Player Features and Ideas Discussion

To be honest, I don't know. I remember when they got released but no one could really figure out why CCP thought the "BUY IT!" feature was more tank. It was still slow, you still have horrible align times because you had to have a few low slot hooked up with Cargo Expanders. The Powergrid was barely able to handle the tank, and guns.. well you were usually stuck with a couple unbonused small weapons, which were little use against even lightly tanked interceptors.

Bubble immunity is an awful, awful idea. Keep in mind that I say this as someone who makes extensive use of nullified T3s... is it nice to have for me personally? Yes. Is it at all balanced? No. Does it make nullsec travel totally idiot-proof in a ship with decent agility? Absolutely.

Here's why I don't like this idea for DSTs:

- it won't help your ability to run gatecamps at all, whatsoever. You won't get through a camp with a dictor because the dictor will just decloak you. Bubble immunity + the agility increase that you'd need for the bonus to get you though gatecamps would make the DST better than a blockade runner and utterly broken in general.

- It would allow you to travel around individual systems with relative impunity while having a giant cargo bay. Can anyone say game-breaking stront carrier? Allowing ships to dodge drag bubbles that they've warped into is just awful game design. There are so many ways to avoid landing in drags *without* bubble immunity-- the last thing the game needs is more ships that cater to the criminally lazy / inattentive.

Finally, DSTs are already good at things-- they haul as much (or more) than T1 haulers, while providing a large tank increase. More tank means that you can afford to carry more expensive cargo without increasing your odds of being suicide-ganked (since more ships are required to pull off the gank, which increases the gank's cost, requiring your potential drop to be worth more for the attempt to be "worth it").

In nullsec, they haul more cargo than T1 ships (I assume they still do after the hauler rebalance... if not they need a bay increase) and are more difficult to catch (since the WCS bonus means that you can often breeze by one or two opposing ships so long as they aren't skilled enough to bump-tackle you). The key phrase here is, "more difficult": that doesn't mean they are supposed to be super-safe... that's what blockade runners are for.

If what you want is to securely transport bigger cargos, what you need to do is make more trips in your blockade runner. If you want evasiveness, be prepared to trade off some cargo space. Making a ship that's safe and hauls more cargo is dumb.

So, I'm just Necro'ing this back up the front line because I would LOVE to see CCP Fozzie, CCP Rise, or CCP Ytterbium drop by and give us a nice, pretty clue about what they have in mind for Deep Space Transports.

- Roving Clone Bays

- Ability to Transform into a terrible fighting robot, like, Megamaid

- Ability to carry genetically superior passengers for years on end until.. "KKKHHHHAAAAANNNNNNNNN!!!!"


Come on, you know you wanna tell us..

interesting that a thread has been made about this... DST's having the possibility of being nullified isnt a new idea. i dont know how old the idea is but i remember suggesting it in another thread prior to the creation of this one.

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=2495935#post2495935

i agree the +2 warp strength + nullification is too much, and the agility should be lower than a BR to the point that it rerquires at least 2 mods to get it to the same level. this way the nullification is there, but your ability to get aligned and warp out in time before being tackled depends on your ability to realise that u need to fit for that. also creates the interesting choice of 'more cargo, or more agility, or more stabs?'

plus with the mwd+cloak trick, the removal of the +2 warp strength isnt an issue in lowsec.

and on the topic of lazyness, how lazy is it to throw a small anchorable bubble in ur interdictor, fly out to a pipe and sit there cloaked twiddling your thumbs and picking your targets, compared to organising a gate camp that requires more than 1 person? yahh exactly.

I'd like to see deep space transports made into a battleship class hull, and blockade runners into a frigate class hull. This would entail changing their rig size and mass/signature radius values. The blockade runner already has a high agility and small signature radius, but if its sig radius were lowered, its HP could be lowered accordingly, and its align time could be left the same. It would just make it feel more like a small ship without buffing it much (would buff it a bit though).

But making the DST battleship-class would open up a lot of development options. For one, it would make a lot more sense to greatly increase its HP, powergrid, and also increase its slot layout and cargo space significantly. If it was big and slow, then it wouldn't be such a bad thing if it had 100k+ EHP and/or 75k+ m3 space. This wouldn't lend it to being a solo flier in nullsec but would allow it to perform the role of armored transport while carrying enough cargo to be worth escorting it with a small fleet. It would also give it an excuse to be able to fit a MJD.

