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[Suggested] Biggest Freighter Improvement - add a low slot
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Maximus Andendare
Stimulus
Rote Kapelle
#1 - 2012-12-02 22:03:32 UTC
Adding a low slot to freighters would give several advantages to upgrade New Eden's largest hauling ships. It would give you the option to add a DCU (for the most survivability), a cargo expander! (for increased size during those mineral hauls), nanofiber or istabs (faster aligning) or maybe even reinforced bulkheads (for afk hauling), to name a few.

Further, it'd make a slot for future hauling-themed modules, such as if CCP ever added a slot that'd make the cargo hold unscannable, or maybe a module that'd destroy more of the cargo it was carrying if the ship was lost.

Adding a low slot would allow for the most flexibility to be decided by the pilot in keeping true with the sandbox mentality. Plus, it'd add another element of flexibility to a ship that currently has none. We've all seen firsthand how well Orca's worked with their module slots (obviously meant for mining support, but that's another topic).

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Danika Princip
GoonWaffe
Goonswarm Federation
#2 - 2012-12-02 22:35:30 UTC
So effectively ungankable freighters, or freighters carrying caps into highsec then?

Why, exactly, would those be good things?
Maximus Andendare
Stimulus
Rote Kapelle
#3 - 2012-12-02 22:59:06 UTC  |  Edited by: Maximus Andendare
Danika Princip wrote:
So effectively ungankable freighters, or freighters carrying caps into highsec then?

Why, exactly, would those be good things?
Freighters would still be gankable; it would just take more T3 BCs; they're cheap enough this shouldn't be a problem--this *would* have been an issue if you had to fit more BSs. With the much cheaper cost of T3 BCs, it's not that big of a deal.

Besides, its better to give freighter's *some* choices and *some* chances at survival. Now, there's nothing the freighter pilot can do. It's a simple numbers game. The hp of freighters are known and its very easy to calculate how many ganking ships its gonna take. Giving a bonus (DCU) for a freighter pilot that is at his keyboard is something that should be rewarded.

Carrying caps would open up more markets for players to buy caps. That's never a bad thing.

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Nevyn Auscent
Broke Sauce
#4 - 2012-12-02 23:01:14 UTC
One would assume for every low slot/rig slot added, base cargo would decrease by a matching amount so that a T1 fit would hold no more than current when maxxed for cargo.
So you would be choosing cargo vs survivability. I.e. Choices. Rather than the current 'This is a freighter, everyone knows it's exact stats, you can do nothing to change this'
Minty Moon
#5 - 2012-12-02 23:09:42 UTC  |  Edited by: Minty Moon
Over powered, can you imagine the EHP on a freighter with a DCU?


They wont introduce unscannable modules. they are modifying blockade runners for that. Essentially you'll have to make a choice how you want to solo haul safely or efficiently.

Nevyn Auscent wrote:
One would assume for every low slot/rig slot added, base cargo would decrease by a matching amount so that a T1 fit would hold no more than current when maxxed for cargo.
So you would be choosing cargo vs survivability. I.e. Choices. Rather than the current 'This is a freighter, everyone knows it's exact stats, you can do nothing to change this'


Currently except for expanding its cargo, you can already do a lot to protect a freighter beyond the hull itself/ Theres a mountain of implants to choose from to increase speed in various aspects, increase armor hp if im not mistaken as well. Theres also fleet assistant modules that can be fitted on support ships to boost your resistances.

So actually if you're smart and put in the investment you can do a lot to change the "exact" stats of a freighter already

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Maximus Andendare
Stimulus
Rote Kapelle
#6 - 2012-12-02 23:14:36 UTC
Minty Moon wrote:
Currently except for expanding its cargo, you can already do a lot to protect a freighter beyond the hull itself/ Theres a mountain of implants to choose from to increase speed in various aspects, increase armor hp if im not mistaken as well. Theres also fleet assistant modules that can be fitted on support ships to boost your resistances.

So actually if you're smart and put in the investment you can do a lot to change the "exact" stats of a freighter already
Yes, and gankers can enhance their pods with an array of implants AND enhance their ships via modules. Giving choices for the freighter pilot and providing him or her with some tools to enhance and customize his or her ship isn't a bad thing.

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ShahFluffers
Ice Fire Warriors
#7 - 2012-12-03 00:17:44 UTC
Maximus Andendare wrote:
Minty Moon wrote:
Currently except for expanding its cargo, you can already do a lot to protect a freighter beyond the hull itself/ Theres a mountain of implants to choose from to increase speed in various aspects, increase armor hp if im not mistaken as well. Theres also fleet assistant modules that can be fitted on support ships to boost your resistances.

