EVE General Discussion

I have no idea how many times this possibly-dead horse has been beaten. I imagine it has come up before, but don't recall seeing it.

Why no capships in high-sec?

1) First off, it seems artificially limiting. This is supposed to be some kind of 'sand box.'

2) What does this limitation accomplish? Is there some perceived balance issue? You have CONCORD, so it isn't as if capships can run rampant preying upon the unsuspecting.

3) I *think* I saw someone once giving a rationale about balance concerning structures (POCOs, etc). They said no one could stand up to a capship beating on a structure. To this I give a number of responses, like: A) nonsense (capships fall in nullsec all the time to swarms of smaller ships), B) who cares? (where else do we express concern over a bigger ship like a battleship or cruiser beating up on a little ship like a frigate?), C) go get your own capship if you think you can't beat a capship no other way, etc.

I guess I haven't seen any arguments for not allowing capships in high-sec, and personally I see it as limiting. Can anyone explain it to me? What's the rationale?

Why shouldn't they be? Are you one of these "it should be cruisers online, not Eve Online" people?

No, I'm for ships that everyone can fly and enjoy with dynamic gameplay along with straightline balance. I'm not for ships a few old vets fly. How many legit new players start and say "hey I'm going to train straight into a cap ship and wait 6+ months."

You already have what you want - the smaller ships that younger pilots can play with 'dynamic gameplay' and 'straightline balance' blah blah. So what you want is to eliminate choice, and tell the rest of us what kinds of ships we want to fly and train for.

I'm on a months-long train right now to get into cap ships. It's my choice, it's a choice I want to make. I'm not stopping you from flying easy-to-train-for cruisers or whatever, don't stop me from training and flying what I want to fly.

Personally, I want to see even BIGGER capships. I want to see something beyond Titans. I want to see Super Titans - like death stars the size of moons, flying battlestations bristling with weapons, fighters coming out of them, ships which can dock up inside, doomsday devices, etc. I say "more more MORE," not "less less LESS."

I think caps should be allowed in highsec too... but the only way I could see it working in any reasonable way would be to give all caps in highsec a suspect flag by default. (current allowed HS cap classes aside, of course)...or maybe some kind of "highsec mode" that keeps their holds at 0m³ and modules offline.Just realized this doesn't solve the power projection problem mentioned above.

If you want to know more about highsec caps and the problems they caused, googling in the old forums is a good way to do it. There are extensive, verbose conversations about every facet of the potential problems.

Wow. You must be new here. Actually the mechanics across the types of space we have are pretty complicated. This isn't just hyperbole. If you are thinking about ways to introduce caps in highsec in "5 seconds" your ideas aren't very good. If you just want to rant, by all means, and let this thread slip into the hundreds of other ship tosts on the subject. If you want caps in highsec, you're actually going to have to do a lot of reading and learning, and present a cohesive argument. Yours are just ignorant. Even most HS gankers, such as myself, recognize removing CONCORD is a non-starter. Freighters and JFs get ganked every day in HS. It takes 20-40+ ships to pull that off though, so the bar for entry into big ship HS ganking is already high. The EHP of some real caps though would require so many ships to gank the system would go into TiDi. That would effectively render caps as completely invulnerable. (For instance, if a JF has 2 Alliance Tournament ships in it, it may go into Narjia, but it ain't coming out. With a dreadnought safety would be assured. We can't have that.) Projecting power matters because HS is a big obstacle to controlling nullsec. If you could just cut through empire, BoB, TEST, PL, Goons, who-knows who else might have been able to wreck the entire null sec game (and believe me, the goons would do it).

You just aren't approaching the problem rationally.

/thread

I don't think any of that will be necessary, as I don't think it's near as complicated as you think it is. All I need is this:

GIVE ME YOUR BEST ARGUMENT.

Go ahead, shoot. If it's one of the ones already presented here, I already said I'm not so impressed. If it's another one, let's hear it.



Let me get this straight. Because you and your buddies would find it difficult to gank a cap, or it would send the system into TiDi if you had enough ships to pull it off... caps shouldn't be allowed into high-sec?

Is that your best argument? If so, it's a poor one.

Why capships in high-sec?

Ps, dude, want my best argument for why they shouldn't be allowed? Tough. I don't work for you. You're asking for changes, you do the convincing. If the thread swings your way, then I'll post my arguments.

1. Lore reasons. The Capsuleers already exist as independent entities from the four main empires, regardless of where they originally came from. So when Capsuleers start getting their hands on Capital ships, the four empires would likely see that as a potential growing threat to their power, and would take steps accordingly to limit that power.

How? By locking stargates into high-sec to prohibit any Capsuleer-owned Capital ship from jumping into High-Sec (barring Orca Industrials and Jump Freighters).

2. Game-play reasons. High-sec is the starting region for all new players. The area where new players can learn about the game and get ready access to any skillbooks they need before venturing out into Low or Null-Sec (assuming they don't find ways to make their profit in High-sec). But putting a Capital ship into anything PvE oriented into High-sec is over-kill to the highest degree.

The level of anomalies and ores is measured by security level; the best ore deposits and the best PvE anomalies are located in Null-Sec. A Dread or Carrier running PvE or missions in High-Sec would make them back-breakingly easy (including Level 4), and a Rorqual in High-Sec in the current state would choose through all the ores in an asteroid belt and not give lesser mining vessels a chance.

Which brings me to:

3. Risk vs. Reward. In High-Sec, player vs. player combat, unless done via war-dec or duels, is immediately punished by CONCORD. What risk there is in High-Sec comes from anomalies and mission running (and Sansha Incursions). With Capitals, you are piloting for the highest level of risk (billions of ISK to be lost in one ship), but with the potential for greatest reward, also. No Capital is safe in Low-Sec or Null-Sec as even Titans are routinely blown out of the sky these days.

But that would not exist if Capitals were allowed in High-Sec. You could fly your Carrier, Dreadnought, or even a Titan through High-Sec every day of the year and not have to worry about losing it to other players (outside of war-dec), with no mission site in High-Sec being dangerous enough to threaten their destruction.

Frankly, it would destabilize the game and its ecosystem.

There is still no risk in using capitals in highsec. No matter how you look at it, that gives you an infinitely low risk vs. reward ratio and thus is unbalanced in a game where you are never suppose to be safe.

Something is going to have to give to put capitals at risk again before they can come back to highsec. Whether that is a change to CONCORD, or perhaps some new AI like the new Blood Raiders that drops Empire NPC capitals on you, but CCP isn't going to give players invulnerable ships, especially for no compelling reason other than the "why not?" that is all you have been able to provide.

Even if you seem to reject it, New Eden is an interconnected universe where everyone's action affect everyone else. It does affect me if you are running highsec anomalies while 100% immune to attack by the other players, or much worse, mining from 100% immune Rorquals. There is skin being taken of my nose by you devaluing my efforts and assets. And this doesn't even account for the effects giving the large groups a safe space to store caps would have on the game play outside of highsec.

Yes, these problems could be solved with significant changes to the game if that is the answer you are looking for. But things are the way they are for good reasons and those reasons are still in play. There are very good reasons why CCP won't flip the switch tomorrow and just let them back in without changing other things. Shouting loudly that you want capitals in highsec isn't going to make that happen.