So, we're changing Corp Hangars on ships in Retribution.
Why?
The short version is that the current technical implementation is an unnecessary maintenance burden; and we don't feel that the complexity of the design is justified by the value it delivers.
On the technical side, the same code is handling corp hangars in stations, starbases and ships. Given that ships in particular are clearly not the same thing as stations, it should not be surprising that there is a lot of horrible special-casing in the code to make this work. The end result, in this case, is a chunk of code that's broken in lots of different interesting ways; the fixes for which are generally mutually exclusive; many of which are effectively unfixable; and for which any potential changes are a QA nightmare to validate.
On the design side, the specific functionality that corp hangars are providing – allowing you to control ship access using corp roles – is overkill for the large majority of use cases; doesn't work consistently (the role checks are only applied to players from your corp); has serious issues with NPC corps; places hidden design tripwires everywhere (who owns the contents of a corp hangar – the pilot or the corporation?); and are in aggregate increasing the complexity of the game in a manner that we do not feel is justified in this case.
What's changing?
Corp hangars on ships will be transformed into fleet hangars:
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The total volume will stay the same
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Divisions and all reliance on corp roles is gone
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Only the pilot will be able to open or remove containers in fleet hangars, although any pilot can drop items onto them to place them in the container
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You will now be able to set "allow fleet usage" and "allow corp usage" independently for both fleet hangar and the ship maintenance bays (on ships only, not on starbases at this time)
- These settings will now be stored per-ship on the server, so a given ship will always keep its last settings
In this image you can see the "fleet" and "corp" buttons next to the Ship Maintenance Bay and Fleet Hangar, which are used to set access permissions on each
Additional changes related to this:
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We're adding a range of new non-compressive containers to the "freight container" line (volumes in m3 are 1k, 5k, 10k, 50k, 250k)
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All special bays on ships that are not your main cargo will now behave like your main cargo when it comes to ship scanners and loot drop chances; this includes fleet hangars, ore holds, fuel holds and so on. Specifically, they will all allow their contents to show up on scanners, and they will all have a chance to drop their contents as loot. Ship maintenance bays are somewhat special: they will be scannable (ie, ships but not their modules or cargo can show up in results), but they won't be dropping assembled ships as loot
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Ship and cargo scanners will no longer randomize the stack size/number of modules they return: for any stack or module that they successfully detect, they will report the correct size/count
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Blockade Runners are being updated to be immune to cargo scanners, and as such will always show up as empty on scans
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Freighters will have most of their special-case restrictions removed: they will now be able to perform cargo operations in space, including moving items into and out of containers, moving things to and from containers in space, and jettisoning items
- We're removing the restriction on simultaneous users for *all* ship fitting arrays, both on ships and on starbases: an unlimited number of pilots will be able to refit at a single ship or structure
Additional changes that are largely unrelated but seemed like a good idea given that we were looking at the code anyway:
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Starbase forcefield passwords are now stored per-character on the server, so you'll always have the most recent password you entered set until you enter a new one
- The "lock/unlock" setting on audit log containers is now stored per-container on the server, rather than per-character on the client
Why are you removing divisions? They're useful!
Yes, they are. However, we're currently of the opinion that they're not *necessary*, we don't feel that they're adding a lot of value in the most common use cases, and as such we're treating them as a case of unnecessary complexity.
The changes to container behavior in fleet hangars, the new containers, and existing inventory features such as filters, should allow most (but not all) of the current functionality to be replicable in the new system. There will, though, be some cases in which the new system is less useful than the old system. We acknowledge this, and we understand that the changeover will be frustrating for some people, but we need to get the complexity of EVE under control and doing so is going to require functionality downgrades in certain areas. This is annoying but unavoidable.
My Orca-hauling backbone!
Yup. The immunity of corp hangars (and other special bays) to scans and their inability to drop loot was a neat workaround, but it was also essentially unfinished functionality, rather than an intentional feature. We recognize the need for secure hauling in the current environment, hence the scan immunity on blockade runners, but feel that the way it's being provided currently is unintuitive and clunky,
and that the "safe hauling" capacity on Orcas is unnecessarily large. Blockade runners should pick up the slack on high-value, low-volume items, while for higher-volume shipments, we're leaving it up to players to figure out how to handle the new situation.
(We're not making any changes to plastic wrap right now, but it has significant technical issues which will likely see it being reworked at some point down the line.)
- CCP Greyscale
Interesting… I wonder how long before people are mining into freighters, or into Orca and thus into freighter? I don't mine as much anymore but there was a time this would have made my whole weekend…
December 5th.
4th *
This makes total sense for the blockade runner, also I am not so bothered about the corp hangers.
I'm also unsure on the hanger changes, but.. meh I'll make it work.
The frieghter and blockade runner changes are awesome.
This: "•Starbase forcefield passwords are now stored per-character on the server, so you'll always have the most recent password you entered set until you enter a new one" – I wonder… does this function as advertised for dealing with multiple POS's with multiple passwords?
no
Welp. Sit freighter in belt. Mine till your heart explode.
I bet James 315 is having a canipition over this prospect
Step 1: 100mn Stabber
Step 2: Bump freighter repeatedly
Step 3: Laugh uncontrollably as miner rages in belt and is unable to move/warp his freighter at all as its being bumped around constantly.
That almost sounds amusing enough to resub for a bit.
For those who live in game, yes.
/this!
"Sir! There's a machariel bumping a freighter in an ice belt and its full of ice."
"Prepare the oracles."
Freighter tanking for the lolmails: Now 87.6% easier!
