EVE General Discussion

With EVE's "Everything is a sphere" physics system it would purely be cosmetic, and actually could even be counter-productive in terms of large-fleet composition.

EVE would need more directional weapons systems for it to become effective. The new doomsdays and bombers are a great example of things which require more user involvement than anchor + F1 due to the consequences of them being directional and killing the wrong fleet if you get them wrong.

I'd love to see direction being more relevant in game. Then formations might be worthwhile.

EVE doesn't use real physics mechanics much.

Fleet Formations would be 'pretty' but otherwise meaningless. Ships barely even recognize each other as physical objects, even then, only when they 'bump'. Other than that, you can shoot through anything in between.

So, while the idea is admirable, I'd hope we'd get some real physics mechanics first, then worry about how nice we look when we are bunched up.

I'd like for FC to be able(and promote people to) mark players and add a sphere of influence that they have when tactical map is up, viewable to all players in fleet.

take logi anchor and backup anchor and add a sphere of influence of the range of the logi.
Take damage anchor and add a sphere of influence to indicate attack range.
Grant draw permission to your Theorist so that they can mark spheres of influence of enemy ships after he figures out their fit.
Mark someone in the near the center of the fleet and add a 30KM sphere of influence around them to indicate where bombers are likely to show up at.

Right now the tactical overlay is not very good for showing the ranges of any ship but your own. But it'd be sweet if you/your fleet could input ranges of other ships into it.

And that is why custom implementation of many things are rarely allowed.

The childish behavior of many adults in this game.

Don't forget forward tank stronger than flank or aft tank, so orientation matters.

In all fairness, the aforementioned formation can be achieved right now, with little effort. With fleets, AND with bubbles. It's not like the "custom implementation" would bring anything that isn't in the game already.

The sphere is the superior form in a 3D space. The spatial distribution allows for quite a few formations. Just recall wrecking ball for example.
Line of fire.... Pffffff... can I bring my Drake?

Everything being a sphere doesn't matter. A T3D is a sphere too, when you change a T3D from Defensive to Sharpshooter mode its all imagination and glitter. When you seige a dread, its all imagination and glitter. When you activate a command module same thing.

Its all fanciful pretend nonesense.

So implementing a pretend fanciful formation and applying bonuses / penalties is no different at all and would actually look and be cool.



Eh no it wouldn't. Just like when a fleet commander takes partial control over your ship that control ends as soon as you give a command. If a fleet commander ordered a formation and you needed to tackle, or do something that would break the formation you could easily do so at any time after that command was given, much like you can cancel a fleet warp command before you warp.



I doubt the coding would be very difficult.

Assuming traditional formations, FC in central position, larger in closer with smaller ships out to the edges. Lets say its a traditional terran anti-aircraft formation.

Server commands

Battleships orbit FC at 5, battlecruisers orbit FC at 10, Cruisers orbit FC at 15, dessies, frigates, inties orbit fc at 25. When they all reach those distances a simple align to FC's direction of travel creates the formation.

So server sends 1 command to each ship class and then an align to command

1 Orbit 5
2 Orbit 10
3 Orbit 15
4 Orbit 25
5 When at requested ranges align to FC direction.

Very simple