Warp Scrammed

Welcome to the tenth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed here. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

This month’s banter leans a little, OK a lot, on the academic side. It comes to us from xiphos83 of A Misguided Adventurer, who asks the following:

Victor Davis Hanson argues that western culture, comprising of ideals such as freedom, debate, capitalism, and consensual government, are what make western society so successful at waging war. These ideologies create a warrior who’s direct participation in government, ability to think freely, and desire to remain free, fights harder and is willing to suffer more than his conscripted foe. Though a military must remain a structured oligarchy to fight a war effectively, why in a world where military conflict is as familiar as breathing are there so few alliances that embrace these ideologies when governing their members?

Two thoughts here: One, where does the idea that alliances don’t embrace these ideologies come from and is it accurate. And two, does it make sense to compare real world geo-political societies to in-game organizational structures.

First, I’ll admit that my exposure to life in an alliance is limited, but from what I can see from those experiences, and from reading and listening to the experiences of others, I don’t see a rejection or avoidance of freedom, or debate, or consensual government in Eve. There may be specific cases you can point at, but I question the implication that most alliances don’t employ/embrace the concepts of freedom, debate, consensual government, and capitalism (i.e. aquiring personal wealth). Maybe they don’t trumpet it from the rooftops, but I’m sure the most of them live it.

The very fact that it’s a game played by people of their own choice, and using their own money to pay to play, makes avoiding or denying those concepts difficult, if not foolhardy, if you want a successful alliance. People are paying to play, and play implies enjoying your game time. If you don’t run an alliance (or corporation) such that the majority of the members are getting satisfaction from their play time, you won’t have many members for long. How can you know what’s needed to meet the players’ needs if you don’t open up lines of discussion and communication? Members won’t be much help if they can’t pursue their own financial gain so they can bring the ships, modules, taxes, etc needed for the alliance goals. Players not comfortable with the alliance goals won’t readily contribute and be active, if they remain in the alliance at all.

Comparing western geo-poliltical societies to in-game organizations is an apples to oranges comparison, at best. Societies are comprised of people who generally are born into the society, and have limited, if any, ability to choose an alternate society to live in, while alliances in Eve are populated by players who have chosen the alliance (perhaps indirectly through their corporation) and can move or drop out easily. Societies are comprised of vastly more individuals than alliances in Eve. Western societies require a representative democracy system where people choose a local representative to exress their interests to the society leadership, but Eve alliances are much closer to a direct democracy where members can state their opinions directly to alliance leadership (although perhaps through one level via their corporate leadership). Individuals in society might have to wait years to use their vote to get a change in leadership or policy, but in Eve pressure from alliance membership can promote change much more rapidly.

Western societies can play the ideology card (i.e. defending freedom)  when facing foes militarily, but this would be preposterous in Eve (except in specific roll-play situations). In Eve alliances are generally imperial in nature – it is the nature of the game to be so and acquiring new territory by force of arms is what many players want. Western societies are not (generally) out to conquer new territory by force of arms, and their populace would likely reject any suggestion to do so.

So it’s really not a good comparison to look at alliances in Eve and western societies and look for ideological similarities. However to say that western ideologies are not present in Eve alliances is also wrong because the organizational structures for players in Eve combined with the voluntary contribution and participation of those players makes recognizing and employing those ideals almost unavoidable.

Here are the blog banter 10 participants so far:

1. The Wandering Druid of Tranquility – “A government of the Capsuleer, by the Capsuleer and for the Capsuleer…”
2. A Mule in Eve – Culture and Choice

Welcome to the ninth installment of the EVE Blog Banter and its first contest, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed here. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

“Last month Ga’len asked us which game mechanic we would most like to see added to EVE. This month Keith “WebMandrill” Nielson proposes to reverse the question and ask what may be a controversial question: Which game mechanic would you most like to see removed completely from EVE and why? I can see this getting quite heated so lets keep it civil eh?”

I wasn’t sure what to propose for this banter, but Roc’s post on scramming and webbing reminded me of one my my pet peEves – maximum speed in space. The physics of space don’t limit an object’s maximum speed unless acted on by some other force (eg, gravity, collision). So an Eve spaceship should be able to fire up it’s engines and accelerate as long as it wants to.

So any ship could go at any speed, you ask? Yes, sub-warp, in a straight line, until it hits something.

Now this would break the game mechanic for smaller ships being faster than bigger ships. Well, there’s a way to keep this balance that’s more consistent with space physics. Each ship would be given a “maximum safe speed”, which would be higher for smaller, lighter ships. At or below this speed your ship can perform all maneuvers safely – in particular change direction. Above this safe speed there is strain put on your ship to change direction, which is harmful to some degree depending on the speed and the amount of direction change. The harm translates as strain on the ship structure, and structure damage.

The UI would change a bit. You’d have similar speed controls up to the safe limit, so you can set “max speed” and your ship will accelerate up to that speed just like now.  And no change to the direction controls.

If you want to go faster than your  max safe speed, you can. The UI would show you two bars – one for your speed beyond your maximum, and one for the strain on your structure. If you’re going straight, the strain gauge would be 0 (zero). But if you execute a maneuver, then the strain gauge would go up depending on the extent of the maneuver and the amount over max safe speed, and the duration of the maneuver. If the gauge goes beyond a certain point, damage to structure occurs – the farther beyond the point the faster the damage occurs.

