Assembly Hall

How should tiericide affect industrial ships?

Here are some ideas:
Idea 1) Give three per race: defensive, fast, large cargo
Idea 2) Give two per race: defensive, large cargo
Idea 3) Leave them tiered.
Idea 4) Make a great hauler and mini-Frieghter

Side Idea 1) Navy Industrials
Side Idea 2) Role Bonus

Bad Idea 1) Just make one line of ORE haulers




I was waiting for someone else to bring this up (maybe even with a solution), but tiericide does leave Industrial Ships in an odd position.

Right now, this is where we are at:
Caldari and Amarr have 2 (Amarr used to have one).
Minmatar have 3.
Gallente have 5.

Five... sheesh, one for each level and no one else even has four. It is the most tiered line of ships in the game. Even the names of the ships are tiered, such as the Iteron Mark V. Speaking of which, this ship has received controversy since rigs were introduced. While paper-thin, it can haul more than a T2 variant, which aren't so strong themselves. If it was given raw tiericide, it would require Gallente Industrial 1 to fly. This will make the critics of the ship rather upset.



Obviously this is not what would happen in proper tiericide. The movement is about making ships each have value rather than be stepping-stones. The Iteron 5 problem aside, it seems to me that three types of haulers are needed:
Type 1) good defenses
Type 2) good speed
Type 3) good cargo hold

For this to happen, Caldari would need a new hauler and so would Amarr. Minmatar would be fine, and Gallente would have two removed. Racial differences would come into play here too. Amarr and Caldari would have better defenses. Minmatar would have better speed. Gallente would remain best-in-class for cargo. (I think the "Mark #" names should go for Caldari and Gallente btw.)

For this to work, the static bonuses would have to change. Racial defensive bonuses would be needed for Type 1. A think a bigger base speed and the current speed bonus would work for Type 2. For Type 3, a modest base hold and a larger cargo bonus would be in order.



A variation of this would be to remove "Type 2 / Speed" and make Minmatar a near equal in cargo with better speed. The advantage here is that no new ships would be needed. The models would already be decided based on T2 versions. This means that the Iteron 5 would be gone, to the cheers of critics and tears of traders.



There is one thing that I can think of to do with one or two of the unused hulls: Navy Issue Industrials. For the Amarr and Caldari, they get a paint job. For the Minmatar, I vote for letting go of the old Wreathe and go for a repainted Mammoth. For the Gallente, they get back the Iteron 5 but with a new paint job. Navy ships would have more EHP, but not bonuses to help them. The traditional speed and cargo are one option for bonuses. I would like to see 3 turret/missile hard-points and a damage bonus for small guns and light missiles, personally. The max cargo hold would have to be smaller than a Retriever's max cargo hold (ya, ppl would still AFK with it).

I doubt many people would like this idea, but it makes good use of the ship models. ORE ships at least have a flight of light drones to shoot back with. Navy Industrials with light arms make sense to me. We do see NPC industrials that attack. WTB: Blood Raider industrial with small cap-drain bonus. >:}



Just leave them tiered as is. I don’t like this idea, but it is the simplest solution to a convoluted problem. A small buff to narrow the gap between the best and worst haulers would be nice. A buff in HP would also be helpful as DPS has risen in the game. Reducing CPU is also an option as that is a holdover from a system that was never implemented.

IMHO, the CPU was left because of how weak the ships are. This gave the option of EWar and extra shields. If EHP is raised in general, the CPU would not be needed. WTB: Mordus hauler with shield and ECM bonus. >:}



Speaking of that mysterious massive amount of CPU, maybe those systems should be revisited. I heard that they were a deep space life style module. Others say they were for strip miners before ORE was introduced as a ship line. I’d like to hear from devs what that mysterious utility would have been. Perhaps give industrials a role bonus. Heck, at this point, maybe it could tie into supplying DUST with something. In other words, a special bonus to industrials was originally planned and is not a bad idea.

This is a half-formed idea, but I think the original intensions of the industrial should be considered (and revealed).



Right now there is a gap between Industrials and Freighters. Filling that gap could be the difference in ships. The smaller ones would be cheaper, much faster, more slots/fittings, and get a light EHP boost. The larger ship would need an agility bonus, get a big boost in EHP, loose some slots, and get a nice cargo hold (maybe a small ship hanger or PI hold).

I think it would be interesting to give the first one a defensive and speed bonus. The lack of a cargo bonus would let it be both the strong defense and speed ship. A large base cargo hold can replace the bonus. The “mini-freighter” would get a cargo hold and agility bonus.




Another more radical method would be to remove racial haulers. The problem is that that would not jive well with T2s and Freighters. I think we can all agree that it would make a mess. If this was years ago, I think pure ORE industrials would have made sense, but not now. It's a moot issue, but an option I wanted to bring up and shoot down.

I also believe that there should be tiericide for the industrials, and I lean towards idea 1.

As for a Industrial - Freighter midpoint: I would suggest a Tech 2 transport with a massive base Cargohold and massive Cargohold bonuses.

The fact that the Gallente have five industrials doesn't hurt the idea of specialization at all. Rather three of them would be highly specialized, and the other two would be more balanced but still leaning in certain directions. Also there would be subtle differences between the races. Also few industrials might tend towards flexibility with poor base stats, but a large number of slots, high CPU and PG, (thinking of the Sigil with 5 low slots, maybe if it has even more).

Another concept is to have both tiers and special roles. The Minmatar's fast industrial would also be the cheapest and lowest skil requirements (Wreathe) and meanwhile the one with the largest hold is expensive and has high skill req (unchanged Mammoth. This might reflect the lore that the Minmatar have the fastest ships, but a poor economy. Meanwhile the Gallente have more middle of the road ships on the bottom two, with more specialized ships on higher tiers.

Why do they need more? Why does Gallente need 5?
each race would be good with 2 haulers
hauler 1. Fast agile small tank and small cargo hold, invention to cloaky transport ship
hauler 2 slow tanky and large hold, invention to stab transport ship