Harry Voyager
Obscurity LLC
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Posted - 2006.08.24 03:29:00 -
[1]
First off, it's supply vrs demand that determines prices in a free-floating priced system, not merely supply, or demand. In fixed price systems, the price vrs demand determines supply (i.e shortages).
As the supply of Coms is limited, with a free floating price, it is very clear that the demand (or lack there of) is what is driving Com prices.
On demand, every mission runner I know loves them. In my experience, they are very effective, due to their high tanking capacity, and excellent anti-cruiser performance. The difference is, mission runners are notoriously careful of their ships; we just don't lose many. Are you going to be foolish with something you've sunk upwards of 1B in special parts in?
Most ship losses are from PvP combat. In that field, I don't know of many reasons to use a Com ship over a HAC. Most PvP combat tend to be either large fleets, where death is a swift and random event, quick strike squadrons, where the objective is to get in and out before the enemy can muster a response, or pirate ganking, where the core methodoligy is to pick things you can kill, and stay well away from the things you can't.
Command ships die just as fast as a T1 battleship in a fleet, so they aren't valuable in that role.
They have have twice the effective mass of Cruisers (agility*mass leads to the number used to calculate a ship's: for example, a Tempest is about 16MT, a Sliepnir 14MT, and the Rupture 6.3MT), which means they take considerably longer to reach warp, leaving them poor raiders, and poor pirates.
In even fights they fair better, but the evenly matched battle is about as rare as hen teeth in this game. If you're both small squad, and slow, chances are you are on the recieving end of a gank, rather than in any sort of equitable position.
That's basically all there is to it. Not many PvPers use them in high risk situations, and Mission Runners are so careful of their ships that they rarely need replacing. As such, demand is sufficiently small that supply can well keep up with it.
Harry Voyager
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