Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Well of course, I'm highlighting all the issues you have been trying to dismiss out of hand throughout this thread.

Some experienced players have come in here and highlighted the problems with the proposal, and you've dismissed or ignored their constructive criticism and instead just continuously posted replies that do not solve the issues highlighted. I am merely trying to point out that, as someone who does not PvP very much, perhaps you should listen to them and adjust your proposal accordingly.

I am not personally attacking you, I am certain you are an extremely good PvE player, you seem to lose ships rarely and the ones you have lost have been of negligible value, but you have illustrated numerous times that you do not understand basic PvP concepts nor how this kind of proposal would impact PvP in Eve.

This kind of a change, one that allows attackers to engage from off grid >14AU away, is a very fundamental change. One that could very easily be used to create some very questionable engagements and tactics. Such a change needs to not only be thoroughly thought through, but it should also always be made certain that there is not simply an easier way to make such an alteration.

For example your dislike of cruise missiles is their low alpha? Then why not decrease their rate of fire slightly, and increase their alpha instead? Why not undo the nerf on the agility and speed of the raven slightly? Tweaking explosion velocity, radius? No?

Simpler solutions, ones that cannot be so easily exploited and do not constitute major rewrites of fundamental game concepts, are invariably the best. Adding new features and leaving missiles/missile ships defunct for "on-grid" PvP is simply pointless.

New features proposed purely on the basis that "this would be cool" are not generally a good idea, especially not when the mechanics governing the changes are thought through in such a hasty way.

You don't seem to believe me, which I find surprising in an odd way.

I do PvP. I do so exclusively in a support role.

Condition one I am flying a logi boat. This has happened where I got to see the bigger fights. A couple of months before TiDi went in... I got lucky for the most part I suppose. Noone targeted me long enough to be an issue. Logi boats keep each other on watch lists, which is probably why.

Condition two I am in a scouting ship. I fly over a half-dozen models that can use covert cloaks, so the type is dependent on the details. It is enough to say that more than one used regularly is fitted with missiles.

Obviously I also do PvE, but as that is not relevant, I do not reference it here.

Please, feel free to bring up one point for consideration, and I will respond to it. If I find it is based on incomplete understanding, I will point that out as well. Some of the points I saw indicated they had not read the entire OP, let alone the entire thread.

Hot dropping requires no commitment at all by comparison.
Just scout an area, and when you find a target, then you call up your possible drop fleet.
No fleet available? Try again later, meanwhile your sheep have grown more comfortable having not been dropped when you apparently could have. This brings out more potential targets to drop, possibly worth more to you to get the killmails on.

The artillery ships I have described are outfitted to fire long range, and would be poorly prepared for on grid confrontations.
It is entirely reasonable the launchers as well as the missiles would be specific to the strategic use only.
Fitting them with cloaks limits their value even further, possibly reducing them to only fire on structures, due to all the associated penalties.

As for no warning PvP, you would clearly see all the ships in local. You should expect trouble with non allied forces present, as with anywhere not in high sec.
At least with this, you see up front what you have to worry over. Hot dropping just needs one frigate, all by itself.

It isn't really that I found no evidence that Nikk is good at PvP, it's the fact that I found considerable evidence that he is bad at PvP.

You may not be a fan of arguments from authority, which is understandable, but when points are made repeatedly by multiple players throughout a thread and those issues are not addressed. Well, yeah, may as well play the "you bad" card.


The points were replied to, they were not answered.

If you read above Nikk still believes the primary difference between, say, a maelstrom fleet and a (lol) raven fleet is the delay between firing and applying DPS. Nothing to do with the fact that a maelstrom/tornado fleet has nearly 3x higher alpha, slightly more DPS and better damage application against certain targets.

The reason you can't alpha through reps with cruise missiles is because they do ~4k alpha, whereas the maelstrom does over 11k. As you increase fleet size alphastrom fleets split their guns and primary two targets at once, this is around about the point where a cruise missile fleet would just have enough to alpha a single target.

There is some advantage to having warning that missiles are flying at you, I won't deny that, but having your logistics pre-emptively lock you up or cycle their reps helps little when 50 maelstroms are pressing F1. Even at maximum falloff that is likely ~200k damage (down from 550k alpha on a large target sitting stationary in optimal), this is compared to the 200k alpha put out by 50 cruise missiles even before explosion velocity/radius is calculated.