Consider this layout for the Mastodon:
3 high slots, 4 medium slots, 5 low slots
base HP x2
sig radius 300m, max velocity 75m/s, base align time unchanged

CPU: 280 (added 30 per new slot), 350 w/ Electronics V
Powergrid: 2150 (x10), 2687.5 w/ Engineering V

base cargo 15,750m3/19,687.5m3 (x3), max cargo with tech 1 cargo rigs: 87,727.79m3
cargo with only tech 1 cargo rigs: 26,036.72m3 // cargo with t1 rigs and 2 cargo modules: 42,325.94m3

HPs: (base / max at skills V)
shield: 6188 / 9668
armor: 5626 / 7032
structure: 6750 / 8438

---

scenario w/ all relevant skills at V:
1600mm Armor Plate II
True Sansha Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane
Armor Kinetic Hardener II
Armor Thermic Hardener II
Damage Control II

Cap Recharger II
Cap Recharger II
Large Micro Jump Drive I

Medium Energy Neutralizer II
Medium Energy Neutralizer II
Medium Energy Vampire II

Large Cargohold Optimization I
Large Cargohold Optimization I
- - - - -
Effective Hit Points (EVE Fitting Tool value): 117,108
Effective Hit Points (ship equip screen value): 89,633
cap stable

Cargohold: 26,036.72 m3

edit: I spent enough time on this that I'm going to post it as a separate thread.

see i envisage the DST's as a way of traversing those deep deep areas of nullsec were you're more likely to encounter gate after gate covered in anchored t2 large bubbles, plus if you're scouting it through using a ceptor (thats soon to be nullified) u can expect to see the camps coming.

Even so the premise of the nullification on DST's wasnt to make it uncatchable right out the box, but fairly versatile based on the choice of fitting. max cargo? then u sacrifice warp strength and agility, so u best be scouting it through. fit will less cargo but more warp strength and agility if you cant scout it and feeling lucky.

Keep the bubble nullification, the low agility, and exchange the flat +2 warp core strength for +1/level. Leave it a little tanky. The idea is that you have to bring a lot to bear against it right away, because chances are it's going to warp away. Overpointing +5 or +7 (with modules) isn't nearly as easy. Keep the base cargo bay smaller, but not as small as a BR.

I frequently use a DST in hisec and lowsec. It's fine for that. If CCP thinks that the DST needs to live up to its name and be more nullsec worthy then bubble immunity is the logical option as bubbles are typical for nullsec. If it gets a nerf in warp strength to compensate that would be acceptable to me. I don't think haulers should be too difficult to catch by gatecampers. Space travel should not be safe. We don't need more uncatchable ships (t3's and soon interceptors).

Considering what I have seen in Rubicon, I think there is a possibility that perhaps CCP wants DSTs to get a bonus to the new Mobile Deployable Units. The pictures CCP sent out on the Twitch channel showed MDUs that were "small". To me this indicates that there might be at least one additional size, if not two. The smaller ones might be haulable by Blockade Runners, but the larger ones will probably need to be hauled either by carriers or potentially by an amped up DST.

That's probably because they aren't.. Unless it gets dropped in with less than a month till it hits TQ, which will most certainly mean any changes will not be good.

For all those saying, nulify it and take away +2 warp strength. In what world is a ship with a 17.4 sec align time going to escape any gate camp before being scrammed. Ok you may avoid the odd drag bubble but by the time you align on the other side your screwed by any interceptor close enough to the gate to jump with you. Even with +2 warp strength it is touch and go as to whether you can warp, especially if the interceptor has a faction point.
Align cloak, is the only defence a DST has really.

For the idea of a tanky DST it needs a dedicated cargo hold otherwise they don't have the cargo capacity to warrant use. GeeShizzle MacCloud, if you need to sacrifice max cargo to give it a chance of navigating a gate camp, use a BR they will actually carry more and already have that ability without sacrificing anything.
DST is meant to carry fairly large cargo's into deep space, if you need to give up cargo capacity to give it survivability it is not fitting any role, except maybe as a killboard enhancer for gate campers