Player Features and Ideas Discussion

This suggestion is more of a conceptual introduction of another ship class bracket as well as cloning a few hulls so that the current ones are not "deleted/removed/changed".

I’ll try to add the quick read stuff first in the OP.


Although in this case, industrial ships will be getting a lot of attention in the upcoming patches, so here is a rather extreme take on bizarre ideas.

This one might (I lied, it will) be more mind-bogging than current new-ship-ideas around here.. I am well aware the content here is quite “Will never happen”, but I post it so that maybe some of it could be implemented on a much smaller scale.

The modules alone should be worthwhile enough to check out, of which could be interesting for the current industrial ships alone. However, I have a lot of explaining to do, so it could take a while.


// I might make a separate thread for the modules, but just for this example, it should be enough.


Just remember, while I will be talking big about things, the Industrial ship will still be vulnerable as a sitting duck. Just that it should be able to shoot back or have some abilities to do while going down fighting.

And most of its abilities, while rewarding and enhancing, are tied to penalties and are still to be as on a “T1-magnitude”. Nothing is to be Uber/Overpowered; but the versatility shall be quite effective here, though.

Yet, just like with today’s un-patched industrials -> Get caught without buddies due to being a slowpoke, you die (just not that fast).



All (newly) suggested industrial ships/barges are to be restricted of using all sorts of healing mods: (Ancillary) Shield Boosters, Armor Repairers, Armor Plates, Shield Extenders, Reactive Shield/Armor Hardeners, Strutural HP stuff etc.

// perhaps even “- 75% to ‘received heals’”; due to nanobots having troubles detecting and sealing holes too large.

-- this is to ensure they only have their eHP bar, that’s it. The only fastest way to rep it is at stations.[/b]
I wish this to be a ruleset for the sake of balancing .



.
+ Auxiliary vessels
Easiest term - As opposed to “industrial ships”; with a lot more gang/fleet oriented features.
+ Industrial Tenders
+ (Industrial) Auxiliary Command Vessel




Giving more sense to the term “vessel”, industrial ships and possibly barges are to become more than just victimized mining and ships with big cargo bays.

Imagine the current T1 industrial ships, but with more HP and a wide spectrum of Hi/med/lowslot modules that feature various unique abilities and support for COMBAT FLEETS/Gangs as well as defensive and other semi-offensive measures; from fortification-modules in style of “Siege mode” to Ganglink-style support modules as well as capabilities of attaching larger turrets - the list can go on.

While I doubt CCP is willing to introduce T1 subsystems, one could imagine a row of subsystems in form of modules - each bringing trade-ins of bonuses and penalties; making one’s industrial ship something to consider for a fleet.
Keeping the magnitude on a T1-scale, a player in such an industrial auxiliary vessel (basically an Industrial ship with the new distinct modules) could become quite unpredictable. They are still vulnerable but will not explode the second they are tackled - well, the player has to hope their gang keeps them alive, but the player can help them with that task. Their variable choices shall give them chances to help succeed the day despite being “carebears who accidently the Industrial tree”.
(but I don’t even…!)


On the other hand, we can keep this simple by using the existing industrial ships/barges as they are:

a) already in sight of CCP for love patch along with getting more eHP

b) The variety of existing hulls allows us to give cool distinct aspects/bonuses to each hull. This may suck for Gallente’s Iteron series as they are “just getting longer” with each mark - but this could explain their capacity for fielding larger bandwidths of drones for their allies for instance.




Industrial Ships and their T2 variant, ”Transporter Ships” as possibly as well as the mining Barges currently have no use in a fleet other than either being part of a mining fleet or simply transporting things from A to B. Aside to this, the T1 variants (and even the T2 ones) are still considerably vulnerable.

After hearing CCP’s intention of making these ships a lot more resilient in upcoming patches as well as the occasional bait-fits featuring a lot of EWAR/buffer HP at times, I came up with the idea of letting these ships actually step up a bit more into the battlefield.

