Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Wait... what?

No existing ships above cruiser in size can warp cloaked, (use the covops cloak that defines a true cloaking vessel).

This idea is about a new type of cap ship, but much smaller in size.

All the same drawbacks, horrible maneuverability, slow speed, can only change systems with the aid of a cyno, etc.

It pays for being sneaky and highly damaging by being horribly expensive, and needing as much skill points as a cap ship.

Defensively, once you beat down it's cloak, it is no tougher to kill than a t1 cruiser. (And it's shields will already be gone at that point too)

As it will be cost ineffective to use it in any engagement where it's chances of loss are too high, it will be used sparingly and likely only against easy targets.

Modifications to destroyers proposed earlier in thread, with unexpected popularity, would make them quite effective hunting or deterring these subs.

QUICK RECAP (for those not wanting to reread the whole thing):

New Cap ship proposed: Size of a cruiser, but has all cap disadvantages:
A lot of skill points needed
Slow speed
Turns slowly when aligning (it won't warp quickly)
Very expensive
Requires a cyno to change systems, (covert or regular).

Advantages:
Has a special cloak instead of a shield, cannot be decloaked by proximity as regular CovOps types. As long as shield is above 5% the vessel is cloaked.
Has a high damage weapon. (Unspecified, but maybe something like multiple bomb launchers, 3 or 4)
Fires weapon while cloaked.

Counter: A destroyer type was suggested, using a new probe type similar to interdiction probes, but would instead strip the cloaking shields from anything within 15 KM. This effect provisionally would also pop any regular cloaks, but this may be cancelled by balance issues, or just tweaked to not make gate camps free death traps to CovOps.

I admire your open minded view. I would enjoy that aspect if it appeared in the game.

It appears cloaking vessels have a psychological aspect to them, which makes some players very uncomfortable.
This probably explains why any cloaking vessel is weaker than it's non cloaking equivalent, since they see cloaking as a huge advantage.

This argument loses some of it's meaning, when you consider the intelligence gathering can be done by many means, and the element of surprise already exists at every gate in the game.

Safety is always relative to your perspective. People expect to be surprised at gates, but feel cheated if it happens in other places.

Okay so I did some thinking on this.

Faction Cloaky Ships -

Classes -

Frigate Class

Scout Ship and Bomber just like racial. Only difference here is that like with all faction ships it would have improved upon stats as usual compared to racial and it would also cost more. Stealth Bomber Frigate costs about what, 20mil now for racial? Okay, so how about 45-50mil ish for a Faction SB. Scout ship would be the same, scan bonuses that are just better than the normal, cloaky, fast frigate. Beefed up speed maybe and some better tank on it?

Cruiser Class

Cloaky Bubbler. Basically a Faction Cruiser Medium Interdictor. Somewhere between the dictor and heavy interdictor. Speaks for itself. Built for tank, to cloak, and to drop bubbles for null sec fun.

Missile Boat. 6-8x rocket or light missile launchers, cloak, and very long range.

Faction T3, not just for cloakies. It would have its own variation of stats and subsystems that would set it apart above and beyond the call of racial T3s, but it would still have covert subsystem available to it.

Covert ops command ship. Can run a few command warfare links while cloaked up for fleet support.

Battlecruiser Class

Heavy Stealth Bomber. 2x bomb launchers that give a little bit of a buff to bomb range and some velocity. 4x torp launchers. Its like a stealth bomber just doubled up and able to take a more damage.

Battleship Class

Shiny Black Ops battleship. Able to bridge and jump onto cynos. Some possibilities for this would be a bit of increased resists or tank stats like all faction ships, larger fuel bay and less fuel consumption, all for a more expensive price tag.

Carrier/Dreads

Faction Cloaky Capitals. Somewhere in the depths of space far back in NPC space these monsters get built. Beefed up racial capital and super capital carriers and dreads. Better than racial obviously again, all for a larger price tag.

Covert ops freighter?


Just some ideas. But I definitely think there needs to be some additions to the cloaky side of things in the game.

