[Brainstorm] Freighters and Jump Freighters

Overview

Those who have played for more than a year will know what ships to use and what ships aren't. CCP are changing things to make all ships attractive not just specific ones.

The work being done by CCP to rebalance all ships at the moment, through statistics changing, bonuses are added/removed and changed to make them fit into various roles. The simplest description to cover all this work is to make them better.

These changes are ongoing and CCP does ask for feedback in the forums when they propose changes, and it certainly gets it.

Freighters and Jump Freighters

Look at a Freighter or Jump Freighter and it is, simply put, a large cargo bay with engines. That's it, you can't add rigs nor modules and really you should be able to. Your only way of improving agility or tank is via skills and not modules.

I feel this should change and they should allow certain module and rig types to be installed but also they could benefit from something like T3 sub-systems to allow configuration changes to both the capacity but what type cargo can be carried.

Modules and Rigs

In my opinion it's a huge oversight that you cannot add modules or rigs to a F/JF. Modules should be limited to certain ones and rigs should be Capital sized (F/JF are larger than Battleships which is what Large Rigs are for)

I don't think adding guns to a F/JF should be possible nor any modules/rigs for increasing cargo capacity but modules/rigs that can do the following should be.

• avoid warp disruption
• increase shield/amour/structure resistances/HP
• increase agility
• increase warp/maximum speed

One module that should definitely not be usable is a cloaking device, the mass of the ship or the fact its cargo bay violates the space/time compression field should prevent them working.

Sub-Systems

Sub-systems add a nice configuration option to T3's and whilst I wish there was more variation in the sub-systems, the whole 'idea' works very well. I think it could be ported to F/JF's to open up some excellent options that otherwise may require new ships (and we all know they take a lot of CCP resources to make).

Some of these would be very useful in everyday situations and others have been suggested by some people elsewhere as new ship types. I don't think we need new ships, as nice as they are.
Suggestions for sub-systems that could be added to F/JF's are:

Cargo Compressor - allows more cargo to be added without increasing cargo hold size
Pro: Reduces cargo size by 25% when in cargo hold (does not work on containers, plastic wrap or ships)
Con: Increases mass by 15% / reduces structure by 20%

Ship Transporter - converts part of the cargo hold into a ship maintenance bay
Pro: Converts 80% of the cargo hold into a ship maintenance hanger allowing assembled ships to be moved (excl. capitals)
Con: agility reduced by 20%

Micro Jump - allows use of MJD on F/JF
Pro: reduces cool down of use of MJD by 55%, increases MJD jump range by 100%
Con: Ship capacitor reduced by 15% and recharge penalty of 10%

Electronic Survival - allows use of ECM Burst module
Pro: Allows F/JF to fit a single ECM Burst module to avoid capture, 25% reduction to cool down of Burst ECM modules
Con: reduction in available PG by 50%, CPU by 25%

Active Defence - increases shield, armour and structure HP
Pro: 25% increase in shield/armour and structure HP
Con: agility reduced by 25%, mass increased by 15%

Expanded Fuel Bays - increases fuel bay size
Pro: increases fuel bay size by 200%
Con: reduction in cargo hold capacity by 30%

Warp Integrity - gives a F/JF a chance to escape capture by point/scram
Pro: Confers a +3 Warp Strength to the F/JF
Con: 20% reduction in cargo hold


Those are just some ideas to give extra options to the F/JF pilot. I'm sure there are more and people can suggest better Pros/Cons but these are an idea.

Improve what we have and use new ships, later, to add extra value.