Poetic Discourse: A Couple Simple Changes to Off-Grid Boosting

By Poetic Stanziel | Aug 20th 2012 2:44PM
79 Comments

EVE University graduate. Drama Llama. Covert operations pilot. Poetic Stanziel has been very active in the blogging community bringing views from seasoned high-sec pilots, we please to share his stories and views on current Eve Online events and invite you to read more stories from his Poetic Discourse blog.

Poetic Discourse: A Couple Simple Changes to Off-Grid Boosting

On-grid boosting is a technical hurdle for CCP. So the idea of off-grid boosting is likely not going to change anytime soon, if ever.

There are a couple changes that could be made to off-grid boosting, that would limit it’s abuse. One change should be fairly simple to implement, the other might be a tad more involved.

Scale Boosting to Fleet Size
Give only a proportion of the boosting bonus dependent upon the number of people in fleet.

Set some number to be the baseline at which 100% of boosting bonuses are received by a fleet. Let’s say that number is 50, a full wing. If a fleet only has 2 members in it, then the boosting bonus given to both members is 2/50th (1/25th) of the maximum. If there are 27 people in fleet, then the boosting bonus is 27/50th of the maximum.

This change would limit the viability of using off-grid boosters for small-gang (and 1v1) battles.

Forcefield Proximity
Off-grid boosting is non-functional if the boosting ship is on-grid with a forcefield. (The technical reason would be interference.)

This eliminates risk-free POS boosting, and limits AFK boosting. Boosting ships can now be scanned down and killed.

Thoughts? I’m not sure the viability of either suggestion, but on the face of it, they seem to solve two problems with off-grid boosters. Do these changes do what they are intended to do? Or, are there simple ways around them?

- Poetic Stanziel

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  • grasskit

    scalability youre proposing would further nerf small gang pvp, and deny them only advantage they had going when engaging outnumbered. good job

  • Anom

    Boosting shouldn't be allowed in POS's but the % thing is retarded

  • splo

    This idea is stupid.

  • Anom

    The only idea i liked was that off-grid boosting only affected one squad, which would make it so it only works for a small gang but means for large gangs you need an on-grid booster

    • Anon

      People spend time training to boost more, you don't just automatically boost an entire fleet.

  • wot ever

    another retard idea from a retarded person.

  • ANRGY MAN

    Boosting should be only on-grid, uncloaked, and pants down. Period.

    • ^^THAT

      ^^THIS

      • ^^That

        ^^Yep

    • herp_de_derp

      This man obviously lives in either low or highsec. No one in nullsec thinks off grid boosting is a problem. In null, every fleet has off grid boosts to the point where you look retarded without them. And for you high sec guys, forget about boosting from your orca in a pos, those days will be gone too, same for anyone who flys a rorqual and seiges it. Although I wouldn't mind seeing an unprobable seige rorqual fit…

      • ANRGY MAN

        I live in null. Null is full of pansies, too.

    • UdrankKoolaid

      There are ways of getting around a booster or forcing a booster on grid, and it don't take many brain cells. Half the time squad commanders die cutting the bonus's….gate crashing if you are sure the booster has warped off. plus the bonus T3 is paper thin….stop bitching and train up a pilot yourself.

  • lugalbandak

    no . will nerf the 24/7 pirate camps with off grid boost and insta lock canes

  • 0.o Grunt

    limiting boosting like that would remove the Rorq from being a viable booster. To effectively add this NERF sieging would have to be changed, and that would affect dreads, carriers, and such. -1 to your post.

  • Suzume

    There's a few ways around pos-shielded boosters. If you're not seeing it, telling you about it really won't help. Also, miners will complain.

    The % thing is mindless.

  • Corteztk

    I had a discussion about this last night in AAA alliance chat. I had seen something in notes somewhere that CCP wanted to change off grid boosting. Lots of people responded to me saying that is a terrible idea and it would destroy boosting. Then someone came up with a GOLD level idea. Make boosting distance dependent. IE if the booster is on the same grid 100% boosts. Within 1AU maybe 80% boosts. 1AU or more lets say 50 or 60% boosts.

