Soridar Ravencroft wrote:OK...I know I don't always see the big picture in some issues, but as a cap pilot who actually uses my ships for basic moving, deploying of ships for diff PvE and other basic goofy null sec crap, THIS IS TOTAL CRAP...
This is a complete farce, and one in which it seems that the Devs responsible are either not cap pilots or just don't do anything other than point a..b..c..home and log, so they don't even have an iota of a clue as to the rest of the players they are screwing. These proposed changes are gonna hit the non sov aspects of EvE 1000% more than they will have any effect on sov warfare. I will break this down by points to clarify.
Effects on Joe the non combat cap pilot vs Sam the combat jockey:
Joe is always making jumps in his jump freighter to move and restock null while bringing goods from null to be traded in the hubs
Sam makes a max of 5 jumps a day...if there is a combat op at all
Joe not only has a JF for trading but enjoys a side business of transporting the ships of some friends for PvE goofyness like incurtions and such
Sam flies an interceptor looking for kills while not running his daily cap op, or just gate camps
Joe having one of the few JFs in his corp is called on for running POS fuel, moduals and system upgrades because no one else trained for it cause they wanted combat ships
Sam doesn't worry cause dreads are never needed for moving crap
Joe goes on cap ops when ever he is free to do so in his carrier
Sam goes on every cap op in his dread
This is a generalist look at how 2 cap pilots play the game, and while it doesn't represent everyone, it does fit a lot of pilots and how they play. So in the end what you really have is not nearly the nerf to combat projection but rather a significant nerf to trade, general game play and logistic capabilities.
If you really want to fix long distance force projection and the way in which capital ships are able to move and fight, then rather than some BS fatigue a pilot receives that changes a "jump cool down" instead have it effect combat skills and capabilities of the actual force being projected. I mean seriously, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that if you wanna effect how combat is controlled you penalize the combat skills.
Penalizing jumping itself does nothing other than break down the ability to travel, for good or ill, which last time I heard is not really the real issue here. This seems more of an arbitrary step in reducing and removing capital ships from the field which will not happen as those alliances and coalitions which the numbers and resources will instead just move capitals in anyways. Pilots rarely pay for the fuel for these campaigns, but rather the alliances themselves, which means costs of travel is rarely a concern for major powers.
The real issue here is that forces can stage from nearly any place in EvE and with a proper chain get to anywhere in a matter of tens of minutes, but that means rather little, as Interceptors can do the same and even do so safer, if not faster. So what really is of concern is what kind of power projection can be applied at long range. This is the real issue and should be what is effected.
The way this can be done is to have fatigue effect combat skills, especially those that are based on PvP combat. This ensures that no matter the size of your pilot base or your wallet, that force projection is weakened. Secondly it prevents other areas of the game that are NOT out of balance to be penalized due to bad planning. Third it doesn't effect pilots who where out doing basic trading, logistics and ferrying friends, when the call goes out that you are needed for an op.