EVE General Discussion

Do you think that's unfair? What's unfair about it? Is it the millions of shield HP that the game makes you shoot through? Is it the invincibility mode of reinforcement? Is it that all those players and drones can be so effectively yoked to one person's will without any degradation of their combat effectiveness, thus eliminating the need for skill in coordinating? Is it that the risk and the burden of change falls so heavily on the attackers? We already know the tactic can be countered, so, what IS the problem?



The POS shield is intended to protect what is inside the shield from what is outside the shield. It is not intended to protect what is outside the shield from what is inside the shield. Drones are intended to provide an expendable alternative to risking your ship and pod in combat. If a drone couldn't go and do damage where you, yourself didn't want to be, then it would serve no function at all. What good would a killer robot be if you had to be standing right next to it, in the line of fire, pushing buttons, in order for it to be effective? Your problem seems to be with the POS itself and drones themselves, more so than how they are used.



In order for a ship like a Dominix to bring it's full weight to bear on a target, it has to leave the POS and get into optimal of its turret batteries. If it doesn't do that, for whatever reason, it is gimped. It is not doing full DPS.
Furthermore, different weapon systems necessitate different kinds of exposure. A Tornado does not lose any of it's guns in a firefight, unless it loses them all. For a Dominix, it doesn't even have to die to lose its primary weapons. It just has to warp out or go outside of the 250km maximum control range. A Tornado is never at risk of running out of 1400mm Artillery, just relatively cheap ammunition. A Tornado's DPS doesn't degrade the more damage it takes. If it does 750 DPS on the first shot it takes, it also does 750 DPS on the last shot it takes. A drone boat pilot, on the other hand, does less damage if you kill his his weapons, and those weapons are not nearly as durable as his ship is (or even as durable as a Tornado). The gist of it all being that each weapon has strengths and weaknesses. They're not all the same and they are not necessarily intended to function in an equivalent manner. Someone could just as easily complain that missiles do full damage at maximum range or complain that turrets are effective instantaneously.



Maybe you should test it. I have seen how it worked (not recently). It's fairly intuitive.

If it is an old "bug", then we can't really say whether or not the effect was intended without talking to the people who were making the game when it was implemented. It seems pretty deliberate to me. Rules change and we have to live with those changes, definitely. But, calling a feature a defect and labeling innovators cheaters seems unfair.

the problem is that their ships are simply not at risk, no matter how much bullshit you make up to say they are, so it is only correct for CCP to deem it an exploit

nope

Being inside a POS shield means that whatever is outside the POS cannot shoot you, but your ship also cannot shoot anything while in the shield. The ability to have drones assist a fleet member outside of the POS while your ship is inside the POS was very clearly something CCP never intended, otherwise, they wouldn't have ruled this an exploit. It doesn't matter whether the tactic can be countered or not (it can, obviously, by killing the sentries) because the ships themselves are not at risk (and stop lying and saying they are) while they are within the POS shield. It's not a difficult idea to comprehend: if you are engaging in combat, your ship and pod must be at immediate risk.

Rhetorical question; more of a statement really...
I just wonder how many kills OP has gotten using this exploit and how many ships he's lost (or going to lose) now that he has to be outside the POS. Nothing like risking your ship everytime you log on and undock...

So, you don't think we should be able to dock, jump, warp, enter a POS force field, go through a wormhole, cloak, or otherwise remove out our ship and pod from immediate risk if we are engaged? I don't understand your criteria for determining what is "fair" risk mitigation and what is exploitative of the game mechanics. Is docking, repairing, and undocking to re-engage an exploit? Is assigning fighters to a player who goes to operate a different grid than you an exploit? Is engaging an opponent from outside of their effective combat range an exploit? Ultimately, isn't it the job of the player to impose risk and consequence on other players that are attacking and isn't it the job of the player on the other side of that equation to mitigate that risk and consequence by whatever means they have available?

A player in a POS force field cannot engage you with any of his modules, and so long as he is outside the force field, you can web him, scram him, bump him, alpha him, or anything else to prevent him from retreating to the safety of the force field. I think what you're not ready to admit is that space magic and fairy bubbles are the problem. The game gives players a place to retreat to where they are effectively immune from interaction by other players. So long as there is such a mechanic, players are going to use it to their advantage. If you don't like that, then, next time one of your capitals is sitting right outside a POS, dying, leave it out there, or you're guilty of "exploiting" the game mechanics.

There is a huge, huge difference between docking up after you get shot and engaging in combat from inside a POS shield. You're drawing comparisons between that and things that are utterly irrelevant in this discussion. Once you dock up, POS up, jump out, warp out, or enter a wormhole, you're effectively out of the engagement entirely. Engaging in combat from inside a forcefield is not a form of risk mitigation, it is an exploit, as deemed by the GM team.

What we're talking about isn't sentry ships engaging at the edge of a POS shield, they're inside a POS shield while their drones are engaging. I apologize if you fail to see why this is undesirable (unless you're one of those who refuse to engage in PvP without a get out of jail free card, in which case, your opinion is worthless) but the rest of us can see the line between "clever tactics" and exploits.

he does play on that character, actually

I see the misunderstanding. Mayhaw, shield transporters have not been declared an exploit, but sentry drones inside forcefields have.

Glad that's sorted.

I do on mine as well. The safety in highsec is very useful