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[Proposal] Rorqual-Orca Tweak
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Endovior
PFU Consortium
#1 - 2011-10-25 04:13:34 UTC
As is immediately obvious to anyone who has worked with them, the Rorqual really doesn't do what it's marketed to do. No one in their right minds would have their hugely expensive Rorqual sitting in a belt grabbing the cans... instead, the Rorqual always and exclusively sits in a POS, passively radiating it's bonus while chewing up ore. That'd be pretty bad design in general, but most people who use Rorquals have mining alts anyways, so it's probably not like an actual person is sitting in the POS cooling their heels. Of course, that does mean that the tractor beam bonus on the Rorqual is pretty much worthless.

On the other hand, we have the Orca, which is usually found in the belts, sitting there radiating bonuses and grabbing the loot. They aren't plagued with any kind of siege mode that renders them supremely vulnerable, so clever Orca pilots can reasonably flee when hostiles show up... which is why Orcas can afford to sit in the belts, where clever pirates might manage to gank them.

Accordingly, I propose that the Rorqual be stripped of it's scanner/tractor bonuses, and instead be given a bonus more suited to what it actually does... fuel consumption on it's jump drive, for instance. At the same time, replace the Orca's bonus with ordinary tractor beams with the ability to use Capital Tractor Beams. That actually makes Capital Tractor Beams kind of useful, and something Orca pilots would want to use over regular tractor beams... and at the same time, replaces a totally useless bonus on the Rorqual with something that people will actually benefit from.

An alternative would be to instead tweak the Industrial Core, and the Rorqual in general, such that sieging a Rorqual in a belt doesn't necessarily mean doom... probably give a sieged Rorqual some of the usual Capital protections, and generally make Rorquals more buff so it can handle some pew pew, if properly supported. Lots of options to choose from on this route... a bonus to Sentries while sieged, perhaps, possibly including an additional drone per level? In any event, the end result of this choice should be that a Rorqual sieged in a belt offers a degree of protection to a local mining op, instead of representing a huge vulnerability, and should require nontrivial effort to take down.

Thoughts?
MNagy
Yo-Mama
#2 - 2011-10-25 14:09:38 UTC
I have always thought it would be cool that if the rorq would have an automatic "mini hauler drone" in it. Kinda like a drone.

You tell it to fly to a toon and back and it would just fly to the toon - and warp right back.
The toon that is mining would have to put the ore in the mini hauler b4 it does a turn around and fly's back to the rorq.

The price of the rorq + being in deployed mode + ice fuel being used should justify it.
The more skill you have in a mining drone - the more little haulers you can have wizzing by to pilots to pick up ore.

Who in their right mind would pull out a rorq or an orca in ls or null or wh -

Endovior
PFU Consortium
#3 - 2011-10-25 18:08:41 UTC
Are you saying a mini hauler drone that actually warps out to the mining op in the belt to get filled with ore? And then warps back to the POS? That... sounds like a little much, TBH.

Either we want the paradigm where the Rorqual is a glorified POS module, or we want the paradigm where it is beefy enough to sit sieged in the belt. The two are mutually incompatible. If the Rorqual is doing the job of the haulers, it should be at risk in the belt; if it's not, a hauler is needed.
Endovior
PFU Consortium
#4 - 2011-10-28 22:25:47 UTC
...hmm. No love for the Rorqual?
David Fightmaster
Golden Goose Privateers
#5 - 2011-10-31 01:58:18 UTC
I have much love for the rorq. Just don't know what should be done with the ship. I support you on this because I believe CCP might want to revisit on this ship should actually be useful to miners in 0.0 like myself. So far, its just a POS module that burns up fuel lol.
Max Von Sydow
24th Imperial Crusade
Amarr Empire
#6 - 2011-10-31 11:56:36 UTC
get rid of offgrid boosting and I think some people will bring their rorquals to the belts.
MNagy
Yo-Mama
#7 - 2011-10-31 18:18:17 UTC
I don't think people would bring the rorq to the belts. Too easy to gank and suddenly your out 2 bill.

