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Fixing the issue with war decs and neut logistics without hurting incursions, etc.

Author
Andy Landen
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#1 - 2012-10-14 16:46:30 UTC  |  Edited by: Andy Landen
Introduction: War decs basically create 0.0 conditions in high sec (and low sec) minus the warp bubbles. Anyone who interferes by attacking either side gets concorded. But anyone who interefers by logistics remote remote repairing only gets temporary aggression. These are the mechanics, and not necessarily the problem (directly).

The issue: In order to execute a strategic response to a threat, you must be able to conduct proper intelligence gathering operations. You must get a good understanding of the enemy's locations, numbers and ship types. Neut logis in high sec undermine the ability to determine the enemy's logistical remote repair strength.

Example: Fleet A determines WT Fleet B to be inferior and engages in high sec. Neut Fleet C (may be technically in Fleet B) jumps through the gate and aids Fleet B. Fleet A cannot break Fleet B's tank and Fleet B begins to prevail. Neutral (non-WT) Fleet D enters system to aid Fleet A. etc etc.

Concern: Solutions to this issue typically adversely affect Incursions and other similar scenarios.

Solution: In order to enable all sides of a war dec to properly engage in intelligence collection methods, the use of logistical remote repair modules on war targets must be treated exactly the same as the use of offensive weapons. In essence, they are just as important in determining the outcome of a battle. The message warning of the Concordable offense allows the logistics ship one last chance to avoid getting Concorded. Fleets will have the option added to prevent players with war decs from entering them, and an option in the client can disallow the player from joining any fleet containing any player engaged in a war dec. For those not associated with war decs, there would be no change in the current mechanics and incursions and other activities will continue normally.

Now that logistics is also concordable against war dec corps, logistics needs to enter the war dec properly through the joining of the war dec corp/alliance. The war dec mechanic would need to change to prevent the abuse of the corp acceptance application immediately prior to logistical entrance into a war dec battle. Joining a corp or alliance with a war dec should require a one hour delay before the character is admitted into the corp. This way, a war dec battle cannot be turned by the instant admission of logistical pilots into the corp .. as they jump into system with war dec status to assist in a war target engagement. Additionally, the war dec should show characters and corps pending admission into the war dec during that hour delay.

Summary: While the inteference of neut logis is a problem, the much greater problem is being able to "predict the number of neut logis (let alone their location!)" (below) available to the enemy at any given moment. Requiring them to be either in the war or Concorded like any other offensive meddler solves the problem. Allow fleets to block players in war and logis to get warnings for RR to people in other wars allows Incursions and in many other situations to continue on like normal.

"We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them." Albert Einstein 

Sheynan
Lighting the blight
#2 - 2012-10-14 17:34:31 UTC
Did you bother reading the latest devblogs ?
Andy Landen
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#3 - 2012-10-15 20:35:22 UTC
Sheynan wrote:
Did you bother reading the latest devblogs ?

Perhaps I missed one. Please link it.

"We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them." Albert Einstein 

Gizznitt Malikite
Agony Unleashed
Agony Empire
#4 - 2012-10-15 20:45:52 UTC
Andy Landen
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#5 - 2012-10-15 21:03:51 UTC
Gizznitt Malikite wrote:
http://community.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&nbid=73443

That dev blog does not address the issue at all. Best it says is
Quote:
Assisting someone who is engaged in an LE will cause the assistor to receive a Suspect flag. This is to prevent neutral logistics interfering in ongoing combat without risk to themselves.

This mechanic is hardly a change from the current mechanic, and it does nothing to enable wars to be fought in high sec without neutral interference. If a neut shot his gun, you know that concord would be on him in a heartbeat.

"We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them." Albert Einstein 

Tippia
Sunshine and Lollipops
#6 - 2012-10-15 21:12:12 UTC
Andy Landen wrote:
This mechanic is hardly a change from the current mechanic, and it does nothing to enable wars to be fought in high sec without neutral interference. If a neut shot his gun, you know that concord would be on him in a heartbeat.
…you mean aside from making the neutral logi a free-for-all target to anyone in the system; making him unable to dock or jump; and generally just painting a huge “shoot me — free killboard points” sign on him?
Gizznitt Malikite
Agony Unleashed
Agony Empire
#7 - 2012-10-15 21:32:27 UTC
Andy Landen wrote:
Gizznitt Malikite wrote:
http://community.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&nbid=73443

That dev blog does not address the issue at all. Best it says is
Quote:
Assisting someone who is engaged in an LE will cause the assistor to receive a Suspect flag. This is to prevent neutral logistics interfering in ongoing combat without risk to themselves.

This mechanic is hardly a change from the current mechanic, and it does nothing to enable wars to be fought in high sec without neutral interference. If a neut shot his gun, you know that concord would be on him in a heartbeat.


