Player Features and Ideas Discussion

This whole idea seems like it could work really well; and Stoicfaux's idea would be REALLY useful in the design. I actually thought of something like these ships earlier this summer

Here's my idea for one:

Supertanker:
Has the same capacity (maybe a little more) that the freighter for the race has, but(here's Stoicfaux's idea) it could have a "Container Bay" capable of holding any container, excluding station, station vault, and station warehouse containers.

Each ship could have a bay capable of holding 9.000.000 m3 of assembled containers, not pure space, which would ensure that capital ships couldn't fit, and as a result get into high-sec.

Additionally, each supertanker could have a ship maintenance bay capable of holding only industrial ships (interim, hoarder, mammoth, blockade runners, etcetera. They could have the space to accommodate around 7-9 industrial ships.

They should cost somewhere from 3 to 5 billion ISK, and should have these skill requirements:

Racial Supertanker:
-Racial Freighter V
--Advanced Spaceship Command V
---Spaceship Command V
--Racial Industrial III
---Spaceship Command III
-Jump Freighters IV
--Industry V
--Advanced Spaceship Command IV
---Spaceship Command V
-Jump Drive Calibration IV
--Jump Drive Operation V
---Navigation V
---Warp Drive Operation V
----Navigation I
---Science V
-Racial Industrial V
--Spaceship Command III
-Capital Ships IV
--Advanced Spaceship Command V
---Spaceship Command V

They could also have jump drives, like the jump freighters, so low security travel would be viable (and possible)

And they should have bonuses similar to the ones on the freighters.

They should have a good amount of EHP so they are survivable, but no high, medium, low, or rigs, like freighters.

Here's a drawing of an Amarr Supertanker (I was inspired to draw it after reading this ). You can see the ship bay somewhere near the middle of the hull- it'll always look like a couple of ships are in it.

I'd love to see these ships happen

Hmm.. Maybe, yeah- how about just a container bay, then? It would work to keep caps out of high-sec, and you'd still be able to get ~10 million cubic meters of space

The container bay is what I mean. You would have to load and unload lots of containers.

I don't see why you need to worry about keeping capitals out of highsec. There are already capitals in highsec. Freighters and Jump Freighters are capitals. There are several capitals, and even supercapitals, in highsec as the result of "stuck" petitions or ships acquired when they could be built in highsec. CCP has a policy that any capitals in highsec cannot be used for PVP, or there are consequences. They could, if they desired, go on to just make it so that capitals could not be assembled in highsec. The ability to ship large amounts of ships, to include large ships, is a pretty great thing that shouldn't be discounted entirely because of the possibility of shipping capitals—that cannot be used in highsec—to highsec. In fact, I think it would be neat if we could ship capitals to highsec for buying and selling in, and then shipping out of, Jita.

I like the idea of this.
It would make things more difficult but you already have to move with freighters so I see the complainers as not thinking the whole issue through.

There's a MASSIVE difference between Capitals existing in High Sec and Capitals being used in High Sec.

Also- I support this product and/or service.

We have supercarriers. With the Marauder rebalance we now have Supertankers. So, yeah, a superfreighter sounds utterly idiotic, but lets just go right ahead and make Goons even more money.

I like this idea. But something I think that would probably fit better is a ship that could couple together freighter/station containers and push them through space.
Sort of like our RL river barges which push cargo boats up and down rivers.
Could have a ship that starts with freight containers +1 per skill lvl, and another that allows station containers.

The ship would go slower the bigger the container you used + the number of containers you use. Allow the ship to unhook from containers in space so if you have to dump and run. u can. . . seeing as it would take another Tug boat to move your containers, items could be stolen.

idea needs work. but yeah

Countersuggestion:

Station Container Jumpframe

This is not a ship, and does not contain station containers. This is in stead a spiderey assemblage of propulsion systems and grappling arms used to do one thing only: get station containers in to space and moving.
This is an ORE vessel as there isn't a whole lot to be gained from racial variants of such a simple system.

Essentially, it's not so much a ship as it is a big claw thingy you wrap around a station container to turn it in to a ship. It is targetable separately from the container, and can be destroyed or disengaged in space.

When latched to a container it has the expected sluggish handling characteristics, but when unlatched it is suprisingly compact and agile due to its massive propulsion systems push very little mass. When unlatched its characteristics are more akin to that of a cruiser.

This would allow:

Anchoring station containers in space
Moving full station containers from system to system

This would not allow:

Opening station containers or browsing their contents in space. These containers are mag-sealed and function like super plastic wrap. The ball has to be in our court before you can get at the contents.
Jettisoning mini cans in space


Why is this better than a new bigness ranked freighter?
Risk and meta.

You can move an obscene amount of cargo in one swoop with these, but if you're shot off your box the entire thing can be grabbed up by an enemy cargo frame, creating fun pathways for emergent content. This means that you trade the risk of not only losing your cargo, but handing the entire sum of that cargo to your opponents if you screw this up, assuming station containers have a pretty huge mass of EHP once in space.

Considering the low cost of containers, you could use these to play a shell game of real and fake containers.

This vessel would be cheap to construct, but due to its construction would have expensive fuel costs to latch containers, undock containers, and jump. The idea here being that you're actually taking a bigger risk using it to move things in a single trip, and that as a high reward action this is also high risk but low investment enough to be worth trying.

In essence it employs a new and fun piece of content generation rather than absolute removal of risk, while still performing the goal of efficiently moving single large shipments vast distances within a single trip. I feel that just another big cargo ship wouldn't add much to gameplay for anyone but the hauler, and wouldn't be all that attractive to entities that already have or have contracted JF fleets, escorts, etc. to handle the logistics chains where it would be useful.

The idea of a cheap ship than can push unopenable station containers means more use because it's cheaper to both get in to and lose, and more lucrative to intercept, both of these create improved gameplay for both the hauler and the interceptor, and it doesn't invalidate or remove the role of the existing freighters which are much better suited for multiple trips and decently tanked hauling without a large escort contingent, and would still fill a vital role on sov deployment and a large number of already established supply chain uses.

These would be op-enablers. Ships that would reward and encourage fleet escort/transport ops because the whole shipment gets there in one trip, and there is potential for some real objective based fights that don't just involve blowing something up that has tons of HP.

Additional crazy idea:
Allow it to be fit like a poor man's T1 cruiser, but have the fittings only be effective when unlatched from a container. This would allow it to release its box and tackle or otherwise participate in defending its cargo. Might be OP, might be fun.

No skin off my nose.