EVE Online

[Spambot5546]

Did the meaning of the name "DUST 514" come up at any time during fanfest. Because I still don't get it.

[halbarad]

Did the meaning of the name "DUST 514" come up at any time during fanfest. Because I still don't get it.

Not that I've heard about, though I skipped alot of the dust stuff as it doesn't really interest me (no PS3 and not really a FPS player). Didn't really look that amazing though from what I saw of the "pvp finals" that they had.

[Mishrak]

I was a little irritated at their Dust 514 stuff. I'd much rather see them spend that money on making EVE better honestly. What I watched of the Keynote seemed to tell me they were on the right track, but the proof will be in the pudding as they continue to iterate and expand on some stuff that really needs overhauling (mining, supercaps).

[SlyReaper]

Supercaps are probably the most frequently overhauled ships out there. Do they really need another?

[Mishrak]

Yeah because they're not balanced properly atm.

[halbarad]

Out of curiousity, how would people here balance supers?

I've seen various suggestions on FHC but not being a cap pilot (and probably never being a cap pilot) I'm not too sure how they weigh up to how they work right now.

[BlackSails]

Titan tracking is fine imo. The perceived problem is actually a problem with goon doctrine and piloting.

Basically, the damage output of guns goes as A*(1/2)^[B*angular velocity/sig radius]^2. A= base damage output, B= a constant that depends on the characteristics of the gun. There is an extra term including range, which im not including here.

People do not understand this formula. One thing this shows is that as your angular velocity goes to 0 OR your sig radius goes to infinity, damage output approaches A.

Now the goons have two main doctrines atm. The first is maelstroms. These are battleships that dont move. They have large signatures. Obviously they will take max damage from pretty much everything.

Now the 2nd doctrine is what is getting people to go "Gee Willikers tracking titan OP". This fleet is made up of drakes that are cap stable under microwarp drive. Drakes are battlecruisers, which have smaller sigs than battleships (although drakes are pretty big). Microwarp drives blow up the sig radius of the drakes, so that from the point of view of game mechanics, they are the same size as capital ships. Literally, the same sig radius as a carrier. With good piloting and good skills, you could use this extra speed to mitigate the extra damage taken by the increased sig radius by increasing the angular velocity. However, what the goons do is generally orbit an anchor. This means that about half the time in their orbit, they have near 0 angular velocity vs the titans and get alphaed. There have also been several battles where instead of anchoring, they have just aligned away from the titans. If they arent moving for a second while locked by a titan, they now have very little velocity, and because its "PERMA MWD DRAKES" the mwd is still on, and the combination of low angular velocity and massive sig radius gets them killed in 1 shot.

[hendusoone]

Yep, sounds about right to me. Goons need to change their strategy.

[BlackSails]

I mean, there are other issues with titans and moms (mostly imo, their near-invulnerability in lowsec, and the difficulty in killing them vs difficulty in producing them), but the main issue people bring up with supercap balance is tracking titans.

Nerf mineral compression, make killing cap ship assembly arrays easier, and make it easier to tackle supercaps in lowsec. Maybe a general nerf to cyno jumping is in order, like a jump drive spoolup time or something.

[Swivelguy]

If I were to redesign supercaps, here's how I'd do it.

First, an overview of current capitals—pretending supercaps don't exist (and in w-space, they don't, so this stuff actually happens). Carriers are great ships for supporting a subcap fleet in triage configuration, and can be well-rounded combat ships out of triage. Dreads are the baseline capital damage dealer, and must enter siege to perform properly. Everything works fine here. A fleet of mixed capitals with a few key subcaps for support (bhaalgorn, web loki, etc) beats a fleet of mixed subcaps with a couple triage for support, which beats fleets of subcaps without carrier support. That's how it should be.

So what should beat a carrier/dread fleet? A carrier/dread fleet with supercap support, of course! I'd like to see the supercarrier's role relate to carrier/dread fleet as a triage carrier relates to subcap fleets. To this end, supercarriers should be able to use capital energy transfers (but not reps) on triaged/sieged capitals. This would allow for capital+supercapital setups that increase the durability of the capitals beyond what they can achieve without supercarrier support. Supercarriers should not be a primary damage dealer, so I'd want their fighter-launching capability reduced from 20 to 10. To provide a different advantage, they should also have the ability to carry ewar fighters, and neuting/damping/TDing fighters should be balanced in a way that makes them useful (jam fighters should probably not exist).

Supercarriers should also take over the fleet-transporting role instead of titan bridges. After all, they are superCARRIERS, they should CARRY their fleet into battle. The supercarrier bridge should require that the supercarrier jumps as well, in contrast to the way titan bridges are used to transport fleets without putting the titan at risk.

