Fun Times Ahead

After the delights of POS Bashing today I've had to return to the somewhat more mundane task of collecting ships that have been spread about New Eden.

I have put this off for too long and now that my WH character has moved all his assets to high sec I need to move them to their new home but before I can do that I need to collect them from their various locations.

Two characters have just left my home system and have this to look forward to:

I'm going to need caffeine, lots and lots of caffeine and something to do whilst I fly these ships.

Thank Bob for multiple monitors...

The Freighter Escapes

I previously wrote how my freighter pilot got caught by a ganker in Niarja and I logged off in order to evade any attempt at ransom or ship loss.

I'm happy to report that extraction of my freighter was successful a couple of days ago and in a reasonably humourous manner.

It was suggested in the comments (by Catalin C) that I could use the Duel mechanics to allow a neutral party to web my freighter for quick escape. 

A Cunning Plan

In preparation for the extraction I watch listed various gankers and people whom I'd determined might be related to Machariel pilot. They all appeared to be active primarily outside of my time zone and would randomly login/logout in neighbouring systems.

So I devised a plan to login a few alts ready to extract at a time just after downtime. I also needed a catchy codename for the operation. The best I could come up with, after spending far longer than I did coming up with the plan, was Operation Runaway.

Avengers They Are Not

Assembled in neighbouring systems and moved in prior to the operation:

• Boosting Alt in a Damnation with Republic Fleet Mindlink
• Combat (PvP) Alt in Rapier with Faction Webs
• Second Combat (PvP) Alt in Falcon with Rainbow ECM setup
• Industry Alt in a Covert Ops ship, cloaked and at a deep safe in system

Multi-boxing WAS a bitch to setup but I managed to do it thanks to ALT-TAB, a heavily caffeinated drinks and a couple of bacon rolls.

Go Go Go

EVE is starting up...

EVE is STILL starting up...

Characters ready to go at the launcher screen.

EVE is CONTINUING TO start up...

Triple check that the launchers are in the right order

SERVER STATUS IS OK

I ALT-TAB through each launcher clicking the Login button, carefully avoiding the Freighter pilots launcher

Select the character as each Selection screen appears

There is a delay of about 2 minutes as each client fully loads and I see my ship in space.

Fleet is created, invites sent, accepted

LOCAL IS EMPTY

Everyone is out of warp and ready, make sure I cloak the covert ops and move him in a random direction

Login the Freighter pilot, invite to fleet

CRAP! LOCAL HAS JUMPED TO FIVE PEOPLE, WHERE DID THEY COME FROM?

Takes me a few seconds to realise they are all my characters.

PANIC ATTACK AVERTED

It takes a long time to warp the 1,000,000km.

Out of warp, boosts are active and the EHP of the Providence is a nice ~382,000

Start warping to my covert ops pilots. 

DAMMIT, ACCELERATE FASTER

Wait until ~30% warp speed before initiating a duel and activating my webs

Freighter warps off into the sun (quite literally)

Success and an Oversight

Operation Runaway was a total success. I (internally) let off a cheer and finish off my energy drink and a bacon roll. 

Take that fake internet game pixels and person in their parents basement*

It is only as I write this that I realised my big mistake, I forgot to bring a neutral logi to rep my freighter should it have gone badly. Fortunately it didn't...

My wife asks me what I'm so happy about, I tell her what I expertly did, and she rolls her eyes and calls me an idiot.

* - it may be true, I can't prove it is nor can I disprove it.

Odds Finally Caught Up with Me

I was flying a freighter last night along the Amarr to Jita pipe and I had to travel through Niarja. This is a 0.5 system and frequently, much like Uedema, seeing a lot of ganking happen. 

I've never had issues before flying through here, well I do tend to be fly safe:

• never autopilot through system of Niarja
• use a scout to watch the in/out gates in Niarja
• never more than 1.5b / 2b in cargo (use multiple trips if I have more than this)
• check large kills for Niarja before arriving at system

I normally pass through quickly and without hassle but last night the odds finally went against me and I found myself in a tricky situation.

Don't Panic

You know what he'd be saying, the voice is in your head now...

I hadn't used autopilot at all on the trip so far, but I jumped into Niarja and started my warp to the next gate. It was then I noticed I was being yellow boxed by a Machariel who then proceeded to bump me downwards from my position. Instead of 12km of the gate I was now 25km.

