EVE General Discussion

C'mon now, it's the inherent logic of links that one side has them and the other doesn't. In your logic solo pvpers would be forced to run at least two accounts not to have an advantage but to simply play the game on the same level as others. Now think about accessability and about what is hurting EVE's appeal to newer players the most. When you finished ask yourself if ogb is a good mechanic.

I posted in another thread a few days ago about scanning boosters down, which I've seen a few people mention here. I've made a successful niche for myself scanning down the boosting ships and I'd like to share my experience.

Once you've got the virtue implants, which are the biggest hurdle to scanning, the rest is relatively straightforward. I've seen people fit them to covops cruisers, but I find that t3 ships are much more suitable as they can be interdiction nullified, allowing you to relatively safely use them in nullsec. I like the tengu because it has the most available midslots for scanning upgrades, which make the process much easier.

Identifying a t3 booster is easy, as they're typically the lowest strength signature ID present in a system. You can get a few false positives with ships like EAFs, but it isn't terribly common. Few boosters that I've caught made an attempt to warp away while I was scanning them, even if they were holed up in a legacy deep safe. I can't say for sure why, but I think that most players using boosters are multiboxing and suffer from an attention deficit while doing so.

Every t3 booster is easily destroyed by the appropriate stealth bomber, particularly so when they do not fit a prop module, which, in my experience, most do not. I've experimented with using a sabre in nullsec, but overall, I like using torpedo bombers more for the purpose.

Often, players respond to your aggression, but it's usually too late by the time you've scrammed the booster. I start out with my torpedo launchers and target painter overheated; the extra DPS and application are a good assurance that you'll be able to pop the booster before support arrives and burning out my modules is rarely an issue. I'm usually willing to sacrifice a bomber for a booster kill, so I'll hang on until the last second to get that last shot in if need be.

If they're sitting on a POS, I've found that using a cheap, fast locking alpha thrasher and a few friends works quite well, and if you dont have friends available, it's worth a try in a cheap destroyer. With good warpins I've been able to kill boosters with as few as two DPS ships and a well placed bump.

Also, I've often seen people complain about an opponent using links, only to find that they're not using them at all. Links are commonplace now, but they're certainly not as ubiquitous as people claim.

CCP Fozzie wrote:

When we have any timelines to report we'll report them, in the meantime all I can say is that it will happen sometime between now and the end of time. Very likely closer to now than to the end of time, but those things are hard to be certain about.

CCP Fozzie wrote:

It's a performance optimization problem. We could turn on range-based boosting in Odyssey [released on Tuesday, June 4th, 2013] but it would melt all the servers.

And this isn't being delayed by Odyssey, the team working on the underlying code that will make ongrid boosting possible (along with many other things) isn't releasing anything in Odyssey. It's just that big of a project.

So like I said before, at some point CCP Veritas will make all my ganglink-related dreams come true but I honestly do not know when that point will be. When Veritas describes a programming challenge as "very hard" I tend to believe him.

CCP Veritas left CCP and went to Riot Games.

Which claims of unfairness? That was never the point. The point was that ogb makes eve a worse game. It does so for reasons stated many times. The fact that the proponents of ogb always try to distort the very specific and profound criticism of ogb to general whining about unfairness says something about the proponents of ogb. imo

Man, I just hope i'll never need these because pretty much the only thing about this game which could potentially make me sad would be seeing it go to maintenance mode cause CCP didn't tackle major turn offs like ogb in time. Anyway, lets hope for the best

Haha, you remind me of myself a year ago when I couldn't stand off-grid boosters and thought that it was such an unfair advantage to players who didn't have one that I gave up on solo pvping. And now that I've finally trained up for one I think they are fantastic so I disagree with your whining to CCP about OGB now of all times. Do yourself a favor and either go buy an OGB toon on Char Bazaar or quit been lazy and trained up for one like everyone else has down until now.

My point is even stronger then. The "b-but small gangs!" argument vis-a-vis links assumes that the larger force won't use a portion of their numbers (1 ship) to neutralize offgrid links. It's solo and very small gang fights with close to even numbers where there's simply nothing you can do but blueball link users.

If you remove OGB those same players will just bring that alt on grid in an ECM or Logi boat. Don't expect OGB removal to magically create honor.

Yes CCP get rid of OFF grid Boost Or disable the auto-repeat on links modules so you have to be active on the Boost to give boost

or some code like the more far your are from the fleet = Less boost etc etc so many options here

But please do something ccp before next release !!

What feels fantastic is that you are able to enjoy solo and small gang pvp without a huge built-in disadvantage. Wouldn't it be great if everybody could jump into pvp and enjoy pvp the same way as you do now?

If everbody had a booster -as you and others suggest it should be- it might feel a little less fantastic too since your advantage at the expense of non link users will be completely diminished. The only difference to pvp without a booster will be the annoying side effects of carrying around a t3. When flying a "solo" frig everybody will just be forced to stare on a second monitor and roams will be reduced to cruiser warp speed. You and others have to understand that using links is a zero sum game: you only gain something at the expense of others and when everybody uses them all what remains is sillyness and artifically pushed up local.

It's short term goals vs long terms goals really. Shortly it may feel great to have a (ego) booster but in the long run it hurts the game itself. EVE might win some alt accounts but it loses real active players about this and most importantly: LESS NEW PLAYERS WILL START PLAYING EVE WHEN THEY HEAR ABOUT LINKS! Sorry for the caps but you guys need to get that already. It's bad for the game!

At least I have to admit that I did buy a booster alt at some point just to try it and i hated it. Kiting became ridiculously easy and when I killed a guy who is generally a better than me and flew pefectly timed slingshots against me but still coudln't catch me I turned off in disgust and put my booster alt on the char bazaar the same evening.