Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Good news: they're already not cannon fodder for 1–2 destroyers. One is simply not a threat, and two can be survived with a bit of luck and/or trickery.

But 5 is a serious threat. I can't comment on the difficulty of getting 5 players together for a ganking op, as that's going to vary from player to player. I can comment on the difficulty of actually funding that though; it's 2-3 mil max for a ganking catalyst plus modules, so that's a 15 mil ISK investment on the part of the gankers. Assuming the very low target of 30 mil/hour income, easily achievable from L4 missions, that means it's 1 player spending 30 minutes to get the ISK to gank a hulk that represents 10+ hours investment by the owner. Better yet, even if it's just a T2 fit the Hulk is going to be carrying 20-30 million worth of modules and salvages to tech 2 components, so if you get a buddy in there to loot and salvage the wreck it can pay for itself easily.

That, right there, is the problem - suicide ganking should always be a possibility in EVE, I'm not asking for invincible mining barges, but it should require more than a trivial investment on the part of the gankers to destroy what is a major investment on the part of the hulk pilot.

Hypothetically, and I know this one's going to earn me some hatred, what would be your problem with ramping up the toughness on a Hulk so that a reasonably tanked one - and I want to emphasise this again, a Hulk that has been set up with defence in mind - requires the attentions of 2 Tornados to kill? That's a price tag for the gankers of about 150-170 mil, or 5-6 hours at our hypothetical 30mil/hour rate, but at the same time it's only half the investment the Hulk pilot made on his ship, and will have to make again if he wants to get another Hulk. The gankers can still gank, but if they want to do so and collect the tears from their victims they need to invest more to do it. Even so they still lose less than their victim though.

If you want to accuse me of asking for an exception to be made for Hulks, I've already posted a comparison with the other T2 Industrial ship class showing how much weaker exhumers are than their hauling brethren (which can be tanked to the point of taking those 2 ganknados to put down while still having useable cargo space). T1 ships, both combat and noncombat, also require a much higher proportionate investment from the ganker vs cost to the victim; Exhumers (and to a lesser extent T1 barges) are actually exceptions to the norm.

Why?



Give me one other example where cheap ships with a combined value of about 5% of their target can suicide gank a ship which has a reasonably defensive fit (obviously ignoring valuable cargo or faction/deadspace mods on the target raising the price)



Exhumers are the ONLY ships in the game which can be ganked for profit when given a sensible fit. Any other ship that isn't given an extremely shiny deadspace/faction fit or carrying valuable cargo will require gankers to take an ISK loss if they want to kill it for tears. If they want a profit they have to look for the rare example of a ship that does have those shiny modules attached, and based on what I've seen on KBs these Hulks do exist. Why are you arguing that Exhumers should be the one exception to that rule?

Final point, it's now twice I've pointed out the huge difference between Exhumers and Transports when it comes to defence, and both times you've failed to respond. Any reason?

Because it's rather unreasonable that a single ship (one that isn't even a combat ship) should be able to stand up to a concerted attack from five actual combat ships, especially since we're just talking about small sub-caps here.

Still irrelevant. Cost is not a factor in balance. You're just arguing that more ships should be made far weaker than they are. Anyway, as it happens, quite a few T2 cruisers will fit into the mould you just described, as will some of the T2 transports.

No. Pretty much all ships can be ganked for profit, even when they have a sensible fit, especially once we move into T2 territory. There's a reason why they happen, you know. If you want to compare against ships that don't have valuable cargo or which don't use more expensive modules, then we should also compare that against an exhumer with only a single strip miner. A ship doing what it's good at can very often easily be ganked for profit — exhumers do not represent some sort of exception to this rule.

Because what transports can do isn't relevant to what exhumers can do.

Also, you're comparing against a ship class which has as its intended purpose to be tanky as hell and to survive ganks by relying on that tank (and guess what: they still die). Did you read the description? “Possessing defensive capabilities far in excess of standard industrial ships”. Yes, the hulk is described as being “far more resilient”, and guess what? It is. It can take the same amount of beating as some T2 combat cruisers. But you're still comparing a ship type that's just meant to be a bit stronger with one that's meant to be a brick.

Keeping in the context, it is accepted that with clones suicide is signifying a loss of ventured resources, not an end to life. You are suiciding your ship, the cost to replace your med clone, and any cargo or implants carried by either.

Your best case result is mutual destruction. You are assured of your own destruction regardless of outcome.

Balance is not relevant here, that has been pointed out and accepted mutually.

Risk vs reward, however... so long as the attacking ship's total risk profile is below the expected possible gain, the deterrent is meaningless. The Hulk pilot will always be risking more.


It reduces the reprisal by concord into an acceptable cost of doing business.

Here's an idea: Drop the related hardware costs of flying a Hulk to 10% of what they are now. Problem solved.

if you do this you go to jail for a good long time.. and insurance fully pays for the porsche replacement.
....not so eve.

you assume I care about your tears ... at all?

It reminds me of my brothers old D&D group... whose DM made a town full of women with high comeliness and low strength so they'd be attractive to the teen players and unable to resist their.... advances.


We have really expensive ships with little hope of survival against other ships many times lesser in cost. and whats more we can't even insure them at anywhere close to full value. that's fair.. (sic)

Had to break out the thesaurus for that one, +1. Interestingly enough I found some gems from synonyms of it.

Why is that unreasonable? An Orca is a single non-combat ship, and yet regardless of the fit it can stand up to 5 destroyers. A tank-fit T2 Transport can stand up to a concerted attack from 5 Destroyers. Why shouldn't a tank-fit Hulk be able to?



You were the one who said that it's normal and part of the design. If that's the case, it should be easy to provide one other example of this happening. This reply seems like a cheap dodge out of doing that after you ran the same numbers I've looked at and realised like I did that Hulks and other Exhumers are disproportionately weak. As for me arguing that more ships should be made weaker, nope - I just want Exhumers brought in to line with every other ship in the game.

Oh, and for the not-actual-examples you gave: A quick check in Jita shows that most T2 cruisers go for about 160-180mil, plus say 50mil for a good T2 fit (which is pretty generous) so please point me to all the hisec gank KMs showing a force worth 11.5mil taking one down. Transports are mostly around 150mil, so again with a 50mil fit that should be plenty of kills to ships/fleets worth 10mil. KMs please.



Once again, KMs or it didn't happen. Show me an example of a sensible T2 fit mission Raven being ganked in hisec outside of a war or aggression and dropping fitted modules/salvage worth more than the losses from the gankers and I will blank all my previous posts in this thread and make a new one conceding that Exhumers are perfectly balanced as is right now.



Why, exactly?



Transports are the only other Tech 2 non-combat ships in the game aside from JFs. If we can't compare them to Exhumers, what can we compare? Both ships are designed to fill specific non-combat roles in hostile space without dying. Both ships get bonuses to survivability in addition to bonuses to their primary role. I guess Transports don't necessarily represent the pinnacle of the hauling profession, but I know more than a few players for whom a cloaky T2 Transport is their endgame. Aside from the most basic "one hauls lots of cargo, one mines lots of ore" difference, what else is there that we can't compare?

Your point is that the Transports (which you are comparing to Exhumers despite saying we shouldn't) have a line in the description saying that they are tough ships, and so they should be tough, while the Exhumers have a line in the description saying they are tough ships, and so they should be... paper thin and easily gankable? I'm sorry, what?