I opened d-scan and checked what was within max range, a few catalysts were seen so I feared the worst. The Machariel hit me again and I bounced further off gate, nearly 70km from where I started.

A conversation request comes up from the Machariel pilot and I'm about to give him a peice of my (small) mind when I see three cataylsts land on gate...

The End?

But they jump through to the next system instead of engaging me!

At this point I've checked the pilot details out, he's a known "CODE lover" and proudly displays ships he's ganked and hyperdunked in his bio. I decide that speaking to him is not going to do anything and I'll certain to receive a ransom demand.

I do not negotiate with terrorists or gankers and I'm certainly not going to provide any 'tears'.

Options

I look again at d-scan and check Local. 

Local is down to 14 people, six of whom are on my overview. One is the Machariel pilot and 5 are in haulers or other non-ganking ships that are going about their business. I could be about to have 8 people in ganking ships land on me and blow me up.

My scouting alt is in no position to do anything, even if he had a web I would not be able to make it to warp speed before the Machariel bumped me again and because he's not in the same corp as the freighter pilot it would just be a wasted loss of a ship.

Solution, Kind Of.

I've been yellow boxed but I have not been attacked and there are no timers active on my screen. There are no ganking ships I can see inbound so I decide to take the option to logout. I close my client.

I keep a watch on my freighter via the scouting alt but nothing happens. The Machariel does not engage and, more importantly, there are no further ships arriving on grid to finish me off. One minute later my freighter performs an emergency warp and disappears.

I've now logged out and my ship is safe but watching the Machariel pilot I see he leaves system and then logs out himself. 

Conclusion

I sense a trap, the moment I login again the Machariel pilot will return to my position and this will start all over again, perhaps this time with ganking ships killing me. So I remain logged out and will do for the foreseeable future.

The good news is the cargo I was carrying is not critical to my activities. I was merely moving old stock and a small amount of reaction output to Jita for sale. The character flying the freighter has a full skill queue and, most importantly, nothing else to do for at least 24 days (when blueprints will be finished) but can easily be left longer without impacting my game.

A small shock but I was lucky and I've already decided that the day he does login I'll have an armour booster in system to provide some extra EHP as well as a webbing ship to get him "the hell out of dodge ASAP".

Don't Panic

Bex has been selling me gas that he mines from w-space and I finally decided that I needed to move it to Jita and it fitted in nicely with having some new manufactured goods and materials needing to be sold too. As a result I've been moving gas and assets around for most of the evening and taking items to Jita for sale. 

Passing through Niarja tonight I had one of those "OH SHIT" moments that every Freighter pilots will have. I'd checked ahead with a neutral alt and Niarja was quiet and both gates I'd be using did not have any obvious scanning or bump ships. So I made the run.

Niarja loaded and just as I enter warp Local lights up, with lots of red flashing:

First reaction is "oh shit" but then I catch a glimpse of one of the red flashy pilots in a capsule. A check of the name shows its CODE. no doubt returning from a gank but for a moment I felt panic that I'd be targeted.

They didn't follow and appear in the next system so I was "safe" and I managed to continue my journey unhindered. 

Although I think the capsule I'm using needs a very vigorous jet cleaning and a pine deodoriser...

Thar She Blows

Announced during EVE Vegas was that there would be a new ship coming in Rhea and I covered "The Tug" (as it was then known) briefly in my Pre-Phoebe post. 

We've finally been given more details and Rhea is set to see the release of the Bowhead, a frieghter sized vessel that contains a very large Ship Maintenance Array designed to carry assembled ships through New Eden. 

Learning To Fly

Being a new ship class means the chance to introduce a new skill for pilots to learn and this means we're going to see the introduction of the Ore Freighter skill. No details have been provided (outside of what bonuses the Bowhead gets from this skill) but I'd expect it to be the same training modifier level as the existing Racial Freighter skills and cost the same (~100m ISK).