So what should titans be? Right now they are basically dreads with more hitpoints and no siege requirement. I don't think this is a role that should exist, but haven't a great idea of what they should be instead. Perhaps they should act as a mobile staging platform, with a siege mode that causes them to deploy a POS-like shield bubble. In any case, I think their role should be a niche one, in such a way that optimum fleet composition will take the form of 1 titan, a few supercarriers, and many dreads/carriers.

Also, the jump range for supercaps really should be short, equivalent to only 3-4 gate jumps. These are the heaviest hardware in the universe and exceptional force multipliers. There should be a serious obstacle in having your titan out of position when an enemy strikes your flank.

[BlackSails]

If I were to redesign supercaps, here's how I'd do it.

First, an overview of current capitals—pretending supercaps don't exist (and in w-space, they don't, so this stuff actually happens). Carriers are great ships for supporting a subcap fleet in triage configuration, and can be well-rounded combat ships out of triage. Dreads are the baseline capital damage dealer, and must enter siege to perform properly. Everything works fine here. A fleet of mixed capitals with a few key subcaps for support (bhaalgorn, web loki, etc) beats a fleet of mixed subcaps with a couple triage for support, which beats fleets of subcaps without carrier support. That's how it should be.

This isnt entirely true. It depends on the numbers, and what you mean by winning. If a hundred man welpcane fleet (combined cost after insurance of maybe 3 bil?) engages a large capital fleet, odds are the capital fleet is going to get wrecked, cost for cost.

Same thing is going to happen if a hundred man welpcane fleet engages a 5 man nanogang.

[Izawwlgood]

That every well crafted and balanced strategy in Eve can be overcome with 'just add more BCs' is a prime reason I quit the game. Blobs overcome everything. Balance isn't really important; all that matters is throwing more meat into the blob grinder.

[Swivelguy]

If I were to redesign supercaps, here's how I'd do it.

First, an overview of current capitals—pretending supercaps don't exist (and in w-space, they don't, so this stuff actually happens). Carriers are great ships for supporting a subcap fleet in triage configuration, and can be well-rounded combat ships out of triage. Dreads are the baseline capital damage dealer, and must enter siege to perform properly. Everything works fine here. A fleet of mixed capitals with a few key subcaps for support (bhaalgorn, web loki, etc) beats a fleet of mixed subcaps with a couple triage for support, which beats fleets of subcaps without carrier support. That's how it should be.

This isnt entirely true. It depends on the numbers, and what you mean by winning. If a hundred man welpcane fleet (combined cost after insurance of maybe 3 bil?) engages a large capital fleet, odds are the capital fleet is going to get wrecked, cost for cost.

Same thing is going to happen if a hundred man welpcane fleet engages a 5 man nanogang.

I was thinking of those matchups as equal numbers. 20 BCs + 5 logis lose to 20 BS + 3 Recon/T3/etc + 2 triage, which loses soundly to 10 dreads + 10 carriers + 5 support. It absolutely makes sense that bigger ships win, and it wouldn't make any sense for the BCs+Logis to be able to kill the latter capital fleet (to close the rock-paper-scissors loop) unless the BC+logi fleet scales up its numbers.

What would be nice is if the "bigger is better" mantra didn't go all the way up to 25 supercaps beating 20 caps + 5 supercaps. In other words, the role of supercaps should be niche, so that capitals remain the mainstay and a few supercaps are thrown in for support.

[BlackSails]

That every well crafted and balanced strategy in Eve can be overcome with 'just add more BCs' is a prime reason I quit the game. Blobs overcome everything. Balance isn't really important; all that matters is throwing more meat into the blob grinder.

As I said, 100 welpcanes can be killed by 5 nanodrakes.

[Swivelguy]

As I said, 100 welpcanes can be killed by 5 nanodrakes.

If the 95 of them that aren't pointed don't warp off, and none of them load barrage, sure...

[Izawwlgood]

And the 100 welpcanes all sit in a tiny blob and have a range of ~20km.

[BlackSails]

As I said, 100 welpcanes can be killed by 5 nanodrakes.

If the 95 of them that aren't pointed don't warp off, and none of them load barrage, sure...

Barrage or not, it doesnt matter. Obviously they can run away, but it takes a while for them to realize that they cant actually kill anything.

[Izawwlgood]

A while? Do mean you mean one or two volleys to realize they can't track the nanoing Drakes? Are you assuming this group is just sitting still in a tight cluster while the Drakes one at a time pick them off?

All this takes is everyone in the group flying in a random direction and picking off the Drakes that have zero angular velocity.