So actually if you're smart and put in the investment you can do a lot to change the "exact" stats of a freighter already
Yes, and gankers can enhance their pods with an array of implants AND enhance their ships via modules. Giving choices for the freighter pilot and providing him or her with some tools to enhance and customize his or her ship isn't a bad thing.

Except that giving freighters the ability to fit things requires that they also receive nerfs for every slot added... so they don't become overpowered.

Also... the beauty of EVE is that every advantage/edge your enemies use against you can also be used against them. Learn how gankers operate... see what tricks they use... turn those tricks against them.

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Andski
Science and Trade Institute
Caldari State
#8 - 2012-12-03 00:45:29 UTC
This would demand a 27.5% cargo nerf for freighters. There is a reason why the freighter with the largest cargohold stops oh so short of 1 million m3.

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Minty Moon
#9 - 2012-12-03 00:48:20 UTC
Maximus Andendare wrote:
Minty Moon wrote:
Currently except for expanding its cargo, you can already do a lot to protect a freighter beyond the hull itself/ Theres a mountain of implants to choose from to increase speed in various aspects, increase armor hp if im not mistaken as well. Theres also fleet assistant modules that can be fitted on support ships to boost your resistances.

So actually if you're smart and put in the investment you can do a lot to change the "exact" stats of a freighter already
Yes, and gankers can enhance their pods with an array of implants AND enhance their ships via modules. Giving choices for the freighter pilot and providing him or her with some tools to enhance and customize his or her ship isn't a bad thing.


yes and that requires a greater investment from the gankers to not kill you who increased yourself. Ganking is a numbers game to optimize potential profit. They use just enough to be safe.
Increasing your own investment to protect yourself will increase their cost to gank you. Making them more wary of doing it as its alpha damage they need more pilots which also means splitting the profit more. To gank a freighter what each pilot needs to make 120-150mil to break even? adding another pilot essentially forces them to have to calculate the split more since freighters wont drop everything and makes them have to aim for larger targets with a greater potential for drop.

Take into account now soon that freighter pilots can now sell kill rights to pilots that might carry hefty bounties. Which increases pirates potential loss as well

You can't argue that "well yes we can improve our defense, but they can improve their offense!" and then claim its still unfair because you want more, because you want to haul more at one time with less work/risk.


CCP has done an actual fantastic job in balancing pirate activity so far. People just need to think outside the box more and think outside the box when figuring out how to protect yourself. Theres plenty of ways to do it and adding lowslots would just overpower those that already figured out how to protect themselves

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Crimeo Khamsi
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#10 - 2012-12-03 01:36:06 UTC
@OP,

yeah, sure, that would be fine. but you would at the same time have to nerf every single aspect of a freighter such that with the relevant module, it would get up to only where it is now (or maybe a little bit higher for everything except cargo). E.g.:

Cargo: 27.5% less base cargo than now
EHP: 15-20% less structure hitpoints, since that's the biggest tank of a freighter (you could get a slight boost with a bulkhead, at +25)
Agility: 10-15% or so less than currently (istab will get you +20%)
Speed: no change (overdrive is +12 and nanofiber +9 or so, but speed is so unimportant that if you want to give up all that EHP and cargo, go for it, I say)

If you changed ALL of the above, then a low slot would be reasonable, but I doubt you want that.
Maximus Andendare
Stimulus
Rote Kapelle
#11 - 2012-12-03 02:57:06 UTC
Crimeo Khamsi wrote:
@OP,

yeah, sure, that would be fine. but you would at the same time have to nerf every single aspect of a freighter such that with the relevant module, it would get up to only where it is now (or maybe a little bit higher for everything except cargo). E.g.:

Cargo: 27.5% less base cargo than now
EHP: 15-20% less structure hitpoints, since that's the biggest tank of a freighter (you could get a slight boost with a bulkhead, at +25)
Agility: 10-15% or so less than currently (istab will get you +20%)
Speed: no change (overdrive is +12 and nanofiber +9 or so, but speed is so unimportant that if you want to give up all that EHP and cargo, go for it, I say)

If you changed ALL of the above, then a low slot would be reasonable, but I doubt you want that.

You and everyone who keeps responding are making the assumption that freighters are in the best place they can be now. I'm saying that's a false assumption. There is room to improve upon them. And the method that'd have the most impact would be to add a low slot that'd open up many possibilities to further add to customization in that ship line.