But beyond that, and the other issues with missiles, this still would not boost missiles for a fleet role. The only situations these would be used in are the exploit ones.

I mean, when would you use it? To surprise a station bashing gang? The enemy fleet would see you coming, get the probes ready, then just warp around until they could fleet warp to you. And you'd be sitting there in the semi-siege mode just waiting to get raped.

Maybe you'd use it to station bash yourself? Again, you're tied to a spot in the middle of space doing minimal DPS and just waiting for an enemy scout to jump in and warp to you, the opponents OFC would just warp around unless you fancy sending some people in to hero tackle on their own.

Maybe you'd just stick thousands of bubbles up on all the in gates, and "spot" the targets as they come in? Enemy fleet sends in scouts, and they titan bridge or black ops a gang in instead. There is literally no point in fleet combat that this off-grid DPS tactic would be useful.

So you're back to this just being used for gate camps, with the missile ships either at a POS or (if that weird artificial "cannot siege near POS thing were used) they'd be aligned to station in space, and only siege for a decent target.

It's just not a very useful idea for fleets, doesn't fix any of the issues with missiles for fleet PvP and would also allow me to do crazy things like off-grid DPS sleepers. Although that last point would probably be pretty funny.

Well that's the point, missile ships aren't alpha boats, yet Nikk was comparing fleet missile battleships to alphastrom fleets and their ability to alpha through reps. Just read the post a few posts up, or on the page before.


They don't, and everything you've said is true. But it isn't (purely) due to delayed DPS and the added complexity of timing when switching targets, I listed a few of the reasons above, other reasons have been posted throughout lots of other threads and even in this one so I won't repeat them.

Excluding obviously the drake and tengu, which scale very well even into very large fleets. Mainly due to their ability to maintain range (perma drake <3), high resists and low sigs.


I know, hence the (lol) raven But I honestly couldn't think of another T1 missile BS. Besides, the raven probably wouldn't be a bad ship if cruise missiles (or torps) sucked a little less. Same EHP as a maelstrom, actually slightly faster, two utility high slots etc.

As for missiles fitting into small fleets, meh. Again, smaller ships fitting HMLs, sure. But the only time torps are used in PvP is on bombers, and cruise missiles? Might as well stick a few my scorp for the hell of it?

I will be honest with you, I'm relatively happy with HML's for PvP. Cruise missiles suck though, and this proposal doesn't fix them. All it adds is a few exploits and a lot of chances for some very annoying PvP blue balling (see: raven fleets engaging from 20AU only against targets that don't have support or a scout in a scanning ship, then docking up against everything else).

I read the first two pages, and perhaps missed something in the last page and a half, but I vehemently disagree with this idea:

Why???

The attacker is NEVER at any serious risk. If you put a sniping Tornado 200 km's off gate to alpha ships coming through:
1.) People can see the tornado...
2.) People can ATTACK the tornado (either get a warp in on it, or snipe it back!!).

In this scenario, the spotter is cloaked making them very hard to attack. There is not warning for the incoming damage, and the cruise missile launcher is easily safe next to a POS or in some really deep safe that is hard as hell to scan down.

If this were to happen:
1.) THe spotter MUST be at risk (i.e. not cloaked). It MUST lock the target that is to be artillaried. Then, the people being attacked have something to shoot, and some way to counter the incoming attack. Note: modules/drones to be launched as a counter is a bad idea... The counter should be shooting the ************ spotting you!!!!

2.) The Attacker MUST BE SIEGED.... meaning they must be immobile for 5 minute cycles. This way, the attacker is in danger of being probed down and ganked whenever they enter "artillary" mode!!!

3.) Finally, if the spotter loses lock on the target, the incoming volley misses.

Finally, Missiles have both advantages and disadvantages over turrets:
Advantages:
-- Constant DPS no matter the range to target.
-- Selectable damage type.
-- F.O.F.
-- Invulnerable to weapon disruption (at least until/unless CCP alters this, which they are attempting to do).

Disadvantages:
-- Delay to damage.
-- Damage reduction due to speed and sig size. (i.e. no "Perfect hits").

