Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Nobody's going to try ganking a freighter that's carrying 250m.
I carry that much in untanked T1 industrials at times (on an NPC alt) and I haven't been ganked yet, probably partially due to my use of bookmarks.

Adaptive nano plating is suboptimal even on the freighters that benefit the most from it.
There's really no reason to use it almost ever except maybe if you're also using a High-Grade Slave set.

The reason why I see they should change the build requirements is because they are losing a big chunk of their base stats. If carriers were to get a big boost in drone bay the build requirement should go up on them, if they lost a lot of drone bay they should loss some of the build requirement.

Here is an example of what I think they should do because of the change the Charon is losing 40% of its old base cargo, gaining 12% more shield, losing 25% armor, and losing 27% structure. The BPO should reflect the changes because a blueprint tells you how to build something and what you need end up with shouldn't have lost 40% of what the BPO said you only needed. Yes waste blah blah blah but waste is built into the BPO.
So the BPO to build a Charon should be changed to something like this (prices from my ISK per Hour pull):

Part Name......................................Old......New..........Part Prices................Old Total.........................New Total
Capital Cargo Bay........................105 ..........63.........$8,199,999.95..........$860,999,994.75...........$516,599,996.85
Capital Construction Parts...........51..........51.........$7,238,982.00..........$369,188,082.00...........$369,188,082.00
Capital Armor Plates.....................14..........10.........$8,499,999.99..........$118,999,999.86............$84,999,999.90
Capital Propulsion Engine...........11 ..........11.........$9,399,999.98..........$103,399,999.78...........$103,399,999.78

Capital Shield Emitter......................0..........33.........$9,499,000.00..........$-..................................... $313,467,000.00

Build Total:...............$1,452,588,076.39........$1,387,655,078.53

Total Change: $64,932,997.86
http://i.imgur.com/JdrLPLS.png - If you can't read it.

As you can see the Charon or any freighter never needed Capital Shield Emitter and with this change it now needs them so it can be built. With this change your only saving about 65M from the old build requirements but now makes sense. How I got the amount needed for the shield emitters is I just took I the new number needed for armor plates divided it by the 10 which is 1,500 HP per plate. So I took the Charon 50k shield and just divided it by 1,500 and got 33.333... so made it 33 Emitters needed for the build. I don't get how freighter never needed Capital Shield Emitters in the BPO they have shield yet in the BPO they only needed armor plates. Personally I think all BPO should go get a revamped and changed like drone BPO should require Robotics in them.

On the subject of Jump fuel conservation modules, is this JF only or will we be adding these to dread/carrier fits?

? Of course they can not - who said so? But freighters are not going from Null or Low to High and are then magically transferred back. Sometimes they make return trips.

Any thoughts of a Super Freighter at any stage - Titan size, 25-30 Mill m3 capital components bay, 5 Mill m3 general cargo bay, and the ability to use jump drive without cyno at the other end - solo hauling low / Null only.

Hello.

I'm one of those people that isn't a forum junkie, so maybe what I say doesn't really matter. Alternatively, take me as one of those "normally happy players that only goes to the forums when something really weird is happening."

I want to start by asking a question:

What is the intended design goal of this change?

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Why am I asking?

Suppose the intended design goal is to encourage industrialists to localize in areas - harvest, produce, and sell - then reduced cargo holds makes sense. However, what would also make sense is buffed ship health and faster align times. After all, the ship has less cargo hold, meaning in a "if EVE was real life" sense, there's more room for armor plating or lighter frames or bigger engines.

More specifically, it means the ships would be used more for local travel in Low and Null, keeping those markets hale and hearty.

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Suppose, instead, the intended design is to give pilots more customization options - do they want faster align, bigger cargo hold, etc. Now they can have that choice. For that to happen, though, the levels have to be dropped. After all, the Freighters/JFs are balanced around the levels they're at now, right?

Well, in THAT case, they should be nerfed, but where T1 (Tier ONE) rigs will bring them back up to normal. If you look at the calculations that I found on another site (TheMitinni, I think it was?), it shows that if you fully load a Freighter out with T1 cargo rigs, it still has LESS CARGO CAPACITY than the Freighters do on live, and ALSO has the negative bonus of having longer align times and less overall health.