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Crimeo Khamsi
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#12 - 2012-12-03 04:18:58 UTC  |  Edited by: Crimeo Khamsi
Maximus Andendare wrote:
Crimeo Khamsi wrote:
@OP,

yeah, sure, that would be fine. but you would at the same time have to nerf every single aspect of a freighter such that with the relevant module, it would get up to only where it is now (or maybe a little bit higher for everything except cargo). E.g.:

Cargo: 27.5% less base cargo than now
EHP: 15-20% less structure hitpoints, since that's the biggest tank of a freighter (you could get a slight boost with a bulkhead, at +25)
Agility: 10-15% or so less than currently (istab will get you +20%)
Speed: no change (overdrive is +12 and nanofiber +9 or so, but speed is so unimportant that if you want to give up all that EHP and cargo, go for it, I say)

If you changed ALL of the above, then a low slot would be reasonable, but I doubt you want that.

You and everyone who keeps responding are making the assumption that freighters are in the best place they can be now. I'm saying that's a false assumption. There is room to improve upon them. And the method that'd have the most impact would be to add a low slot that'd open up many possibilities to further add to customization in that ship line.


No, the method that would "have the most impact" would be something like giving them 6 low slots, 5 high slots, 5 mid slots, rigs, innate covops cloak bonuses, and no-recharge time titan doomsday weapons. Clearly, this would be bad. "Having a high impact" doesn't make something a good idea...

It needs to be a balanced impact, which means you need to give up something for your low slot. If you don't like my suggestions, then tell us what YOU think should be nerfed to balance the low slot? I thought mine were pretty fair, since they let you have anything (except cargo) be potentially a little better than current freighters, but you pay for it moderately in the other aspects.
Kuro Bon
Test Corp 123
#13 - 2012-12-03 04:22:14 UTC
Maximus Andendare wrote:
Freighters would still be gankable; it would just take more T3 BCs; they're cheap enough this shouldn't be a problem--this *would* have been an issue if you had to fit more BSs. With the much cheaper cost of T3 BCs, it's not that big of a deal.

Besides, its better to give freighter's *some* choices and *some* chances at survival. Now, there's nothing the freighter pilot can do. It's a simple numbers game. The hp of freighters are known and its very easy to calculate how many ganking ships its gonna take.


You sort of invalidated your own argument there. If it's a numbers game before a low-slot, it's a numbers game after a low slot. You just made the numbers irrelevantly bigger. In fact, you sait it yourself, "it's not that big of a deal"

What freighters need is a more chance-based mechanic. Where they have a "chance" to get out before they pop. The longer it takes to kill them, the more chance they have to get out. Whether the blob has 3 or 10, there should be a CHANCE to get out, and a CHANCE to die, those chances can be swayed by bigger numbers, but not so much that it's basically a guarantee. (aka 50% chance to get away with 3 attackers, 15% chance to get away with 10 attackers).

It's this unpredictability which makes players feel like they "won" or "lost" something when it happens. If the outcome is 100% predictable, the process is just a boring annoyance on the way to an inevitable outcome.

Protip: 100M ISK per hour is about $3US an hour.
Kuro Bon
Test Corp 123
#14 - 2012-12-03 04:26:02 UTC
Crimeo Khamsi wrote:
@OP,

yeah, sure, that would be fine. but you would at the same time have to nerf every single aspect of a freighter such that with the relevant module, it would get up to only where it is now (or maybe a little bit higher for everything except cargo). E.g.:

Cargo: 27.5% less base cargo than now
EHP: 15-20% less structure hitpoints, since that's the biggest tank of a freighter (you could get a slight boost with a bulkhead, at +25)
Agility: 10-15% or so less than currently (istab will get you +20%)
Speed: no change (overdrive is +12 and nanofiber +9 or so, but speed is so unimportant that if you want to give up all that EHP and cargo, go for it, I say)

If you changed ALL of the above, then a low slot would be reasonable, but I doubt you want that.


This math doesn't make much sense.

To give it a low slot, you'd just adjust base specs so that with a cargo expander it reached it's current specs (mostly a base cargo space nerf). That becomes the "stock" equivalent to today.

Then if a player wants to trade max-cargo space for something else, they have that option.

Protip: 100M ISK per hour is about $3US an hour.
Minty Moon
#15 - 2012-12-03 04:48:19 UTC
Maximus Andendare wrote:
Crimeo Khamsi wrote:
@OP,

yeah, sure, that would be fine. but you would at the same time have to nerf every single aspect of a freighter such that with the relevant module, it would get up to only where it is now (or maybe a little bit higher for everything except cargo). E.g.:

Cargo: 27.5% less base cargo than now
EHP: 15-20% less structure hitpoints, since that's the biggest tank of a freighter (you could get a slight boost with a bulkhead, at +25)
Agility: 10-15% or so less than currently (istab will get you +20%)
Speed: no change (overdrive is +12 and nanofiber +9 or so, but speed is so unimportant that if you want to give up all that EHP and cargo, go for it, I say)

If you changed ALL of the above, then a low slot would be reasonable, but I doubt you want that.

