http://freebooted.blogspot.ca/2013/04/blog-banter-46-main-event.html
".....With the return of Live Events such as the Battle for Caldari Prime, clearly the prime fiction of EVE is back in favour as part of this new thematic approach to expansions. However, EVE's story is very much a tale of two playstyles, with an entirely player-driven narrative unfolding daily in parallel to the reinvigorated backstory. Often, they do not mix well. How can these two disparate elements be united or at least comfortably co-exist in a single sandbox universe?"
I'm not really sure how to answer that question, the way it's phrased. See, I'm of the opinion that things are mixing well. The ongoing story of EVE (as written by CCP) and the player-driven gameplay interact without too much fuss. That is to say, they don't interact, and that's not a bad thing. I don't want CCP's story to change my gameplay, I'd rather see CCP letting my gameplay change the story.
As it stands right now, players aren't inconvenienced or forced to give up doing what they love to do by storyline events. While I like the fact that CCP has decided to move the storyline forward, I don't want to log on some day and find out that thanks to storyline progress, the Jove have invaded Jita and made it completely impassable to all traffic. That's certainly an extreme example, but it's the kind of thing that would illustrate story changing gameplay, as opposed to gameplay changing story. If CCP continues with storyline-advancing live events like many people have asked for, the events and the results of the events need to either compliment or side-step current gameplay, not detract from it.
The 'Battle for Caldari Prime' event which happened recently is a fine example of doing story advancement in a way that neither helps or hurts player. It was accessible to players who wanted to participate, and it wasn't a barrier to the gameplay of anyone who didn't want to. On the positive side: Adequate notice was given so that people could prepare, only Luminaire and the systems connected to it were affected, and it had a definitive result which advanced EVE's lore. The biggest complaints? The limited number of EVE players who were able to get into the system to start (stupid DUST bunnies), and the fact that player actions had no bearing on the final outcome. Would it have been amazing to see the outcome of the event and consequently the storyline of EVE be decided by player actions? Absolutely.
That's the one thing I would love to see more than any other going forward. Live events that are actually interactive, and making player actions part of the game lore. When RvB had a massive brawl in Poinen, they managed to crash CONCORD. How cool would it be to have that become an official part of the EVE story? A massive capsuleer fight led to CONCORD being forced to leave gaps in their coverage to respond. That's a pretty memorable event, certainly something that worthy of being noted in the history of EVE. How about the battle of Asakai? That was possibly the best player-driven event we've seen to date. There's tons of video and written battle reports, could CCP compile them into one historical record and make it part of the official story? The best events in EVE have been/are being/will be written by players, and it would be amazing to see the lore reflect that.
We've already seen CCP do this to a small degree. Next time you happen to be in Jita, take a look at the monument just off the 4-4 station. One of the fun things people did in Jita during the fallout after Incarna was shooting the monument (Rainbow lasers are pretty and you know it). In recognition of the event, CCP replaced the in-game model with a destroyed monument and commemorated its destruction in the new description you see whenever you 'show info' on it. Since Burn Jita 2.0 is scheduled for this weekend, CCP will have a chance to react to another player-driven event. Hopefully we'll see it included in EVE's official history.
If I could ask for one lore-related thing from CCP, I'd ask them to let player stories have an meaningful impact on EVE's history. They're already doing such an excellent job of creating stories, so give them the chance to make the stories official.
- Sam.
Edit 18/04/13: It was quite correctly pointed out to me that I had confused Monocle-Gate with Burn Jita. My bad.
What really caught my attention today though, was the 'True Stories' video that CCP released. The video opens with the words "History is made by those who write it." Perhaps it's a linguistics thing, but that's a statement I really disagree with. It goes against the point I tried to make about it being better for CCP to record player events as history instead of writing history and then giving the players a chance to watch it happen.
I'm a fan of the True Stories project, no matter how biased some of the stories will inevitably be, and I'd like to see that style of historical record become part of the game itself, not simply an out-of-game writing contest. The lore surrounding the major empires only affects part of the player base, but it makes up the vast majority of the official history of EVE. Where's the history and lore of wormholes and player-owned null-sec?
