EVE General Discussion

Nothing for nothing. So...an item that makes all other targeted modules ineffective. BUT, it only works when you're in the large alliances...kinda like war dec mechanics...you have to be able to AFFORD to war dec Goonwaffles now...

Welp. Why not? Leave people sitting around picking their bellybutton lint long enough and they'll suddenly think of something!

Maybe that's not such a good idea. One thing's for sure about all this NEW EVE genius - nothing for nothing.

What're they going to call this new game, or are they keeping the old name?

Although not explicitly stated, its not hard to imagine that they have an armor and hull variant in the works also. They just gave a brief overview of what new concepts they're currently considering.

Anti-blob module that also benefits the blob .. going to be a Must Have™ I fear. Just hope it is a high-slot module or it will be yet another indirect nerf to Amarr's midslot deficient lineup.

Questions:
- Will super-capitals be prohibited from using it?
- Will drone locks count? Big enough swarm and module user is effectively invulnerable to drone damage, could be an awesome counter for Dreads against SCs.

Only for massive fleet fights of hundreds of people. Chances are though, only half of the people in your fleet need to actually have one; the rest can get away with it. Being frustrating in every other primary is enough of a deterrent to prevent overwhelming focus fire.

Questions:


According to another poster, it was said to be restricted from capitals. Carriers and dreads could still feasibly be allowed to use this module imho.



Unknown but imho it would be nice if they still counted percentage wise but had a much smaller effect than a ship lock.

This has been the issue with other proposals involving changes to targeting mechanics but I think this module idea that CCP is considering skirts around the issue quite elegantly.

If everyone can't primary one target, then dps is being split--multiple ships are being hit at once. Remember, this module only breaks locks, you can retarget easily. Unless a fleet has "hive mind-like" characteristics, its going to be next to impossible to lock everyone whose tank is breaking. This module would break the locks of friendly ships and those friendly ships would be constantly retargeting other friendly ships which takes an impossible amount of coordination to use effectively. The fleet can't keep up with 20, 30 or 40 broadcasts of multiple people who are low on hp.

So while fleet fights might last slightly longer because of friendly locking, I don't think we're going to be anywhere close to the issue of fleets being somewhat invulnerable to each other. Remember that this solution removes logistics locks too so that while no dps is being applied to you, no one is repping you also in the meantime as everyone is retargeting you.

Also, the issue of drones could be solved by having a successful lockbreak reset a drone's orders. The ship with the logi drones would have to retarget the vessel to have drones repair it again.

Great, fleet fights will take even longer and small gang combat will have even more people running away. Awesome.

The effect would depend on the exact formula used to calculate chance to break lock, so no-one aside from the developers can say exactly what effect it would have on fleet fights. I suspect that the purpose of the module is to discourage massed fire by large fleets of 100 or more, and reward coordination and player skill over raw numbers. It will probably take that many people locking a target to make fitting the proposed lockbreaker module worthwhile, since the lockbreaker module will occupy the space that could be used by something else that might well be more useful, like another gun or a tank module.

So most likely small gang warfare involving less than twenty or thirty persons to a side will not be significantly affected. At least, I don't think that's the target fleet size for the module.

Big nullsec fleets will be affected, but the change may be for the better. For example, under the currently FOTM alpha fleet doctrine, it only takes thirty or so Maelstroms to one-shot a properly tanked Abaddon, which is the heaviest-tanked tech-1 battleship in the game.* But nullsec fleets of 100 Maelstroms or more will still usually have only a single primary target, which is an enormous waste of damage. Which is why some alliances have experimented with 1200mm artillery, since it has a significantly shorter cycle time than 1400mm artillery; the smaller alpha strike of 1200mm artillery doesn't matter when you have 200 alpha ships on field, but being able to fire twice as often does. Being forced to assign multiple targets could make such fleets more efficient.

A second issue is how logistics and other friendly support will be affected by this module, if at all.

A third is whether drones will count.

This is all speculative, of course.

*Although some would say that the Rokh can fit a marginally heavier tank.

Assuming npcs count.

How do you counter something like this? Hmmm....lets see....

Bring back AoE Titans?

F****** Awesome!

I nominate this suggestion. Any seconds!

I second it.

Approved!

Motion carries!

/sarcasm

Really stupid ******* idea. Is basicly a placate to fix the blob, but the whiney players just can't fix alpha themselves. Pro-tip: Bigger buffer, bigger ship = cap ship = HTFU and train for something more then a battleship! This sounds so ripe for abuse unless it has really long cycle time, its so great that the player base creates blob fleets to counter the opponents who then bring a bigger blob fleet which in turn requires another blob fleet rinse repeate ad nausem. Eventually, you will have people just lagging the hell out of each other, time dilation doing its thing, and everyone just go watch TV as nothing is achieved.

I look forward to there being a reward for diversifying targets.