[BlackSails]

A while? Do mean you mean one or two volleys to realize they can't track the nanoing Drakes? Are you assuming this group is just sitting still in a tight cluster while the Drakes one at a time pick them off?

All this takes is everyone in the group flying in a random direction and picking off the Drakes that have zero angular velocity.

They dont sit in a tight cluster. What they do is charge after you, and if they have scimis, they charge out of rep range of the scimis while you kite them from 40km. Also, it has nothing to do with tracking, but instead range (and resists. Medium autocannons are going to track a drake well for pretty much any reasonable set of vectors. However, even with barrage, canes do piss poor damage at linked point range, and even less when you factor in the drake's resist vs barrage. Random direction and sitting there wont work either though. Autocanes just dont do damage outside of like 30km. If you add something like an arazu or huginn, things become even sillier, since you can now sit at 70km.

Im trying to find the fraps of the exact battle of thinking of. We took a ~10 man gang to vfk (the goons home system) and after fighting them for a while, we decided to leave and they chased us with a enormous welpcane fleet.

[m4d4sb34ns]

Decided to give EVE another go recently, after failing miserably at it a couple years ago.

Doing much better this time, flying a Caracal at the moment. Pew-pewing level 2 missions fairly easily. Sounds like the best way to keep enjoying the game after this is to join a corp. Besides EVE University, are there any other routes people can suggest?

[Mishrak]

Really depends on what you want to do.

You could try Red vs. Blue if you want to jump into some fun high sec pvp, or if you want to just leeroy into nullsec, you could hook up with someone like Goonswarm that is fairly receptive towards letting newbies in at the lower levels.

Definitely hook up with some folks though, this game is not meant to be played solo.

[Swivelguy]

Wormholes! You can have it all if you join a wormhole corp with a static highsec. Small-scale just-for-fun pvp, the occasional serious fleet pvp, solo pve, group pve, easy access to market hubs to get what you need, no loss of sec status or faction standings.

And the pvp is great in wormholes. The mechanics of wormholes (without station or gate aggression timers) are more natural, easier to wrap your head around. There's no local chat which stops everyone from just immediately docking up when you approach, and just about anything can happen at any time.

Once you can do level 3 missions in a drake, you'll be able to do c1 and c2 wormholes solo and group up for c3s and c4s with the right allies.

[mike-l]

I think I'm going to give that a try!

I'm bored with L4 missions now and the faction grind is unbelievably long. May also be joining up with a small corp in CFC.

[halbarad]

If you do try wormholes then make sure you can scan. It has it's boring times when your the only one online or there aren't any sigs in your home system and you need to find the statics etc. But then you get times where a few of you jump in on someone else running sites and they bring friends in and lots of things die and you hopefully come out alive with a hold full of loot.

[mike-l]

Can someone explain how wormhole corps work? From my reading of the wiki, it doesn't sound like you can spend a terribly large amount of time in each one with any kind of ability to get more people in/out, but I've heard people talking about living in wormhole space.

[Spambot5546]

You can anchor a POS with a hangar bay, or put all your ships in a carrier inside the POS bubble.

[mike-l]

Ok, but if you're living in w-space, how do I get to you? Are you also not capped in how much you can collect by how much you can transport out in one go? Also I thought caps couldn't enter w-space?

[Izawwlgood]

I forget the numbers, but seem to recall w-space systems have at least one static wormhole. That is, there will ALWAYS be at least one wormhole that opens somewhere you can predict. So, say you're in W-space and you've anchored a POS and you're doing your thing. Your system might have a wormhole that ALWAYS opens to a .8 sec system.

We were in a C6 that had a static to a C5. Getting to empire could be tricky, but truthfully wasn't that bad. Most Sleeper loot is pretty small; a cargo expanded recon ship can get two or three weeks worth of loot out no problem.

So, you set up planetary wasagigits and only need to bring in isotopes, ammo, and replacement ships. No big thing.

[mike-l]

Ah, so there is some fixed way to get back to any WH from normal space?

Edit: Ok I think I get it now, my corp can set up inside a wormhole that has a permanent link to hi-sec. We can get out and in by them going through that permanent link and opening the exit somewhere in hi-sec and popping back through it?

[Izawwlgood]

Ah, so there is some fixed way to get back to any WH from normal space?

Edit: Ok I think I get it now, my corp can set up inside a wormhole that has a permanent link to hi-sec. We can get out and in by them going through that permanent link and opening the exit somewhere in hi-sec and popping back through it?

