Player Features and Ideas Discussion

There are many excellent points on both sides about boosting and specific to the mining link problem. If we move past that however and assume for a minute that links ARE changed (as an arbitrary brainstorming exercise) to being on-grid only, I personally think we will experience a problem with some fleet comps and the current fleet command ship designs. That is what I outlined in the original post.

So do people think there should be a change to making the Claymore a feasibly armour tanked ship if links become on-grid only? Or should another approach be taken such as I outlined originally.

Ok, I was wrong about the "defender" part.
But still, if we make 2 sizes of links - we introduce the tradeoff of either to have expensive inefficient system-wide boosting or cheap and efficient in-grid boosting. The exception is the Rorqual, wich is just fine with me. Leave alone the miners, go fight someone akin to you.
And btw, if the POS is under siege, the defender still will be able to put their grid-only booster under the forcefield. Isn't it OP? Maybe we should prohibit activation of links when inside the FF? :trollface:

1) Make it impossible to activate links inside POS (no lol 6 link fits siting in safety)
2) Get decent prober with virtue set
3) Happy hunting

Excluding some 100+ AU systems off-grid boosting isn't that safe. In smaller systems its virtually impossible to stay away from probes long and warping/cloaking turns boosting off. There's only so many places far away from any objects in 30AU system...

Also most off-grid boosters are double or even triple-boxed. They don't have time to check probes every 2 seconds. If you force them on grid you just screw over the side who has less numbers. And what about smaller roams?

Also what about fights that happen in multiple places. You may have one part of your fleet cover one gate, second part cover 2nd gate and rest shooting POS/Station/ihub.

And what happens when grids broke randomly? Sometimes grid is 20 (twenty) km wide, sometimes like 1000km wide.




However I agree T3 bonuses shouldn't be better than CS bonuses. Balance them to same level and then its just user choice wether he wants to boost with un-tanked T3 or tanked CS. And FYI I have toon that has CS5 so defending T3 boosters is not because training time investment.

Re: Mining bonuses.
- Deployed Rorqual yields ~42% (twice that in beam range) with implant and maxed skills; is stationary and generally just a fat-arse.
- Any fleet command yields ~28% (twice that in beam range) with implant and maxed skills; is mobile, can bite back and depending on fit .. also a fat-arse, albeit not as much as the Rorqual (Damn(((....)))ation)

So ...

If you are mining in space frequented by roams, leet cloaking PvP'ers or during an invasion .. use the Commandship.
If you are mining in space nestled in the deep blue sea of NAP land .. use a deployed Rorqual.

PS: Orca is mobile and gets 3%/lvl link bonus, increase that to 5%/lvl and you have effectively halved the "loss" by choosing survival over mammon.

Almost exactly the same that will apply for the pew portion of this urgently needed change, if you are confident in your ability to smash the enemy you can use a fragile multi-link platform whereas you are better off with spreading links out to increase individual tanks in the more even fights .. or Goddess forbid .. have to decide which link is more important!

Re: spread out fighting.
- On the surface the question makes sense, but it really is on the surface only. Eve operates with 250 man fleets, often with multiple in same system .. where is it written that there shall be only one or two link ships per full fleet?
Were it up to me then:
Only capitals could boost an entire fleet.
Commandships could not boost more than one wing at a time.
T3's could not boost more than one squad at a time.
Or some variation thereof.

The designated platforms merely need a once-over to increase survivability on-grid in the small/medium engagement, Carrier/Scarrier ability to field links takes care of the full-blown blob-on-blob action if FC is not confident he can keep the bonused platforms alive.
Wouldn't hurt to take a look at the way bonuses are managed either. If the future is to have several ships with links then it should be possible to set up a prioritized list with back-ups/redundancy where we today have the single entry so that alternative bonuses are applied automatically in case the primary dies/jumps/docks/disconnects. Micromanagement can be fun, but minimizing the need for it is a 'good move' in games involving shooting each other in the face like Eve.

If i got this thread right is a discussion about off-grid boosting vs on-grid boosting?
If so, I overheard a few people sharing their ideas in a incursion fleet and I think it was a good idea:

Instead of going Off-grid VS On-grid the that the command ships should do both. Instead of removing the off-grid booster to get people to boost on grid i belive in the EVE Sandbox concept. the choice of the player. I belive that the higher the risk the higher the rewards. so if a Command ship wer eon gridd boosting it should be in more danger and it should be more effective. but let the playe choose how they wanna fly it.
Make it so that every ganglink module have a offgrid value and a on grid value. So if the command ship is on grid it may boost its links 7% per level where offgrid it only effects 3%.
This will create incentives to actually be on grid to boost as it will help the fleet more but still leave the choice for people who do not wanna risk it and play it safer.

Claymore goes 1700 m/s right now. Isn't that enough?