Player Features and Ideas Discussion

This is probably a topic that has been rasied a million times but I think it needs to be raised again. CCP have taken steps to prevent miners from being ganked in belts, or at least given them the option to choose between ships that maiximise yield and ships that offer protection. CCP, please address haulers in a similar way?

Personally I believe that there should be a game mechanic that allows the high sec gank to continue. If you have a goal to achieve, or revenge to take on an enemy then this path should be open to you, but at a cost. At present it is far to easy, too cheap and with far too few consequences to gank a hauler with ships like the arty Tornado.

The situation at present is ridiculous. Wherever I go I have to use a Viator with a cloak, even then I get locked and scanned when approaching stations or at undock points in the main trading hubs. It is now for all intents and purposes suicide to afk haul in high security space. I am sure this is not the situation CCP invisaged when they allowed this mechanic. You should not need to cloak and warp and have insta undocks for every station you visit to operate in high security space. Nor should you need to fly an Orca or a Freighter to move goods safely, which of course are not 100% safe either.

If CCP choose not to change this mechanic then please address cloaky hauler cargo sizes, As I can no longer use T1 haulers I am finding I have to make several trips in a Viator to move the same amount of goods as I could in an Itty V.

Regards
Kal.

Suicide ganking is incredibly easy, more so since the introduction of the tier 3 battlecruisers whereby you can fit a full rack of 8 x battleship sized guns on a relatively cheap battlecruiser hull. Before if you wanted that sort of damage you needed to to risk a tier 2 or tier 3 battleship, a minimum of 130 million hull + fittings. By way of example I have friends in another corp who produce T2 fitted Tornado's for 75mil.

As it is easy and cheaper to gank effectively more people are doing it to the point where the chances of getting killed are much higher than they ever have been before.

And its not just afk haulers, I lost an Itty V some weeks ago to a Tornado and I wasn't even afk. I jumped into one system and was in my pod before I knew what had happened. My cargo that time was approx 300mil. Lesson learned I now only use Viators and cloak immediately upon entering a system. However doing anything takes twice as long as I have to tank and can carry less even when I am fitted for max cargo and not tanked. Plus added dangers of station undock points where you cannot cloak, so now I have to make insta undocks for every station I use. Does CCP want it to be this easy for gankers and that hard for haulers? It was never that way in the past and I have been around since 2005.

Shield modes in the mids and cargo in the lows. But unless I seriously armor tanked that Itty I would not have survived the alpha strike of the Tornado. If everyone has to do that to an Itty then whats the point of having a ship that specialises in carrying cargo?

My suggestion to CCP would be to make a T1 hauler that has battleship level EHP, as they have done for the miners. Carry less but can't be easily ganked. Then have the larger variants with more cargo but less tank.

My loss on that occassion was my own fault, I made a bad choice.

That does not detract from my point that it is far to cheap, to easy and with far too few consequences to suicide gank. If the person who ganked me had to sacrafice a 150-200mil ship would he have taken the chance of my 300mil cargo dropping? As he only had to sacrifice a 75-80mil ship his risk to reward ratio was much better for him.

That may be true, but you can also use a Occator. I think it got unfitted nearly the same EHP as an unfitted BC. But it got a little less cargo then a Iteron V (i think it was the same as an Iteron III) and you need to fit armor tank. Maybe you train for one of the shield tanked Deep space transporter (minmatar/caldari). Maybe they could get more cargo with the right fitting because they also got a lot low slots, and are more agile because they got less mass.

If you want to afk haul, haul less than twice the value of ships needed to gank you.

Nobody used tr2 or tr3 bs. They used insured tr1 bs, which cost less after insurance than a nado does now.

Any ship with 8 gun slots has the same alpha as a tornado. I suggest you take a look at the amarr battleships.

They have lower dps, but the same alpha when fit with artillery. The nado and maelstrom get only rof bonuses, and I have never seen a nado get 2 shots off in highsec. All that matters is how many guns you can fit on your ship (and gyros)

Yes, they are cheaper and easier to train to than battleships. They are still more expensive than the insured battleships people used to use.