Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I have read the threads in which CCP said that bumping is a part of the game and will not be removed.


This thread addresses imbalances in bumping and the related problem of exiting congested stations [notably Jita 4/4].


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Reading recent freighter deaths on killboards, it becomes apparent that bumping is being used in ways that lead to an unbalanced advantage to the neutrals who bump large, slow to align targets in order to prevent them from escaping by entering warp. Small, fast ships can be used to prevent large target from entering warp while the remainder of the gang closes in -- there are several recent examples of this in Niarja in which a gang of approximately 25 destroyers successfully ganked a freighter.

Similar tactics could well be used to delay and thus gank any large, slow to align ship -- Orca, jump freighter, barge, exhumer, and/or shiny faction battleship come to mind.

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I propose a multi part fix --

1. Give the sentry guns the added CONCORD role to immediately punishing lawbreakers. This will reduce CONCORD response times near gates and stations to a very few seconds. While it will still be possible to gank by gate and station camping, more firepower will be required in each instance.

2. Revise the AI controlling the sentry guns and CONCORD forces so that target selection better mimics what a human FC would choose. Target all lawbreakers simultaneously and allocate weapons to multiple targets based on rough target toughness ... webbify small targets and allocate only one weapon to them, while scramming larger or harder targets and allocating multiple weapons. Groups of small ganking ships would thus incur three, to as many as ten casualties be salvo instead of only one.

3. revise EVE mechanics to better reflect the laws of physics. The vector effect of a collision [bumping] becomes proportional to the ratio of mass of the ships involved times the relative [vector] velocity of the ships. Thus, a small, low mass ship even at high speed would have little effect on the vector of travel of a large ship while the small ship would literally 'bounce' a goodly distance at some speed.

Couple this with the expected damage that such a collision would inflict on the ships involved -- which would be proportionally much larger for the small ship BUT when a ship's warp drive in engaged [add visual effect so all can see this -- pulsing green shroud around ship? tail of fire effect?], the ship becomes immune to damage caused by bumping because the warp field absorbs the damage.

{Aside: conceptually, the way a station ejects ships is with a pressor field which acts similar to a limited warp field -- lasting perhaps 30 seconds maximum and within 3 km. This would make ships exiting stations immune to damage from bumping for the limited time/distance but still leave them subject to being targeted and ganked -- they could also still be diverted, but a small ship would have a small vector effect on them while suffering damage. (I love reusing code -- it's efficient) Thus, two ships both exiting could not damage each other while a small ship posted in the exit lane to disrupt traffic would be damaged repeatedly and perhaps destroyed -- as well as bumped out of the way.}

This last revision would make it possible for a small ship to literally 'suicide gank' a large one that is trying to escape -- the damage caused by bumping at high speed might be so large that the small ship is destroyed [which would prevent multiple bumps by the same small, high speed ship and thus require bump to gank gangs to use more ships.

I do not foresee this as causing a problem when a ship trying to escape enters warp and, before it can align, bumps another ship -- the speed would be so low that the damage caused would be limited to shields only. Just as happens at present, the ship trying to warp would fail to align and thus couldn't warp, but the damage effect on the other ship wouldn't be significant enough to allow an exploit.

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The kills I see involve perhaps 25 destroyers worth maybe 50 million total taking out a freighter with 800 million in cargo in an 05 system at the gate [even at 50% cargo loss, nice odds indeed]. Since the freighter jockey has no warning [he can't see into the system ahead of him] and his align time is long, he's a sitting duck for this tactic.

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Frankly, we've been saying for almost all of EVE's now ten years [feel free to check my 'toon's age] that bumping is unbalanced in favor of the 'neutral' aggressor. This proposal is to try and restore some balance to the situation.


ok, y'all ... from the viewpoint of balancing game play [not your personal isk viewpoint whether you're a freighter jockey or

See.. this is why i generally don't read this forum

so bad..

Or u could have a friend or alt in a daredevil web u through dangerous systems.

and why would a ship entering warp be immune to bump damage? considering the warp drive doesn't kick in until the ship is aligned and reaches a certain speed, it should be still vulnerable up to that point.

if u had thought about ur idea for all of 5 seconds, u may have picked up on the fact that it is really awful. perhaps u could stop being biased towards brainless freighter pilots long enough to come up with a creative solution to the problem that is within existing game mechanics...'avoid system' button maybe, carrying less cargo might help as well, use a scout, ECM escorts...

Beyond that, the search function is useful for finding threads pertaining to an existing idea...u may want to try that before writing a wall of text.

you are wrong.its terribad

point to me on this toy capsuleer where the big bad suicide gankers touched you

there is a problem for you: 2 ships fly toward each other and are on collision course. Question: who is bumper and who is bumpee?

swap mass penalty on MWD for agility penalty and/or less thrust and problem will be solved (even tho there is no problem to begin with, bumping is balanced) - smaller ships will get less momentum (bumping ability).

Small ships should have very little effect on large ships. Also bumping should also do damage to both ships. Also frieghters should have some form of loc defence available to them. Some rig slots would be helpful. And this may come as a suprise to some people here, not everyone who flys a freighter is an afker

Already the case. Gate guns shoot right away irrespective of security status. Believe me... as someone who commits a lot of actions that turn me suspect/criminal I am intimately familiar with gate guns.


Question; how do you determine which destroyer to kill first when all of them are built to die in less than a few seconds?

As for targeting all hostiles and shooting them... it takes 3 hits from two sentry guns to kill a lightly tanked frigate... 4 to 5 for destroyers... with the sentry fire rate being about once every 1 or 2 seconds. Spreading fire from 8 guns among a dozen plus ships will only allow hostiles to perform their task more efficiently because they'd die slower. It will take less time for CONCORD to show up and kill them all.


Okay... but it wouldn't change anything because anything traveling at a high enough velocity, even with low mass, will still affect a larger object.

Plus, Microwarpdrives affect the mass of ships.


Do you know how much effort is required to pull together 25 people at the same time for the same op (that may or may not require a good period of time waiting while doing nothing)? The term "herding cats" is applicable here.

Plus, they are applying a large amount of effort towards a single objective. Why should freighters be more resistant to ganking by smaller, cheaper ships just because it is bigger and more expensive? Put in the same amount of effort (scouts, webber, booting ship, logistics, HP implants, etc) and you will be a target that can avoid and/take more punishment relative to others (which is ultimately the objective, be a less attractive target compared to everyone else).



And CCP held a internal discussion about it and decided to disagree with you. You can't win them all.

No I meant exactly what I said. In matters of relativity, magnitude is a non-factor.

Also, I'm adding you to my list of people who are bad at math.
That list is too big. Instead I am denying you access to my list of people who are not bad at math.

someone is bumphurt

I like the call for more "realistic" physics though. Yeah lets do that, because realistically a ship the size of an interceptor flying at the speeds they do colliding with a freighter would result in the destruction of both ships entirely. I support that.