Player Features and Ideas Discussion

In my opinion, hi-sec should be a safer place than it is now - even for pilots that are not too careful with their fits. If people want PvP then there is an area of Eve where they can do it. Not every player in Eve should have PvP forced upon them whenever they log on. To me the Eve universe should be broad enough and a big enough sandbox where all kinds of activities in space can go on - not narrowed to a game where only the Big Alliances get to do whatever they want to whomever they want in Eve. I mean that's how I see hi-sec, a place that should be pretty safe from the griefers, gankers and PvP'rs - and in my opinion, that was the original intent of hi-sec - to make it a relatively safe place in Eve.

That being said - I also understand that my opinion in not in the majority right now. That apparently the game design focus is to allow ganking to continue in hi-sec as a regular activity (whereas if it were removed, then the PvP activity in my opinion would migrate elsewhere in the game). That being the case - I still think that the Risk vs. Reward needs to be re-evaluated. If ganking is going to go on, then sure, a few dessies being able to take down a cheap hauler should be acceptable. But a bunch of cheap dessies - say 20 at 10mil each (that is 200 mil) taking down a multi-billion ISK freighter? That to me is not equivalent - the freighter pilot ends up taking all the risk and losing a lot more here. What I am arguing for here - and I think most players who have suggested the Bowhead be buffed more are arguing - is that it needs to be harder for the gankers to gank something that is big and expensive like a freighter - the cost to gank should be at least equal to the hull being destroyed. That is not what is happening right now in Uedama and other hi-sec systems in Eve.

As for poor piloting and fitting - yes there is no remedy for that. Although, look - you're always going to have new players being introduced to an MMO - and almost every MMO I've played have certain regions that are considered "safe" - as I believe hi-sec was originally intended to be. And I think it serves the game a good purpose. It does the game good both economically and sandbox wise for there to be a designated area - that is protected under "civilized" behavior, where players are not FORCED to play a given way. I imagine also many players prefer to be able to choose on what days they want to play in a group, PvP or play solo. Many players I've known in Eve over the years have had alts that do their industry work in hi-sec - because it's SAFE. But they also PvP in faction warfare or nul-sec with alts. They want to enjoy the game both solo & group. Not necessarily have the game dominated by a bunch of bloated Alliances who have turned the game into a slow crawl of a few way too powerful players.

Whilst it's not 100%-related to the information about the ship itself.....

Is it worth laying the 'gankiness' of it aside completely? For I believe I am right in saying that it is all but impossible to make a ship ungankable?

- Get gank fleet together
- bump ship off gate
- shoot ship, cause lots of damage
- continue to bump ship away
- wait out timer, get in new ship
- return to item 3 and continue loop until killed

Is that wrong?

However, curiously, given the Bowhead's attributes - if fitted with a Large (perhaps even Capital - also not yet confirmed by CCP) Hull Repairer - how much hull could be repaired in between gank-shoots? And/or, potentially, shield/armour equivalents.

is not uedama a pipe? unavoidable if you are going from say jita to dodixie? how does one avoid uedama?

more on topic, is it not a more reasonable solution to use a jump clone and fly one bs to the destination incursion, and then jc back to the other bs and move that one? since a bs is about twice as fast as this white elephant thing (bow thingy) does it not make more sense to not put all your eggs in a single styrofoam eggbox? and for the third bs you can use a third jump clone, and by that time, it will likely be at the next incursion or very close to it. Personally i don't see any value in this new ship other than disposing of ships you are tired with and getting back nothing in return.

As far as I am aware, the Target Spectrum Breaker doesn't cause any sort of suspect or criminal flags. If this was changed with the new Crimewatch mechanics, I'd like to know.

FYI - So last night I witness a freighter gang bang and the poor fella lost 1b+freighter by 8 Battlecruisers and 1 destroyer (WTF1). I had to pickup something 5 systems away and on the way back some 15 minutes later the wreck was still there, untouched (WTF2), guarded by a single harpy (WTF3).

Some things just don't make sense ... Why leave it there? **** & Giggles? Yes, ****&Giggles 1:Freighter 0 (not that he can done anything different or prevent it)

Same night 1j away from that system I spotted a Machariel sitting on the gate at 0 - yes that is right, he proceed bumping the first freighter he saw, another poor fella pilot away from the gate and I stood there watching them ... (and I was like "Thank God, I fly a cheapy hauler)

Why doing it? **** & Giggles? Yes, Yes, ****&Giggles 2:Freighter 0 (not that he can done anything different or prevent it)

Moral of the story: Don't buy or fly Freighters or Orca, Bowhead or Whales of any kind.

The destroyers have also been "beefed" up. And there has never been a tugboat. Although many things in Eve have remained the same, many things have changed. And that IMO is a good thing.

I think the tugboat will be very popular - as long as it isn't easily gankable in hi-sec. And that is a good thing too. And flying missions - lots of Eve players do it for many reasons, maybe as a way to make an income to pay for their PvP alt activity in faction warfare. Maybe to get the unique Blueprints offered in the loyalty stores. Maybe to brush up on your Eve playing activity if you've been away for a few years. heh. But in any case, I think missioning is a part of EVE and I wouldn't discount it altogether. I agree PvP is more interesting and exciting (if it's balanced ... I flew through Minnie/Amarr faction space a few days ago and boy have the Amarr taken over there) and what makes Eve a grand MMO is the PvP play. But I think it is also a mistake to restrict EVE and force everyone to live in virtual space as a PvP'r - especially for players new to the game who might want to enjoy the safety of hi-sec and be able to move their ships around in a tugboat that isn't easily susceptible to a large alliance that has nothing better to do (apparently) then to gank defenseless ships in hi-sec.

The underlining is mine.

New(er) players will not be flying Bowheads.

For those of you that think hisec should be safe, ponder this...

CCP recently revamped how the crimewatch criminal flagging system works. Can flipping disappeared, and hisec combat in general took a pretty big nerf with the new suspect flag making criminals vulnerable to all. If you commit a crime in hisec, everyone can shoot at you now - not just the person you stole from.

If, as you say, hisec was intended to be safe, why would CCP have gone to the trouble to specifically leave in the possibility of criminal flagging and criminal activity in hisec? Crimewatch is a huge drain on CPU resources - it would be much more efficient to just make hisec safe and pvp-free and remove all that extra code (I'm not digging up the source for that, but it's been mentioned in a few dev replies that hardware performs better in large nullsec battles than in lowsec simply because crimewatch doesn't have to run in nullsec).

So with all that understanding, why would you think hisec was intended to be pvp-free?

Eve is not like other MMOs where you have happy sunshine pve land, safe from all aggression. That's not ever been the intention or inspiration of Eve Online. Ultima Online was was one of the inspirations - a game where criminal activity and pvp is possible pretty much anywhere in the game.

There are oh so very many things that can go wrong when you have 15 minutes + travel time of not being able to gank a guy between waves, much less more than two waves. Mainly logistics tend to show up to ruin your fun. It's also very stressful and usually not worth your time/effort.

It's not their use on freighters that concerns me, it's ships whose primary cargo hold is of little importance such as combat ships (affects how many cap charges you can carry, that's all), deep space transports (fleet bay is unaffected), orcas (fleet bay, smb, ore bay) and now the bowhead. There is no tradeoff there at all, it's just free tank.