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Q Ship conversions for transport ships
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Orin Auscent
The Fifth Imperium
#1 - 2014-01-23 22:11:25 UTC
First of all a Q Ship is essentially a decoy ship. it is a merchant ship that has been heavily armed with the express purpose of luring in enemy ships. I propose that we give the same option to people flying transport ships. In the form of a rig or some other medium. It would convert the internal structure of the ship to allow it to handle an expanded weapons load while allowing it to appear like a defenseless target. This would allow pilots to turn the tables on pirates and others who are out looking for a quick buck at the expense of other corporations shipping.
Nikk Narrel
Moonlit Bonsai
#2 - 2014-01-23 22:19:54 UTC
Deception in general is a good tactic, when available.

Q ships, decoys in general.

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Hunter Arngrahm
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#3 - 2014-01-23 23:32:17 UTC  |  Edited by: Hunter Arngrahm
Could just make Pirate variants of all the Industrials that look very similarly and are named exactly like regular industrials. They could be obtained through BPC or conversion through LP stores. Have the turret and launcher mounts hidden until the ship aggresses, at which point they are revealed. Seeing as they would be, essentially, normal ships at this point, they would lose the vast majority of their cargo hold and gain more combat ability.

I'd say there should be some visual indication as to the nature of the ship, though. Something that isn't obvious, but something you could spot by actually clicking "look at" and examining the ship.

EDIT: Unfortunately, being named the same would make searching for them in the market confusing, but if they're not named the same, someone can simply glance at the overview and know exactly what it is.
Orin Auscent
The Fifth Imperium
#4 - 2014-01-24 17:23:22 UTC  |  Edited by: Orin Auscent
well the basic purpose of the ship would be that you have no idea what you are getting into until it is to late. so whatever it would be armed with would be disguised well enough to fool the casual observer.

which is why I recommended that it be an after market rig of some kind. that way it would complete the deception allowing players to effectively combat piracy. which just happened to be the real-life purpose of a Q ship.
Batelle
Federal Navy Academy
#5 - 2014-01-24 18:17:59 UTC
Its called fitting slots. Lots of non-combat ships have them. Battle orca, battle rorqual, battle industrial, battle hulk, these concepts have existed and seen occasional use for years.

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Nikk Narrel
Moonlit Bonsai
#6 - 2014-01-24 18:34:47 UTC
Batelle wrote:
Its called fitting slots. Lots of non-combat ships have them. Battle orca, battle rorqual, battle industrial, battle hulk, these concepts have existed and seen occasional use for years.

That's all well and good, but when you see a ship currently, you automatically know it has predictable limits.

These ship's designs have some flexibility, but ultimately they are pigeon holed quite easily.

Now, the battle badger would be a more serious threat, if it could mount more weapons in exchange for sacrificing cargo space.

Some might think that this infringes on other ship classes, but the differences between a badger and a cruiser are more than just high slots and cargo room.
And for those who object at being fooled by an expectation of helplessness, just no.

EVE already has precedent for this type of design, as per ships in game already:
The Chimera's design is based upon the Kairiola, a vessel holding tremendous historical significance for the Caldari. Initially a water freighter, the Kairiola was refitted in the days of the Gallente-Caldari war to act as a fighter carrier during the orbital bombardment of Caldari Prime.

The original Chimera itself was a Q ship.

Upgrading Local to Eliminate All AFK Influence What if Local Chat changed, Hunting the Cloaked...
Silvetica Dian
Imperial Shipment
Amarr Empire
#7 - 2014-01-24 18:39:54 UTC
Nikk Narrel wrote:
Batelle wrote:
Its called fitting slots. Lots of non-combat ships have them. Battle orca, battle rorqual, battle industrial, battle hulk, these concepts have existed and seen occasional use for years.

That's all well and good, but when you see a ship currently, you automatically know it has predictable limits.

These ship's designs have some flexibility, but ultimately they are pigeon holed quite easily.

Now, the battle badger would be a more serious threat, if it could mount more weapons in exchange for sacrificing cargo space.

Some might think that this infringes on other ship classes, but the differences between a badger and a cruiser are more than just high slots and cargo room.
And for those who object at being fooled by an expectation of helplessness, just no.

EVE already has precedent for this type of design, as per ships in game already:
The Chimera's design is based upon the Kairiola, a vessel holding tremendous historical significance for the Caldari. Initially a water freighter, the Kairiola was refitted in the days of the Gallente-Caldari war to act as a fighter carrier during the orbital bombardment of Caldari Prime.