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Finding time to fight
I was just sitting down to write my BB46 post yesterday, when an orange-tagged visitor showed up in local. I put a cloak on my tackle Rifter and went scouting. As more people decided to poke around, our visitor decided to pull out of the system, revealing himself to be a Loki as he moved off the gate he'd just jumped through. He was joined a few minutes later by some alliance mates in the same system.
We managed to nab an Arazu who tried to leave our home system through the same gate shortly after. He had a covert ops cloak, but we threw five or six frigates at the last spot he'd been. He was decloaked and popped rather quickly, but not before he had time to light a cyno. We all piled back onto the gate, and left our bait Drake behind to sucker the incoming bombers into aggressing while we got out.
Sadly, our Drake pilot had forgotten to fit an MWD in the mad rush to get the bait onto the field, so by the time he got back to the gate, a full half of their fleet had gotten through the gate and were waiting for him to come through. I sat cloaked twenty kilometres off the stargate and watched our poor Drake get torn apart by fifteen or so stealth bombers.
They tried camping us into the outpost in our system, but we started reshipping down. Our mix of ships quickly became a fleet of frigates. Undocking one or two frigates at a time, we eventually tried to bait them into going after a Jaguar. When they didn't bite, we pulled back and camped them into the pocket while we waited for the mining fleet we had up a couple jumps away for reship. Up came another ten pilots in Thoraxes, ready to camp them in. We moved our frigates back down into the pocket to try to push the bombers toward the cruisers.
We'd gotten a pretty solid idea of their fleet comp by this time, and they seemed to be missing one of the most important parts of a Black Ops fleet. We had a Loki, Pilgrim, and twenty odd bombers camping one of our outposts, but we couldn't find their black ops battleship anywhere. Finally, one of our probers got a hit on a Sin when he changed which system he was hiding in.
We charged back towards the bombers in an attempt to cut them off from their ride, and got between the two fleets in time to nab a Manticore and pod when they tried to scout their route to the Sin. With a large portion of our fleet now piling into the same system as the bombers, they decided to log off. Everyone who had a scanning ship available swapped up immediately, but the best scan strength anyone got before the log-offs completed was 80%.
I was a good night for my kill-board, as I was one of the few people able to lock and the shoot the Azaru before it simply melted, and I managed to nab the 80 mil pod of the Manticore pilot. My bright idea of the night was remembering to dock and off-load the Drake loot and my cloaking device before heading out to join the camp. Gave me the room to scoop the Manticore loot, and that pod would would have had a much better chance of getting out if my scan res was still getting -50% from the cloak.
I love :gudfights: when they come directly to you, and considering the number of times we've been seeing these guys, they're happy to keep giving them to us.
- Sam.
We managed to nab an Arazu who tried to leave our home system through the same gate shortly after. He had a covert ops cloak, but we threw five or six frigates at the last spot he'd been. He was decloaked and popped rather quickly, but not before he had time to light a cyno. We all piled back onto the gate, and left our bait Drake behind to sucker the incoming bombers into aggressing while we got out.
Sadly, our Drake pilot had forgotten to fit an MWD in the mad rush to get the bait onto the field, so by the time he got back to the gate, a full half of their fleet had gotten through the gate and were waiting for him to come through. I sat cloaked twenty kilometres off the stargate and watched our poor Drake get torn apart by fifteen or so stealth bombers.
They tried camping us into the outpost in our system, but we started reshipping down. Our mix of ships quickly became a fleet of frigates. Undocking one or two frigates at a time, we eventually tried to bait them into going after a Jaguar. When they didn't bite, we pulled back and camped them into the pocket while we waited for the mining fleet we had up a couple jumps away for reship. Up came another ten pilots in Thoraxes, ready to camp them in. We moved our frigates back down into the pocket to try to push the bombers toward the cruisers.
We'd gotten a pretty solid idea of their fleet comp by this time, and they seemed to be missing one of the most important parts of a Black Ops fleet. We had a Loki, Pilgrim, and twenty odd bombers camping one of our outposts, but we couldn't find their black ops battleship anywhere. Finally, one of our probers got a hit on a Sin when he changed which system he was hiding in.
