Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Amended 9/18: A more complete plan for this can be found here

Amended 9/23: Here's a prototype icon for the rig (found in the above link)

An idea I got after reading something and having it appear in a dream I had last night. It's been confirmed that Black Ops are on the short list for rebalancing and changes, so here goes:

Give Black Ops the unique ability to jump between systems without a cyno, by locking on to a star's gravity well- you would land in a totally random position around the star.

This would give black ops a unique role in fleets and give them mobility no battleship has ever had before.

As for the rest of the stats, they wouldn't really have to change much, other than balancing their tank and weapons/bonuses to be more focused and effective.

Of course, the Jovians would have thought one step ahead and made it so that we can't jump to their systems (but if they didn't then woohoo, Jove space )


Tell me what you think- I would love a unique ability like this for this (admittedly quite awesome) ship class.

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Here's the more complete idea from page 6:

'Solar Harmony Engine' (Icon)

'A highly specialized rig developed specifically for Black Ops vessels, this system must be fully integrated with the ship's hull to function. It allows a ship to make a jump directly to another system, as opposed to jumping to a Cynosural Field. The interference it causes prevents the use of Jump Bridges or normal Cynosural Fields, as well as regular jumping. However, the entire system doubles as a powerful ancillary processor and power core for the ship, slightly increasing its powergrid and CPU.'

Fitting:
Calibration Cost: 0
Rig Size: Large

Bonus:
5% bonus to CPU and Powergrid


Disallows use of Covert Jump Portal Generator and Cynosural Field Generator (still allows covert cynos to be lit)
Disallows Jumping directly to Cynosural Fields
Doubles fuel cost

Can be fitted to: Redeemer, Widow, Sin, Panther, (Nestor- I can dream )

Ship must align to star, much like when warping to a target, making it not an instant jump out of the system

Ship will land in a randomly chosen spot along a set radius of the target star's grid (say 50-75km, maybe larger)

Icon is a Large MJD icon with a purple thruster color instead of red

Under Astronautics Rigs

This allows the concept of a Sun Jump (I'm loving that nickname ) to be applied in a balanced manner- of course, it's always open to change and improvement. Having the system rigged to the ship prevents easily changing between being able to sun jump and being able to bridge or light a cyno (using a mobile depot), at least not without significant cost, and adding a small fitting bonus helps mitigate the loss of a rig slot for it. Having the ship lose its ability to bridge or light normal cynos (it may still light a Covert Cyno) and doubling the fuel cost, as well as disallowing normal jumping, acts as a balance to the huge increase in mobility the ship gains. Also, perhaps the modification could add a 'cooldown timer' for the ship's jump drive- after all, jumping solitarily to a distant star must put enormous stress on a ship (and letting it jump again immediately could be taken as overpowered). Maybe a 45 second timer, linked to the Black Ops skill, and reduced to 15 seconds at level V.

That's actually what I was going for here- I should edit the OP to show that- it would give the individual ship enormous mobility, but bridging would still need a cyno to lock on to.

At that point, requiring a cyno to bridge is redundant as you could just jump another BLOP and light a cyno ?????

You land at a random point so you still have to find your target before bad/good things start to happen.

Session change > load grid > find target in system > align > warp > land > lock > shoot/point.

People currently getting caught will still get caught. People not getting caught will even less because they will see a much more massive spike in system telling hem it's hot-drop-o'clock and they should GTFO.

I'm against because it's a change that bring nothing new. You made bridging still require a cyno but that's only an illusion of not being able to bridge wherever you want because you were to need a BLOP on the other system anyway to bridge the gang back home so he can bling jump, light his own cyno and you the bridge the fleet without having to slow boat a cyno to that system. It's basicly a **** ton of code to save people the hassle of having a cyno alt slowboating around.

As it is, no ship can jump without a cyno (not counting pos mod) so it would in fact "add something new".

Heaven forbid people could play this game without requiring an alt.

Sov ? Isn't that the stagnate broken feature everyone is unhappy with ? Wouldn't want any suggestion being tainted by considering that.

That said, I'd love Black Ops to be the only jump ship in the game, it might break something, it might not, I ll love to see that, even only if some High Secers think its safe now to jump to low and lose an arm, a leg and the rest trying tot run that level 3 distribution mission to low°°

+1 for the balls to suggest and implement it ,)

I see what you're saying- but I just wanted to respond to the first part by saying this is nothing like the deep space safes there used to be- those were literally waaaaaay out of the system- now the outer limits of any system is 10AU beyond the orbit of the furthest celestial (planet, stargate, et cetera), beyond which you can't make bookmarks or warp to.

This would simply put the ship in a random position around the system's star, making it well within scan range and not giving deep space safe areas.

Also, I think the idea of a covert chain caravan would be amazing for smaller entities- it'd allow small corps and alliances to navigate usefully, and make travelling through low and null easier, possibly resulting in more emergent gameplay.

After all, the only star-hopping ship class would be Black Ops, at least with this suggestion

T2 Hulls aren't PvP friendly due to the insurance system. We will never see a fleet of 250 Black Ops Battleships on a grid when losing even 2% of the fleet will cost more than wiping an entire enemy fleet.

There will always be that one time someone used a T2 Hull based fleet to do something for shizzles but the rest of the time, T1 hulls were used.

If they revamp the POS to have 2, 4 or 6 docking points and they allow the POS to have limited use of the ships docked, I can see a huge demand for Black Ops. Imagine a POS with a Black Ops docked at it, being allowed to bridge covert as a result. Even if the docking ring was outside the bubble like jump bridge networks, I suspect you would see a lot more demand for them.

Idea is good so long as there are measures put in place to avoid having them become too useful for transport or traveling.

It always struck me as strange that there was so little actual espionage you could do with black ops ships. It would be interesting if they could either disable POS defenses, or prevent a POS/structure from sending a notification to its owners when it was under attack or reinforced. That would make them useful and create content. Imagine if the owners of POS empires actually had to pay attention, and didn't have perfect guidance for when and where to send the fleet? It would actually be black ops rather than just hotdrop light. Let them be the tools such that a smaller group can really harass a larger group.

Another idea would be to give black ops a cyno which could pose as another person's cyno so long as they are in the same system. Fits thematically, and would be unique and no doubt generate lots of content.