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The Case for Off-grid Boosting
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HELLBOUNDMAN
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#61 - 2012-09-27 21:55:39 UTC  |  Edited by: HELLBOUNDMAN
Field command ships should have significantly more dps and tank, however, they should be forced to be on grid to give boosts.


Now, fleet command should have less dps, less tank and a much larger sig radius, thus allowing them to be easir to probe down.

However, the fleet commands ships don't have to be on grid, and they would be able to use more booster modules.


So

Field Command - Must be on grid. Good dps, lots of EHP, and up to 3 booster modules.


Fleet Command - Large sig, average bc tank, low dps, doesn't have to be on grid, and can use up to 5 booster modules.
Daichi Yamato
Jabbersnarks and Wonderglass
#62 - 2012-09-27 23:48:12 UTC
most my pvp is small scale and i've few qualms with OGB despite hardly ever having one in my fleets.

its just when u cant retaliate that it makes no sense to me. preventing bad guys from using them in POS's would be great, and also transferring aggro like RR in high and low sec would make my day. Docking/jumping timers would also help reduce the invincible alt problem (again like RR is going to be)

btw,
trying to justify that OGB levels the field between small and larger fleets is ridiculous. large fleets use just as many boosters as small fleets, and arguing this point takes credibility from genuine arguments for OGB.

Not unless ur going to suggest that their should be an upper limit for the size of a fleet that can receive boosts? thus forcing larger groups to form several fleets and provide more boosting ships. surely this would be fine if its REALLY for small vs large pvp.

Reducing the magnitude of boosts would make things more even for boosts vs no boosts fleets. but personally i dnt mind either way. it still takes alot of time, money, effort and a whole extra character to get boosts.

EVE FAQ "7.2 CAN I AVOID PVP COMPLETELY? No; there are no systems or locations in New Eden where PvP may be completely avoided"

Daichi Yamato's version of structure based decs
Galphii
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#63 - 2012-09-27 23:56:56 UTC
As a regular participant in small-scale pvp, I have to say it's great having a command booster somewhere in local to give us an advantage against larger fleets, but something I've noticed lately is that just about everyone has an off-grid fleet booster nowadays. They kinda cancel each other out, if you know what I mean. It's only the poor shlubs without an expensive command alt who suffer.

The OP is right about probing them out, but probing has sucked ever since probes began to appear automatically on the directional scanner anyway.

I'm a little torn on this issue - the case could be made either way, but I do like the idea of boosters having to be on grid, so long as the command ships themselves are fixed (i.e. fix the command ships first then think about this issue again).

"Wow, that internet argument completely changed my fundamental belief system," said no one, ever.
King Rothgar
Deadly Solutions
#64 - 2012-09-28 08:46:43 UTC
I would support forcing them on grid if the CS's are fixed first. The reason off grid boosting is an equalizer is because big gangs will always have them but small gangs can't. The reason isn't because they can't spare a character for it, the problem is it can't survive like that.

The big gang has RR to keep the slow booster ship alive and on field. Thus it has no issue fielding links on grid in tanky ships like the damnation and vulture. The small gang can't do this however. It typically doesn't have logi and the link ships are primary without logi present (even with sometimes). WIthout RR, it won't last long at all. Additionally, if we are talking about a small skirmish gang vs a larger armor fleet, the skirmish fleet relies on the boosts to keep range. The trouble is the claymore and booster loki are far too fragile and slow to actually be on grid with an opposing fleet. Both would be run down and insta popped. At that point, the skirmish fleet would lose any advantage it had via extended point/web ranges.

Now looking at current tactics in the super common above scenario and it's very different. The skirmish fleet with greatly enhanced tackle ranges and speed can fight from a semi-safe distance without having to worry about their links vanishing constantly from having to bounce tacticals or dieing horribly. That's the key, it's the dissimilar fight where they come into play. In a skirmish vs skirmish fleet fight, it merely cancels out. Ditto for the other styles.

