Player Features and Ideas Discussion

It makes the mtu more competitive against a noctis. There is no way it's only QOL. Yes you can balance the two by other means as well. But that does not change the simple fact that making the mtu smarter improves its abilities against its competition.

Svipuls make great MTU hunters. Have popped many in my travels, including one where I popped the MTU and looted it while the guy returned into system, then was able to activate my cloak just as he landed on his MTU wreck.

The salty tears that was shared in local reinvigorated my dark soul...

MTU has longer tractor range.
MTU tractors/loots wrecks even when you're not on grid, or even in system.
MTU loots wrecks automatically, so you only have to empty one object.

The MTU has its place, and it fits in that place very, very well right now. When used wisely and properly, it is a massive boost to salvage efficency, and doesn't need anything added to it. Seriously though, if your idea of the proper way to use a noctis is to fit a full rack of tractor beams and rely on salvage drones to do the salvaging, I question your ability to actively compare it to the MTU. That is probably the most horribly inefficient way to use the noctis that there could be.

And yet most people use mtu's rather than a noctis.

It loots while im not there, so i can run a bunch of sites, dropping mtu's at each, then run around with a hauler when im done. Why even spend the time salvaging when it's not worth very much?

I wasn't the one saying that changing the order of which wrecks are tractored would make them compete with a Noctis.

I am well aware of the strengths of each. Changing them to first tractor wrecks with loot makes zero difference in the vast, overwhelming number of cases where they see use. Mostly they get dropped off and recovered later, after all wrecks have been tractored. How would it matter in that case?

So then we have cases where you are staying with it. It's very slow. A Noctis on grid will pull several wrecks in the time it gets one. Given the low value of a single piece of loot, this means the increase in value is also low. Best case scenario is it grabs a single wreck with loot from a wreck out of the noctis tractor range... A rare, low probability event that improves quality of life a bit, maybe, but makes near zero impact on a wallet.

So then we have the real issue, salvaging wrecks. MTU does not do that at all, and again you are still waiting for it to pull in all the wrecks. Even a single tractor on the noctis will out perform an MTU. In fact, giving an MTU a second tractor would not equal the ability of just one Noctis tractor, once you figure in the time it takes it to decide on a new wreck and pull them in. Salvage has nothing to do with loot, so in matter it's entirely inconsequential which wrecks get pulled first.

Lastly you have the mission Blitzer. He drops it before he starts shooting, and only in missions that don't require him to move or do require or at least allow for him to return without slowing him down. Assuming it will tractor empty wrecks if loaded ones are unavailable, and won't abandon empty wrecks if a loaded one suddenly appears, and given their slow reaction time, slow tractor speed, and small amount of time the Blitzer spends in each mission... Yes, a Blitzer might see a very small additional amount of ISK from this, but it would be very small.

Anyone actually waiting for it to loot makes more with a noctis even if it was twice as good as it is now, even ignoring salvage. For all others it makes no difference as they aren't on grid waiting for it. The rare few using it to grab a bit of loot on the run see it as QoL.

Honestly if I am salvaging I just toss one out so I can loot one box instead of 15, and commonly run 5 tractors and 3 salvagers, along with salvage drones, unless I am dropping MTUs and coming back to balls of looted wrecks, in which case it's all salvagers. In neither case can an MTU compete in any way with the Noctis.

They perform complementary and related functions, but only if you want to ignore the salvage capability and cargo carrying capacity is an MTU even in the ballpark. If it's important, you use a noctis. If it's not, leave an MTU. Only the rarest use case gets any benefit from changing the order of how it drags in wrecks.

That depends how quickly you run missions. You dont 'lose' isk if the isk/hour of salvaging is less than the isk/hour of running the next mission/site, and the price of salvage is very low right now. Consider that a lot of people blitz level 3's for more isk/hour than level 4's. How much do you think the salvage is worth in those missions? It's not worth dragging a noctis out after each mission.

The loot isn't worth much either, but you can run missions for an hour or two and then pick up all your mtu's at once...

Edit- CCP were right to make the mtu dumb and slow. And even then it's dominated the meta. Like what happened with the retriever, everyone has underestimated the value of earning rewards with very low work input by the player.