Oh and they mentioned something about making it so that we would want to warp it to a belt.

the buffs that would make it worth putting a rorqual in a belt would need to be insane

They'd be more likely to change it's role than to give it buffs.

tell me the role that involves putting a 2b capital ship in a belt that is not insane

Mining support.. Don't see that as any more insane than 1.5b+ on the front lines of a fight ...

tell me the role that involves putting a 2b capital ship in a belt that is not insane

The Rorqual on the other hand... We are very aware of how dire need of help it is. We're at the moment in the Summer release gonna be taking... well its gonna keep its compression feature, but that's now gonna be shared with a starbase structure, so that's no more unique to it.

Its always a ship that has kind of languished as its got the bonuses for tractor beams, but then you never put it in a belt, because that would be silly.

Its got the gang link bonuses, but it kind of also needs to be inside a force field, which is why we gave the mining links the exception when we removed all gang links from force fields.

So the goal here will be to make a ship that is the kind of thing you want to put into a belt, with extremely strong defensive bonuses, and the ability to not only protect itself but its friends, and the ability to provide also a strong benefit to your mining fleet. Get these things out where they're in a bit of some danger, but also where that danger is manageable, where it is actually sane to put them into that danger.

So more details of what we're thinking of for that will be coming in the future, we're still kind of at an earlier stage with that. That's not gonna be coming out in the Summer release, but it's one of the things we are thinking very heavily about, and plan on getting to basically next.

The problem is that the amount of damage/tank that would be needed to be added to make it viable in a belt would make it imbalanced as a pvp ship.

What amount of tank would it need to be able to possibly survive the dropping of N+1 blackops BS on top of it? I'm not sure. So if not tank then GTFO ability. I suppose allowing it to warp cloaked would work. Evildoers enter nearby systems, cloak up and warp to safe.

There isn't a warpy-cloaky capital in game at the moment is there? Also means it has to give its bonus without being in siege, like an Orca does though.

the buffs that would make it worth putting a rorqual in a belt would need to be insane

They did mention one change:

New skin

The mystery code owners are getting the ORE dev skin for it.

Maybe when the core is running its has an effect like s POS force field for nearby industrials (or even exclusive to ORE vessels)

tell me the role that involves putting a 2b capital ship in a belt that is not insane

Bubble that blocks cynos?

Stuff

When I did mining in 0.0 not too long ago, I used my rorqual for hauling, and I can assure you, it was worth quite a bit more than 2bil.

However, I'd never leave it just sitting there, boosting in belt or running tractor beams or any of the silliness CCP thinks they can convince people to do. They'd have to make some ridiculous changes if they want people to sit in belt in a rorqual, with the core deployed.

Its role as an ore hauler was even gimped by the ability of freighters to drop enormous cans, then scoop them back up.

The freighter costs half as much and can move twice the ore.


I just don't know what CCP could do to make me siege my rorq in a rock cluster. We industrialists are notoriously risk averse.

NOTHING would bring the cloaky campers around faster than a rorq getting caught in a belt, and since there is NO DEFENSE to cloaky campers, hoping beyond hope that they stay away, is the #1 priority of null sec miners.

THIS! THIS! THIS!

yet for a very strange odd reason ccp avoids the cloaky problem cause it may hurt their friends feelings, so this entire idea of feeding them kills pretty much sums up the dev's true intention.. play eve, purchase expensive ships, we'll flip the script on you and help the killers pop the ship.. then pretend to call it fun.. then deny the mechanics are broken cause in the real world this and that hogwash comparison.

first, i think removing the mining bonus from the industrial core altogether would go a long way to making these more usable in belts. just let them have the link bonus without going into siege mode. they don't have a combat role, so it makes little sense to encourage their deployment in harm's way. this also means a rorq pilot could be in belt, but be constantly aligned to a pos or station while still giving good bonuses and scooping cans at range.

secondly, i think the align time could be trimmed a bit, to help with some gtfo when uninvited guests show up.

finally, some type of EWAR immunity (as Tau mentioned above) or even extended range on an EMC burst would help in tight spots.

I disagree cause with that you're pretty much killing the orca's function. no removal of the indy core cause that takes the heart of the rorq out of it I mean really removal its only module? no hec no, although you touched up on it abit.. how come folks assume warping in that fat beast is just as fast as the AB/MWD 10s warp trick.. its not.. these fat boys/girls shouldn't even be close to a belt.

if they want it in a belt, then they should remove the restrictions and allow them in high sec.

The rumors I heard was that it will get huge offensive, defensive, and remote shield transfer bonuses in its deployed mode. A rorqual plus skiffs will be able to survive long enough for reinforcements to arrive, including completely tanking most light roaming gangs, and will have the drone firepower to "punch back" as Fozzie said of the new skiff. Gangs of Blops BS are going to want to have their hospital Sin with them.

This makes sense, as Fozzie did say in his presentation "you will WANT to put this in a belt."

* New module: Industrial Bridge Generator I. Can bridge: Industrial, Mining Frigate, Mining Barge, Exhumer, Transport, Freighter.
* Expanded fuel bay. [For bridging.]
The Rorqual is a mining fleet vessel, so it should be able to move mining fleets around.

The rumors I heard was that it will get huge offensive, defensive, and remote shield transfer bonuses in its deployed mode. A rorqual plus skiffs will be able to survive long enough for reinforcements to arrive, including completely tanking most light roaming gangs, and will have the drone firepower to "punch back" as Fozzie said of the new skiff. Gangs of Blops BS are going to want to have their hospital Sin with them.

This makes sense, as Fozzie did say in his presentation "you will WANT to put this in a belt."

The could allow for dual siege both industry core and bastion mode at the same time apply the range bonus to its primary weapons (drones)

Survive what long enough? That's the problem with drops. You have no idea what's coming. Quite a few fly with both regular and covert cyno too. Could be a Titan nearby. Who knows.

