Player Features and Ideas Discussion

In straight up PvP activity, Caldari boats often have a disadvantage in fleets. They have delayed DPS when it comes to fitting missile launchers. Missile launchers is what many of them do best.

I therefore suggest the following:

The cruise category of launcher lives up to it's name, and gains the ability to strike at distances.

Example:
A cloaked observer is parked near a gate. The launching ships are in same system, but in a safe spot far from the observer.
The launching ships are told which bookmarks to target and fire upon. Bookmarks are flagged through fleet so they can be locked on by the launcher ships.
The launching ships fire a volley of cruise missiles, which immediately enter warp and head to target grid. (Warp speed 20AU)
The missiles exit warp at the location near where the target was when launched, the missiles will detonate at the designated locations, delivering blast damage to anything in the blast radius.
Fleet missiles just became interesting again.

Requirements: The cloaked vessel may require a spotter module, and the launcher vessel may need one as well, in order to connect as described above. It may be limited to strictly CovOps class, possibly recon class. No SB or strategic cruisers?

It could take several launching ships to make an alpha able to stop a ship, so this would be a group effort.

OK, for the TL;DR crowd then:

This is a weapon that is not intended to be useful gate camping. The target acquisition and deployment time is at least 30 seconds, more if you don't have perfect skills.

This means any ship that can get into warp in less than 30 seconds could simply leave.


Now, unless the damage is really kicked up, cruise missiles are not insta-kill weapons either, and certainly not highly effective against smaller ships. (No, you could not use the T2 precision class with this)

More than anything, this is simply a way to put missile boats back into fleet action. Their delayed DPS nature has made them less desirable as an option in this area.

It could be something a dread could do.

Not something I would expect in high sec, unless a war was active.

It could also be something where preparation was needed on the part of the launching ship.
(IE: Must have speed at 0.0 before launching, or missiles would be off course exponentially to the point they would run out of fuel before they could hope to reach target)

I would expect a dread to use bigger than cruise missiles, or else redefine cruise as a higher damage type in this usage, like a T2 variant...

Uncloak and "paint" them with a cyno-type painter for the cruise missiles to track.
Gives the target some time to react and defend - or GTFO.

My take on the module was that is is passive, and just relays the telemetry (i.e. overview) of the cloaked ship to the artillery.

Though, adding "you need to targetpaint them" is an interesting twist.

This would change the dynamic.

The concept behind painting a target implies the painter to be either concealed during the act, or so far from the target that it cannot respond.

A great tip-off, for this version you suggest, is that it could give a target painter debuff symbol to the targeted ship(s), tipping them off to their danger.

Again, anything able to leave will probably be able to do so. This is not fast, and in no way comparable to a hot drop's fast attack profile.

+1

There is a very narrow but powerful role for artillery in any battle.

My suggested change would be to make it just that, artillery fire. The shooting dreadnaught ( or other ) would have to deploy to fire and the reload time would be fairly long.

The deploy, un-deploy and reload times are all variable.

The ammo used could follow the hybrid idea, short range ( 5 AU? ) but high damage/splash area or long range ( 30AU) and lower damage/splash area. Different types of damage and flight times could also be variable based on ammo.

Someone on grid would use an active module to 'paint' the target. After the shot is fired the payload would warp to grid at 100KM and speed towards the location of the painted target at time of launch and detonate with variable damage/splash radius. If you are always moving the splash may never catch you. ( see ammo above )

This would be a very good tool for combating the blob problem I hear so much about as well as give less experienced PvP players a role in either being the artillery or defending it against counter attack. The fleet would have to spread out to avoid the splash area of effect from overwhelming the repair logistics. The small fast gangs would be more effective in battles as they can outrun the splash area and the larger ships would have to break locks more often.

I also realize that this can be used to find cloaked ships by targeting a jet can and firing on that. It would be tedious but not impossible. I don't see that as a problem.

**NOTE** I have very limited PvP expedience in EVE but have played may other battle games where a good arty setup can be very effective.

You didn't mention that part ;p, what you said was basicly:

Spotter marks target, shooter fires his missiles, they enter 20AU/s warp and pops out near the original location of spotted target.

Making it sound like the target has 2-3 sec to react after being painted ;P

My apologies, I assumed too much would be implied by the name 'strategic', and neglected to specify this.

I have worked with missiles in real life, so I sometimes forget not everyone else has.

Agreed. While off grid artillery should be most notable in the Caldari since they emphasize so heavily on missiles, other races should have their own versions of it. Overall game balance suggests that one should help compensate for the other, and that costs missile oriented ships like the Caldari when fleet ship preferences are made.
(Same theory that suggests Gallente should make the best carriers, because of their drone specialization)

Minmatar should have shelling potential with their projectile guns, and Gallente should have it through their hybrid rail guns.

Amarr beam weapons... that one is tricky. Perhaps they develop a long range weapon based off of firing beams through space folds.... equally difficult to aim and use.

Killing stuff you aren't on grid with, that has been painted by a cloaked ship? This is Eve, we would abuse the hell out of this.