The original Chimera itself was a Q ship.


I have killed a few ships with a battle badger.
I have since learned that the hoarder makes a much better combat ship.
My corp mate often flys combat mining barges and they are great for provoking fights.
You can radically change most ships engagement envelopes with different fits.
You already have the tools to do what you want.

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Leafar Nightfall
Silent Owls
#8 - 2014-01-24 18:46:04 UTC
I have tought of that once... I miss having something like a smuggler ship
I don't know how much work this would need, but I like it

Of course, this should apply:

Nikk Narrel wrote:

Now, the battle badger would be a more serious threat, if it could mount more weapons in exchange for sacrificing cargo space.
.


What I can immediatly think of is simply giving turrets/launcher slots to the transport ships. I'm not sure if their PG and CPU are balanced enough for this, but the idea would be forcing the pilot to use fitting modules as auxilliary power cores and CPU enhancers to fit the guns, limiting their cargo usage
Nikk Narrel
Moonlit Bonsai
#9 - 2014-01-24 18:54:07 UTC
Silvetica Dian wrote:
I have killed a few ships with a battle badger.
I have since learned that the hoarder makes a much better combat ship.
My corp mate often flys combat mining barges and they are great for provoking fights.
You can radically change most ships engagement envelopes with different fits.
You already have the tools to do what you want.

That's not entirely true.

In order to make successful use of such a ship currently, they have to have opponents who failed to compensate for offensive ability at all.
In other words, you fought against those who were woefully unprepared.

Seriously, even with a hoarder's three high slots, you are limited to two turrets and a possible utility.
And with a powergrid barely half of the lowest cruiser by comparison, you aren't fitting anything overwhelming.

Is an industrial a possible threat? Only to the unprepared, and not a serious one to many of those.

This means, if you see a hoarder, and you are in a cruiser, you know you have the advantage barring outside interference.

Why not make it a glass cannon, potentially, that can ambush would be hunters with unexpected weaponry?

Don't want to come at it from this direction? Fine.

Make the module that let's a minmatar cruiser look like an industrial instead. PvP is best when surprises happen.

Upgrading Local to Eliminate All AFK Influence What if Local Chat changed, Hunting the Cloaked...
Noxisia Arkana
Deadspace Knights
#10 - 2014-01-24 21:09:56 UTC
The new industrials have a tremendous amount of fitting flexibility. Give them a shot. Plus, an industrial should not be able to compete against a dedicated combat ship.
Nikk Narrel
Moonlit Bonsai
#11 - 2014-01-24 21:22:43 UTC
Noxisia Arkana wrote:
The new industrials have a tremendous amount of fitting flexibility. Give them a shot. Plus, an industrial should not be able to compete against a dedicated combat ship.

If anything, I would suggest they have a limited alpha ability, with no real sustainable DPS.

This would reflect they had one real shot, and then difficulty keeping up their end of the fight, due to the number of improvised aspects.

(I dunno, something like the extra fittings are put offline since the capacitor cannot maintain firing them)

I think that this is never a real fighting ship, more like a flying one shot device.

Upgrading Local to Eliminate All AFK Influence What if Local Chat changed, Hunting the Cloaked...
Senarian Tyme
Serenity Rising LLC
Controlled Chaos
#12 - 2014-01-25 02:52:34 UTC
Ok as a fan of old WW2 history I like the idea of being able to create proper Q Ships.

How about a somewhat unorthadox solution to this?

Don't introduce a new pirate ship, but introdude a pirate rig which is limited to industrial ship hull types, and uses enough calibration points that only one can be fit. (after modification ship would have about 175 calibration and 2 rigs slots available.)

This rig would be more akin to a single use subsystem as it would do extensive overhauls to the hull nerfing cargo, adding PG, CPU, speed, agility and even fitting slots of various types (depending on which pirate rig type was utilized.)

The rigging itself could cost about the same as a standard Pirate cruiser.

This would result in the ship showing up as a basic transport yet, since the core hull is still the same. A tactical scanner would be required to identify the true nature of the ship. The modified ship would also not show up on the market but would natrually still be available on contracts.
Anomaly One
Doomheim
#13 - 2014-01-25 03:00:31 UTC
Hunter Arngrahm wrote:
Could just make Pirate variants of all the Industrials that look very similarly and are named exactly like regular industrials. They could be obtained through BPC or conversion through LP stores. Have the turret and launcher mounts hidden until the ship aggresses, at which point they are revealed. Seeing as they would be, essentially, normal ships at this point, they would lose the vast majority of their cargo hold and gain more combat ability.

