Player Features and Ideas Discussion

TL:DR The blob moves far too fast with current mechanics, and this allows this allows them to catch smaller groups easily and destroy them. Mechanics should be made so that blobs necessarily move slower if they are to maintain fleet coherence. Mechanics like WH is a extreme form of this, and have been well received. Weaker alternatives can apply to K-space that allow small groups to at least tactically withdraw safely.

Now, I'm by no means saying that there should be hard limits on fleet scales or anything. However, anything that makes it harder for larger forces to move faster then smaller ones is critical. Gates should impose traffic control if too many people try to jump in too short amounts of time, cyno should not allow infinite caps spawn in no time at all, and should require spool up, mass limits and a whole much of things. The basic rule that "bigger, more numerous, more power equals slower" must be build into all levels of design.

I believe this is a design principle that should be adopted far ahead of other tweaking of sov mechanics that just swaps around time zone coverage, peak fleet strength, fleet composition and defender's advantage as the decider of sov fights without addressing the fact that the blob is too good at catching and killing ships on top of everything else. If the blob kills ships the best, then it doesn`t matter what other mechanics is in place for small gangs since they'd die and thus fail at those other objectives.

Typically, a small gang should be moving faster than a unified large blob. Also, this would seriously disrupt soverignty warfare. I don't need to get into the full specifics of spies, but if alliance a is planning to attack alliance b, and in alliance b defending system they have 200 ships, alliance a has 400 enroute, stage is set.

By all rights, this should be a victory. Instead, alliance a can only send through 50 ships over a time because gates have mass limits or whatever. By all rights, 50 is still a blob, but now alliance A needs to plan to ensure all logistics and command ships can get through first so those that are outnumbered 4-1 can survive, but heck alliance b still can have their turkey shoot. But darn, this is eve, we have leeroys so 10 abaddons in fleet jump in when they weren't supposed to. Suddenly your fleet of 400 is down half it's logistics and no damnation. Fleet of 400 cannot win because alliance b is really only facing an extended battle vs 50

My point is pretty much that there is really no way to fix blobs at the gates. Large fleets going through simultaneously is a necessity to eve warfare.

Mass limits would pose problems, but also present new tactical decisions.

The standard orders are generally either to 'jump on contact' or hold, and then jump en masse once the entire fleet is on scene.

if however, mass limits came into play, and disrupted following traffic, then a commander would be faced with a choice between the transit taking longer, OR, jumping the whole fleet through at once and disrupting the gate for a longer period of time. lets say for example, jumping 100 battleships through meant the gate was unuseable (by anyone) for 10 minutes, not only have you cut off your own escape route, but reinforcements cannot join you that way, nor can an enemy fleet use it.

it would be more interesting, but also very easy to abuse, need to stop a fleet from entering your space?, mass jump a gate, trying to shake off a pursuit?, mass jump a gate. it would need a lot of careful balancing, but it would certainly be more interesting

blob moves too fast in combat? Really? Last time I checked, when you fleet warp, the entire fleet moves at the speed of the slowest ship. This is why Logistics got a warp speed buff recently.

On grid, it makes no difference what the speed of any one ship is. They all move at whatever their individual ship and skills allows them to.

If you are referring to the ability to move from system to system, then I can see your point. Jump bridges and titan bridges make for extremely rapid deployment across the universe. Using the CFC jump bridge network, you can literally get from Fountain to Deklein in half an hour.

But one of the benefits of holding sov is the ability to place these bridges and move rapidly throughout your space.

A mass/time limit on gates, while initially interesting, would kill fleet pvp of all sizes, as whoever camps the gate first would automatically win. 2 fleets would simply sit staring at the gate, unwilling to jump through simply because it would be suicide to have to jump through one at a time.

Mass limits won't work or rather it will solve the immediate issue but create loads more problems.

What I think could work is to remove the ability to warp entire fleet but limit it to wings (or squads if going to extremes).

What might also work is cutting warp speed when fleet warping to half that of the slowest member .. can be mitigated by clever arrangement in squads/wings and by individual warping but that would constitute skill/planning on the part of the blob and as such make it OK.

What I am certain would work is to create mechanics where big does not automatically trump small, make the blob a liability rather than a necessity and they won't be the "standard" any more.