Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Whatever you do, but these planned Tug Boats MUST not be classified as Haulers. If you classify them as haulers, they will have the same fatigue bonus as other haulers and can be used to transport ships with a lot less effort via Titan bridge and thus undermines the purpose of limited power projection. That must be prevented.

TBH I really like the approach they have going here with these shifting into different roles. It's smart, especially if they do it with strategic cruisers and give them more forms to shape-shift into.

Here's some of the pros I see with these things:

-Mobility
For expensive vessels, if you don't have a hefty tank mobility is THE most important thing for you to have. The fact that two of three primary roles involve taking advantage of range dictation I think speaks volumes of their intended capabilities. People, ESPECIALLY solo pirates will eat these up due the ability to offset cost with a lower risk of getting caught in one of these.

-Flexibility
If you think about how useful mobile depots have been since they've come out, we can take a minute and pause to think about how essential they'll be for these new destroyers. Unless they have the weird and unique ability to swap out modules from their cargohold out of combat in mid-flight, swapping between different 'stances' will obviously require different modules to take advantage of that change, so it stands to reason that outside of a combat setting they'll function like swapping subs without having to actually carry around subsystems in your cargohold.

-Affordability
While they ARE t3 and will carry a pretty heft premium, once the market quiets down these beauties will probably not cost any more than a pirate faction frigate, which is WELL within the ranges of most solo or small-scale pvpers. Assuming they aren't granted extemporaneous things like covops cloaks or ewar bonuses, they will probably perform pretty well but still be able to be overcome by a handful of dedicated frigates with good setups. And if we're talking about affordability, we can also talk material costs; if they're as low as current destroyers and they don't do something weird, it's likely that you'll be able to do a little day-trip jaunt into w-space and assuming you have the skills, build them fairly easily even if you have to buy a few hard to find components.

-Adaptability
the fact that they can shift their setups mid-flight makes them not only utterly invaluable in roaming subcap fleets, due in no small part to immediately being able shift tactics as a situation develops, means that smart fits have a good chance of getting a leg up on the enemy if you know how to manage your modules with whatever bonuses you'll be getting from each stance. The difference here in flexibility is specifically with in-practice application; once you've committed to a fight and it doesn't go how you planned, you have the option of shifting tactics as the need arises; i.e. shifting from kite into high-dps brawlers when needed. Stuff like that is going to be completely invaluable in places like FW where you have a little forewarning of what you're going to be fighting.


I will definitely be getting the caldari and amarr ones. I look forward to further concept art on the minmatar and gallente, especially if we can see colors on them; thinking of missiles coming off of the caldari one is making me drool a little bit. @_@

I was just saying it would make sense as a balance option for them to pursue; it helps negate the "If we nerf x we need to buff y" conundrum they'll be faced with in a proper rebalance.

There's virtually no chance that they'll be faster and more agile than fast frigates (with the possible exception of the minmatar t3), so I don't see that being an issue. I just see them on the same par power-wise as a good faction frigate like the garmur or the worm, but with strong enough defenses to survive against a small group or more on its own if flown correctly.

Either way we'll just have to wait until the stats for them come out to see where they stand in relation to other ships

Yeah I'm of the opinion that turrets in general need a pretty massive buff to tracking speed; lasers especially. I think the kiting meta will be in a better place when it revolves more around small-gang ewar as compensation to being shot at rather than just speed.

They will be haulers. That doesn't force CCP to give them the fatigue bonus. The value is likely manually inputted for each ship class of haulers. No need for so many tears. CCP could classify them as freighters, or industrials, and give them a fatigue penalty if they wanted.

I'm surprised to see an EVE veteran spell like that, and have a title like that xD

But I guess it's just excitment.

Is very excited indeed!

A good example for weapon systems that are in a good place right now for ships like this are 75mm rails. Even though their dps is on the lower end, on a corm their range and tracking speed is extremely good, and with javelin they can be made to be particularly effective brawlers should the need arises.
The point you make about brawlers that can deal with kiters are usually bad vs other brawlers is a pretty good one as it applies well to small rails and drones in particular. While I think it would be ideal to get rid of any of the tracking penalties to t2 weapons, and buff it on the short-range high-damage ammo like void and conflag, the issue DOES remain with turrets medium or larger being relatively inflexible vs smaller ships.

It is my guess that the amarr and gallente destroyers will have a primary drone focus with a laser and hybrid secondary focus, and the caldari and minmatar ones have a primary focus on missiles for each of them, and a secondary focus for long hybrid optimal like the corm and a very long falloff for the minnie one that can be used for AC kiting as well as arty sniping.

Could be a role for a T3 frigate. Comes with built in fleet boosts, but only one type of boost can be active at a time.


Just an idea to kick around.