Player Features and Ideas Discussion

He has a good point.

JFs are now clocking between 600K - 750K EHP with around 150K cargospace.
25 Taloses in 0.5, or 2.5 Billion+ to kill increases the break-even 'safe hauling' margin to 5 Billion.

These things were not getting killed at a very high rate to begin with when they "only" had 250K EHP.

Changing the EHP bonus to something else would probably dial their hitpoints back to something approaching reason.

This also goes for the freighters, which are getting about 25% more cargo for a very tiny EHP penalty, and NO penalty to alignment. This, mind you, is the version that also gets 'cheap and easy' flexibility of mod-fitting, rather than rigs.

3rd Revision:

I would probably start with looking at the base EHP - match a 25% increase in max cargo version with a 25% EHP penalty.
Such a large increase in cargo capability should have an increased ganking risk associated with it.

Then I would give a slight nerf to alignment. Getting freighters to align as fast as they do today (40 sec) should take at least 1 low-slot.

First version of freighters (with rigs) seemed to be an actual rebalance without increasing their abilities in favor of 'easier logistics'.
Fozzie got endless tears, death threats. Then he cracked.

Second version is a clear buff, which explains why the carebears are universally happy. Oh wait, they aren't - they STILL want more EHP with enough CPU for damage controls.

As flat as prices are across the entire highsec economy, 'easier logistics via buffed freighters/haulers' is not what EVE needs right now.

Personally, I thought the 'capital rigs for freighters' was a pretty good way to suck up some of the extra salvage that has been dumped on he market over the last 3-4 years.

Salvaging used to be a pain in the ass for mission runners and all rigs were 'large rigs' - so salvage values were relatively high.

Subsequent addition of easy mode salvaging (Noctis, salvage drones, tractor deployables), and additional 'exploration' sources of T2 Salvage has crushed prices into the mud.

Turning all that surplus into massive capital rigs might move the price point in the other direction, and give capital rigs a place in highly populated highsec.

Giving up on rigs and going to lowslots was fairly gutless on the part of the DEV team.

The metagaming whiners weren't complaining about 'rigs' per se - it was simply the 'lack of a buff' that came with the rigs.

Currently, freighters are statistically buffed AND given 'easy modularity' with lowslots.

If anything, it should be the other way around.

I could live with 'overall enhanced statistics via rigs' - simply because rigs have a significant cost associated with them and are harder to swap. Destroyed freighters mean more rigs (and thus, salvage) are consumed as well. Lowslot mods - not so much. Big difference between a Cargohold Expander II and a Capital Cargo rig.

If by 'better' you mean more powerful - yes.
I don't think 'more powerful freighters' is desirable right now, they are already pretty good at what they do.

Providing freighters with flexibility is fine.
But providing 'cheap/easy' lowslot flexibility AND a significant stat buff is out of line.
Its freighter power creep. Obviously going to be popular with short-sighted carebears that are worried about ganks, but bad in the long run. Power creep on freighters makes AFK logistics in highsec even easier and thus flattens prices everywhere.

If freighters were buffed with rigs, a small degree of power-creep is probably OK - simply because capital rigs have a large cost associated with them, are not easy to change, and make freighters significantly more expensive (and risky to lose).


In other words, if freighters are going to become 'more powerful' - do it with rigs, not lowslots - because rigs have a significant cost balancing out the enhanced EHP/Cargo/alignment stats.

Troll? And you pay for the increased cost when I have to buy several more freighters to be able to have the proper freighter for a wide range of applications handy in several hubs? Somehow I don't see you pay me 10M/gate for a high sec transport.

Rig prices are ridiculous, in some cases nearly doubling or more than doubling the cost of a freighter, which is just as easy to kill. That's what you call "significant stat buff" and "more powerful"? If people do more AFK Hauling their stuff, more people get killed, with rigs or with low slot modules. That is the short, mid and long term evaluation and outlook of this change. Now the only difference is that with low slot modules we Haulers don't need to pay several billions to "bling" our shooting galley, while people like you pay 1,000 ISK /jump and expect it to be moved pronto.

There is not even the slightest sign of a power creep, because at the end of the day, freighters have not received any improvement. Ever stat increase is payed double with 2 stat decreases.

It seems that my post only contained the quoting with out the rest of the stuff i wrote.

AFK logistics are not as big of a problem as you seem to make it there have been plenty of cases where people have taken advantage of this for profit or tears. If provided with a easy revenue from ganking a freighter i believe plenty of players will jump for the occasion.

Now the 3 low slot mode has a lot of drawback with out the need of nerfing the ships (and with out upsetting the community)
For example:
- Capital Cargohold Optimization II - Cargo Capacity Bonus 20 % & Drawback -10 % Armor since you need level 5 to use this rig the Drawback is only -5% not that much of a drawback
- Expanded Cargohold II - Cargo capacity bonus 27.5 %, Structure HP bonus -20 % & Maximum Velocity Modifier -10 % since there is no skill to alleviate these drawback fitting 3 of these is similar do giving gankers the chance of using a sledgehammer instead of a normal hammer.

