Originally by: j0sephine

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'tis a side-effect of the "omgnerf" thread, just so people know sometimes more than whines can come out of these ;s

a proposal for new warp/scramble/instajumps mechanics:

All ships receive a new resource. this resource is from now on in this post called "warp core stability", and is basically a copy of ship capacitor, with ship-based size and recharge rate. This size and recharge rate of this resource might be modified by skills, much like capacitor.

The difference when compared to ship capacitor is, the size differences of 'warp core stability' resource between small and large ships are much smaller. On large ship, the size of this 'stability capacitor' might be 3x the size of what frigate has, a cruiser might have 2x the 'stability capacitor' a frigate has. Numbers are subject to be tweaked.

warping, instajumps

In order to warp the level of 'warp core stability' must be at least 50%

Warping uses capacitor in the same manner it does now.

Warping also drops the current level of warp core stability. Base drop amount is 50% and subjected to skills which can improve this value.

Warp core stability recharges at ship-dependent rate when ship is out of warp.

The precision of jump is determined by level of warp core stability at the moment of jump. A jump performed with minimal, 50% warp core stability can land the ship as far as 25 km from intended target. A jump performed with higher warp core stability reduced the deviation from intended point. A jump performed with 100% warp core stability allows the ship to land directly on the intended spot.

(the actual distances are subject to change, and can be possibly affected by skills)

Therefore the jump performed at the moment of 100% warp core stability is equivalent of current 'insta-bookmark'

This ability is balanced out by the time it takes for the ship to fully recharge its warp core stability, after the last jump.

scrambling

Warp scramblers change their mode of operation. Much like cap drainers/neutralizers, the scramblers destroy certain amount of "warp core stability" resource of targeted ship.

Much like cap drainers/neutralizers and ecm equipment, the scramblers can be given larger range and falloff, which determined actual amount of warp core stability neutralized per cycle.

Target ship is prevented from warping as long as its warp core stability is kept below 50%

This means the goal of scrambling ships is to achieve neutraliation rate that exceeds the target ship's warp core stability recharge rate, allowing them to get and keep the warp core stability of targeted ship below 50%

modules

Current Warp Core Stabilizers are changed to add either flat amount or percentage to the amount of "warp core stability" resource, much like the cap batteries. Unlike the cap batteries, they should not increase the stability recharge rate.

This gives WCS similar benefit they have now -- increased amount of warp core stability reduces the chance of attackers to drain enough core stability in the first scrambler cycle to bring it below 50% At the same time the WCS now has a practical penalty -- increased amount of cap means more time is needed to recharge stability to point where insta-jump can be performed. This gives attackers more time to try to locate such ship using the scan probes, before she recharges all core stability and jumps away. (note that jumping around a system to throw the attackers off drops the stability after every such jump performed)

Also, new module is also introduced, named Warp Core Stability Recharger or whatever. The function of this module is similar to cap rechargers -- it increases the recharge rate of warp core stability, possibly with some penalty.

... well, guess that's all. tried to make it as brief as possible. thoughts? o,o;

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