Industrial players could rejoice and help their alliance/corp even though they “are not real combat pilots”.

If these “makeshift fleet-industrial vessels” should come as a secondary class in the family, then Industrial ships should nonetheless still be able to use several of the suggested modules; leaving it to the player if he or she wants to have some more defenses for their Industrial ship alone.

General aspects
To have a 30k ‘ish base eHP; only modifiable by specific exclusive industrial-ship-only modules.

Bonuses
Already mentioned in various spots, but here is an example of specific special Industrial-ship modules. There has to be an intelligent system behind this so that not all can be activated at once. One has to still make sure they have the right ammo (aka Fuel) for the specific module.

++ “Crew: Man the guns/FIRE FIRE FIRE!” // uses cap.
Crew-specific modules feature more or less offensively-themed enhancements to the vessel - but always come with penalties.
Bonus to rate of fire of turrets/missile bays. Penalty to Tracking speed/explosion radius.

++ “Emergency: All Decks - Brace for Impact!” // uses fuel.
Temporary “turtle” mode that raises resistances similar to hardeners, but is limited in magnitude. Best used when under heavy fire or a stealth bomber’s bomb is inbound.
Like siege-sort of modules, this module applies a serious movement speed penalty, making it become a mere brick in space.
++ “Emergency: Full speed ahead!” // uses fuel
Bonus to velocity as well as afterburner and acceleration. This is to be one of the few “OH SHIIII--“ buttons to get to the gate if you land on an interdictor’s bubble. However, it won’t save you if they follow you to the other side and you have no help.

++ “Profile: Cruise” //uses cap (this is a module too ;D)
This is pretty much your “Condition Green” setting. A module that runs on a 2 minute cycle. During this time, the cruise receives a slight agility and mobility, allowing you to align a bit faster. However, during this mode, you will receive a penalty to resistences, lowering your base eHP notably.
Be careful not to get jumped by surprises.

Those are just very rough examples.





I’ll skip this one.
But yeah, basically this is just an attempt to see an unusual ships on the field.

Remember, it is the mix that makes the fun. It highly depends if one wants to just have ONE ship class, that being the “Industrial Ships/Barges” having access to these curiously-interesting aspects and mods or have it split across some two or three separate classes.
This could be too much of a headache so 1) is probably the way to go for now.

1) Original Industrials/Barges with access to all new aspects and stuff - saves us from headaches of new ship names etc_
++ Current Industrial Ships/Barges to receive more beef HP (CCP is working on this) - nevertheless, the modules shall be applicable to the current roster of industrial ships and barges.

2) Secondary Roles - Headaches incoming_
++ Industrial Tender, cloned hulls of the T1 industrial ships and barges, but with more combat orientated. With more aspects for supporting the fleet with various modules as well as some enhancements for supporting the assault. Could also feature a remote repair possibility so that it can heal other friendlies.

++ Fortification Barges, cloned hulls of the T1 barges only, having more aspects of engaging siege modules that could feature the usage of the trend of “Large Turrets on medium-sized” ships. Difference between Tornado would be that they are a lot more cumbersome, yet have a lot more eHP. This is however more for those who need firepower but such that doesn’t blow up as instantly like a Tornado-BC.

It is probably better to stick to number 1) - for now.

From the Industrial Ships, my favorite is the Mammoth, and would like to introduce these ideas based on its hull. These ideas are of course to be applied to all other racial ships.

Just a quick note. I wish to imagine Industrial Ships have LOTS of armor HP; resists not as extreme - but simply so that it even with a small gang, one would need some time to take it down -- but in terms of Alliance Tournament; say like two or three minutes if there would be a landslide victory and this new version of a sitting duck being the last ship on the loser’s side.

However; these Industrial ships shall be damn-cumbersome - if not slightly more than how they are at this moment.
So - In reality, they cannot just warp from A to B that easily. Even more; if they are in a bubble without support, they just will die in a matter of time. Even if they are aligned to the next stargate when it is time to run, they are likely to be tackled on the other side.