It is good for compressing the ore - and a tiny mining boost - but thats about it.
Endovior
PFU Consortium
#8 - 2011-10-31 19:50:14 UTC
Agreed... the Rorqual's mining bonus isn't big enough to warrant it being sieged in-belt, not as it currently stands. If you were to go the radical route of changing the fleet system so as to block off-grid boosting, then you'd also need to buff the Rorqual to make it a reasonable combatant, otherwise there'd be no point to it having even the mining boosts at all... which would be a fairly severe change of role from it's current state.
Elson Tamar
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#9 - 2011-10-31 22:10:14 UTC
It is a very large expensive target, which is a bit rubbish for a ship which is ment to fly around. I like the drone idea, but only in the same belt, so then your rorq has a reason to be there.
Sephiroth Clone VII
Brothers of Tyr
Goonswarm Federation
#10 - 2011-10-31 22:48:17 UTC
If its a industrial ship, then make it do something industrial. In addtion to compressing ores, refining them? turning them into products, a efficent mobile factory.
Endovior
PFU Consortium
#11 - 2011-10-31 23:02:45 UTC
That would be kind of awesome... but actually refining ores on-site would entirely eliminate the reason for compressing them. Ore compression is cool on it's own, and probably shouldn't be superseded by a boring and economically dubious local refinery.
David Grogan
University of Caille
Gallente Federation
#12 - 2011-11-01 20:52:31 UTC
Endovior wrote:
As is immediately obvious to anyone who has worked with them, the Rorqual really doesn't do what it's marketed to do. No one in their right minds would have their hugely expensive Rorqual sitting in a belt grabbing the cans... instead, the Rorqual always and exclusively sits in a POS, passively radiating it's bonus while chewing up ore. That'd be pretty bad design in general, but most people who use Rorquals have mining alts anyways, so it's probably not like an actual person is sitting in the POS cooling their heels. Of course, that does mean that the tractor beam bonus on the Rorqual is pretty much worthless.

On the other hand, we have the Orca, which is usually found in the belts, sitting there radiating bonuses and grabbing the loot. They aren't plagued with any kind of siege mode that renders them supremely vulnerable, so clever Orca pilots can reasonably flee when hostiles show up... which is why Orcas can afford to sit in the belts, where clever pirates might manage to gank them.

Accordingly, I propose that the Rorqual be stripped of it's scanner/tractor bonuses, and instead be given a bonus more suited to what it actually does... fuel consumption on it's jump drive, for instance. At the same time, replace the Orca's bonus with ordinary tractor beams with the ability to use Capital Tractor Beams. That actually makes Capital Tractor Beams kind of useful, and something Orca pilots would want to use over regular tractor beams... and at the same time, replaces a totally useless bonus on the Rorqual with something that people will actually benefit from.

An alternative would be to instead tweak the Industrial Core, and the Rorqual in general, such that sieging a Rorqual in a belt doesn't necessarily mean doom... probably give a sieged Rorqual some of the usual Capital protections, and generally make Rorquals more buff so it can handle some pew pew, if properly supported. Lots of options to choose from on this route... a bonus to Sentries while sieged, perhaps, possibly including an additional drone per level? In any event, the end result of this choice should be that a Rorqual sieged in a belt offers a degree of protection to a local mining op, instead of representing a huge vulnerability, and should require nontrivial effort to take down.

Thoughts?


no need to change orca's tractor bonus..... with new T2 tractor beams coming in the range on an orca will be about 100km....... that is more than enough.

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Endovior
PFU Consortium
#13 - 2011-11-01 21:05:21 UTC
I shrug. Capital Tractor Beams seem as though they'd be more appropriate to the Orca; and the Orca pilots I've talked to about that agree.

That said, at present, and as a practical note, unless the Rorqual is changed so as to make it viable in belts, the Capital Tractor Beam has no reason to exist. If the Orca could use them effectively (which is to say, presuming the final numbers work out such that the Capital Tractor Beams would be more effective for an Orca then regular, small-ship tractor beams), then they'd be used and valuable. If neither of these occurs, then they'll remain a white elephant.
True Sight
Deep Freeze Industries
#14 - 2011-11-02 18:46:53 UTC
I would really love to be able to take my Rorqual into the belts, so the big, important question is "what would it take for me to do that"

You could give him a big strong tanking ability, that would negate a lot of the smaller threats but wouldn't do much about a T2, BS gang or hot-drop.

