Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Tbh, the texture isn't what makes the difference between the Mammoth and the Hoarder. It is the basic structure that is wildly different.

I prefer the Hoarder because it is much less boring than the pretty straightforward Mammoth design. But then, I also like ships like the Moa/Gila, so we know I might not be mainstream.

It boils down to: the Mammoth is a pretty boring, straight design, with some fairly dull boxy elements thrown in. I like the angled elements of the Hoarder, which make it less ... vanilla.

You can keep flying your hoarder
and CCP can make it the middle ship between the wreathe and the Mammoth

While switching back to the Mammoth to the main industrial ship for Minnies

and everyone will be happy..

vov

Based on the recent Minmatar ship designs I have a concept image for a new disruption battleship: image

Great job, but:

As a hisec PvE guy. I think you should have ONE industrial that is extremely hard to gank. I mean, give the victims SOME chance.

Regards

+1000 for the mammoth

Otherwise i honestly dont care that much. T1 haulers are cheap enough I'll switch to whichever makes sense for what i need to do.

+1 Bestower Cloak/MWD

Just adding my voice to the chorus of support for the mammoth. Although it's a little uneven, the overall model shape and design philosophy is excellent. I recall thinking it was a battleship when I first laid eyes on one, and I'd take a mammoth over an itty 5 (or 4) anyday. Tell art to do a revised model of it (like the stabber etc) if they're not happy, but the hoarder is an appalling pile of space-excrement

Before I begin, I want to say: I see what you did there, giving the Battle Badger both a turret and a launcher for its two high slots.

I would have addressed this earlier, but I wanted a little time to think of a more suitable reply.


Do all of us a favor and kindly forget that HACs exist until this last bit of Tiericide is done, and done properly. A statement like that, even if meant in jest, gives the distinct impression that you don't care as much about this as you did the previous ship types or HACs.

While the life of a low/null PvPer may not involve much piloting of industrial ships, others spend considerable time doing exactly that. They may just be T1 industrials, but they're the backbone of many peoples' entire EVE experience. A lot of trade in EVE is conducted via T1 industrials; ammo and ships and supplies being moved to places that are too dangerous for freighters or too remote to justify the time it would take to send one there. T1 industrial pilots deserve as much careful consideration and attention to detail in the rebalancing of their ships as all the Stabber, Kestrel and Hyperion pilots have gotten. Please do not lazy-out on us and give us a pasted-on fix just because you have something easier and more fun to do after this phase of the project is completed.

That being said, I'm not distinctly unhappy with the solution presented. If absolutely nothing better can be come up with, then this is already an improvement. I just think there's got to be some kind of way to avoid homogenization altogether while not making any one race the obvious "best".

The Charon has the best cargo capacity of the four races, the Obelisk has the best EHP, the Fenrir the best alignment time and the Providence seems to be balanced in the middle between the three. Inheriting these traits down the line into the racial T1s that eventually lead up to them seems like a logical way of preserving flavor while also allowing for Tiericide to improve on them.

This might just be the most challenging bit of Tiericide work that you and Fozzie have had to engage in since the whole project started. All the T1 haulers have the exact same purpose and do pretty much the exact same thing. On top of this, there aren't very many ways to diversify it - especially when half of the races only have one ship each and giving both of them a third ship would tack at least a month onto the process while Art creates new assets.

EDIT: The blog linked in the post above me is actually very good and really does need to be read - especially the last part.

So you're not mad because you're worse off, but because other people are better off?

OK that's getting a lot of sympathy from me.

Respectfully, Rise, people are minmaxers. Unless specifically going for looks, you'll still have "the best" and "the worst". If you're focusing solely on cargo capacity, that's what people will be looking at and the obvious choice here is going to be Bestower, regardless of how small the difference.

But what if - just IF - cargo capacity wasn't everything? What if different haulers had different advantages? What do people need T1 hauling ships for?

1. small relatively expensive cargo and L1-2 courier missions
2. low sec
3. large, cheap cargo

For no. 1, people mostly use frigates right now, for instance Minmatar Probe. Here's the base relevant stats:

[Probe]
Speed: 450 m/s
Warp speed: 6 AU/s
Align time: 3.8s
Cargo: 400 m3
Slots (H/M/L): 3/4/3
EHP (average): 1354
Sig size: 38

Now compare it to the current fastest industrial in game, the Amarr Sigil:

[Sigil]
Speed: 242 m/s
Warp speed: 4.5 AU/s
Align time: 10.3s
Cargo: 3750 m3
Slots (H/M/L): 2/3/5
EHP (average): 3225.4
Sig size: 210

As you can see, there is no reason whatsoever to use a Sigil over the Probe here. The Probe is faster, smaller, more agile and has more than enough cargo for any L1 or L2 mission. If doing a Low Sec courier run, its small sig, fast align time and fairly good sensor strength will make it a relatively safe choice compared to the Sigil. The only area where Sigil wins is the cargo size, where it obviously can't hope to compete with larger haulers. That's why it was never seriously considered as a contestant for a useful industrial.

But what if it was brought closer to the Probe? You would now have a dedicated fast and agile small cargo ship that could work as a cheap, easy to train variant of the Blockade Runner. Not only that, but you now have a T1 industrial that's an obvious go-to ship for L1-2 courier missions AND a T1 industrial that can be used for low sec hauling. Not as safe as a Blockade Runner, mind you, but safe enough. This group would have the lowest cargo hold and ehp, but the highest speed (especially warp speed). It would effectively be the "frigate industrial".

Next up, you have group 3, the large cargo haulers. You correctly surmised that different number of low slots is a bad idea, because people will just stuff in as many expanded cargoholds as possible and call it a day. I actually like your approach to it - the Badger, for instance, has the lowest top level cargo hold, but also has the highest unmodified cargo hold. These ships would be slow, squishy, but have the highest cargo hold, just like now.

Finally, I would add the third group, the "combat hauler". It would have the highest ehp, medium cargo hold, average speed, normal warp speed (3 AU/s), but would also have the ability to mount a small number of guns. If you want to go wacky on it, you can also add a smuggling bonus on it, say, -15% chance of successful scan (both by players and by NPC navies). The purpose for these ships would be in-combat resupplies and armed cargo convoys. Stat-wise, I'm thinking cruiser with similar sig and ehp, slightly lower amount of guns, mid-range cargo hold between the "frigate hauler" and "large hauler"

You now have three groups of haulers, each with specific purpose. When moving to T2, Blockade Runners would build on our "frigate hauler" by adding a bit larger cargo hold and cloak in return for slower speed and larger sig, while the Deep Space Transport would combine the large hauler and the combat hauler into an armed "mini freighter".

Plus, if you add the smuggling bonus to the "combat hauler", you can effectively open another profession for players to dabble in, smuggling goods from one side of New Eden to the other.

Downsides: two ship assets would need to be created by the art department - Combat Badger would be easy, the Amarr one not so much - and two Iterons remain unused.


One final word on cargo holders - I'd add rigs, modules or containers that would effectively "trade" a portion of general cargo hold - say, 3000 m3 - for a much larger specialized cargo hold - for instance, 10,000 m3 of PI goods or minerals. That way, a single Bestower would be able to carry as much as - in our example -125,000 m3 of minerals, reducing the need for "ore compression" through manufacturing, while at the same time limiting the ability to carry manufactured goods in excessive quantity.

Just my 0.02 isk :)