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Proposal: Give the Logistics skill the Drone Interfacing treatment
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Sabriz Adoudel
Move along there is nothing here
#1 - 2014-05-23 00:16:28 UTC
Kronos is seeing the skill Drone Interfacing being changed from its present massive bonus to a smaller one, with half of the DI bonus being made baseline.

I want to propose a similar change be made to the only other skill I can think of that offers a larger bonus than 100% for 5 levels, the Logistics skill.

I will state for the record that I am currently training Logistics 5, and will not deviate from this plan even if CCP announced tomorrow that they are adopting this proposal, despite the fact that I would stand to gain less from that skill than I would now.


Background:

Logi cruisers fit battleship-sized remote repair modules. Even cruisers with solid electronics can't manage that sort of capacitor use, and so the Logistics skill grants a massive capacitor reduction.

However, the way it is calculated has massive escalating returns as you increase the Logistics skill.

Logi 3 you need 55% of base capacitor
Logi 4 it's 40%. That's about 27.3% less than at logi 3.
Logi 5 it's 25%. That's 37.5% less than at logi 4.

For comparison, most damage ships only improve by 5-6% performance from level 4 in their main skill to 5, and even drone ships only gain 11.1% from the pre-Kronos version of Drone Interfacing going from 4 to 5.




My Proposal:

- Give T2 logistics ships a baseline 50% reduction in capacitor use for remote repair modules (and, if appropriate, capacitor transfer modules)
- Have them also gain a further 10% (multiplicatively stacking as is standard) cap reduction per level of Logistics trained.
- Net effect: Instead of 85%/70%/55%/40%/25% base capacitor use at Logi 1/2/3/4/5, the result will be 45/40/35/30/25%.



On Why:

Presently, logistics 4 is necessary to get better results from a tech 2 logistics ship than you would get from a tech 1 logistics ship. This is somewhat out of line with other tech 2 ships - an Ishtar with HAC 3 will outperform a Vexor, a Kronos with Marauders 3 or even 2 will outperform a Megathron, a Taranis with Interceptors 3 will (at any task that an interceptor is useful for) outperform an Atron, and so on.

This proposal would close the gap between newer logistics pilots and older ones, while still providing significant rewards for deciding to perfect your logistics skills. It would also fit in more with EVE's general philosophy of sharply diminishing returns on skillpoint investment.

I support the New Order and CODE. alliance. www.minerbumping.com
Velicitia
XS Tech
#2 - 2014-05-23 00:46:54 UTC
or maybe the problem is that CCP hasn't yet "fixed" the Logi boats, hmmm?

T1 Logi got major buffs in Inferno (or around there) ... and as far as I know, the T2 haven't been touched yet...

One of the bitter points of a good bittervet is the realisation that all those SP don't really do much, and that the newbie is having much more fun with what little he has. - Tippia
Captain Finklestein
Doomheim
#3 - 2014-05-23 01:09:24 UTC
After reading the article on TMC about logi, it's hard to support anything that makes them more powerful - even if it's only at lesser skills.

I do like the way your idea progresses though. Perhaps combine it with a slight nerf.

It's just more financially viable for me.
Gizznitt Malikite
Agony Unleashed
Agony Empire
#4 - 2014-05-23 01:28:28 UTC

IMO, your proposal is alright, but I really hope CCP does something different.

If you remember how Recon ships received a bonus to fitting the covert cloak, it used to be that the cloak would require 400, 300, 200, 100, and 0 CPU at Recon I, 2, 3, 4, & 5 respectively. This caused massive fitting problems and made the ship/module unusable if the pilot didn't have Recon 4 or 5. They changed the fitting scheme of the covert cloak so you may utilize a Recon ship at level 2 or 3 (although not to full effect).

I think a similar treatment to logistics ships would be a good thing, where you can utilize the ship at Logi 2 or 3 rather than force trainging to logi 4 or 5 levels before it can be flown with any effectiveness at all.

Now, on another note, I really, really, really wish logistics mechanics were very much nerfed so that they didn't scale so well. I'd prefer fleet combat to contain a lot more attrition than exists with the current logistics mechanics.
Sabriz Adoudel
Move along there is nothing here
#5 - 2014-05-23 02:26:40 UTC  |  Edited by: Sabriz Adoudel
Captain Finklestein wrote:
After reading the article on TMC about logi, it's hard to support anything that makes them more powerful - even if it's only at lesser skills.