You and everyone who keeps responding are making the assumption that freighters are in the best place they can be now. I'm saying that's a false assumption. There is room to improve upon them. And the method that'd have the most impact would be to add a low slot that'd open up many possibilities to further add to customization in that ship line.


there is room for improvement, but the hull is fine itself. There are mechanics to improve around you that need to be utilized, but aren't because everyone wants a solo play solution to every problem that comes from groups

I actually have never seen anyone complain that there freighter was ganked with a full slave set, noble mechanic implant, a noble hull upgrade, and fleet boosts down the line. My cheap little fitting app on my phone using implants and a single legion booster boosts a provi's EHP from 193.7k to 289.9k.

My only quarrel is I don't think a charon could be assisted to match that amount of EHP or resistance

You also might be interested to know that also according to my fitting tool. Freighters get a 25% resist across the board against projectile ammo o.O Hmm apparently CCP did adjust for the tier 3's alpha being exploited

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Crimeo Khamsi
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#16 - 2012-12-03 04:48:30 UTC  |  Edited by: Crimeo Khamsi
Kuro Bon wrote:

This math doesn't make much sense.

To give it a low slot, you'd just adjust base specs so that with a cargo expander it reached it's current specs (mostly a base cargo space nerf). That becomes the "stock" equivalent to today.

Then if a player wants to trade max-cargo space for something else, they have that option.


But cargo expanders are not the only thing you can add in a low slot, and there's no obvious reason to focus purely on cargo expansion as the ONLY thing you sacrifice when using any of those other modules...

So you need to nerf everything a little bit, ideally "equally"

Perhaps I was too harsh in my specific numbers, though, I admit. Instead, let's just take each type of best module for improving each of those 4 major aspects of the ship that are relevant to freighters, and nerf each aspect by 1/4 of what the module can add to the ship.

That way, any one module will yield a ship with roughly overall equal "goodness" overall to the current freighter, but min/maxed in one desired direction. So:

Cargo (cargo expanders): 27.5 / 4 = 6.875% nerf to stock freighter
Alignment (istab): 20 / 4 = 5% penalty to inertia modifier
EHP (damage control II) 60 / 4 = 15% reduction in structure points, 15/4 = 3.75% reduction in armor, and 12.5 / 4 = 3.125% reduction in shield.
Speed (overdrive injector): 12.5/4 = 3.125% reduction in base speed.

PLEASE NOTE: I didn't feel like opening up an excel spreadsheet for this. Obviously, you can't just take percentage bonuses and multiply/divide them by integers like I did there. You'd have to do it so that they geometrically came out to the right sized nerfs. So each of those would actually be a bigger penalty by a bit than what I wrote. Especially the structure hitpoints for the damage control II. Whatever, you get the basic idea.



And finally: the above numbers would allow a cargo expander to create enough room to bring capital ships into hi-sec. Thus, to go along with all of this, CCP would have to simply hard-code it so that freighters with capital ships in their holds cannot enter hisec, or something.

More fair?
Aurelius Valentius
Valentius Corporation
Valentius Corporation Alliance
#17 - 2012-12-03 05:31:29 UTC
+1 to a rebalance of Freighters to make more interesting - I would be for a total rebuild so they could have rigs, HS/MS/LS in them... same with shuttles... they could use some means of making them more interesting fits.

Now for everyone going OMG, this, that... fitting this....screaming, whine, etc... - very simple solution.

"This module cannot be fit to this ship" - just like the MDJ is now on the test... so it's not impossible to limit the module that could be fit... simply only allow modules that are balanced to fit on these hulls... eg... no smartbombs on HS on Freighters - unless CCP thought that was ok... har har..

But I would love to see any ship w/o slots and rigs have them, even if it's limited to a couple fittings, because this adds one critical thing to a ship that it doesn't have atm... unpredictability...

Right now it's not even a guess to Gank a Freighter - becauses the stats are there and unchanging, you can precisely adjust for the ship - this is silly and so a DCU would be a great addition, just to say is it fit one or not.. we don't know... or maybe it has a inerial stab... it might warp off faster than expected... and so on, maybe it has a WCS or 2 of them...etc.

These ships could be rebalanced to have some flex no problem and they would be better for it and the game would also.