Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Hi out there,

i am quite a long term eve player now and at times i am more active and at other times i take a break for a few month.
But one thing i always wanted in the game since the day i discovered it wasn't possible is:

Being able to dock at a carrier or supercarrier, etc.

I think it would and will be awesome if implemented and it would give certain new edges to gameplay.
But let my split my post in a few parts:

1.) The Details of "pseudo-dock" and "is it difficult to code ?"
2.) The benefits for gameplay
3.) Adressing balancing concerns..


1.)
Since real docking, like in stations, was always disputed to be difficult as i remember, due to the code and the way the game works... or the way gameplay works or whatever...

I propose a "pseudo-dock" mechanic.

What this means is basically you can choose to "dock" at a carrier or supercarrier out of your right click menu as you can also access hangars and fittings if allowed.
What happens now is, that your ship is stored in the ship maintance bay and your "view" simply changes to ship you docked to, as if you would select it and click the camera button in your space UI.

So no station menu, no walking in station etc. Simply you are now spectator of the ship you docked to AND you can right click it and choose "undock" again at any time.

While docked you can do nothing else with your own, docked ship or the cargo and the hangars if that is messing up coding. But if it isn't difficult to programm you can simply do all the stuff you could also do while being next to each other in space.

If the ship you docked to, jumps, you jump with it (i know it is cool isn't it ?). If it is destroyed, your ship is destroyed with it and your pod is placed in space...or hell if that is to difficult to do, you simply are podded right away. If you log out, your ship is automatically undocked and logged out as usuall. If the captain of the "mothership" logs out, you are undocked from the ship. If the "mothership" docks in a station or is placed in a pos, you are undocked from the ship simply before that happens.

If aggressed or in combat yourself, you cannot dock at the ship or no ship can dock at your ship, you can however "undock" if the "mothership" that you are currently docked at is in combat.

See ? Everything is pretty easy and uses pretty much only mechanisms that are already in place. That shouldn't be to hard to programm actually on top of the existing code.

2.) Why ?
Simply because it will give carriers, supercarriers, titans and roquals or whatever more of the flavour and feeling they should always have had to begin with. Not only as a logistic tool for empty ships but as a logistic tools for ships AND it's pilots.
Just from a gameplay flavour point of view it makes no sense whatsoever that you can store "your ship" into a carrier and then not get your tiny capsule on board with it...i mean ...really ?

Now that would give smaller corps and player groups the much needed logistic kick, that they miss currently...when they are not having a titan themselves. Plus it would just FEEL awesome on every level.
Now recognize that there is still a massive difference to titan bridges, as:
- Firstly, the logistic ship puts themselves in harms way and out there, as opposed to the titan that just sits safely at the pos.
- Secondly, the capacity of a carrier for example is massively limited in what he can store in his ship bay and thus, take with him.

It would also open up more interesting gameplay options on numerous levels.
- New means of logistics for smaller entities and groups
- New means of warfare tactic, be it offensiv invasion or defensiv evading
- New means for baiting and concealing fleetpower
- Opens up new gameplay for the likes of the rorqual
- MASSIVE increase in coolness and feel of the game and the shipclass carrier, or rorqual etc. Even if those are NOT combat geared.

3.) Adressing balancing concerns:

- "Man titan hotdrops already kill eve...now carrier hotdrops and co ? You are insane!"
I can see this frightening a few small gang pirate veterans or whatever...but think about it. A carrier is pretty limited
in capacity and on top of it IF they do so, you get to kill the carrier maybe ...you never get to kill the titan.
Also carriers are widely available and so the tactic might even be available for your small group too.#
Also recognize, that a carrier cannot even fit two tier 3 battleships in his bay, so the amount of ships he brings will
generally be low, moderate at best. For a gigantic hotdrop of the likes of titan hotdrops...you would need to bring a fleet of those capitals ... which does not only needs manpower..it also puts more caps in harms way and is way riskier.

- "Invading Space - otherwise guarded by Gatecamps becomes more easily":
I feel this one isn't much of a problem, but maybe even desired. It is the same which the blackops changes are geared towards essentially. In Nullsec space grab ttan bridges that have pretty much zero risk for the titan are common anyway and i do not feel this added feature makes much of a difference here, despite putting more caps in harms way...when performing logistic features...as i think is a desirable outcome.
if you are concerned about the range of carriers...just scale that down if you need to, but i think that shouldn't really be a balance issue.



TL; DR
To sum it up, "dock" at a carrier and co is easy to implement if one steps away from the station docking environment but simply simply puts your ship in the bay and attaches your char to the ship in a camera perspective. It would FEEL awesome and also BE awesome and opens up numerous new plays and logistic especially for smaller groups of players who cannot afford tit

Mhm that sounds like the kind of thing that was stated alot. As a computer scientist and semi experienced programmer
i cannot however understand how it would be a very big deal to add a new mechanic that merely attaches your capsule to a ship. I mean really something like "make it invis and invulnerable, let it fly next to the ship at all times...and jump with it if needed AND put the cameraview of the player to the "look at ship" view that already exists in the game"
would already be a very crude way to implement that feature..without ever even touching the "player in ship" code, as i see it.

Now i do not really advertise such a solution, i just want to illustrate how simple it could probably be implemented roughly.
I am not working professionally as programmer but having quite a fair share of programming experience in different projects and also bigger projects. I just don't really buy into the idea of having unmountable obstacles "serverside" and having to rewrite the whole game for that. Especially not with a dozens of creative probably highly skilled programmers around at CCP.