You could reduce the cost of having it, so it wouldn't sting so much to loose it, but I don't really like that idea, I like the current pricing structure and the benefits from the ship already are pretty cool as it is, giving those benefits away for cheaper seems like a poor solution

Give it a strong offensive capability along with shielding would allow it to take a lot more, but you're still in a situation where your mining gang is crying out for help whilst your Rorqual is locked down and in most cases you'd still loose it.

Random suggestion: Give its siege mode a micro-POS shield, significantly less HP than a small POS, but enough to withstand a small gang attack for a while, would require targetted interdiction from a heavy interdictor to lock down, even allow your mining ships to retreat into if attacked (although they'd still probably be safter warping out)
Endovior
PFU Consortium
#15 - 2011-11-02 23:46:38 UTC
A mini-POS shield around a Rorqual for the miners to retreat into? That's... quite an awesome idea, and would indeed allow for a Rorqual to offer protection to the mining op... but at the same time, it wouldn't present an actual threat to the attacking force, which means that the mining op would still need other ships to defend it from the gang... but those ships would have the time to get there, while the attacking gang is busy shooting down the Rorqual's forcefield. I approve; that's probably the best 'Belt Rorqual' option out there.
Endovior
PFU Consortium
#16 - 2011-11-03 07:52:42 UTC
Thinking about it, you probably don't want the POS bubble effect going off every time the Rorqual sieges... it has the potential to be inconvenient to friendlies, after all, and in the event that someone wants to munch on ore inside a POS as is currently normal, you don't want the two systems interfering.

Accordingly, I'd suggest an expensive script named something like 'Defensive Matrix Reconfiguration', which can be loaded into the Industrial Core. Unlike most scripts, this script would be somewhat bulky and require expensive ingredients to produce. This script would shorten the duration of the siege mode, probably by about half, both doubling fuel consumption over time and making it easier to make a quick getaway if need be. While the core is active under this script, the Rorqual would project a small-ish forcefield... no more then 10 km... which would exclude all non-gang members. No passwords, here; just a question of in-fleet or not in-fleet. While the forcefield is up, the Rorqual would have capital ship immunity... but not the immunity to remote support, such that it can receive reps, should a friendly support force be deployed to defend it in a pitched fight. Obviously, a Rorqual with this script loaded can't use it inside or near a real POS.

A Rorqual with this script active should probably get an arbitrarily huge bonus to shield HP, such that it can actually tank a BS gang for a few minutes (perhaps a quarter as much HP as an unmodded small POS?)... but if the Rorqual is reduced to zero shields while this mode is active, the forcefield drops, while leaving the Rorqual sieged and helpless for however long is left on it's timer. Not sure how to actually implement the change between vulnerable traveling Rorqual and protected Siege Rorqual... requiring a bunch of shield Logi on hand anyways to rep the Rorqual to maximum shields just because that number's gone up seems wrong, but I don't want to let the Rorqual simply cycle it's siege to refill it's HP in the middle of a fight. Maybe activating the siege changes the Rorqual's max HP, but keeps the same proportional shield strength between modes?

As a final note, a Rorqual with this script active is still able to target and interact with things outside it's shield, unlike the weak mining ships it is protecting. This allows it to still make use of it's Capital Tractor Beam (items transported this way can pass through the shield without incident)... and probably gives clever Rorqual pilots a way of contributing usefully to any battle fought in their own defense.
Temba Ronin
#17 - 2011-11-03 08:20:11 UTC  |  Edited by: Temba Ronin
Want more bang out of the Rorqual? Allow it to be used in high sec in any system that does not have a NPC station. Give it a Micro force field so it could survive annoyance ganks and suddenly what is now a pos module becomes the center piece of mobile mining operations as it was designed to do. The force field would serve as a 12 hour protection for the mining fleet as well. This is the best option it gives the Rorqual a chance to call in combat support which means more pew pew. Pirate But all Rorqual ganks would be exempt from Concord intervention you get a force field and the chance to call for help from your corpies or friends that is all. Of course no Concord intervention means no sec status loss for the successful ganker.

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