Lastly, I want to introduce on two of this two propulsion modules; one being a warp-drive module - another a minor hyperjump drive, but don’t worry, that will be very last.
Another minor propulsion module could be what I fit under the bracket of “EMERGENCY: FULL THRUST” - that being the literally-overpowering of the Afterburner/Thrusters, causing the vessel to move at a speed of some 900m/s for a period of time and as fuel allows it; straight ahead and with mass/inertial debuff for that time.

Yet, these modules and all others including the warp-drive one, NEED FUEL - so there would be a need for fuel bays.

Don’t worry, there will be enough penalties, mutually-exclusive activation rule sets like “Afterburner+MWD”, gimmicks and trade-ins.

Sorry for the wall, but being thorough is needed here. ;D
Just for "readers", heh.


All is “makeshift”, borrowing from other ships’ aspects. It won’t make them obsolete because this is a T1 industrial that will die, even if it has a total of 8000 hp // 30k eHP.

// at this point, I would like to have a restriction of neither being able to fit armor plate, shield extenders nor damage controls nor the low-slot structure-hp buffers.
Only the special mods and other mods, no “resistance/buffer” mods. - as it comes with a BS eHP already.

Nevertheless, the player shall have a wide spectrum of choices.
Sort of a ~T3 subsystem concept but pared-down on a T1-maginitude on Industrial Ships. It should be interesting as it introduces an unusual ship to the battlefield that can be a bane… or fail. I
Please keep in mind all the time, it is to be a MAKESHIFT Command Vessel - not some sort of Command Ship ala Sleipnir or a Carrier; zero. Yet it shall be versatile - featuring the lightest of features ganglinks or a few more drones (or *shock* 2 fighters*), but will go boom when friends die and it being the last on the field.

It is not to be a T2 ship that can tank forever but a T1 that just happens to have a lot of HP due to its sheer mass.

So if I am sitting in my wooly Mammoth in a small gang and an enemy fleet rolls in, my foe would have to wonder:
Is my ship fit as support. Is it some makeshift Lachesis?

+ All this to bring in “spice” to a fleet; whether a battleship fleet or a gate camp.
- Will have weaknesses of course; it will die with ease once buddies are dead as well as being quite cumbersome and the, say 30secs to one minute, of waiting for the cooldown when ending the fortify/siege profile. It might end up last and Fleet Commanders will have no choices but to leave them behind and “GO DOWN FIGHTING”.
+ Can bring along ammo/fuel due to its semi-spacious cargo bay. Also to be the mule for loading gathered loot from battles.

It is to feature variants of currently known T1 hulls rather than developing new ones. In terms of balance, it is to be somewhere on par with current desires to make the T1 aspect of the game more desirable, viable (to an extent) yet keeping them vulnerable in terms of "Rocks Scissors Ponies".

I just wanted to bring some new ship ideas (or in this case - expand on the existing on). I know many get edgy when one suggests new ships, but nevertheless, this is just dreaming. It is unlikely it will happen. But it is fun to write and conceptualize, no doubt.

What are "Deep Space Transports" Alex?

Seriously though... I'm looking at a buffer tanked Impel with 77k EHP in EFT. That's battlecruiser, low battleship class EHP there.
And the cargohold has a capacity of 5000 m3. That's more than enough for a fleet's worth of capacitor boosters.

All-righty then. Back.
Sorry for that last crappy post. The forums devoured what I wrote when I hit the post-reply button when I was done.

Whatever. This is a quick response. I will answer each of your posts to cover up the plotholes I have up there. I do consider to remove things and add what should be said so that it is more understandable. I suppose the “FAQ” mode isn’t that bad.

Yes, I need to explain more as regarding the why part - but I have to also say that you are seeing things from the wrong side with the wrong light.



To give a quick answer before I talk pages long:

Nobody is forced to fly these - Same if you are a DPS-ace who flies HACs and kills stuff; you’re not forced to give a damn about industrial ships and many other ships one has no utter interests in.

