Assembly Hall

I support this idea.

This reminds me of something from Sins of a Solar Empire and therefore I love it.

But first we, as players, would need actual small-scale deployable structures/guns/bombs/etc.
The problem is, that I would assume, with so much cargo space to deploy these types of tactical structures one could just keep deploying, and keep deploying and keep deploying until the entire space is filled.

For this concept, there has to be a form of limiting factor as well as range factor (minimum range between two deployables) or something on the lines of that to prevent just a mass swarm of turrets around a single location or a mass grouping of armor repairers making a single ship nigh-invulnerable.

Either way, trench warfare sounds like it fits into the universe pretty well and might provide smaller alliances/corps more options when wardec'd as well. Sure would also make setting up proper cynos and covert cynos stressful in order to hit the key targets/locations.

Read the other thread, all I can say is that this would likely be a godsend for Nullsec and Wormhole corps who set up and tear down a lot of POSes. In regards to the proposed bonuses posted in the same thread - I could see some interesting usage of the light engineer and heavy engineers to severely cut down on the time required to anchor and online a POS.

Additional thoughts:

The heavy engineers should be relatively speedy, as most POS setups have a lot of offensive modules scattered ~35km from both the tower and each other. Slowboating around to scoop them is a tedious process.

The heavy engineer would also benefit from an ice products hold large enough to hold 1d17h of POS fuel. Not a cargo hold, as that's a lot of space that would result in the ship being used as a fleet resupply tender.

The heavy engineer's Orbital Infrastructure hold is a good idea, but if you want to make it possible to scoop modules to it then there would need to be a bit of work done on Fleet Hangars/other specialized holds to make it possible to scoop POS modules to specialized holds.

An exellent way to introduce a new set of t2 destroyers and battleships, supported.

I highly support any ships that aid in the deployment and removal of POS's. I haven't fully read both threads and apologies if I am repeating anything, but these are my first thoughts on the matter, from my experiences of using and deploying Starbases.

A good bonus for these ships in the possible changes to Starbases is that they can be used to anchor/un-anchor modules at the same time at the same Starbase, that would really helpful.

These ships could use a T3 like subsystems (not a T3 ship though) that could allow you to configure it to a specific role, so if you want ships to drop a tower you might not need the large primary weapon, but on the other hand if you are planning to siege a tower then you don't need a massive cargo bay if this is the role this ship is going to cover. As a combat engineering ship it needs to be adaptive.

I like the idea of a light ship maybe with a primary weapon as an anti structure energy weapon. If this ship is not limited to just deploying things like Mobile Warp Disruptor and can be used to scoop Starbase modules as well, it will need a sizeable cargo bay 10 - 20km3 if you don't want to keep going back and forth to a drop point, as some of those modules can be big for a small ship.

The Heavy Combat Engineering ship could be a problem as in where do you stop, there would be a good number of issues for how big you could make it and how much it should carry for Starbase deployment. Fuel and Stront are the largest items to be delivered to a location, would it be acceptable to carry all that a Starbase needs for a month in one go? Plus it would also need to be able to fit inside WH's maybe C2 and above, so we are looking at at least and Orca sized ship to pull this off I would guess.

If the Heavy Combat Engineering ship were to use a large anti structure weapon, my first thought is yes please, but how powerful to make it I don't know, it would have to be less than a Dreadnought in siege mode but if it works like a doomsday for example uses a lot of fuel to activate it, then would it be acceptable if it took off 10 million hp every 5 minutes?

Personally I don't necessary think adapting industrials or cruisers into further t2 version for this role makes sense, as these ships are very specialized maybe have them belong to a pirate faction or DED would b a good idea. They will need to be generally well tanked and the ability to break through blockades so interdiction nullified would be a good ability. Defence wise drones would be a good idea which would allow the ship to continue doing its job while under fire. If tractor beams could be used to drag in un-anchored structures quickly it would make these ships work really well.

I agree with Agondray, as much as we all liked mines, I don't see how a deployable weapon system could be balanced in a way that would prevent spam. I do think this is a great idea for a new ship class (or classes). There are plenty of good ideas for deployables in the stickied thread. All we need is for CCP to act.

With the proliferation of structures that CCP has announced, along with the re-balancing of current structures, I think this will become even more useful as time goes on. The more structures there are, the more handy it is to have a ship dedicated to dealing with them. At least the small-medium structures.

Agreed! I would love to hear if CCP has anything to say about this. This thread has been around for a while now, and the response has been overwhelmingly positive and constructive.

CCP must just hate our freedom. Or something like that.

Appreciate the support. Still holding out hope that CCP will at least respond on this thread.

Maybe if it were posted on Reddit they'd pay more attention... Seems like they watch that closer than they do their own site.