Blog Banter 76 - Flagships

Welcome to the continuing monthly EVE Blog Banters and our 76th edition! For more details about what the blog banters are please visit the Blog Banter page.

Blog Banter 76 - Tanky McTankFace

At fanfest CCP Fozzie proposed a potential new ship class. Let's call it the fleet commander's flagship for now. This is to try and prevent "FC Headshotting" where the opposing fleet knows who the FC is and alpha's them off the field leaving the rest of the fleet in confusion and disarray. Fozzie mentioned a ship with a great tank but no offensive abilities. Is this a good idea? Is FC head-shotting a legitimate tactic? If CCP do go down the route of a "flagship" how might this work? Also is a new ship the answer or is there another way of giving an FC the ability not to be assassinated 12 seconds into the fight without letting players exploit it? 

Banter on...

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Back in Blog Banter 70 last year which was about Dreaming, I talked about my dream of a Flagship

As a Fleet Commander, one thing I find myself doing when not in actual combat is listening to my scouts, looking at maps on Dotlan Maps, and trying to picture where all the ships of my fleet and known enemy fleets are located. It can be tough sometimes, and this is one instance where I think it should be tough as the skills and expertise of the FC and scouts combined can make the difference between a successful fleet and a complete debacle. 

That being said, at a certain point the number of chess pieces on the board as fleets and parties grow can become very unwieldy and it would be nice to have the option to command from a flagship with the tools to allow a fleet commander.
What tools you asked?

I want a ship with a command deck map that I can use to visualize the battlefield from my scouts and fleet automatically. It would connect with my fleet's transponders and my scouts d-scans and grid visuals to feed into my screen a map of known and previously known ship locations. It would also allow scouts to tag groups of ships as hostile or neutral or friendly, and give up to date status on my fleet position and composition. 

I think it should be tied to a ship, a tech II battleship based on the Rokh, Abaddon, Hyperion, and Maelstrom, so that the reward of having so much information at your fingertips is balanced by the FC having to field a delicious target. (PS make sure the Command Map mode does not work under cloak or in station or in POS bubble.) You want it balanced so that not every fleet includes one, but only the Super-Serious-Internet-Spaceships fleet includes them.

However, my vision of a Flagship above is not quite what this blog banter is about. My idea above is about a strategic command deck I suppose, whereas this banter is focusing on a field tactical command deck, the former about the bigger picture and the latter about the current local situation.

In that regard, I really like what the Command Destroyers have done for the small ship meta. They are extra tanky for destroyers giving me a more solid platform to command from, reducing the fear of headshotting a titch while also providing an easy link boost (which will become extremely important when on-grid AoE links are a reality) as well as the very cool tactical ability of a Field Jump Generator. Overall it has been a great Flagship for frigate and destroyer fleets.

I would like to see something of the same vein for large fleet types. When you get to cruisers or bigger, the command destroyer has a weaker tank and less likely to survive the conflagration, and will outpace the slower ships trying to approach for a tactical jump. But a larger vessel, say a Tech II version of the Attack Battlecruisers focusing on a big Tech II battleship level tank and Field Jump Generators instead of battleship level DPS could work really well. Alternatively, revamp one of the sets of Command Ships currently seeing little use in game to include less DPS but more Field Jump Generator.

At the end of the day, the best defense is being an unknown FC ;)

Attempted Kidknapping

In Sunday's fleet I was once again in my Magus Command Destroyer and we were getting ready to engage an enemy fleet in our home system of Fliet. The enemy was in system and we were about to undock when one of our scouts reported "I've found the hostile link character, a Claymore [Tech II Minmatar Command Ship] on the Actee gate." The Fleet Commander asked for someone to try and use the Jump Field Generator to try and steal it off gate and kill it.

I volunteered.

I hopped into my Magus named "The Transporter" and as our fleets engaged I moved in on that Claymore and actived my jump drive.

WHOOSH! Success! My target and I were 100 km off gate! I locked him and activated my scram but either I spazzed out of range (sentry gun fire had me rattled) or he was stabbed, as he warped off. Nevertheless, the move was successful in disrupting their links at least for a few seconds and giving our side a minor advantage.