The rumors I heard was that it will get huge offensive, defensive, and remote shield transfer bonuses in its deployed mode. A rorqual plus skiffs will be able to survive long enough for reinforcements to arrive, including completely tanking most light roaming gangs, and will have the drone firepower to "punch back" as Fozzie said of the new skiff. Gangs of Blops BS are going to want to have their hospital Sin with them.

This makes sense, as Fozzie did say in his presentation "you will WANT to put this in a belt."

Survive what long enough? That's the problem with drops. You have no idea what's coming. Quite a few fly with both regular and covert cyno too. Could be a Titan nearby. Who knows.

this exactly. imo, the rorq needs to be pushed toward evasion, not fighting. it makes no sense to turn this into a combat ship, there are plenty of other ships that can handle offense/defense. besides, one hot drop with a few supers will completely nullify any combat bonus these guys get.

Hmmmmm. Rorqual with a grid wide cyno jammer while it's sieged?

I do not think that is the point of the desire to get it into belt.

Get it into belt so it can avoid the reason we want to get it into belt? Seems unlikely they will go in this direction.

Supers can't get into cyno jammed system, so the direction has to be: able to keep itself and mining fleet alive long enough for counter attack, in cyno jammed system, where risks are black ops and roaming gangs.

the buffs that would make it worth putting a rorqual in a belt would need to be insane

Fozzie & Rise talked about the Orca & Rorqual briefly and in non-specific terms in the module & ship rebalancing talk. It was an informative talk on all the other stuff they mentioned as opposed to the DUST keynote I just watched which was very poor. Proposed changes to modules sounded interesting.

The changes to the Orca & Rorqual won't happen in the summer update so I guess it will happen in the winter one. Regarding the Rorqual they want it to be able to be used outside of the POS shield. It will still have the ore compression role and will have vastly increased EHP/resistances/something else(?) to enable it to survive in-belt. I don' t think anything more specific than that was said.

Hmmmmm. Rorqual with a grid wide cyno jammer while it's sieged?

There won't be a winter expansion anymore we will receive updates around every 10 weeks that was said on one of the keynotes by ccp seagull

tell me the role that involves putting a 2b capital ship in a belt that is not insane

personally, the reason i'd put my rorq in a belt would be to pick up ore and provide boosts (assuming they remove off-grid boosting as a part of these changes). i have no desire to use it as some kind of last-man standing defense-base to stand my ground while surrounded by a bunch of barges and exhumers.

furthermore, i can't imagine what kind of push back they'll get from small gang and blops pilots when they find out their shiny pew machines won't be able to stand up against a fleet of mining barges, lol.

People put 2b isk ships in Anomalies ALL THE TIME.

Ratting Carriers are very common....
Blingy Nightmares, Machariels, Marauders, etc, etc, etc...

The main difference is, the above ships generally don't enter a 5-minute siege cycle to PvE. Alter the siege behavior of the Rorqual to be less of a sitting target, and it can see use.

As you point out, it is the 5 min lock-down for boosts that is the Rorq's problem.

In my experience 7 seconds is enough time to GTFO as usually they're in the next system. If they're already in your system it's probably too late. So the only way I'd put a Rorqual into a belt is if it gave bonuses without siege and could align and warp in 7 seconds or fewer (like my Mackinaws can).

With respect to hot-drops as I said before, there's nothing to counter because you don't know what's being dropped. It could be anything from 5 bombers to 50 supers. There's no strategy for defending your Rorqual from a hot-dropper that doesn't involve GTFO in my opinion.

How many rorqual pilots have skills beyond getting it to where it's sat in the pos, and the mining foreman links?

I dare say there will be quite a few that have virtually no defensive skills, no offensive skills, and not many mining skills short of what you need to use the ship since your job is to sit in the pos and dish out juicy bonus.

tell me the role that involves putting a 2b capital ship in a belt that is not insane

It's the same insanity that drives people to rat with carriers. Which happens quite a lot. Hell, even supers rat sometimes.

AND, no one does any of that with a claoky camper, so if the rorq in belt is intended to be the counter to cloaky campers, simply removing the siege to get bonuses is not going to work.

Allow the Rorq to fit an EMP type system that will knock cloaks out of use for 5-10 minutes. If it is truly an afk cloaky then he gets popped for being shat. If he's an actual active player, then he'll be getting the hell out.

More likely is a Mobile Cloaking Inhibitor.

To get it outside of a POS I'd give it
- The ability to bridge* mining fleets similar to a black ops, but mining ships
- Much larger hanger/or bay
- Ablity to transport a number of mining ships
- No need to siege for normal operations
- Fighters
- Reduced align time and/or require a HIC with focused warp script to lock it down
- EHP equal to a sieged carried
- Some special uber ability like:
- AE mining while sieged (like a smart bomb), ore just needs to be looted
- Bubble to prevent incoming cynos
- Bubble to drop cloaks


* Personally I think that Titians and the rest shouldn't be allowed to bridge from inside a POS.


PS- The idea of the Rorq being able to fight or repair is cool, but fundamental flawed in the belief that miners want to fight. They don't, and no 2B isk ship is going to change their mind.

im sorry,

I really have a hard time understanding why on earth are dev's so head strong at putting this capital ship at risk, if they hate pos force fields so much why on earth have them? ccp are you just trying your best to feed your friends kills?

the rorqual should be the king of industry yet they're constantly thinking of ways of gimping it.. you know something fozzie.. give it fighter drone support since you're head strong about it being involved in pvp while killing rocks.. or how about you also provide with anti-ewar support to entire mining ops fleets, anti-cloak in the system ( oh yeah you just love your afk cloaky friends yet wont do anything about that one how odd).. and while you're at it give the rorqual the power to fight and take out up to dreadnaught level cannons? how about that one fozz-man..

you want it in belts so much as for the tractor beam? seriously how often is the powerful tractor beam used? I don't use it at all.. its not a main requirement in my ops.. I sure as hell will not take it into a belt while you allow a small size ship to drop +25 or more ships on me.. but again you obviously don't know about fairness and level playing ground.

this is all a bad idea, no wonder folks are getting rid of their assets and prepping to leave.

honestly ccp get with the program and make the rorqual the most powerful beast and worthy capital ship one would want to even invest in and use and place in belts.. but this constant direction of .. everything should be at risk. all the while allowing other major broken ships get cheap kills is rather disturbing. just my and only my opinion not like it matters.

rorqual - major bonus to EHP major! Major!
- huge increase to drone bay allowing fighters - +20 yeah I said it so what
- major bonus to killing rocks and supporting all mining ships in the op +200% to all defenses in fleets.. make killers actually afraid of F!'ing with a miner ( doubt this though since folks love attacking things that cant fight back)
- Anti-ewar, Cloaking (system-wide) features
- increase navigation systems -- so umm how do you plan to allow this fat beast to warp away from danger?? see guys why are you even thinking about this.

