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Horusra
Member EpicPosts: 4,411
in EVE Online
I have not been keeping up perfectly with the new content, but are they changing the rules on capital ships and hypergates?
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http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/long-distance-travel-changes-inbound/?_ga=1.113859520.637692804.1405368563
Acceleration Gate =/= Jump Gate
So PvE rules are unchanged.
They nerfed the distance in terms of light years capital ships can jump but allow them to now use stargates as a way to make up for that. They also added a cool down timer after each jump to prevent people from traveling quickly in capital ships, so you can't just make up for the reduced distance by jumping again and again.
This prevents certain player-run capital heavy alliances from dominating the entire game map by moving an "apex force" instantly across the galaxy and could arguably give smaller and weaker organizations a chance to thrive in their local region. It's essentially designed to stop the incentive for player coalitions to perpetually get bigger and bigger just to defend against the other huge organization across the map.
There is also the fact where cyno alts can't change their medical station remotely anymore. This puts a large burden in the ease of simply switching your medical station->self destruct to respawn and then cyno in your capitals from anywhere within 20 LY.
Fast traveling has been severely nerfed. It will probably be nerfed even more in future as people find loopholes around it (like making jump fatigue ship specific for people with multiple capital pilots).
Not a single line here is true...
1) It does not prevent dominance of the game.
The only difference will be it will take a bit longer to get there. Once they get there though, the result will be the same - larger alliance will expel the smaller one..
2) It does not help smaller entities, on the contrary.
The life for them will be even harder as logistics will be, at least supposedly, more difficult. It will always be bigger alliances having upper hand. The change will make this disparity even worse.
3) Bigger = better
You cannot prevent people forming alliances and pacts, such thinking is childishly foolish.
Teaming up is a natural process and it will always happen. Once again, the effect will be the opposite because - harder you make living in 0.0, bigger the incentive to team up, and create large power blocks, will be.
Its certainly true that it will prevent a single 'force' from deploying quickly over a long range, with jump ranges limited to just 5 ly and the introduction of jump fatigue, it means that fleets will inevitably have to use regular gated travel, and cap ships are nothing if not slow, 1au/sec is not fast.. and in some systems it can take several minutes just to travel to the next gate, thats not to say that a large force cannot travel, but the ability to deploy that force will be far more strategic in nature, as moving one to 'strike' range of one system will inevitably leave an alliances ability to respond to incursions in their own sov extremely limited, and with the larger the territory, the more forces needed to defend it. Its entirely possible that some of the larger alliances will 'turtle up' with their cap assets solely for defence, and the first sign of weakness will inevitably bring in the 'sharks'
It will be a scenario where there will be opportunity lost, to dominate section A you invariably have to leave section B undefended, its kind of like a game of wack a mole, you only have one hammer but many holes, you have to choose. Up until now coalitions have been focused on concentrating their force all in one hammer. Now you may have to split that force into multiple little hammers. It may turn out that some hammers are stronger than others, i.e. the alliances that have just been propped up by coalitions will be recognized for what they are, shit, alliances that can thrive without coalitions will also become apparent and be kings of their local domain.
The "dominate A, leave B undefended" as you put it, should work even now as you cannot be at 2 places at the same time and pressuring you splitting your forces anyway. The thing is, that is not how it works.
EVE sov mechanics is no RTS, it is a slow process based on long timers and what you describe is more a subject of sov mechanics rather than force allocation.
However, it is still about numbers only. If you have a fleet of 500 and enemy fleet of 1000 and you split your forces to attack at 2 fronts, you will get two 250 vs 500 fights instead of one 500 vs 1000. Not really a difference there.
The rule is simple - you need an equal force otherwise the bigger guys always win.
The most importantly tho, you do not need to own space to control it. This isn't game mecanics related issue.
Back in the days BoB owned just couple systems in Delve but they were able to wipe out pretty much anyone from 0.0. That was all without cap ships and jump bridges. All they lacked were numbers to keep their grip over 0.0 because the overall game population was small. Now, years later, null sec population is large enough to allow such dominance and it also happened, it is inevitable outcome.
The quick force projection isn't an issue in sov warfare but regular, smaller skirmishes when capitals are used promptly even on smaller scale warfare - hot drops.
This way of thinking is just out wrong.
What you keep forgetting is that while you see supposed effects on large coalitions only, it will have same impact on smaller entities. It won't be supposedly harder for large coalitions only to defend and keep 0.0 space but also for anyone smaller - that will put more pressure onto forming large, and even larger power blocks.
It does not take minutes to travel from gate to gate within systems.
Anyway, travel speed and being "quick" is a non-factor in sov warfare, it is a slow process.
Umm... Do you ever fly a capital?
Cyno lit too close to a station, in hops your cap. Oops... *bounce* %$@$!!!!!!
Capitals align and come up to speed SLOWLY. So each gate change is going to bog you down for traveling.
Previously, bouncing from one side of the map to the other has been VERY easy to do with an .. (I like his expression) apex fleet. So you form up 1 massive group that can be fighting on one end of the map and 15 minutes later be half way across the map attacking a "harassment" team.
That won't be easily done with these changes. It was tested on SiSi and *DOES* block the ability to move a large cap fleet such distances quickly.
Theory crafting on working around it is just that. The proof will be if/when someone attacks and the other end of their SOV is hit with a harassment group and they need to get over there.
You only say that travelling will be slower, a point no one was arguing about.
Wth Sov warfare, your targets are static so it does not matter how fast you are - POS won't run anywhere.
And I said before, system ownership and territorial control are two different things.
Yes, clearly these changes do nothing for a large group that lives in Delve and has sov to be defended in places like Venal. Oh wait, you can't do that anymore. After 10 consecutive jumps you have to wait for days for your timer to count down. What these changes do is make it impossible to own space in places out of your regional range. You are actually forced to live there because there's no crossing the galaxy under 20 minutes with bridge networks anymore. Suddently half of nullsec is unocuppied and new entities are moving in, because they aren't in fear of being dropped by the entire PL for bashing a random POS 10 regions away. It puts an end to renter empires taking half the map, and also puts an end to the endless stream of afk income from moons spread over the galaxy. Yes it does help newer entities and prevents stagnation by creating a strategic need of actually living near your owned space.
And this is only the beginning. December will bring the first set of sov-related changes.
Again...same false assumptions.
If Delve group needs to defend Venal, there is a sov timer.
If Delve group even drop their sov in Venal, they still posses power to expel anyone who would want to claim that space.
No, it does not prevent large power blocks having control over 0.0.
No, it does not help new, or smaller entities to establish in 0.0.
No, it will not prevent stagnation.
Making 0.0 life harder only promotes large power blocks, making 0.0 even more stagnate.