I am also confirming it's possible to probe down off grid boosters. I've done it a fair number of times since the ECCM nerf. I haven't killed one yet, but I've forced them to cloak/warp quite a few times at which point they cease giving boosts. As far as the fight is concerned, that's just as good though I don't get a shiny km for it.

[u]Fireworks and snowballs are great, but what I really want is a corpse launcher.[/u]
Mars Theran
Foreign Interloper
#65 - 2012-09-28 10:30:18 UTC  |  Edited by: Mars Theran
You could always cut the bonuses of an off-grid link ship by 50%; granted that's probably still 50% more than an on-grid link ship can afford, but it's something at least.

To be clear: That would mean a 50% reduction in applied bonuses, so while an off-grid link ship could apply more bonuses, the on-grid link ship could apply less bonuses, but each at greater strength than the off-grid link could give.
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Gizznitt Malikite
Agony Unleashed
Agony Empire
#66 - 2012-09-28 16:48:51 UTC
Mars Theran wrote:
You could always cut the bonuses of an off-grid link ship by 50%; granted that's probably still 50% more than an on-grid link ship can afford, but it's something at least.

To be clear: That would mean a 50% reduction in applied bonuses, so while an off-grid link ship could apply more bonuses, the on-grid link ship could apply less bonuses, but each at greater strength than the off-grid link could give.


I was also thinking something along these lines.... although I'd was thinking a little stronger that a 50% reduction:

Hurricane: t2 Skirmish - Int Man w/ All V - no mindlink: provides a 28.13% boost to pt/web optimal range.
Claymore: t2 Skirmish - Int Man w/ All V - mindlinked: provides a 48.52% boost to pt/web optimal range.
Loki: t2 Skirmish - Int Man w/ All V - mindlinked: provides a 52.73% boost to pt/web optimal range.

Offgrid, the effect is reduced by 50%, so you get a 26.37% boost from a perfectly skilled character. This would be less bonuses than an unlinked hurricane running ongrid boosting... which is at risk of getting caught and destroyed. The benefit of offgrid, is you can safely configure your ship to provide many links, with little risk. (this might even allow for in-POS boosting to be acceptable).

Lelob
Pandemic Horde Inc.
Pandemic Horde
#67 - 2012-10-07 00:25:27 UTC
Gypsio III wrote:
Gang links, especially the skirmish links, whether on-or off-grid, are fundamentally overpowered. It costs over 100 mill for a ship to upgrade from a 24 km point by 25% to a 30 km one, yet a link on a T1 BC can increase that range by 28% for pennies, not just for one ship but an entire gang. Snakes give a ~25% speed increase for one person for *lots*, a link does 18.75% for everyone for virtually nothing.

The magnitudes of the bonuses that they give are far too great, and the bonuses apply to too many pilots. Gang links are becoming too important in combat; they are in danger of becoming a necessity for combat that is simply inaccessible for new players. Nerf time.

This opinion won't go down well. ShockedLol


Completely different issue, but yeah you're not wrong. Why CCP decided to buff specifically skirmish links is kinda beyond me but, again it is not the main problem even if it is a contributing factor.

2ofSpades wrote:
When links are active on cloaky t3's no ab or mw mods can run and you cant cloak until you shut the links off (kind of like a cyno). fitting any kind of mod that would make it harder to scan should not be allowed by stopping the links from onlining. This will allow smart covert players to then take on the issue of catching cloaky boosters by using various ships/setups.


This is extremely intelligent, but I would say slightly flawed. I do not agree that it should prevent other modules from activating, but instead that so long as your any gang links are running you cannot enter/initiate warp. If you did that, possibly along with a 20-30 second cycle time on gang modules, the effect would be tremendous.