I just don't get it ccp, you're killing this ship even more.. oh by the way... why are you even thinking about the rorq in the belt.. what the hell about the orca?? whats it's purpose then?? good lord all mighty wtf??

One of CCP's current three guiding principles around iterations is that there has to be risk. If a Rorqual is in a POS forcefield bubble there is not much risk.

The Orca is for high sec. The Rorqual is for null sec.

Idea:
Rorqual with Reinforced mode. When it gets to 30% shield-> goes into reinforced for half an hour.

That would prevent Titan insta-blaps and would force Gangs to either stick around or to come back later. It also gives time for the Rorq pilot to batphone for help.

Cool. That means only people who're able to bat-phone for help will be able to make use of one. Are there many indy toons or renters with a bat phone?

It would also mean that SC hotdrops are very unlikely, since they have to stay for 30min+ to get the kill. I would assume PL, N3, BL and CFC (to name a few) would be willing to kill some supers that sit idle in space waiting :P

the buffs that would make it worth putting a rorqual in a belt would need to be insane

With the compression, being done by a pos module Rorq compression becomes a bit of a novelty.

I like the idea about giving it multiple cores or just a an extra core for building stuff.

Just going to speedball;

-Capital mining drones or a massive bonus to them? They atm a weird stepchild that is not used.

-Capital mining lazors, risk vs. revard. Will you keep the rorq deployed to get that ore? - Might end up in whole fleets of deployed rorqs and the death of other mining ships.

-Give it a module so it will suck the ore out of the oreholds of the ships on field, if they got a similar module?

-Bigger orebay so it can be used as a hauler. The 250k is cutting it a bit short imo.

I like to read into it a bit deeper and speculate.

What will make me WANT rather than NEED to drop my Rorqual in a belt implies that if there is a closure to offgrid bonuses and option they will be giving will be more appealing and relatively ISK efficient.

So I asked my industrial head to think about what would make me WANT to put a Rorqual in the beltGǪother than bait. (Battle Rorqual Forever)

Increased defences GÇô Nope, if you get dropped by 20+ supers they will kill you
Increased offenses GÇô Nope, see above and would create a monster of a PVP ship, not CCPGÇÖs intention.
Immunity to EW GÇô Nah, anyone knows you donGÇÖt need a point to hold a Rorqual, plenty of time whilst in industrial mode if caught to apply neuts (standard fit for BLOPs if know target) and bumping and bubbles work well. Still doesnGÇÖt make me WANT to put in belt.
Cyno Inhibitor GÇô Nope, prevents drop but also prevents backup and can still light off grid and warp to in time whilst in industrial mode.
Scan Inhibiter GÇô Nope, belt on D Scan and deployable mod available.

That leaves me with the only two viable answers.

Reinforced Mode GÇô Timer of Invulnerability
POS Mode GÇô Creates a force field in the belt which mining ships can move into if baddies come a hunting.

However this would be useless for any alliance unable to escalate soGǪ.

POS mode where the force field remains for a while after deactivation, maybe 30 secs, allowing the Rorqual to warp off when out of mode and a bonus to Rorqual of invulnerability to bubbles.

Note if the exhumers remain in the shield after bubbles deployed then these will be bubbled and lost so not a complete safe haven, need still to get safe if smell an incoming storm.

Sorted you can close thread.

Call me crazy but I think they should rethink the role the Rorqual plays in eve.

We already have a mining boosting ship in the Orca. I think in the spirit of the tiericide changes that the rorqual should have a different role. I think it should become more of a mobile factory ship.

Forget the mining bonuses. Keep the compression, add production and research lines to it but less than a POS is capable of doing.

And most importantly. Allow the darn thing to be flyable in all security space. High, Low and Null. This would give the little guy something to use instead of a POS that is a giant wardeced target to use to be able to produce and research as well as a great mobile platform for exploration production. I.E. in the upcoming player gates they could fly the Rorqual through the new gate and immediately begin producing the entry level infrastructure in the new system.

Perhaps use the idea of the temporary POS type shield while it is in production mode but of course if the ship is mobile or docked all production ceases until it is put back into factory mode.

This way the Orca is still relevant, the Rorqual gets a new job that is actually useful and not OP like some of the ideas out there, and the little guy gets another less cost intensive way to get into industry than having to feed a POS or play the production in the boondocks in order to compete against the big dogs of industry when they are trying to get going.

That makes some sence. But what do they do with the compressed ore ? Just curious.

While details may vary, this type of thinking is the only thing that would ever get anyone to put a Rorq in a belt. Yeah, it would be total game changer for mining. But nothing short of this will cause any kind of change.

Still not a good idea. I mean it's "here's a target the only problem with it is you've got to wait a bit longer before you can engage it". In reality here's what will happen:

(1) Nobody will use a Rorqual.
(2) ...

My point is, if the Roqual was changed in a way that made it viable as a PVP ship, really, why would that be a problem. the same has already been done with other industrial ships, why not the roqual, and for that matter why not all mining ships?

As long as it was not superior to the ships it would be competing with, I don't see a problem. Sure its primary design will always be geared to ward industrial use, but that does not mean it can not have a potential alternative use for PVP.

