Player Features and Ideas Discussion

TLDR: Not a super-ship. Simple a ship that you decide the slot layout, role bonus, PG/CPU levels when you unpackage it. It's strength comes from it's unpredictability and the creative design ideas of the players that use it.

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I appreciate that this idea if taken on-board by CCP is probably years away from implementation, but I just wanted to put the idea out there.

The T3 concept is supposedly based on the ability to change the setup of the ship on the fly, to make it unpredictable and versatile. However, the reality is that there are only a few cookie cutter fits that are viable and CCP tacked on the insurance (for success) of making it hugely OP to justify the price tag. You see a Legion for example and (if not booster) assume BIG Armor Tank, Lasers, possibly neuts. You don't think "I wonder how it is fit?"

The T4 concept I'm proposing, first is not a super-ship and second it is a ship that you create with a specific setup when you unpackage the ship, but after that it is fixed. You can change it, but only by stripping it, repackaging it (and destroying any rigs) and starting again. There are no faction variants just one of each size: Frigate, Dessie, Cruiser, BC, BS etc. Obviously a staged implementation would start with just one size, say the Frigate.

So when we build a T4 Frigate:-

1. The first thing you decide is how to distribute your slots. You have 10 slots and must place at least 1 and a maximum of 5 in each of the low, med and high positions with an optional 25M/25M drone bay counting as one of those slots. So two examples would be a 1L/5M/4H or a 5L/3M/1H + Drone bay slot layout.

2. You assign Turret and Launcher hardpoints. This will default to number of high slots minus one. But it is either/or, you decide whether it is all Turrets, all Launchers or a combination of the two. eg In a 3H ship you can have 2 Turrets or 2 Launcher or one of each, not 2 + 2.

3a. The next thing you assign are the ship bonus'. You pick two bonus' from the following list. Per T4 Frigate Skill:
. +4% Shield Resistances
. +4% Armor Resistances
. +5% projectile/Hybrid/Laser/Missile/Drone Damage/RoF (one of each)
. +10% Scan Probes Strength
. +10% Optimal Range
. +10% Falloff Range
. +7.5% Tracking
. +5% tackle range
. +250m Cargohold
. +1000m Orehold
. +20 Speed
. +20% Mining Yield
. +10% Local Armor/Shield repair
. +50% Remote Shield/Armor Transfer Range/Amount
. -20% Targetting delay after decloaking
. etc. (usual suspects).
Certain combinations may be disallowed such as Damage + RoF for the same weapon type.

3b. Alternatively one or more of the following one off bonus' only available at T4 Frigate V:
. Covert Cloak capable
. Immune to ship and cargo scanners
. +1 Warp Core strength
. +1 Turret hardpoint
. +1 Missile hardpoint etc.

4. Assign a role. Such as Shield, Armor, Hull, Logistics, Hauler, Miner, Missiles, Projectiles, Hybrids, Lasers, Explorer, ECM. The role will determine base Sig Radius, Sensor Strength and type, Speed, Cargohold, Scan Res, Capacitor, Shield/Armor/Hull HP etc, but obviously can be further modified by rigs and modules. Roles do not have to compliment the chosen ship bonus'.

5. You assign the PG/CPU balance starting with a default 40PG and 160 CPU (before modification by skills). You use a slider to change 1PG for 4CPU and vice versa to end up with say 55PG and 100CPU Or 20PG and 240CPU

You then click build and the ship appears unpackaged, after that you can't change anything without repackaging it, but can add and change the rigs and modules as you want. Optional - until first Undock ability to adjust the PG/CPU balance.

Some tweaking of the exact figures will need to be done, but you should be able to build a ship that is almost, but not quite as good as a regular T1 frigate such as a Tristan, Merlin or Tormentor. Definitely not as powerful as an empire faction frigate, but with a faction frigate price.

It's strength would be it's unpredictability. Currently you see a Comet on scan and straight away you ask - Blaster or Railgun fit? Expect heavy DPS and drones, load Explosive Ammo. But if you saw a T4 Frigate on scan what would you think?

You land on an Asteroid belt and find one mining. But is it a viable Mining frigate or a Drone boat with a Mining laser baiting you.

You are in a FW plex when a Garmur comes on short scan. Time to GTFO, but what about a T4?

You land on a FW plex and see a Slicer inside. You know straight away whether you can engage that and activate the gate (or not), but what about a T4?

Ten T4s warp into your gang - are they all DPS or are some of them logistics? Which one is the ECM boat? No longer will it be, "Primary the Griffin, tackle the Inquisitors before they get off the warp in". Now pilots will have to tell the FC "I'm jammed by X". While the logi will have to be identified by the visual effect when they rep someone or even from Ship scanning them. Optional - new module: Prediction Computer which identify roles based on observable effects, for when your fleet is composed of F1 monkeys.

Haulers and Miners have a ship which is going to confuse potential gankers.

