Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I think nullification on combat interceptors is too powerful for the ship size.

The Yacht is a prime example of a "good" interdiction on a "cheap" ship that basically can only be used for travel. I would not have a problem with interdiction being removed from interceptors but left on the Yacht or a similar non-combat ship used for travel (say a T2 shuttle :slightly_smiling_face: ).

T3C interdiction nullification comes at a cost in subsystem choice and I think is in an OK place though could be tweaked with any T3C re-balance so I wouldn't stress much about T3Cs currently.

Bubble decay sounds like a good idea. I'll let those that use them extensively hammer out a proper decay time

^ this. Otherwise I'm happy 'as is' with all other aspects under discussion.

Deployable bubbles should exist but interference from overlapping bubbles should make them unstable and not work. Would fix bubble?£&@ed gates.

I like this.

1 hour for a large T1
45 minutes for a medium T1
30 minutes for a small T1

50-100% duration bonus on T2 bubbles


I don't have an issue with nullified ships.

My main thing from a small gang perspective is that anchorable bubbles need to be reworked. They are commonly spammed in pipes on all of the gates leading up to the ratting pocket. Requiring burning through 100km's of bubbles even with proper bookmarks. The only options to this is to blitz interceptors through with the main force following later.


As is the only way to deal with them is through damage, this allows very little room for counter play. Let them be hackable, unanchorable, or able to be stolen by enemy combatants. Or just give them a resource necessary for them to stay anchored, where if they run out of the resource they are free game.

Give us the ability to roam through areas of space with a small little hacker, stealing the untended bubbles. Let there be trash collectors and salvager's in New Eden!

1. combat ships: combat ships shouldn't be nullified.
interceptors should be split ion a scout one with fast align time, nullification and reduced combat and tackle abilities. (something like a low dps ares without the point range bonus, maybe even a negative bonus to point range). there ships would be good as taxis and scouts. the other ceptor should have a tackle role, with a bit more dps than the scout one and a point/scram range bonus (5-10% per level) as well as a sig radius reduction for MWDing, but a longer align time, so they're more vulnerable when travelling.
T3Cs should keep their nullification but the subsystem needs to restrict them to non-DPS roles (-50% rate of fire for all weapons, -50% optimal, falloff, missile flight time). this way T3Cs can still be used for utility roles, for explo, hunting, travel,..., but can't be used for damage.

2. non-combat ships: the non-combat situations where nullification would be nice are hauling, travel, explo, mining.
there should be a hauling ship with nullification for low volumes (max 500m³). the ship could have a small align time bonus per level (shouldn't be able to instawarp)
for travel the scouting ceptor and T3C should fill that role, no need for another ship imo
explo needs at least one ship that can be cloaky nullified. currently the T3Cs do that and it should stay that way. they are versatile enough to allow explorers to chose the ship and fit that best suits hteir habits and preferences, while still having enough drawbacks (price, speed, align time, low dps) to make them not completely OP
I can't say much about mining, since I have next to no experience with it, but from my perspective there isn't any need for a nullified mining ship.

3. anchorable bubbles: they should exist imo, but have their HP reduced by about 15% to make them easier to kill and they should have a 12h timer on them (cost and radius should stay the same). after the timer they despawn. this keeps them viable for active use (for a gatecamp, to delay hostiles so they can't interfere with an op or to give yourself some safety while ratting/mining/whatever in a system, etc.) but makes it very expensive and a lot of work top spam 100 of them on a gate.

my reasoning for the nullified combat ships: the main issue is when those ships are able to do too many things at the same time, so the goal should be to redue the amount of roles nullified ships can do. with the loss of either DPS or align time ceptors would lose their role as cheap near-invulnerable harassment fleets, and instead be more focused on roles they're already used for extensively: scouting and tackle, at the expense of no longer being as viable for the other.
T3Cs have a unique place in EVE since they are so incredibly versatile for both combat and non-combat roles. what they require however is a set of bonuses on the relevant subsystems (mostly nullification and ewar) that make them not viable for DPS roles (other combat roles, like as hunters should still be possible, those options are worth having imo).

