So because there is almost no downside to having an OGB, at some point in near future everyone will have one.
So why don't we just remove boosting altogether and just increase all stats for the missing amount...

Boosting from an off-grid spot is just too much of a no-brainer to be kept in the game.

But they fill the same purpose of being a force multiplier that is not a direct damage dealing ship and as such there is no reason to treat them any different when it comes to changing them.

Is there a problem with all fleets having a booster?

Except they don't fill the same purpose. All gang links do is boost the fleet's basic stats, like tank, mobility, sensor strength and tackle range, they don't do anything like jam ships or repair armor. Not sure why this is so difficult to understand.

My suggestion for rebalancing:

-Create a sig bloom for active gang links

My suggestion for rebalancing:

-Swap the T3/Fleet Command Ship bonus to ganglinks.
-Create a sig bloom for active ganglinks, as on an MWD. Perhaps 500% to begin with, so that offgrid boosters can be probed down more easily.
-Block boosting within POS shields.

Solves the problem of ganglink invulnerability, makes fleet command ships more viable, doesn't nerf T3s into the ground, and uses mechanisms that already exist within the game, which should hopefully make it cheap and easy to implement.

If everyone has one what would be the point of having gang links at all ?



Of course they do, take a boosting legion for example. The rapid repair gang link alone boosts every guadian in the fleet by 50%, so if you fly with 4 guardians...swoosh suddenly you have effectively 6.
And this is just one link. With all armor links you can almost double the total defenses of any guardian fleet.


And this kind of power increase that is done by just one ship multiboxed on a safespot somewhere has to be in more danger for the amount it changes the outcome of fights, thus ongrid.

Because between choosing to risk losing the ship and its fleet-wide benefits (for a damnation, that can easily equate to millions of HP on the field across even a small subcap fleet) and not having those benefits go away three seconds into the fight, anyone with a bit of sense will choose the latter.

You'll have to take into consideration that these are prime targets that will be evaporated once the numbers go up. The on-grid benefits would have to be ridiculously large to outweigh that and that completely breaks them at the lower-end of the fleet size spectrum.

brain-barf edit: GǪin fact, in a sense, if you'd want to go that way, the solution would probably have to be rather backwards: you reduce the boost they give overall so that losing one won't make that much difference, but then we immediately go into Gǣso why bring one?Gǥ territory. I suppose you could fix that issue by making them generally appealing to fly for anyone, even the fleet CSes, so that the actual boosters can hide in the crowd of all those other people flying the same ship, only those others have filled up all their highs with tons of weaponry instead of command modules.

But I ask again, is having a cloaked scout also wrong? It provides way more tangible benefits, and is completely indestructible?

No, you still have effectively only 4 Guardians, and the exact same amount of remote repairers. They just rep more and use less cap.

Nice fit, but you need the Virtue set and another grav cap rig to probe out unprobeable OGBs!

:D

Why not just use all in one?

[Tengu, personal assistant]

Co-Processor II
Co-Processor II
'Aura' Warp Core Stabilizer I

Command Processor I
Command Processor I
Command Processor I
Prototype ECCM Gravimetric Sensor Cluster
Prototype ECCM Gravimetric Sensor Cluster
Prototype ECCM Gravimetric Sensor Cluster

Siege Warfare Link - Active Shielding II
Siege Warfare Link - Shield Harmonizing II
Skirmish Warfare Link - Evasive Maneuvers II
Skirmish Warfare Link - Rapid Deployment II
Sisters Expanded Probe Launcher, Sisters Combat Scanner Probe I
Covert Ops Cloaking Device II

Medium Processor Overclocking Unit I
Medium Gravity Capacitor Upgrade I
Medium Low Friction Nozzle Joints I

Tengu Defensive - Warfare Processor
Tengu Electronics - Emergent Locus Analyzer
Tengu Engineering - Capacitor Regeneration Matrix
Tengu Offensive - Covert Reconfiguration
Tengu Propulsion - Interdiction Nullifier

Garnish with a talon set (omega not required for an 1:1 sig radius/sensor strength ratio), 3 poteque implants for better probing and a warfare mindlink to your liking and there you go: Next to unprobable, warpcore stabbed, interdiction nullified Cov Ops cloaked bonused prober with 4 warfare links - the tank is a little thin, but far better than my Anathema's and actually, it's easier to fly thanks to the interdiction nullifier - not sure if it's required - only lost an Anathema once to a smartbombing BS at a gate.

Considering it took me 5 minutes to throw that fit together and people can certainly do better than that, things like the above fit are totally fubar and should never have been possible.

lol - that fit would never work ongrid - get a boosting alt and learn how to do it, noob.

lol - that fit would never work ongrid - get a boosting alt and learn how to do it, noob.

Good advice and a fitting name.

I agree with you in this overall. Problem is the invulnerability of the current off grid boosters. I have always pictured Command Ships being just that. COMMAND SHIPS. They provide fleets with extra benefits and thus in order to retain those benefits they should be protected more by ECM and Logi ships in the fleet.

The primary problem right now is that fleet booster ships are never actually IN the fleet or a part of the fight. They are an invisible and invulnerable unknown entity providing a tactical advantage. The bigger the fleet the more advantage the booster provides and the more unbalanced it becomes.

It's a double edged sword...and there is no easy fix.

pretty sure that most of the complaints towards off-grid boosting are w/r/t off-grid skirmish-boosting lokis rather than legions/tengus running tanking links

I could be wrong, though

I rather enjoy giving random local miners orca buffs but that only works cause off grid buffs work :(


Oh well guess I was buffing the competition anyway..

At least charge them some isk for the privilege!

While I'm all for removing off-grid gang links it would have to be preceded by balancing the different command ships first. The Damnation can get a whole lot more EHP than the Vulture and while I fly Amarr that still not "fair".

You ignore those caldari sonbitches and focus on fixing Gallente leadership first. Not just the command ships, but everything. I mean, come on, Information Warfare? If you want to bring EWAR, you'll bring a falcon, which can jam errything just fine without links. Switch it to something like Damage Warfare and then make the Astarte and the Eos actually viable boats.

Another one sided argument ....

Theres more to this game that running around in T1 frigates complaining about OGB

So what you going to do about ships like the Rorqual that by design have to OGB while
they cannot move when in deployed mode .... that's right .... doh!

As I have already said .... remove all OGB apart from the Rorqual !

Another one sided argument ....

Theres more to this game that running around in T1 frigates complaining about OGB

So what you going to do about ships like the Rorqual that by design have to OGB while
they cannot move when in deployed mode .... that's right .... doh!

As I have already said .... remove all OGB apart from the Rorqual !

High sec and null sec carebears whining about off grid boosters because they don't know how to train scanning alts up. More news at 11!


P.S. Blob more guys, it's kind of cute.