DevBlog on new fleet system

[Yegolev]

http://myeve.eve-online.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid=397

The other thread has turned into the Bookmark Thread.

[ajax34i]

My first impression is that no amount of anything will prevent the commanders being called as targets and taken out first as a way to "debuff" the enemy fleet fast.  It'll probably all depend on how easy it is to identify said commanders, and alt spies will be useful towards that purpose.

They may have to implement a "you can kill the commander, but his buffs will remain active on his gang-members for 30s after death" or something similar to that.

Also, the "Need Armor Repair!!111" stuff is nice, but we won't be able to play whack-a-mole like healers in other games because we need to lock first before "healing".  And, while locking is one click, unlocking is a couple, and in general the whole "lock, heal, unlock to make room for other targets" mechanic is too click-intensive for my tastes.

Guess we'll see.

[Yegolev]

The commander will have to act like a real-world commander and keep his ass off of the front lines.  Cloaked perhaps.

[ajax34i]

Perhaps.

[dwindlehop]

Summary for those at work:

2 choices: 50 man flat gang, no hierarchy; or 256 man fleet, (1 FC, 5 WC, 25 Squad Com, 225 other). Flat hierarchy gets no gang bonuses. Weird.

Groups without commanders get no gang bonuses. See ajax's comment, athought you can promote a new commander while in battle.

Leadership is required to have a squadron, maximum of 10 members including commander. I knew there was a reason I started with a high charisma. Wing Command skill gives 1 squad per level, Fleet Command gives one wing per level.

Gang bonuses only apply from the commander, although you get bonuses from every commander up your hierarchy. This is supposed to make commander-specced chars more viable and popular, though I don't really see it.

You can broadcast messages... mainly I see this being useful for targeting, but it helps a bit for scout/travel too. Logistics ships might be helped out by this.

Health bars smaller. No formations (yet?).

[dwindlehop]

[Y]ou won't be capable of having the Fleet Commander active until he has sufficient skills to run an army of that size. So the only difference is that this single Commander can't be giving gang bonuses to this big group of players.

So you can have a 256 man fleet with no commander.

[Viin]

I think it means that until you learn the Fleet Command skills you can't have Wing Commands and the like.. so until the commander learns those skills the biggest "fleet" size you can have is based on your skills. So all 255 players won't have the bonuses from one commander and all the other levels of command, but would only have the bonuses from their immediate commander (10 member squad?).

I think.

[dwindlehop]

That's right. You can still have 256 man fleets, but number of people who can receive bonuses is limited by the commander, and thus the Command skills. So no large fleets with bonuses for a while until folks get their unseeded Fleet Command trained up.

I like this explanation of the broadcast system.

You might see:

[Broadcast Window]
A Mate > Need Armor Repair!

You clickit
You get option "Lock Target"
You select it
You activate your remote repairers
He still dies

[Yegolev]

I see it as a tree structure.  You get bonuses from the three possible commanders above you.  I am going to have to read it again later.  Or better yet, forget about it until patch day.  Oy vey.

[dwindlehop]

The official forum profanity filter renders Damnation as ****ation. Color me amused.

[dwindlehop]

Anyway, my primary hope for this is that once voice integration comes into play, you can chat with folks in your squad without hearing inane chatter from those idiots in the other squads.

The picture illustrates the commander thing pretty clearly.


So this fleet has no FC or WC. The SC is a Boss and Cmdr (dunno the difference) and there's one Scout. I like the one line health bars.

TomB also made it clear that you have the following folks with invite capability:
1. The person who started the fleet.
2. FC
3. WC (for his wing)
4. SC (for his squad)

So hopefully getting a gang invite will be much easier.

[Yegolev]

There's also that nice-looking 0km warp option.  Mmmmm.

Of course I am thinking about how this affects me as a miner.  Not sure if I have more or less incentive to get the gang bonus skills.

[ajax34i]

RE: commander-specced chars being viable and popular, I think they're going for a carrot-AND-stick combo to ensure that mains (and not alts) train up for these "command" roles.  Namely, you want the bonuses, so you want to train the skills, but a combat-unskilled alt won't survive the assist-train and focused fire that the commanders will be subjected to.  Not that anyone can survive that sort of thing, but still, I think that's the Vision at this point.

RE: (boss) and (cmdr), possibly they make a distinction between who created the gang and/or has channel admin rights or can invite/kick people, vs. who can activate their "commander" skills and buff everyone with their little bonuses.  The boss, for example, could select who gets to be the next "commander" when the first dies.

RE: Mining, I do not know.  The blog is worded with combat in mind, not mining.

[Viin]

I'm sure we'll see 256 member mining gangs, getting stacked mining bonuses. Woot!

[ajax34i]

Or, 3 miners and 1 hauler in a squadron, with 1 squad commander, 1 wing commander, and 1 fleet commander above them for stacked bonuses.

