CSM Campaigns

I am a bit uncertain on reducing victory points or deplex times but most of this seems extremely reasonable. Unless a better candidate appears you have my vote.

Endorsed.

The first few weeks or even months after the first ones arrive in the warzones I expect will be pretty turbulent, as everyone is itching to try them out. After the newness dies down, depending on whether there are restrictions on anchoring, I suspect mediums will be used as forward staging bases similarly to POSes, especially as they have at least a full week of action if they survive the anchoring stage. I expect the more powerful entities on each side will put up large citadels in their home systems, giving defenders advantages for their fortresses. It also better allows groups to feasibly live in stationless systems.


Very little has been announced about the four way war. Even the current CSM members seem to know little other than that description. If I had to guess at its implementation, it would mean any FW system could be claimable by any militia, in either warzone. Due to trade hub and hisec access, each militia would likely stay near to their main empires, though if an Amarr group wanted to take a break in Calgal, or if Galmil wanted to live in Heimatar, they could simply pack up, plex up a system, claim it, and live there.

My guess on conquest implementation involves a two-phase system capture sequence: as long as one militia holds a system, any other militia's plexing counts offensively. When the system reaches high enough contestation, it'd enter a freeport-like mode, where any interested parties would need to compete for their own militia.


This is one of my biggest concerns in running for CSM for FW, and why I'm also doubling as a lowsec candidate. A CSM's job is more for feedback and precaution for CCP than for direction, and it's naive to expect that all my dreams will come true. By being overly verbose in my ideas on change and rebalance, I hope to convince all the militias that I have everyone's interest in fun at heart, and not just Amarr's. I want better pirate presence, as well. CAGE/DBD/SWCW/etc: they're bad guys for us, but I want them to have even more chances to be those bad guys and impact our warzones.


This question took me a while, actually! We just finished getting 13 new ships, many of which I'm still excited about. Small ships need a little rebalancing (mostly the AFs), and destroyers still don't have Navy variants, which I find a little odd. That said, Command destroyers and T2 Logi frigates filled the two biggest gaps in small ship combat, plus we have new ewar frigates. Asking for more small ships seems a little overkill ATM, especially since most of the roles are already handled pretty well. Instead, I decided to look towards larger ships, and possibly a solution to bringing back BS/BC fleets.

BSes are infrequently used in lowsec these days aside from arty Machariels, because cruisers simply outperform them and it's hard to force any engagement except over structures. There's no large-sized form of tackle, and they warp too slowly to catch anything. Battlecruisers are a little better in speed and warp time, but they still don't offer tackle solutions. Given that their role as Command ships was recently added to destroyers, and that the other T2 destroyers are interdictors (speedy tackle in null, and expensive dessies in low), it seems to me the interdictor role could be shared with battlecruisers. In null, cruiser fleets oftentimes wont even undock without dictors. For roaming fleets, battleships are usually skipped as they don't have tackle options, either because they're too slow or because there's no way to feasibly tackle ships except in brawling distance, which favors cruisers and below.

To remedy this, and to make BS fleets strong again, I'd suggest a new Point Interdictor class of support BCs. They would have 3.5 au/s warp speed, T2 resists, and a role bonus of +100% optimal range to WDFGs (can only use the scripted version, and they would prevent gate usage), which would pose valid risks to T3 fleets that can often simply de-aggress on a gate and walk away if they decide they don't want to fight. In practice they would rarely apply much damage, but coupled with other micro-jump mechanics (including the destroyer), they could help battleships see more usage outside of exclusively structure ops.

A Point Interdictor would be more expensive than a HIC, with lower scan res and bigger signature radius (especially if it tries using MWD or MMJD). It would have T2 resists, but without the further 20% bonus that HICs get for free. It could be strong in gatecamps, but only as support-tackle, as even with sebos, BCs take a while to lock small targets. The two ship classes would overlap a bit, but HICs would be preferable or at least equally suitable for most scenarios other than BC and BS fleets.

It'd be new and could help BC/BS fleets see a return. In these fleets they'd be preferable over HICs and inties, though for capital escalations, HICs would still be ideal. I don't personally find battleship fleets all that enjoyable, but it'd be nice if BCs and BSes had their own spot in subcap combat again, as right now their engagement options are a bit limited.

A great and knowledgeable person who will serve the CSM well.

I appreciate your support, friends and not-so-friends alike.

Voting is on Monday. Remember to Make Lowsec Great Again!

What about players that have that have no knowledge how to use the API/CREST provided info (there are some public tools provided by certain players) ?

Nice writeup.