EVE General Discussion

This post is about cyno travel, and the ability to cyno directly from one station to another:

Let's review the risks of cyno travel:
a.) You undock and wait out a 10 seconds session change timer while completely invulnerable (even to bumping). If you are bubbled, you can safely dock.

b.) After the session change timer expires, you can right click on your ship and cyno directly to another location while still completely untargetable because of the undock invulnerability.

c.) Assuming your destination is a station, which 99% of the time it is, you cyno into dock range, and have to survive a whole 10 second session change timer before you can dock. Oh, by the way, you're unlockable for 30 seconds after jumping. With 300+k EHP and eyes on grid before you cyno in, pragmatically, there is NO RISK to any jump capable ship!!


So, my question: Is riskless travel like this appropriate for EvE???

Note: Some might claim you are risking the cyno ship, so it's not riskless travel. However, since I can create a cyno alt that uses a noobship to light my cyno, I do NOT consider this a viable risk...

P.S. This GD thread is to discuss whether this form of travel is reasonable in EvE's "dangerous" areas. If you have ideas on how to change the mechanics, or what not, please post the idea in F&I.

This is how I'd solve it: Prevent Cynoing a ship into Dock Range of a Station.
Idea by Lilliana Stelles: Dramatically Increase the cost of the cyno module to 50 or 100m, thereby making the cyno ship a viable risk.
Idea by FloppieTheBanjoClown: Have a special "session change timer" for cyno travel that prevents docking for 30 or 60 or ?? seconds.
There are other ideas too: Nerf JF's and other ideas

Yeah things need tweaking since the session timer changes.

Won't happen though.

I too, wish CCP would make all the JF's cyno directly into my fleet of Tornado's...

hm.... some time ago someone said "suiciding hulks in empire and loosing ship to concord is a risk". What is the difference?

Just remove cynos from the game and have all caps jump within 1-2 AU of star and Super Caps 10-20 AU of star.
No moar hot-drop-oclocks.

Or simply remove all jump drives.

Please enlighten us, I really don't see how a competent carrier pilot loses their carrier when cynoing from one station to another station.

With a 10 second session change timer, you have to average 30+k dps to gank a JF before it can dock, or 50-100k dps to gank a carrier/dread/rorqual.

Are there tricks? The web-bump trick that is deemed an exploit... or you could cyno in a bunch of ships on top of it, hoping to bump it out of dock range... or You could have ships on grid, and try to bump it out of dock range before it can dock... or you can have a titan or fleet of SC's on grid ready to gank it the moment it cyno's in.

I consider the above risks extremely minimal to a competent player, although I'm sure they'll net you some kills the first time they encounter such tactics. Given the capital docking radius of stations, bumping it out of range within 10 s requires lots of luck. A cloaked ongrid titan is a legit risk, albeit a very uncommon one!!

Is there a tactic I'm unaware of, that makes cynoing from station to station even a little risky???

Traveling gate-to-gate in a pod is an easy way to die... one Disko ship and you're going to wake up in a clone facility. It's not risk free.

As for cloaks.... Cloakers mitigate most risks to their ships with cloaks, and I think cyno's should mitigate most risks by traveling from point A to Point Z bypassing the risks in between. At the same point in time, a cloaker is still at risk of getting decloaked, it can be caught in bubbles, and it can't cloak next to a station, and traveling in a cloak ship is far from risk free.

I think a small nerf to cyno's can have the same effect.... Just prevent cynoing a ship within dock range of a station, and suddenly there is a reasonable risk to cyno travel....

Why should it be so risky to fly from friendly station to friendly station while not entering combat, AND paying attention to your surroundings, waiting for safer times to travel? The time and manpower investment required to set up such a situation where one can expect reasonable safety is while jumping capital ships is immense. Capitals are already prenerfed in a lot of situations where people would like to use them. Remember when you could actually carry a nice amount of stuff in a carrier? Should sleeper's spawn everytime a cyno is lit? Should carriers have a retardedly long session timer, just so they are less useful? They get their share of combat, and die all the time. They are not some invincible ship class. In fact, they are far from it. People just don't risk them as much as other less useful ships.

Also, what is this web bump trick that you speak of?

Would it be that easy to shut down?? Cyno into a safe spot, or a random good distance from a POS and web to warp whatever you bring in.... I think my F&I change would increase the risk to a reasonable, yet manageable level.... At least, that's what I strive for!



Most of the activites in EvE are NOT risk free... we make decisions to mitigate risks. And I think any mechanic that allows us to completely mitigate risks is a bad mechanic... As for cyno travel, which is an explicitly nullsec/lowsec activity, having it be completely risk free is contrary to the purpose of lowsec/nullsec.

lmfao, yeah it took me ages to train three cyno alts on my three accounts, and boy... That ten second timer?! The risk involved in moving my carriers / JFs around is immense.

I'm still not sold on blocking cynos on station though, I like hot dropping idiots who aggress in carriers on the undock too much. Maybe if it came along side a change to aggression timers based on mass.

I also think it would just result in people finding empty systems to cyno in to, or setting up a POS in every system along route.

*EDIT: I forgot to add, you claim friendly station to friendly station. Outside of sov null sec current mechanics make it trivial to cyno right into hostile stations without risk. Or travel right through the most heavily camped places in the game without breaking up the camp.