    Why? because grids suck and a fleet can be on two grids pretty easily. So making them distance based allows for the grid to suck without screwing over your boosts much. EVE though is a risk vs rewards game so off grid boosts should not have the same effect as on grid boosts because the risk isn't the same.

    Just a quick thought rather than making pos shields completely destroy boosts just make "POS interference" reduce them by a further 10 or 20%.

    PS I think they should get tank boosts to go with this change so they are very very hard to Alpha.

    • nerds unite

      its a pretty good idea, but as the "demand" seems to be to curtail the small gang use of off grids for gate camoing etc.. (as its going to be static in system in a pos this would be the most logical application of off grid plus its how I've seen it commonly used)

      the flaw being some systems have moons very close to gates /stations so your distance dependance would have to be very short indeed (10,000km maybe) else it'll only fix half the problem

  • asdf

    Your first suggestion benefits the blob and it's just horrible idea.

    Second is better, but doesn't really address this issue. When offgrid boosts are needed, they can be used pretty easily still without much hassle. The right way to really address this is to change command ship boosts to 5% and make T3 get only 3% boost. Combined with POS boost block, this would give ongrid boosting the advance it deserves, without braking the game.

  • Treston Cal

    I was thinking the same exact thing. Also, command ships would be pointless unless you had a blob, so fuck the "proportion idea'. When was this mechanic ever broken anyways? You can still kill the ships that are getting boosted and there is a reason you get assigned a fleet/squad/wing booster role. I could understand if any command ship boosted, and they penalized that – everyone would probably be flying a blob of command ships if this was the case.

  • Space troll

    Another idiot who took off his tinfoil hat. byo commandship!

  • lern to reed

    He's saying that if the boosting ship is IN the POS, boost won't work – which makes total sense.

    Confirming YOU'RE retarded, retard.

  • The Martini

    Boosting is fine. Take your ideas to the forums and discuss them there than to make them into articles.

  • https://www.facebook.com/david.m.grogan David Grogan

    nerfing boosting inside a pos would render the industrial core on rorquals useless…. noone will wanna indy siege a rorqual outside the pos bubble cos it cant move while in industrial siege mode. also it has no defences whilst in indy siege mode.

    • nonme

      if pos changes come with no ff the roqual and orca suffers the same problem ….

    • Widot grunt

      Can always rat with it . . .

    • M1k3y

      Industrial core allows for ore compression, not bonuses (those are given out through normal links like those of an Orca) so sit it 100m outside the POS and if a cyno goes up it will survive.

  • Sha

    they should just make boosting a ship that is more than 200kms away 50% less effective…and pooof…problems solved.

  • Never Trust A Goon

    ccp cant even get it so you dont get 11 members into a 10 man squad. any changes to boosting will be screwed from the get go, mostly due to there crappy programing. they should try fixing something that is broken( UI, Sov, Supers, wanking in stations etc etc)
    currently all fleets benfit from the same rules. you can probe down all t3's if you have the skills and ability. so i really dont see why everyone is moaning about it tbh, its like people just need to winge about something.

  • http://twitter.com/Oddsodz @Oddsodz

    Risk / Reward. Off grid boosting be it in a POS or not is 0/1% risk with 100% reward. Off-grid boosting t3's are near on impossible to scan down (it can be done. but it takes a good/high skilled probber to do it) I Am all for the removal of "Off-Grid" boosting. You want that extras advantage, You should have some sort of RISK for it. Right now this is no risk

    • Oh Dear

      It's easy; you're doing it wrong.

