Player Features and Ideas Discussion

With the advent of Dust 514 I started thinking about the concept of racial weapon styles on a traditional battlefield and how the typical weapons of choice for ship to ship combat might be radically different when it comes to ground and planetary aerial combat. The key difference here being terrain features.

One of the main reasons Caldari ships aren’t used more often is that their range bonuses provide no real tactical advantage over any other weapon system due to perfect line of sight and the fact that warp/lock ranges preclude players from fighting at the bleeding edge of Caldari weapon effectiveness. On the ground I think it will be much different.

Players will be able to hide behind objects, shielding themselves and dictating engagement ranges. I think that if CCP extends the racial weapon styles to Dust’s weapons we could see Caldari being one of the most dominant races in that environment due to the ability to project power at extreme range. The other races won’t get a chance to utilize their superior DPS or Alpha because by the time they get within range, they’ll be dead or nearly so. This isn’t a pre-nerf Caldari Dust players rant by the way- I’m going somewhere with this…

There should be the equivalent of this in space. W-Space already has similar effects. CCP has been quietly using W-Space as a test bed for these concepts. Players have accepted the ideas with no adverse reactions. I say we extend this to regular space.

Let each region have a theme, make it coincide with the regional NPCs or whatever. Make the effects mild in the systems at the edges of regions, with the effect intensifying as players travel to the core systems of the region. The -1.0 systems at the heart of each region (for 0.0 anyway) should have the most intense effects.

Examples of effects:

Reduction in lock range, increased lock times, reduction of speed, agility (becoming less agile), reduction of warp speed, increased signature, reduced capacitor, decreased active hardener effectiveness, decreased shield HP etc.

IN ADDITION TO system and region wide effects, there should be very localized effects around stellar objects that would give a tactical advantage to anyone with advance knowledge of the system and it’s particular effects at each planet/moon/star etc.
There could be regions where there could be multiple effects in place to benefit particular racial types: increased lock range and decreased speed with a reduction in armor hardener effectiveness for example might benefit Caldari while decreased shield hardener effectiveness coupled with reduced lock range and improved agility or improved cap use might benefit Gallente or Amarr. These effects should be visually identifiable so that players can immediately understand some or all of the effects with visual cues so when they move from one area to the next players can process the new effects without having to consult additional map information etc. Effects volumes should be visible on the galaxy, system and tactical maps.

Thoughts?