We charged back towards the bombers in an attempt to cut them off from their ride, and got between the two fleets in time to nab a Manticore and pod when they tried to scout their route to the Sin. With a large portion of our fleet now piling into the same system as the bombers, they decided to log off. Everyone who had a scanning ship available swapped up immediately, but the best scan strength anyone got before the log-offs completed was 80%.
I was a good night for my kill-board, as I was one of the few people able to lock and the shoot the Azaru before it simply melted, and I managed to nab the 80 mil pod of the Manticore pilot. My bright idea of the night was remembering to dock and off-load the Drake loot and my cloaking device before heading out to join the camp. Gave me the room to scoop the Manticore loot, and that pod would would have had a much better chance of getting out if my scan res was still getting -50% from the cloak.
I love :gudfights: when they come directly to you, and considering the number of times we've been seeing these guys, they're happy to keep giving them to us.
- Sam.
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Power to the people
Did my voting tonight so I wouldn't forget before the polls close. There was supposedly an alliance list of who the coalition wanted us to vote for, but asking for it a couple times didn't produce anything. I had no interest in voting a completely null-sec ballot anyways, as some of the people put up by the coalitions came across as complete idiots either in print or during their Crossing Zebras interview.
So, here's the list.
1. Mangala Solaris
2. Kesper North
3. Mike Azariah
4. progodlegend
5. Ali Aras
6. Unforgiven Storm
7. Ripard Teg
8. Malcanis
9. Roc Wieler
10. Psychotic Monk
11. Travis Musgrat
12. riverini
13. Artctura
14. Sala Cameron
I'd say it's the top five that I truly hope to see on CSM8. Mangala and RvB are nothing but pure fun. They are one of the best things going in EVE, and I truly hope someone of that calibre makes it onto the CSM. Kesper is my second choice mainly because of how well his CZ interview went. He undoubtably felt fairly comfortable talking to someone who is a member of his alliance, but he proved himself an able communicator. Mike's on the list because he's the one person I can say I've actually conversed with out of all the candidates, and he's simply a smart guy. Pro's in number 4 because he's my favourite null-sec candidate who isn't in CFC, and Ali Aras is in number 5 because out of all the candidates on the ballot, she's the closest thing to a representative for my current EVE playstyle and character age.
Of course, the campaign process revealed some people I'd never ever vote for, even if they put a gun to my head. People like Trebor and James Arget, who have egos the size of Titans. Someone like Psychobitch, who only got through the primaries by spamming Jita local. Or, heaven forbid that he be elected, Kaleb Rysode, who said "y'know" 292 times during his thirty minute interview on Crossing Zebras (That's just under 10 times a minute, or once every 6 seconds). Yes, I counted. What are the odds CCP ever invites him to take part in a summit? I can already visualize Dolan beating him with a folding chair.
All the same, best of luck to all candidates. I'll be watching the HD stream to see mynnna accept his crown.
- Sam.
So, here's the list.
1. Mangala Solaris
2. Kesper North
3. Mike Azariah
4. progodlegend
5. Ali Aras
6. Unforgiven Storm
7. Ripard Teg
8. Malcanis
9. Roc Wieler
10. Psychotic Monk
11. Travis Musgrat
12. riverini
13. Artctura
14. Sala Cameron
I'd say it's the top five that I truly hope to see on CSM8. Mangala and RvB are nothing but pure fun. They are one of the best things going in EVE, and I truly hope someone of that calibre makes it onto the CSM. Kesper is my second choice mainly because of how well his CZ interview went. He undoubtably felt fairly comfortable talking to someone who is a member of his alliance, but he proved himself an able communicator. Mike's on the list because he's the one person I can say I've actually conversed with out of all the candidates, and he's simply a smart guy. Pro's in number 4 because he's my favourite null-sec candidate who isn't in CFC, and Ali Aras is in number 5 because out of all the candidates on the ballot, she's the closest thing to a representative for my current EVE playstyle and character age.