      • http://twitter.com/Oddsodz @Oddsodz

        Alas do a lot of things wrong, but I know when an something is far to easy to do and give a great reward. But has no counter? Na, I am right and you are all wrong. hahahah Don't like my thinking,. HTFU. Off-grid boosting is just not in line with risk-reward of EVE. I can not wait for the day when DEV's get rid of it. (So amny gate camps and so called "SOLO PVPER's" will cry so hard with out their little boosting buddys off-grid (maybe not one pilot and his orca on gates, I Am looking at you FuzzyButt). I Will add that mining links need not be nuffed is this manner. I have no issue with orcas and rorquals staying inside a POS/off-grid and giving boosts. they are not helping a combat environment

        • http://twitter.com/Oddsodz @Oddsodz

          dam my fail spelling

        • كوكايين

          The counter to an off-grid booster is one cloaky prober, you don't even need very good probing skills(in game skills) they are fairly easy to probe(if you actually know how to probe).

    • Budge

      If you can't scan down an off-grid booster then your just bad at scanning, and should probably leave scanning to someone that knows what they're doing, and not comment on topic you know little, to nothing about.

    • Tinfiol hat

      Don't give me that risk vs reward, learn how to play this game or GTFB to WOW

    • wut?

      Unscanable OG boosters are gone since over 2 years now. My probing skills are shit at best, but give me 2 mins and ill probe out any OG boosting T3. Lrn2Eve

    • XIX Pilot

      Try to use your own booster :)

  • guest

    when you guys that dont like the off grid boost come up with how you solve the rorq problem, Then we can talk about it. Before that this is pointless

  • Mario

    Boosting seems fine as it is, stop being bad an bring your own off grid boosters.

    Its called a defenders advantage, and it should not be changed.

    • M1k3y

      It takes 15 minutes to set up and stront a small pos to park your offgrid boosters at.

      There's no home field advantage.

    • ~deal with it~

      I have to agree with this. I don't feel there are enough home field advantages the way it is.

  • Indy guy

    Conferming shit poster of the year. The Rorqual would be made useless with these so called changes. Small gand 1v1 warfare is sparce but does exist you only have to find it.This game has evolved a lot over thwe past 9 years, any changes CCP makes should be changes that improve gameplay not revert into its former play. By God man if you cannot out DPS a loney pirate gate camp with brute force who only
    know to watch sentry gun aggro you are doing wrong! What say the mining community?

  • Jason

    Off-grid boosting is needed b/c blobs instapop anything that's on grid, change like this would only encourage more blobing, which is bad for the game, nobody like tidi fights, and CCP should be making changes to encourage smaller engagements, which is what off-grid boosting does. Not to mention(like many have already said on this page) this would kill null sec mining, and nerf nullsec industry in general.

    Bad idea? or ridiculous idea? not sure which……

    • Addrake

      Also there are plenty of fleet comps that the CS boosters just don't fit into well, or at all. It's hard enough to dodge getting volleyed by a 300 man fleet, you literally would be giving a HUGE bonus (links) to the side that can bring enough alpha to volley the FC/WC's first.

      Do we really want to encourage that type of blob warfare even more than it already has been?

  • Poastin Toaster

    Scale boosting to fleet size would be a bad idea. People shouldnt be penalized for not having full fleets.

  • DarthNefarius

    Will the Wing Commander boosts be fixed before they change off grid boosts? Its been broken for how many years now?

    • masterochi

      AMEN to this. CCP should fix fleets, so that ALL features work!

  • fuck

    remove OGB, it is retarded.

  • InternetIdiots

    First idea is pants on head retarded, second idea is just you parroting what a hundred people have already said…great blog as usual.

  • Anon

    The percentage thing is just another way to keep smaller groups from benefitting as much as large. And offgrid boosting is part of the game, simple enough turn off the modules when inside a POS shield.

  • Anon

    Thoughts?

    You are an idiot.

  • http://twitter.com/TarsasPhage @TarsasPhage

    The only people who complain about off-grid boosters are people who can't (or for reasons of il-conceived spacebushido, won't) bring them themselves. These people might as well complain about neutral alts, but also in the same breath defend AFK cloaking.

    As for boosting from POSes, changes denying that will affect more than just PVP. Wormhole PVE and mining everywhere, for example, will either force rorqs and orcas out of their POS (yeah, right!) or people will stop using them altogether because it's not worth the risk or hassle. Likely, the latter.