I do like the way your idea progresses though. Perhaps combine it with a slight nerf.


For reference: http://themittani.com/features/driving-meta-n1-and-logistics-cruiser is the TMC opinion piece mentioned.

I think I 60-70% agree with that opinion piece (remember: it's one writer's personal opinion, not absolute fact, and it only applies to fleet vs fleet engagements where disengaging is not an option; it does not apply to most battles).

I'd have no issue with a nerf to logistics cruiser throughput, sigrad, targetting range and/or scan resolution, but I do not feel that the Logistics skill is where any such nerf should occur. Much as the correct way to nerf sentry alpha fleets wasn't by reducing the benefits of the Heavy Assault Cruisers skill, but was instead to address the root of the issue - the uncapped nature of drone assist.

I support the New Order and CODE. alliance. www.minerbumping.com
Liam Inkuras
Wildcard.
Boundary Experts
#6 - 2014-05-23 02:42:50 UTC
Nerf remote reps. Give them a falloff range like EWAR, with skills to compensate.

I wear my goggles at night.

Any spelling/grammatical errors come complimentary with my typing on a phone
Sabriz Adoudel
Move along there is nothing here
#7 - 2014-06-06 07:59:58 UTC
Liam Inkuras wrote:
Nerf remote reps. Give them a falloff range like EWAR, with skills to compensate.


I think the Remote Logistics Disruptor module proposal is a better approach, but that's a whole different issue to the Logistics skill.

I support the New Order and CODE. alliance. www.minerbumping.com
Masao Kurata
Perkone
Caldari State
#8 - 2014-07-31 23:21:52 UTC  |  Edited by: Masao Kurata
This problem is not unique to the logistics skill, it applies to any skill which reduces something rather than increasing it... which includes three as severe as logistics and one nearly as bad that may surprise some people: minmatar frigate, destroyer, cruiser and battleship.

Minmatar destroyer should be self explanatory, the Talwar gets a 15% reduction to the MWD signature penalty per level, making level V disproportionately powerful but not to the same degree as Logistics V.

The frigate, cruiser and battleship skills however are bad because of Serpentis ships. A standard web reduces ship maximum velocity by 60%. To turn that around, it multiplies ship velocity by 40%. Here's how serpentis ships scale:


  1. 34% velocity (66% web), 85% the velocity of a target webbed normally.
  2. 28% velocity (72% web), 70% the velocity of a target webbed normally.
  3. 22% velocity (78% web), 55% the velocity of a target webbed normally.
  4. 16% velocity (84% web), 40% the velocity of a target webbed normally.
  5. 10% velocity (90% web), 25% the velocity of a target webbed normally.


Look familiar? Exactly the same scaling in practice as Logistics. The design of skill training in EVE is meant to be exponentially diminishing returns for your training time but these absurd linear reduction skills screw that up. Of course 90% webs are just ridiculously overpowered, one 90% web is more powerful than four normal webs but people loved their overpowered webs enough to convince CCP not to change them in the pirate rebalance, but that's another topic.

All these linear reduction skills need to be rescaled. Probably the most comprehensible thing to do would be to list the exact bonus for each level in the traits / skill description as applicable. For example, here is Logistics rescaled to match linear increase skills:


  • Logistics I: 38% reduction in activation cost.
  • Logistics II: 55% reduction in activation cost.
  • Logistics III: 64% reduction in activation cost.
  • Logistics IV: 71% reduction in activation cost.
  • Logistics V: 75% reduction in activation cost.


These figures are obtained by taking the reciprocal of 1 - the max bonus, in this case the reduction by 75 is a reduction to 25%, which is 400% efficiency or a 300% efficiency bonus, then interpolating between 100% efficiency then taking the reciprocal to give it in the same formulation as in the current traits... and rounding because humans need to understand these numbers. Er, I may have confused myself somewhere in there: round(1 - 1/(1 + level / 5 * (1 / (1 - bonus * 5) - 1)), 2) . Whatever, it's a simple enough concept.