How to scale structure 'EHP' against fleet size

[Mike deVoid]

I had a brief outline for an idea to scale the EHP of any structure against the size of the fleet. People have suggested such things as scaling resistances, or 10-min RF modes when under high DPS, but I never really liked them so much.

How about the sig of the structure reduces as more red-box locks are made upon it. Passive and repping locks therefore wouldn't count. I'm sure some sort of sliding scale could be used such that larger forces give diminishing returns.

The benefit of this approach is that although you obviously want to minmax the pilot:dps ratio, at some point the smaller sig resolution of smaller guns comes into play and it's suddenly better to have Cruisers at 4-500 dps rather than Battleshrimps at 7-800 dps because of the actual damage being applied. So although the EHP of the structure never actually changes, it is protected from overwhelming force due to increasingly diminishing returns.

Might have to give these structures painter immunity to avoid making painters mandatory fittings to circumvent the mechanic.

RP justification: Some sort of technology only equipped by certain structures. Or a special kind of weapons interference that applies due to special armor plating. Or something else.

  Spoiler:

[Shin_getter]

How about the sig of the structure reduces as more red-box locks are made upon it.

oh great, another missile nerf.... *stops ship*

[Mike deVoid]

Fire smaller missiles?

The same applies to all guns, would this affect missiles disproportionately?

[Qwert]

Also, and all, the defenders can each fit a long range ewar like damps to get free reboxes (or sick a bunch of ewar drones on it.....). Not a problem in the long run, but something to be aware of.

[CastleBravo]

Just set it up so that you have to do a certain ratio of DPS to remote-repair for a certain amount of time to break it's tank.

Give it something like 90% shield and armor resists and ~10m combined shield and armor eHP. Make the Hull resists 99% until it takes a hit to the hull every ~10 seconds for 15minutes straight, then drop hull resists to 0%. Raw hull hp would be 5m.

This way a decent subcap fleet can nuke it in maybe 20 minutes as long as the enemy doesn't defend it with a bunch of carriers to tank it against your DPS, but to take it out faster than 15min you would need to burn through 510m eHP.

[Mike deVoid]

You might as well have a hacking timer of 15 minutes and then a small amount of HP such that a pathetically small force can't tip it over. Which might well be an easier mechanic to code. And allows a fleet of any composition to achieve the same thing.

[CastleBravo]

The whole concept revolves around the 90% shield and armor resists allowing carriers to tank the ihub and keep the hull from taking damage to reset the timer. I want to make it so that a smallish force can take one down in a reasonable time frame if left undefended but force the attackers to first clear out the defending fleet if one shows up. Its about forcing a fight if you want to take it down rather than simply nuking the ihub while ignoring the defenders. Shield and armor resists might need to be a bit higher than 90% to achieve that though.

[Qwert]

Someone else had a similar idea so I'm just fleshing it out:

The shield looks like this:
|-------|------------|

• Blue is normal shield. Red is the "danger zone."
• They are divided by a threshold at %some percent%.
• If the shield is held in the "danger zone" for %some time%, it enters reinforced mode.
• Reinforced mode ends with 0 shield and no recharge until it is repped up to %some percent%.
• The shield has a shield boost rate in the danger zone of %some EHP/sec% that prevents the solo Rifter from RFing it.
• Until it has been reinforced, the shield cannot drop below 1 hp, forcing blobs to wait out the timer.
• This may even force blobs to split, leaving enough dps to counter the boost, and moving the rest to the next target.
• If the shield is repped or boosted above the "danger zone," then the timer is wound back in some manner.
• It could move in reverse at at %some rate%.
• It could reset entirely if held for %some time%

Of note: Pure dps matters up until the threshold, meaning MOAR does make things faster. There is a minimum dps to achieve anything. DPS beyond what is needed to counter RR and the boost is wasted in the "danger zone".

[OrangeAfroMan]

If the ships are stopped then the smaller sig means nothing. Sig only matters when transversal is involved.

[Shiroi Okami]

If the ships are stopped then the smaller sig means nothing. Sig only matters when transversal is involved.

This. Nomatter how small your target is, as long as it is an immobile target, and the ship shooting at it is also immobile, even capital guns will hit it fine

[Sponk]

This. Nomatter how small your target is, as long as it is an immobile target, and the ship shooting at it is also immobile, even capital guns will hit it fine

I have seen attempts to remedy this, but it, uh, Needs Work(tm).

[Zeekar]

Why would you want to see that fixed. In my opinion its a perfectly valid and a welcome mechanic. If you're retarded enough to hold still you deserve to die.

[Sponk]

Or if you're retarded enough to fight anyone who warps at range then pops you with battleship (or x-large) guns.

[Shin_getter]

The logical response is obviously to make structures that move around automatically all the time! If you think your POS is messed up, you haven't seen the result of unbounded brownian motion applied to every structure.

[Sponk]

Territorial Claim Comets are a go

[Tsubutai]

Or if you're retarded enough to fight anyone who warps at range then pops you with battleship (or x-large) guns.

LR battleship guns have tracking issues against smaller stuff even at range unless supported by long-range webbers (and preferably a painter or two as well). Do you actually have any significant pvp experience or are all your posts in this subforum just witless theorycrafting?

[RoemySchneider]

Why would you want to see that fixed. In my opinion its a perfectly valid and a welcome mechanic. If you're retarded enough to hold still you deserve to die.

it's the only (slim) chance of survival against fighters when you're in a boat smaller than ~100m vOv
[yerp, they took the sig resolution nerf back....]

[Mike deVoid]

If the ships are stopped then the smaller sig means nothing. Sig only matters when transversal is involved.

Oh. Fuck. It totally should affect the hit percentage though.