Of course, the campaign process revealed some people I'd never ever vote for, even if they put a gun to my head. People like Trebor and James Arget, who have egos the size of Titans. Someone like Psychobitch, who only got through the primaries by spamming Jita local. Or, heaven forbid that he be elected, Kaleb Rysode, who said "y'know" 292 times during his thirty minute interview on Crossing Zebras (That's just under 10 times a minute, or once every 6 seconds). Yes, I counted. What are the odds CCP ever invites him to take part in a summit? I can already visualize Dolan beating him with a folding chair.
All the same, best of luck to all candidates. I'll be watching the HD stream to see mynnna accept his crown.
- Sam.
Hot-drop o'clock
Or so the joke about PL's method of time-keeping goes.
Being the small alliance that we are, we never really expected to have Pandemic Legion show up in our little bit of space, but apparently they're very bored these days. It must have been a slow night for them, as they dropped a bunch of carriers and supercarriers on our two dreads and three carriers. I showed up about 2 minutes after our dreads died, and got to watch three Aeons, three Nyxes, and one cyno Thanatos sit around waiting for the cyno to drop.
To make a long story short, one of the corps in our alliance had admitted a member without performing the usual stringent background checks. The second our dreads entered siege, a neutral logged on in the system our caps were in, and warped his Purifier to zero on our caps before lighting a cyno. The support fleet killed him within seconds of the cyno going up, but it was apparently enough time for PL to act.
According to the reports of the pilots who were around for the fight, the first PL capitals started landing on grid ten to fifteen seconds after the cyno was down, and it was pretty much a GTFO manouver from that point on. Our carriers managed to get out, and the support subcaps quickly followed. Total loss, two dreads.
On the more hilarious side of things, one of our alliance members decided to whore on the kill-mails of our own dreadnaughts. Since our cyno pilot had been in a Burst, we actually finished the night with a green killboard:
Us - 2 dreads and a Purifier
Them - 2 dreads and a Burst
The rest of the story is pretty predicable: Booted spy, chastized recruiter, dread pilots fitting up another dread. From the convo our killmail whore got, PL thought his manouver was pretty smart/funny, and we all had to agree. Sadly, PL popped the dread wrecks before leaving, but I did get to scoop the loot from the Purifier wreck. The loot fairy was very kind.
- Sam.
Being the small alliance that we are, we never really expected to have Pandemic Legion show up in our little bit of space, but apparently they're very bored these days. It must have been a slow night for them, as they dropped a bunch of carriers and supercarriers on our two dreads and three carriers. I showed up about 2 minutes after our dreads died, and got to watch three Aeons, three Nyxes, and one cyno Thanatos sit around waiting for the cyno to drop.
To make a long story short, one of the corps in our alliance had admitted a member without performing the usual stringent background checks. The second our dreads entered siege, a neutral logged on in the system our caps were in, and warped his Purifier to zero on our caps before lighting a cyno. The support fleet killed him within seconds of the cyno going up, but it was apparently enough time for PL to act.
According to the reports of the pilots who were around for the fight, the first PL capitals started landing on grid ten to fifteen seconds after the cyno was down, and it was pretty much a GTFO manouver from that point on. Our carriers managed to get out, and the support subcaps quickly followed. Total loss, two dreads.
On the more hilarious side of things, one of our alliance members decided to whore on the kill-mails of our own dreadnaughts. Since our cyno pilot had been in a Burst, we actually finished the night with a green killboard:
Us - 2 dreads and a Purifier
Them - 2 dreads and a Burst
The rest of the story is pretty predicable: Booted spy, chastized recruiter, dread pilots fitting up another dread. From the convo our killmail whore got, PL thought his manouver was pretty smart/funny, and we all had to agree. Sadly, PL popped the dread wrecks before leaving, but I did get to scoop the loot from the Purifier wreck. The loot fairy was very kind.
- Sam.
Saturday, April 6, 2013
The bad touch
Much has been made about the recent bumping campaign against miners. James315 and his New Order have gained some measure of internet fame for their actions. Since the official ruling from CCP was that bumping is not an exploit nor griefing, I suppose it was inevitable that we see proposals from players about how CCP should change the game to protect the miners. I've heard some hilariously bad ideas, but I found I felt was worth a blog post.
