Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Hi there!

Today I was replaying one of my most favourite games of all time, Conquest: Frontier Wars; an RTS focused on space fleets with not much fame but totally worth it. There I met again with a weapon system used by one of the races. I thought it could be very interesting to have such thing on EVE because of its potential uses, so there you go.

I'm aware this could be either a good or a terrible idea; I'm completely open to critics (but please post constructively).

Electric Arcs

The weapon concept comes from a mixture of the famous "Death Ray" imagined by Nikola Tesla, and the real-life Van der Graaf generators. It's basically an electrostatic device that creates and holds an enormous electric charge, and then it releases on anything that comes close to it as a lightning bolt. If there are other objects close to the initial target, additional bolts might jump from it to these new targets, effectively having the potential to hit a whole group almost simultaneously.

For EVE, this could mean a good choice against blobs, drones, and perhaps missiles too. I do not have a defined way of its mechanics yet; I prefer to post the options with my personal thoughts on each and let the community discuss.

- AoE or targeted?

First question would be to have this as either an AoE weapon, in the same way as bombs and smartbombs, or a targeted one, as all the other ones. Both options fit the game and the theme, although I imagine it being a targeted weapon (after all, it's sci-fi: you could probably force a lightning bolt to jump onto a certain target by a particle stream projected at it). Still, having them work like smartbombs with very different effects, advantages and disadvantages would be fitting too and would bring variety.

- Turret or not?

Depending on the previous question, the "Electrostatic Emitter" (EE for now on) would use Turret Slots or no other slots than Highslots, just like smartbombs do. I'd give them turret treatment if they're targeted and not if they're AoE, for the sake of consistency.

- Attributes?

Real life electric discharges are almost instantaneous. This means the EE would work just like any other weapon module, one shot per cycle. This keeps things simple, too.

Because of their nature, EE's would not consume any ammo but instead drink capacitor, as smartbombs do.

It would make sense to have S, M, L and XL versions of EE's, with their ranges and damages similar to close range turrets. Having them scale in the same way as smartbombs would be nice. I'd say them being average on damage-per-shot and range when compared to close range turrets, but having longer cycle times. That way they would be alpha focused, instead of DPS focused, while being relatively short ranged.

As an electric weapon, EM would be the most fitting damage type for EE's. However, being limited to a single damage type is not good, so we could have 2 choices:

a) Only EM, and let them have other effects to compensate (see below).
b) Only EM, but with a chance of dealing thermal or even explosive damage as a side effect of the massive electric discharge (things overheat, leading to explosive -read: sudden- ruptures).

Option a) would make them easy to tank against, but could allow them to have other side effects. I imagine them having a chance of dealing the target a random EWAR effect for the duration of the cycle. For example: you activate the EE, you're lucky, the target gets jammed or target dampen'd or tracking disrupted or whatever (excepting warp scrambled) for the duration of that cycle. I know this can be either fine or OP as hell, so chances and durations should be carefully adressed. I think that would make the EE a very curious weapon and a wild card on the field, though.

- Bouncing bolts?

For now these EE's sound too similar to smartbombs. What makes them interesting is their capability of hitting a target an then having the bolt jump again to a new target who's close enough. The bounce would take place in the same instant the weapon is shot, and each target would be only hit once per cycle per EE (no rebounce). Maximum number of bounces could be increased by skills and/or mods.

Bouncing bolts would have their own max range, which could be equal -or not- to the range of the EE itself, both being able to be increased by skills and/or mods. That allows the EE to hit targets that are outside its own range, but close enough to its initial target. If the enemy is too close between itself, it risks having all its ships and drones hit at the same time, forcing them to split up or at least take away its less durable ships. This makes the EE capable of "crowd control", with the chance of hitting even the most far away targets, provided there's a "chain" of targets in between.

Secondary bolts could have either:

a) The same damage as the initial one.
b) Reduced damage, which could be split depending on the total number of bounces.

About the bouncing, there are 2 options again:

a) Bolts always bounce if there are other targets in bouncing range.
b) Bolts have a chance to bounce.

I'd prefer the first option, since it's what makes EE unique and makes things less dependant on chance (no one likes depending on probability too much).


That's it, more or less. Please post your thoughts on the matter. I'm aware the whole thing might sound strange and that it would need a serious look to avoid have it be OP, while making it unique.

EDIT: due to questions about physical plausability of the concept, I encourage you to read posts #10 and #12 for answers. Thanks!

Yay for space dolphins! (Yes, it is a reference to a really cool weapon system from another game).

Question is, does it make sense in the context of eve, both lore-wise (Is it pseudo-realistic enough?) and gameplay-wise (Do we really need it?).

Mentioning lore, wasn't the secret weapon that Emperess Sarum used in one huge fight to wipe an entire fleet something like this? Can it be implemented as some sort of Doomsday device for Titan (as part of the capital rework)? Weaker, yet capable of striking multiple targets (capital only)? Would that add new gameplay opportunities?

It's not a bad idea per se, but I can already see the coding for this being a nightmare in EVEs engine. Still +1 for a better than average idea.

we keep getting new ships and modules i'd love to see a new weapon system if CCP thought they could handle it


assuming everyone doesn't just go join riot games

EVE and physics don't mix well, so don't overthink and enjoy our game of submarines with a sci-fi theme and FTL artillery shells.

Well I will just drop this here and be a killjoy.

What ionizes vacuum.

If it's not named after Tesla, I don't want it.

Electronic Arts would draw an extortionate amount of energy to produce a flashy, yet underwhelming effect that could be achieved by other weapon systems at a fraction of the cost. The customer support would also be terrible.

That's what you mean, right?

a faraday cage need to be grounded to work, not as easy to do in space (ok, in evespace - aka space slushie, maybe it could happen)

That's exactly the point. A smartbomb hits everything on a small radius. An EE has the possibility of hitting everything on grid at any range... provided targets are nearby each other. Aware enemies would try to spread out, but that might hurt their logistics and tend to isolate them.