These forums have been archived and are now read-only.

The new forums are live and can be found at https://forums.eveonline.com/

Player Features and Ideas Discussion

 
  • Topic is locked indefinitely.
123Next pageLast page
 

Fighters and Off Grid assist

First post
Author
Previous Topic Next Topic
Nors Phlebas Sabelhpsron
The Red Circle Inc.
Ministry of Inappropriate Footwork
#1 - 2014-12-04 14:50:57 UTC
Hello fellow eve players.

This issue has been discussed before, e.g. here (https://forums.eveonline.com/default.as ... s&t=356752 ), but as it is quickly becoming the flavor of the month no-effort tactic to nuke small gangs effortlessly, I'm starting another thread in the hope that it gains traction.

TL:DR - fighter assist is OP vs subcaps, especially when using supers.

How to win EVE for very little effort and risk:
Have a supercarrier online, and sitting either at the edge of a pos field or next to an offline tower with the tower management dialog box open, password typed in, and therefore one click away from force field up.

Fit it with with drone control units, four damage mods, and add as many tracking and speed mods as you can cram. Yes, it's a horribly vulnerable fit, which is why you are POS tanking. Don't worry about PL or BL dropping on you, you are Phoebe-tanking them.

Now, suppose a roaming gang comes into your system, here's what you do:
Pick two pilots (inties/AFs with scram+web can be hilarious, but any good combat ship will do).
Have the supercarrier pilot assign 5 fighters to each.
Yell "go get'em, fleet!" on coms.
(Optional: go afk for a bit.)
Check your killboard.

If you followed the previous steps correctly, chances are you will slaughter them. At the very least, the end result will be MUCH more favourable than if you hadn't.

Why?

Because each of your two friends, who is probably in a faction cuiser or some interceptor, is now helped by 5 (five) little dudes whose stats, if their name is Einherji, are the following: the raw hp of a battlecruiser, 6km/s speed, tracking like a Null Talos and 445 dps each, or 2,223dps for the group.
A Nyx with no drone modules whatsoever will still field 2 sets of fighters, each going at over 3,000 mps, dishing out 1,250 dps (5x250).

In other words, that super contributes between 2,500 and 4,445 dps to the fight without even being on grid.

You can do the same trick with a regular carrier, though you'll only have about half that dps.

Where are we in the risk vs reward equation?
If using a super, we have a behemoth that has millions of ehp, is immune to ewar, is sitting seconds away from being covered by a POS (and the other side has to find the right POS, first!). Even if the player is afk, he will still be able to two-shot most subcaps and one-shot interceptors.

Risk: low. Effort: low. Reward: high.

Houston, do we have a problem?
Nors Phlebas Sabelhpsron
The Red Circle Inc.
Ministry of Inappropriate Footwork
#2 - 2014-12-04 14:51:04 UTC  |  Edited by: Nors Phlebas Sabelhpsron
Here are some answers to some of the expected replies this might receive:

1- The Nyx risks losing its fighters, and they are worth a lot of isk!

Answer: Those fighters cost roughly 20m each. Do you know of any module that gives two ships 1,200 extra dps each for the cost of 200m? Because if you do, I'm buying!

2- Things have always been like this, noob.

Answers:
a) That's simply not true. Not only did fighters get buffed (better stats and being able to benefit from drone modules), lone supers have become more viable since Phoebe, and are indeed becoming more common in nullsec. As a result, that tactic is becoming more widespread.
b) Even if it were true (and it isn't, see above), the fact that something has been broken for a long time isn't a reason not to fix it.

3- Welcome to EVE. HTFU, noobs, or die. Love your tears.

Answer: We are a pvp corp, so we actually like seeing ships blow up, ours included. However, this particular tactic seems broken in that it isn't about skills, SPs or your fits.
Say this goes on, and nothing happens. Every nullsec (and maybe lowsec?) resident corp will have its stable of super alts until each ship has its 5 attached fighters. Forget roaming with anything smaller than a full fleet, and in doctrines that can't tank fighter-assisted ships until triage reps land. Do we really want that?



