AoE Reps?

Lise Moon over at http://tailsofanexplorer.blogspot.co.uk/ Tweeted over the weekend about an idea of a new remote rep module that worked like a smartbomb.

Thought on new modules. how about rep bombs?... like smart bombs but they rep. what do you guys think?@eveonlinenewz #eveonline #tweetfleet

— Lise moon (@lisemoon07) February 28, 2016

I think potentially there are some options here. Many games feature an area of effect heal. Not as powerful as a targeted one, but can cover several members at one. However, when I thought about it I wondered how useful it would be in Eve Online.

Firstly apart from bombs and smartbombs there aren't as many AoE weapons in Eve.... yet. Also in a fleet fight, providing the FC and fleet members are doing their job right, they will be focusing fire on a primary. Therefore in the enemy fleet there should only be one target taking damage at any one time. So when you look at it that way, an AoE rep module isn't as useful as you might first think it might be. Some FW scraps in plex can certainly involve damage being spread. In this case it tends to be frigate and destroyer heavy with lots of brawling. An AoE rep will heal your friends... and your foes.

I did caveat the prevalence of AoE damage weapons in Eve with a "yet" in the above. One of the ideas for the Citadel expansion was to have AoE torpedos for starbase defense. The idea behind these sound like they are basically bomb launchers but rather than having a timed explosion set to pop at a certain distance, they'd detonate like a regular torpedo on impact with a locked target. In this case an AoE rep module could be the counter to AoE torpedos coming from citadels if you do not want to spread your fleet out. It might also be useful for the new titan doomsdays which carves through space between two set distances. Of course the usefulness is completely depending on the damage done by this weapon (if it insta-pops every non-capital it hits AoE heals are not really an issue).

Therefore I think in the future AoE rep modules could be a good idea but we need to see how the citadel AoE torpedos and new Titan doomsdays affect combat first.