I dont' think the disadvantages are enough to warrent giving ONLY missile users long range siege weapons... Although i can foresee a special weapon fit to a special ship that uses these "artillary" style weapons.

The alpha value of cruise missiles, in the larger fleet engagements, is not my problem. I am not trying to change that, in the context you put forth.

The problem I see is the alpha value does not show up in a timely manner, so is not as desirable to FCs.

I think I heard someone mention a risk item about outposts, and using the ability to dock in an outpost as a way to hide from risk. I would make this strategy one that denied the launcher ships the ability to hit targets while they fired from a position on grid with outposts.
Same logic as they must be completely unmoving, the gravity effect from the outpost throws off the aim to a point where the missiles go too far off course. (For ships moving, it was that the rate of movement became exponentially magnified in warp and caused the missiles to also emerge from warp too far from target to compensate)

The outpost idea is one I did not hear previously described, instead seeing references to POS shields. A POS won't protect these launchers effectively, since they can't be used from behind POS shields.
(balance with CCP can determine the minimum distance here, I would expect the time to align towards the shields should need to complete before ever being able to reach their protection. As this would coincide with what is needed to warp to the POS, I see it as meaningless to be closer than warp distance to the POS when planning to be operational)

This places the launching ships in an unusual position, that being used for insta-kills at a gate camp.

What you may have missed, is that this is not instant in any way. Time to acquire and deliver DPS is at best 30 seconds. This is with a perfect skill set.
There are better ways involving sniper ships for gate camps, that allow for on grid DPS at a distance big enough to be risk free from most counter threats.
(One bubble combined with a webifier gives more than a few rounds of DPS, and the sniper fits render the launchers obsolete in efficiency here)
TL:DR Translation: as long as you can accomplish the objective more easily with existing in game methods, the risk of abuse from the idea becomes insignificant to pointless.



With sniper fits, projectile and the like are very nearly off grid already.

I would design for them a different system, one that used spotters instead to cue the artillary ships on when to fire, and at which predetermined points.
(The points would pretty much be bookmarks, which matches up to the grid coordinates used by similar items already)

On consideration, I am thinking to use this as the targeting method for the missiles as well, since they are not intended to strike at moving targets.

This would make gate camp aspects of this impractical to ridiculous to consider.

Revising OP to reflect this now.

I must be missing something, this how I understand your idea, in a TL;DR:

A.) A cloaked, invlunerable, undetectable ship transmits a target for a fleet-mate to launch a missile barrage at.
B.) The fleet mate launches their missle barrage at the transmitted target from anywhere in system.
C.) 30-60 seconds later, the target is hit with a missile barrage...

1.) How can the target avoid being hit by the missile barrage? If they move a few km's, does the barrage miss? If they warp away, does the barrage miss? Or do they have to leave system for the barrage to miss?
-- It is my understanding, as long as the target remains on grid, they get perfectly hit by the incoming barrage.

2.) What warning does the target have that a missile barrage is incoming??
-- It is my understanding the target has ZERO notification that barrage is incoming!!!

3.) What risks are there to the Attackers: Both the spotter and the missile barrage launcher?
-- It is my understanding, there are NO real risks to either ship. Despite any restrictions that barrage launcher can't be next to an outpost or POS, they can still remain in a deep safe and launch from there. I have 100 au deep safes in many systems, where the chances of me being probed down are slim to none. Additionally, if the Barrage Launcher see's combat probes on the overview, they can immediately warp away or CLOAK to get safe. In essense, there are NO PRACTICAL RISKS to the attackers in this setup.

Lets look at similar "surprise attack mechanics".

Coordinated bomb launches: People know they are at risk when the bomb is launched and it appears on their overview. While the bombers can mitigate many of their risks, they are still at risk of being caught as they release the bombs... It happens extremely often! I caught countless bombers with a sensor boosted Arazu. Other things bombers fear: Alpha thrashers/munins/canes can alpha bombers before their bomb's detonate, defusing the bomb. Also, a well place bubbler can catch many of the bombers before they can warp away, which usually results in their slaughter. Finally, the attacked can mitigate incoming attacks by powering out of the bomb zone, by turning off mwd's, overheating hardeners, warping away, or jumping through gates!! None of these options exist with your new mechanic, because the attacked have no warning before the barrage hits!!!!