Statistics

BOWHEAD

Ore Freighter Bonus:

5% bonus to inertia modifier per level

5% bonus to ship maintenance array capacity per level

Role Bonus: 

90% reduction in jump fatigue generation

Slot layout: 0H, 3M, 3L, 3R; 0 turrets, 0 launchers

Fittings: 1350 PWG, 215 CPU

Defense (shields / armor / hull) : 21000 / 11000 / 39500

Capacitor (amount / recharge) : 3900 / 235000 

Mobility (max velocity / agility / mass / warp speed / align time): 65 / .0675 / 640000000 / 1.37 / 59.89s

Drones (bandwidth / bay): 0 / 0

Targeting (max targeting range / Scan Resolution / Max Locked targets): 51.5km / 45 / 3

Capacity (cargo / ship maintenance array): 4000 / 1300000 (goes up to 1.6 something with ore freighter 5)

Sensor strength: 12 

Signature radius: 3200

Reasonable PG/CPU along with 3 each of mid, low and rig slots mean plenty of fitting options available. The Defense statistics suggest that Shield tanking might be viable, more likely a propulsion mod and maybe a shield extender or two, but I'm certain that Hull Tanking (as with Freighters) will be the fitting of choice.

The Forums Speak

The initial details resulted in a lot of feedback on the Forums, as usual some was constructive most was not but that that was constructive has already seen to have caused a change to the Bowhead. The per Level velocity bonus has changed to an inertia modifier and extra Defense added, mainly to the Shields and Structure.

The change to modifying inertia instead of velocity makes a lot of sense and I agree with it. When you're flying a Freighter/Jump Freighter it is the inertia that matters not how fast you can go. Sure if you're AP'ing 20 jumps having an extra 30m/s will make you do that 15km to the gate faster but you'll be losing out because you're going to be entering warp slower due to your inertia.

Gank Target

Ganks happen and happen a lot. Its not uncommon for me to browse through the kills in a major 0.5 high sec system and see dozens of catalysts or tornados lost to kill a single Freighter/Jump Freighter and most of the time these aren't well tanked and are fit for maximum cargo or maximum agility.

A lot of pilots do fit for tank and split their cargo up and take the time penalty for a couple of extra runs rather than risk losing the lot to a gank. Regardless a large cargo carrying ship is going to have a massive target recticle painted on it and the Bowhead will be no different.

Its been said that if a Bowhead is destroyed then anything that survivcs the loot fairy will be lootable by a player from the wreck. This will mean we are going to see Bowheads targeted by gankers not just because its a fat target but because the expectation is it will contain valuable cargo in the form of fitted ships.

Incursion runners are expected to be a major user of the Bowhead to carry their bling fit incursion ships and even just killing on Bowhead and having one blinged out ship dropped will be enough to fund dozens of more ganks.

Defence

With a hull tank fit the Bowhead is expected to have around 420k to 450k EHP and this should be more than enough for the average pilot. Depending on skills we may see this top out just around the 500k mark but if you're fitting anything but tank modules to this then you're asking for trouble in my opinion.

There is no need for cargo modifications, this is a ship carrying vessel not a cargo mover, and any cargo space should be for small modules and other things that cannot be put into a ship in an SMA and should not need increasing.

I'm certainly going to spend the ISK to hull tank any ship I get as well as looking at getting T2 variations of any rigs. The expense will be worth it if I can put off just one gank attempt.

Cockroaches Assemble

Tonight was the first time I had to do logistics from Null Sec to High Sec and it seemed to be nicely timed with two other characters who were moving assets around, so much so that I even managed to grab a couple of screenshots of my Cockroach fleet as they undocked:

Combined they have a cargo capacity of nearly two million m3 of space and it certainly allows me to move large assets and contracts quickly and simply through New Eden.

I may be a little biased but I think the Amarr racial Freighter/Jump Freighter is by far the best looking even if it does remind me a little of a cockroach.

Wheelin' and Dealin'

It's been a nice week, long skill queues are nicely coming to a end and I've been able to buy, at very good prices, lots of faction modules to fit out ships to add that extra dps or resistance that they deserve.

I've also been spending too much time idling in Jita local, reading the messages from the people I haven't blocked for scamming. One thing I've noticed is a lot of people do not understand Margin Trading or many of the other scams that appear so I'm aiming to produce a few posts on these for educational purposes.

Buying and Making

I've spent nearly 4 billion ISK in the past week buying modules, salvage materials and T2 materials for a variety of purposes. Faction and deadspace modules will be used to replace lower meta/T2 modules on a few of my major ships where as the salvage materials will enable me to finally produce T2 variants of rigs I use without having to buy off the market.