Mabrick, author of "Mabrick's Mumblings," recently made two posts about the possibility of bringing collision damage into the mix. You can find the posts in question here and here. To sum them up, Mabrick would like see collision damage implemented in such a way that ships take damage to their shields/armor/hull/mods depending on speed and mass calculations.
For the situation Mabrick chose to describe (Catalyst bumping Hulk), it starts off as a decent idea. The calculations of such an impact using real-world physics certainly make thing look bad for the Catalyst. Might the destroyer pilot put a dent in the exhumer? Certainly, but his Catalyst is likely to end up pancaked on the exterior of the Hulk in exchange.
The problem is with the narrowness of scope that Mabrick's proposal looks at. Let's up the class of ship ramming into the exhumer. Now we have a battleship doing more than 1000m/s. Let's make it a Typhoon for argument's sake. Loaded up with shield extenders, armor plates, and reinforced bulkheads to make sure it can handle the simultaneous shield/armor/hull damage Mabrick would like to see inflicted. The Typhoon's not going to need weapons, so all of its powergrid can go to loading up on armor plates. That's a lot of fast-moving hitpoints and mass.
I'm not going to bore anyone with math or facts, but I'm sure you get the idea. Some system in New Eden now has one less exhumer, and one slightly scratched battleship. That battleship's not in any danger though. He's got buddies. His buddies brought remote reps. It doesn't even have to be dedicated logistics ships either. That Typhoon has 8 empty high slots. Plenty of space to fit fun stuff like shield, armor, hull, and cap transfers. No PG after all those plates? Rep drones will work too, albiet slower. Two guys in Typhoons can clear out icebelts in no time at all. There's no more docking up to grab another Catalyst after every gank, all you have to do is point your battleship at the next target.
What about situations not involving mining ships? I run incursions from time to time for ISK. Like most fleets of any size, they have an anchor, one ship which other pilots orbit or keep at range so that they can concentrate on more important things, like who to shoot or who to rep. There's ALWAYS one guy in a Machariel who forgets to keep his anchor at range, and winds up slamming into the anchor while MWDing at top speed. The hull of most 'pro' incursion ships costs more than one billion, and with deadspace and faction fittings the norm, the cost of such a collision could easily reach multiple billions. That's a lot of tears.
How well would the massive null-sec fleets work without anchors? If you think there's not enough fights in null-sec now, wait until people start losing ships to the inevitable pinball effect in large fleets. SRPs will get kicked in the teeth, until fleets simply stop happening because of the senseless waste of money they cause. Dreadnaught pinball is amusing to watch now, but add in collision damage? Ooooooooh.* Much like the people who forget to keep their anchor at range, what about people who mistakenly hit approach and ram a titan or jump bridge? What about POS shields? Your ship might not exactly be usable after that.
Ever dropped out of warp a little too close to a stargate/station/acceleration gate/asteroid? You didn't want that ship anyways, right? Station undocks could become ship graveyards. A fair few people who had a similar idea commented on Mabrick's posts wondering what the Jita undock would look like. Freighters take up a lot of space, and I've bounced off more than a few of them while undocking from 4-4. Add in the guided missles that gank-tank battleships have become, and Burn Jita becomes a much more devastating Bump Jita.
Another aspect of the proposal is module damage. If you're implementing collision damage, why not make the bit and pieces on the outside of a ship feel the pain too? It's a fair point. Nanite Repair Paste prices might climb a bit, which for could good for Mabrick (he's been known to post about manufacturing NRP from time to time), but pilots who can't be bothered with the stuff can just dock and repair their mods without much ganking time lost.
So where's CONCORD to protect the innocents? Well, Mabrick doesn't think that bumping should cause you to be Concordokkened. Reading his reply to a comment asking about it, it sounds like Mabrick actually supports the idea of using collision damage as a weapon against miners. So where does that leave our Typhoon pilot? He's got a positive sec status. No more negative ten pilots having to drag the space police away between each attempted kill, and no flying between systems in pods. There's no more 'one ship = one gank attempt' for a griefing pilot. If he plans well, he might never need to buy a second ship for his activities.