Sniff sniff, I can fly the freighter and JF for amarr.... that idea is sooo beautiful!

(Nice thinking Akatenshi!)

Mind you, at like 6 billion ISK, I can't actually AFFORD the JF, but I can fly it if I had one.

The point of the no gate use is balance driven, but can be explained logically too. The ship's shields do not allow the gate to lock onto it for conversion to energy required to send it to another system.

Same provisional logic for why a cloaked vessel cannot jump, although the condition in that seems like a bug. Honestly, the ship should automatically drop it's cloak when the pilot pushes the jump button.

This is page two, the original proposal was complete and inclusive.

As this is a proposal for an addition to the game, there is no problem beyond the philosophical, in that the ship is not in the game.

The reason is obvious to many. A cloaked vessel that can actually hunt, not just act as a spotter for it's better capable fleet members.

As balance with kill capable cloaking ships is often a sticking point, I gave it many disadvantages. This ship is unlikely to be used beyond it's expected design intent.

For those that can hunt and kill these, it is likely to be boasted of on the same level as other capital ship kills.

A reasonable counter for it was also proposed, requiring little comparative changes to a single ship, in order to create a new type of destroyer. As a class with just one T2 variant in game, it seemed a good fit as well.

Take a look at it, having read this, and see if you find it more appealing in this new perspective.

All cap ships in the game are defined by requiring cap ship parts for assembly makes no sense for a by weight class cruiser ship to be such. They're simply not big enough considering some of these parts ARE the size of a battleship.

You can have a ship with a signature size of a cruiser instead. Which would be something entirely different from all current capitol ships which don't bother with electronic stealthing because of thier immense size but who said it couldnt be done?

Dont mention price as a balance factor, it will never work
Dont mention skill points as a balance factor, it will never work.
Do mention if its for a sales pitch IE easy to train skill or and easy to replace.
Do mention if it requires certain skills this helps drive the ship in a certain direction.

Bomb Launchers cannot work on this the weapon system will require a different launcher.
Should not have to build a new ship to counter this ship.
Should not have to build a new module thats so gimmiky to fight this ship either.

Cloaking while attacking doesnt make sense lore wise, to much effing noise and when you fire you just lit yourself up to the everyone's sensors in range.

This holds true to real naval warfare you fire in the submarine against an entire fleet everyone in the areas knows where you are exactly at. The first response to a submarine attack is to ALWAYS to shoot back first. Why you ask? Its to make him worry about those tordpedos you just shot back at him. Hes busy now, he doesnt have time for a follow up attack anymore.

Secondly you never though about quantification of this capitol ship
What if you ran into a fleet of 100 of these things with 100 standard capitols?
If the scoreboard is near 0 to 100 then there is something abosulutly wrong and I can gaurantee in the current interation this ship is would cause such issues.
At least in 100 frigates vs 100 destroyers I expect to have at least 20 destroyers die in the process.
But same can be said about destroyers going against the crusiers, 100 vs 100 i expect all the destroyers to die but they will be killing several cruisers doing so.
This ship will be an end of a line balance, the only way to kill one of these is getting though the narrow door with all the guns pointed at that door with no back door attack option.

Hi Rek!

Most of the population will probably never fly a titan, either. I would point out that this will not be as difficult to pilot, as it will be less skill intensive, and significantly less costly.

Skill and price point I would put at being comparable to a basic carrier or dread, roughly.

It may be more appealing than these simply because more can use them without fleet support.
(I am not touching the topic of people ratting in cap ships, that's their business)

While I enjoy fleet activities, I find it too limiting to rely on them. Many times I log in, and noone is still on to fleet with that matches my interests or location. Not always, but enough to consider solo activities.
I suspect others would also appreciate something interesting to do solo, besides preparing for the next time they are not solo.

This would definitely be interesting.

That has not been an issue with cap ship blobs alphaing entire fleets, and by no definition is this ship's ability to cloak put it above those in strike capability. Plus, coordinating these would be less effective than regular caps.

Offensively, these would not be more effective than a fleet of SBs, and far more expensive to put in space by comparison.