Keeping this view in mind (Might be right or wrong i don't know) these changes seem fair because most of the modules have serious drawback on a ship type that is not really good at besides transporting goods or getting shot at.

'Every stat increase is paid double with 2 decreases' is completely false.

On alignment its mostly upside.
On cargo, you lose some m^3, but gain the ability to painlessly shield far more ISK worth. (IE safer to haul Mex instead of Trit)

Don't accuse me of trolling on this topic though.
I'm a ganker, but I have spent far more time flying freighters than any other ship.

What mainly concerns me is this:

Currently I fly a Nomad in highsec. Its EHP is around 330K - such that it would take around 10-13 Taloses to kill it in 0.5 space. Or, 1-1.5 Billion worth of gank-ships need to be risked to kill it. So, I generally never haul much more than 3 Billion ISK in it, less if I decide to autopilot. If I haul more than this, I tend to make sure I have a cyno-alt ready for a quick jump to lowsec.

But it will be retired if these changes go through.

Look at the new Anshar - you are pushing 720K EHP, with a still healthy cargo of 120K m^3.
That requires over 25 Taloses, meaning an investment of 2.5 to 3 Billion ISK is required to kill it.

You can stuff around 6 Billion into this new Anshar and autopilot away without worrying about gankers making a single dime at your expense. Realistically you could probably stuff around 8 Billion into it before you'd get a second look, as 2 or 3 Billion split 25 ways is a pretty meager payday for such a large operation.

Result: logistics is much easier as much large values of cargo can move without risk of a profitable gank.

This needs to be avoided and looked at more carefully. Radical changes and revisions in such an important ship class in response to forum rage is going to lead to unintended consequences.

All thought i still view the 3 low slot model to be a good one i think that the Caldari and Minmatar freighters could use a tanking module. The Amarr and Gallente freighters can use Resistance Plantings to improve their tanks but the other two freighters don't get a significant bonus for their use.
But the only two low slot modules that come to mind are Shield Power Relay and the Shield Flux Coil which I'm pretty sure are really good or really bad on the Caldari and Minmatar freighter.
What do you guys think about the Shield Power Relay and the Shield Flux Coil to balance all the 4 races strength ? Or it will just bring the out of balance again ?


Edit: The shield recharge time would have been pretty useful in the stats provided.

Question: what will the CPU/Powergrid requirements be for the hyperspatial accelerators?

Because this is what I am envisioning... wait for it... Interceptor with 8 AU/sec base warp speed, 3 HSA's in the low slots, 2 t2 HSA rigs, being flown by a pilot with full set of Ascendancy implants including Ascendancy Omega.

In other words, you all can eat my tachyon trail.

You really want to tell me that ganking a 6.5B ship with cargo worth 2B+ (in total 8.5B+ ISK worth) is too powerful if you need 3B in gank ships? Really?

I don't know what your unintentened consequences are, but that gankers need to put a little bit more effort into their cause when they want to indulge in illegal activities, is certainly more than welcome. This puts ganking a tiny little bit closer to what Haulers risk every day in their defenseless ships.

Bored to hell in High sec sitting in station? Where is the difference to sitting on a Titan in 00 sec/Low sec waiting for the drop? If it bores you to wait in a twenty man fleet for a gank, then you clearly are not fit for ganking. If lack of manpower is your issue, you are clearly not fit for ganking. Why is it that ganking has be an easy, low-risk, low-isk-involving, low manpower involving activity?



You mean the slow freighter, the webber and in case of a JF also the ready cyno, so all in all 3 people. You mean for the freighter pilot to use longer alternative routes, which in some cases is not even possible? You mean the, demanded, constant scouting of your routes or sitting in station when gankers are around and you cannot undock?

You mean effort put into bumping on the side of the gankers, who just MWD a Machariel into the freighter? Or, again on the side of the gankers, leisurely sitting around Vexors or Thrashers on a gate, ready to instalock, cargo scan and explode Haulers? You mean the leisurely sitting around in station while a couple of people cargo scan ships to find the most juicy targets, then undock, warp to a gate, exploded the target and warp to a safe? You mean the easily put up scam/trap contracts which reduce considerably, after the contract has been taken?

Sure, there is so much effort involved into ganking.

Now, I am not someone to say that ganking should become unbearably hard, it's a part of the game (and lets face it, for many people the only way to get kills for their killboard), but I am very firmly against making it easier. And making it easier is all what this patch does. Just take the mentioned trap contracts. You can set up Courier Contracts with a very juicy reward (5M/jump maybe) and a reasonably high collateral (2B for instance for freight containers) and have the volume be 1.2M m³. This way, people are lured into accepting this awesome contract, they cannot cancel it because of the high collateral (if they do, you win as well) and their fitting for freighters and even the choice of the feasible freighters itself are extremely limited to paper thin tanks.
Of course, the Hauler can accept the contract on an alt and wait for downtime and use webbing alts, but setting this up and catching the majority of the haulers is way too easy with such schemes. Let alone that you cannot see what's inside the CC until you have accepted it. And you call that putting in effort into ganking?