The Dev Blog is a huge hit to neutral Logistics.... It doesn't eliminate them, but it makes their life very difficult, as any passerby fleet can just engage them and gank them. This is especially true for logistics ships because they really can't defend themeselves....so they can easily become trapped by that neutral fleet and eliminated...
Andy Landen
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#8 - 2012-10-15 23:17:31 UTC
Gizznitt Malikite wrote:
Andy Landen wrote:
Gizznitt Malikite wrote:
http://community.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&nbid=73443

That dev blog does not address the issue at all. Best it says is
Quote:
Assisting someone who is engaged in an LE will cause the assistor to receive a Suspect flag. This is to prevent neutral logistics interfering in ongoing combat without risk to themselves.

This mechanic is hardly a change from the current mechanic, and it does nothing to enable wars to be fought in high sec without neutral interference. If a neut shot his gun, you know that concord would be on him in a heartbeat.


The Dev Blog is a huge hit to neutral Logistics.... It doesn't eliminate them, but it makes their life very difficult, as any passerby fleet can just engage them and gank them. This is especially true for logistics ships because they really can't defend themeselves....so they can easily become trapped by that neutral fleet and eliminated...

I see your hit to logis and raise you 5-7 logis with large buffer and resist tanks. They wait out the timer and then move together to the nearest stargate and jump without the aggro timer. I want the logis meddling in wars to either get concorded or at the very least be drawn into the war permanently. You chose to take sides in a war, you should have to live with being a WT for the duration of the war. My position is that the other side should know that you are taking a side in the war at least an hour before you entire the war and that you should enter the war by officially joining a corp or alliance in the war.

"We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them." Albert Einstein 

Garviel Tarrant
Beyond Divinity Inc
Shadow Cartel
#9 - 2012-10-15 23:23:18 UTC
Stop

Trying

To

PVP

In

Highsec



Highsec pvp is absolutely terrible.

BYDI recruitment closed-ish

Gizznitt Malikite
Agony Unleashed
Agony Empire
#10 - 2012-10-16 00:34:45 UTC
Andy Landen wrote:
Gizznitt Malikite wrote:
Andy Landen wrote:
Gizznitt Malikite wrote:
http://community.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&nbid=73443

That dev blog does not address the issue at all. Best it says is
Quote:
Assisting someone who is engaged in an LE will cause the assistor to receive a Suspect flag. This is to prevent neutral logistics interfering in ongoing combat without risk to themselves.

This mechanic is hardly a change from the current mechanic, and it does nothing to enable wars to be fought in high sec without neutral interference. If a neut shot his gun, you know that concord would be on him in a heartbeat.


The Dev Blog is a huge hit to neutral Logistics.... It doesn't eliminate them, but it makes their life very difficult, as any passerby fleet can just engage them and gank them. This is especially true for logistics ships because they really can't defend themeselves....so they can easily become trapped by that neutral fleet and eliminated...

I see your hit to logis and raise you 5-7 logis with large buffer and resist tanks. They wait out the timer and then move together to the nearest stargate and jump without the aggro timer. I want the logis meddling in wars to either get concorded or at the very least be drawn into the war permanently. You chose to take sides in a war, you should have to live with being a WT for the duration of the war. My position is that the other side should know that you are taking a side in the war at least an hour before you entire the war and that you should enter the war by officially joining a corp or alliance in the war.


Tell you what... if you get in a war, and your opponent regularly brings a gang of 5-7 neutral logi's, you just send me an EvE mail as to where and when. I'll bring a logi gank squad and pad my killboard with those logi's!! The more they bring, the happier I'll be...

The upcoming changes make highsec neutral logistics suicide against any competent gang, and I'll gladly enjoy their loot!

Andy Landen
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#11 - 2012-10-16 02:43:10 UTC  |  Edited by: Andy Landen
Gizznitt Malikite wrote:

Tell you what... if you get in a war, and your opponent regularly brings a gang of 5-7 neutral logi's, you just send me an EvE mail as to where and when. I'll bring a logi gank squad and pad my killboard with those logi's!! The more they bring, the happier I'll be...

The upcoming changes make highsec neutral logistics suicide against any competent gang, and I'll gladly enjoy their loot!


Tribal always has wars. If I could predict the number of neut logis (let alone their location!), I am sure that winning against them wouldn't be so difficult. The right type and amount of ECM should do the trick. But that is exactly the problem. You cannot predict the exact number of neut logis that will be available to the enemy in high sec at any given time. People's schedules vary between time zones, and the guys getting ganked don't see them on the km (being neut, that usually means Concordoken) or notice them flashing yellow/red during combat. There are just too many neuts flying around or docked to track them all down and evaluate which are blue and which are neut/red.

A similar issue exists with the OP Titan jumpbridge. There is no way to predict the number of ships which may jump through, so the traditional methods of intelligence gathering is rather useless. You really have to have an inside person within the enemy ranks or else you are screwed.

Edit: PS, Garviel, it is what it is. If there is a wardec, and you need to go to/through high sec, you may have to engage in pvp against war targets whether you like it or not.