    I believe in the "home field advantage" – so if you come in /my/ home system, expect a boosting t3 or two sitting in my POS. Hurt over that? Then get creative and ninja your own POS to boost from and even the field. Oh, I know it's :effort: but that's your own problem to deal with.

    Leave gang links the way they are. The people arguing against them, or for drastically changing them, are people who believe that they absolutely have to find something "wrong" with something in EVE, and boosting is their whipping boy for now.

  • kron mcfly

    this is a non issue

  • Random Eve Guy

    Give all fleet commandships buffer or resistance type bonus (like the damnation). Reduce DPS even further (massively). Allow them to break 500k EHP with command bonus to their tank, without expensive equipment. Expensive tanking mods just gets it even higher.

    Change
    Fleet Command get +5% to their race links, +3% to off-race links
    T3s get +3% to their race links, +0% to off-race links.

    Now, there is an incentive to bring Fleet commands, they can survive for a while, and they are more typically used on-grid (since they are much more easily probed down). Also, since they are highly survivable and limited dps, they are the ship of choice for FCs, since they can concentrate on managing the fleet. It also gives the enemy fleet a tactical decision, do they spend the time to try to take down the commandship first, or work through other targest beforehand.

    • M1k3y

      I agree that CSs should be better than or at LEAST as good as the T3s.

      T3s can do anything that a T2 ship can, but not as well. Their logi sub isn't as good as a logistics cruiser, their EWAR sub isn't as good as a recon etc.

      • MANBEAR

        Yes. This.

  • nulab

    i dont see the problem with OG boosting, i so think the bonus's should be reversed, T3 off grid boosters 3% per level of sub and on grid command ships 5% per level.

  • Makalu_Zarya

    Worthless thread that should've never even been posted but in any case I'll address some of the issues.

    1. Yes off-grid boosting is not fair…but it's only not fair if the enemy doesn't have the same thing. And frankly in this day and age most large entities have no problems bringing enough T3s to cover multiple fleets. It's even easier with smaller entities which don't need to bring 6 command ships per fleet. If you don't have one…suck it up and train it, or buy an alt.

    2. POS boosting…hang on let me just park this rorqual outside a pos and we can start mining no problem….oh shit is that a titan!?!?!?!….yea…not gonna happen.

    3. Command ships vs T3s….I am in favor of command ships being more powerful than T3s, or in any case having the same 5% bonus…at the end of the day the difference is really not THAT much however. The bigger problem is that due to their large sigs and generally speed issues and fleet with over 100 dps ships in it will simply wipe out most command ships. So until command ships have tanks that at least half a carrier tank it's not gonna happen frankly.

    off grid boosting is here to stay…don't like it…get your own alt and level the playing field.

  • EN24 Requires a Name

    I love people that complain about off grid boosting. POS boosting should be changed, yes, at least for combat boosting. Mining boosting is something that should not be look at the same as combat boosting mainly due to the economic and industry problems it can cause. Now off grid boosting, No, that should not be nerf or changed in anyways.

    Off grid T3 booster are expensive and fragile, looking at them the wrong way can get it killed, but it is a very valid tactic that should be used by the players. The bigger problem that people are not willing to look at is unprobable ships. Make it so a ship can not become unprobable and bam you have nerfed off grid boosting by making it a lot more risky.

  • thatguy

    I think that the new EVE news site named after a prominent member of GSF makes this one look like shit.

    This comment will get deleted, but I only found out about it due to someone else making a post like this one and I am grateful I did.

    Good bye EN24

  • h0b0101

    i park my booster at a gate.. im that cool

  • RandomGuy

    This is fine for combat, pretty much, as far as ongrid is a full boost. However, also take into account the special case, the rorqual. Nobody is going to deploy a rorq outside the forcefield, and that would also crash the mineral prices again, and those are insane already.