Roime wrote:


Yes it will, because it actually makes sense. Decrease the bonuses across the board (to a level where they are a nice bonus, but not a necessity), swap the T3/CS bonus percentages around and fix field command ships to promote active gameplay on grid, and make active link modules increase signature radius of the boosting ship so that you don't need a max-skilled prober with full Virtues to probe them out (increase risk involved in OGB and give good probers more rewarding opportunities).

I don't see reasons to kill off-grid boosting, but certainly there is an opportunity to promote engaging gameplay.



The strange thing you are mentioning as well as others is the overall impact of bonuses. This was dramatically exacerbated by the introduction of t2 gang links, along with the skirmish bonus buff. Before these two changes were made, gang links were in a fairly nice state. I guess CCP wanted to buff the leadership SP, which they did, ableit perhaps a bit too much. As I said before though, this is not a problem with off-grid boosting bur rather gang bonuses themselves.

Selaya Ataru wrote:
]The problem I see with OGB is the fact that you need the implant set to catch them.
If the probing math would be changed in a way that allows finding these ships without implants, just with very good skills and a skilled player, I'd be fine
.

Personally, I have always wondered why CCP does not just take low-grade virtues and make them roughly the price of any other lg set and add a hg set, while offering reimbursement to all current owners of lg sets. This would certainly help to alleviate the financial problems associated with probing down off-grid boosters. The problems that you allude to with the math behind probing have been largely fixed, as it is now possible to probe down off-grid boosters, whereas before it was not.

Making it even easier to probe would have unintended consequences that would negatively affect the pve side of probing so I think you have to be careful about saying that the math is bad, when in reality it is quite good after CCP changed it so that each probe has an affect on the result. (Why they never decided to post a devblog about the probing changes that they made is beyond me. The change came in play sometime around the huge debacle with the aurum store)

Sinzor Aumer wrote:
If people start loosing Orcas and Rorquals, it will wipe a lot of miners out of 0.0. Thats bad.


The last thing that anyone wants is less miners in nullsec. Everyone loves miners: pvpers love killing them, the big alliances love miners for the income/minerals for supercap production etc. I honestly cannot think of a good reason not to love having miners in nullsec and you are right to resist such people. (I am not being sarcastic, in case this does come off as slightly sarcastic)
Lelob
Pandemic Horde Inc.
Pandemic Horde
#68 - 2012-10-07 00:25:51 UTC  |  Edited by: Lelob
Gizznitt Malikite wrote:
And single linked t3's can fight and boost fairly well, as well as some CS (although they all need rebalancing), and many BC's as well.


Single link T3's suck, and you are kidding yourself to think otherwise. BC's are a complete joke for boosting so I won't even touch that nonsense. I have only ever seen bads seriously try and keep with the above 2 ideas for any sustained period of time.Fleet CS do have a very significant role in larger fleet fights (excluding the eos), because they are much more of a stable boosting platform, as I already explained in the OP. They are largely incompatible for small gang pvp for metagame reasons, as I previously explained.

Daichi Yamato wrote:
btw,
trying to justify that OGB levels the field between small and larger fleets is ridiculous. large fleets use just as many boosters as small fleets, and arguing this point takes credibility from genuine arguments for OGB.


That is exactly the point. If boosting is changed to on-grid boosting only, then it becomes several orders of magnitude for small gang pvpers to field boosts and operate in the same manner as before. For the larger fleets it means nothing. In this regard it is a nerf to small gang pvp.

Gizznitt Malikite wrote:


Offgrid, the effect is reduced by 50%, so you get a 26.37% boost from a perfectly skilled character. This would be less bonuses than an unlinked hurricane running ongrid boosting... which is at risk of getting caught and destroyed. The benefit of offgrid, is you can safely configure your ship to provide many links, with little risk. (this might even allow for in-POS boosting to be acceptable).



In-POS boosting will ALWAYS be imbalanced. Not being able to counter gang links is simply not a good idea. Additionally, I say this as someone who has experienced Titan bonuses from a Titan inside of a safe POS. They simply must be removed because they truly are unbalanced and a serious detriment to the game.