Player Features and Ideas Discussion

There have been alot of 'nerf ganking' threads lately, I figured I'd post some of my own ideas. To narrow the scope, keep in mind that this post is not directed at ganking mechanics in general, this is more-so directed at the ganking profession i.e. ganking for profit.

Please please! Stay your knee from jerking! At this point if you are thinking stuff along the lines of:
"That industrial should have had a better tank!"
"That pilot should have employed THIS strategy!"
For the intents and purposes of this post, assume that said theoretical pilot in question is already doing as you suggest. This post isnt directed at the interaction between the professional gankers and their targets, but at the balance between their professions.

= Reasoning / Justification =
Now obviously if someone is to suggest something be nerfed, they need to how or why it is out of balance.

If we were to talk about the balance between ships, we might compare things like:
* dps
* projection
* speed
etc

If we were to show balance, you would expect a bit of 'give and take' in these categories. For example 'Ship A' might have better dps than 'Ship B' but 'Ship B' might be able to project its dps better than 'Ship A'. This give and take across similar characteristics is an important part of balance.

For professions, we cant really compare things like dps, projection, and speed; but we can compare things like:
* investment cost / loss potential (lower is better)
* potential gain / profit (higher is better)
* risks that could cause the professional to take a loss (lower is better)
* the amount of time the professional is required to be susceptible to said risks. (lower is better)

For example, if we used these categories to compare mining vs hauling, a general outlook might be:
* Loss Potential: The miner stands to lose less
* Gain Potential: The hauler stands to gain more
* Risks: The risks a pretty similar
* Susceptibility: The hauler is a bit less susceptible as its vulnerable between jumps while the miner is susceptible while mining.

You can see some give and take in the above example, and if you compared mission runners to their mining / hauling counterparts, you'd see the give and take there as well. But what happens if you were to compare gankers to their Mission Running, mining, or hauling counterparts:
* Loss Potential: The ganker stands to lose less
* Gain Potential: The ganker stands to gain more
* Risks: While I see them as lower for many reasons... for arguments sake, let's say they're roughly equal.
* Susceptibility: The ganker is less susceptible to their risks

Where is the give and take?

To be fair, for the ganking profession to be a thing, it will almost always need to be better off in terms of loss potential and gain potential compared other professions. If you modify these factors, you just narrow or broaden their scope of targets. You could impose more risks..... however, any additional risks you might add to the ganking profession is immediately mitigated by the amount of time they need to remain susceptible to said risks. For example, take a freighter ganking fleet. You cant harm them while they're docked, and have a very limited window of opportunity to thwart them before they gank and redock....

= Proposal =
At a sec status of -3, in 1.0 security systems: pilot may no longer dock
At a sec status of -4, in 0.9 security systems and higher: pilot may no longer dock
At a sec status of -5, in 0.8 security systems and higher: pilot may no longer dock and will remain in space after logoff
At a sec status of -6, in 0.7 security systems and higher: pilot may no longer dock and will remain in space after logoff
At a sec status of -7, in 0.6 security systems and higher: pilot may no longer dock and will remain in space after logoff
At a sec status of -8, in 0.5 security systems and higher: pilot may no longer dock and will remain in space after logoff

= Intended Effect / Thoughts =
The goal behind this is to increase the suseptibility of gankers, to help bring the profession in line with other professions in the game. Such that, if a group wishes to hunt or retaliate against gankers, just as gankers have very large windows of time to be able to pursue haulers, miners, and mission runners.

Initially the idea was just not having the ability to dock in increments based on sec status. I added the "will remain in space after logoff" thinking that if docking was removed, gankers would likely circumvent the "no docking" logging off in a safe spot, then having a neutral tell the fleet to log back on. I suspect that in its current form, gankers might throw up a POS to keep the fleet at, which is nice in that the pos is susceptible to war decs. Or it might be possible that they might stage in a system a few jumps out, which could provide the opportunity of them being intercepted.

At the end of the day, any profession / activity you take part in should be vulnerable to ppl who want to ruin your day xD. The ganking profession, is dangerously 'too safe for eve' in its current state because the penalties of low sec status are mostly circumvented. By increasing the suseptibility, without necessarily increasing the actual risks, the game's professions can become a bit more balanced.

The thread below bars gankers from entering system

lol you didnt know they were different so you obviously didnt care to read.... Why are you taking the time to comment on something you didnt even read?

one tiny change does not a new thread warrant