Patch Esquire
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Posted - 2006.09.04 12:01:00 -
[1]
I've said my little piece in enough *Instagate* threads that I might aswell type it out again.
I'm not a pirate. Never pirated. Never shot at a guy without a good reason to. BUT, I am against Instas; I'm against 0km jumps, and I'm against instas that let it happen.
The 15km jump isnt in there because of a technical limitation, or a negligent dev, or whatever- its in there because iots an intended game mechanic. That is, some ships are meant to be faster than others. That interceptor is meant to be able to clear systems in seconds, while that BS or Freighter is MEANT to take hours. Futher more, you are MEANT to be vulnerable while travelling- with the exeption of interdictions (which I'm sure no care bear would enjoy, and certainly wouldn't want to see more of) you are invulnerable the entirety of your journey, save the last 15km and a few seconds while alligning on the other side of a gate. If you want invulnerability from PvP, 1) stay in empire space, 2) don't leave the NPC corps, and 3) don't interact with any other players in any meaningful way, for fear of killrights. Alternatively, go play WoW........
So, if we discount "wishing to be invulnerable" as a valid reason for wanting insta-jumps, what does that leave us with? Travel speeds. I hear alot of people telling me "if I have to take longer to travel places, it'll kill EVE, and I'l quit!". So, a quick 101 on how to travel fast in EVE:
1) Ships can go very fast. Ships like Frigates are practically invulnerable from pvp (save warp bubbles) already, as they are very very fast. You want your BS to go fast? Fill every low slot with Nanofiber Internal Structures, and install an MWD. A Dominix can easily go over 1000m/s, which is extrodinary for a ship of that size. The downside- you can't fly while in your Uber L33T KillaShip setup, but why should you? If you kit out a car to go really fast, you don't expect good miles per gallon aswell.
2) Jump clones. As long as you don't need to take anything with you, you can travel bewtween any 2 medibays completely instantly. Jump clones make Instajumps look slow.
3) So you need to get a ship somewhere really fast? Get a carrier. Or, to be more exact, get a friend with a carrier. Every respectable alliance in game has multiple carriers, and they can jump 10's of jumps in one go. As you need a cyno scout to get you there, ultimately this means that you can get there as fast as your fastest scout. Carriers are capable of carrying small fleets in their bellies, so you can easily move huge cagos. Yes, though, this will mean going and making some friends, but this is an MMO, afterall (massively MULTIPLAYER game).
Yes they all have draw backs, and will need money, effort, or some sort of thinking to work. But who says you're allowed instant travel for free, anyway? Certainly no Dev Blog I've ever read.
Finally, the gate camp. Alot of people here are pro-insta as they think gate camps are dishounorable and should be killed off. Now, as already mentioned, I'm no pirate and don't gate camp innocent passers by. However, when is the gate camp a legitimate tactic? Our alliance is at war. Our alliance mines in 0.0, and our enemy mines in 0.0 too. Both of us like to go disrupt each others mining, in an attempt to win the war. If we want to mine in peace, what do we do? We camp the gate going in to a mining system. If enemies try and get in, they must fight through our defenses to get to our miners. Insta-jumps mean that camping gates is significantly more difficult, meaning we can't mine. If we want t attack an enemy's mining op, we camp the exit gate while gangs go to fight them- any one trying to esccape must get through a gate camp. If there were automatic insta jumps, attacking miners would be far more difficult too.
The bottom line- with insta jumps, without a warp bubble interaction between combat and miners is very low. Miners can get away from attacks easily, combat's arnt needed to protect them or attack the enemy. Sounds fun to me.
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