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SIR PRIME
An Tir
Libertas Fidelitas
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Posted - 2007.12.28 15:58:00 -
[1]
A well written commentary on the subject though I disagree on several of the basic ôproblemsö you have identified. For the record IÆm a command specialist and have used the links/mindlinks in many combats from group to fleet sized plus the mining area that youÆve completely missed in your article. IÆm also not a nano raider which is probably also relevant as your article seems aimed at primarily helping them. 
Barriers to Entry
As youÆve mentioned the area is very skill intensive if you really want to get the most from the possible bonuses out there. The requirement to train for each implant and each fleet command plus the supporting leadership skills is very onerousà. and then the skills to use each ship in combat really add icing to the prospect. However, what your article sidesteps is that many people have done just that and are extremely valued gang members for precisely what they can bring to the gang/fleet in both combat and non combat situations. The ability to train for 85%+ of the facility of a specialised pilot with a minimal time investment in skills seems to be one of the focuses of your article so your combat pilots donÆt need to ôwasteö time on the leadership based skills. Unless theres a way to equally improve those who have specialised then your idea represents nothing more than a dumbing down of the game in terms of the idea of having ships and pilots providing different and important roles in combat (see every complaint recently about the necessity to have non capital pilots in capital fleets).
I also have to take issue with some of your skills û Infomorph Psychology is completely un-needed and with the 24 hour timer very debateable in its usefulness. A mindlink usually sells at about 6m isk and can therefore easily be treated as ôammoö costs û extremely effective ammo that lasts an entire battle (for 14 hours in one battle recently). If you really think that giving bonuses to anything up to 200+ pilots doesnÆt merit a expenditure of 6m (if your FC orders a complete tactical change) then IÆm fairly sure that that FC will prefer me as their primary booster to you. ;)
If your goal is actually to have different clones fitting say full snake sets with one mindlink, full slave sets with another mindlink etc then your issue isnÆt with gang boosting at all and isnÆt relevant to the area or as an ôentry requirementö.
Assault Ships 4 and Heavy Assault Ships 4 currently play NO part in gang boosting so listing them is very strange. As a contrast not listing Command Ships was equally strange as it opens up all the ship bonuses except the rorqual which also wasnÆt listed. Just noticed you didnÆt mention cybernetics 5 which is needed for all five mindlinks.
Picking up on another comment about ôtortuous high rank charisma based skillsö one of the key reasons for completely revamping the gang boosting side and introducing all the links/mindlinks/command bonuses was precisely to give charisma a more powerful role as IÆm sure you remember. There has to be a negative to all those combat characters who deliberately went base 3-4 cha. As you also pointed out the only skills this effects is precisely the leadership ones so they still get the benefit from having high will/per/int/mem.
The entire relevance of the gang skills is to boost your gang so arguing that they donÆt help you much individually seems to miss their point.
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SIR PRIME
An Tir
Libertas Fidelitas
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Posted - 2007.12.28 16:00:00 -
[2]
As to your solutions, the key and unique abilities of the Fleet command ships is their dual ability to run 3 combat links without having to gimp your setup and to receive a bonus to one set of them. That was emphasised really with the recent changes to the Eos to bring it in line with the others by toning down its DPS and moving a mid to a low slot. Your suggestion is to remove one ability totally and also make irrelevant all the training that leadership specialised characters have put into mindlinks. The only distinction you seem to think the person who has spent MUCH (as defined by you) more time developing their skills is a single rank of warfare link specialist and a single rank of racial warfare specialisation. A maxed mindlinked pilot gives a 22.5% bonus in a damnation and 25.875% using armour links with command 5. I donÆt have the base amounts as IÆm at work so I can only go on your figures but your solution is not only to remove the necessity of having the mindlink but to actually give the non mindlinked pilot a better bonus of 26.125% (1.165 x 22.5%)? Just to emphasise your proposalà the less skilled less specialised character will have better bonuses than the specialised one if he runs a non armour link in that damnation and be able to put the equivalent time into their combat abilities and gain abilities there too? Ummh, way to invalidate completely the specialised gang booster based command pilot who are using their ships as intended! (It might help more if you gave some more figures and what the relative bonus would be for someone with warfare link specialist5/racial warfare specialist 5 would be vs 4/4. Bearing in mind that the specialist has probably spent something like 110 days just for those level 5Æs it has to give a reasonable payback. Also bear in mind that a significant number of specialised characters actually have all 4 racial commands already and simply swap ship to ship as needed by their FC so they would gain no benefit at all from the time spent on the different mindlinks.)
Sorry to rant there a bit but I really canÆt see that your solution does anything except eliminate almost all the investment into a specialised pilot.
Ease of Use
I completely agree on the irritation of being held back by my FC from warping and getting involved in combat but then I canÆt see how the present system would work at all if bonuses were restricted to a single grid as the idea of trying to cram up to 250 people into a grid to maximise bonuses is a recipe for disaster on many fronts so IÆll trade the no warp for ccp not putting in that restriction. The rorqual would be hit even more of course. A reasonable compromise might be to allow the use in warping but disable the ability to use links inside the shields, similar to cynoÆs. That way it opens up the potential of headhunter squads of recons being able to locate and eliminate gang boosters near poses and removes the invulnerability of 6 link command ships with no tanks. The rorqualÆs bonuses would have to be ôdecoupledö from the core though.
