Player Features and Ideas Discussion

So, with all of the insane hype swirling around the recent news of massive numbers of Drifter Battleships amassing in distant wormholes, seemingly gearing up for a full scale invasion of New Eden, I've began to wonder what they could be hiding, waiting to reveal in a blaze of death, destruction, and lasers.

We are all well aware of how utterly and indomitably powerful the Drifter Battleships are; between their speed and maneuverability, their tank, their main weapons, and, of course, their devastating super weapons. But by now we've had enough contact, or conflict, with them to have begun establishing effective and efficient methods for destroying them. That's not to say they aren't still a considerable threat, especially in such vast numbers, but at least we have a good handle on what we are dealing with. And that is what scares me the most. What are they hiding? What haven't we seen yet? With such incredible technology, I can't believe that they would limit themselves to battleship hulls.

My concern is that, once they begin their invasion of New Eden, we could see new, larger, more powerful ships coming through the void, and obliterating any defensive strategies or battle plans we have come up with. My biggest fear is coming into contact with something like a Dreadnought/Carrier hybrid, a ship with incredible firepower and HP, astounding speed and maneuverability for it's size, the ability to launch whole wings of advanced Fighters or Drones, and a super weapon capable of destroying whole groups of ships at once. If ships like this were to invade High Sec, I see little hope for the capsuleers in those systems. Even with a fleet of unprecedented size, I don't see High Sec as being defensible. We may wind up seeing whole regions of High Sec, overwhelmed by invading Drifters, being abandoned by capsuleers in favor of refuge in Low and Null Sec systems where Capitals and Super Capitals can be effectively mobilized for defense.

Think about that, a dramatic shift, where the Highest Security space, the "safest" space in Eve, becomes the most dangerous to capsuleers, and Low/Null, perhaps even wormholes, become the one and only refuge for fleeing pilots. Of course, this leaves us another problem, how would we retake High Sec systems from the Drifters, when our only hope (Caps and Supers) are confined to Low/Null?

Of course, this is merely speculation, we have no way of predicting what we may encounter once the Drifters mobilize and invade. One thing is for certain, New Eden will be razed to it's very foundation. I believe Trade Hubs like Jita, Dodixie, and Amarr are at the most risk, and their assumed level of Safety will be the death of MANY capsuleers. We may see a "Burn Jita" style event, on a scale the likes of which we could have never imagined, perpetrated by a force far more terrifying and powerful than any one Null Sec Coalition. We must begin preparing immediately, galvanize New Eden and fortify our most valuable systems, or the Drifters will catch us unorganized, disoriented, and completely vulnerable. Now is not the time for idle talks, now is the time for action!

PREPARE! FORTIFY! SURVIVE! This is our only hope!




*This is one part Fan Fiction, one part true speculation. In any case, it is my first time doing any sort of Fan Fiction.

Dude, its a fictitious article that I wrote up. Calm down.

Other than all the ways in which people do kill drifter battleships If you are going to bash an idea, at least get the facts right to start with.

However -1 to the stealth 'remove highsec and force everyone to play in null under the null lords' idea. High sec is a very important part of the game and anything wrecking it to the extent you are discussing will wreck EVE as well. Areas of space in EVE are different, there is no single 'End game' area like most MMO's.

Pull the other leg with that one....
You posted outright that high sec should become the most dangerous space and players should have to flee into Null.
Don't try and back track like that, we aren't that dumb.

I invite you to take on incursions without the support of a community or the knowledge that was hard won as to how to run the sites. They are only "safe" and "easy" because of the great lengths that went to unraveling what needed to be done to complete the sites safely, and then even more laborious process of optimizing the sites for speed that made them as lucrative as they are now.

Incursion is only safe as long as you pay attention and do exactly what you are expected to do, AND everyone else does what they are expected to do.

Flying a 2-5b ship that rely 100% on others to stay alive, slow broadcast and you can have rest of your fleet in logi's and its still to late

Its pretty fluid, but having deadspace tank + logistic ships kinda helps with that.

I suggest you fly T1 ships with t2 modules and t1 rigs, suddenly you have to expect a few deaths for a site

Still not what I'm talking about. With Incursions you already know what to expect, and what you have to do to win a given site. What I'm talking about is something that changes and adapts moment to moment, that you can't outright predict or plan for to the degree that you can in an Incursion.

Call me insane, but THAT is fun to me. Nothing has ever given me more joy in gaming, than FINALLY beating a level or character that I have been stuck on for x amount of time. Drifters are like nothing Eve has seen before, and I have no problem with their AI beating much of the player base, just makes those who rise to the Challenge, and win, that much more incredible.

The drifters already are beating the heck out of most of the playerbase, and doing things that are counter to what was documented even the day before. They already appear to be cheating pretty well, but we're starting to get a handle on how to reliably kill them. Content that stays wild and wooly isn't going to happen in eve unless it is so unprofitable to run that no one bothers to figure it out.