Player Features and Ideas Discussion

o/
Was bored and thought about a few things we/CCP could implement or change to enrich the game more. Constructive criticism appreciated. #CCPlease

First let's start off with an assault frigate rebalance. T3Ds have taken over this class, offering more abilities for less training time and a somewhat higher cost. Although usable as they are, an assault frig rebalance could help get these ships back into the sky. (Note:some of the following have been suggested before, feel free to skim) A few options include:

D-scan 'invulnerability'
Assault frigates could be unseeable on D-scan similar to a force recons. This could enhance fleet+FW gameplay and offer more options for people looking to get into a frig

Immunity to ECM and/or mini Command bursts
Making assault frigates immune to ECM could encourage their use more. Something that could be possibly implemented is the ability to fit command bursts, but heavily watered down. These bursts could be targeted, and have special enhancements/abilities (ie. giving target ship immunity to ecm). This could give assault frigs a new role in fleets.

Second, it might be worth considering introducing a capitalclass ship; the personnel carrier. It would be the price of about a dreadnought or force auxiliary. It would have basic carrier class resists and hit points, but a less powerful arsenal of weaponary. Instead, it would have the ability to fit a fleet based clone vat bay, and a titan size ship maintenance bay. This could add a new factor to fleet fights. To balance this, the carrier itself has ship based jump fatigue(so you can't just change pilots). Something about the interference to the jump drive or something. The fatigue would be purely prevention, and have no 'blue timer'. The fatigue would be up to 5x of normal 'Orange timer'. With this ship, pilots dying in fights could 'respawn', pick up a ship and get back into it. However, added risk would be that when the bay is online, the carrier couldn't move (with a 30 minute cycle timer), so if the carrier's fleet loss the battle, it would basically be lost.

Along with this new capital, a damage mitigation ship could be created, the size of an orca or so. It would have about the same ehp as a marauder, but with a special damage mitigation module, it could transfer damage taken from other ship's shields to its own, with a maximum mitigation of around 50-60%. The module also adds extra resists to the damage taken, so it could soak up about a carrier's worth of damage before it gets overloaded. However, when the module is activated, the ship would not be able receive any logistic support, so it would naturally be primaried and killed (module resists only apply to 'transfered' damage). The module itself however, would add large resist bonuses to the ship itself, so it would end up with about 500k or so EHP. There should be a maximum number of these ships per wing, along with only being able to mitigate damage from ships in its wing. Having this class of ship in a wing would 'lock' the wing so that pilots could not be moved from wing to wing as needed. Of course this ability would be only available in a radius, similar to command bursts.

A new d-scan rebalance/change could help enrich gameplay. First of all, a 'base scanner' would be the scanner on any ship. This would be similar to current dscan, but with slightly less range and degree of accuracy. Every combat ship frigate or above would have a new D-scan slot, similar to a rig slot. Modules could be added to increase accuracy, range etc. However special modules could be added with additional traits (ie. shows scan signatures similar to a dead space site, however it won't show distance or anything else or be scannable, just the general direction). Also cloaked ships should have greatly nerfed scan abilities (think 75% D-scan distance, only 360 degree scan). Also the cloak cool down would also affect d-scan calibrsaion, similar how it affects targeting capabilities. This new stuff around Dscan could also be worked with to create a new class of ships, or rebalance some lesser used ships)

Lastly, a new faction or ship class based around ratting could be created, with ratting focused abilities and bonuses, maybe DED patrol ships that were used to find and destroy , etc.

Hopefully these ships and modules could spark new gameplay, tactics, and fun.

o7

More d-scan immunity. Thank you but no. Recons are cancer and there are no counter module/ship for them.

The best suggestion I've heard for the Assault Frigate question was to make them the 'Masters of Overheating'. More powerful and maybe better sustained overheat capacity in which they compete or perhaps outperform their competition for a limited time.

One way I just thought of to accomplish this would be to allow AFs to enter a ship-wide overheat mode which literally burns and damages the hull on the ship. While in this mode all modules will operate in their overheat range, (with perhaps increased Cap and shield Regen), however the individual modules can also be overheated normally, thus allowing a 2X overheat bonus. All this means that these ships would have a limited window in which they are able to perform far beyond their standard.

Choosing an Overheating option to fix them (even if it's not mine) means the AF keeps a very Assault-like feel where it can be tanky fast and damaging, allows them to be used for various generalized purposes, makes them fun and challenging to pilot, and should not overpower other hulls that could likely provide better sustain, if less periodic burst capability.

How about nerfing op t3 instead?

The single AB/MWD module idea was the best ive seen.