So what do we do about it!? Well, that's a bit less clear. A solution is needed that can solve this problem without manifesting as an unreasonable nerf to fighters, or Carriers / Supercarriers. Ideas so far are:

1) Stop carriers assigning fighters to assist players whom are not on grid with them. Bit of a heavy handed response perhaps but I feel that this solves the problem - people projecting DPS off grid from themselves in complete safety, without affecting their ability to fully utilise that dps on grid. Also; I think we need to target the assigning mechanic rather than fighters going off grid because there's nothing wrong with an on-grid carrier attacking a target with fighters adn having them chase it into warp.

2) Maybe play with the mechanics of the POS such that they can't get within it's force field if they have fighters assigned. This seems much too broad to me but has been mentioned as a possibiity

3) Suggested by FD Diomedes - Make a minimum distance from tower before fighters can be assigned so they have to be in a safe. People might find this more palatable, to me however it's still too little risk.

(4, 5, 6 etc) If anyone has a better idea - please god let us hear it!
Nors Phlebas Sabelhpsron
The Red Circle Inc.
Ministry of Inappropriate Footwork
#3 - 2014-12-04 14:51:50 UTC
reserving
Harvey James
The Sengoku Legacy
#4 - 2014-12-04 14:54:43 UTC  |  Edited by: Harvey James
indeed a broken mechanic, fighters shouldn't be able too warp, and drone assist should be removed also

T3's need to be versatile so no rigs are necessary ... they should not have OP dps and tank

ABC's should be T2, remove drone assist, separate HAM's and Torps range, -3 HS for droneboats

Nerf web strength, Make the blaster Eagle worth using
Nors Phlebas Sabelhpsron
The Red Circle Inc.
Ministry of Inappropriate Footwork
#5 - 2014-12-04 15:04:11 UTC
Harvey James wrote:
indeed a broken mechanic, fighters shouldn't be able too warp, and drone assist should be removed also


Actually I disagree - I see nothing wrong with fighters that are assigned, by the carrier, to a target that is on grid with said carrier then chasing that target into warp and killing it off grid. It's the actual ability to initiate an attack from off grid which I think is broken.
Abrazzar
Vardaugas Family
#6 - 2014-12-04 15:08:07 UTC
Why not just re-invent capital warfare and deny capital ships damage application to sub-caps?Bear

Sovereignty and Population

New Mining Mechanics
Rroff
Antagonistic Tendencies
#7 - 2014-12-04 15:29:02 UTC  |  Edited by: Rroff
One of my biggest issue with this is that its possible to do it with (almost) immunity on the (super)carrier part due to the use of certain mechanics.

I'm not personally against the features of being able to assign fighters off grid and them having warp drives, etc. (in fact in the right scenario(s) I quite like it) but the ability of 1-2 pilots almost AFK to project the abilities of a heavy fleet and the disproportionate impact that has on casual roaming seems a bit out of balance. (At least with hotdrops you need the pilots projecting the main force to not be afk and gives rise to the possibilities of counter dropping, etc. etc.).
afkalt
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
#8 - 2014-12-04 15:37:18 UTC
You could just make force fields bump anything out as they come up "as they cannot establish friend or foe until they are fully online" Blink
FT Diomedes
The Graduates
#9 - 2014-12-04 15:53:05 UTC
At first look, it sounds like a terrible mechanic. It is one of those things that has technically always been possible, but gradual buffs have made it more and more viable. Still, the ship is vulnerable to a well-prepared gang. A good bump and you have a dead super.

Capitals and Supercapitals can still move post Phoebe. You just have to plan and preposition them. In this case the defender is clearly preparing his active defense as well as he can. The attacker should also have to put in some effort. Bring a prober. Have plenty of dictors. Forward stage your own capital and Supercapital assets.

Still, I think I would be okay with: fighters cannot be assigned within 50 km of a tower. If they want to assign from a safe spot while aligned, that's relatively safe, but still vulnerable.

CCP should add more NPC 0.0 space to open it up and liven things up: the Stepping Stones project.

Ab'del Abu
Atlantis Ascendant
#10 - 2014-12-04 15:53:45 UTC
Yesterday night I jumped into what turned out to be a highly active ratting systems.