I'd say there should be some visual indication as to the nature of the ship, though. Something that isn't obvious, but something you could spot by actually clicking "look at" and examining the ship.

EDIT: Unfortunately, being named the same would make searching for them in the market confusing, but if they're not named the same, someone can simply glance at the overview and know exactly what it is.


hmm pirate transport ships, this a much better idea!

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ShahFluffers
Ice Fire Warriors
#14 - 2014-01-25 03:51:05 UTC  |  Edited by: ShahFluffers
Nikk Narrel wrote:
Batelle wrote:
Its called fitting slots. Lots of non-combat ships have them. Battle orca, battle rorqual, battle industrial, battle hulk, these concepts have existed and seen occasional use for years.

That's all well and good, but when you see a ship currently, you automatically know it has predictable limits.

These ship's designs have some flexibility, but ultimately they are pigeon holed quite easily.

To be fair... Q-ships had the same problem. They were originally "trade" ships and even with major modifications they could never match a real combat ship in a direct, all-out confrontation.

The idea behind them was that...

- heavy ammunition like torpedoes were in limited supply when far from a resupply port.
- why would a submarine waste precious torpedoes on a ship that could be taken with "lighter," close range weapons?
- no one expects it.


In EVE...
- we have no shortage of "heavy ammunition."
- if you are fit for PvP...
--- you will engage almost anything in low-sec and high-sec.
--- there is no "skimping" on firepower. You throw out as much damage as you have as quickly as possible.



Currently we have a situation where "battle haulers" can somewhat take advantage of the last point fairly well... provided it's the right kind of target.


edit: some fits I found...

[Nereus, New Setup 1]

Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Reactive Armor Hardener
Small Armor Repairer II
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Damage Control II

Warp Scrambler II
10MN Afterburner II
Stasis Webifier II
Medium Electrochemical Capacitor Booster I, Cap Booster 400
Stasis Webifier II

Light Neutron Blaster II, Void S
Small Unstable Power Fluctuator I

Medium Auxiliary Nano Pump I
Medium Auxiliary Nano Pump I
Medium Auxiliary Nano Pump I

Warrior II x3
Hobgoblin II x3



[Badger, New Setup 1]

Reactor Control Unit II
Gyrostabilizer II
Ballistic Control System II
Damage Control II

Large F-S9 Regolith Shield Induction
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Faint Epsilon Warp Scrambler I
Fleeting Propulsion Inhibitor I
Fleeting Propulsion Inhibitor I

Prototype 'Arbalest' Rapid Light Missile Launcher, Caldari Navy Nova Light Missile
220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet Fusion M

Medium Core Defense Field Extender I
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I

How did you Veterans start?
Orin Auscent
The Fifth Imperium
#15 - 2014-01-25 05:17:15 UTC
Senarian Tyme wrote:
Ok as a fan of old WW2 history I like the idea of being able to create proper Q Ships.

How about a somewhat unorthadox solution to this?

Don't introduce a new pirate ship, but introdude a pirate rig which is limited to industrial ship hull types, and uses enough calibration points that only one can be fit. (after modification ship would have about 175 calibration and 2 rigs slots available.)

This rig would be more akin to a single use subsystem as it would do extensive overhauls to the hull nerfing cargo, adding PG, CPU, speed, agility and even fitting slots of various types (depending on which pirate rig type was utilized.)

The rigging itself could cost about the same as a standard Pirate cruiser.

This would result in the ship showing up as a basic transport yet, since the core hull is still the same. A tactical scanner would be required to identify the true nature of the ship. The modified ship would also not show up on the market but would natrually still be available on contracts.



this is pretty much what i had in mind for a first generation test idea for an EVE Q ship. it would allow people piloting transport ships to be able to put a small bit of caution into whoever is trying to steal from them. also think of the possibilities involved, you could run around in dangerous areas playing bait just waiting for someone to jump out at you... and then they realize just how great a mistake they have made.

and if you think about it cannon wise wouldn't a star faring civilization do everything it could to protect its commerce? an anti-commerce raider would have been developed and used at some point even if it was just an experiment.
Nikk Narrel
Moonlit Bonsai
#16 - 2014-01-25 14:58:23 UTC
Orin Auscent wrote:
Senarian Tyme wrote:
Ok as a fan of old WW2 history I like the idea of being able to create proper Q Ships.

How about a somewhat unorthadox solution to this?

