I’m going to try and avoid most of the tempest in the teacup over the fighter changes targeting the 1% reaping rewards in their carriers and supercarriers while ratting. Instead I’m going to point out something that should be obvious but seems to be ignored in all of this.
Capital ships should not be efficient platforms for ratting. Period.
What I mean by this is that it never made sense to me how rats never escalated or disengaged when faced with a superior force. Wormhole drifters at least were made smart enough to escalate when faced with capital ships forcing wormholers to invest more capitals in risky w-space to reap the rewards offered. And the new Blood Raiders shipyards also escalate to match the force arrayed against them. But regular anom rats? Plink away at ships orders of magnitudes larger with sub-caps while ignoring fighters ripping them to shreds.
One will argue, and often do, that the investment in a capital ship demands that ratting be easy and rewarding. The risk, they posit, comes from losing the ship to other players. Which is bullshit and we all know it. Null sec space with its intel networks, immediate local, and nearby allies means that ratting carriers dying is by far the exception and not the rule. Obviously if it was a real risk fewer players would be doing it so much and so successfully.
Besides, investment should never be considered a strong balance factor because once the investment is paid, the payout and its duration over time far outstrips it. This has been true when super Dramiels with snake implants were untouchable, it was true when Svipuls were dominating, and it was true in any other case where time/ISK investment were far outweighed by the advantage gained.
If CCP is going to allow carriers and supercarriers to be used for ratting, I think they should make it as difficult as ratting in a battleship successfully. Have rats target fighters with prejudice; have deadly capital rats spawn with capital warp scrams; or have the rats run away from the carriers. Anything to make the reward scale appropriately with the risk.
And anyone complaining that the current reward from carrier ratting is matched by high sec incursion running, I’ll point out another obvious fact: two wrongs don’t make a right.
We are proud to bring you the stories, opinions and musings of a long time pilot who has dabbled in everything New Eden has to offer, he writes and podcasts about his opinions and adventures at Ninveah.com
