James Lyrus
Lyrus Associates
Interstellar Starbase Syndicate
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Posted - 2006.11.07 09:17:00 -
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Hi. Congratulations on reading this far. I figured I'd get my thoughts in on this one, so thanks for making the effort to read down :).
I tried doing EVE without instas. I did so for quite a long while, running chokepoints into 0.0 in my badger MK II, in a 'dodging camps' fit.
Running a few starbase towers meant a lot of fuel in and out. It worked quite well, and the game play wasn't so bad. However then I saw other people in fully expanded iteron 5s, making 1 trip to my 5. I saw 'hostiles' insta-ing past me to get to the gate so they'd catch me on the other side in their battleship, and then call me a newb (although mostly I did get away from them, so maybe that was why).
And so I gave up, and made a set of instas. I would _quite happily_ delete every single insta, and warp to 15km every time, with only a minor whinge about how that's going to make my frieghter a pain to get through 0.0.
But only if we're talking level playing field. Only if I don't have to dodge the same battleship every jump of my route because he's 'got instas' and I don't.
There's a lot of debate about instas both ways.
Personally I think the only reason not to remove them entirely is that so many have become dependant on this crutch that they will cry loudly if it is removed.
They will increase the size of the EVE universe. This is a good thing. I like feeling like Jita is a long way away. I think there's plenty of scope for market trading, but only if not 'everyone' is hauling things 5-10 jumps to a hub.
The other thing it will increase is danger level for slower ships moving through low sec/0.0. I don't see a problem here either. I think there _should_ be a reason to use cruisers, frigates etc. over battleships. IMO a battleship and even a BC should be big, slow and heavy, with a lot of firepower. As it is, a BS might as well be as fast as a 'ceptor.
Don't forget, whilst yes, it does make getting someone who's running a blockade easier, it also makes setting up that blockade much harder. Moving your BS 10 jumps to set up the gate camp won't be a trivial matter, and moving on once the camp gets 'busted' will also be harder. So you'll quite naturally have smaller camps, with smaller ships.
I don't think you'll ever lose the gate camps. My only real objection to them is if you run into one with 40 ships, there's pretty much nothing you can do. Now if there's one where there's only 3 or 4 cruisers, then you _do_ have a chance to run or fight, especially if you arrive in a battleship.
This would be a major gameplay change, I would agree. I know lots of people who won't go anywhere without instas. But I think it would be a _good_ change to gameplay, where warp to 0 would just serve to further dumb down EVE.
And for the record, I am not a pirate, nor gate camper. I've spent more time in a hauler than I have a battleship. I think there should be a reason to go for fast mobile ships, over insta-ing heavy hitters, and I think there should be a reason to use smaller faster industrials rather than slower bigger ones.
Seriously, how often do you see Sigils? They're tier 1, like the bestower, and they're fast, but they have less cargo. They're almost never used, because everyone's either AFK or insta-ing.
Personally, I use instas a lot. I think that removing them entirely would improve the EVE game play no end.
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