Everything wanting to be done here is actually doable by adding more T3 ships. I'd love to see T3 frigs, BCs, and a T3 indy. Subsystems have the ability to alter a ship entirely. Just make it so that different subsytems for the T3 indy don't change the ship model, and make one of its subsytems give it immunity to ship scans.

That Indy could be just a hauler, or a super miner, or a gas harvester, or it could be a combat ship in disguise with the EHP of a moderately tanked BC (thinking 30-50k ehp, depending on balance) and the DPS of a combat frig.

The gankers just don't know.

I like how you think.

So, like the current strategic cruisers are to regular cruisers, you are proposing a BC class equivalent.

Specifically, one that could include realistic potential for mining and hauling.

Given the probable cost as the balance point for this, I would say yes, great idea.
I think it can even match or exceed the yield of a maxxed out Hulk fairly, considering that it would probably have a billion ISK price tag to achieve this.

A mining ship capable of fighting, but at a cost prohibitive to those not certain of themselves, sounds to me like it could be balanced.

You know you can achieve all this with a bait ship and an escort fleet.

Q-ships exist in EVE. They are called put what you want in your slots. Ever heard of the Battle Badger? It's one of many great Q-ship designs.

What you are asking for is magic. Build your own Q-ships.

I have killed a few ships with a battle badger.
I have since learned that the hoarder makes a much better combat ship.
My corp mate often flys combat mining barges and they are great for provoking fights.
You can radically change most ships engagement envelopes with different fits.
You already have the tools to do what you want.

try a battle Bestower epic fun

After reading the dev blogs on just providing a new paint scheme for ships, I realized the core game program would require any actual 'q-ship' to havea different class name than the ship it is designed from.

This would defeat the entire concept of the q-ship because the prospective 'attacker/victim' could look on the overveiw or screen display and recognize he was approaching a warship in a bad disguise.

Someone earlier proposed using rigs to convert a miner or industrial to a q-ship. I think this is the way to go, now.

The 'combat rig' could provide a high slot, some capacitor value, and some shield bonus. The disadvantage would be the amount of ore hold or cargo hold the rig would fill.

EXAMPLE:
a 'small combat miner rig' could require 1500 m3 of ore hold. Thus, 3 could be put on a Venture mining frigate and leave very little ore hold for mining operation.
it would add a high slot for a small turret
it would add enough energy and enough shield so 3 of them would effectively double the Venture's power and shield
EACH rig would also add to the regeneration of the capacitor

thus, the refitted Venture would still display as a Venture on the overveiw and the screen, it would now sport 5 high slot (2 are the original mining laser slots), and have a decent shield tank to counter the DPS of the unknowing attacker.

After reading the dev blogs on just providing a new paint scheme for ships, I realized the core game program would require any actual 'q-ship' to havea different class name than the ship it is designed from.

This would defeat the entire concept of the q-ship because the prospective 'attacker/victim' could look on the overveiw or screen display and recognize he was approaching a warship in a bad disguise.

Someone earlier proposed using rigs to convert a miner or industrial to a q-ship. I think this is the way to go, now.

The 'combat rig' could provide a high slot, some capacitor value, and some shield bonus. The disadvantage would be the amount of ore hold or cargo hold the rig would fill.

EXAMPLE:
a 'small combat miner rig' could require 1500 m3 of ore hold. Thus, 3 could be put on a Venture mining frigate and leave very little ore hold for mining operation.
it would add a high slot for a small turret
it would add enough energy and enough shield so 3 of them would effectively double the Venture's power and shield
EACH rig would also add to the regeneration of the capacitor

thus, the refitted Venture would still display as a Venture on the overveiw and the screen, it would now sport 5 high slot (2 are the original mining laser slots), and have a decent shield tank to counter the DPS of the unknowing attacker.

[quote=Aalysia Valkeiper]

Still going to get splatted by one 'nado.

After reading the dev blogs on just providing a new paint scheme for ships, I realized the core game program would require any actual 'q-ship' to havea different class name than the ship it is designed from.

This would defeat the entire concept of the q-ship because the prospective 'attacker/victim' could look on the overveiw or screen display and recognize he was approaching a warship in a bad disguise.

Since the new painting schemes are now enacted, we should be seeing them soon enough.

The fact that they are presented in the market as totally different (and more expensive) ships says something.

Maybe a Q-Ship could be a POS Syphon Unit converted into a ship that could sneak around belts plinkering items from cans, barge holds and industrial holds and depots.

With every cycle of the Syphon there would be the possibility that the event would fail causing immediate aggro towards the Q-Syphon Ship.

This type of ship would have rigs that would reduce the chance of the internal system of the ship recognizing an intruder was present as well as needing a special high slot modules to effectively target the ship specific systems that would be necessary to counter in order to hack the ship.

Although the Q-Syphon Ship would need to have many new skills trained to fly it as it would be a T2 ship right out the gate any other pilot in New Eden would only have to train a set of skills not associated with modules to counter the Q-Syphon Ship which I would affectionately dub the "Troll" or Bodach in modern Scottish Gaelic.