Player Features and Ideas Discussion

*Deep Breath*

Alright, here goes.

Hello residents of PFID! I humbly come before you with an idea for a T2 control-focused combat battleship.


WHAT IT IS:
The ship class in question is a combat support hull capable of projecting a ‘defensive’ ‘forcefield’ around itself. The field is for all intents and purposes a POS forcefield, extending out a certain range in a bubble around the ship and preventing access to ships depending on scripts (See: Proposed Scripts).


HOW THE MECHANIC WORKS:

The field remains active for 120 seconds per cycle. I proposed this because it was long enough to ensure the ship's destruction under fire even with local reps, but short enough that it would not slow down the pace of a battle.

On activation, the battleship in question gains high mass and immediately stops. While active, the battleship in question can still be locked by ships outside the field, but cannot lock any targets, move, engage warp or receive remote assistance . It is, for all intents and purposes, a reinforced stick. It receives no bonuses from being in this mode AKA Bastion without the defensive bonuses and EWar immunity.

Activation gives the pilot in question a weapons timer for the entire duration of the field.

While active, ships that are not allowed within the field are either ejected from the field hilariously or cannot burn into the field.

While active, all ships within the field cannot be locked by ships outside the field and cannot lock ships outside the field.

Any overlapping field activations sends both ships in question flying away from each other.

The field could have a radius of 10-15km, out of scram range (Although why I've no idea, the thing can't move) but within longpoint.

THE HULL:
Layout-wise I'm proposing a 5/7/4 or 5/4/7 layout. 4 turret/launcher slots. 2 rigs. Combine that with T2 resists for a decent tank. The numbers could follow the aggregated respective faction battleship stats.
I'm not expecting a lot of firepower from the hull (given that it spends most of its operational time masquerading as a stick). Most likely defensive/utility bonuses? The following is but a suggested layout. Nothing too fancy.

Battleship Bonus:
- 10% bonus to weapon application/projection per level.
- 4% bonus to armor/shield resistances per level.
Class Bonus:
- 5% reduction in agility per level.
- 7.5% bonus to shield/armor repair amount per level.
Role Bonus:
- Can fit one McGuffin module (the highslot thing that lets it do its thing)


PROPOSED SCRIPTS:

Zero Access: Default unscripted mode. Kicks out everyone.

Fleet Access: ‘Allies’ in the same fleet may enter the field.

Corp Access: ‘Allies’ in the same corporation may enter the field.

LEGALITY:

I'd propose a null+WH activation criteria similar to bubbles, as high-sec usage combined with CONCORD is pretty much broken. Although I'd reckon it would be fun punting angry things off the undock or ejecting a barge/freighter at horrific speeds off a belt or gate. A suspect timer to activate the module could be used to strike a balance, perhaps?

WHY THIS CLASS AND WHY A BATTLESHIP?
I was inspired by old POS-fu techniques, and thought to use this mechanic in both an offensive and defensive manner. It also allows a fleet to 'engineer' the battlefield by creating environmental effects similar to interdiction bubbles, but operating on a physics base.
Furthermore, the mechanics and assets are already in place to ensure a shorter-duration replication of this effect, albeit for tactical and not strategic effect.
I envisioned it being used defensively to shield an allied fleet and ‘eject’ them from a losing fight. Offensively it can section off areas of the battlefield or burn straight into enemy fleets and scatter them. It could see additional synergy with command destroyers to fling either one into an enemy and further manipulate the battlefield.
A battleship was the suggested hull because it had the necessary raw ehp to survive the activation and duration of the field, yet didn't have the mobility to truly keep up with a fast fleet, reining in its tactical effectiveness.


FORSEEN ISSUES:

Chain Activations: What's to stop someone from sticking cap boosters and a metric gazillion active reps on this thing, then chain-activating them? How about counters like scramming to disable module activation?

Gate Cloak: I have no idea how this mechanic works if someone puts a field up next to a gate as a hostile jumps in.

Interactivity: Part of the fun comes from having reds sneak into the bubble, which isn’t possible now as it was back then with the password mechanic.

Physics: How many hamsters will die when a fleet of these things warp to zero and activate in the middle of a capball?

IN CLOSING:
Thank you for having made it this far. I'd like to request criticism on how this tactical field mechanic can be broken or fixed, or if there’s a need for it at all.
If there’s something I do not know that breaks this concept, let me know so I can learn.
Cheers!

I don't think we should be weaponizing POS code... Think of the devastating repercussions that'd have on the already ridiculous code base.


Applause.

I was going to give suggestions, but I realized they're all ridiculous so I retract any helpful input I may have been about to give; as I just can't figure out how to word things properly.

Maybe something about requiring fuel? Not being so tanky? Smaller radius? Pretty sure the servers would die if you suddenly accelerate a ball of 100 titans to approximately 100,000kms; which would invariably ping off everything else on grid causing a massive and hilarious pin ball machine of doom and destruction that the world would watch at 1 frame per 20 minutes. I can already see the fires on the horizon as Iceland burns...

What happens when a launched bubble ship, now with much higher mass, runs into a capital ship like a Titan? How far is it going to be knocked?

This is a totally broken idea, but I do think it would be funny to make a cannon that knocks enemy caps out of FAX rep range.

And that force that shoves things away is a titan doomsday weapon already, so...

Going to be honest, I didn't know DDs had that kind of AoE physics effect. I always thought they were direct damage modules or AoE damage modules in the case of the Lance/Scythe. Unless you are referring to titans bouncing off each other after cynoing.





That sounds like a great idea that accomplishes the objective just as well! Thanks Ajem!

This proposal would make it a lot safer dropping supers in your own space. Just nip it into the forcefield and jump out (or safe log, if the shield can be up for 15 mins). Everyone would carry one in their fleet hangar for this purpose.

That being said though, this is a pretty neat idea and it could be balanced in such a way that it's good. I'm of the opinion that supers should never have been made scrammable by subcaps (even with +25 warp core strength, that change bugs me) because it would be nice to see them become more mainstream and more commonly used by smaller groups.

In addition you'd essentially be sacrificing this ship to save the supercarrier so it should be expensive (like say, 1.5bil plus fit) and not usable in lowsec. So if your super gets caught on field in lowsec you are still ******, and if it gets caught on field in null you are still going to lose the bubble ship. Likewise, if you are in a fleet combat and you get heavy scrammed or HIC pointed you are still ******.

So I'm not necessarily opposed to that for supers but I think there needs to be a restriction that if they are HIC pointed or scrammed above their warp core strength they cannot enter the force field, and Titans shouldn't fit in the force field at all.