Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I'm not saying the hunter will be out of options. There is the option of logging off in a ratting system, or Gulnar style tactics to catch DED runners which I myself rely on a lot. And I don't say catching a target relies purely on reaction time.

But here is what I think happens. In current state of null, over %95 of anomaly runners (miner or combat ship) will notice you in intel channels, or in local, or they are bots, and they will get safe. So in one sense it's not about the reaction time as you say. Of the remaining %5, I say at least %2 will survive if they were given 30 seconds more reaction time. But given that these make up %40 of all anomaly runners that a blops group catches, and the majority of PVEers who die to BLOPs groups are anomaly runners, this IS a significant blow on BLOPS groups.

For the carelessness part, I really don't think removing nullification from T3Cs will have any significant impact on null PvE'rs mentality, increasing the voluntary risk they are taking, in either ratting more or staying on grid more after a neutral appears in system. If a neutral appears, then you dock, regardless of nullification status quo, because there is a multitude of places the neutral could be coming from (logging in, wormhole, jumping to a blue covert cyno, etc etc). So nerfing nullification at gates will not make them feel safer.

Another issue is if you remove nullification people will %100 give up T3Cs for covert cyno hunting, which was the initial point in using them. Instead they will go for 1-use ships such as covops frigs (and they are 1-use because upon cynoing up they will die to the target before target is dead). This is due to that if they kept up with Tengus there would be shitloads of deaths to gatecamps, because covops HKs have to take 60-70 gates to completely cover their range, and you don't wanna die to gatecamps everyday in 1 billion ships. Also buzzards etc. will become faster at catching targets if Tengus are deprived of nullification. In turn, being forced to use 1-use frigates for covert hunting will be a logistical nightmare for many fleets, which will need to replace the ship (or even bring back the pod from its home station), to a region which they probably reached by jumping distances or taking wormholes, meanwhile you can just keep on hunting in a Tengu upon killing a target.

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

Interceptors have their place in locking down opponents for the rest of the fleet to then attack. What is not so fun is when you have mass interceptor gangs that are performing both of these functions. However, there are good counters to that fleet composition so I don't feel it is in any OP although it can be anti-fun at times. But it is less anti-fun than removing the ability to get tackle onto something past a well bubbled gate.

T3s fundamentally change their capabilities when nullified. I think to remove the ability because of what is now a relatively old doctrine that will then impinge on an awful lot of explorers is not the greatest ideas. Combat ships are used for PVE and PVP and whilst people may be vocal about the PVP implications they aren't so much about the PVE aspects and they do need to be taken into consideration. You don't want to push away travelling explorers away from the the more dangerous parts of New Eden.

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

You remove these and you just give people another reason not to go to nullsec etc. Again there are hard counters to these ships.

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

Yes, they should but there needs to be mechanics to ensure they are not overused in locations. There should be a proximity check possible and I would like to see them used in a different way. Eg online larges for 1-2 hrs medium 4-8 small 12-16 hrs (T1 to T2 timers). That way the more inconvenient ones will need some sort of constant attention. The can sit there after that time has gone but the need to be onlined again to actively prevent passage.

Philosophically, maybe, but if you know how to fly them properly, bubbles change basically nothing - a good covert ops pilot and fit has no issues with bubbles - it is good that there are some compromises to be made in fitting to get here to get this benefit. EvE may be suffering in general from over-design and over-specialization, where TII ships are so specifically tailored that there is a general lack of vigor and creativity in fitting, and I don't think we want to go there any more than we are. I don't think covert ops are in a bad place at all at the moment - how you fit a ship should be as important as how you fly it, and at the moment, pilot knowledge and skill makes covert ops highly resistant to bubbles. Balanced.



I respectfully disagree. Cov-ops ships are not one-use ships for hunting; provided a response fleet does not reach it before the 60s Covert Cyno is up, we find that cov-ops and prospects typically last 3 or more drops. We actually favor them because response fleets are a death sentence to hunters - I would rather not lose a 1 bill tengu every time a response fleet shows up, which is often. A casual perusing of your activity indicates that you appear to hunt where there are fewer reliable response fleets so yes, we are working with different environments. My window for black ops is about 10 seconds - that's how long you have on grid before you are overwhelmed with frigates. That being said, most larger targets like snakes are never a problem for our smaller hunters, especially given how fast our damage applies them - by the time our hunter is even locked by the target, its basically over. That, coupled with a small sig and tank, makes them keenly effective. Skilled Cov-Ops and Prospect pilots have no trouble burning many gates or through many camps - they are exceptionally hard to catch for all but the most skilled sabre pilots.