Absolutely no combat or shield related addition to the Rorqual would make me want to keep it around in a belt. Here's what would:

(1) Much faster align and warp time
(2) Bigger bonus for its gang links when on grid
(3) No requirement to siege it to get (2)

Basically all of those 3 things together would make putting one on field worthwhile. The way the miner works is he mines and watches/listens closely to intel. If there's a red 3, 2 or 1 jump away he'll GTFO. If he's in something that can't GTFO, it's probably going to die, so he'll only ever have put one into a field once before in his Eve career and it's probably on his KB.

Listen, any/all ideas that involve making the Rorqual a "viable PvP ship" still fail due to something called escalation. Blops, wrecking ball, 10 supers, 50 Titans, you have absolutely no idea what's going to come through that cyno. Well OK you do if you have a spy in his coms.

So no. Absolutely no combat or shield related addition to the Rorqual would make me want to keep it around in a belt. Here's what would:

(1) Much faster align and warp time
(2) Bigger bonus for its gang links when on grid
(3) No requirement to siege it to get (2)

Basically all of those 3 things together would make putting one on field worthwhile. The way the miner works is he mines and watches/listens closely to intel. If there's a red 3, 2 or 1 jump away he'll GTFO. If he's in something that can't GTFO, it's probably going to die, so he'll only ever have put one into a field once before in his Eve career and it's probably on his KB.

But here's the question:

Why can I put a Damnation next to a POS shield and get full bonuses from its hull, whereas in order to get a full bonus for mining I have to fly this massive fat 2.5b capital? It makes absolutely no sense.

So the goal here will be to make a ship that is the kind of thing you want to put into a belt, with extremely strong defensive bonuses, and the ability to not only protect itself but its friends, and the ability to provide also a strong benefit to your mining fleet. Get these things out where they're in a bit of some danger, but also where that danger is manageable, where it is actually sane to put them into that danger.

My proposals (in several threads) have been for improvements that reduce risk, but don't eliminate it.

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=4598337#post4598337

...

End off grid boosting or atleast put a hard cap on it at 150k

...

Let it use more drones at once.
Increase bandwidth and drone bay.

Give it a bubble so it can lock down targets.

Make it force cap ships to commit to the fight or atleast a serious BS fleet.

Risk needs to go both ways.

Let it give the good buffs without the core on.

End off grid boosting or atleast put a hard cap on it at 150k

Rorquals would start showing up in every deep null area.

Problem solved.

I tried to post here, but the post was too long. I therefore published it to the web.

The Only Thing That Will Work

This all is written from my point of view as a wormhole miner.

Cool. That means only people who're able to bat-phone for help will be able to make use of one. Are there many indy toons or renters with a bat phone?

Your argument is like saying: I can't build my capitals in Delve to supply the local market because people will shoot my tower and i don't have batphones!

Just another Idea:

Why don-¦t think about the Mining Role itself? Not only for the Roqual, but for all Mining ships. Why do we always have to be the harmless sheep's running away, if anybody with an evil face is just looking at us? Why can-¦t we be the (weaker) wolf in sheep-¦s clothing?

What I mean is, much miners are getting attacked or ganked every day without having a chance to strike back.

CCP, please turn off the requirement for Heavy Water for the Rorqual for the 22nd release. As compression is being basically null-n-void from the rorqual - you're giving it to a POS with no additional fuel costs to the POS. Do you not think, rorqual pilots need at least one benefit in flying their ore hauler? Thanks.

TheSampler

Bsically good Idea, but I wouldn-¦t like having a rorq in a belt without an active mining role. Also the point that the only way to get out of PvP will be by jumping out is a great mess, as Jumpdrives do not work in Wormholes.

So easy to solve this it's not even funny.

RISK:
- Reduce Core Cycle to 2 or 3 seconds. Core creates risk for rorqual that causes its max_velocity = 0. This means Rorq will need full align time to gtfo (or 2x 100mwd time or instadoublewebwarp). And kill the heavy water stupidity while at it. It's really not fun game play and serves nothing but to annoy.
- Increase align time to 60 seconds.

BONUSES:
- Maintenance bay that can target itself. Swap them lows to WCS if you can do it fast enough. And other stuff.
- Core mode creates grid effect (if CCP hasn't fixed this code by now, I am not sure why we're even discussing rorq revamp).
- Core off grid effects: same as now
- Core on grid effect:

• can use 6 links: 3 mining, 3 shield. 8 total high slots for either additional tractors or reps.
• EITHER 1) increase ongrid link bonuses by ca 100% (mining bonus 202% when maxed- currently it's 101%).
• OR 2) create a remote module like remote sensor booster, that when used on a friendly miner, it increases his yield dramatically for the above same bonus.

This will give initiative to fly rorqs far more often into belts to support miners. (I would do so happily any day or time of day ... except if there was another titanomachy being in works in the adjacent system )
Bottom line: that's a 2 bil ship I'd take to belt and sit it there.

Another fun fact: if you give fewer bonuses than described, we will not be seeing the dramatic increase of these ships in belts that was hoped for. => less piratey pew pew. =>Less happy customers accross the board.


You *could also add:
- Immunity to warp bubble.
BUT in this case, increase the paragraph 1 RISK to:
Increase mass 10 times to kill mwd cycled warp and increase align time to 75seconds.
This way +4 warp scramble str is needed to 100% stop that rorq from gtfo-ing. But IMO, that ability is worth more than 2 bil isk per capital hull.

And no, POS-rorq is not needed and rorq-rock-crunchmuncher also not.

Ships die. Who knew. For some reason I thought that was the point of EVE.

With my idea it takes 1 ship to tackle the rorq. Unless the rorq pilot is watching local. In which case that one ship in EVE that could have tackled him can't do it in time.

Learn your game. It's not that hard.

Ships die. Who knew. For some reason I thought that was the point of EVE.

With my idea it takes 1 ship to tackle the rorq. Unless the rorq pilot is watching local. In which case that one ship in EVE that could have tackled him can't do it in time.

Learn your game. It's not that hard.

Idk if this has been suggested already,

Just make it cheaper to produce. If it wasn't 2.5B pilots wouldn't be as concerned with losing it:

Bump it down to a Battleship class vessel. Keep the siege mode and have it function similar to a Marauder. Less expensive, more mobile, easier to pilot, access to highsec.