Giving a 8-10m (?) ship the ability to do the same as I do on the vastly more expensive minmatar command ship I just had to replace but with more agility/speed and less visibility seems designed again to do nothing except invalidate the fleet command ships û appalingly bad idea. Assault frigates even seem a weird choice as their only recommendation is that a lot of people claim they have no role û those of us who do use them very well in certain less obvious roles just keep quiet. Logistics are the sub ship for Fleet command ships of course and assaults/hacs for the combat side. Giving any of those classes the ability to run the links in the way you mention would seem to invalidate developing the later ships.
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SIR PRIME
An Tir
Libertas Fidelitas
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Posted - 2007.12.28 16:03:00 -
[3]
IÆm obviously missing something as I canÆt see how making a particular ship squad commander makes them any more visible unless youÆre suggesting that being squad commander should light you up with a neon flashing sign in future? Sorry couldnÆt resist the lure of joking about it. 
Opportunity Cost
IÆm unsure that the problem of fitting is as relevant as you say. There is an opportunity cost to fitting a gang link û aka you could use that slot for something else û but then your gang gain the benefits of the link. ItÆs a bit like saying I could mount a nos to help my cap or a gun to do more damageà. or a link to boost my gang. YouÆve identified the very ships I first fitted a link to so IÆm rather lost on arguing this as I never noticed a real problem as I simply had to choose boost vs gank. Mysteriously 4 command ships later you can guess the choice I made. I respect your arguments and always enjoy your posts so I know I really donÆt need to quote any ccp post about ôchoicesö and flexibility. Making every battlecruiser/command class ship a semi-cookie cutter that runs a gang mod really doesnÆt play to that.
Thinking about it, if we follow the logic of your argument then every fleet command would be able to run 3 links and a full turret/missile load so IÆd be interested to know if thatÆs true (fairly sure the Eos couldnÆt before mine was ôtrimmedö). Even if they can the other ships have combat bonuses that fit their role (supposedly!) so giving them extra slots just so they donÆt have to choose between modules would involve a massive play rebalancing with thousands of players howling as their ship bonuses changed to compensate for new slots etc. Almost worth doing it for all the excitement.
Your argument that every ship is different and has different fittings, roles and bonuses is very true. Its also true that non fleet command ships arenÆt balanced around fitting warlinks. To then draw the inference that the links or command processors should be changed to balance with the non specialised ships is where youÆve lost me. Sorry to argue the point but .. theyÆre not gang booster specialised ships and they have their own role, bonuses, resists, abilities etc etc etc. I fly the Absolution that you used as an example there but mysteriously you forgot to compare it to the Damnation that I also fly. Yes, surprise surprise I donÆt run gang links on the Absolution and its not because I couldnÆt but because the Absolution is very effective at what it does and IÆd be stupid to move away from its focus. Amazingly, if you can fly the Absolution well youÆre what a week from flying a Damnation (Logistics 4)? Use the right ship before picking the wrong one and arguing that because itÆs a mid range DPS specialist it should be configured to equip warlinks in the same way that the gang specialist version without the dps is. Yet another argument by you that would diminish the role of the Fleet command versions.
Admittedly, its hard to raise any enthusiasm for arguing to or against changes to command processors as I hate them and would prefer hard caps of 1/3 links per ship, but it gives flexibility û you can fit more than those limits but if you do you have to severely limit your setup. But again why would you not anticipate that? The Fleet Command pay a price for the ability to run 3 û aka a loss of bonuses, hardpoints etc. If it wants to mount more essentially its tank disappears to the point where it canÆt be used in combat. Every battlecruiser/command can mount 1 without a command processor, but to do so isnÆt necessarily advisable, and to mount more than 1 is generally very stupid unless you pos hug or high sec hug. Choices, choices. ;)
The Small Things
Oh dear, I agree with you on all those points but only the EWAR seems particularly useless. Nothing to see hereà.
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SIR PRIME
An Tir
Libertas Fidelitas
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Posted - 2007.12.28 16:05:00 -
[4]
Summary
In summary, if the goal was simply to enable nano gang raiders to get an easier benefit from bonuses while making their gang boosters less visible then your suggestions are a sure fire winner û easy skill access, effectively *****ble on a hugely larger range of ships including very effective speed tankers. If your goal is as you said ôto provide adequate bonuses with much less training while still allowing specialisationö it seems to singularly fail. Not that I suspect many specialists agree with the premise anyway. ;)
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PS: you know very well that most people wonÆt use that free slot you want to give them for a warlink btw. ;)
PPS: Yes I know in the damnation vs absolution argument they use different weapon systems but thatÆs a relatively recent change and one that still ****es me off so I ignored it. I could have used some of the other field vs fleet examples where that isnÆt true but chose to use the ship that was mentioned as an example.
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