Player Features and Ideas Discussion

At the risk of sounding like someone who doesn't know what I'm talking about and the potential flame war that will likely ensue as a result, I'm just going to jump right into the proposal.

I like the idea of Fleet Boosting ships and leadership roles in gang-warfare. I don't like the price tag or practicality of it though.

For even the most basic leadership on grid you have to hash out -a ton- of ISK for one of the following:
- Titan
- Super Carrier/Carrier
- T3 Cruiser
- Command Ship
- Battlecruiser

Which is well and good, the Battlecruiser option is the cheapest and it gets the job done but the overall practicality of it isn't... optimal, really. There's no bridge into leadership where the player can tinker and toy around with tactics and options without expending a lot of ISK in the process and those ships aren't exactly practical for small gang-warfare where they're expected to gain this leadership experience before moving on to the big stuff.

My point is that there is no bridge there; there is no escalation or sense of progression. You have to sort of dive off the deep end and learn by rather expensive trial and error.

At any rate, what I would like to see is a lighter, more practical and financially applicable means of getting into that sort of role and with that I'm going to propose a Frigate or Destroyer T2 variant with light, applied leadership bonuses. Cheap enough to not break the bank and allow for mistakes (of which there will be plenty) but useful enough that null-seccers wouldn't find it practical for large fleets.

Thinking a 2% benefit to racial style leadership (Gallente are Armored/Skirmish, as an example) per level. This would allow a cheaper leadership role without infringing on the T3 Cruisers, which still retain their generalist role in that they apply their bonus to all types of warfare links, or Command Ships, which have a greater benefit on racial leadership and are far more durable.

Add in some T2 resists, one additional high-slot to allow for the use of Warfare Links, and a role bonus to reduce the PG/CPU costs to something sane and... Well, you've pretty much done it.

I explained why.

Fleet boosting is a luxury, just like faction / pirate cruisers. If you want quality boosts you need to be willing to spend the 200m-300m for a boosting loki / command ship, even if you're short on cash a 70m battlecruiser running 1 fleet assistance module makes a difference.

If you cant afford that then maybe get a character with good skills (IE leadership 5 and armored warfare 5) and buy them the specific implant (IE Armored Warfare Mindlink) that way no matter what ship they are flying they're still giving a boost. (AW5 and the implant give 15% extra armor) The implant is only 38m, there are cheaper boost options out there.

I wouldn't mind frigate / destroyer boosters but they must be carefully implement to preserve balance.

You can fit a Battlecruiser so that it can keep up with a gang of T1 Cruisers. I routinely fly a warp-speed, agility fitted Claymore for small gang fights.

You can fit 3 gang links of any kind on an Orca and use it for mission support. Orca pilot should be trained for Siege links anyway - to fit shield harmonizing link when supporting mining fleet.

T1 links are not a difficult train. T2 links are and should remain so.

Fair point. One of the option is make a fresh breath into AF by adding one high utility with light bonus to small size of booster links.

This thread had a heavy emphasis, from the start, on the practicality of running these ships for light small gang warfare and to a much lesser extent the cost of Battlecruisers. It is a very minute detail to get bent out of shape over, especially considering that in my original post I directly stated that: "-the Battlecruiser option is the cheapest and it gets the job done but the overall practicality of it isn't... optimal, really."

My apologies if this thread came off as "Battlecruisers are too expensive" to you but that wasn't the point at all.



I think it goes without saying that PvE experience =/= PvP experience. And an Orca..? Seriously..? Your solution to the problem presented in this thread is to run a skill-intensive ship that costs -more- than a Command Ship O.o???

Run an Orca with a Frigate/Destroyer roam. Please. Be sure to post kill mails.

It is hard to do if we are talking about classic roams but if you do camp an area arround your staging system it is prettty fine tactic. Cause an Orca in addition to fleet booster would also provides you with ammo, charges, drones and ofc quick ships replacement.

Meanwhile i agree that we need small hull fb vessel. For example we have tier 2 Dessy which might be used as a concept for this role.

They need to just remove boosting out of the game. It's terrible that some flights don't even happen because one fleet or another decided that because they don't have boosts they might as well not undock. Or feeling that you need to bring a booster ship to solo pvp. They should just add the bonuses to the hull of ships and call it a day then refund all that wasted SP to all those poor saps that trained it all up.