Player Features and Ideas Discussion

It's really not particularly hard or clever to get a bunch of catalysts to a system in High Sec. I can do it with an alt with about 2 days of training, maybe less. Voice Comms are about the lowest common denominator for organization in Eve, and while I'll credit some people for figuring out the ships that can be used to gank different targets effectively the vast majority of players are just copying the work of a few.

Figuring out how to loot a ship without losing something seems like a reasonable challenge, as opposed to circumventing the intent of the Suspect flag you get from looting a ship, which is that you have to risk something to steal from another player. Currently that doesn't exist.

None of this is going to seriously impact gankers or people stupid enough to stuff their freighter full to the gills with valuable cargo. I can already think of at least 2 ways to loot in relative safety here. That doesn't mean this isn't a reasonable change though.

I didn't want to respond to this thread at all, because, judging by the emotional colouring of some of your posts ("the gankers grab their tear stained pitch forks", etc., etc.), you've grown biased against freighter gankers for some reason. Whether it was caused by a personal conflict of some kind or the fact that hyperdunking was removed a year ago, it looks like you do want to have freighter ganking nerfed, because wanting to remove a tool that freighter fleets rely on without offering a viable alternative is, indeed, a nerf.

I won't argue against the fact that the Crimewatch system is imperfect. It has a number of loopholes that players can exploit, and CCP have so far taken the most simple measures to set a better balance within the system. However, even if a game mechanic is a crutch, or if it is illogical, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's bad for the game. For instance, it's been more or less agreed on that freighter bumping should be limited, but it's hard to come up with a complete alternative for it, so it stays for now.

Same with DST looting. You said you used to loot with a freighter directly - but, my dear, that was happening while you were hyperdunking, which was an activity that could be disrupted by a single white knight, so the hyperdunker would always keep a very low profile to prevent anyone from intervening. When we say "freighter fleets", we imagine local full of flashy reds and anti-gankers swarming around bumped freighters. If what you and many other players have been suggesting is applied without an alternative, the looting process will fall into the opposite extreme: the looter goes yellow and gets gang-raped, and the gankers' fleet can do nothing about it, no matter how strong its support wing is.

I'm not against having to risk freighters or DSTs per se, but, if gankers need to expose their expensive toys, they've got to have a way to protect them, too. I think that a relatively simple solution would be to expand the existing suspect mechanic: the looter stays a suspect for all players, as he does now, but if you fire at him, you become a legal target for both the suspect and his corp members. This could both give gankers the necessary means to protect their looters and incentivize their support characters to stay in player-made corps, which, in turn, makes them exposed to wardecs. As a result, all the sides involved have to step up their game at the same time.

If complimented by changes in other highsec mechanics, like bounty hunting and wardecs, it could result in an interesting new system. Balance is not about game mechanics being "good" or "logical" or "risky", it's about having counters available against other players' actions.

Not going to happen given that CONCORD will, with absolute certainty, burn down whatever you bring. Change the CONCORD mechanics and then that might happen. But the direction of CONCORD changes has not been in this direction. You'd have more luck trying to **** up a rope.

I think the obvious solution is:
If looting makes you suspect, you can't toss it directly into the DST unless the DST is already suspect. If the DST pilot wants to loot it directly, they can do it and go suspect if their safety is off.


Now of course you can pull the loot first into a "throwaway" ship and then put it in the DST, but if only a DST can hold it then what are you using, a throwaway DST? If it's all in small parts, you could put some in the throwaway ship, then transfer to DST, then another load, and so on, trying to get through it before the throwaway ship is popped. Alternatively, you can just fit the DST with warp stabs and a MJD and try to get away before they break your tank. Plenty of options available, but no more circumventing the system.

Salah's proposal was to create a limited engagement between the members of a fleet and whoever shot their flashy yellow guy.

Throw enough firepower at flashy yellow DST to kill it -> flashy yellow DST needs protection. Protection is allowed to shoot back at the threat(s) because the threat(s) are now flashy green thanks to a limited engagement.

I believe that's what we call the makings of a fleet fight.
Or the gank fleet could have a second set of gank alts for that.

Collateral damage: anything flashy yellow can be bait for a fleet.
If shooting the flashy yellow thing is how you turn flashy green to a fleet, people are going to be even less inclined to shoot the flashy yellow thing when flying alone.

It would be nice to make gankers bring shinier things than cats and stealth bombers to a fight. They'd have to if they wanted to defend their flashy yellow prizes. Disposable cats are terribad when the fight runs longer than 10 seconds and there's a possibility of incoming damage.