Random Elite
Caldari
R.E.C.O.N.
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Posted - 2009.01.27 18:46:00 -
[1]
I have been an advocate of exploding ships damaging neighboring ships for a while. I think this is an added effect that would be very realistic. If you think about how large a battleship is compared to anything we know in these times, one of those exploding would be enormous. But, as pointed out by someone else, it would not stop blobs. It would only force them to make sure no one is too close to each other.
Now, you could elaborate this a bit more and have proximity effects. One thing I would like to see is not necessarily physical damage when a ship blows up, but maybe the explosion breaking the locks of its neighboring gang mates, as sort of an electromagnetic effect. This could have a decent range that could (theoretically) affect most of a gang. You could even go as far as saying that since this exploding ship's sensor array is tied into this entire fleet, all the ships in that fleet on the same grid will be affected. And it doesn't have to be lock, it could be range, cap recharge, or anything else. Granted, this would be complicated, and would probably require there to be at least some sort of counter, whether it be skill or module based.
The idea of shells or missiles that miss their target hurting other ships is also a good idea. People have already mentioned Epire space and CONCORD's reaction. I think that in Empire, if someone misses and it hits a neutral, then that's simple collateral damage and CONCORD should not interfere. It would give a good reason for neuts to run when they see a fight happening outside of a station.
The other thing not mentioned that I think should happen is a sort of stacking penalty for the amount of ships that have locked a single target. Everyone knows (well, 0.0 residents) what it's like to be called primary by a blob. Even if you think you've got a solid ass tank, all of a sudden you're in you clone bay. If you make it so that (somehow) the more ships that have locked a single ship, it is more likely that those that are firing will do less damage, and significantly less damage when there is a ton of ships. You'd be able to limit it down to ten ships or so locking a battleship. More than that, and the firing ships will do hardly any damage. This is not really make blobs go away, but it will really force the formation of squads, and hopefully prolong fight times, rather than having them last a long time due to constantly warping out, repping, warping in, locking, firing, warping out, repping and so on and so on.
Then, of course, you'd also have to look at changing POS warfare, because as stated above, it can take 200 battleships to take out a well made deathstar.
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