Neo160
S0utherN Comfort
Controlled Chaos
0
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Posted - 2012.01.03 09:24:00 -
[1] - Quote
I absolutely LOVE this idea. just the idea to be able to reprocess modules into minerals is great for null sec ratters such as myself, especially since many 0.0 stations can't reprocess at all.
as far as stats go, i recommend t2 level resists on all of these industrial ships, even the starter one, and for one basic reason: they are going to be punching bags, and they will generally be used in dangerous space. much of the time these ships will be used as an alternative to POS production, so they will be highly vulnerable to attack, as they will likely be in a safe spot, and stationary, not behind pos shields. they will be very valuable and sought after gank targets, as they could drop valuable BPO's. furthermore, if this will be added as a new career for eve's new player population, they will be even more likely to be ganked and attacked, as greifers love easy carebear tears. for these reasons, and for the fact that these ships will never be able to shoot back at any aggressors, they should have high resists, such as AHAC's, to be able to take an initial beating, and T2 MMS's should also have a higher natural resistance to warp disruption, as they will likely carry expensive bpo's and bpc's. they will still be vulnerable with these additions, as warp disruption bubbles and infinite point will still hold these ships in place. survivability needs to be a concern as these ships will be much higher risk to fly then most other ships in their size class. EVE is not just about risk vs reward, but a proper balance of risk vs reward. an enemy ship intent on ganking these ships should put an equal isk, effort, and risk, into attacking MMS's as the pilots who fly them. if they are too easy to destroy (hint: Hulks v.s destroyers), they will have to hide behind POS shields, which thus defeats their initial purpose, to enable corporations to avoid using POSes. Hulks are easily gankable, but they thrive in high numbers. MMS's will not be nearly as popular, and therefore killing any will have more impact.
the only major flaw i see is cargo hold size. minerals take up LOTS of space. this will be extremely obvious when a player tries to reprocess modules or ore. if they fill up their entire hold with modules or ore, they wont be able to reprocess any, as the minerals wont fit. 2000 m3 of reprocessable modules can easily make several hundred thousand units of tritanium, plus tons of other minerals. a solution to this problem is to put minerals into the MMS before production, but this defeats their nomadic purpose, they need to take ore and then turn them into minerals. a solution to this could be a T2 Noctis. this ship would not only be able to salvage more effectively, but it could break down module salvage to different types of metal scraps, (at an efficiency cost of course). ccp recently made all metal scraps extremely tiny, so a ship that could break down module's into scrap metal, and then give said scrap metal to an MMS, the MMS could easily reprocess some of the scrap into minerals, and then pull from their bank of scrap metal when they need more minerals. higher end scrap metals could produce higher end mineraels, so that an MMS with all kinds of scrap would be well supplied. the capital MMS will have few cargo issues, but smaller MMS ships will need cargo bays on the order of T1 haulers.
on the fact that carrying and reprocessing ore would take up TONS of cargo space really really fast. I would give MMS ships a special role bonus, the ability to reprocess not only regular ore, but also compressed ore. an MMS could reprocess compressed ore as needed, and a dedicated and organized group of nomads should have a Rorqual handy to compress minerals.
what would be a really cool addon to this group of ships would be a rudimentary research vessel. it could use the Echelon hull, as it would certainly look the part. it could research bpos and bpc's, and also produce bpc's for MMS ships. if a nomadic corp needs to use a very valuable BPO, they could simply produce copies from this research ship, so that their corpies can produce said item without risking the loss of having a valuable BPO stolen, and so that more than one MMS can produce the same product. the ship could be very useful and valuable, even with only a single research slot. for this same reason, using the ship is very risky with valuable bpo's, as this could prove an extremely valuable target for enemy ships. its defense would be its size, as it would have the signature radius of a frigate, it would be harder to hit. although, I'm not sure about resists, or warp stability, as the ability to research on the move is a very powerful one, and may require many downsides to balance it out.
last, but not least, would MMS ships be able to manufacture (and reprocess) while docked?
TL;DR your idea is awesome, and ship stats are needed. |