Mining or Indy corps under wardecs can reship into combat versions of their identical looking peacetime ships.

Yes you are absolutely right and I see that as a bonus, fleet fights would become more tactical, requiring observational skill on the part of the pilots involved when on grid with their enemy, not able to reship to the perfect counter after doing a long scan.

New players would arguably benefit too. They are going to lose most of their first shed load of fights. But now their cheap T1 frigate will actually be more powerful than some of the T4s they run into depending on the configuration, randomly the perfect counter. Hence why re-configuring them involves a cost. A veteran in a T4 will have to think, should I run from a noob in a T1 which is a good counter for my T4 or rely on my general skills and experience. Compare that to the Garmur pilot taking on a 2 day old Rifter pilot.

Sounds like fun. However, the following would need to hold:

• T4s should not be better at the particular role that they are built for than their t2 counterparts. I.e. a T4 cruiser configured to be a logistics ship should not be better than a scimitar, oneiros and what not ...
• They need to be significantly more expensive than their corresponding t2 counterparts. I.e. 5x - 10x as expensive seeing as not giving away your ship's capabilities is a MASSIVE advantage.

Does not compute - 200 saved fitting limit. Conclusion - your statement cannot be considered seriously, and that is a real attempt to put it nicely.

To suggest that the T3 Cruisers are versatile and can be refitted at will isn't (strictly) true. The rigs serverly limit how versatile you can afford to make them. The price tag of the ship demands T2 rigs, you cannot crush them on a whim when you want to switch your Armor/Laser Legion to a Shield/Hybrid one for a specific operation. You might have a travel fit and an exploration/PvE fit, but they will be optimised around one set of rigs used for the main purpose of the ship. You certainly won't have two radically different PvP fits that require different rigs. Not unless you have two different Legions.

Predictability ultimately kills 'good' fights, as competent people simple run when they can assess an enemy fleet comp as superior before they even get on grid. The result is that most fights are one sided ganks when the inferiour team is taken by surprise or underestimates their enemy.

To suggest that the Legion or another T3 Cruiser is not OP is ridiculous. No T1 Cruiser can seriously stand up to a PvP fit T3 in a 1v1, all other things (pilot skill) being equal. They remain a niche product only because of the price tag and SP loss on death.

CCP are in the habit of producing new ships which are OP or over buffing old ship for balance reasons and for the first few months, they are used by rich vets as noob farming machines. Not quite an I-Win button, yes they can be killed with a lot of effort or dumb luck. My suggestion is radical different in that I'm suggesting a ship which takes a bit of effort to get it up to the level of the T1 equivelant, but relies on surprise and the ingenuity of the player to make it work, not just a fat wallet. Sure there will be cookie cutter fits that will be genius, that I never thought of. But instead of CCP having to wade in with the nerf bat or creating a new OP FOTM ship, it will be another player that comes up with a specific counter fit. That nobody will know about until their previous OP fit runs into the brick wall. And of course there will be plenty of people that will just simple fail to set them up decently and just be loot pinchatas.

I imagine that these ships will be used in mixed fleets to sow confusion. But the regular T1 and T2s will outperform them and will remain as the backbone. You see a kitchen sink fleet of 20 containing 5 x T4s, you have a similar sized fleet, but in a sound comp. You know you can engage the other 15, but what are the T4s? Are they force multipliers - logi and ECM for instances, should you primary them first and then find they are brick tanks, or maybe it was only the first one that hung in closer than the rest. The possiblities are endless... You see a hostile T4 Cruiser on a gate in your Frigate and don't immediate realise it is a hauler picking up PI products... You engage a hostile T4 Cruiser on a Custom office and then find it isn't a hauler...

The key fact is that the T4 is slightly substandard compared to it's T1 equivelent who's role it is mimicking. Thus if an enemy correctly predicts that role or just gets lucky, the T1 he brings to the fight will likely win. But no fights in Eve are that perfectly predicatable or fair. The truely ingenious pilot will likely win out, but will still get blobbed or out manourvoured on occasions.

And then anyone having anything remotely to do with balance slit their wrists...

This. They lost me at custom cpu/pg. This we could argue is the issue with t3, one of many ofc. If certain sub combos with skills, mods and rigs didn't allow the contentious use of 100mn prop mods we'd, imo, see less t3 op threads to some extent.

These would be so distorted into min - max ships.

There would be no racial differences

Newbies would find it so very daunting.

As much as it does appeal to me, I think it would be bad for EVE.

Whatevery the side effects might be, I felt the warmth when I read the lines. +1 for at least putting effort into thinking this.
All balance issues can be fixed with pricetags or one-shot layout option (like soulbound item, unable to repackage once opened).
Anyway, I really like this idea, know that there is at least one person loved it. However, people will throw rocks to your head now, be prepared! ^.^

Because EFT, Pyfa, Osmium (and quite a few others) don't exist allowing for near endless fitting variations.....