EVE Information Portal

Exactly that, but with 130 sec timers the boost range is just stupidly big..

2AU would make the Rorqual content relatively similar to how Off-grid Booster content is today which is "Hunt the Rorq" except that Rorquals are capital ships and you know they're within 2AU of the belt which means one sweep with the scanner will always get you unless the scanner sucks. If Hunt the Rorq is the intended content (and I doubt CCP is interested in that) then they should just be made to be like Command Ships are today--not in a POS or tethered.

When I mine, I crochet. Mining isn't content to me, it's just a way to get isk to buy ships with.

you perfectly explained what is broken with the old system. Thank you for that.
And as a counter point ... let a friend fly the link ship with you. 2 people and you might actually have more fun.

Neutral Logi goes suspect, so I really think neutral buffers should go suspect as well for consistency. And while we're at it, bump tacklers should go suspect and not be defended by concord.

The irony of this clause in a massive, unformatted, poorly-punctuated, hard to read, unbroken wall of text is just sublime.

And exactly how would that work? You trigger the proximity alert on another ship, you go suspect? Who gets the suspect flag then, the freighter, or the battleship, since they both trigger one another? Wouldn't that just make bumping even more effective, as it immediately means the freighter no longer enjoys CONCORD's protections? What happens when two freighters undock at a similar time and bump one another?

In small groups, you remove the force multipliers. Boosting ships are a force multiplier. If you can identify the booster, and have a reasonable level of confidence that a)they've only got one or two, and b)you can kill them despite any logi on-field, then it only makes sense to kill them, and kill them quickly. Yes, they've applied their boosts... once. If they can't apply them again, then you've reduced the effectiveness of the rest of the fleet with that one kill.

Obviously, order of priority on force multipliers (including EWAR and Logistics) depends on the fleet composition, and which of them represents the greatest weak point. If the fleet has few logi, each one you kill is a considerable loss of combat effectiveness. OTOH, if they have a lot of logi, you may need to focus on them to be able to kill anything else.

Everything is fluid, and situational. But killing the boosting ship(s) is definitely on the list of 'obvious moves'.

Time to toss my two cents into the jar. With the exception of the Rorqual changes these look good to me. The old mechanic was pretty stupid, and moving it on grid while divorcing it from the fleet command structure should make it a lot more interesting. So good work there, while I'm sure it will need some refinement the overall concept looks solid. Now, that out of the way, on to the part I think will be an utter disaster! (I am an eve player after all, just getting three lines of praise out probably made me strain something...)

First, I do mine. I have a personal Rorqual, three maxed out barge characters, and I have quite enjoyed sucking big rocks while sipping some scotch on ice for years. So I'm not pulling this complaint out of nowhere. And I am aware of the line in your dev-blog, "This is just one of the many enhancements that the Rorqual will be getting in November and we’ll be going into more detail about it in the upcoming dev blog."

But still, I think it's important for me to point out the following: If the Rorqual boosts are implemented in their current form without also making the Rorqual more survivable and/ore useful the ship will see a massive drop in use.

The reason for this is a question of security. Requiring players to park a 2.5 billion Isk ship in an anom/belt for five minute increments to increase mining output will, in the vast majority of situations, make no sense. It would take days to see return on the investment, and I don't think a Rorq would be likely to live that long. As a roamer, if the changes go through and the industrial core anchoring mechanic stays as-is, that the moment I see a Rorqual on D-Scan I'm going to get an erection.

At that point I know there is a pinata which is going to be parking for long stretches in a very small number of potential locations. Even if I can't get the thing myself I'm going to note its location and start sneaking around in system; all I need to do is catch it with a minute left on its core ONCE. A Sabre with a cyno, a pre-bookmarked anom, and I have a mega-killmail coming.

Having an invulnerability button that buys a couple minutes for the mining fleet before they get their faces wrecked does nothing to fix this because it relies on the mining fleet having a pool of PvP ready players standing by at all times to save the day. Even in large organizations that is no sure bet; in smaller ones it's likely impossible.

Still, there are quite a number of things you could do to fix this. The blog gives me hope that at least some of them are planned. For the sake of discussion I'm going to list off everything I can think of:

- Make the Rorqual give such a boost to output that it justifies the effort involved in using one with a reasonable degree of security.

- Remove, or greatly reduce, the rooting effect on the industrial core. Ten or fifteen seconds would be workable. A buff to agility would also be in order here.

- Bubble immunity for the Rorq and a high warp core strength so it takes a sizable effort to pin one down (This is highly questionable I know).

- Make mining anoms back into signatures which require probing (ignores problems of lowsec, which is bad).

- Give the Rorqual serious defensive capabilities, in line with a crappy dread oriented towards killing subcaps. Again, make it so getting bubbled is not guaranteed to be fatal without the intervention of fifty other players. A few sub-ideas here:
* Let the capital tractor beams pull in subcaps (hilarious, even if probably broken).
* Massive bonuses to neut range/strength so one can gimp attackers. (Battle Rorqs for capfights anyone?)
* Incredibly stiff tank that is sustainable over time rather than just a one-shot invulnerability.
* Ability to fit capital type RLML swarm launchers to clear tackle (Probably bad, but hilarious again).

- Allow two tiers of bonuses, one that can be run from the safety of a POS that is low, and an on-grid one that is much more powerful for when the pilot feels secure enough to put their baby in a belt.

These are just what I could come up with over my cup of coffee. I'm sure there are others. Just please, whatever you do, don't simply slap the new boost mechanics on the Rorq with a five minute root timer and confine it's use to players with balls of steel/brains of sand. Mining does not pay well enough for that kind of risk.

After seeing the proposed changes I'm less worried. But still have two big concerns...

1. That range... not everyone anchors up and presses F1. Need more range for small gangs who tend to spread out more.

2. The ammo idea is just plain dumb. Please use scripts instead.

2 years from now you will get a 10% increase to range. Because playtesting.