Of course, if you are already an advanced play, sitting in your shiny T2 or other stuff, it is quite a “duh” moment. Now I won’t click on each of your chars and figure your SP profile; but just because you may have no interests in it doesn’t mean others wouldn’t.
Nonetheless, what we (or I) can do is have this option open - as all ships you fly in eve are optional, and this one shall be versatile in an unusual and not that straight-forward thing everybody sees in T2 and T1 as that is what brought us to the ship revamp in the first place.



It is intended to be a Jack of all Trades - Master of None in that sense, but nonetheless still being a diverse, interesting and unusual vessel - with the challenge of activating and deactivating specific skills. It is to be a mix of several types of things.

However - I do have to make a thorough list of modules it shall have, because that is what is essential in this idea.
To give you a better understanding of the essence of vessel-specific modules, try to understand this part:



Since some are into Jeopardy. // I am not intending trolling here.

Answer is
“The necessity of exclusive modules for the respective vessels like covert cloaking, covert cyno portal cyno-jump/portal, triage, siege”

Question is
“What do titans, carriers/supers, dreadnaughts, covops etc have in common? Alec.”

=). So in this case, this one is to have the concept of that. Now I doubt a cloaking industrial is necessary - that is what Transport ships are for - but maybe there could still be a makeshift one that requires fuel. (ignore that module though).
No worries, I will add more input. Should help to give more reasons as to Why am I to fly this into the fray specifically.

I think one more module could be interesting for. it is a similar jump drive module, but may require a thread of it's own as well.



A large variety of modules could request fuel and other goods/commodities from PI (!). But I need to conceptualize that one well so it is comprehensible despite my bad diction. Likewise, there would be penalties when using the more “stronger/attractive/effective” modules; like ‘capping your cap’ to -50% while the module is active as it needs that excessive power to feed whatever special ability.
Say for your Amarr Aux-Tender vessel; a siege mode that powers your lasers for rapid fire and bonus damage - but of course along with penalties, tracking speed and of course maybe even a fraction of that damage hitting your ship as you blast on. That is an extreme example though.

But back to this ship. This is part of several random suggestions in terms of news ships that players could use.



Yes. I need to add more to the showcase, especially emphasize on why. What I will do is to do a direct write up of the “Why” - but it will require some “common perspective” of average-joe players ; as in not because you may have trillions of ISK or are a combat pilot - as many here on these forums are pretty much top gun and from 0.0/pvp.
- or in short, from an objective perspective aside to your personal one of course.

I am not certain if all of you did it that; hard to tell as all seem personal rather than objective. But this is okay =) and not a problem.


I do need to emphasize on several things. That is necessary and I agree that is missing. I will answer your posts now. I will make it as simple as possible.

Alright, the next post will answer the issues listed specifically. Excuse the possible length due to quoting and answering back.

You almost got my point, but just missing something due to seeing things a bit too negatively. Allow me explain.

As you mentioned,
An actual battleship does x better,
An actual EW cruiser does y much better,
(hypothetically) Other main task force vessels do x better than this ship.

Yes that is the intention : )!
This is to be a very versatile Jack of All Trades - Master of None - Yet still having a variety of nice-to-have-alongs. It is to be seen as a secondary ship one can consider to take along. Either entering the fray as first, using its temporary aspects to tank for a bit or later on as backup. Modules could buff remote repping so that it heals some structure too.

(by the way, NPCs need to smart enough to shoot at other players so one does not just afk-tank with this ship into Mordor)

Being blunt and realistic in 0.0 or any other pvp situation:
You do not always have the people for the job. How many times have one heard “damn, no tacklers” - or “no Lachesis” - No dictor/Hictor etc.

Now it cannot do all the super-duper special stuff like a dictor/hector bubbler - but it should for instance be able to do long range warp disrupting.
Coupling that with a sensor boosters or any other module, it can do the warp-disrupting for you.

It is not a battleship, yet it can be able to provide anti-BC/BS weaponry like large turrets, provided the player fitted the specific module to allow him to do this.

