EVE General Discussion

Trailers are designed to grab attention; that's why a movie like Die Hard shows off the cool explosions, racing cars and hot girls (and guys). There are plenty of cool fleet moments in EVE -- you just have to create them.

Stacking penalties on damage would sort of help creating smaller skirmishes within fleet fights, since it would encourage taking on enemies as squads.

As as long as as the most efficient way to kill stuff is 200 morons ctrl-clicking their fleet broadcasts at the same time and hitting F1 like brainless robots, blobwarfare will stay as idiotic as it currently is.

Stacking penalties on damage would just make remote rep even more ridiculous. Nothing would die in larger battles.

This, tbh. Eve battles are dynamic enough as is, especially with all the new graphics enhancements. Trouble is, when you play it doesn't look that way, and it's nigh-impossible to record "exciting" shots of battles.

However, I think people have been asking for this for years now, so don't hold your breath.

"... orgy of rusted nails..."

Heh... That's pretty good.

Because the first couple hitting me would shake my ship, throw it around and blur my signature. Moreover, missiles, hybrid charges and projectiles would collide with each other and get caught in their own explosions whilst lasers crossing would cause interference.

Also Liquid space mechanics, nanobots, jovians and gameplay.

this is pretty much the same discussion as using WASD controls to fly frigates. well not the same but close. Some people would say that the server couldn't handle it, but i think that is just BS. I only support this option for frigates. You could actually have some good dogfights then. The only time it would get annoying is when chasing down drones. It could be an option i guess for when flying in frigates, as in, can turn it off or turn it on. At least that way it might have a bit more of that exciting feel. there are still circumstances where I would rather just orbit a target though so as long as WASD was only and option for frigate hulls i'd be cool with it.

when you really put more thought into trying to imagine how shooting would work and activating modules, you would still have to clicky clicky to activate gun cycles and such. as much as I would like to see it, it really would take a lot of work redesigning how that class of ship would be flown. there is way too much opposition out there for it though and it just doesn't seem feasible.

irrelevant though if your flying 70 Maelstroms in a fleet without frigates.....and why wouldnt someone through a squad of frigates at at Maelstrom fight anyway, soo much ewar could be delegated to those ships that could be used to boost damage or other capabilities that the BSs are fitting.

I'll go out on a limb here and disagree with most of you

I think I get what the OP is asking for, namely that EVE battles lack diversity - at least when large fleets clash togehter. And its true. You see "hellcat fleets" or "alpha fleets", or "drake fleets" etc - where a single FC on both sides usually call the shots and everybody else follows orders (ideally) and shoots the primary. It IS a bit more to it than this of course, but on the whole, large fleet fights in EVE is incredibly centralized.

Now there are TWO main reasons for this:

1) Firstly - the absolute need for concentration of force. In 20-21st century naval engagments, a single missile or torpedo will sink all but the largest of warships. In EVE, you need maybe hundreds of hits (a single drake salvo is 7 missiles) before a spaceship finally blows up. EVE fleetfights thus resembles more Napoleonic battles than modern naval battles when it comes to the application of damage - i.e you need large numbers of similar ships to concentrate on each target to take it down reasonably quickly. Fail to do this, and the enemy will just dismantle you.

2) Secondly - the near total lack of command and control tools. In EVE, command and control tools available for its commanders are very primitive and does not lend itself to distributed command models where assigning tasks to individual wings or squads in real time is practical. And because of point 1) it is not desirable either.

Now, if you want to see large fleet fights where fleets are composed of different types of (specialized) ships performing certain functions for the fleet as a whole (like you see in for example Babylon 5), the command and control tools will need a revamp. And even more imortantly, the relationship between damageoutput and tank would need to change drastically. When advents in weaponry makes hardtanking impractical (the advent of the crossbow made armoured knights obsolete, gunpowder slowly made fortesses impractical and modern precision weapons is making it harder and harder for the tank to survive on the 21st century battlefield), you will typically see greater reliance on mobility, deception (camouflage) and dispersion in the evolving tactics. So instead of surviving the hit - avoid beeing hit in the first place.

In EVE this would mean a much higher reliance on avoidance tanking - that is EWAR, cloaking, range, speed, signaturetanking etc etc, and a corresponding much lower reliance on buffer- or repairtanking.


TL;DR a "dynamic" battlefield filled with different classes of ships performing specialized functions where subcommanders exercise initiative and make individual descisions based on a common understanding of the situation - would require a revamp of the entire EVE combat system.

Personally I'd like to see fleet fights where formation and motion make a difference, as in the Lost Fleet books. That'd be difficult with space submarines, though.

It gets interesting when you have rock paper AND scissors all on the grid at the same time.