Jita Park Speakers Corner

Working as ******* intended

As someone who remembers what it was like getting your stuff around Eve before there were caps, jump drives, freighters, jump clones, or warp to 0, I kind of like where we are at right now.

Titan bridging I have mixed feelings on, but it has more to do with the lack of risk presented to the 60 billion ISK asset making it happen than the ability to bridge the fleet.

I think that's a fairly apt summary, tbh. I doubt very seriously that CCP ever intended the power creep to get to a point where you could move entire super capital fleets across the universe before a fight even lost the new car smell, but with tidi and the numerous ways people can transverse huge distances that's what we've got.

The current mechanics encourage people to go, do simply because it provides options and availability. But they make those who are more capable, more equipped than others much more powerful than those who aren't.

The combination of the proliferation of the caps/supers combined with the far larger assets at the disposal of big organizations has lead to the point where 'everywhere is close'.

It is working as built but I do not think that it is working as intended.

Tidi makes a battle last so long that you could practically walk across distances and still arrive before it was over.

Didn't you all imagine generals and strategists moving ships and fleets and having to THINK about where they were and how long to get there? Like a game of Risk where it was not just what assets you had but how you placed them.

I once hoped there to be an element of care in the placement of your assets, where moving everything to the frontier meant that you home base was undefended and would be vulnerable if people got past you. Chess on a galactic scale.

Thing is . . . every proposed solution needs to be examined from a dozen (or more) sides . . . from the big boys to the little Blops crew.

I read Marlonas piece and found it to be very well thought out. Whether it could be implemented or not is another issue, one that only the Devs would be able to answer.

What it would do is make jump freighters pretty much dead. As well as moving days for carriers when a front shifts. Don't just look at battles when you consider the proposal, ask how Black Frog will survive.

I like the fact that it addresses the issues I started with in this post but ask if the collateral damage to other professions, to other people would be worth it in the long run. I am not against a change like this but I always want to know that it has been checked for intended and unintended side effects.

But hell, this would make a GREAT summit topic.

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I thought about dropping the question in each CSM candidates thread, but considering the volatile nature of the subject; I was worried it would dominate each candidates thread. Best to keep it contained to just one thread.

I'm not running for CSM, but with a tip of the hat to Mike, it seems like the question behind the question is: what is the role of capital ships in the game?

With fighters essentially useless by all reports, and fighter-bombers basically good for structure bashes, and doomsdays useful for drive-bys against other titans, and sort of accidentally useful against super caps under heavy lag... they're logistics ships. In the case of carriers, they're every kind of logistics ship all at once, sort of logistics-bonused Jump Orcas with immense drone bays. (Just out of curiosity, would that be considered good design?)

Of course, there are exceptions: Dreadnoughts. Slowcats. Bridging Titans, only because the Titan itself doesn't go anywhere. I'm probably forgetting some. The problem of "force projection" seems to me to lurk in the exceptions, but the PPP mechanic addresses the general case of capitals as logistics ships. And that's the root of my question: If it's even debatable that, after their combat capabilities have taken one nerf after another, there should be another, considerable, nerf to their one remaining role... maybe it's time to just pull out a clean sheet of paper? Maybe, as painful as it would be, the real problem is that capital ships as introduced just weren't designed well (or arguably, at all?).

Maybe, now that CCP has a dedicated ship balancing team, it would be a good idea to give them free rein to rethink the whole category? That's where the CSM would prove especially valuable, because you can't rebalance capital ships in any significant way without answering the question, "what should low sec and null sec (and to a lesser extent, wormholes) look like?" You will answer that question; whether you answer it by default or by design determines how effective your rebalance is.

Could you elaborate on my you think it is working as intended?