It is not a cruiser/destroyer to take on the masses of enemy drones and frigates in the battlefield. But if you are lucky, perhaps the pilot fitted the module that buffs Rate of Fire on the Rapid Missile Launcher Bays (aka Assault Missile Launcher that fires light missiles) loaded FoF missiles;
making him do what he can to gradually (and possibly) take down frigates and drones without worrying or hassling about targeting.

It should be able to do some of x and act as a backup. The stardrive idea would be unique and useful here but I have to do a separate thread for this feature. It is a bit sci-fi, but this is a sci-fi game so… but let’s drop that one.



Some ships are simply not available for the fleet or players. That is the point of this ship (while bringing along more shiny abilities at the same time).
I’ve been playing very long in this game. I’m just too lazy to log back and forth the between accs/chars since I do a lot with this one.
Nevertheless.
There are a broad number of players who do not like pvp. Some like to but are not ready yet. After being several years in 0.0, I’ve seen it time and again where players get turned down because they are not as awesome as the elite ones. Some would love to fly support ships like the mini-logies (Osprey, Exequror) but due to lack of skills, they can tank really much.

This ship could and would be an option for them. They could fight off hoards of drones as smartbombs are not always an option and much more.

To keep in mind, it cannot do everything “300%ly better than others”

It is possible that the eHP needs to go up then, but I want to keep her in mind that that even if these vessels are jack-of-all-trades of some kind, they are still industrial ships.
You can use your Impel with better EHP. That is fine. But you are giving up a lot of slots just to beef up the tank and frankly, that is just a bait industrial that with a very, very low number of slots left over for anything else.

The ones I suggested would have access to modules that virtually can beef up EHP to xyz levels, depending on what is fitting for balance reasons. These special vessels can do a lot more than just an Impel loaded with precious cap boosters.

But this is highly dependent of the special modules. And as said above in the mess:

Covops, carriers, titans, recons, dreadnoughts etc - all use special modules like covops cloak, cyno-portals, siege modules to define their role.
This vessel can achieve a bit of everything (minus cloaked-warp) and actually do something despite the player being, say a newborn capsuleer from January 2012 as the damage, buffs, and other viable things come directly from the modules that consume cap/fuels/PI commodities.

It will not deal massive damage like a fully-fledged ‘n’ pledged BS for instance, but it can still be a threat to cruisers somehow while supporting his fleet/gang with anti-support capabilities and buffs.

And all that until he or she is ready to fly other real combat ships or whatsoever. This is just as it is: An optional choice of a vessel.

It is not hurting anything besides the adding another thing to click on the market and a few egos. : D

Also.
Deep Space Transport - +170 mill of ISK.
This versatile Industrial idea with specific bonuses/penalties - most certainly under the 50 mill ISK as the rest comes from modules.

If you don’t need it, don’t use it. Same like you do when you are Vagabond Heavy Assault Cruiser ready or whatever you fly at this moment- and don’t need to look at Stabbers and Arbitrators again.

This could also be interesting for small scale pvp too.

A ship is a big investment in resources, in dev time and energy that could be used fixing other problems. This is a ship designed to be optional and a second choice. I don't think that the concept warrants the time and effort on CCP's part when they could be doing other things to improve the game.

I don't mind new ships. I don't mind ships designed to be more general than our current crop of ships. The approach of putting all the things on one hull is the thing that drives me crazy. I don't see how this specific model could work. I wouldn't mind something that does both ewar and remote repping.

T3 Ships were intended to be pretty much exactly what you have in mind here. A single hull that can be redesigned to fit whatever role it is needed to. It was originally intended to be not quite as good as Tech II, but the first iteration came out way stronger than originally intended.

So, don't do it in the one ship. Pick something that requires high slots, and something that requires mid slots or low slots and put them together.

I don't see why a ship couldn't get a bonus to remote reppers, and ewar. Make a cycle of them. Maybe a ship that focuses on remote sensor boosting/ECCM matched with cap transfer, I don't think we have one of those.