"We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them." Albert Einstein 

Andy Landen
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#12 - 2012-10-28 12:42:30 UTC
Yesterday, 5 pilots engaged 2 war targets in BCs. Because of a single neutral logistics, we lost all five of our ships and they lost neither of theirs. The system was a couple out from Jita. The story is common and old to all who have ever engaged in HS War decs. Because we could not anticipate the neutral logistics ship, we engaged in a battle which was doomed from the start to fail. The Oneiros easily held the tanks of the war target battle cruisers, and while we did switch primary to the Oneiros as soon as we figured out that the Oneiros was assisting the war targets, it was too late. We could not tell how many other logistics ships might be ready to assist the oneiros, and much of our damage had already been spent on a target which would had zero chance of going down while their dps was working just fine. While I have already addressed the common rebuttal of "just kill their neutral logistic(s)" (which did not turn red to any of us), I wish to address a couple other common rebuttals.

Just bring enough to alpha any neutral logistics, so that the threat of additional neutral logistics being brought to support/escalate the committed logistics cannot keep them up. Does anyone realize what it takes to alpha a well fit logistics cruiser? If every war target must be engaged with that much alpha, the required resources to handle war decs would stress the largest null sec alliances from their normal null sec operations.

Bring your own logistics or neutral logistics. This results (at best) in a stalemate unless either side has enough resources to alpha logistics or battlecruisers (the common choice for pvp). So war decs become a game of stalemates as each side escalates the engagement of neutral logistics with more neutral logistics from the sea of neutrals on systems and surrounding systems. No FC can lead a fleet through high sec when every neutral is potentially a logistics support to their war targets.

Concord must intervene when neutral logistics interferes with war decs in high sec. The idea presented in the first post is the only way to avoid having to treat every neutral or red in high sec potential red in a Vietnam-style rules of engagement situation where everyone is the enemy, but you can't engage anyone until they first engage you.

"We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them." Albert Einstein 

Seranova Farreach
Biomass Negative
#13 - 2012-10-28 15:11:16 UTC
Garviel Tarrant wrote:
Stop

Trying

To

PVP

In

Highsec



Highsec pvp is absolutely terrible.


its funny though! remember a harbi getting concordokkened and killing a few other ships years ago when i herpderp can flipped with a drake :P brix were sh@t when they rolled up in a navy raven with torps and due to being pointed i couldnt mwd orbit and lol gank the raven :P

[u]___________________ http://i.imgur.com/d9Ee2ik.jpg[/u]

Andy Landen
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#14 - 2012-10-29 20:54:44 UTC  |  Edited by: Andy Landen
This is about logistics neuts getting into war decs with minimal commitment and no warning to the other side before they are committed to the battle. Keep on topic.

"We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them." Albert Einstein 

KriaGen
deadhraegl
#15 - 2012-12-23 22:28:47 UTC
Andy Landen wrote:
Yesterday, 5 pilots engaged 2 war targets in BCs. Because of a single neutral logistics, we lost all five of our ships and they lost neither of theirs. The system was a couple out from Jita. The story is common and old to all who have ever engaged in HS War decs. Because we could not anticipate the neutral logistics ship, we engaged in a battle which was doomed from the start to fail. The Oneiros easily held the tanks of the war target battle cruisers, and while we did switch primary to the Oneiros as soon as we figured out that the Oneiros was assisting the war targets, it was too late. We could not tell how many other logistics ships might be ready to assist the oneiros, and much of our damage had already been spent on a target which would had zero chance of going down while their dps was working just fine. While I have already addressed the common rebuttal of "just kill their neutral logistic(s)" (which did not turn red to any of us), I wish to address a couple other common rebuttals.

Just bring enough to alpha any neutral logistics, so that the threat of additional neutral logistics being brought to support/escalate the committed logistics cannot keep them up. Does anyone realize what it takes to alpha a well fit logistics cruiser? If every war target must be engaged with that much alpha, the required resources to handle war decs would stress the largest null sec alliances from their normal null sec operations.

Bring your own logistics or neutral logistics. This results (at best) in a stalemate unless either side has enough resources to alpha logistics or battlecruisers (the common choice for pvp). So war decs become a game of stalemates as each side escalates the engagement of neutral logistics with more neutral logistics from the sea of neutrals on systems and surrounding systems. No FC can lead a fleet through high sec when every neutral is potentially a logistics support to their war targets.

Concord must intervene when neutral logistics interferes with war decs in high sec. The idea presented in the first post is the only way to avoid having to treat every neutral or red in high sec potential red in a Vietnam-style rules of engagement situation where everyone is the enemy, but you can't engage anyone until they first engage you.



Agreed.

Neutral logistics aiding an enemy war target and not going suspect or shootable in any way is an exploit and probably against EULA and should be a bannable offense.
~ Why should i have to fight with CCP about getting my ship back when my enemy uses an exploit to stay alive. Better yet if CCP doesn't fix it. why shouldn't i use the same exploit to keep myself alive.