The problem isn't coming up with a "fix" to make the rorqual a desirable ship to use in belts. It's coming up with a solution that will convince a pilot that the bonuses it gives outweigh the cost of losing that ship. We all know don't fly what you can't afford to lose. Well as a Rorqual pilot, I have no intention of ever moving one out of a POS because simply, I earn no ISK flying a Rorqual. I basically bought one because I like helping my corpies out. Does it justify the 2b price tag.... no way! Could I charge for my boosting services... I suppose. But why should I need to. Even if I do, I'm still paying a monthly sub to have an account AFK boost. Sure I may make some "passive" ISK but not enough to PLEX an account.

Bottom line is the Rorqual needs a way to do what it was designed (boost, serve as a mini-hub, compress, haul) but also allow the pilot to actually play the game. Giving is ridiculous buffs like its own POS shield, or fighter drones, or insta-warp with re-fitting capabilities it's a solution. It's just a way to make this ship blingier and more of a target. I think of it in smaller terms to make sense of it.

In High Sec, you use a Hulk. Why? Because the added security allows for less tank and more m3 /hr.
In Low/Null/W-space you use a Covetor. Why? Because it gets you 80% of the yield with a much cheaper price tag.

Going by the logic, it would make more sense to say Rorqual should be a High Sec ship and the Orca should be Null. Is that the solution, maybe. I doubt it, because the utility of the Rorqual is what makes it a Null ship. The easiest way to remedy this problem is to reduce the cost of constructing a Rorqual, and give it the ability to actually do something. This way a pilot would be more inclined to take one out into a belt because not only can they earn ISK themselves, it also won't hurt as much to lose one. It's already got a ton of tank and utility. It should only be used when you have people online to help support it.

If you make it less boring... they will come

TL;DR
Rorqual is easy to make OP.... solution should be simple Step 1 - Make Rorqual less expensive to fly, Step 2 - Make Rorqual able to generate ISK, Step3 - Profit. Fill in the blanks.........

A skilled prober who knows beforehand where the rorqual is going to be will have time to drop probes

SO
According to these posts the dominant majority of peoples ideas are really OP and I honestly don't believe would do any good for the game, especially in regards to balancing and the role of the Rorqual. Here are my thoughts on some of the proposed ideas/

1. The rorqual should not be able to suddenly change its mind when you deploy it, just like dreadnoughts, carriers, or Marauders when you click that button your committing to the fact that there is a significant chance you will lose your ship because of it. If you press that button your signing the "terms and conditions" so to speak, and you have to abide by what that contract says, which in this case is 4-5 minutes of immobility. And if there are bad things happening, then you have to deal with it.

2. The rorqual should be able to apply decent DPS to punch back at an attacker and repair amounts when deployed as well as compressing the ore and giving people the super links the rorqual is known for. HOWEVER you must be careful it doesn't become as good or better then a triage carrier, balance is key. and the rorqual should not be able to outshine anything in that regard / role.

Of the proposed ideas this one works best, it can repair barges and exhumers rapidly, tank small roaming groups and undesirable NPC rats while still doing its job. again its all a matter of balance.

3. Some people proposed making the rorqual what appears to be a station ship. Giving it massive EHP, and ( at least this is how i read this part ) a reinforcement timer so that if it gets hotdropped it can laugh at the attackers who now cannot touch it and will merely sit there waiting for help for a set amount of time.

NO NO NO NO NO. Titans don't even get this kind of option so why on gods earth should the Rorqual? if you get hotdropped you will die, unless you had a better counter drop ready or tanked the droppers until reinforcements arrived. this idea is utterly horrible and should never even be considered in my opinion. If you want to be safe from hotdroppers, roaming gangs, and things that go bump in the shadows dock in the station with your head between your legs.

4. Reduce the rorquals build cost to make it disposable

I'm sorry what? Cheap capital ships aren't really a thing if you want something that can give links like that, compress ore, carry that much, and carry your mining fleet plus jump clones your going to pay out the nose for it if you want it badly enough. and given the fact rorquals still sell i would say people do want it even at its current price.

5. Cloaky rorquals

Fit a cloak if you want but cloaking when your deployed is not allowed and shouldn't be, also cloaking is a pain when you tractor in cans or have barges sitting around you or someone warps in on you. Your not exactly small so you'll probably end up with a decloak off some pointless object or a rat spawning in. Also No warping cloaked in a rorqual, its far from a covops, maybe if you ask nicely CCP will give you cloaky miners following in the Prospect's footsteps.

6. Increase align time and acceleration.

I have few issues with this, but i still believe that it should warp slightly slower than a nano freighter even when nano fit. This avoids it being able to align and warp like the old nano battleships, and gives players in fast tackle the chance to get it. A skilled prober who knows beforehand where the rorqual is going to be will have time to drop probes, place them where it is, run the scan and warp in for tackle with no issues while the rorqual pilot will be able to align and warp away in much improved space of time over what they have now.

7. MOAR LINKS ( And highslots to make that happen )

If you want to run shield and mining links get a vulture in fleet, it will boost better than the rorqual since its specialized to do that. No need for you to be running 6 links with an industrial core and utility slot.

8. Bubble immunity

No, just no. If you get bubbled only 2 different types of ships get to warp away, ceptors and nullified T3's, the second you add capital ships to that list you broke Eve.
Bubbles = Infinite Points, No escape.

9. Capital mining mods

I also have no issues with a capital strip miner or a capital ice harvester. in fact adding mining ability would make it more belt worthy than it is now. Plus that means there might be solo mining rorquals to kill!

Again those were just my thoughts on some of the ideas posted here, MY IDEA would be a mix of the marginally increased align time, addition of capital mining mods, Increase the rep power and tank of it to levels just about 20% below a triage carrier, and weaponize the drones more to punch things in the face, maybe a larger boost to drone Hitpoints so they dont all die to DPS frigs in 2 volleys.