Dead-end system, with around 30 pilots in local and as many large t2 bubbles on the gate. As I decloaked, so did a Falcon and only few seconds later 5 fighters on top of him, seemingly out of nowhere. Needless to say, I didn't make it out of the bubbles before being jammed lol ... I was just lucky to be able to drive him off with sentries thanks to my overpowered ishtar :>
Rroff
Antagonistic Tendencies
#11 - 2014-12-04 16:20:30 UTC  |  Edited by: Rroff
FT Diomedes wrote:
At first look, it sounds like a terrible mechanic. It is one of those things that has technically always been possible, but gradual buffs have made it more and more viable. Still, the ship is vulnerable to a well-prepared gang. A good bump and you have a dead super.

Capitals and Supercapitals can still move post Phoebe. You just have to plan and preposition them. In this case the defender is clearly preparing his active defense as well as he can. The attacker should also have to put in some effort. Bring a prober. Have plenty of dictors. Forward stage your own capital and Supercapital assets.

Still, I think I would be okay with: fighters cannot be assigned within 50 km of a tower. If they want to assign from a safe spot while aligned, that's relatively safe, but still vulnerable.


Chances of taking the fight to their super/carrier is pretty close to nil - they'd have to be careless and leave the FF down and no defences online so you could log off your own capitals on the tower to stage a trap and any sign of scouting = they move to another system and you have to start planning all over again - a lot of them don't even do it out of any one system for any length of time to minimise the chances of ever being caught to being careless.

Something I didn't realise is they don't sit on the edge of the FF to do this (they literally sit right on the tower with FF down and password ready to bring it up at the first sign of any trouble) and even if they did the chances of stopping a super getting back into FF in that situation is incredibly slim.
Adrie Atticus
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#12 - 2014-12-04 16:23:29 UTC
All I see is you engaging in a blatant gank attempt while roaming for free and stupid targets (null ratters) which then went horribly wrong. Why wouldn't people be allowed to defend against multiple HACs, dictor and assorted tackle with ships which are available in-system, especially when the system is a dead-end and allows for effective defense?
Harvey James
The Sengoku Legacy
#13 - 2014-12-04 16:31:51 UTC
Nors Phlebas Sabelhpsron wrote:
Harvey James wrote:
indeed a broken mechanic, fighters shouldn't be able too warp, and drone assist should be removed also


Actually I disagree - I see nothing wrong with fighters that are assigned, by the carrier, to a target that is on grid with said carrier then chasing that target into warp and killing it off grid. It's the actual ability to initiate an attack from off grid which I think is broken.


not really these are essentially big drones, not small frigates that can warp around all it wants with the cap to do so

T3's need to be versatile so no rigs are necessary ... they should not have OP dps and tank

ABC's should be T2, remove drone assist, separate HAM's and Torps range, -3 HS for droneboats

Nerf web strength, Make the blaster Eagle worth using
Rroff
Antagonistic Tendencies
#14 - 2014-12-04 16:32:17 UTC  |  Edited by: Rroff
Adrie Atticus wrote:
All I see is you engaging in a blatant gank attempt while roaming for free and stupid targets (null ratters) which then went horribly wrong. Why wouldn't people be allowed to defend against multiple HACs, dictor and assorted tackle with ships which are available in-system, especially when the system is a dead-end and allows for effective defense?


I somewhat agree with your viewpoint (ganking ratters personally bores the **** out of me) and I've always been the opinion that holding sov (or renting from) should give some level of home field advantage, but defence should be some kind of home defence fleet putting assets into the fight not a mechanic that isn't that far removed from AoE Doomsdaying through a cyno - a few incidental ships on grid projecting the force from bigger ships that are essentially for all intents and purposes safe.

EDIT: Couldn't be more wrong though if you think its just about roaming for free and stupid targets.
Rowells
Pator Tech School
Minmatar Republic
#15 - 2014-12-04 17:12:19 UTC
If you were to remove assist, would you want to remove fighters following targets in warp as well? Just curious
Adrie Atticus
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#16 - 2014-12-04 17:13:31 UTC
Rroff wrote:
Adrie Atticus wrote:
All I see is you engaging in a blatant gank attempt while roaming for free and stupid targets (null ratters) which then went horribly wrong. Why wouldn't people be allowed to defend against multiple HACs, dictor and assorted tackle with ships which are available in-system, especially when the system is a dead-end and allows for effective defense?