As that engagement ran down a Shadow Cartel fleet showed up with Guardian logi support. As we engaged I worked on getting a warp in on their logi, and ended up only 15 kilometers off. I moved in and again activated the jumper but this time while I appeared 100 km off, the guardians stayed put, an example of self-scramming defense.

Oh well, two attempts at kidknapping and one actually almost worked.

Missed Opportunity

Last week on twitter I speculated on how the Command Destroyers and their Micro Jump Field Generators were going to impact the next alliance tournament to which CCP Fozzie replied:

Currently we plan to disallow the MJFG module for CCP-run tournaments.

He followed up with:

If you or others want to argue in favour of us leaving it in I'd be very willing to consider your/their points.

And later in response to questions:

 The interaction between the MJFG and arena boundary are the issue. The ability to launch people outside the arena.

I've been mulling that over ever since and I want to respond.

This is a missed opportunity to shake up the alliance tournament format and breath some new life into the current tiers of teams.

There has always been a tenuous connection between the PvP that happens in space all the time and the PvP we see in the arenas during tournaments, but at least the arena size was roughly equivalent to the typical grid dimensions of your average fight and the activities that happen therein. The Micro Jump Drive of battleships and battlecruisers started to impact that dynamic a little but it was minor and localized on the pilot in the ship and had no dramatic affect on arena combat.

The MJFG of Command Destroyers has far more reaching implications since it impacts all ships in the area of effect and I can see why the initial reaction of CCP is to simply disallow it. But combat has changed a lot in space and we have larger grid sizes and the MJFG has expanded combat on the new grids in dynamic and sometimes hilarious ways.

So why leave the arena size at 250 km? What's so special about that size anymore?

I can see when the tournament first started years and years ago that a size of 250 km would be more than enough for combat of that era, containing all possible activities a fleet could do without including warpin/outs from off grid, but the reality has changed and I think the alliance tournament should change to reflect that.

I think CCP should consider increasing grid sizes to at least 3 times if not 10 times larger. Encourage less in your face brawling and more tactical maneuvering. Discourage ties via some mechanics tweaking, maybe add some warpable objects to encourage movement, but let's see what a larger arena combat including MJFG Destroyers looks like. It may still not be the same as random PvP you see in real space, but it would be closer.

Command Destroyers - Ransom Price

Pay up or the logi gets it!

I talked a little bit last Friday about how Tech II Command Destroyers are going to change a lot of the meta in the upcoming patch:

These things are going to upset all corners of null, low, and wormhole space but low sec especially will see extensive use of these things. We can`t even comprehend all the uses yet! Chaining multiple command dessie jumps in a row to fling a fleet multiple hundred km jumps away, pulling enemy fleets apart to take on smaller numbers at a time, getting the jump on kiters, surprising station campers, the list goes on and on. Fleets that are precisely composed and constructed and need to have the logi wing exactly X km from the DPS wing are going to need to be watchful that enemy ships don't infiltrate one or two of these and rip those fleets apart. You've got 9 seconds to react, good luck.

 A lot of talk recently has been about how these things are going to be used and how people are going to try to counter them. While the thought of grabbing ships and shifting them 100 km away from their friends is intoxicating the reality is that the range is small enough that most of the time it will not be devastating to enemy fleets. Losing one or two DPS ships to a successful MJF dessie will be annoying but not break fleets.

HOWEVER, there is a part of the fleet that is far more vulnerable to these kidnapping vessels: logistic wings. Losing even one logi ship from a wing can be the difference between winning and losing a fight, often a swing in the hundreds of millions of ISK. These ships will be the main targets of command destroyers looking to kidnap someone in big fights.

So the discussion now turns to how to best counter these thieves.

Some suggestions are obvious, such as have logi spread out so that there is no juicy target to aim for (but you will still lose at least one), or have the fleet primary them or scram them as soon as one appears (which will be hard in the middle of the fight or if there are multiple), but all of these require various degrees of constant attention and vigilance.

