Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Oooh, ooh, pick me!

Combat black ops drops (e.g. Falcon tackles Rattlesnake in a Sanctum, lights covert cyno, two Panthers and a Sin jump in and kill Rattlesnake) are great fun. They add value to Eve because ratting with neuts or reds in local should be risky. They're not perfect; the target might be pre-aligned to a safe, loaded with warp core stabilizers, handy with an AB and MJD, or bait for a counter-drop. Blops drops depend upon stealth, patience, and mobility. The primary weapon is surprise - and jumping to the hunter cyno is essential for the surprise to work.

Here's how things work currently:
The hunter roams through a region, dodging gate camps and looking wistfully at shiny ships in POSes. At last! He spots a target in an anomaly. Things happen quickly - decloak, tackle, cyno, blops bses jump in, target dies, cyno down, scoop the loot, leave the scene. The black ops battleships wait for jump cap and then return to the staging system via jump. The hunter moves on in search of the next target.

Here's how things would work with a 5ly jump with these revised changes:
Hunter cyno goes up, Blops ships jump in, kill the target, and wait for 1+2.5 minutes before the jump cool-down expires. If they jump 5ly to the exit cyno after 3.5 minutes with 3.15 fatigue they get 3.15 x 3.5 = 11.025 fatigue and are done for the day. If they choose to wait in the system for at least 25 minutes, their fatigue drops below 1 and the next jump isn't quite so painful.

Assuming they're adaptive folks - they have abandoned the practice of always returning to the staging system and instead wait to jump directly to the next target. Either way - there is no point in continuing to hunt for 20+ minutes until the combat blops pilots' fatigue is reduced. This is not fun. Although I suppose the hunter could go around and do "catch and release" fishing for a bit. How about taking gates? Combat blops ships are certainly better than most ships at navigating bubble camps (better speed while cloaked, can fit MJDs), but they're also pricey and fragile. Plus, they warp at 2.2au/s, so warping from in-gate to target is not feasible.

I think a -50% fatigue factor is better than the original proposal but still extremely constraining. The added range (8 vs. 7.5ish) is nice, but this iteration would still mean 1-2 potential kills per session. Currently the limiting factors are all based on player behavior: Can you catch someone? Did they use their intel network and successfully avoid you?

Counter-point to what I just said:
If the blops jump drive (or covert bridge) receives a gentler nerf than this current iteration (as I think it should), it could potentially serve as a work-around for the consequences of other changes to movement in Phoebe. This is already the case for Jump Freighters-as-taxis (and industrials?), but Blops ships are considerably cheaper and more accessible (and covert bridges would be even more accessible).

In conclusion, I would be really sad if Phoebe removed the viability of blops drops from EVE. I am in favor of the vision behind Phoebe, but I really don't want blops ships to be collateral damage and I hope that you don't, too.

Doesnt fix the problem of them jumping a gate and instantly leaving - that was the issue at hand. With being unable to bubble - you cant stop that. Unless there's something artificial stopping the gate jump.

I admit ccp greyscale that i commented on the drone region gulf and JF range reduction, and i am happy that the limit is now 10, for the interim at least, I would really like to see the a greater ability of mining and building a lot more on site, T2 included, because i liked where the 5 ly range could go, if we could support more regional markets in null / more regional construction. because as it is the industrialists out there even if you build things don't have a good customer base, as usually the only people around are alliance bros, and gouging them would be a **** move (as it stands). which leads into the sell everything in jita. being desirable imho

YES!
First of all, thanks for taking the time to actually read all the posts (sorry i'm giving you more).
Now this is pretty much takes away everything I didn't like about the changes, being completely cut off from empire on a logistical level.

Thanks for listening, really, thanks!

We've been talking internally since the previous announcement, should we stay or should we go? This solves that..

Better. Thank you

90% reduction means that transport fleets will move a lot faster than capital fleets. Pretty easy to turn unarmed jfs into offensive gambits with that.

Jumping a super through a gate less than half its size is as silly as docking one. I suggest gates instead work like an assisted cyno which doesn't consume fuel or cap and spawns you 12k off the gate. This way you could also require 95% jump cap to limit supers in lowsec from easily deaggressing, taking gate and jumping out.

Greyscale,

Thank you for listening. Null may still be a pain to move around in but I can now feasibly base next to the bad men (or the good men, this designation being 100% a matter of perspective) and go shoot them without huge travel times. I still think the hit to JBs and Rorquals is a bit harsh, but those are problems that can be worked around, unlike having to move a million cubic meters of cargo 5ly at a time. Now eve is going to get interesting again, but in a good way.

Approved, although I don't really like freighters being able to be portal'ed with the JF bonus, all other haulers should be fine imo.

I think that doing this in three major (plus smaller readjustments) steps is a very smooth way to tackle different issues and iterate on them. The JF reliability is a result of the convenience of jumping down cynos and the "tedious" work that needs to be done locally to be able to supply a local market - plus you need to import stuff anyway to make up for regional differences. Is it correct that you'll try to even out regional differences in resource availability to support more local markets and empires? Then you can downscale JF range and boni to enforce it.

On the other hand I still see a very big problem hitting deep nullsec space. Don't get me wrong, I think there should be some kind of "reward" for living in the middle of nowhere with a lot of trouble to get to civilization (low/highsec) - but it shouldn't be that hard to hit it with the current design of nullsec. Why not introduce small NPC islands in deeper 0.0 - either in between regions or insected in currently poorly used space (which can be explained then by the narrative of incursions and lack of defense), creating more content and opportunity for invasions. You still need to get there, but at least you'd have a staging point for launching it - and the defender has an evacuation point, too. This would enable smaller and especially new entities to risk an assault without the need to risk all their assets at once.

All these changes aim in a very good direction but you still need to enable and motivate people to move to nullsec and risk stuff, not because of ratting. But due to the ability to carve out your own space, challenge old entities and give it a shot, make space more dynamic. When you take a look at most invasions you'll see what I mean, where they are staged from and why. Shake things up, now is the time to do it and people are mad anyway.

Interesting times ahead, glad to see some old people logging back into the game and how excited many people are to see some changes!

Please increase Nocxium in high sec ores, oh, and lots more nullsec ore belt spawns in high sec...cheers.