Oh and while i'm here, when this change comes about please make sure you take away the ability of a rorqual to boost in a POS ( Maybe the Orca as well ) this will Force rorqual pilots to choose 1 of 3 options after the change is implemented, and makes them suffer the same fate command ships now do ( Althout command ships kick ass now too )

1. RIsk it by boosting in the belts or deployed outside of a POS, or in darkspace. either way it can die

2. Sit in the shield compressing ore, making clones, and QQ' ing on Forums

3. Haul it to low sec, strip it down and sell it for parts.

Again this should come with the changes, i'm not suggesting this happen on its own

You might just want to go back to the PvP forums and talk with your buddies about miner ganking or whatever your career is. But you might as well stop trolling here. Obviously your input is skewed by your principles of ideology that are born completely out of the world of PvPers who prefer to take on targets that can't shoot back. But no need to troll here. This thread is for those interested in coming up with ways to make a Rorqual actually work.

1) Make the Rorq a mobile starbase, thats use is tied to its indy core. Make the shields small enough, or (I'm not sure if the coding would stand up to this) add a rule that only industrial ships can enter the shield. Then add a cleverly named "Bay" that can only contain enough stront, HW, Spiced Wine etc... to generate a timer of an hour or less. During which the ship will remain in space but maintain its Combat timers until the reinforce timer finishes. Ie if reinforced it will maintain its full Capsuleer combat log off timer until it exits reinforce and then the countdown will begin.

2) Create 4 new Capital Mining Lasers(2 for Ice and 2 for ore) that can only be used on the rorqual and requires/ is bonused by the starbase defense management skill. Make them like the usual capital mods where there are the meta 1 version and a second named one to add some bling bling and further fuel the fires of industry and economy.

3) Rework the OGB so that it would still have its current unsieged boost level if off grid and its current, if not better, sieged boosts if on grid. But keep off grid boosting so as to maintain the choice of still using the rorqual but in a safer way or using an orca in its current state.

Final thoughts:

Rorqual is a capital, capitals are expensive and shouldn't cost less. If you got a rorqual to AFK boost you knew it wasnt going to be making ISK, instead the ore everyone else mines does it for the rorqual pilot. But i agree when you say that it needs to do something, someone suggested a capital mining mod and a buff to its scan res to make it decent to mine alongside its barge counterparts. And i would say if it did it well enough it would be worth putting it in the belts again.

Unless there's a reasonable reward or reasonable defensive mechanic for moving my rorqual outside of its pos, I won't be moving it. If they force the rorqual out of the pos then i'll just scrap it, and making it cost less to do the same things or even do less is a big middle finger to everyone who owns one now.

I like seeing a web of mining lasers at a field but seeing a swarm of drones re-enact the scenes from The Langoliers would bring me so much joy in this world!

CCP has already proposed removing force fields, so they are not going to add more.

Lolwat.

No. CCP are going to replace POS infrastructure. The new anchorables are baby steps in this direction. Whatever they replace it with will have to have the substantially similar property "invulnerable", same as the existing force field. Without it a whole lot of stuff would just die or no longer bother logging in.

3) Get rid of the force field bubble, partly for technical reasons.

...

3) Force fields (or lack thereof). CCP wants to have docking modules, but they don't want them to be cheap, and they may want to limit the number of ships that can be docked. CCP has been exploring adding mooring modules that would protect a ship that was able to physically get near the module with a small force field around just the ship. This system might replace ship maintenance arrays.

...

Trebor mentioned that not having a force field would be a big change to the way fleets often operate, and Greyscale mentioned that he would be looking into that.

Elise asked about mooring supercaps, and CCP said that that would be allowed, and people could set it so that only the owner or a director of the corp that owned the starbase would be able to un-moor the ship. CCP Greyscale said that he was thinking that people would have to get to 0 meters from the mooring module in order to moor a ship, which would mean that there would be a natural limit of however many ships could fit at the mooring point, and that people would have to carefully consider their starbase layout to take this into account.

UAxDEATH asked about if personal POSes would still allow directors to un-moor ships, and Greyscale said probably not, but that corp POSes would, because corps need to be able to take down a tower.

...

Elise asked about moored ships when a starbase is destroyed, and Greyscale said that they would all un-moor and be able to be stolen.

...

There was some discussion about what the removal of POS force fields would change in things like nullsec fleet fights. Elise pointed out that losing the ability to have a safe(ish) place to park a fleet for 20 minutes or so would be a big change from the current system.

CCP Greyscale suggested that they might look into making an anchorable POS type shield.

Two step pointed out that this would be a big change for all sorts of fights, and might be just a tad controversial. There was some discussion about what exactly might prevent people from mooring at a POS, such as warp scramblers.

The session ended with the CSM urging CCP to "ship it" as soon as possible.

[quote=CSM Minutes]3) Get rid of the force field bubble, partly for technical reasons.

Yea, the CSM talk about all kinds of crap that's never going to happen. That's what they do.

If you want a mining booster on grid then it is not the Rorqual. Stop trying to force square pegs into round holes.

The Rorqual is fine, it sits in a POS and provides a stronger mining boost than the Orca.

Create another ship, smaller, cheaper. Battleship cost. Let it boost stronger than a Rorqual when on grid, chuck in a compression capability (with tractor beam) so it can grab containers of ore and compress it so it's doing something useful. Don't let it store much, Miasmos are perfect for moving the compressed ore away.

Heck create a T2 variant, give it cloak/covert cyno capability, weaker boost to compensate. It can wander around boosting and compressing ore with Prospects and a blockade runner...

The mining boost it gives isn't the issue, its that all it can do is boost. Theres no way for a pilot to make isk in a Rorqual which translates into why use one.

The Rorqual "makes" significant isk. It may not directly translate as isk into your wallet, or ore into your hold, but your fleet is mining considerably more ore than it would have done otherwise.

If you do not feel you are being adequately compensated for that then that isn't an issue with the Rorqual or its abilities.

You're never realistically going to convince Rorqual owners to sit in a belt, even if it could mine like a hulk, or two hulks. Swiftly visit a belt maybe, sit in it no...