Hypothetically yes. The wormholes are all different though (You can find a list pretty easily); generally, the ones that open to high sec tend to be on the smaller side (won't allow anything larger than a cruiser/industrial in). For us for example, routes to normal space (k-space) tended to be 4-5 jumps across different w-space systems. I don't think C4 or higher will ever have a static to high sec.

As for getting back to your wormhole; no, if you head to w-space, and the route back closes, you can basically kiss your system goodbye.

Also, keep in mind, a static to high sec is potentially an invitation for harassment, more so anyway than one in null sec (which tend to be closed quickly as security measures, if there's traffic there at all), or to another wormhole system.

Living in w-space is a lot different from living in k-space.

[mike-l]

Right, but if you are living in W space, and I want to join you, you could pop out into K space and lead me back through your wormholes right?

[Izawwlgood]

Yes. That is how you get people into your w-space system.

What I mean was while some/many k-space systems may have static wormholes to, say, a C1 w-space system, the chances of finding YOUR system if it closes behind you is slim; there are approximately as many w-space systems as k-space, I seem to recall.

[Alasseo]

5201 K-space and 2498 W-space systems.

Also, yes, every WH has a static WH that will always be there - this is how you get the effect of "rolling" wormholes: you'll send enough mass through a wormhole that it collapses (ideally with everyone being on the correct side of it when it does) and then a new wormhole will spawn, leading to another system. A static wormhole always leads to the same class of system: either C1-C6 WH, or null, low, or high K-space. Since Amarr controls about 60% of non-null space, this means you will be seeing a yellow background quite often when exiting a WH.

As to capital ships: They cannot enter C1-C3 through a WH, though you can bring in the materials and build them. C4-C6, if you have a lowsec or nullsec connection you can bring them in. You can move 3 dreads through a C5/6 hole one way, or 4 or 5 carriers (assuming the hole is pristine and nothing else has gone through it).

[Swivelguy]

C1, C2, and C3 wormholes all have a static connection to k-space, meaning either highsec, lowsec, and nullsec. C2, C4, C5, and C6 wormholes all have a static connection to w-space, meaning a certain class of wormhole. In addition, other random connections can form between any types of space (with the odd exception that C4 seems to never connect directly to k-space at all). This means all C2 wormholes have 2 static connections, making them interesting places to live.

What size ship can be jumped through a wormhole depends on the smaller capability from this list:
C1 accomodates only things smaller than a battleship.
C2-4 accomodate battleships and orcas.
C5 and C6 accomodate capital ships but no supercaps.
So for example, a C6<->C4 connection won't allow a capital ship to jump because one side is a C4, while a C6<->C5 connection will. You can, however, build everything up to capitals in any wormhole, but they'll be trapped there if in a C4 or smaller, as no wormhole will allow them. Plenty of people do this, but few are actually willing to use them in combat, it seems.

Having a static highsec is pretty safe. 95% of the people who will randomly stumble upon your wormhole are more fodder than threat. The larger determinant in how safe you are in a wormhole is how attentive and clever you are.

I would never recommend that a corp with no wormhole experience try to move themselves into w-space. Join a w-space corp instead and learn the ropes. My corp/alliance is all wormhole all the time, and almost always recruiting. I'll also be willing to help you out directly if you see Daesis Wrack in the xkcd chat channel.

[Alasseo]

Do note that by living in a wormhole with a static highsec, you are going to be the transit route for many an experienced corp who is getting stuff in and out (this may of course provide ganking options). If you have a static null, you're the exit point for roaming fleets. Lowsec might actually be safer.. ymmv.

[Swivelguy]

Do note that by living in a wormhole with a static highsec, you are going to be the transit route for many an experienced corp who is getting stuff in and out (this may of course provide ganking options). If you have a static null, you're the exit point for roaming fleets. Lowsec might actually be safer.. ymmv.

This happens about once a month. The C5 and C6 "serious business" corps do their serious business hauling with [jump] freighters when they get a direct C5 or C6 to highsec/lowsec.

[mike-l]

I must say I'm pretty interested in this WH idea. I checked out your corp link swivelguy and I'm a tad short on the prereqs but could have them in a a few days. Right now I'm at just over 6 mil SP, almost entirely in drake skills, which includes most of the 'tier 1 skills' you guys are looking for.

My main issue is that in a month and a half my work relocates me for 3 months, and I'm not sure if I'll have net access, so I'm hesitant to do much of anything right now as I may have to go dark for a while. (Of course, when I return on Sept 1, I'll have almost 14 mil skill points , making me much more useful/recruitable)

[Izawwlgood]

Swivel, out of curiosity, can you link your corp requirements?

[mike-l]

They were linked in his last post.

[Izawwlgood]

Ah, my mistake. Am blind.