Player Features and Ideas Discussion

This idea came out of a discussion spawned by the recent Mittani article regarding super caps. This idea is independant of the changes proposed in that article.

Tl;dr - Remove jump-portal from Titan. Add "tether-jumping" capability to super carriers and carriers.

What is a Tether-Jump?
As the name implies, a tether-jump is one in which a jumping ship carries with it a number of ships which have been 'tethered' to it. Whether this tethering action is initiated by the person being jumped, or the person doing the jumping, or both is to be determined.

Who can tether-jump?
In my initial proposal, both super-carriers and carriers will be able to tether-jump. How many people can be carried depends on the ship-class which is carrying people. Edit: Current state of discussion:

• 1 Titan can be tethered to by 249 sub-caps only (perhaps anything without a jump-drive)
• 1 Super-Carrier can be tethered to by 49 sub-caps
• 1 Carrier can be tethered to by 9 sub-caps
• 1 Blackops can be tethered to by 9 cov-ops hulls

Example mechanical implementation:
A super-carrier character takes a wing-command position in a fleet. He then has the option to "tether-jump" to a cyno beacon. If he initiates this action, he will take every member of his wing within some arbitrary distance with him (say, 10km).

Alternatively, players could right-click any given tether-jumper and choose "tether to xxx". When that tether-anchor jumps, they will be taken with. Players attempting to tether to an already at capacity carrier/super-carrier will be notified they can't complete the action. This could be constrained even further to only allow pilots in the same wing structure to tether to a super, same squad to tether to a carrier. It would be nice if pilots in ships which can tether-jump have an indicator by their name in fleet.

I suggest the tether-jump fuel cost to be set so that a max-skilled character will empty their entire fuel bay to tether jump their max capacity, to their maximum range. So an all level 5 super pilot can jump 50 people to the max range, but it will empty them entirely. In this way, jumpers wishing to tether-jump long ranges repeatedly must carry fuel transports with them.

When jumping, everyone within 10-15km who has tethered will be carried. Upon arriving, everyone will be spawned at random ~10-15km from the jumper, similar to a gate. The effect of this, when thinking about the necessity of carrying fuel transports is that it gives a window for fast reaction forces to prevent the logistics from refueling the tether-jumper by killing the fuel transports.

The effect of this proposal:
Without considering any other proposed changes to EHP or other characteristics of supers. This proposal will act to put high-value ships acting in a logistical capacity in harms way. To reinforce with a fleet of 250 people requires 5 super-carriers, or 25 carriers to be placed on the field. Long-range reinforcements are huge commitments, not only are the carriers/super-carriers vulnerable on land due to not having fuel to extract. The entire reinforcing fleet is fractionally weaker than a regular fleet as some proportion of it must be made up of fuel transporters in one way or another.

I feel that this change would make rapid deployment and reinforcement more dangerous and hence more exciting for all involved.

Secondary changes:
I suggest that super-carriers and carriers be given bonuses to ganglinks on par with command ships. This is to make the idea of fielding them as "mobile generals" more realistic.

Would love to hear people's thoughts on this idea.

Final word
I can't claim this idea as mine. That honour goes to redditor Acidictadpole who posted the first reference to it in the comments at TheMittani.com

Also, this idea doesn't do anything to address the sheer power of super-capitals. It is still possible for dominant coalitions to effect risk-free deployments with an overwhelming show of force on jump in. The only difference is, now that alliance or coalition is required to show force for that 'risk-free' deployment.

This change would just make rapid deployments slower and essentially make it harder and more of a logistical pain for players to create content.

I don't like the idea with the mass. It sounds well enough and organic at first, but it also might confer an unfair advantage to shield fleets with less mass but the same or even higher amount of ships / hitting power.

I get what you're saying about the vulnerability, but that's really the point of the whole endeavour. As it stands, supers/titans don't get committed unless the odds are overwhelmingly in favour of the deployers. By making it a requisite that the ships be committed, you change the nature of tactics. If you're confident you can hold your deployment, then tether-jump straight into the system, if you're not, then you might want to try getting in from a peripheral system.



Once again, that's what we're endeavoring to do. We want to force supers be a physical part of a deployment. We also want reinforcement to be difficult. We don't want to it to be easy to do the logistics required to shift vast quantities of people across light years. Spatial location of fleets should be important as opposed to the compressed nature of space that results from easy-access bridging.

Mass as a single limiting factor would put shield ships in favor over armor ships. Using a factor like singature/mass could level it.

Quote the opposite, this will allow players to create more content by spending that extra effort in logistics, as currently logistics are rather limited on the field of battle. the only logistically hampered engagements are POS-bashes by a single bomber or noob roams, where half the members forgot to take their ammo or fit their guns.

+1

i fully support this !!!

sugestion:

Titan can tether a fleet
MOM can tether a wing
carrier can tether a squad.
black ops can tether a squad.

tethering a full fleet/wing/squad will not empty the fuel bay just add a delay timer for jumping/tethering.
say 60-120 sec for a (supa)cap to jump out.
5-10 min for one to tether jump again (reducable with a skill).

giving a carrier the ability to do this would be a boon for small gang/corp/alliance operations. and i want it to happen

to all people complaining about force projection issues, and logistics issues. decreasing the ability of a power bock to force project (current state of SOV combat) would force them to actually defend their space instead of owning 100 systems and only using 10, because they can jump 100 supas on to a small roaming fleet from 10s of jumps away in 2 seconds.

titans and blackops only and no tethering of capitals they have a jumpdrive of their own

force projection is one of the most broken things in eve right now

This is definitely one way you could force the deployers to be vulnerable. Alternatively you could have tether-jumping drain a huge amount of cap (~80%).

I personally like the idea of making it a range-quantity-fuel relationship as it brings the logistical nature of fuel into a deployment. Imagine if you're going for it, your fleet is dropping in hot, max distance to respond to a threat at the edge of your space. You cyno in and out-riders from the opposing fleet blap your fuel transports before you can refuel. Your fleet is stuck out of position and can't respond to a timed attack on a second front until fuel gets here, spool up a carrier tether-jump with 9 fuel transports and bring them in, can the outriders keep you there by killing the fuel again? Who knows? It's exciting and tactical though.

Still trying to find any downsides to this that can't be fixed. The idea is very sound.