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How Many Ships in the Hanger?

I got into an argument with a mission runner the the other day over the changes to the NPC mission AI.

The argument was about the full room aggression that many people are experiencing   Now, I have clearly documented my failures as a mission runner all over my blog.  I am terrible at them. I don't pay attention to them.  Eve-Survival is wonderful.  I just never use it because I don't change my fits.  I live in low sec and I fly the same thing every day everywhere.  My concerns are the player pirates, not the NPC pirates.

I also do complexes.  5/10's always make me happy to see.  In these complexes rarely do I not receive full room aggression from the NPCs.  Everything attacks immediately and handling the incoming damage is very important.  These rooms are often quite painful and they are done with battlecruisers/T3s/Command Ships with logistics supports because solo site running Battleships are not often the smartest decision for low sec and null.  Aggression is often managed through tank, kiting and logistics.  As these sites get harder so does the incoming damage with neuting towers, stasis towers, and NPCs that do insane amounts of damage.  Logistics ships are commonly seen in complexes.

Full room aggression is very normal.  Yet it does not seem to be for the mission runners.  The number of threads devoted to full room aggression being a bug made me scratch my head in puzzlement.  I will admit, I don't understand why it is a big deal.  Switch into a more agile ship with a decent tank and get some logistics support on them.  With the new changes logistics T1 cruisers are more then a viable option to help out.  Speed tank them and get things taken care of.

But people are very unhappy about it.  I watched a conversation go down when someone said that they were reciting full room aggression and almost dying in a battleship and I chimed in and asked why don't they change their fitting?  I freely admit that I am not much of a mission runner but I do grind my ISK in exploration sites.  If their fitting is not working for them to sit and tank the room then maybe they need to refit to something that can handle more incoming DPS.

This was not the correct idea on my part.  At one point I was told that a 400 DPS tank is good enough for a level four mission ship.  My idea of change your fit to one that can handle more DPS was not taken well.  I pointed out that lots of other high DPS places exist in the game and people adapt to them.  I received a snarky response of "are not you special"

Yes. I am.  But it isn't that.  I don't understand why one would fit for the '400 DPS tank' when it could be fit for something better.  You never know whats going to happen.  Why skim along the edge?  As I understand it the tank is mostly in resists and expected incoming DPS.  My mentality however appears to be incorrect.  I was told that such things do not work for a Caldari Navy Raven.

My next suggestion was, "Fly another ship that will fit the situation better.  Be it tank or kiting the room."

"You going to buy it for me?"

"No."

I could have responded, "You poor?" or something else snippy and insulting.  Instead, I was side lined by the question .. how many ships do people have?  His response was snarky but it was also real.  This was his only mission ship.  Changing to something else was not a valid answer because it was not a possibility.  It had not really occurred to me that this would be a problem.  I'm a rational soul at heart.  Planning is important to me.  One ship can not do everything.

Everyone around me has multiple ships.  Some have a habit of leaving them scattered all over the game. This makes accessing those items a bit harder.  Still, everyone has many ships.  Sometimes supplies get low but that is due to an excessive amount of explosions happening.  Yet, who is everyone?  As far as my eyes can see everyone makes up pirate populations in low sec.  Let me step away from that and start looking at why we might have many, many ships and a high sec mission runner might not.

My thoughts are that it is a side effect of play style (ie. in game lifestyle).  In a way it also highlights many peoples frustration with high security space.  While loss is there it is not such a great motivator that having multiple ships to cover the same or similar tasks is the norm.  A blinged out mission ship is a sensible solution.  It is the money maker.  Its speed at handling and clearing missions is a direct reflection upon its owner's income.  I'm not stepping into the arguments of rewards in high sec compared to other parts of the game.

I've also been out of high sec for almost a solid year.  When I was mostly playing Chella and living in Derelik I didn't have more then one Myrmidon.  When I stopped flying the Brutix I did not mothball it or leave it fit. I stripped it and sold it.  (Did I mention that it didn't have rigs.  That's another story about being new and poor and ignorant...)  In a way I was blinded by my own situation.   I can not just fit a tank for a mission.  People want to kill me (dunno why...).  I have to fit to survive and equip the ability to defend myself or extract myself from situations.

It is a matter of need.  Almost every ship that I fly has a armor and a shield version so that I can fit into whatever fleet is being flown.  Then I have multiple ones so that when I die I can just reship.  Also, I have backups because getting bigger ships in and out of low security space is irritating.  I do have two identical versions of my dedicated ISK making ship in case I lose it again.  I don't want to be slowed down by waiting to get a new one jumped into low sec.

Then there are the fleet comps.  Are we flying frigates, cruisers, battlecruisers, battleships, tackle, support, bait?  Are we going to nullsec or low sec?  Shield or armor?  Tank or DPS?  Agility? Kiting?  Preplanned or roams?  All of these need different fits, often different hulls and lets not get into rigging them ships properly.   A trip to a trade hub gets expensive, quickly.  Backup modules, substitute modules, ammunition, etc.

