A pirate faction hauler with a drug smuggling hold sounds cool.

Please dont give haulers an ecm bonus, ecm is op and broken enough as it is. Giving haulers things like this would only remove the need for people to work as a team to get them into low sec with their precious things. Cloaky haulers and jump freighters are untouchable in low sec for the most part anyway.

I hope to see changes relating to speed, warp speed, hitpoints, align times and am loving some of the modular ideas that are floating around involving the containers.

This. Spin a story about the Gallente and Minmatar selling the hull production rights to ORE because it's too expensive / not worth it for them to keep up with manufacturing so many variations and so sold the rights to ORE. *Poof* all fair, and no art changes need to be made, just change the description text to "sold in YC 11X to ORE, who modified the design to be a specialist in whatever".

+1 this.

Unlike the other minor factions, you at CCP already have a fairly heavy reliance on ORE for the industrial ships; what with the Orca and the Rorqual, and all the mining barges, exhumers and the venture. It fits well into a pattern that CCP already employs for these kinds of things.

So, in the current narrative of 'empires losing control', ORE bought the rights from the current manufacturers to manufacture the 'left over' haulers because of reasons, and then specialised the designs. Maybe, since everyone used the Mk V Iteron, the other haulsers were just lossmakers. We all know what corporations think of losses. That would remove the inquity because the design changes would require Ore Industrial skill rather than racial hauler skills.

You could give the Hoarder a sig radius and align bonus. Iteron Mk II a warp core stab bonus. Iteron Mk III an ore hold. And Iteron Mk IV a speed bonus for fitting a cloak, like the Black Ops has.

The only thing that fills that gap is the Orca. It's really great for station moves. It also comes with a high price and lots of training just to fly it.

Then give them each a specialized bay, ore, gas, ice, PI or salvage (maybe even clones if you ever flesh out the dust eve integration )

UNDER RENOVATION

Hey wanted to give you guys an update

Won't be able to get these posted today. There's a few details we're still ironing out and I spent most of the day designing ENTIRE FEATURES which was really exciting. So hopefully tomorrow!

CCP Rise,

why not just make the remaining haulers Ore ships?

Ore could purchase the rights to the ships and modify them as they see fit. That would remove any accusations of "inequality" among the races.

IIRC when the real world financial crisis happened China purchased the Hummer brand. Something similar could be put into the lore where due to constant wars the empires were forced to sell off some of their excess ship models.

Doing this would allow you to get as creative as you like with the ships and also would give a reason why the ships were so drastically remodeled; they are owned by an entirely different corp that wants to take them in a different direction.

I also agree that this would be the most reasonable thing to do. It nicely removes the racial inequality and provides some depth to the range of haulers. you could adjust and rename the ORE frigate skill to apply to the new ORE haulers as well as the venture, which would give more meaning to actually training that skill.

It's a core principle of EVE that people should be allowed to make bad choices.

It's not a problem of choices. It's a problem of "modules goes offline when you pass gates and you have to turn them online again". And if you have to, you're active. If you're active, you're already protected against most suicide gankers. A damage control is mostly useless. If you are afk you can't use it, and if you are active you don't need it.

You already have the "Ore Industrial" skill in-game. It's a requirement to fly the Orca. That's its only use at the moment, apart from flying the Primae, but the Primae sucks anyway. So, there would be no need to introduce a new 'Interbus Industrial' skillbook for instance as was suggested upthread. :)

I believe that's the point Malcanis was making. If you want safety, then you are at the keyboard. If you are atk, then you can activate your DCU. If you want to not be safe--the "bad choice"--then you fly afk and don't worry about the DCU.

It's extremely unlikely that they'd ever incorporate a DCU into some hauling ship so you can effortlessly autopilot with an increased degree of safety. If you want to get your stuff there, and have assurance that you'll make it, then you don't autopilot.

I like this. It would allow the developers to engage their imaginations and that of the player-base without opening themselves up to the inevitable "race favoritism" criticisms.

For those that would be upset about losing gall and min hulls to Ore, well, it's just economics...

Seems like a winning idea.

+1

You already have the "Ore Industrial" skill in-game. It's a requirement to fly the Orca. That's its only use at the moment, apart from flying the Primae, but the Primae sucks anyway. So, there would be no need to introduce a new 'Interbus Industrial' skillbook for instance as was suggested upthread. :)

Indy ships balancing aside I wonder if those "industry changes down the pipe" will be concentrated on fixing currently existing problems/derps or maybe they will only be along the lines "ossum, that makes me want to get into industry!".

I've said it on my blog, but I'll stick it here too:

Give the Caldari and the Amarr the biggest general purpose bays, and the best of the other function.

Give the Minmatar the next biggest general purpose bay.

Give the Gallente the smallest general purpose bay, to make up for having the most flexible ship range.

My asbestos suit is ready for the flames.

Hey wanted to give you guys an update

Won't be able to get these posted today. There's a few details we're still ironing out and I spent most of the day designing ENTIRE FEATURES which was really exciting. So hopefully tomorrow!