While I see that we happen to prefer different hunting tactics, I consider one of my main play areas blops, and see the Tengu and all other T3 hunters as trash honestly - I wouldn't see them losing nullification as a threat or even a change to my play. My assessement is that they are useful and practical in a limited amount of situations when you have everything under control as far as reinforcements, escalations, and counter-drops, but when these are not true, you pay 20x more than you need to get the job done, and risk feeding your opponents - the very ones you were supposed to be using blopsy tactics to pick unfair fights in the first place. Things change a good deal if you are trying to drop on gangs or actual things that can fight back quite dramatically, but in these cases you do not need the combination of cloaky and nullified to effectively initiate on them.

My recent activity has been some solo activity but I FC large bomber fleets and we drop mainly on carriers (or larger if we are able to catch them). As an NPSI FC without blue standings I hunted and hotdropped in every single null region in Eve. We used many covops people as well but only as a starter hunter. Nullification makes every difference when it comes to bubblefucked regions (which most of them are). Meanwhile when I check your zkill its obvious you either do lowsec or northern areas which bubbles are used way less and people rely on responses more. Maybe that explains why our judgement regarding the value of T3 nullification have been different?

I agree that frigates have a higher chance vs battleships. But you're neither gonna blap a carrier nor you will be able to jam its fighters before it blaps the Buzzard. It's gonna 1 shot it. You are doing things right if you got the fleet or backup cyno on grid, if you are inexperienced this will not happen as well. If the carrier won't kill it, the rats in anomalies will randomly turn on it and kill it. That being said, maybe some %25 of the buzzards will survive a carrier because he was afk etc. That's still not a good number for a fleet deep inside enemy territory so the hunter needs to burn back all that distance.

We handle a decent size response pretty easily but say a 30 man svipul fleet would force us warp off grid. But by the time enemy gets such overwhelming numbers, the 1 minute cyno timer will usually be over. Thus we rarely lose any Tengu. Meanwhile Tengus (even though they are usually cheap t2) are actually tanky enough to survive until our falcons get on grid and jam carriers/rattlesnakes. And their nullification helps get past the bubblefucks and tackle targets fast enough.

I agree that what I said might not be valid for every single BLOPS group in this game, given the fact that we operated in all regions in all sizes of fleets and (assuming from your zkill) you operated in a limited amount of regions I think what I said could be more general than you think.

Absurd. Why do I need nullification in game full of instalocking ships then? To warp off from unmanned bubble?
If blobs have problem with them it's not a problem at all. No matter how you nerf it the ability to warp off the bubble will still be a thing. Problem with T3C is that they must be rebalance in the near future and near is 2017.

It will be great, if shuttles and blockade runners will be nullified too (but ceptors and t3c will not). It will make travelling easier, but it will make hauling of low volume expensive stuff harder. I know about insta-warp ceptors, but it is dumb when a lot of peoples (Rorqual, Mining barge pilots) training interceptors only to use them as shuttles.
It will be great, if interdictors will be nullified (instead of ceptors and t3c), because interdictors are kamikazee-boat at this moment, always die first and it is annoying to die in your own bubbles, because you cloak device is on recalibration, you hull is paper-thin and you are not fast enought to ecape. In large fleet fights interdictor pilots usually even not hope to dock their ships back. They are one-off hulls, which is dumb.
Anchorable bubbles should exist. They should not decay. If you don't like them - just shoot them. It would be great, if their anchoring time and price will be increased a bit, so peoples will no use them anywhere they want, almost for free. if peoples want to cover their ratting ships with 10 large mobiles - so be it, but they should lose significant amount of money, if they will not come to defend their anchorables.

Do not give blocade runner nullification. They already warp as fast as intercepters, align out like a frigate and can warp cloaked. Adding nullification to them as well will make them impossible to catch.

It wasnt long ago every fleet was sending cloaky nullified t3 booster ships though gates with 1000+ hotstiles sitting around because they were garenteed to get though. No gate camp can catch them and its one of the biggest complaints out in null space. Nobody even bothers trying.




Not nearly enough. These things will happily run 10/10s and will out preform the other cov ops cruisers easily.



Yes its a nerf, much like how remote titan DD weapons was a nerf. This is simply too powerful to have at the same time.

I believe I stated this before

What would be nice is a rework of all the small deployables.
Basically a single base unit, that you can then fit with different modules to achieve different things.
Want it to have a bubble, then fit it with a bubble. Want it to tractor, fit it with a tractor.


Edit: and depending on how it is fitted, would effect the decay/unanchor/anchor times

I DEFINITELY do not like gates being able to be locked down long term without a player presence. I sure hope this type of activity never ever ever becomes part of the Eve universe.