  • Tib

    T3s are supposed to be a jack of all trades so they shouldn't be able to give the incredi-boosts that they do currently. Also Command Ships need a boost to tank and bonuses. Command Ship bonuses should be the same as T3 links are at the moment. T3 links should be nerfed so that they give say a 3% bonus but to all gang links no matter what race whereas Command Ships should stay race specific. Commands shouldn't be easily blappable and should be the no.1 choice for FCs. That would stop enemy fleets popping all the opposing FCs at the start of a fight. Rorqs et al should be left alone as far as mining is concerned. I don't see any probs with off grid bonuses other than that because the bonus T3s are so paper thin they can be blown away by a particularly vehement fart let alone actual guns so they should be able to sit in a POS. This also gives an element of home ground advantage which I think is fair.

  • Tib

    Just as an addendum. How about making T3 bonuses include mining gang links and have mining and other industrial subsystems for T3s? Or even a separate ORE T3? Would mean that u could mine pretty much anywhere u fancied in 0.0 within reason (Dons flame retardent suit and hides under table…)

    • Tech Wut?

      LOL and your even able to fit the cloaky sub the nulli sub and able to fit 1 strip miner 2 with 300% yield bonus.

  • OMGFrigates Warpout

    "There are a couple changes that could be made to off-grid boosting, that would limit it’s abuse."__This to me set the tone of your article. I would argue that using the ability of a ship that is made avaliable via the game design isn't an abuse. Its a function of the ship.

  • Concerned

    Why is it whenever there's a problem, people get out the nerf bats?

    I have no problem with off Grid boosts….

    My concern is that T3's are better at it then command ships, which is kind of defeating the purpose of them….

    Maybe you make on-grid boosts more effective, thus making people want to commit command ships to the field rather then hide them away in POS's, after all, at the end of the day an off-grid booster is one less ship you have to fight…. ok it might be someone dual boxing, but you know what I often dual box 2 combat ships on grid, so the point still remains, it's one less fleet member you have to fight, so if they want to off-grid boost, by all means….

    • Tech Wut?

      This man here knows eve.

    • MANBEAR

      These ideas are really good.

      1. Make on-grid boosters a *bit* better than off-grid but not *tons* better.
      2. Make command ships good again! (Now when people are really used to having links everywhere, maybe command ships will get used more.)

  • Rail J'Kar

    I agree that off-grid-boosting is poor game play. I would prefer to see this changed to ranged aura boosting or more powerful directed buffs / debuffs you can 'cast' on other players. This change would effectively change command ships into some sort of mage class. Obviously this would require module reworking as well.

    • Rail J'Kar

      I figured I'd mention this concept would work much the way current e-war works. Add the ability to increase or decrease resists (at a reasonable level), increase or decrease rr effectiveness, give protection against various types of ewar or cap warfare (In particular, I like the idea of a feed back ability that would nuke the cap of someone trying to neut your target), and a host of other possible abilities.

      I think a league of legends style effect duration and cool down timers would be beneficial for this style of game play. Make it more active, less passive. I think this will increase the entertainment value.

      • Tech Wut?

        This isnt some shitty pay to win game. Lets leave them comparisons out of this convo.

  • joe null

    I heard someone come up with a couple of ideas i liked: 1) boosting gives you an agression timer, 2) boosting gives the boosting ship a MWD like sig flare.

    • Tech Wut?

      You Are a Fucking Retard…Lets boost that.

  • Peggy from prime

    Boosters are fine off grid – just as AWACS provide electonic support and make fighters more efficient from an " off grid" Location so do command ships and t3's.

    Get over it.

  • lol

    "Set some number to be the baseline at which 100% of boosting bonuses are received by a fleet. Let’s say that number is 50, a full wing. If a fleet only has 2 members in it, then the boosting bonus given to both members is 2/50th (1/25th) of the maximum. If there are 27 people in fleet, then the boosting bonus is 27/50th of the maximum."

    Worst idea ever

  • Fuck PoePoe

    Leave the fucking game alone already. Stop thinking you know or have any clue of what this game should run like you useless FW frigate flying no-it-all.

  • http://www.incomeabroad.com/ Jobb Abros

    A quality time spent reading the content of this post!

  • i got this

    Allow remote tracking enhancers, remote eccm, and other remotely projected mods to be focused upon command ships and those effects applied to wing or squad members. Problem solved.