The not-so-great deep safe analysis.
Posted: 2010-04-22 Filed under: eveonline | Tags: ccp, consipracy, conspiracy theory, deep safe, eve, eve online, nerf, silly 5 CommentsBefore I start, if anyone reading this sees TeaDaze, tell him I said “I told you so”.
Early on, when we were still drafting plans for mining in the static C5, one of the major problems was that hauling the ore through the connecting WH would slowly whittle down the mass to the point that we might not be able to fit the Hulks, Orca, ectera back through, condeming them to a lifetime of trying to build a scan probe launcher out of spare parts, and when that failed, crashing each ship into a separate planet and re-creating civilization, prospering on individual planets until inter-planet contact is established, at which point a war is sparked. This commits each population to the destruction of the other, draining each planet of resources to construct vessels of war, which are launched into space only to be loaded onto my Orca, and shipped to Jita while holoreels of old spaceship battles are shipped back to the population, with all news networks carefully manipulated to keep the war going indefinitely…..
Wait, sorry, that’s my Tyrannis plan. Anyway, an alternate solution of making a deep, deep safespot and having the rorqual compress ore on site in safety was one of our “really good ideas”, which, unfortunately, will soon be impossible since to the disabling of said exploit, which is at the top of CCP’s “fix now” list, instead of some other things that I remember being upset about but apparently I’m not passionate enough about to remember. The one legitimate reason for nerfing deep safes I’ve heard so far are some people in null are putting their Dominion shoot-me-to-take-system thingys way out there making warping to them difficult. Oh, and it’s an exploit.
The more enjoyable explanation, in my opinion, is that CCP is trying to discourage blob warfare by making it unfeasible from a lag standpoint, encouraging hit-and-run groups attacking several strategic areas instead of 300 man cap fleets eliminating everything so fast they redefine the word “superior firepower”. But hey, that’s just the ramblings of someone who thinks a bit too much into these things.
The 20 AU limit seems fair, as the only non-exploiting way to get that far now is flying an interceptor in the preferred direction for several years, the major point being that there is no longer anywhere convenient to stuff a large cap fleet while their grid loads. See aforementioned conspiracy theory.
Anyway, cataclysmic variable did a much more serious analysis, but I disagree on his conclusion that “We have the power to change this game”.
The end result, deep safes unusable, is still going to happen. We’ve managed to achieve “we’ll move the ships” instead of “we’ll blow up the ships”, but there is still no-where to park a supercapital and there still will be no way to exit out mid-warp when you realize you’re warping into a gatecamp/death. You can say “we changed things”, but really, what’s different? The five people who quit Eve while in a safespot and didn’t leave any contact information with friends lose a ship that they apparently don’t care about.
It will still be impossible to fight on a grandiose scale without lag occurring, and now grid loading issues will be crippling because when a cyno is lit in a system with a defending fleet, the defending fleet will warp to that cyno, the attacking fleet will have grid load issues, ectera.
So, the three options are either have the attacking fleet in system BEFORE the defending fleet, or attack several points at once, or don’t use blobs. See CCP Conspiracy theory. Also, it’s probably worth noting that on all the forum’s I’ve read, the devs only respond to questions not including the phrase “Fix the lag before you fix deep safes”. COINCIDENCE?
Also, CCP has THREE letters, but only TWO Cs. COINCIDENCE? I think NOT!
The Icelandic volcano has shut down European air travel the same day deep safe nerfs were announced. COINCIDENCE?
I’m hungry, so I shall go make a sandwich. COINCIDENCE?
k162space 
Yeah the deep safe nerf is a pain but it is a step in the right direstion IMO. The ultimate results of which may well be the extinction of ‘the blob’.
Having to store super-caps at a POS will really bring home the true cost and value of these ships. They’ll become rarer as a result, as it should be. An alliance should only be able to field one or two titans, not 27. The logistical and security costs of keeping these behemoths safe will discourage the ownership of many of them. Rather than simply throwing ISK from their nearly limitless piles into a manufacturing process to build them then parking them at an unreachable safe until needed, thought will have to be given to how they are to be maintained and the costs involved in doing so.
Targets other than sov dohickeys become more accessible. If you know where a super-cap is stored, you can plan an assault to take it out or attack its logistics chain. These ships will finally become vulnerable and targets in their own right.
There are a few things which need to be addressed before the death of the blob will truly be possible.
The Lag issue will still need to be addressed, this is a given. Epic fights between hundreds of pilots should still be possible but they should be rare and monumental and more importantly they should work.
Sov needs reworked again to allow it to be taken with smaller, faster moving fleets. 300 man capital fleets should not be necessary. This may only require some tweaking of the various HP values of the various bits (SBU, TCU, IH, and Outposts) or a complete reversal of the order of events leaving the IH and Outpost as capturable with some part of the upgrades accrued intact and the only thing requiring destruction being the TCU.
Black Ops BS need a rethink to make them more than just jump bridge generators and actually useful in a covert command/support role on the battlefield.
Some sort of enhanced fleet command interface should be implemented so that an FC can co-ordinate the movements and intel from a collection of smaller fleets spread across large areas of space (see http://bit.ly/fleetinterface for more details on this idea) rather than limiting them to using one big blob.
Blobs should be made obvious, see http://bit.ly/blobdetection for more details. tl;dr: make blobs visible to other players and FCs will be forced to move their fleets in smaller groups and muster somewhere. This will bring more subterfuge and intel into play as FCs try to discern where fleets are planning to attack in the face of possibly misleading movements from their opponents.
All in all I’m not all that bothered if there is a conspiracy at CCP to kill the blob, it needs to die as it is killing the endgame as things stand.
Thank you for not including the words “you’re wrong” in that carefully-worded reply.
your mom is so fat that when she was cremated, they had to ground all flights over europe
the idea of implementing deterrents against blobbing has been around since the first time 2 caracals got together and decided to pick on a omen. I don’t believe it is realistic to expect any game design measure short of the most extreme at being any successful in this effort. Strength in numbers is a pretty fundamental concept that is difficult for us as individuals to seek out as an advantage.
Regarding deep safes for supercaps, its a minor luxury really. Proper handling of supercap assets doesnt demand the use of deep safes tbh. All supercap logistics and storage can be done in poses with impunity, people who argue security risk regarding their supercaps are in the wrong alliance. AFAIK the only alliance that was destroyed after a few rounds of “hit them where they store the big ones” was goons and we all know what led to that.
But regarding deepsafes in general, was surprised that they took so long to catch on, however unsurprised at its short life as a publicly known tactic. Such is life in eve I guess
OMG, I just spit coke all over my keyboard from laughing on the last few sentences of your blog. Now I gotta clean it up…. -10 standing set immediately!