EVE General Discussion

Jesus where to start if not a pure troll.

Ganglink T3s already have a dedicated subsystem and thus visual key that they're able to run links. Also links have a visual display, as does ECCM if they're forced to be ongrid and need to be probed/burnt to. And FYI they have a dedicated ECCM subsystem so how would you nerf that without making it truely useless?

PvP active tanks almost never rely on cap regen, and it would break so many things if ships just had a much higher natural regen. IIRC the only ships with such stats are the Retribution and Sac, their problem is then getting dps out of them when it's so much easier to tank them. Beyond them, iirc only T3s can be built to have bonused cap regen & capacity (again for the Tengu this is also the subsystem with a lot of PG because it's plain broken/named wrong).
Boosting general cap regen would mean running neuts with a buffer tank is even less risk to capping yourself out such that you can't mwd away, a huge bonus to kiters again.

It sounds like you don't understand resists (which is only 1 of 3 ganglink bonuses for armour or shields, and doesn't factor in skirmish links sig reduction, prop mod speed, and ability to dictate range with prop jammers). An 85% resists vs an 80% resist is 25% better unless I'm mistaken.

Active tanking needs more raw rep power, atm they're usually just using 1 or 2 mids for cap injectors, the rest of the slots go to tank, tackle and dps. If anything, ships need more cargo/cap booster charges need to be smaller. There are no real slots used by cap mods to free up, especially not ones to be used for dps to counter stronger tanks.
And the ubiquitus cane needs to have a PG nerf so those 2 medium neuts aren't without having to at least downgrade to 220s. If arties get a slight fitting reduction, so be it.

(In related consideration, how about moving arty volley damage to the end of the cycle, so insta-lockers aren't insta-death to all. They'd still point fast if fitted to do so (suiciding afk highseccers isn't affected either way) but you'd be able to get a little bit of transv up rather than being volleyed without any option to do anything. A few seconds could be enough to cycle reppers so they rep as the volleys come in and so you're more able to outrep their dps. For fleet fights there's minimal change. It's also roleplay/physically-justifiable, and not like missiles aren't also dps at end of cycle or worse too. Both weapons systems being able to select damage types too.)

Making them ongrid would make it much easier to KILL the links. This would then justify the stupid tanks of, say, the Damnation or the Sleipnir. Reducing the power of T3 links would then practically balance them...

Nerfing links by any amount will hit smaller gangs more than larger gangs and that is indisputable maths.

As pointed out they are a force multiplier. They are more effective the more force they have to multiply. Lets take Logistics as an example. Max skilled they boost each repper buy not far short of 100% which pretty much means that once you have 2 Logistics in fleet a max skills link ship gives more Logistic power than a 3rd Logi ship would. At this point the CS is simply "Better".

Reducing the figure won't change that maths, it simply increases the number of Logi ships you need in your gang before you hit that point. Whatever the figure may be there is stilla cut off point at which a link ship gives more Logi power than an additional Logi would.

By that logic nerfing gang links will relegate them to large fleet toys and render them literally uselss below a certain fleet size threshhold. Theoretically they are already useless below a certain threshold but as that threshold is effectively 1 it's never really much of a limiter.

Skirmish links are a whole other kettle of fish and don't fit the same maths as the logi type CS.

Rather than nerfing them what I would suggest is reworking them.

You could introduce many more Gang links, play with the fitting in order to make them fittable on pretty much anything, and then make them a targetted module. Now you don't have one ship boosting a fleet of 200 ships, you have potentially many ships boosting different attributes of their gang mates.

This would result in a far greater depth at all levels of fleet size and potentially benefit smaller gangs as micro-mangement of fitting and links would be possible. Good luck micromanaging a 1000 man null blob but 5 guys could tweak away to their hearts content.

You'd need to rework commandships and the leadership skills but that's no bad thing. Skills could exist to boost the number of targets 1 link can boost at once, up to 5 for example. Theres loads you could do with it rather than simply nerf them.

just sold my boosta cuz cant be botherd to bring it on grid. so i support any nerf to them. how about the new mods there bringing in have a boosta jammer lol

Where were all the link haters when t2 links went up on SISI? Almost everyone was like "coo yo"

True

But pre-nerf titan's aren't accessible to the average player.

Gang-linking is.


At the end of the day you haven't got facts and figures of any players who have left EVE or stopped PvPing because of ganglinks, just the same as I don't have any facts or figures of how many players have joined EVE or started PvPing because of ganglinks.

It's just your opinion, and your opinion is "I don't like ganglinks", don't try to state it as anything else.

Excepts his opinion is typical and accurate.

I never perceived them as too much of a problem until T3s appeared - cloaky, interdiction nullified, highly mobile, hard to probe off-grid boosters that provide a better boost than Fleet CS and are capable of bonused probing at the same time are a pain in the arse.

A cloaky, bubble-proof scout and prober that provides an insane bonus - yeah - right ...

Whenever engaging someone in low/null and there's a neut in the system, it could be some lameass off-grid T3 booster. As opposed to popular belief, they're detrimental to solo/very small gang pvp - solo being quite obvious as it's not solo anymore if someone is fleeted with his booster alt.

The only reason off grid boosting had a right to exist was the nature of siege links - since that has been fixed, I don't see a reason too make them being on-grid mandatory.

Garmon may be right about the overall magnitude of gang link effectiveness being too good, but I'm more in favour of changing things one by one.

Off-grid boosting should go first - then probably diminishing returns with increased gang size as a next step (yeah - people will evade that, but it requires way more organisation to do so).

Changing too many things at once leads to the same fuckups when they changed projectiles and TEs at the same time.

While I don't disagree at all with the OP, I think the above is important. Wholesale changes have much more potential to screw everything up.

Making the boosters come on the grid is a critical first step. Once you make the boosters come on grid, you have some risk involved. If you want those sexy 5% T3 bonuses, you run the risk of losing your expensive ship (and some SP). Or, you can stick with the CS and get smaller bonuses. Once those changes go through, we can step back and see whether boosters need more changes.

I think by far the second largest problem with the links (after the huge bonuses) is that its not actually a viable and fun role that a player actually wants to do. Saving people like a hero with repping is a fun thing to play, just sitting there in a link ship you want to get as many links and that means little tank (often) and next to do damage or RR ability.

CS links should always be the best links, you dont give full bonuses to all the EW version of the tech3s right?

My vision for a good change is the combination of a logistics ship with boosting links so a pilot might actually be able to take part in a fight and not insta die and loose the links for the whole gang (also bad).

Its no wonder everyone flys an alt for links, cram as many on and put it in a safespot/pos, everything points to this being the best use currently.