It’s been a while since I felt the urge to put some thoughts about Eve into words. Frankly, I just haven’t had the patience after writing about ridiculous things like curbing force projection and escalating sovereignty costs. Topics completely irrelevant and unnecessary in this game. So I’m going to stick to just having fun with words, like I did with my last article about the horrendous EULA-violating names that CCP doesn’t do anything about.
In the wake of the Fight That Wasn’t in HED-GP, the latest instalment in CCP’s war on wars, I spent a lot of time discussing what happened (yes, I was there and didn’t lose my dread) on the forums and on Eve Radio (Wednesdays at 00:00 Eve Time – shameless plug). Those discussions made my head hurt, mainly because there are just too many shitbird trolls who would prefer the game remain broken so long as their preferred side suffers because of it. Ouch, head starting to hurt again. Anyway, I, like so many others opined on what CCP could do to fix the game to support large-scale conflict or discourage it through various means, including changes to the objectives in sov warfare. Either that or just come clean with the player base by being open about the fact that these types of fights just weren’t possible and that their marketing efforts were way out ahead of their technological capabilities.
But then I started to think, to hell with that. CCP doesn’t need to be focusing on how to cure soul-crushing, mega lag. This is a sandbox and the players need to figure out. If we all want to be a bunch of mongoloids banging our heads against the wall, we probably shouldn’t cry to CCP that our heads hurt. If we don’t want lag that turns our clients into mush or forces us to sit in a 30-minute battle for 7 hours, maybe we the players should smarten up and do things differently. CCP has much bigger things that it should be focusing on with their money. And no, I don’t mean flushing it down the toilet on DUST or creating Walking in Stations with Space Vampires. We need changes that help us enjoy the game more by playing less. And we also need more of these nifty deployables. Because let’s be honest, Team Useless Space Shit is already the busiest bunch of devs in Iceland these days, so creating a few more will have the side benefit of helping them stay employed a while longer.
Let’s start right at the heart of the matter. Sure there was an 80% increase in the number of drones used in HED-GP versus the previous massively multiplayer lagfest in 6VDT. But drone assist isn’t broken. It’s just peaking in popularity among the masses. Forget about the fact that it is probably the single biggest contributor to tidi, lag and the occasional server crash. It’s working as intended and all of Eve is now taking full advantage of it. It’s kind of like the end of a bull market in stocks where even grandma is dropping her retirement money into Slippers.com or Greek banks.
Now some may disagree and think that sentry drones are OP and assisting 1,250 to 2,500 drones to one pilot is game shattering. But I think we can all agree that it still requires too much effort, and being completely AFK is all but impossible should someone scream out “BOMBS!!!” or the FC needs to warp the fleet. Assisting drones needs to be enhanced to provide for better player enjoyment of walking away from their computers. Hence, I propose the following:
First, assisting drones to another pilot (aka the Drone Bunny) puts them in total control of those drones so long as they remain assisted. They don’t just fire on the target the Drone Bunny fires upon. He/she (she, yeah right) can also instruct those drones to return to their drone bay. Countless drones are lost to bombs or left to pollute space due to fleet warps and this would solve that issue far better than trying to wake up some slobbering pilot who is busy fapping or eating BBQ spare ribs (probably both). If drones can automatically return to their bays due to a disconnect, a current game mechanic designed to protect the investment of PVEers, there should be no reason the Drone Bunny cannot give them a similar command. Now before you ask, no, I am not advocating that the Drone Bunny should be able to deploy the drones for you. That would be ludicrous. He/He can’t have control over them until you, the slobbering pilot grants it. But there is no question that he should be able to tell those drones to go home so you can have a more pleasurable gaming experience.
Second, since the Drone Bunny has control over the drones that you have assisted to him, he should be able to re-assign those drones to a secondary Drone Bunny. There are a multitude of scenarios where this would be useful. First and foremost, TiDi inducing battles are marathons and quite troublesome for those who have a meeting to attend, a child’s birthday, or the opportunity to make sweet, sweet love. Let’s not forget bio breaks or the need to nuke a Hot Pocket. Thus, being able to switch out to a secondary Drone Bunny without bothering the slobbering pilots is paramount for many an FC. Secondarily, should the primary Drone Bunny be in jeopardy of being killed, he can re-assist the drones to a new designate in order to maintain continuity of the battle. Finally, we all know the metagame is in Eve is a thing and that should be no different when it comes to drone assist. Discovering and eliminating the Drone Bunny is already attempted on a routine basis, but there really is no good counter for this, until now. By reassigning drones on a rotating basis between multiple Bunnies, a fleet could effectively make the opponent chase shadows and sow confusion among their spies. No longer would even your own fleet members know for sure who is controlling those drones, let alone the opposition. Sneaky, sneaky.