Why does this make sense to anyone? At the very least, with 3x T1 cargo rigs, it should have EQUAL cargo capacity to live right now. Then if a person were to invest in T2 rigs, they should go above the current levels, with the caveat that in the other two areas (align and HP in the case of going all out on cargo), they would be weaker than live.

The reason this doesn't make sense is because even if you kit out for one of the areas, unless you bring T2 rigs, you're still weaker in that area than on live AND you're also considerably weaker in the other two areas. Only if you go balls to the wall in T2 rigs for only ONE area can you get an improvement over live, but in that case, you're still weaker in two other areas.

So you're not getting more customization, you're getting less - your ship is weaker unless you specialize with expensive T2 rigs, but even then, your ship will be weaker in the other areas.

Were I to set this up for customization, I would make it where a T2 rig of each type would JUST make the ship exactly what it is on live (a "balanced", but high tech setup.) Using 3 T1s in one area would put it at slightly ahead (in that one area) of what it is today but weaker in the others (2 T1s would put it somewhat behind what it is on live.) Keep in mind, 3 T1s means you're sacrificing the other two areas.

So this design intent seems clearly NOT intended to increase customization, since you're penalized doing anything. ANYTHING - there's no setup that will bring you to the live numbers. Any set up will either have you weaker in two or all three areas, and only the expensive AND specialized setups for one area will have you out ahead...but only in that one area, you're still behind in the other two.

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I guess what I'm saying is, why aren't the changes calculated where all T1 rigs produces, at LEAST, at a MINIMUM, the same capacity in that system as before the nerf? Why is there no setup (say T2 rigs in all three systems) that brings you back to the standard baseline we have today?

This is all nerf and little gain. I don't understand what design intent says that ships should get weaker no matter how you kit out, with no option of getting the baseline of today. And this isn't like the Tiericide thing which simply brought hulls more in line with each other - the Freighter/JF line doesn't really have competition like that. It's not like we're balancing a Jump Freighter against a Carrier or a Freighter against a Dreadnaught. Thoraxes and Vexors are a different animal than Freighters and Jump Frigates, which are more like balancing the T1 Industrials against the T2 Blockade Runners - it just doesn't work with a Tiericide approach, since Freighters/JFs aren't in "tiers".

And so I ask again:

What is the intended design goal of this change?

CCP, help me understand why this makes no sense. Maybe you're looking at it from some weird angle that I don't see.

But if the intent is to encourage local markets, then you should just slash cargo holds but boost armor and agility (make the ships more attractive for Low and Null). If the intent is customizability for pilots, then the baseline should be such that T1 rigs will get it to at least equal what it is today, and that there be some "balanced" setup which comes close to the baseline of today.

This change seems to meet neither of these objectives, so what IS it meeting?

This seems a more reasonable iteration than the first one with rigs. At least that way one has an option to refit and and fuel reduction module vs cargo expander vs nanofiber/istab feels like meaningful decision to make for JF based on specific situation as opposed to previous "decision" of fitting T2 cargo rigs or T1 cargo rigs.

Assuming the fuel savings from the proposed modules end up to be something meaningful enough. However, I see these modules to be in quite a high demand by all the non-freighter capital pilots and black ops pilots as well. If this ends up being a significant issue it might be possible to balance this by switching the flat 5% fuel reduction bonus from JF skill to provide additional benefit from these new lowslot modules or add a specific role bonus to JF hull. For a start, though, situation will be probably fine and will benefit smaller groups probably a bit more than major coalitions (as major coalitions can just shrug off the fuel costs as long as it's not something utterly crippling for smaller non-renter-empire groups).

Regular freighters seem better off slightly as well. Have not looked at exact numbers so far but at first glance it seems reasonable enough compromise in regards of cargo space vs agility/AP speed/EHP.

With the increased shields/armor it might be even reasonable to "escort" a freighter with logi ships against suicide ganks and 3 to 6 bonused web's would presumably make one still instawarp if one is willing to put in the effort of doing that kind of stuff.

About replacement rigs on low slots - I see that CCP can work when they want!
Nice idea!

Oh cool.

So the baseline stats...higher/lower than before?

That is, are we slotting just to meet live, or are able to exceed live in at least one area?

I'll have to do some comparisons...

Anyway, thanks. Good to know.