EVE General Discussion

Please no.

Expressed in FW and missions it makes sense. You're attacking (or defending) areas whose owners have specifically structured them to block entry by ships of a certain size. Why would independent capsuleer alliances want to do that though?

And that's nevermind the fact that it doesn't actually do anything to promote the idea of "make smaller better" anyway. We'll just blob you with frigates instead!

http://kb.tribalband.net/index.php/kill_related/70059/

ITT: people overthinking it.

Small group just has to be good small group.

Except that the large group can simply send that much more raiding parties into your territory, including a defensive force, and quite literally drain the small group's stockpile dry.

You are all trying to find a way out of a logically impossible situation. No matter how convoluted mechanics you invent, a 30 man group will never have an advantage over a 50 man group. The 50 man group can simply separate 30 people, and mirror all the smaller group's tactics - all the while keeping 20 people as wildcards. Two 50 man groups will never be stronger than one 100 man group, as the latter can split in half and each half can mirror the smaller group's optimal tactics.

Moreover, I don't think that's the gameplay we want to see in EVE. I don't want to log in to EVE one day to be told, "sorry, you can't join the fleet, BS gameplay mechanic says we're most efficient at 50 people and we already have that many". People by their very nature want to join together and cooperate.

Last, there is already an established and proven mechanic for smaller groups to overcome larger ones: team up with other groups of your size and similar interests, form an alliance, and overcome a bigger enemy together. There is no coherent force in EVE of more than 100 - 200 characters (with maybe one or two exceptions). Even the largest coalitions are merely groups of alliances, which in turn consist of corporations. Most of time, your 30 man gang didn't get hotdropped by a group of 150 friends. You got dropped by a fleet consisting of a mixture of people coming from corporations just like yours, maybe even smaller. They just chose to work together to boost their strengths.

EVE is a game about diplomacy and politics, just as about spaceship battles and strategies. A force proficient in both will always overcome a force used to only one.

This is probably the core of the problem. We shouldn't be looking for a way for a 100 man fleet to fight a 200 man fleet. We should look for ways for a 100 man fleet to fight a 100 man fleet, and make it matter.

If it matters, one side would bring 2 100 man fleets.


Small gang combat mostly exists specifically because their actions do not "matter" in the immediate-sov-taking sense.

Catching stragglers, camping ratting systems, ganking freighters, dropping SBUs and bombing the fleet that forms to destroy them. All things that a small group can do to harass a larger one. None really "matter" by themselves, but all can affect the outcome of the fights that do "matter."

That said, a larger group can always do whatever the smaller group is doing and can either do it better or do it in parallel. I bet the CFC could bridge a 20 man gang of bombers (plus bomb truck/SBU truck) into every system in the next region they attack to deploy SBUs all at once. With just some mild harassment, I'd guess most of them would end up onlining, providing a nightmare for the defense in guessing which system's going to be attacked.

So, since a 200 man group can split into 2 100 man groups and a 100 man group can only fight one of those, do you really want the 100 v 100 fights to "matter"? Because in that situation, the 200 man group can lose every single time the 100 man group fights them and still win the war because of that second, unopposed 100 man group.

I've never really heard the complaints described in the OP. Obviously large fleet > small fleet, and that's the way it should be.

What I've seen are complaints about the lack of tangible objectivess in null for small entities. Surely you can go out there and get kills, but that only goes so far as an end-goal for a group.

However, wormhole space is suitable for small corps and alliances, like ours. Null is the playground for bigger groups, so this "problem" is kind of a non-issue in my opinion. We can hold and fight for systems, and enjoy our version of "sovereignity" without CCP-provided mechanics.

But as it is, there is nothing in nullsec that interests me, is it a problem or not depends on your viewpoint.

What might that be?

Your IQ seems to be roughly equal to the amount of words you wrote there.

Local + current D-scan. Local which instantly tells you who else is in a system and d-scan which instantly tells you what exact ships are within range.

I still think that finding ships based on signature radius is the ultimate cure for many problems in EVE.

Revamping the d-scanner so it picks up signature signals which could be players/anomalies/whatever which the player then have to try and identify and approach in order to get more detailed information is the way to go. And of course increasing the chances of being detected yourself if you rely too much on the d-scan (if you for instance have passive/active scan settings).

Once you've narrowed down the location of a signal by reducing the scan radius (distance should also play a role of course) you get more detailed intel. Narrow it down further and you can then lock on to the signal and track it. Narrow it down to the max and you can go to it instantly.

In relation to this topic, this would give small groups the mobility/stealth/guerilla factor that currently doesn't exist as small groups would not emit a strong signal/sig radius unless they happen to fly big ships.

And of course, using anomalies and such in order to try and hide your own signal for whatever purpose should be an option.

To be honest I also would want to wrap in a change to the warp mechanic on top - making it harder to escape once detected. That is, the ability to have a free flight during warp (warp flight drains cap + changing course would drain cap) and at the same time the ability to catch up to someone and force them out of warp.