Jita Park Speakers Corner

Yes. More versatility is a good thing. But there are some things to think about.

Cruisers are the richest class in the game: you have HACs, Recons, heavy dictors, logistics, factions and t3. And you even have the t1 hulls. Battleships and frigate levels are far less rich, why?

Probably because, with current mechanics, cruiser class vessels are the funniest ships to fly (they're quite fast but quite durable), and CCP decided to expand over it instead of "fixing" the other classes.

Frigate play is healthy, in the sense that

• there are really useful frigate sized ships out there (ceptors, bombers and covert ops)
• frigates are cheap and fun

but on the other side there are few situations where you would prefer an assault ship over a heavy assault ship, and a EAF over a recon. For these reasons, a frigate sized logistic would probably be useless (well, it's hard to say without a look at the stats).

There are two ways of fixing "the frigate problem":

• create situations where the usage of other shipclasses is discouraged more or less artificially
• make frigates generally more interesting to use (eg, reduce 1mn mwd sig radius penalty to 200-300% instead of 500%?)

I like the first alternative the most, just because it means "more situations and things to do" instead of "more instruments to do the same things".

I totally agree with you, I started this post to get feedback and I value those who have put in time to write up detailed responses. In hindsight I think it would have been better for me to say T1 frigate with a simple range-bonus to small-remote reps. But I think the inner artist in me just wanted to see some love for the mining-frigs that have no variations elsewhere in the game.

The problem I have with the cruisers is that they are expensive, big, bulky, and not fast or fun to fly. Their sensor resolution also leaves to be desired when flying with other frigs doing reps (ie. lock-time means life or death). Being able to keep up is also an issue, especially when you are a big un-tanked fat target.

IMHO Frigates have lost their fun-factor to Cruisers and larger ships, only their T2 variants are epic, which leaves the T1 using noobs S.O.L.

I went straight for Cruisers and the Augoror is still probably my all time favorite ship in Eve (yeah, I know it sucks performance wise but I LOVE cap-transferring) ... which reminds me, why are there no cap-transfer drones, only cap-draining drones?

Anywho, im getting off subject... I think I am starting to sound like the guy on a soapbox speaking for the little guy, you know, all the tackle pilots and rifter roaming gangs that need some logi-love. They shouldn't feel like a sacrificial lamb, especially as a new player.

Please read the whole thread, specifically the post right above yours genius.
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=502086#post502086

No, because it's nice to be able to rep your drones after combat when flapping about in a (failfit though) Worm or Ishkur... Without having to dock up at station..

By incrediby OP I think you mean useful and would not be ignored by the playerbase. But I'm quite certain it would not be OP.

I think frigate logi should be added not only to get newer players into logi but moreover to add in fast speed-tanking mini-logis that give up a lot of their power for the ability to go fast, much like assault ships.

"Newbies can't get into logistics until they can fly cruisers, so lets give them a tech 2 ship to fix that"

This stuff writes itself.

I edited the OP since you (and a couple others) never took the time to read the entire thread. I hope this will full-stop the captain-obvious posts like this one.

Not quite that a frigate cannot remote rep for lore reasons, but specifically filling the logistics role. The main reasons are that the kind of power required for repairing things was usually the domain of a carrier, and the role of the frigate is being a small fast mover. This is general lore as opposed to anything specific.



Yeah, I saw that, and addressed that specifically (although I didn't quote the sections I was specifically addressing). In particular, what you summarised as "*stuff about killing things*" was directly addressing things like "The problem I have with the cruisers is that they are expensive, big, bulky, and not fast or fun to fly" and "IMHO Frigates have lost their fun-factor to Cruisers and larger ships, only their T2 variants are epic, which leaves the T1 using noobs S.O.L"

T1 Cruisers are not that very expensive, or all that big or bulky. Sure, compared to a frigate they are, but frigates (even T1) most definitely have not lost their fun-factor (as my examples show).

The thing about logistics and new players is that for logistics to be any good you need somebody else to do it with (ie, they're mostly useless without somebody else to rep). By the time a really new player is ready to find somebody else to rep that really needs it, they're likely to be able to fly and afford a cruiser anyway.

One aspect of skill requirements for ships is that it protects new players from spending all their iSK on something that they really can't afford to lose. For example if you don't know how to properly tank then having a marauder (a Billion+ ISK ship) really won't help that and you'll probably lose it, even in predictable missions. You get the opportunity to properly understand the (quite unintuitive) game mechanics as you train into new things, and hopefully you (the player) will understand how to maximise effectiveness before getting into something shiny. So by the time you can fly a cruiser (fairly soon really) if you have followed the tutorials you should have enough ISK to actually get one.

Besides, if you're repping other people they could provide the ship for you. Again with the GSF example, Rifters are handed out free to any pilot, no matter how many you lose because every ship counts. This sums up the philosophy nicely (as an example of a new player performing a useful role in a cheap ship, not necessarily logistics).

As for the lore of mining frigates, mining has always been something that any down on their luck Joe can do to scrape a living out of, and frigates are the cheapest most accessible ships around.

I think the drawback you mentioned (dev time) really is the clincher. You always have to ask whether the benefit to the game that a feature provides will be worth the time taken to implement it. It might be cool to do something, or "complete the set", but would it really add that much to the game (even if it wouldn't take that much to implement either)?