Frankly, having CONCORD respond to any ship on ship contact would be disastrous for high-sec. Did you just tap my Abbadon with your freighter as you were undocking? Ram my Rifter with your freighter while auto-piloting to a gate? Even if bumping someone only earned you a flag, your freighter's dead as soon as my buddies see you start flashing. The best part? The freighter pilot is the one taking a security status hit. CONCORD would be the ultimate weapon in the ganker's arsenal.
Would collision damage make EVE more realistic? Yeah, sure. We have submarines in space instead of anything resembling Newtonian physics, but things slamming into each other usually causes some kind of damage. I can't disagree with Mabrick about that. My only counter-point is that for all the "EVE IS REAL" promos we've heard, we're playing a game, a game that is already hard and complex enough. Forcing the people who survive the undocking collision damage to constantly steer their ship manually is just cruel and unnecessary punishment. Pilots won't be able to warp to zero on anything on the off chance you smack into it, and that'd just be a pain in the behind.
I don't know whether Mabrick meant the proposal to benefit or harm miners, or if he just likes the idea of smacking ships together and watching them go boom. I'm a fan of watching ships (preferably not mine) go boom, but collision damage seems to be a game mechanic that would cause a whole lot of hassle for absolutely no benefit beyond realism. Given the fact that EVE is science fiction, I (and I imagine many other players) are happy to have CCP handwave the lack of collision damage as "emergency manouvering boosters" and "collision prevention sensors."
It's detrimental to people in fleets, it's detrimental to anyone who undocks from a trade hub, and it's detrimental to the miners who are complaining about being bumped under the current system. The people who benefit from collision damage? Gankers and griefers.
BRB, buying a Typhoon.
- Sam.
Also, I'm taking this chance to promote Mabrick's blog to the 5 or so of you who read mine. I learned 90% of what I know about industry (which, I admit, isn't a ton) from reading his blog. While I mostly disagreed with his views on collision damage, he's always worth reading. Once I figure out the Blogspot control panel, I'll start adding similar blogs to the side-bar.
* Your new (old) meta is spider-tanking Drakes. Enjoy.
Mabrick, author of "Mabrick's Mumblings," recently made two posts about the possibility of bringing collision damage into the mix. You can find the posts in question here and here. To sum them up, Mabrick would like see collision damage implemented in such a way that ships take damage to their shields/armor/hull/mods depending on speed and mass calculations.
For the situation Mabrick chose to describe (Catalyst bumping Hulk), it starts off as a decent idea. The calculations of such an impact using real-world physics certainly make thing look bad for the Catalyst. Might the destroyer pilot put a dent in the exhumer? Certainly, but his Catalyst is likely to end up pancaked on the exterior of the Hulk in exchange.
The problem is with the narrowness of scope that Mabrick's proposal looks at. Let's up the class of ship ramming into the exhumer. Now we have a battleship doing more than 1000m/s. Let's make it a Typhoon for argument's sake. Loaded up with shield extenders, armor plates, and reinforced bulkheads to make sure it can handle the simultaneous shield/armor/hull damage Mabrick would like to see inflicted. The Typhoon's not going to need weapons, so all of its powergrid can go to loading up on armor plates. That's a lot of fast-moving hitpoints and mass.
I'm not going to bore anyone with math or facts, but I'm sure you get the idea. Some system in New Eden now has one less exhumer, and one slightly scratched battleship. That battleship's not in any danger though. He's got buddies. His buddies brought remote reps. It doesn't even have to be dedicated logistics ships either. That Typhoon has 8 empty high slots. Plenty of space to fit fun stuff like shield, armor, hull, and cap transfers. No PG after all those plates? Rep drones will work too, albiet slower. Two guys in Typhoons can clear out icebelts in no time at all. There's no more docking up to grab another Catalyst after every gank, all you have to do is point your battleship at the next target.
What about situations not involving mining ships? I run incursions from time to time for ISK. Like most fleets of any size, they have an anchor, one ship which other pilots orbit or keep at range so that they can concentrate on more important things, like who to shoot or who to rep. There's ALWAYS one guy in a Machariel who forgets to keep his anchor at range, and winds up slamming into the anchor while MWDing at top speed. The hull of most 'pro' incursion ships costs more than one billion, and with deadspace and faction fittings the norm, the cost of such a collision could easily reach multiple billions. That's a lot of tears.