*ganking
Or we could gank the bumping mach, create some delicious griefer tears :3
Would probably take only 4 tornados in an ice system to kill a tankless mach… one fit up purely for bump
less for a stabber ^_^
Who says the Machs are tankless?
And if you're willing to waste tr3 BCs on stabbers that cost next to nothing when fully fit, well, go for it.
Ganking frieghters ull of ICE would be very unprofitable
Great, anther BS explanation for nerfing hangars…
Thx ccp, for the boost to highsec mining. It was really needed
loving these changes, at least one well thought out thing done by the ccp, now medium size alliances will need blockade runner pilots to move stuff, Good, orca will no longer be used for hauling and freighters will have a purpose again, its all good but (though im sure i missed something) other than the tracktor beams why would u not use a freighter in mining ops rather than orca now?
A well skilled orca's mining bonuses are more then enough reason in mining ops.
The Orca bonuses as Erroch mentioned, but also the consolidation of mined ore/ice for a Freighter to pick up. Orca collects and freighter warps to Orca and picks up.
how long does it take to get your frieghter in to warp? your orca?
and highsec was made safer for pubbies
In your dreams pubbie!
How safer again? Didn't see anything pointing to safer.
I think he's referring to blockade runners… it wont stop them from being ganked, it will just become a game of russian roulette
Enter a new EVE sport… ganking blockade runners and hoping to the loot fairy something drops
so Orca is kinda pointless other then as a mining bonus ship and you can't easily control and use corp hangers as they are being removed configuring for fleet or corp general use.. got it nice complicated and less ease of use for players, especially in wormholes / general use.
Note.. 'on ships only, not on starbases at this time'.. = soon to be rolled out on stations and POS when we can figure out how to make those more difficult to use, because at the moment that's a challenge.
CCP removing game content for their own laziness and ease every month… got to say little things = win
Viators are already OP, why are they stacking another bonus on it? Seems like a quick sewn solution for the problem, if there is even a problem that needs to be solved.
a viator can barely hold anything, and now this will make them pop all the time, simply because they are easy to kill, and people will hope for a drop of 1000 plexes… lol
I can see this hilariously leading to a lot of losses for mostly empty blockade runners as people start rolling the dice on them.
I am going to miss my flexible partition sizes in my carrier's corp hanger. I can't really use the containers if I ever want to be able to swap out more then one cap mod in the field.
I do really like the scanning chnages though.
And they -finally- fixed secure containers reverting to lock on add! That has annoyed me for six years now.
blockade runners are those warpcore stabbed cruiser sized ships which can reach the ehp of a freighter. its not like you can alpha one of those with a tornado
Though technically the cloaky ones could be considered blockade runners as well…
Says both are "transport" so not quite sure.
cloaky = blockade runner
stabbed = deep space transport
iirc?
confirmed
Why the :censored: would CCP expect people to use warp stabbed haulers in "deep space" which is (imo) 0.0, what with bubbles and all…
They are being used as the cloaky ones have shit space
Corp hangars on Pos's need different fields that can be assigned to trusted people. Divisions are needed. The amoun tof corp theft will skyrocket if we dont have some control over at least potions of hangars.
so Orca is kinda pointless other then as a mining bonus ship
So… as its intention?
Just good old fashioned pen and paper to keep track of who mined what and how much
Orca gives mega mining bonuses, so why would anyone take a frieghter to a belt? Also, that big bitch would be so easy for people to fuck with. The James' retard bumpers brigade will be out in full force… god I hate role players.
The next burn (whatever) event will involve ganking blockade runners…
James 315, Saviour of Highsec only wants to teach miners how to properly operate in highsec
… yeah, that's the stuff i'm talkin' about
(We're not making any changes to plastic wrap right now, but it has significant technical issues which will likely see it being reworked at some point down the line.)… my foot is going to kick someone in the ass at mach 3 when this goes down.
and off grid boosting nerf + plus this means orca is useless… up next Rorquals … yep, your turn bitches.
If they nerf off-grid boosting for mining foreman links they only prove they are in fact, fucking retarded. The whole argument about off-grid bonuses was the combat advantage it gave people. Foreman links do nothing of the sort, unless they want to start letting us mine ships.
We're cleaning up old code and we are too lazy/cheap to properly re-write it so we'll be calling this, "getting the complexity under control" instead of a nerf since we're not nerfing it on purpose, just accidently nerfing it out of not having the motivation to do the job properly. Also, we know this will completely screw people in wormholes who have to live out of POS's, but fuck them.
To be honest, no big deal where corp hangers are concerned. Not sure if all the people bitching know this, but there's a secure container called a station warehouse (also container roles)…
All-in-all, great tweaks. REMEMBER POS PASSWORD FTW!!!
YET ANOTHER GREAT GREYSCALE FIX!
When is CCP going to show that fucking fool the front door? He isn't listening to anyone in what he is doing he is making things the way HE would like them to be.
His great changes to the SOV system etc have all worked out really well so this should be an event in it's self, only problem is Greyscales a retard that has either never played the game or when he has it's been in a NOOB ship hanging around Jita or something.
meh another reason not to resub imo… eve used to be a fun game now it is just crap…. bad sov system, crap payout in bounties for 90% of null sec, too many supers,nerfed incursions/fw, ccp greyscale probably just killed industry and replaced it with freighter/orca gank online. im glad i unsubbed now…. bring on star citizen.
There are going to be dozens, if not hundreds, of people jumping from gate-to-gate trying to learn the 'align/MWD/cloak' method of moving stuff. Good skills for later, if they come out to 0.0.
As an added bonus, the forum tears of gankers getting Concorded for no gain, or being unable to lock fast enough to catch Blockade Runners will be epic.
"Viators are already OP!" Really?