I started talking to my friends in high sec.  I asked them how many ships they had.  The numbers varied but they were a very similar reflection to Chella's hanger.  Some haulers, a barge (T1 or T2), assorted frigates, and one mission Battleship.  Sometimes a mission battlecruiser.  Sometimes an expensive T3 was tossed in there and other assorted things.  Chella happens to have a carrier and some logistics ships on top of all of that.

I never thought of myself as owning very much in the way of ships.  I don't have a ton of variety for instance. Sugar flies Minmatar only for right now.  Yet I, for the most part, want to have 2 of anything that I fly in case I lose one.  I keep them fit and named in ways that make sense to me for instant reshipments.

Making my ship list has told me that I need to rebuy some T1 cruisers with the overhaul to fly. I don't have any in my hangers.  About half of my vacation hanger will come back home with me as well.

Home
    5 Faction Cruisers
    4 Battlecruisers
    1 PvE ship
    5 Unassembled backup ships
    6 Expensive Shiny things I can't yet fly
    A dozenish assorted frigates and destroyers
    2 Cruisers
Vacation Home
    2 Battlecruiser
    2 Faction cruisers
    2 Assault frigs
    1 Interceptor
    3 Frigates
    1 PvE Ship
    3 Unassembled Battlecruisers
Friend's House
    4 Faction cruisers
    1 Battlecruiser
    1 Assault frig
High Sec (I haven't seen any of these ships in 6 months)
    4 Haulers
    2 Frigates
    1 Battlecruiser
Randomly Possessing in Low and High
    Half a dozen thrashers
    A few lost assault frigs
    About a dozen cruisers scattered about
    I still randomly have a retriever
    A battlecruiser


These are all assets.  Most of them I fully expect to be destroyed at any given moment.  Everything is equipped to fight or assist in a fight.  I've been out ratting and called to help before.  The answer is not, "No".  The answer is never, "No".   Preparation is a must.

Some may say I'm over prepared.  But it allows me not to depend upon constant logistics from high sec to low sec.  I'm a planner.  I also never want to be that person that can't join in because I don't have a ship to fly.

Comments

  1. I think part of the complaint is that it was a COMPLETELY unannounced change, and that a "known quantity" got thrown out the window. I lost a Paladin in Lvl 4 vengeance because of the change and I literally didn't have time to align and warp out. Vengeance is far from the most dangerous L4 mission and I was literally stunned.

    I would *like* to see CCP roll back the changes. I would *demand* that CCP announce the changes if they are intended. I think that any PvE loss is utterly unacceptable. 99% of the time if I do lose a ship in PvE it's because I didn't do something I should have, but missions haven't changed in about forever, and to be blindsided by a change of that magnitude places a considerable amount of blame on CCP.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Really don't understand the only buying one ship thing, I mean just on one account I have.

    10 assorted assault ships
    12 BattleCruisers
    6 t1/t2/faction Battle ships.
    20 interceptors
    21 t1/faction frigs.
    11 destoryers
    17 t1/faction cruisers

    and assorted fittings for all.

    ReplyDelete
  3. All that you said is kind of sad.

    "PVE loss is utterly unacceptable".

    Why? Just because you fell like it? Not trying to offend you, but that is some entitlement to have. Lose a ship is part of this game since forever. Challenge, adaptation, reinvent your trade and yourself are the most important things of EVE since it's inception.

    You must see all this PVE activities just as a grind for ISK to do something else. If is not fun,if is something that you have to do in complete safety, why not look at other sources of ISK that are fun to do?

    I don't know you, and don't know what you do in game, so sorry for the presumptions, but I feel like you asking to be advised of changes in details so your not challenged to change is kind of too much.

    I've adapted, and I hope you do as well.

    ReplyDelete
  4. As someone who has been doing low sec explo to fund pvp I hear you, but you only see one side of the story. I was unlucky enough to grind standings for my alts before and after patch, hence first serious mission running in last 2 years.

    problem are the rewards. While explo site can net you up to a bil with loot, mission site will have your average joe what 20 mil reward in good site? Honestly i did not even notice wallet increase running them with my alts.

    You can adapt to anything, but its not worth it anymore from isk/hour/effort perspective.

    ReplyDelete
  5. During my mission runner days, my Ravens /Armor Typhoons barely breached the 300 DPS burst tank line. Hell, sustained DPS was barely half that for the Typhoon and about 50 DPS for my Raven.

    I never quite grasped why people always try to facetank missions. I prefer neutralizing DPS by not actually taking hits.

    That said, just as some sort of proof of concept I made a Legion-assault fit with a 400+ DPS sustainable tank. That ship however tends to not even get hit by most rats as long as it's moving, so the tank is hilarious overkill. It also does slightly more DPS than my Cruise-Raven and has more EHP. Fancy that.

    ReplyDelete

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