Counter proposal; battle barge is a go!

So I wanted to write a more in-depth response to Riptard's proposal over on his blog Jester's Trek. If you haven't already, follow the link and read it. Its a good proposal and could work, its main flaw of limited access could be solved by having more access points or by having the access points be more mobile (IE; you access Jove space through wormholes). I'll also straight up say that my main objection to his idea basically boils down to a very nerdy "BUT TEH LORE!" reaction to opening up Jove space. Whatever other objections I can pull up to his idea can with a bit of thought be solved fairly elegantly, so instead of having a whine about it I remembered something my teacher used to say; 'if you cant say something constructive, say nothing at all'. Jester's proposal is good, but it would have a lot of long term implications that would be difficult to predict and plan for. In addition while Jove space would be a fine expansion for EVE I think we need to remember that CCP will have two mouths to feed from the one bowl soon. Thus I would like to make a counter proposal.

I make my proposal assuming that the following are generaly excepted and common knowledge.

1. CCP has a lotriding on the succsess of Dust 514
2. Super Capitals are becoming a big n+1 problem
3. Super Capitals do not die offten

With my cards on the table; It's time to introduce ship crews.

Ships in EVE have up to 5 "slots" in which you put stuff; High slot, Mid slow, Low slot, Rig slot, and if you're a T3 ship Sub systems. Crews would add in  a 6th slot; Crew slot. This crew slot would function a lot like a rig slot but with a small twist which I will get to in a moment. Ships would have up to 4 crew slots on their ship, tech 1 ships would have 3 crew slots, tech 2 ships would have 2 crew slots, and tech 3 ships would have 4. Ships could then fill these slots with crew, of which there would be 3 variety's in types.

• Specialist: a special type of crewman hired from LP stores, liberated from complexes or looted from faction mobs. In general found in pretty much every form of PVE. Specialists would confer a small bonus to ship attributes  such as tank, dps, agility, speed and so forth. However in order to receive the specialists bonus you must have one of the other types of crew listed bellow. Think of these guys as implants for your ship. One special other attribute worth mentioning about these guys; specialists will always survive the destruction of their ship. I will explain why latter.
• Automated Crew: this type of crew represents a drone crew or a small skeletal crew supplemented by heavy automation. The main reason to use this crew is because it is cheep, probably produced from some combination of PI goods, say camera drones and robotics. It would confer a very small bonus to specialist bonuses, on the range of 0 - 2.5% depending on meta quality. But it would be cheep enough to use with T1 frigates. 
• Human Crew: this type of crew represents a flesh and blood crew complement for a ship. It would be more expensive than an automated crew but would also confer a larger bonus to the specialist, 1 - 5% depending on meta quality. I have no idea what you would use to produce these, probably more PI goods, but either way it would probably be too expensive to use on anything cheaper than a T1 battleship especially when automated crew is also reasonably good.

Ship's would not change with the inclusion of crew. You would still be able to undock and fight the same as you do now. Crew compliments would work a little bit like rigs, with small, medium, and large for the different ship sizes. All they would allow for anything smaller than a mothership is a neat little bonus to whatever stat is desired though the use of the specialist. However unlike rigs, crew would have a chance to drop from a ships wreck, like any other module.

In addition the tech level of the ship also determines the base specialist bonus. Tech 2 ships would receive a 20% bonus from the specialist while tech 1 ships would at base receive a 10% bonus. Tech 3 ships would only receive a 5% bonus since they are able to use 3 specialist. As for the specialists themselves they would be able to provide a bonus to anything implants already bonus.

How does this then tie in with dust? With 5 new ships!!

New T2 Destroyers

Based off the new destroyer hulls this variant of destroyer would feature a covert ops cloak, marauder-like bonus for 8 effective turrets and a reduced T2 resist bonus like the other interdictors. Unlike the present interdictors we use though these would not not launch interdiction probes, but rather spawn point beacons for Dust players. These beacon probes would launch from a probe launcher (either a interdiction probe launcher or a regular probe launcher) and home in on the target ship just like a regular missile. At first beacon probes would only be able to target super capital ships such as titans and mother ships, but depending on how well such feature is received and how well it works I see no reason not extend the target range of beacon probes to include carriers, dreadnoughts and perhaps even battleships. Once embedded in the target ships hull two things happen, first, the ship can be boarded in EVE from twice the normal distance ( the usual 6.5km would be increased to13km) and Dust players would be able to spawn on the capital ship for a period of time (2min?). From there they are able to assault the various ship sub systems. Assaulting engineering might inhibit capacitor recharge, electronics might disrupt sensor strength or targeting speed. Defence systems would reduce resistances, assaulting propulsion would reduce the ships agility or max speed, and attacking offensive systems would reduce damage output. In addition to attacking these sub systems the dust bunnies will also be able to attack and kill specialists assigned to these areas. For example a specialist who provides a bonus to shield recharge would be found in the defence systems area of the ship and would be a valid target for hostile boarding parties to attack and kill.

If the dust bunnies can assault and control all 5 sub systems then something very special happens. They may assault the bridge. Control of the bridge would allow the dust bunnies both abort self destruct timers and to eject the capsulers pod from the ship; with the side effect of prevent that player from re-boarding the ship for 60 seconds. Effectively this would allow motherships and titans to be boarded and stolen in combat.

PS: Why a covert ops cloak? I could rattle off reasons like being able to take covert ops portals for hotdrop operations but really its so I can fly a Corax hull with a covert ops cloak while listening to the silent hunter 2 theme. Don't judge me.

Battle Barge

This ship would aesthetically resemble the orca industrial command ship. A large battleship sized vessel this ship would serve one function and one function only; a mobile spawn point for dust bunnies. Boasting a very impressive tank this ship would move and behave like a battleship without guns. Instead the battle barge would be able to fit a covert ops cloak and a Dust 514 clone facility, allowing dust players to spawn on the barge. From there they would be able to assault planets but also make use of the boarding beacon as the beacon would require a barge to be on-grid in order for dust bunnies to actually board a super capital. The covert ops cloak would allow the battle barge to stay off-grid until needed and then safely warp in at a safe distance. Since the clone facility could not be operated while cloaked this would allow for some interesting maneuvers to try and take out the offending barge before it becomes a problem. It would also allow the ship to travel by covert jump portal, allowing for some sweet hotdrops.

I feel I should also point out that the battle barge can be used both offensively and defensively. If a super capital is boarded by hostile forces then you can use one of the new interdictors to launch your own boarding beacon onto the effected ship and launch a counter op to prevent the disruption and potential theft of the ship.

Here is where that twist I mentioned earlier comes into play. For motherships and titans, crews become very important. Having a crew, automated or otherwise will make your ship harder to board with an NPC defender pool based on these crew guide lines. That is to say that the dust bunnies will have to fight bots even if the opposing force is unable to effectively mount a counter insertion on the boarded ship. As you can see from the crew guide lines motherships and titans have a base crew of thousands and a capacity of tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands, so while the NPC defenders have limited numbers they are not small numbers, even if only 5% - 10% of those numbers are guards; more likely all crew members would resist boarding parties. Pity the titan pilot who does not read the patch notes.


And there you have it, my counter proposal to opening up Jove space.