Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Freighters are the backbone of eve logistics. It goes without saying that much of the economy would come to a grinding halt without them. I [mostly] love them in their current form, but wonder why they have Zero fitting capability.

Suggestion: give 1 or more mid/low/rig slots, but penalize hauling capability for each slot filled. My suggestions:
- 2 mid, 2 low, 2 rig
- cannot fit cargo-hold expanders or like rigs
- 10% reduction in cargo space per mod/rig fitted

This is not an immediate carebear request. Changing up haulers to fit like other ships adds a level of difficulty to everyone, such as:

- fitting requires critical planning/thinking (max cargo/speed/tank/etc)
- ganking becomes more complex since it is no longer simple math of scanning what's in the hold
- cargo reduction penalties now create a ship that fills in the gap between orca hauling (and itty hauling) and current, unfit freighters (i.e. don't need a separate ship class that has already been requested in separate forum)

As stated, this is not a simple carebear request. Something that plays such an important (if unglorified) role should require more thought than:
[hauler] throw stuff in, haul
[ganker] scan, shoot

I expect a full flame war on this (both pro & con). Bring it on, would love to elicit others' perspective.

Wow... an excellent, well thought out, detailed response
As an addendum to this, or any other post, either provide real/rational input, an actual link to input, or stfu
If you don't like this reply, there is precedent elsewhere in the forum so I suggest you go search for it in order to back up my claim

And yes I did read many of the other posts (still am). My input stands:
a) this is a slightly new twist so it is not a bump
b) ccp has never stated (to my knowledge) that they are happy w/ freighters and have no intention of touching them in the future
c) enough people want a change (according to other forum posts) for this to still be a relevant request

We have been over this, use the search function.

Freighters stay the way they are, maybe a new type of ship instead...

My only issue with Freighters are they are way to small (Graphical). It makes no sense that an Obelisk can carry a fitted Megathron when a Mega is totally looks like it would not fit. All Freighters should be twice as big as the biggest battleships to at least LOOK like it's feasable that the Freighter can carry it in it's cargo holds.

If we're going to propose that freighters should have slots, then I suggest they get high slots. Only high slots. Maybe three of them. But no turrets and no launchers and no high-slot-related bonuses. No mids, no lows and no rigs and certainly no subsystems. Just three unbonused utility highs.

Now, let's talk about how that would or would not be broken.

mature

1) I read the forums, and generally disagree w/ the opposition on why some people consider this a nerf

2) A modification, where the end state has potential for the same existing base state, and additionally provides for greater capability, is NOT a nerf

3) Unless CCP woke up this morning, smoked some crack and handed you the reigns, this is not a nerf because you say its so

-- and finally --

4) for a character that has a reputation for high sec/industrialist ganking (i can do research too), I find your whole argument (or lack there of) opposing this idea disingenuous

then u've read them and misunderstood how this would end up as a nerf. i'll try and explain, cause i know not everyone gets it.

ur idea is to bring down the base stats of a freighter so that when its fitted, it cannot be exploited by a max cargo fit freighter and start carrying capitals into high sec. This means nerfing its capacity into oblivion (which is fair enough on its own).

However, when u take into consideration the other fittings that can be exploited u must ALSO nerf those base stats to prevent it becoming OP'd in other areas.

Most obviously after capacity is tank. all u have to do is fit one DC and the nature of the freighters HP's will mean u more than double its tank. DC's are way overpowered on freighters for a measly 30cpu and 1grid and a cap cost that is negligible. Add to that reinforced bulk heads, Invuln fields and trimarks, and u'll see why, if freighters are given fittings, ur going to have to also nerfbat their HP into the ground to prevent dreadnought like tanks on industrial ships. Its also worth considering that DC's and reinforced bulk heads are dirt cheap.

u now take ur new fittable freighter and go for a max capacity fit to reach the old capacity of freighters (972km3) but now u have less than half the tank because freighters had to have their stats modified to compensate for those fitting DC's to their freighters. Ur freighter is now worse than it was before. OR u fit a DC first and then fit the rest for capacity and find u now have the tank u used to, but because ur a cargo expander short, u have a lower capacity than the old freighter. Ur freighter is still worse, it has been nerfed.

Nano freighters with warp speed rigs would reduce the effort it takes to transport goods between markets and therefore the supply and demand of items would even out through out new eden. Most trader/haulers would consider this a nerf to their entire career as margins are lowered everywhere and its harder for them to make a buck. for that it may be appropriate to reduce a freighters align time and warp speed (because they are deliberately super slow, for the fact they are logistic beasts) so that travel time and effort remains high for even nano/warpspeed/mwd freighters. So now ur freighter is not only lower on tank when fit for max capacity (972km3) it is also slower as well.

So u take ur freighter fit. put a DC in, one cargo expander and a mix of warp speed, align time and capacity rigs. It doesnt have the capacity of the old freighter, probably doesnt have the tank of the old freighter because the rigs and expander are lowering ur tank again, and probably doesnt have the speed of the old freighter because ur expander gimps that too. it has been nerfed.

lol what does 4) refer to? please explain...have u even seen the killboard for this character?

Bump:

Extracted From: CCP Fozzie

All of this boils down to "onoes! cargo expanders!" this was already debunked. Freighters could easily be given a different bay, which can store the same as is now. This would make cargo expander utterly useless, like they are on barges, etc.

Freighters are too easily ganked for their size. It takes less than 100m of catalysts to pop a freighter, so anyone shipping more than about 1b in a freighter is taking an enormous risk. This is why some many people use the orca to ship stuff. Clearly the fact that a mining support vessel is often being used instead of freighters shows there is a serious imbalance that needs to be addressed...
Balancing freighter HP so that with a DC2 and a bulkheads 2, hull is at about 140% of the current EHP, with enough moved to shields and midslots to allow the choice between omnitank and specific tank to matter would just give them an edge over an orca for transport, as well as making it a more interesting ship. As it is at the moment, there's is flat math for the ganking of a freighter, you can literally look it up in a grid and know with certainty what the maximum EHP vs your weapons is.