True Rorquals make vast sums of ISK indirectly but the pilot typically doesn't see it. I've never been compensated by a corp for boosting and logistically speaking it'd be very hard to charge isk / cycle in a fleet to anyone willing to pay. There will always be another willing to boost for cheaper or for free. And even if you could, how much can you squeeze out of a miner... 5k isk/cycle to open yourself up to attack. Obviously this goes above the Rorqual and more toward an Orca but the principal is the same.

that why you should charge by the hour, rounded up

I have been at this game since its inception pretty much. The rorqual is an interesting ship with a lot of benefits, however the changes in the Crius leads me to believe the best thing we can do with it will be as follows.

Rorqual Purposed Changes:

Non-Siege

A: Capital Strip Miners. This only makes sense and was I originally thought the rorqual would be. Take it in the belt and make it happen. While industrial mode it crushes all ore in its hold into squares.

B: Make it immune to E-WAR. Similar to Supers it can not be locked down, however it is still susceptible to hot drops as being in siege mode would still make you a squishy.

C: Add slight defense bonuses to miners in surrounding area. Honestly, its drone damage at level V is already pretty nasty and no rats or small ships in their right mind would

-Sieged -

20 percent bonus to miners shield
20 percent bonus to drone damage to all mining ships
-mining bonuses of course.
-Constantly crushes ore and puts it in squares.


Just a few ideas. Other than that it stays in a POS as far as I am concerned.

I have been at this game since its inception pretty much. The rorqual is an interesting ship with a lot of benefits, however the changes in the Crius leads me to believe the best thing we can do with it will be as follows.

Rorqual Purposed Changes:

Non-Siege

A: Capital Strip Miners. This only makes sense and was I originally thought the rorqual would be. Take it in the belt and make it happen. While industrial mode it crushes all ore in its hold into squares.

B: Make it immune to E-WAR. Similar to Supers it can not be locked down, however it is still susceptible to hot drops as being in siege mode would still make you a squishy.

C: Add slight defense bonuses to miners in surrounding area. Honestly, its drone damage at level V is already pretty nasty and no rats or small ships in their right mind would

-Sieged -

20 percent bonus to miners shield
20 percent bonus to drone damage to all mining ships
-mining bonuses of course.
-Constantly crushes ore and puts it in squares.


Just a few ideas. Other than that it stays in a POS as far as I am concerned.

it will only be caught if it starts warp from 0m/s when a neut jump in.

If you had it aligned and moving at warp speed it is an instant warp. The only time it can get caught is if it was turning around to align or if it was in warp to the belt when neuts / reds came in, both of which are short period of time and a luck of the draw thing. As long as the capital strip miner has a long range, I don't think there is a need for an immune to e-war/scram.

It does require a more active mining as you need to constantly change alignment to get out, but you can see it as a way to prevent botting....

lol.

Ya, I sometimes wonder if I'm the only actual Rorqual owner in these sort of threads.

Problem: Rorquals won't go to belts 'cause indy pilots are very conservative and don't like getting killed
Solution: Make risking your Rorqual more attractive

Thus, what currently stands for acceptable risk vs. reward is the miner risking his assets to get ISK by subjecting them to the threat of PvP and the PvPer accepting no risk by being the party that chooses to engage or not. Therefore, an acceptable situation for the Rorqual to function in a belt would be to effectively make the Rorqual unkillable in a belt and to boot give it the ability to offer substantial protection and multiplication of combat power to the mining vessels it supports.

My idea that gives a potential expression of such a result is here.

I have noticed a number of the more recent posters on this thread posting ideas as if they hadn't read my idea. I know it's a bit long. Please read.

The issue I see with your concept is that the more drastic the change idea the less likely it is and the more likely it turns into a bad genie wish. Your idea could be condensed down from TL/DR, to a few adjustments or reworks of role bonuses. Less is more. Take a good look at the hows/ why of the tiercide changes or the Kronus ship changes. it could be more like this;

ECM AOE GOD MODE BUBBLE!!!---> 50% RANGE BONUS TO ECM BURST, PER LEVEL ECM STRENGTH PER LEVEL.
SMARTBOMB GOD MODE---> 100% DAMAGE BONUS PER LEVEL, 100% RATE OF FIRE PER LEVEL , -50 % OPTIMAL RANGE PER LEVEL.

Lose the siege mode if you want Rorquals to be used in belts. No-one is ever going to siege a Rorq in a belt, ever.

The siege/ Industrial core module is a large part of the problem. The 10% bonus to mining foreman links should be unlinked from having the industrial core active. With the compression array it will never be used, reprocess the Industrial core.

If it was a fleet wide super booster granting additional drone dps bonuses, resist boosts, and Rep boosting it might be a useful Rorqual siege module.

If the ship is effectively invulnerable while sieging then people will siege it in belts.

Axure is right. indy core needs to die.

That's a lot of SP gone *poof*. Convert to another skill that gives the same bonus?

no they wont. Because unless it has reinforce mechincs like a station, then its going to die when it runs out of fuel or when it comes out of invulnerability.

Even if you gave it invulnerability it would be too much. It becomes this power struggle between making a rorqual invulnerable enough to use, then people bring more things, then it gets buffed, even more things come, and goes on and on.

Simply put, there is no sweet spot where the rorqual is strong enough to risk, but not too OP that it can never be killed.

Axure is right. indy core needs to die.

You seemed to miss the part where there is no mechanic that is both fair and allows for more safety. Similar to other discussions on this, making the rorqual either invulnerable or insanely tough is both unfair to the attackers who came plenty prepared and too powerful as it makes the ship perfectly safe. No other ship does this, only stations have this ability, and it has been acknowledged that this may one day be removed. If you tried applying this idea to any other ship it would be silly. You don't see carrier and dread pilots asking for an invulnerability mode for those long grinds.

An analogy for this would be: I may be chained to the wall in the basement, but only if the chain was longer then I would be ok.

The simplest and best idea would be to scale down, not up. Remove the industrial core (bake all related bonuses and abilities into hull) and go from there. Almost all other changes would be related to the ships effectiveness at its role rather than trying to justify using it in other-than-perfect conditions.

