Player Features and Ideas Discussion

TL;DR: a new ship that can revive podded pilots in a short window of time, potentially saving SOME implants, but never ALL implants!



Angels of Mercy


In other games, I prefer support roles, particularly medics. In Eve, Logistics ships fit the bill in one sense, but there IS A niche that remains untapped! That niche?

Reviving podded clones, those frozen blocks of biomass floating around countless gates in the Eve universe.

"Why bother?" You may wonder. I have one word for you:

Implants.

Hospital ships are small frigate-sized ships that are equipped with state-of-the-art medical facilities. Upon discovering a freshly podded capsuleer, the hospital ship gets to work, recovering the exposed pilot, reviving them, then placing them in a capsule where they fly (hopefully) safely home.

How does it work?
Three modules are key to the process
-the recovery beam (tractor beam for biomass), Midslot
-medical revival module, Midslot
-capsule launching module, Highslot requiring charges. (6 maximum)

The hospital ship finds a potential survivor. If they have died within ONE minute of being tractored aboard, the pilot can be revived. The ship must come to within 1000m of the corpse, at which point the recovery beam module is activated. Once the body is onboard, the revival module requires 60 seconds to bring the pilot back to life. As soon as a pilot is revived, a capsule is launched with the grateful released patient inside.

Downsides?
A hospital ship, if it successfully reaches a body in time, will revive it 100% of the time, but it will never be able to save 100% of the implants lost. A separate skill tree for hospital ships will increase odds of saving more implants, but it will never completely undo the ravages of war. The Hospital ship is not about eliminating the consequences of war...it is about mitigating them. That is, IF a pilot is willing to risk his own life for his corporates or even random strangers.

Who is it for?
This ship targets the corpmate or random stranger that wants to play a support role that has never been available before: saving potentially billions in implants. This is for the carebear who doesn't want to (or sucks at the) PEW PEW but still wants to contribute to his buddies who will inevitably die and lose implants. This is for the RPer who wants to fly around nulls ex, hiding at the fringe of a battle, waiting for that gate camp to jump out so that he can save some poor soul caught in the trap. This ship cannot in ANY sense turn the tide of battle, but it can pick up a few pieces in the aftermath.

The hospital ship goes to an extreme few, if any ships have ever gone: it will NOT carry ANY weaponry whatsoever.

No Weapons? How will it survive?
It will have two highslots; one for its capsule launching module, and one for a COVOPS cloak. This ship, if caught, WILL die without outside aid. It will have fairly high agility and speed, and I propose it having the fastest warp speed in the game to reflect the need to get to a fading corpse ASAP. This ship will be BELOVED by capsuleers, but it will be an enormous risk to fly one. Even Bait ventures have better survival odds than a hospital ship.

If it has no weapons, it won't last a second on a contested battlefield. Are you crazy?
LIKE A FOX! But a skilled pilot can do it. Warping in close to a corpse cloaked, the hospital ship decloaks and closes in to1000m, beams the corpse aboard, then aligns, warps out, and prays it survives the minute countdown till the revived pilot is ejected in a new pod.

What are the skill reqs?
While not an in-depth skill tree, a basic requirements list would resemble this:
Cov Ops III
Science V
Biology V
Cybernetics V
Racial frigate V

As well as new and unique skills
Emergency Clone Revival: reduces the time it takes to revive a pilot by 10 seconds per level.
Extended Exposure Revival: extends the amount of time a dead capsuleer can be in space until he can no longer be revived. Extends it by 12 seconds per level, extending a dead pilots time in space to up to 2 minutes at level V.
Cybernetic reconstruction: Improves the chance of salvaging more implants per level. At level V, there is a 75% chance of saving 50% of installed implants.

How does the system work from the podded capsuleers perspective?
Upon being podded, the pilot no longer automatically revives in a new clone. A 2 minute timer shows up and when it reaches zero, the pilot ends up at their normal clone facility. The pilot can select at anytime to go ahead and revive at his clone facility. If a hospital ship is nearby and rescues his corpse, his camera view shifts to the hospital ship for the next several seconds. At the end of the revival process, a capsule is automatically ejected, and the pilot assumes control of it as normal, hopefully with some of his/her implants intact.

"ITS OP, LETS TALK NERFS!"
Ok let's. If it seems too potent, there are several ways to balance it:
-Turn the revival process into a mini game like hacking, forcing the saving player to focus on his patient and thus being at risk.
-Eliminate the ability to warp while the revival module is on. If you are reviving a pilot, there is no warping from the scene.
-Tweak the timers so it takes longer to save someone/the window to save pilots is shorter/ less implants are saved.

I see lots of potential: Entire corporations dedicated to roaming the cold vastness of space to bring a little bit of mercy in an otherwise lawless universe. Random strangers could dedicate themselves to roving low sec and saving FW pilots of one faction or even both. FW militias could develop unspoken conventions of NOT blowing up hospital ships (and then promptly breaking these rules). Null sec alliances could start integrating these into fleet actions to save countless billions of Isk in implants from front line pilots. Think about it, CCP!

It sounds like you would do well in a logistics cruiser. Why save the clone when you can just save the ship (and all of its modules/cargo) to begin with?

Perhaps. But if you had a full set of snakes or whatever the blingy Implant of the month is, we're podded, and thought ther was a CHANCE of saving them, wouldn't it be worth staying around for an extra minute for that chance. I know I would, especially if I had a member in fleet with one of these Hospital ships.


As for this:

"i was thinking the opposite, that the salvager gets to keep the implants, and he wants "the patient" to remain dead because its more profitable"

I absolutely thought of that, and it's definitely a different way to go. Or perhaps revive the patient briefly, and offer to complete the entire process for a price...if they refuse, just space their corpse again and let them go home the old-fashioned way.

No.

Someone doesn't have reading comprehension skills :)

The player has the option to be revived or to go to his regular clone.

I quite like the idea, but its not very consistent with the lore, nor would it be particularly useful.

Hmmm cool idea

it could work but it would be all or nothing

maybe a passive buffer ship any ship can have their implants retrieved if in fleet . this could trigger 2 things one- the ship will draw fire like crazy for wound saltige so tanking a must

and two- it would be a pvp orca type with having one will greatly increase your fleets efficacy a cool new dynamic

an Emphatic NO!!!!

The technology lore behind the Capsule and Clone states that when a pod hull begins to break apart the device inside the pod basically kills the pilot and instantly transfers the data to a new fresh clone in a station.

This idea is crap.

Reviving podded pilots? Dead is dead in eve... You come back in a new clone because they saved your consciousness at some point at a specific medical faciity. Cloning a dead body would just render a new shell of a person who looks like you did; it would not be you... bringing your dead body back to life after podding should be pretty much impossible.