Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I think it would be an interesting mechanic if you could overheat warfare command modules. This is just a suggestion for in the future, perhaps after fleet bonuses have been balanced better as most people are aware fleet bonuses are incredibly powerful as it is already. The idea behind this is it a) Promotes active boosting rather than leaving an afk booster in system. B) can create some interesting contrasts of communication across a fleet. Also just for reference on my personal bias standpoint, this is my max leadership toon, he has literally all leadership skills to level 5. I use him a lot and quite enjoy the provided fleet bonuses.

Personally I think the heat should be set up such that heat builds up on the nearby modules quickly but the overall heat is low, meaning if you were to overheat one warfare module it could last quite a while but as soon as you start overheating multiple you exponentially decrease the amount of overheat time and increase your chances of accidentally burning out your modules (and yes the heat mechanics can be set up this way, there are many underlying properties in modules that regulate the way overheating damages modules).

Also, it's always been my opinion that running warfare links should have some penalty in the first place, such as speed, signature radius, or both or perhaps other penalties. Overheating would obviously increase the penalty of these bonuses.

I think it would also be a neat effect for the command ships to have a slight overheating bonus to their specific fleet bonus, just as they use to have singular fleet bonus bonuses. An overheat bonus that just reduces heat damage, I think increasing the overheat bonus would create more balancing problems and also create the old bad contract between command ships that used to exist.

These are just my ideas and I would like to hear other's opinions on them, let me know what you think.

If you read the first 3 lines you'd note that I mentioned this is just a topic for the future of fleet boosts, after the more pertinent balancing issues have been solved.

So whats stopping someone from having 10 fleet boosters and swapping squads while they cycle overheating and repairs.

Nothing, but that's 10 ships that could be doing other roles. Honestly in a large fleet this would be overpowered, but at the smaller level it's a trade off. You could have multiple boosting ships and cycle overheating boosts, but those are ships slots taken up that could have done other things. Maybe some people might fit the same fleet boosting module twice so that they can cycle overheat/repair but you lose other fleet boosts in the process. There's a lot of things here that create interesting dynamic game play and I like the sound of it, as long as it's not overpowered or exploitable it has a lot of game play potential from what I can see.

Boosts should never be off-grid...where's the risk = reward there? Fit a MWD and burn while boosting in a deep safe.

I'm a strong believer in that you should be able to see and kill anything that effects you or the fleet you are fighting. You can't do that with OGB. They force multiply and you may not even know they are in the system with you...

What do you think "a lot of things that make it worthwhile to keep" are? Curious to know and not sarcasm.

In Eve the majority of the fight is fought before the first shot is fired. Preparation trumps quick reactions, and intel is required to counteract preparation. Because of this there is a lot of 'fight or flight' situations, thusly deception and perception are huge components of getting fight in eve. Now I don't like the lack or risk/reward when it comes to off-grid boosts in their current state, but why I think they should rather be changed and kept are as follows.

Let's take an example here, first lets assume in the first instance that all fleet boosts are restricted to being On-Grid, there is a small gang roaming through a system and I would like to fight them. They have a scimitar, ferox, drake and a vulture. I can see that the vulture is fleet boosting and the scimitar is an mwd kiting fit. I have a group of friends sporting two rr-exequrors and a single thorax, while I am flying a high dps megathron. With the Vulture boosting, the scimitar is too fast for the thorax to catch and he repairs too much for my megathron to break the tank of any of the ships. I choose to not take the fight, accepting that I would not be able to win.

Now let's take a second instance (and this is actually an interpretation of an actual fight I've had), where off-grid boosts are still prevalent but let's also assume that they are no longer impossible to catch or probe down and instead of a vulture they have a tengu. The tengu is boosting off-grid and as virtually all off-grid boosters, is not set up for combat of any sort. The same situation is there, I cannot catch the scimitar nor break their tank while the fleet bonuses are being applied. But this fleet is coming through my home system, and I have a probing ship docked here. I probe down the booster and then I give the location to the thorax. I warp in to the fight with the megathron and the exequrors. The enemy fleet obviously takes the fight knowing I cannot break their tank. The thorax then proceeds to kill their off-grid booster and then warps on field. Now their scimitar can no longer escape the thorax and their tank can no longer hold against the dps of my megathron. I have exploited the enemies own devious tactic to make them perceive a winning scenario.

It is this dynamic between risk and reward that if in place should be applied to give everyone a choice between the risks and rewards of Off or On-Grid Boosts. Which is why I think they should remain but yet changed in such a way to create the risk/reward dynamic you [and I] are so critical of. Our opinions on current mechanics are the same, it is merely our solutions that are different.

Well for one as I mentioned in the post this should happen after boosts have been properly sorted, such that they are no longer impossible to scan or catch. Also I kind of like the balance of higher cook times on t3s, they have lower bonuses and less links. Kind of a cool difference in what you want in my opinion. Higher sustained links with short even higher boosts, or lower sustained links with longer boost durations.