The T2 materials I've purchased are for a small production run of the new T2 Venture variant, the Prospect, I managed to secure a 4 run -4/-2 BPC last week from a friend for the excellent price of nothing so I'm going to make them and keep two for myself and give two to friend who is helping to make them. It's a nice test to see if we can work together and more importantly develop some trust because there may be more we can do in the future, war withstanding...

Selling

It's been reasonably quiet, my Curse inventory is nicely selling for a mininum of 15% profit per item and I've been able to manufacture any new items myself without having to resort to trips to high sec.

My best news for the week was the Revelation dreadnought that I had spare in Mai finally sold after nearly two weeks on contract. I put up the T2 rigged Revelation that I had spare for 2.5billion ISKand received a counter offer rather quickly of 2.25b, I declined as I really wanted 2.35b mininum and so I left it and late last week a member of Nulli bought it from me.

I only hope they were successful extracting it from Mai :)

Freighter/Jump Freighter Changes

Kronos introduced the low slots to F and JF's and as such I've invested in a set of T2 Reinforced Bulkheads, Cargo Expanders and Nanofiber Internal Structure's to help my ships. 

The cargo expanders are fitted to the Jump Freighter and this gives me an extra 5000 m3 of space and trust me, this is used. When I jumpt o high sec I transfer the cargo to a freighter with either two bulkheads and a nanofiber or triple bulkheads (depending on the cargo carried). Of course I keep a full set of each nmodule in my cargohold so I can swap out as needed.

I have cut down on my trips personally but I have found myself doing a few more "urgent" trips for alliance people and so long as the fuel cost is covered I have no problem with this.

Freighter/Jump Freighter Changes in Kronos and beyond

I had a long post I've been working on about the upcoming changes to Freighters/Jump Freighters and then an update was posted that made what I was saying moot. So I scrapped it and now this is what I have.

What Was And Will Be

Initially rigs were going to be allowed to be fitted to F/JF and changes to ship statistics and cargohold capacities but a threadnaught developed and after considerable feedback this was reviewed and has been changed to F/JF having three low slots, and not rig slots.

As a result, when released, freighters and jump freighters will be able to fit the following:

• Expanded Cargohold (adds to cargo hold at the expense of structural hitpoints)
• Reinforced Bulkhead (adds structural hitpoints at the expense of non-warp velocity)
• Hyperspatial Accelerators (new module, adds to warp speed)
• Inertia Stabilizers (faster align time, but larger signature)
• Overdrive Injector Systems (faster non-warp velocity at the expense of cargohold capacity)
• Adaptive Nano Plating (grants armor resistance to all forms of damage)

Six fitting options, including a new warp speed affecting module, that will give players who use F/JF a lot more options in fitting and more importantly the flexibility that rigs would not provide.

Adding three Reinforced Bulkheads to a freighter is going to increase the EHP by nearly 80%, even just one and a couple of cargohold expanders will 5% increase in EHP. Maybe not enough to stop a concentrated gank effort but perhaps enough that any ganker will think twice before striking.

Base Stat Changes

One major change coming is the changes in base stats for F/JF, the major of these being the lowering of the base cargohold for each ship which by approximately 40% for Freighters and 50% for Jump Freighters.

This is quite a shock, fortunately the ability to add three cargohold expanders and you'll bring the cargo capacity back up to just over the old cargo capacity for JF's (no more than 1%/2% difference) or a significant increase for Freighters (finally you can have a cargohold of over the 1,000,000m3 size).

The table below is based on a fully skilled pilot with V's for all relevant skills for piloting.

Ship	Old EHP	New EHP	EHP Change	Old Cargo (m3)	New Cargo (m3)	% Cargo Change
Providence	193,690	227,427	+17.42%	918,750	543,750	-40.82%
Charon	195,783	210,860	+7.70%	981,250	581,250	-40.76%
Fenrir	174,049	204,749	+17.64%	900,000	543,750	-39.58%
Obelisk	200,827	235,712	+17.37%	937,500	550,000	-41.33%
Ark	351,357	411,567	+17.14%	344,531.30	168,750	-51.02%
Rhea	326,264	400,487	+22.75%	367,968.80	180,000	-51.08%
Nomad	314,978	394,272	+25.17%	337,500	165,000	-51.11%
Anshar	363,687	441,612	+28.11%	351,562.50	171,875	-51.11%

Jump Freighter Nerf

The nerf to cargohold capacity is a major change for JF's that can be possibly be attributed to force/logistic projection and the ability of JF's to carry such a large amount 'relatively safely'. This combined with the 50% increase in fuel usage that we'll also be seeing means that any JF run is going to cost significantly more come Kronos and the next expansion.

