This month’s topic comes to us from Ga’len at The Wandering Druid of Tranquility. He asks: “What new game mechanic or mechanics would you like to see created and brought into the EVE Online universe and how would this be incorporated into the current game universe? Be specific and give details, this is not meant to be a ‘nerf this, boost my game play’ post like we see on the EVE forums.”

The best part of Eve for me is combat, preferably single combat between two ships. Even in a small ship such as my favoured Rifter there is quite a bit of scope for tactics within a fight. Do I use my speed to keep range and chip away at his defenses from distance where he can’t hurt me? Do I get in close and try and evade the tracking of his guns? Is he fast? Do I need to shut down his microwarp drive? Do I need to pick off his drones first? There is quite a lot of variation here and often a whole bunch of decisions have to be made quickly and possibly reassessed as the situation changes.

As a pirate I want slightly more than this. While blowing ships up is immensely satisfying so many of the modules are lost and the hull itself is destroyed. This seriously reduces the potential for profit and keeps me flying cheap, economical ships that I can insure to help reduce my losses. What would be brilliant would be if I could incapacitate a ship and then board the vessel. Being able to target a ships specific systems would allow for much more varied combat and more advanced piracy.

T3 ships have been split into five modules that you add to the base hull. In my vision strategic gunnery would allow me to target these specific systems. Disabling them would allow me to modify a ship’s behaviour by reducing its performance in the area affected. Taking out a ship’s propulsion would massively reduce its speed. Hitting its guns would reduce damage output. Taking out its defences would weaken the shield and armour. Hitting the electronic systems would make it harder for ships to acquire locks and defend themselves against electronic warfare. Damaging the ship’s engineering systems would reduce its capacitor. Of course, if you just want to make things explode you can shoot the hull as normal.

List of Participants

• CrazyKinux’s Musing, EVE Blog Banter #8: Care for a Little Game of SecWars?
• The Wandering Druid of Tranquility, Wow, That New Thing is so Shiny!!!
• I am Keith Nielson, EVE Blog Banter #8 – Return of the Top Gun
• Once More from the Beginning, 8th EVE Blog Banter May 2009 Edition
• A merry life and a short one, EVE Blog Banter #8: In the Year of Our Awesome
• Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah, Planets
• Helicity Boson, Bantering the Blog
• Achernar, Unique Adventures
• Ecliptic Rift, OOC: EVE Blog Banter 8: Standings and Secondary Factions
• The New Edener, EVE Blog Banter #8
• Journey to New Eden, Eve Blog Banter #8: What New Mechanic Should be Added to EVE?
• Life, The Universe and Everything, Blog Banter 8: Mentorship
• EVE Guru, EBB 8: Yarr! Prepare to be Boarded!
• The Ralpha Dogs, Greed Is Good, Greed Works
• Rifter Drifter, Blog Banter 8: Strategic Gunnery
• A Mule in EVE, Expanding EVE
• Letrange’s EvE Blog, 8th Blog Banter
• Roc’s Ramblings, Blog Banter #8
• The Nude Nerd, Blog Banter #8
• Scop’s Log, Blog Banter #8: “We’re Caught in a Tractor Beam! It’s Pulling us in!”
• Speed Fairy, EVE Blog Banter #8: Charisma Tanking
• Industrialist with Teeth, EVE Blog Banter #8: It’s Like Tetris for OCD People
• Diary of a Pod Pilot, EVE blog banter #8: Killing in the Name of
• Talk Unfraid, Physical Communications
• More to come…

This month’s topic comes to us from CrazyKinux himself, and he asks: “What 3 things haven’t you done in EVE and why? Would you be willing to try one day? Why so? Why not?”

Well, the first thing that I’ve not done before is to take part in a Blog Banter so its time to correct that right now.

Un

I’ve never flown a battleship. The biggest ship that I can fly at the moment is my Hurricane. There’s a few reasons for this. I was never a hardcore mission runner so I stopped once I could do level 3 missions. In fact, the fact that I got that far up the mission ladder is the only reason I fly battlecruisers at all. These days if I want to earn ISK through PvE I tend to use a Wolf class assault frigate instead. Not that I can go into high security space to run missions anyway but the Wolf is more than capable of running exploration content and ratting in null sec should I want to do that. Because I don’t do missions any more I don’t have the kind of ISK that running level 4s can generate. I try and make all my money from PvP so most of the time flying the large ships just isn’t economically viable. Maybe as my financial situation improves I’ll graduate to larger ships.

The main reason that I’ve never made that step up is that I search for excellence in each class of ship that I fly. As it stands I have a couple more weeks honing my skills for flying the Rifter. That’s right, after a year of playing I’m only just happy with my skills for the most basic ship class. Next up is rounding off my cruiser and T2 frigate skills and then, of course, my battlecruiser skills. By that point I will be in a situation where I feel its worth it to train for a battleship. Maybe you’ll see me in one by the time I hit my second Eve birthday. Actually, I just checked EveMon. You might see me in a Tempest in about four or five months’ time.

Dos

Although I have lived in 0.0 I’ve never taken part in sovereignty warfare. The freeform PvP that null security space offers definitely appeals to me but I don’t rally fancy the idea of slugfests as huge fleets try and take down a POS. I’d much rather be doing small gang or solo work.

Of course, its possible that the nature of 0.0 sovereignty will be addressed in the near future. Maybe if the mechanics are changed to something that makes raiding gangs a viable option I’d be keen to give it a go. For now I’ll stick to piracy.

Tres

One thing I really haven’t tried is roleplaying. Sure, some of the posts here are written within the context of the Eve universe but I wouldn’t really consider them strictly in character. At the end of the day I’m blogging about my gaming experience rather than just Wensley’s journey. Sure the two are intertwined but I write about stuff that I’ve done rather than fictional encounters.

I would definitely be interested in some relatively light roleplay. The idea of everything having to be in character doesn’t sit well with me but I like the fact that the roleplay corps and alliances have a direction. I could see myself as a freedom fighter in Ushra’Khan or an anarchist in the Star Fraction. One day I intend to take Wensley back to 0.0 so maybe he’ll end up in one of these guerilla corps. Who knows what the future holds?