I somewhat agree with your viewpoint (ganking ratters personally bores the **** out of me) and I've always been the opinion that holding sov (or renting from) should give some level of home field advantage, but defence should be some kind of home defence fleet putting assets into the fight not a mechanic that isn't that far removed from AoE Doomsdaying through a cyno - a few incidental ships on grid projecting the force from bigger ships that are essentially for all intents and purposes safe.

EDIT: Couldn't be more wrong though if you think its just about roaming for free and stupid targets.


But they did put 200M of assets on the field + ships to utilize them. The defenders also popped the webbing ship first so there is a higher chance for the fighters/FB's to be popped.

I think this usage is not overpowered or breaking any of current mechanics.
Walextheone
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#17 - 2014-12-04 17:16:15 UTC
Ugh
Adrie Atticus wrote:
All I see is you engaging in a blatant gank attempt while roaming for free and stupid targets (null ratters) which then went horribly wrong. Why wouldn't people be allowed to defend against multiple HACs, dictor and assorted tackle with ships which are available in-system, especially when the system is a dead-end and allows for effective defense?



Naaaaah. The problem is that it's totally risk free and there is no counter. That's the broken mechanics.
Normally we and others just adopts to different circumstances but in this situation there is nothing to do.

With 37k possible alpha hacs can't survive more than a few seconds. Bringing more than 6 scimis just too survive is not a viable option.
IIFraII
Science and Trade Institute
Caldari State
#18 - 2014-12-04 17:24:36 UTC
Adrie Atticus wrote:


But they did put 200M of assets on the field + ships to utilize them. The defenders also popped the webbing ship first so there is a higher chance for the fighters/FB's to be popped.

I think this usage is not overpowered or breaking any of current mechanics.


Funny how this exact argument is answered to in the second post.

Is there a module that costs 200 mil and gives your ship +1200 dps?
No
why?
It would be overpowered
IIFraII
Science and Trade Institute
Caldari State
#19 - 2014-12-04 17:26:34 UTC
doublepost
Nors Phlebas Sabelhpsron
The Red Circle Inc.
Ministry of Inappropriate Footwork
#20 - 2014-12-04 17:45:01 UTC  |  Edited by: Nors Phlebas Sabelhpsron
Gonna try and answer everyone regularly...

Quote:
Why not just re-invent capital warfare and deny capital ships damage application to sub-caps?Bear


Sorry no, this idea is bad,

Quote:
Still, I think I would be okay with: fighters cannot be assigned within 50 km of a tower. If they want to assign from a safe spot while aligned, that's relatively safe, but still vulnerable.


Could also work fine yes

Adrie Atticus wrote:
All I see is you engaging in a blatant gank attempt while roaming for free and stupid targets (null ratters) which then went horribly wrong. Why wouldn't people be allowed to defend against multiple HACs, dictor and assorted tackle with ships which are available in-system, especially when the system is a dead-end and allows for effective defense?


People should totally be allowed to defend with these ships. What they should not be allowed to do is defend with these ships, whilst those ships are in total safety. If they want to defend with them, they should have to risk them, and currently they don't.

Rowells wrote:
If you were to remove assist, would you want to remove fighters following targets in warp as well? Just curious


No, that's fine. Also, I said no to this in like two places already :P

Adrie Atticus wrote:
But they did put 200M of assets on the field + ships to utilize them. The defenders also popped the webbing ship first so there is a higher chance for the fighters/FB's to be popped.

I think this usage is not overpowered or breaking any of current mechanics.


This is answered in post 2 - show me the module that gives my frigate 1200 extra dps and i will gladly pay 200mil for it - 200mil is pocket change to most people. Risking the cost of the fighters is completely insignificant weighed against their benefit. If you want to put a Nyx' worth of DPS on grid, you should have to risk a Nyx.
123Next pageLast page