Comment

As a Jump Freighter pilot, these changes are frustrating but do open up more flexibility for pilots through the introduction of three low slots rather than two/three rig slots. In fact it means you can carry several different modules and refit as required in local stations or via a mobile depot.

The Jump Freighter changes are going to hit the 'bottom line' much more than the freighter changes. Yes, fuel size is getting reduced by one third (from 0.15m3 to 0.10m3) so we'll be able to carry more but the fuel is going to be used faster and, more than likely, cost more. Already we're seeing prices near 1,000 ISK per unit and this will only increase as supply decreases and demand increases.

Certainly I'm giving serious thought to changing my racial JF to one who's fuel I can mine locally.

I was almost right

I was very happy to hear during FanFest that CCP will be allowing Freighters and Jump Freighters to fit Capital sized rigs, not modules as I thought the description showed.

I was almost right, first time for everything as a few friends are no doubt thinking.

It will be interesting to see if I can put cargohold increasing rigs on my Freighters, I was always under the belief that the cargo size would not exceed 1,000,000 m3 because CCP didn't want capital ships to be moved in high sec. If I'm able to add one, two or even three cargohold rigs then I'm pretty sure this will allow this limit to be exceeded.

Isotope prices are increasing, slowly

I would like to add cargohold rigs to my JF's, the ability to carry a extra cargo would be a boon to my shipping contracts and the extra space means I can claw back some of the monies I'll be spending on increased fuel needs.

I Spy A Future Change?

A patch was released last night weighing in at nearly 300mb, details are available on the patch notes but a few changes to the UI seem to have occurred. Most noticeable was the Character Selection screen which has changed to a really nice blue hue instead of the red it was before.

There were a few other changes listed but it was when I was looking at ship details later that I noticed that the Traits page had changed and now included icons representing roles/modules that the ship can use/be under the heading of Ship Characteristics. It's very nice and moving the mouse over the icons shows descriptive text about what the icon means.

Here is the text for a Interceptor:

But what really piqued my interest was what I saw when I viewed the Details for a Freighter or Jump Freighter:

I wonder what that XL icon means, let's have a look at what the tool tip says:

Well "bounce me up and down and call me Skippy", could this mean that Freighters and Jump Freighters are in for a major overhaul in the Summer expansion, could they be finally be getting module/rig slots and be able to have defensive and tanking modules fitted?

Obviously this could just be the UI being updated, after all Freighters/Jump Freighters are considered Capital Ships and thus would, if they could, be fitted with capital sized modules. But there is the chance, however small, that these ships are being looked and receiving the long-needed upgrade to allow them to be rigged and fitted with modules.

Hopefully we'll find out more during/after Fanfest 2014.

Moving Cargo

Most of my characters can fly freighters and those that cannot are only a few days away from being able to, should I need them to. As a result I do move a lot of cargo myself and with Low-Grade Nomad implants not as slow as it used to be.

 

That said there are times when I don't want to (read: can't be bothered), cannot or wish to mitigate risk by using a 3rd party service. In the case of the latter I use Red Frog Freight and a very happy customer am I.

 

Red Frog Freight, for when it absolutely, positively must arrive.

 

Their rules for use are simple and when I have made a mistake during the setup of the contract I've been contacted by someone very quickly with details of the mistake for me to fix. The Trip Calculator is simple and provides the whole cost of the contract you'll pay, all you have to do is fill in the Courier Contract details with what the calculator states and what collateral you want to secure the cargo.

 

They say that it may take up to 3 days for any contract to be accepted and then 1 day to complete, I've never had a contract last more than 24 hours. I find setting contracts just before I logout for a night results in my cargo being where I need by the time I wake up, that's service.

 

I use Red Frog at least six times a week, mostly moving items from my high sec staging system to Jita or vice versa. The benefit, apart from the overnight movement is I don't have to worry about the Niarja pipe (the 0.5 system between Amarr to Jita where a lot of suicide ganking occurs).