The rorqual was set up to bring a mining fleet to null to mine. so lets make it that way, or remove the description. Also removal of the industrial core also means that a lot of us spent some time to train up skills for nothing, not something I think is fair.

Perhaps the Rorqual is just a dumb ship? CCP have changed the game around it and I don't think the concept really works any more. I haven't heard any idea here that's compelling and some are just silly.

To define a role and equipment for such a ship you first have to define the need and apart from handing out system-wide bonuses from the safety of a POS there isn't one. Well, if that's all it's doing then just officially make it that. There's really no need to add layers of complexity to such a thing and contrive some game-play that's clearly nonsense around it. You don't really do that with other ships.

Sometimes less is more.

Actually, if the goal is to make the Rorqual a ship that can function in null then ideas about removing the siege would work. This would create a Rorqual that can do its job until a neut shows up in local at which point the Rorq docks up. Therefore, the industrialist need only find a system with a station that is not likely to have many neuts come through or near by. However, my standard of success for the Rorqual is a ship that can do its thing in low sec and NPC null where neuts are always going to be nearby or in the system.

Removing the siege mode would make the Rorq suitable for operating in systems of deep blue null, e.g. far out rental areas or the Goonswarm systems. But to make the Rorqual beneficial to independent groups who are often forced to content themselves with low sec and NPC null, it actually needs the ability to keep functioning with danger truly present. That's what my idea is designed to enable.

And to the other poster above who talks about no other ship having invulnerability, I would like to point out that jump freighters are practically invulnerable if they merely undock and jump to a cyno at zero on their destination. If you don't fly a JF through high sec or misplace a cyno, it is basically unkillable on account of undock and dock mechanics which were implemented because without them capital movements would be effectively impossible through huge quantities of space. There is only one word to describe the mechanics that make the use of JFs in Eve possible: invulnerability. My proposal would basically make the Rorqual unkillable at the level of a jump freighter. Rorqs could still be killed on account of sloppy movement and poor implementation of the siege. But it should be given a measure of invulnerability required for the conduct of its function, just like the JF.

Right now the Rorqual has a mechanic that gives it the required level of invulnerability that it needs to do its job. It's called a POS. However, this is obviously not desirable as the Rorq's tractor, scanning, shield rep, and drone abilities are not used, the Rorq's ore bay does not alleviate hauling concerns and tip the miner toward the Retriever or Mackinaw when they should have the ability to select Hulks or Skiffs depending on situations, and come Crius its compression ability loses a measure of value with POS operations. The stated goal is to make the ship usable in belts. Well, the only way to do that is to give it the mechanic that is has, the POS, without having to have a POS. This would make the Rorq useful in low sec, NPC null, and in stationless systems.

And I would like to reiterate to all those who think the Rorqual will be fixed if the a siege is removed, that this will only make the Rorqual usable in deep blue null. Not in low. Not in NPC null.

you are confusing station invulnerability with ship invulnerability. Every ship has access to station invulnerability. However if you take that jump freighter anywhere other than the station it's extremely vulnerable. Your proposal would allow you to take a rorqual anywhere and have invulnerability.

And like I said before, CCP wants to take away station invulnerability by allowing you to blow them up.

OK first, again we have someone commenting on what I am saying without reading my idea. I linked it countless times in this thread. You can scroll up. When you read it you will see that my idea proposes that the Rorq can only siege in an asteroid belt, and the invulnerability is linked to sieging.

Second, I am not talking about station invulnerability. I am talking about the fact that when any ship undocks it gets 30 seconds of invulnerability unless it activates modules or changes direction, and that this mechanic allows jump freighters to perform their function with effective invulnerability.

Can't disagree with you more.

Need: ice systems in high sec are overcrowded. In null they are tightly controlled by the sov owners and are often taxed through rent or other means to be barely profitable and/or have a high barrier of entry. There are scores of ice systems in low sec and NPC null that sit empty. Many of them are in systems with no stations. This is sad and can completely be fixed by a Rorqual that actually works.

I agree. if they don't add much bonus you aren't really gaining anything but risk bring that monstrosity into a belt.

However, I'd never leave it just sitting there, boosting in belt or running tractor beams or any of the silliness CCP thinks they can convince people to do. They'd have to make some ridiculous changes if they want people to sit in belt in a rorqual, with the core deployed.

They would have to increase the profitability of low/null sec mining by a ludicrous amount such that it would be worth it to have a combat escort. That isn't gonna happen, ever.

I have never seen this level of detachment from a staff before in my entire life.

The problem, of course, are the players.

I think you need a little more self-awareness. Nobody likes your idea, therefore "the players are the problem"? Also I'm not sure you've ever flown a Rorq or been in a belt in low or null. If you had you'd absolutely hate the idea of taking an industrial capital ship into one.

Child, I rent in deep, deep null.

CCP is just trying their best to turn this into a Plex to win game, simple as that, they're bleeding new subs and think they can force others into putting everything they own on the line.. for the sake of "fun" or "future of the game" .. there is no future with these IGNORANT idea's.

I find it funny though, how they even come up with this idea when in fact alliances out right BAN anyone who ever thinks of placing a rorqual in a belt.. they're just providing more reasons to not play this game ever again.

so they can continue playing stupid games with folks assets its actually a quick and easy spreadsheet formula

Players will leave and give money to another company..

#dealwithit.

I have never seen this level of detachment from a staff before in my entire life.

someone doesnt know how PLEX market works.
Someone makes blanket statement s about things they dont know.

...someone has been smoking tinfoil

Child, I rent in deep, deep null. NOBODY comes to where I live. I therefore do occasionally take my Rorq into the belt, and I have sieged it there. I am not speaking for myself. I really don't need a Rorq update to take mine into a belt. But I've been an industrialist for years in high and low, as well as served in sov alliances in areas that are quite hot and active with PvPers, and it's people in these situations that I am advocating for.

you get kicked out if you're stupid enough to even try to place that thing in a belt. which obviously ccp is detached from even thinking about.