So your drone assist fleet is sitting 150 kilometers off of an enemy drone assist fleet exchanging volleys. What you need is a secret weapon. Enter the Piranha Drone. This drone works similarly to a salvager drone in that once deployed it actively seeks out enemy drones for destruction without the need for active targeting by the originating ship. Normal drone control range would apply and each of these drones would be only 2.5 m3 in volume, thus allowing for significant numbers to be carried. Damage would be equivalent to Warrior I’s but twice the speed. Oh, and they are immune to smartbomb damage. Well, maybe not. But they can cloak while in transit. OK, maybe not.
Pilots are lazy and growing lazier with each passing year in Eve and the FC of any fleet is often tasked with warping their fleet from place to place within a solar system. But it is high time we ramp this up so that pilots can spend their time doing the types of things they would really rather be doing. And that isn’t flying from gate to gate. We need the ability for commanders in a fleet to not only warp other fleet members, but also jump them through gates. Traveling is a necessary evil in New Eden, but that doesn’t mean we need to rely on autopilot or manually traverse gates on our own when we have an FC who is more than willing to move the fleet in unison. Now, before you ask, the answer is no. You have to dock yourself or click the Titan yourself. But standard travel? Fly the friendly skies to your destination and rest up before you assist your drones.
Currently, Titans are the kings of the hill when it comes to generating single shot damage through the use of their doomsday weapons. But Titans are cumbersome pieces of hardware, and quite frankly, pretty pricey. There has to be a way of generating a similar damage profile using lesser ships more readily available to the common pilot. I hereby introduce to you, the Capital Squad Link Weapon System. For all intents and purposes, this is a mid-slot device that would allow a squad of up to 10 Dreadnoughts to synchronize their weapons systems while in siege to generate a Doomsday-like, focused beam of energy directed at other capital class vessels. The weapon could not be used individually and would require at least 1 Squad Commander and 1 Squad member, all using the same racial dreadnought. The combined damage of 10-max skilled dreadnoughts would be equivalent to 1.5 million HP, or one-half of the damage from a max skilled Titan Doomsday weapon. The fuel and energy costs would be proportionate to a Doomsday-class weapon, requiring 2,500 GJ of capacitor and 5,000 racial isotopes. A new skill would also be introduced to govern the effectiveness of the weapon’s output. Fuck Omega Fleet. We all know standard dreads don’t work right in drone-induced Tidi so max out your topes and let’s generate some real alpha.
OK, so I know I’ve thrown a lot at you so far, but we’ve yet to touch on the new arena of deployable mobile units that CCP has spent so much time and effort to provide us. Yeah, we’re all familiar with the Mobile Siphon Unit that allows bitches to steal our goo; the Mobile Tractor Unit, which really should also have a salvager (if we don’t have to loot why should we have to salvage??); the Mobile Cyno jammer; and the Mobile Depot, probably the handiest new tools of the bunch. However, we’ve also got some crazy new shit coming out like the Mobile Micro Jump Unit, Mobile Scan Inhibitor, and of course, the Encounter Surveillance System. And if they’re putting those out, we need more…
Mobile Drone Assimilator – A mobile deployable unit that has a 20% chance of causing hostile drones in the effected range (50km radius) to turn against their host ship.
Mobile Cloak Inhibitor – A mobile deployable unit that can decloak any ship within a 25km radius of the device. Must be anchored more than 10km from any gate, POS shield, or outpost.
Mobile Decoy Device – A mobile deployable unit that generates 5 ship signatures in random spots within a solar system. Could be used in conjunction with the Mobile Scan Inhibitor for added effect.
Mobile Mining Unit – A mobile deployable unit with a single Strip Miner I and 20km range and ore hold of 25,000 m3. Similar to the Mobile Siphon Unit, anyone can access the ore and take it.
Mobile Market/Mobile Warehouse – Mobile deployable units that act in tandem to create a market storefront in one location serviced by a Mobile Warehouse up to 5 light years away. The Mobile Market can be deployed anywhere in lowsec or nullsec and would be visible on the overview anywhere in system. The Mobile Warehouse can be deployed anywhere in lowsec or nullsec and would not be visible on the overview, but could be scanned. Any player could access the Mobile Market to make purchases of any small (100 m3 max) items contained within the Mobile Warehouse. Purchases would be teleported from the Warehouse to the Market. The Mobile Market can be destroyed without reinforcement, whereas the Mobile Warehouse would have a reinforcement timer of 24 hours (similar to the Mobile Depot). Start your own little Amazon.com business.
Now I fully recognize that a lot of this (psst – all of it) sounds kooky, and it is. But what the hell, CCP might as well look into some of it. What do they really have to lose at this point? They are on a roll with the mobile deployables and oooh we got new capital wrecks (little late for HED-GP though). But are they really coming up with anything game changing? Not really. And the expectation probably shouldn’t be that they will be doing that anytime soon. Eve is 10 years old and the work involved with bringing it up to current standards in terms of its core code is money they probably aren’t looking to spend on a game that really isn’t growing in terms of subscribers. So the most likely bet is they keep going down the path of little things here and there to make it look like the game is evolving. So what the hell, throw in some quirky shit and go full retard.
– Dirk MacGirk