 

Setting collateral to cover any cargo I am moving (I never move more than 1 billion ISK per contract, and insure it for its actual value) will see me still benefit if it is lost but, touch wood, I've not had that happen. Nor have I had a contract stolen by someone within Red Frog. I'm lucky I guess.

 

So if you're new to EVE and want to move large amounts of cargo around and mitigate some of the risk I'd recommend giving Red Frog Freight a try.

 

Jump Freighter Fuel Economy

Disclaimer and Note:

 

I'm sorry about the use of the pictures instead of tables within this post. I'm not au fait with HTML so didn't know how to add the tables manually as the WYSIWYG editor didn't have a table insertion function

 

All values and details were gathered from publically available sources via EVEMon, EVE Central and EVE Online Wiki. Additional information from Glevon Goblin and my own calculations.

 

You Learn Something New

 

I was reminded by a post at The Abysmal Aussie that most people know that Jump Freighters use different type of isotope as fuel but very few know that the amount of isotopes consumed per jump is not the same across each racial ship.

 

The actual isotope usage is (from what I can find) is:

 

This base consumption is per light year travelled, So a 3ly jump would use three times this value and is then modified by your skills in Jump Fuel Conservation and Jump Freighters, which means the higher you have these skills the more fuel you'll be saving which lowers the cost of each jump.

 

Fuel Usage Example

 

I've used the ICSC Jump Planner to plot the fuel usage for each Jump Freighter based on pilots with different levels of the modification skills. I wasn't able to find a system that was 1ly from another so I've used a grouping that I am familiar with and provide, what I think, is a good set of data for differing jump lengths to indicate usage:

 

You cannot have a 0,0 skilled pilot flying a jump freighter but these values are provided as they are the closest to the base consumption value and confirm that value.

 

This proves is the better your skills the more substantial your savings will be. Jumping 4.22ly with a JFC I/JF I pilot is (roughly) 3.2 times more expensive in fuel than a JFC V/JF V skilled pilot and this appears uniform over each racial jump freighter.

 

If you do lots of short jumps then you could get away with a JFC III/JF III skilled character as your pilot but really the minimum is a level IV for both skills. Training to Level V is time intensive (at least 2 months/60 days) but if you do a lot of jumps it is something you really need to invest in.

 

My Situation

 

I have two characters trained to fly Jump Freighters, with a third finishing Jump Drive Calibration V in about two weeks, and since training JFC V/JF V on one character the other hasn't done a single jump.

 

The drop in fuel usage has meant that I buy fuel once a week and still have some left over at the end of each week, the result of which is I'm slowly stockpiling through the excess. By lowering my fuel usage I've actually increased the value of what I do move.

 

I charge 200isk/m3 to move cargo now, when I started I was charging 300isk/m3 and that was spent on fuel with anything left over counted as profit. Now I'm running a consistent profit after fuel costs and this allows me to reinvest in more fuel so I always have enough on hand at my jump locations (not to mention Liquid Ozone for lighting cyno's)

 

Why Should You Care

 

You should care because of the price of isotopes and how they can be easily manipulated.

 

Average price of isotopes in Jita over a one year period (spikes indicate ice interdiction by Goons) - Graph by Glevon Goblin 

 

As we saw with the Goon Ice Interdictions over the past eighteen months the price of Nitrogen isotopes doubled overnight with a high being almost four times the original price within a couple of days. This made using the Rhea much more expensive and a risky gambit as gankers would and did go after ships carrying Nitrogen isotopes.

 

Each m3 of the Jump Freighter has a cost, jumping an empty freighter is a waste, all you're doing is burning ISK so it pays to know how much your costs are and EVE doesn't tell you in a simple manner.

Fine, but which should I buy

That's a question only you can answer, it really depends on:

• your pilot(s) skills and what they are racially specialised in. If you can fly more than one then that opens up your options but most likely you'll be fixed to one type and the earlier.
• isotope prices

If you have the ability to mine an isotope, or at least buy from a null sec source, then that may affect what you go for.

I have two Ark's because my characters are Amarrian however I also now have access to Hydrogen Isotopes in a couple of systems I jump too. As a result when my new character is trained he will be getting a Nomad. It isn't free to mine but it is certainly, with good mining skills, cheaper than buying in Jita.

[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.