A more passive approach has been the suggestion of self-scramming fleets. That is to say, since you cannot be carried by the MJF of the command dessie if you are scrammed (reference), one defence for things like logi wings would be to have them dedicate a module to a warp scrambler and create scram chains to protect them from unwanted jumps. It would be just like a cap chain that Guardians and Basilisks already do to create infinite energy, only it would suck energy to protect them from being kidnapped, sort of a pre-ransom price. Even though scrams would shut off friendly micro warp drives this is not an issue since logi are typically afterburner fit already.

Regardless of the solution a fleet uses, this represents yet another nerf on logistics. Coupled with the Remote Repair changes coming that will cut their ranges and lower their cap stability, not to mention the new doomsday and supercarrier area of effect weapons, its sage to say that this winter is the the official War on Logi for CCP, part of the overall strategy to make players more independent and self sufficient on the battlefield.

Interesting times.

Upwards Pressure

I've talked about downward and upward pressure before in relation to the optimal ship size that players feel compelled to select. For example  tiericide that improved frigates and cruisers put downward pressure on the ships player's selected. Warp speed changes also did this. However, micro jump drives put upwards pressure on the equation.

Recently we've been introduced to the massive overhaul of capitals that I covered in some detail here, and coming soon are new tech II Command Destroyers as described by CCP Rise:

So here's the basics. We are adding a new line of Tech II destroyers based on the Algos, Dragoon, Corax and Talwar along with a new type of module called the Micro Jump Field Generator, which the new Destroyers will have exclusive access to. I'm going to go through some basic questions here at the top and then give you all the details after.

These two things have something in common that makes me step back and go hmmmmm...

First off, from the capital dev blog about new doomsdays we have the Hand of God:

 Doomsday Codename: Hand of God
Utilizing Jump Drive technology, the Hand of God will generate an anomaly in space. After a short period of time, anything that isn't a structure or capital class ship will be teleported, together, to a random location in the same system away from the Titan, while the titan stays put. While the effect isn't powerful enough to teleport capitals, it will disrupt their warp and jump drives for a period of time.

And then from the Command Destroyers post:

Second, how exactly does the Micro Jump Field Generator work? This module is exactly like a Micro Jump Drive except that when it fires, it pulls any ships nearby along with it for the jump. There's a lot of specifics to consider here but the big restrictions you need to know are that you cannot use this module in high sec, you can not pull invulnerable targets (ships that have just undocked or just jumped through a gate and are still cloaked), you can not move capitals, and you can not jump into starbase shields. You CAN however do a lot of really crazy thing such as pull bombs that are midair, pull dictor bubbles or chain multiple jumps in a row using several Command Destroyers. As for numbers, we have a base spool up time of 9 seconds, a reactivation delay of 160 seconds, a pull radius of 6km from the ship and a jump distance of 100km. The module requires 5 PG and 31 CPU to fit and requires the same skill as normal MJDs to use.

The common theme here is that players are starting to get the ability to move enemy ships via some mechanism other than bumping. And not just a single ship, but multiple hostile ships. This is what we in the blogging community call a "BIG DEAL". The titan's Hand of God doomsday is one thing that will have impact on large fights involving Titans with that weapon installed; its safe to say its impact will be minimal to most of the EVE playerbase. But a destroyer based hull? That has massive long reaching ramifications in null sec, low sec, and wormhole space. The most obvious use is disrupting hostile logistics wings but there are so many other possibilities.

But what does it mean to the meta? This common theme of getting to relocate enemy ships points to, I believe, CCP game designers trying to break up the blob even more than the Fozzie Sov implementation has already tried to do. By giving players area of effect tools to disrupt enemy fleets, it will force fleets to spread out more to try and negate some of the impact. Furthermore, it will put pressure on players to be more self-sufficient in surviving as the frequency they find themselves without portions of their fleet should increase.

Due to this increase on self-reliance, I expect an overall slight upwards pressure on optimal ship sizes for players in fleets because larger ships have greater survivability when separated from the fleet or separated from logistics than smaller ships do. I could be wrong; it might be that smaller ships have better chances of regrouping after a hostile forced-micro-jump, but my gut suggests otherwise.

Thoughts?

BONUS: CCP Rise on twitter asked for a shot of all four command dessies for the O7 show this afternoon and I send him this:

I'm so proud. Look out Rixx! Next poster will be mine...