Player Features and Ideas Discussion

With the launch of the salvage vessel Noctis last year and the current changes to attack frigs it seems the destroyer class is in need of some love. So here are some ideas:


Cloaky buster

You will find numerous threads about AFK cloaking and how the balance between risk - reward is out of whack, especialy in nullsec. There is a niche to be filled here.

What if there would be a destroyer class ship with unique cloaky hunting abilities. It operates in the same way the navy hunts down submarines. A surface ship (or plane) can't pick up a silent sub lying still in the water but it can actively ping for it or try to discover it by scanning for magnetic anomalies.

Same will apply for the new destroyer. It will either have the ability to equip a special type of bomb or sort of deep space "ping" device to hunt down cloaked ships actively. The bombs/"ping" device will have limited range, somewhere between 20km-150km (actual range will be part of game balancing by CCP). It will decloak any in range ship for 5 sec by disturbing the cloaked field/showing the gravity or magnatic anomly created by the cloaked ship (depending on how game mechanic is implemented). Now any nullsec sov-alliance has a method of active hunting cloaked vessels but with a method not so effective that it can rid the entire system of cloaked ships. Just enough to at least to have some safe gaurd for it's stations, jump bridges and other vital assets it might have.

To balance the game even further, current covert ops ships will be less effected or even immune (subject again to game balancing by CCP) to this ability strengthning the covert ops role it has. Covert ops could get a stronger cloak or some other special ability that reduces the effective range of the bombs/"ping" device the destroyer uses. Being a destroyer it doesn't have the firepower to take out cloaked ships unless they are AFK making their role pretty restricted.

Gas miner

Currently their are no specific ships in game for gas mining. Seeing destroyers already have a lot of turrent space, with a few tweaks they could make for some nice gas-extraction vessels. Add some extra stats to increase their CPU (and/or cargo space) to equip gas harvesters and maybe an extra stat to increase yield or decrease cicle time of gas harvesters and it would make a nice addition in the game without making a lot of changes.

Just some ideas
Sicyon

Yes, the null sec ratters and miners have it way to easy with local. Maybe you should look at nerfing that?

When you've arrived at an idea for local, then we can talk about cloaking.

It's not to deter that kind of cloaky's but those hanging around your sov station, jump bridge or any other interesting location collecting intel without any risk what so ever.

As for skiff, they have a bonus for Mercoxit but not for gas mining. Currently there is no ship in the game with gas cloud harvesting bonus. Somehow gas cloud harvesting was introduced but then left in a dark corner and forgotten. We have seen changes in mining (modules, ships etc.) but mostly for roids, never for gas cloud mining.

No need for a cloaky buster if its afk it cant hurt you only your fear can hurt you and if its not afk well whats the problem

A dedi gas miner would be nice though

Probably there will be a ship like this released soon, like was discussed in the last CSM meeting.

Although, I think It will be much more like probing, and warping to 0. And then using some sort of area effect that have a chance to deckloak (consuming charges, isotopes, PI or whatever). This will increase allot the fun of the game! The killing of Cloaked ships and the market of Cloaking modules.

Fitting Webs and scramblers on this ship would be good to hunt, but I suggest to fly it along with interceptors against small ships. Or along with havy interdictors against recons and T3... otherwise you could uncloak a Tengu and get Instapoped for nothing... or uncloak a covert ops frigate and sees it warping out...

Anyway it is a welcome Addition to Home defense, and hunting fleets... Perfect for small fights.... but i don't think it will change the bigger fights....

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About the gas mining destroyer, I don't think it is a good Idea!...It is a lazy Idea! There should be a new O.R.E. ship for this! And In this point CCP is late to delivery one!

Also they are late to fix Primae! Even a Iteron III does it job better then it!!! Gives it a Special Cardholder not only to deploy the Command-Centers But also a 30.000m³ to haul the commodities!

I hope CCP starts to give more importance to industry and extraction than they gives now... Expecialy becouse DUST514 is comming and there will be the possibilitie to integrate the industries...

Can we not try to fix something that is not broken? Cloaking is fine the way it is dont **** with it.

As for buffing destroyers I agree, From where I sit all they really need is a slight speed buff and all destroyers should have at least 2 mids (prop and point) then they become useful again.