EVE General Discussion

This is not about the art department.

Industry. In EvE, industry is actually a fairly all-encompassing term used to describe nearly everything not related to combat. Industry involves mining ore, mining ice, mining gas, refining ore into minerals, compressing ore into larger blocks of ore, using minerals to build goods off of blueprints, researching those blueprints to build faster or use less ore, copying those blueprints, building POS's in space, transporting minerals/ore/fuel/goods, trading minerals/ore/fuel/goods, mining moons, interacting with planets to harvest/produce goods ...

Industry has it's hands in everything. Without PvP, industry would stagnate, wither, and lock up. But in the world of EvE, without industry, PvP collapses as well.



Since the dawn of mankind (or at least, it's greatest creation, EvE), each race has had a collection of ships termed as 'industrials'. These ships were simple, cheap, and very focused on their task. They hauled goods.

Some hauled better than others. But they did this dedicated job so well, that they've barely had any changes (if any) since they were put into the game. I'm not sure if any other ship class can come close to them.

So here's the question: Should the Racial Industrials get a brief update so that the rebalance team can move onto other tasks and arguably more necessary overhauls? Or should it get a more in-depth look at their roles (or more honestly, role), with possibly a real, groundshaking overhaul of this long-neglected (or extremely well designed) ship class?

Or should we just rename them as 'Racial Haulers' and be done with the discussion?

I'd say about half and half. They are not as consequential as are the pure combat ships.

And Freighters really are the backbone of the economy, not T1 haulers.

But that said, they're due. So give them the balance pass they deserve, but let's not dwell on it all that much.

To what end? What types. What needs to be done at that ship size, and potentially with those ships?

Quite honestly I've never sat there and thought, "Gee, if only I could compress ore with my Badger." There is really just no reason for it.

That being said, there is also no reason for 5 variants of one racial hauler, all which require 1 more level of the applicable industrial skill and give a slightly larger base cargo size.

Yeah, my opinion is that 'one size fits all' doesn't apply to combat ships, and shouldn't apply to industrials either. Right now, each ship is very specialized in their roles (except for the orca/rorqual). The common assumption is 'if you want to do something, get the right ship'. Fair.

But this specialization is exactly what separates industrial ships from combat ships. Combat ships have diversity, options, an assortment and mixture of capabilities and focuses.

What's wrong with a small industrial that has a regular cargo bay but can let ships fit modules off of it? Sure, the orca can do that.

But that's like saying that you don't need a cruiser with a drone bonus because there's a battleship that does it better.

Good question. Would having a smaller ship that you could swap out your gear on be useful in any current environments?

The benefits of this ship seem immediately obvious to me. First and foremost, it won't cost as much as an Orca. And would be faster. You could use it to support anything from small roams to larger fleets, as you can keep up and your less of an obvious target. Allowing members of your roam to swap out overheated modules, ammo, or even hardeners or resists on the field, while costing significantly less.

Faction warfare could use them. Enemy systems where you don't have a pos and your locked out of the stations. Bring your ship maintenance array with you. Ever warp an orca through losec? Not fun.

Hisec missions. Bring a yard full of your favorite weapons and salvage equipment. Land in a mission and start clearing house, then swap over to salvage while in the room.

Just a couple thoughts on my end.

Need? Most of the cruisers and frigates and bs's are redundant with something else in one way or another. That's because there's only so many options for combat and destroying others. Industry really has a lot of potential for just as many, or more, configurations.

IMO If CCP adds new industry ships that aren't just haulers, they need to add them as a new line. Either 1 for each race with racial flavors, or just one from ORE.

The current tech 1 haulers rebalance looks good enough to me. Trying to shoe-horn new functions into the 4 oddball haulers and then coming up with Caldari and Amarr equivalents somewhere just seems wrong.

this kind of industrial logistics ship sounds like a great idea - would definitely like to see more love for industrial ships

I guess I've come to the point to just rename them from Industrials to Haulers, and hope for more diverse ship classes later, if and when we can get more attention and uniqueness applied to industry.