BB71 - Spaceships, Spaceships Everywhere!

Blog Banter 71 - Too Many Ships Spoil the Sandpit?

We all like important internet spaceships right? The more spaceships the better right? Or are we getting too many to be easily to remember them all. A Mastodon on scan? That the hell is that and what does it do? Oh! Never mind!

Are we getting too many ships. Is it too complicated to remember them all and what their traits are? Do FC's these days need an encyclopedic knowledge of ship types unless they want their fleet to DIAF. With more and more ships being released each year will we ever reach "too many" or do you think there can never be too many important internet spaceship types?

Banter on!

So are we ever going to get into a position where we have too many spaceships? Probably not in my humble opinion. Things are certainly going to get more difficult as the ship pool grows but Eve Online players have shown to be particularly good at adapting to changes.

You need to ask what is needed to be known of a ship? For me there are a few questions.

Is it generally point-blank, scram-kite or full-kite fit usually?
Is it tanky or DPS usually?
Has it any special traits/abilities?

For example I'll take a Dramiel in a 10mn Thrasher however I'll run from a Daredevil. Simply because the Daredevil and its enhanced web will counter my only defense - speed. However a Dramiel usually will get blapped by me as its own traits will not help it. Daredevil is similar to a Succubus. The 200% AB bonus means it'll be able to get under my guns if the pilot is good and my web won't be enough to slow them down.

Of course you cannot predict every fit. You either make the assumption and then die when they are fit the opposite to what you are expecting or quickly look on a killboard if you have time to try and guess who it might be.

In fleet situations it gets a bit easier as individual traits matter less. The issue here is force multiplier ships. We got four of those in the last major update.

"What have they got?"

"Well FC... they have a shed-load of Falcons and Rooks, a metric-shit-ton of Guardians and a wing of Command Destroyers to zoom in and send our own logi on a trip all over the grid!"
"Right, then we'll go the other way then!"

For me the growing ship pool isn't a massive problem. More often than not I'm solo and pick my fights. I'll scan for plex or if I see someone warp to a plex to draw them there. I'll show info on the D-Scan results if its one of those rare ships I cannot remember it's traits. If I've seen my opponent already I'll look him up on zKill and see how he usually fits that type of ship. If I've not seen him but there are only a few in local I'll look everyone up on zKill to try and guess who it is. A lot of people fly only a handful of ships and many times you can get a reasonably accurate picture of who is flying what.

One idea to get around right clicking would be to add the class of ship to the D-Scan. So as well as "type" you would also get "class". So Command Destroyer, Combat Recon, Assault Frigate would show up next to the name of the ship making ID a bit more easy?