Player Features and Ideas Discussion

You're a very sensitive soul if you think links have been severely mistreated recently.



Op success. Eve doesn't really need terrible, pants-on-head ******** buff mechanics. Maybe CCP should try to come up with some non-**** ones.

Only if you don't actually stop and think about the actual mechanics of warfare links. 'Passive buff aura dispenser' - and that is exactly what link ships are - is not, and is unlikely to become, a useful combat role. Which is why it is almost always palmed off on a semi-AFK alt, especially in small gang warfare where they are most contentious. Especially when the function is actually done better by an alt that doesn't need to worry about flying a combat-capable while the ship being actively flown by a human being isn't gimped by the need to fit 3+ warfare links.

Link mechanics need to be put down so they can be redone (or just removed, and any truly necessary components folded into the relevant ships or modules).



They've also been buffed with the addition of Faction mindlinks and multi-bonused CS that eliminated what little need there was for choice in link selection. You no longer even need two link alts to get the full benefits of skirmish + your favorite flavor of tank links. And the effectiveness nerf was a joke; it ranged from minor to insignificant and the sheer magnitude of the bonuses is still utterly ridiculous (pretty much equivalent to running multiple sets of HG pirate implants concurrently and nearly doubling the effectiveness of RR).

Having two in the system doesn't mean anything unless both are active. Turning the jammer on is a tactical choice, and even if the second ship counter-jams in a battle, the few minutes of upper hand the first jammer can buy their fleet some much-needed upper hand.

As for the structure, the point would be to drop it mid-fight, then burn out of its range before the enemy does (or notices), and hit their unbonused ships from afar with your bonused ones. Or just warp in a bunch of snipers. So links aren't worthless until they get countered. And when they do ... isn't the point of a counter to make the thing it's countering worthless?

Milton, you're clearly doing it wrong, and have only a base understanding of command ships. Show me where the bad links pilots touched you?


All the diversification of bonuses did was make it so some Command ships were actually used, and made more sense. Why Gallente were bonusing Ewar is beyond me.


The concept of Links is actually sound. A ship that is collecting and coordinating data, rebroadcasting it to the rest the fleet.

Data on enemy weapons, what they're firing, so how to defend against it better, what their sensor strength offensively and defensively is, triangulating hostile locations for better targetting.... A couple of the links bonuses are a bit silly, but most of them are fairly sound.


'Semi-afk alts?' No. Some times yeah, but certainly not the status quo. Why? Because command ships aren't cloaky, and a links T3 has 0 tank. Smaller gangs may use those T3's, but proper fleets will still bring their command ships, as they do now.

The 'Buff' you're talking about was not a buff, but a diversification, as opposed to the direct reduction in links effectiveness. And that diversification, as said earlier, has only brought some hangar dust balls back onto the battlefield, instead of only ever seeing Damnation's and vultures as links platforms.



@ rest of thread: No, we don't want off grid jammers. A deployable module would need to operate on the basis of dropping on top your targets to deprive them of links, while having sufficient force of your own to either not need them or survive without them long enough to inflict the important blows.

suddenly all warfare links stop working.




















everywhere.

I didn't say off-grid jammers with on-grid CS-es. If one has to come on grid, so does the other, that's the only way to balance the two.

Maybe the only exception is off-grid CS with an on-grid jammer, like we said before. 100 klick range, inside that bubble, no bonuses are applied.

You might have a point in the first half, regarding the "I think you have one, and I know you think I have one, blahblahblah". Yes, people might jump to conclusions, and they might err on the side of caution. Anyway, for now, let's assume these modules are CS-only, no T3s.

In the second case, however, I'm not 100% certain you're right. Yes, you might drop one on the gate straight away, like a bubble. So what, you blocked command links around the gate. I'm not sure what the point of links here is, in the first place, given that the deployable is not system-wide, it has a limited range of 100 km, or maybe even less.

if the boosting pilot actually did this, links would be amazing. buts hes actually correct when he says its just a passive aura boost...thats all it does...nothing else. at all. How about removing the link bonus and adding a ship scanner bonus, then they can start doing something closer to what ur saying they should be doing.

and i agree, semi-afk alts is def the status quo for command ships outside of tournaments. every boosting T3 ive seen is not even remotely combat viable. and command ships without links, would still be decent ships. their entire existence does not revolve around links, just like the entire existence of BC's does not revolve around links.

You don't have an interface that appears on your screen that forces you to mess with a target's warp solutions when you activate a warp disruptor. You don't have an interface that makes you calculate advanced firing solutions when using a tracking computer.... some things you can't program in.


This is also a game... some provisions have to be made for that. Just because the mechanic itself can't be fully coded without being stupidly out of balance doesn't mean the intent isn't the same. Now, if you'd like every single module to go into every single detail of it's usage to balance your desire for links to have to.... sure.


Links aren't a problem. Not sure how many times that needs be said.

"Warp disruptor" isn't a combat role. It's a module. Tackle is a combat role, and one which places a fair amount of demand on the pilot in many cases.



A mindlink's effect is not tied to the hull: it gives a bonus to a set of modules, whether they're on a Damnation or a Hurricane. This is equivalent to saying that slaves can only be used to their max effect on hulls with armor tanking bonuses or talismans on neut-bonused hulls.



Thank you. You clearly can't think of any substantive response, so you just repeat the assertion that everything is fine. The ad hominem and personal attacks are just icing on the cake.