How well would the massive null-sec fleets work without anchors? If you think there's not enough fights in null-sec now, wait until people start losing ships to the inevitable pinball effect in large fleets. SRPs will get kicked in the teeth, until fleets simply stop happening because of the senseless waste of money they cause. Dreadnaught pinball is amusing to watch now, but add in collision damage? Ooooooooh.* Much like the people who forget to keep their anchor at range, what about people who mistakenly hit approach and ram a titan or jump bridge? What about POS shields? Your ship might not exactly be usable after that.
Ever dropped out of warp a little too close to a stargate/station/acceleration gate/asteroid? You didn't want that ship anyways, right? Station undocks could become ship graveyards. A fair few people who had a similar idea commented on Mabrick's posts wondering what the Jita undock would look like. Freighters take up a lot of space, and I've bounced off more than a few of them while undocking from 4-4. Add in the guided missles that gank-tank battleships have become, and Burn Jita becomes a much more devastating Bump Jita.
Another aspect of the proposal is module damage. If you're implementing collision damage, why not make the bit and pieces on the outside of a ship feel the pain too? It's a fair point. Nanite Repair Paste prices might climb a bit, which for could good for Mabrick (he's been known to post about manufacturing NRP from time to time), but pilots who can't be bothered with the stuff can just dock and repair their mods without much ganking time lost.
So where's CONCORD to protect the innocents? Well, Mabrick doesn't think that bumping should cause you to be Concordokkened. Reading his reply to a comment asking about it, it sounds like Mabrick actually supports the idea of using collision damage as a weapon against miners. So where does that leave our Typhoon pilot? He's got a positive sec status. No more negative ten pilots having to drag the space police away between each attempted kill, and no flying between systems in pods. There's no more 'one ship = one gank attempt' for a griefing pilot. If he plans well, he might never need to buy a second ship for his activities.
Frankly, having CONCORD respond to any ship on ship contact would be disastrous for high-sec. Did you just tap my Abbadon with your freighter as you were undocking? Ram my Rifter with your freighter while auto-piloting to a gate? Even if bumping someone only earned you a flag, your freighter's dead as soon as my buddies see you start flashing. The best part? The freighter pilot is the one taking a security status hit. CONCORD would be the ultimate weapon in the ganker's arsenal.
Would collision damage make EVE more realistic? Yeah, sure. We have submarines in space instead of anything resembling Newtonian physics, but things slamming into each other usually causes some kind of damage. I can't disagree with Mabrick about that. My only counter-point is that for all the "EVE IS REAL" promos we've heard, we're playing a game, a game that is already hard and complex enough. Forcing the people who survive the undocking collision damage to constantly steer their ship manually is just cruel and unnecessary punishment. Pilots won't be able to warp to zero on anything on the off chance you smack into it, and that'd just be a pain in the behind.
I don't know whether Mabrick meant the proposal to benefit or harm miners, or if he just likes the idea of smacking ships together and watching them go boom. I'm a fan of watching ships (preferably not mine) go boom, but collision damage seems to be a game mechanic that would cause a whole lot of hassle for absolutely no benefit beyond realism. Given the fact that EVE is science fiction, I (and I imagine many other players) are happy to have CCP handwave the lack of collision damage as "emergency manouvering boosters" and "collision prevention sensors."
It's detrimental to people in fleets, it's detrimental to anyone who undocks from a trade hub, and it's detrimental to the miners who are complaining about being bumped under the current system. The people who benefit from collision damage? Gankers and griefers.
BRB, buying a Typhoon.
- Sam.
Also, I'm taking this chance to promote Mabrick's blog to the 5 or so of you who read mine. I learned 90% of what I know about industry (which, I admit, isn't a ton) from reading his blog. While I mostly disagreed with his views on collision damage, he's always worth reading. Once I figure out the Blogspot control panel, I'll start adding similar blogs to the side-bar.
* Your new (old) meta is spider-tanking Drakes. Enjoy.
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