Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Hi guys. This is a thread meant to die very quickly in a horrible, horrible fire. I just want to throw out some rhetoric, devil's advocate (I'm currently a maxed leadership pilot in t3s and command ships, so I can fly either way with the shifting meta)

So, proposition one: How many instances are there in the game, where an asset can have an impact on the outcome of a fight, without said asset being put in a position of risk?

My answer is 3. Titan bridge. Black Ops bridge. Off-Grid booster. Sure, some could argue a 'mental' impact of non-fielded 'potential' assets, but the big 3 are Titan, BLOPS, and OGB.

Two: what's the investment, or minimum lifetime risk of utilizing one of these: Titan - 100 billion, BLOPs - 1 billion, OGB: ~500 million.

Three: What impact does one of these have on a fight? Well, bridging doesn't directly affect the fight. It is an instrument that preludes any combat, and gives the element of surprise.

Boosts directly affect the stats of all ships involved. You get more EHP, more repair, better EWAR, smaller sigs, and a slew of other bonuses. All without 'risking' anything.


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Now, should we argue that the 500 million price point is too low for an asset to be usable without risk, or that its simply the boosts themselves that shouldn't be used without risk, they both point to making boosting ships vulnerable. That would either mean - remove the ability to have interdiction nullification while fit for boosts, OR remove covops cloak, OR remove 'unprobability'

Still, a ship could be sitting in a POS and be invulnerable and still affect the outcome of a fight. Perhaps they could be required to be outside the POS shield in order to be active?



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forcing a boosting ship to be on-grid with the fight would be game breaking, unless we get some SERIOUS buffs to our boosting ships. I'm talking 250k+ ehp, added maneuverability, reduced sig, ability to fit 3 links by default (on all 8 command ships), and the added combat ability already on the table.

Maybe +2 warp core strength to boot, or allow them to fit micro jump drives.


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In conclusion, the only people who like boosts as they are, are condor pilots. Boosting ships escape 97% of the game's risk/reward mechanics by being invulnerable to probes, bubbles, and they can warp cloaked, then still provide a solid force multiplier to a fleet.

I think something needs to change, and honestly, it's not the power level of boosts, or which ships get which bonuses, it's all about how they are applied.

How do you risk an asset (the blops/titan) which never leaves the sanctity of the pos shields?

There is virtually no way to kill one, except for the pilot being stupid. Current mechanics allow for a black ops, booster, or titan to be fully functional without ever leaving the invulnerability of a stront'ed, self-defended tower.

What would be considered risk, by me, is if the black ops or titan had to be outside pos shields in order to use its bridge. Or (lengthen the bridge cycle time, decrease cap used at the end, and 'suck' the bridging ship through the portal at the end of cycle.

THAT is risk.

I always thought it would be better to reverse the direction of the titan bridge. change it from a "push" to a "pull"

This would at least force the hot dropping side to commit a titan to the fight.

the pos shield prevents a few things anyway, it's probably the better part of your post.

theres nothing stopping someone from cloaking and boosting from the orbit of a celestial body, pretty invulnerable there too

They fixed the unprobability a long time ago, you can always be probed down if you are decloaked.

The only change to off grid boosting that I can see affecting FW is its removal.

FW pilots don't have room in their fits for a probe launcher. Even if they did, the pilots in the fight will be too busy to probe it out. If they have a prober in system, the fight is likely to be over before the boosting ship is found.
Even if the boosting ship is found, it's likely to be aligned to enter warp as soon as the FW frigs appear on overview. Before they exit warp.

Even if the boosting ship is caught, how many low SP FW frigs will it take to threaten the boosting ship and the ship it's boosting ?

OGB also causes a unique situation in FW. For every other ship it can either enter the plex, or it can't do anything to influence the fight inside it beyond trying to cut off reinforcements at the gate. But the boosts from an OGB can reach inside the plex and influence the fight, even when the boosting ship can not enter it.