[Yegolev]

Right, I assume it will work the same way for miners as in combat, so a mining grunt in a squadron has the opportunity to have three times the usual bonus.  You would probably want to split up squadrons by function, so the miners would be in Squad A and haulers in Squad B so that Squad Leader A could apply mining bonuses while SL B would apply hauling bonuses... although I'm not really sure there is such a thing as that.  Splitting people up by function would help communication and organization anyway.

[dwindlehop]

Re: stacked bonuses: No.

Does the bonus comign from squadron, wing and fleet commanders mean that you can get 3 bonuses stacked? Or is it just the highest bonus like it is now?

Highest bonus counts, like how it is now.

Gang bonuses are no more powerful than they were previously, with the exception that fewer gangs will enjoy them. That's kinda a buff for those that do.

[Yegolev]

Nice.  Nerfs are buffs for other people.

[dwindlehop]

http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=422023 - Voice chat on the test server

When in a fleet you can either talk to the whole fleet in gang chat or you can talk to just your squad in squad chat.

Woo for squad chat.

[MahrinSkel]

The big problem with their voice chat for fleet ops is that *everyone* has to sign up for it, or it's useless.  If I'm scouting or bossing a gang, and half of the gang can't hear me, reaction time goes *way* down.  Also, if I'm two-boxing, and the account with the Vivox access isn't the one in the appropriate place on the fleet structure, if I'm understanding this correctly I won't be able to speak via voice to the right people.

So far the only thing I see that makes this even potentially superior to TeamSpeak or Ventrilo is the integration with the new fleet structure.  And that could wind up being as much a negative as anything else, as most alliances will probably have a real CoC that bears only a superficial relationship to what appears on the fleet tree.

--Dave

[Yegolev]

I didn't try the new gang stuff on Sing since it was pretty much just me floating around.  The seamless map, however, made me all tingly.  I had forgotten about it and hit F10 to see where the hell I was and where I could go, and WOW it was neat.

Warp-to-zero is also very nice.  It's as hard to use as any other manual warp-to, which is "not very".  Just using it five times on Sing has made it very difficult for me to log into Tranq.

[dwindlehop]

I don't have a link, but I know the devs have said a voice chat option will be available for an entire corp in some fashion. So you can form gangs with a guarantee of everyone subscribed to the service.

[dwindlehop]

Forgot to post this: Oveur answering a ton of gang/fleet questions. Don't read the replies, though, cuz they'll make your eyes bleed.

http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=419732&page=2#45

In a flat gang, you can't see your gangmates' health. Apparently the combination of eliminating health updates and gang bonuses from most gangs will make the server very very happy.

[dwindlehop]

http://www.blosphere.net/~sty/eve/SiSi/2006.11.04.06.55.40.jpg (for more shots get directory listing here: http://www.blosphere.net/~sty/eve/SiSi/)

Shows the Broadcast system in the lower right. It's a list of clickable incoming messages. I was hoping for something more like Allegiance where you just hit a button and the action is performed, but perhaps that wouldn't scale well.

Gang chat and squad chat are different channels. This shot also shows empty Wings and Squads, Squads without commanders, etc. Probably if the whiners on the official forums would just grok this, 99% of the whining would cease. In a large fleet, you simply form a pile of squads without leaders and boom, you have your 100 man gang again. No skills required.

[Viin]

I'll have to start training more Leadership skills once Cloaking IV is done (any day now). I bet the Charisma implants go up in price soon (if not already) so I should get one of those too.

[Yegolev]

The new rig skills are all Int/Mem, by the way.

[Viin]

The new rig skills are all Int/Mem, by the way.

My alt would kick ass then, she's in the mid 20's with Int and Mem.. but no Preception and Willpower to speak of. Ah well. :)

[Yegolev]

Plays into my idea of what I think CCP is doing by upping defense, actually.   Give more def ability to the non-combat people.

[ajax34i]

Do you think they're moving towards "if ganking (at gates or not) is how you all play, i.e. many vs. 1, then we'll make it the standard, with any one ship being able to survive many"?  I.e. no need for insta-jumps, any ship should be able to survive long enough to crawl 15 km to a gate while under fire from a medium-sized gate camp?  (and by survive I mean either be fast enough that it's not hit, or armored enough that it can take focused fire)

[Yegolev]

I do think that, except for the fact that warp-to-zero is on Singularity now and seems likely to come to Tranq.  As a preface to wiping BMs, of course.  I feel that all of this is connected to the BM problem.  The default beahvior in EVE is that everyone has instas, so they can't just take those away without radically altering the gameplay.  They also want to prolong fights to enable escape, which I feel is in line with this.  It also helps new players and causals, which CCP is interested in obtaining/retaining.  Faster travel in empire is just a bonus.

[Strazos]

More realistic LoS/LoF mechanics would help keep commanders alive.