Don't introduce a new pirate ship, but introdude a pirate rig which is limited to industrial ship hull types, and uses enough calibration points that only one can be fit. (after modification ship would have about 175 calibration and 2 rigs slots available.)

This rig would be more akin to a single use subsystem as it would do extensive overhauls to the hull nerfing cargo, adding PG, CPU, speed, agility and even fitting slots of various types (depending on which pirate rig type was utilized.)

The rigging itself could cost about the same as a standard Pirate cruiser.

This would result in the ship showing up as a basic transport yet, since the core hull is still the same. A tactical scanner would be required to identify the true nature of the ship. The modified ship would also not show up on the market but would natrually still be available on contracts.



this is pretty much what i had in mind for a first generation test idea for an EVE Q ship. it would allow people piloting transport ships to be able to put a small bit of caution into whoever is trying to steal from them. also think of the possibilities involved, you could run around in dangerous areas playing bait just waiting for someone to jump out at you... and then they realize just how great a mistake they have made.

and if you think about it cannon wise wouldn't a star faring civilization do everything it could to protect its commerce? an anti-commerce raider would have been developed and used at some point even if it was just an experiment.


I would support this version.

A good number of fights happen because both sides think they have an advantage over their opponent, and at least one side is wrong about their assumption.
This will inspire more assumptions, which means more fights.

Upgrading Local to Eliminate All AFK Influence What if Local Chat changed, Hunting the Cloaked...
Centurax
CSR Engineering Solutions
Citizen's Star Republic
#17 - 2014-01-25 15:43:05 UTC
I really like this idea, but there is a much simpler solution to the issue of having an industrial that is converted into a Q ship, skip the conversion and create a new purpose built hull all together.

By creating Escort class ships where:

Idea The damage output is equivalent to a cruiser or battle cruiser, so you can at least bate up to T3s without worrying about being killed instantly, also it will need the ability to fit a big tank. The ship would probably have to have bonuses to things like targeting speed, warp scramble range and tank, maybe damage output as well.

Idea There could be frigate and cruiser sized versions depending on what you intend to bate or escort.

Idea Here is the cool part, assuming that in the wide eve universe someone worked out how to project holograms and decided to combine it with a cloaking device and then you load a BPC into the new "Holo-cloak" modal, so you can look like anything form a Badger to an Orca and it sends out sensor data equivalent to what that type of ship is so you d-scan, warp to the location you see a Badger then it locks you a few seconds later an unloads the contents of its weapons at you. There would have to be some possible limitations to what you can project using the Holo-cloak.

Idea Maybe even have the ability to show a ghost cargo (something that looks good like but in reality doesn't exist).
ViciousVip3r
Neo Anarchy
#18 - 2014-01-25 16:25:38 UTC
Cannot project smaller sig on big hull - no pretending to be frig in BS

Works 100% of the time in same sig of actual unit vs projected unit.
The more projection sig is off from phisical structure the higher the chance of probes / directional calling the bluff and showing real data instead of fake.
silens vesica
Corsair Cartel
#19 - 2014-01-25 17:45:40 UTC
Hunter Arngrahm wrote:
Could just make Pirate variants of all the Industrials that look very similarly and are named exactly like regular industrials.
Because that's *exactly* what real pirates have done, and still do; Convert captured ships to piratical uses.

Quote:
They could be obtained through BPC or conversion through LP stores. Have the turret and launcher mounts hidden until the ship aggresses, at which point they are revealed. Seeing as they would be, essentially, normal ships at this point, they would lose the vast majority of their cargo hold and gain more combat ability.

Yes.

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silens vesica
Corsair Cartel
#20 - 2014-01-25 18:03:54 UTC
ShahFluffers wrote:
Nikk Narrel wrote:
Batelle wrote:
Its called fitting slots. Lots of non-combat ships have them. Battle orca, battle rorqual, battle industrial, battle hulk, these concepts have existed and seen occasional use for years.

That's all well and good, but when you see a ship currently, you automatically know it has predictable limits.

These ship's designs have some flexibility, but ultimately they are pigeon holed quite easily.

To be fair... Q-ships had the same problem. They were originally "trade" ships and even with major modifications they could never match a real combat ship in a direct, all-out confrontation.

Not always true... The German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran went toe-to-toe with the HMAS Sydney, and came off slightly the better. Of course, in this context that means that the Kormoran was left burning and crippled, but she's driven the Sydney to retire; burning, sinking, and combat-incapable whilst the Kormoran remained combat-capable. Eventually, the Kormoran was abandoned as well - but she'd successfully decoyed and destroyed a much larger and more capable vessel.

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