Nullified combat ships
Nullification at the core deters fights. For inty's, if you combine that with very fast align time, only the most specialized gate camps have a shot at catching them. It leaves the ship being able to choose it's fight 99% of the time. Back in the day, even without nullification it still gave the ship a good chance to choose but relied a bit more on piloting which again made it more interesting and led to more fights. It should not be risk free. The problem only gets worse in bigger fleets of those.

For T3C, it could've been more complicated with the boosting role. Now that as shifted more to other ship types maybe not as much. As mentioned, as long as there are heavy drawbacks to make them less usable in large fleets but possible in solo that would work (i.e. heavy drawback on weapon range & limit EHP). A bit like you use a solo pilgrim. You have to commit.

If we absolutely want something to scout with, transfer nullification from inty's to covops. A good scout is usually a covop or T3D with probes anyway.

Nullified non-combat ships
We should then transfer the taxi role of inty's to two spin-offs; a special shuttle, i.e. Leopard (to move a clone or a few BPC) & blockade runners (for slightly bigger loads). I would not put it on DST's to keep it balanced. Anyway DST's take too long to align so they can be easily tackled.

Anchorable bubbles
You can put a decay on it as mentioned but leave the ability to scoop it at any time during that window without penalty. Ideally I would shoot for 1 hour minimum on T1 small and up. Some said 30min but that's ridiculous especially if you are in a busy area and do not have time to manage the anchor/unanchor very often. People usually commit to a gate camp for an hour or more anyway.

Bubbles should either disappear 4 or 8 hours after anchoring to prevent the stupid perma bubbled safe zones in null sec - OR there should be nullification rigs that can be fit to ANY ship.

Blockade Runners should be Nullified, but along with Cloaky that's too OP. Maybe consider changing the name Blockade Runner over to it's cousin the Deep Space Transport.

Ships currently called BRs (Viator etc) should be called the Deep Space Transports - they need the cloak to operate deep in hostile territory.

Ships currently called DSTs (Occator etc) should be called Blockade Runners and given a form of Nullification, I mean the whole name suggests running Blockades.... Take away the +2 Stab if you need and adjust other specs too to balance it.



As for combat, I think they are in a good place at the moment.

Decaying anchorable bubbles is a good idea, not so fast that you must redeploy every day or so, but perhaps like weekly or so.

>Should you be able to have nullified combat ships? Why, or why not?

I think the term "combat ship" either needs to either be fleshed out or use the Ship Tree's definition of combat ship: "Hulls with good damage and defenses. Recommended for heavy frontline brawling."

At the moment, interceptors, under the ship tree, are "attack ships" not "combat ships": "Hulls with
good damage and mobility. Recommended for attrition, hit-and-run, and pursuit tactics."

This doesn't even include the "support", "disruption", "tackling", and "exploration", which are all combat capable simply by virtue of being able to fit offensive modules, which can make for an interesting conversation since offensive modules can be used defensively (a hauler fitting an ECM burst to shake off tackle, as an example). Fortunately, the ship tree shows that they can overlap.

I do feel Nullified "Combat Ships" should be allowed, but with all things on a case basis. I feel that Interceptors need to be toned down damage wise, or even split with the "fleet interceptor" retaining its nullification and losing all weapon bonuses while the "combat interceptor" loses nullification, but otherwise would not feel strongly if they stayed where they are.

>How about non-combat ships? Shuttles? Blockade runners? Yachts?

A blockade runner could be a combat ship by virtue of being able to fit a point and a cyno (if you count point+cyno as combat), similar with the yacht, so again it depends on how one defines "combat ship". The only true non-combat ships being the shuttles and freighters, they have no offensive capacity at all.

At the moment, I feel if shuttles had a T2 version, that they could be nullified, but otherwise, are fine as they are. Nullified freighters would be kind of scary.

>Should anchorable bubbles exist? Should they decay if they exist?

I do believe they should exist, and should also decay. I say give the a week, if not accessed similar to mobile depots they then go poof. I do feel there should be a limit to the number on a grid though, say 10 or so.