So, when over the max safe by “not too much”,  a small course correction would put brief strain on the ship and then end, resulting in no damage. The strain gauge would go up briefly, then back down. A big course correction would put high strain on the ship, and if going too fast, result in structure damage. The strain gauge would go up rapidly and into the red and some structure damage would occur (depending on speed – if you’re only 1% above max safe speed, you’re likely not taking much damage, if any). An orbit above max safe speed would also put strain on the ship. The strain gauge would climb up and up as the orbit continued. The tighter the orbit, the faster the gauge goes up, eventually leading to structure damage unless speed is reduced or orbit is stopped or lessened.

Afterburners and MWDs give your ship more engine power, and you accelerate/decelerate faster.  They enhance ship systems such that the max safe speed is increased when the module is active. Speed implants, boosters, etc. enhance the pilot’s ability to manage ship systems and can also increase the max safe speed.

Webbers don’t slow you down, but reduce your ability to accelerate. Webbers versus ABs also reduce the ABs max safe speed bonus, so if you’re going in a fast (above normal safe speed) AB orbit and get webbed, suddenly you’re going above your max safe speed and you’re strain gauge starts climbing. Webbers reduce the MWD acceleration, but not the MWD max safe speed bonus. Scrams shut down the MWD, eliminating it’s acceleration and safe speed bonus.

If you shut off your AB or MWD, your ship will decelerate safely to the normal max safe speed. If your AB or MWD gets disabled by a webber or scram, you have to reduce your speed yourself.

If you’re going above max safe speed, and you get too close to something, your ship’s collision avoidance will kick in, but since you are going above max safe speed, there’ll be strain on the structure and likely some damage.

These changes would enhance tactics on the battlefield. A targeted ship would have more options to escape. It could align for a planet and hit the gas and run, and not have a max speed limit. If webbed, it would take a while to accelerate but it could still get above it’s max safe speed. Eventually attacking ships might have to break off orbits to avoid structure strain If not webbed, the target could web it’s pursuer and maybe escape scram range and warp off. The target could escape larger attackers that can’t match it’s acceleration curve. Smaller, faster attackers would still be able to keep up, though.

Exceeding the max safe speed would assist with getting into the fray from a distance. If you warp in too far out, you can burn it in a straight line to the battle with no strain on structure. Once there, drop back to normal speed.

You’ll have some tactical options when orbiting. You can play speed and orbit distance to keep the strain gauge just below the point of damage. This is analogous to overloading a module – you have to manage the module’s heat. Here you overload the speed, and manage the structure strain.

Making speed in Eve more consistent with space physics by eliminating the maximum speed limitation while adding realistic consequences to exploiting the option to go real fast would add interesting tactical options for ship navigation.

Here’s the list of Blog Banter participants (at the time of this post):

1. Diary of a Space Jockey, Blog Banter: BE GONE!
2. EVE Newb, (EVE) Remove You
3. Miner With Fangs, Blog Banter – It’s the Scotch
4. The Eden Explorer, Blog Banter: The Map! The Map!
5. The Wandering Druid of Tranquility, “Beacons, beacons, beacons, beacons, beacons, mushroom, MUSHROOM!!!”
6. Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah, Kill the Rats
7. Mercspector @ EVE, Scotty
8. EVE’s Weekend Warrior, EVE Blog Banter #9
9. Miner with Fangs, Blog Banter – It’s the Scotch
10. A Merry Life and a Short One, Eve Blog Banter #9: Why Won’t You Die?
11. Into the unknown with gun and camera, Blog Banter – The Hokey Cokey
12. The Flightless Geek, EVE Blog Banter #9: Remove a Game Mechanic
13. Sweet Little Bad Girl, Blog Banter 9: Who is Nibbling at My House?
14. One Man and His Spaceship, Blog Banter 9: What could you do without?
15. Life in Low Sec, EVE Blog Banter #9: Stop Tarnishing My Halo
16. Cle Demaari: Citizen, Blog Banter #9: Training for all my men!
17. A Mule in EVE, He who giveth, also taketh away?
18. Dense Veldspar, Blog Banter 9
19. Morphisat’s Blog, Blog Banter #9 – Randomness Be Gone !
20. Facepalm’s Blog, EVE Blog Banter #9: What a new pilot could do without
21. Memoires of New Eden, You’re Fired
22. Kyle Langdon’s Journeys in EVE, EVE Blog Banter #9 Titans? What’s a Titan?
23. Achernar, The gates! The gates are down!
24. Speed Fairy, EVE Blog Banter #9: Down with Downtime!
25. I am Keith Neilson, EVE Blog Banter #9-F**K Da Police
26. Ripe Lacunae, The UI… Where do I begin… (Eve Blog Banter #9)
27. Clown Punchers, EvE Blogs: What game mechanic would you get rid of?
28. Estel Arador Corp Services, You’ve got mail
29. Epic Slant, Let Mom and Pop Play: EVE Blog Banter #9
30. Deaf Plasma’s EVE Musings, Blog Banter #9 – Removal of Anchoring Delay of POS modules
31. Podded Once Again, Blog Banter #9 – Do we really need to go AFK?
32. Postcards from EVE, 2009.07.02.00.29.06
33. More articles as they are posted!