dedicated salvaging ship in the Frigate/Destroyer class.

My personal preference is 2. which would allow players maximum flexibility in keeping with the sandbox theme. But I like the idea of running around in noob ships ninja salvaging and occassionally grabbing loot off other players. While 3 would be nice too, unfortunately if we end up with a ship in the same price band as a T2 Frigate, that kind of misses the point, as it would limit it's use to pure PvE mission clean up.

If you accept that the Noctis had it's place when it was first introduced. They you should accept that it's position has been severly eroded by the recent changes to loot. The question is does that need addressing or are we happy to return to the Catalyst as the Salvaging ship of choice?

It would honestly make more sense to rework the existing ship rather than create an entirely new ship to replace it.

*cough*

A Frigate or even Destroyer can already be fit to zip around pretty fast to get into salvager/tractor range. Not much call for a specific module or rig for it. Ironically, such a rig would be more useful in med / large varieties than small.

That's the whole point. It is my belief that the Noctis is already redundant. I'm not saying it is completely useless, but many of the design objectives are no longer relevant. The disadvantages now outweigh the advantages. The biggest disadvantage is the cost, it is not a throw away ship, you can't risk a Noctis in any sort of PvP environment, for example you wouldn't run one in under the guns of an enemy POS to salvage something would you? On the PvE side of thing, the only advantage you are left with is the speed in clearing up the mission space, but that is offset by the awful agility delaying you reaching the mission space if you have more than a couple of jumps to go. Once you could confidently predict that the Catalyst would have to make two trips, or bring back a hauler, but not anymore. I for one won't be replacing my Noctis if I should lose it.

When the Noctis was designed, the Salvaging ship of choice was the Hurricane. The main reason the Hurricane was superior to the Catalyst was down to the cargo capacity. The Noctis was designed with similar cargo capacity to the Hurricane, Drake like handling characteristics and a basic tank on a par with a cruiser. It improved on the Hurricane with the Tractor Beam and Salvaging bonus' and the removal of the racial ship skills which favoured Minmatar characters (Minmater Frigate IV, Minmater Cruiser III and Battlecruiser II).

Salvaging ships no longer need that cargo capacity and the skills to get into a Destroyer are negligable. If the Noctis was being designed today, it would be as a replacement and improvement on the Catalyst, not the Hurricane. It would be smaller, faster, more agile and a lot cheaper than the current Noctis. Maybe a forth option would be to resize the Noctis to turn it into a Destroyer sized vessel.

hmm I often fill my cargo expanded noctis bay in 15 minutes salvaging, so no, working as intended.

You know, people use the Noctis in places besides highsec.

Leave it alone.

You sir, OP, are a madman.

Destroyer or Cane
-can't lock 10 targets
-can't lock them at 90+ km
-can't pull them from 50+ km
-cycles all modules slower
-Has a pissy cargo bay

The Noctis is doing exactly what it's supposed to be, and doing it very well. I wouldn't mind some more salvage/tractor rigs at any size, but this bird is the king of salvage clean-up. Even on a huge level 4 wreck field, I only have to pulse the MWD maybe once to scoot into the absolute ideal position. After that, the wrecks come to me, I can't even manually reacquire targets fast enough before they're scrubbed, and I'm done in minutes.

There is no substitute.

I'd actually wondered what the upper limit was, but never took the time or training to find out. That's bloody fantastic.

lol yeah didnt realise it went that far myself

noctis is great and nowhere near redundent