Sniper attacks: people know they are at risk of being sniped while on grid, as the sniper is easily visible on their overview. While snipers can mitigate many of their risks by well placed bubbles that prevent a hostile warping to them, they are still vulnerable to warp in drops, counter snipers, etc. Yesterday, my phobos got a nice warp in thanks to a fleet mate, where I bubbled a bunch of sniping BC's and our gang slaughtered several of them. Finally, the attacked can mitigate damage by keeping up transversal, keeping their mwd's off, warping away, and similar tactics becuase they know they are in danger.

With your barrage mechanics, there is NO WARNING to the attacked that they are under attack until the barrage lands on their ship. Additionally, there is NO PRACTICAL RISK to the attackers. Both of these are game-breaking!!!

To Re-emphasize: The ability to attack while being fundamentally safe from reprisals is aboslutely UNACCEPTABLE!!!

As such, I vehemently oppose this idea Until there is a practical level of risk associated with attacking. In game, it is NOT POSSIBLE to attack another ship without putting your ship at risk, and I can't think of any good reason why this should be changed!!!! There has only been ONE mechanic that allowed this in the past.. Titan AOE DD's via cyno protal. And this was removed becuase it was broken!!!

The primary deepsafe making method was removed in 2010, but you can still make deepsafes. (Incursions, collapsing portals, etc) In 2010, all deepsafes had their locations limited to 25 au's from the FARTHEST celestial ORBIT (not body). In larger systems, this is often 100+ au's from all celestial Objects. Additionally, they are still 25 au's from the outer edge of the solar system, making them hard to find (albeit not impossible). Finally, I've heard rumors of other methods to make truly deep safe's still... although I haven't had the opportunity to verify it!



All ships??? or all pilots?? I didn't see any notice you're changing local to list every ship type in local?!?!?!?! That opens up an entirely new bag of worms!!! And even if you really mean ALL ships, this weapon system sounds like it can be mounted on any BS with missile hardpoint... so a listing that shows there are several ravens in system is NOT really warning of an incoming attack!!! Althought, for this purpose, it's better than nothing.. Personally, I think there is TOO MUCH information with a list of pilots in local, I certainly don't want to provide a list of ships for free too.. (an intel tool enabling players to gather that info is acceptable though!!!, but that would defeat your not-very-adequate warning system).



Assuming the explosion radius was reasonable, this is much better than the original idea. One major issue: How are the bookmarks created? They ONLY acceptable way to create the bookmarks, IMO, is to scan down the ship with probes or to fly a ship to the exact point you want the bookmark. You don't want a to give a ship (especially a cloaky one), the ability to bookmark an enemy vessel's location without providing some indicator to the enemy that their location is being compromised (ex: combat probes on dscan)... otherwise you have a whole new set of problems (and destroy sniping!)!!!!



Jump portaling is NOT risk free!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yes, it typically brings an unscoutable overwhelming force onto the field instantly, allowing them to swing the tide of battle very thoroughly. However, when a cyno goes up (covert or regular), everyone on grid knows there is an incoming force and can GTFO. The Cyno is always at risk of being destroyed before backup arrives! The portaling ship is at risk of misclicking and jumping rather than portaling!!! And the Reinforcements are at RISK when they come through the portal and attack. Perhaps you haven't had the pleasure, but quite often you can seriously ruin a hotdroppers campaign: These hotdrops when VERY, VERY bad:

• Wrong Place, Wrong Time: Some BS's were camping a station, and we organized a squad of SB's to bomb them. While we were waiting for a good opportunity to attack them, a third party BO dropped them with a fleet of bombers. The opportunity was too priceless to pass up, and Agony bombed the BO Drop


• Counter Hotdrop: A bait Rapier aggressed our Bait Proteus. When our Proteus aggressed back, and rapier hotdropped in several Machariels and stuff. Our counter hotdrop ate them!!


• While I can find other examples, the point is: The attacking ships of a HOTDROP are very much at risk when they attack!!!

To Reitterate: In this game, it is NOT POSSIBLE to attack another ship without putting your attacking ship at risk!! And I can't think of any good reason why this should be changed!!!!

and

To Re-emphasize: The ability to attack while being fundamentally safe from reprisals is aboslutely UNACCEPTABLE!!!