Ships & Modules

Yeah, all CCP did was intentionally break the 'board ship' option which is basically just a macro. Which is just plain stupid, as the same thing is possible except

A) its obnoxious extra clicking for no good reason.
B) you theoretically could have a ship stolen if you suffer from high pings or a slow client - and the target has the right piloting skills.


On the comments above, a de-agress timer wouldn't really work. Why? Typical ninja scenario.

Ninja in Jaguar steals from CNR.
CNR decideds to attack the Jaguar.
Jaguar scrambles CNR, and kills CNR drones.

CNR can't kill Jag or escape, but a Jag can't crack a typical CNR, even with friendly RR, cap transfer or bumps.
Thus, Stalemate.
Orca arrives in mission carrying a Hurricane.
Jag switches to PVP 'Cane, attempts to quickly reestablish a lock, and kills/ransoms CNR. Carebear loses.

A deagress timer would force the ninja to shut off his tackle for 60 seconds - and the CNR simply warps to station. Carebear wins.

If the Orca picked up aggro - I wouldn't really mind that much.
A) Mission runners generally don't carry tackle.
B) Orcas can tank pretty hard, lots of EHP and can carry ECM drones.
C) likely wouldn't be the prime target if a Cane or Sleip is busy killing the bears.

People who think Orcas are being used to 'avoid combat' are fooling themselves. It isn't about escaping - its about transporting sufficient DPS into the mission space to crack faction-fit CNRs, without forcing the ninja to dock up, leave the mission, release tackle on the CNR.

Then the CNR drops expensive loots and/or pays a ransom and you buy PLEX.

If you wanted PvP you would be out looking for fights, not trying to bait and switch mission runners. Call a spade a spade. You want easy ganks.

Are you paying attention? Its not about 'fights' - its about getting expensive mods. Bait and switching mission runners allows you at least a chance of getting the expensive bling that they adorn their CNRs with. How many low-sec dwellers fit their ships with Officer Mods, hmm? Bopping around in Old Man Star blowing up T1 Rifters and T2 Harbingers might be fun, but its certainly not very profitable.

Killing Plain Jane T2 Ravens is all right, but a big part of the attraction is nailing the multibillion dollar mission runner without having to resort to a suicide gank.

Why all the pity for the mission runner that got 'bait and switched'? By definition, Mission Runner must shoot first.

Bear was thinking along the lines of, "Stupid ninja in a Vigil, I think I'll pop him quick, then dock up, just to teach him a lesson."
When the Vigil/Worm/Jag turns the tables, tackles, he tends to be somewhat cocky and talk smack from behind his Pith-X-Large Shield Booster.

Until the Orca arrives, pops out a 'Cane, and the tears flow.

Orca allows you to turn the tables on that kind of opportunistic behavior by mission runners.

Mission bears are hardly an endangered species....do they really need more protection?

Ok... So... You want easy ganks... You want to be able to farm high end mods in high sec with little to no risk. Hmm.... That reminds me of a certain other group...

It also allows a 2 account bear like me to wait for my alts orca to be well and truely on the way before aggressing (loot aggressors will hang around in mission for oblig - pre aggress local smack) and stuff any sub battleship sized mission running boat with aggression into my alts orca and escape your scrambler. If I was real serious about it, I'd probably have a warp stabbed escape boat to avoid podding risk, and a pvp fitted bc of my own to switch to as well.

ie its just another reason why people with 2 accounts escape consequences. ie throwaway character on second acct already patches gates to tell you whats on the other side, and patches stations to have windows.

Further proof that DEVS mostly just mine in high sec and are carebears. There have been many things where you go "no one who actually does pvp in this game would allow this nonsense into the game", the control+click target issue comes to mind.

I imagine (and I could be wrong here) that the reason this wasn't changed in low or null is that you can attack the orca/carrier/rorqual/whatever there, but if this happens in high sec the orca remains invulnerable. I agree an aggression switching mechanic would have been nicer but this is an ok fix in the meantime I guess.

We really just want to rob stuff actually.

Orcas with ships only serve as a tool to help force a mission runner to commit to PVP once they've already decided they want to kill that annoying ninja.

Given that it's already established that there are multiple other ways to establish this force-commit, its a shame that CCP decided to modify this without telling anyone beforehand.

Of course, its a pretty simple calculus they look at. It's not avoiding combat that they care about -- its preserving subscriber numbers while still maintaining an illusion of a sandbox game. It's just a shame that everything except four or five lines of gameplay are glossed over these days.

As others have noted, this doesn't actually change aggression mechanics at all though. I'm waiting for CCP to just disable aggression w/o wardecs in hisec, and for all NPC users in hisec to shortly switch back to NPC corps. That's the direction these 'improvements' in the sandbox lead to. If you don't think this is the direction things are headed, I can only ask you to look at the history of hisec in eve. That's the direction I think these things are headed based on CCPs previous actions.

To those who say we should all go to 'real' space: those who like to NPC in their space would never know peace. You would lose probably half your income-producing grunts that are necessary to pay for sov and all that botted ice. Is that what you really want?

Anyways, as someone said, we should call a spade a spade. There are some people who just want ganks, but our slogan is, 'Not Anchored? TAKE IT!' We're really here for the loots, not aggro. We're still EVE players though, and if someone aggresses us, we like to be able to respond. It's just unfortunate (for us!) that CCP's business interest demands that that be made as difficult as possible. Speaking for TEARS, I just wish CCP's stated intentions and priorities actually meshed with their actions, which they do not. That's all that we are really trying to point out here. Well, that and that our tactics still work.

Hi-sec aggro is definitely not a risk-free exercise. Anyone who has stayed with TEARS for more than a nominal time implicitly accepts that. It takes effort, preparation, planning, and awareness. In many ways these are no different than running a low-sec or null-sec operation. The rewards you get out are generally relatable to the amount and care of planning you put in. There is always a very real risk of your target or even some random third party having planned better than you and turning the tables.

If CCP actually cared about people 'avoiding' combat, they would do things like make the agression redock/jump timer actually take longer than the average warp-to-station time in a system, fix the way aggression timers desynch across system jumps (a known problem in all sec levels, though its implications in hisec are rather different), give RR ships a redock timer, and the like. Their actions speak to a completely different set of intentions.

Either way, we'll still be in your missions and stealing your stuff, at least until CCP starts instancing grids and making them impossible to scan. Have fun!

What rubbish. Its avoiding consequenceless combat that CCP care about, and thats what you get when you can put your 'cane BACK in the orca if you are losing.

Ejecting from a ship starts a session timer. You aren't getting into a new one fast enough to keep the target around if you have to eject and have the orca scoop.