Going to work with the idea of T3 Frigates first because they would be cheaper, faster to train and get less whining than Cruisers, BCs or BSes.

First of all you would pick a slot configuration (all have 3 rigs):
- 2 low, 6 med, 3 high
- 3 low, 5 med, 4 high
- 4 low, 4 med, 5 high
- 5 low, 3 med, 4 high
- 6 low, 2 med, 3 high

Then you chose a hull bonus by popping in a sub-system:
- 15% bonus to Shield / Armour Transporter boost amount, capacitor use 700% bonus to range (vs 10% and 500% for T1)
- 15% dmg, 10% tracking, 15% optimal, -65% MWD sig penalty (vs 5% dmg, 7.5 tracking, 10% optimal, 5% dmg, -50% MWD sig penalty for T2)

.... you get the general idea.

Now, here is one of the keys to this - the base stats remain almost the same as T2 frigates (hull, armour, shields, resists, speeds, etc)

This means that it comes down to how you link your slot configuration + subsystem bonus + modules fit.

Player generated assets.

I think that CCP could create some tools for uploading and moderating submissions from the community. These would all be for parts of the game that are not important to PVP or performance, i.e.

• Station interiors.
• Clothing.
• Space ship interiors.

The engine exists (Captain's Quarters) all it probably requires is people to build corridors, chairs, etc to flesh it all out. Yes, they will need to code ways for people to meet each other publicly or invite each other into more private locations.
However, if the meshes and textures are generated for them the mountain becomes a hill and is far more surmountable.

There would need to be a guide on this, such as making three versions of meshes and textures, lower quality and with less nodes for low settings as an example. 

.... or maybe and here is a whacky idea ... CCP should just contact Linden Labs and get their own grid for EVE players. >.>

Snippets.

Someone told me to get off the soap box. I was surprised at how well this mis-quote reply fit together.

"All the world's a soap box,
And all the men and women merely players.
They have their rage quits and their spawns,
And one pilot in his time plays many parts,
Their acts being seven ages. At first the newbie,
Mewling and puking in the NPC corps.
Then, the whining n00b with his fail fit battleship
And shining armour drake, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to battle. And then the role player,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then, a hardened veteran,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden, and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation ..."

Another one was where someone said that Mike is already running for king high-sec bear or something along those lines.

I am not trying to be a high-sec representative. I have not "lived" there in years. I do lobby for changes to help miners and industrial pilots because there are more and more offensive toys but they keep trailing behind and their activities are not limited to high-sec.

For example, I have suggested there be an absorb module that only logi can use. This would cut their repair ability by 25% and allows them to lock a target and distribute 50% of the damage amongst all logi using it on that target.

There are some obvious pitfalls. That people don't broadcast they are being targetted soon enough. It may happen that not all the logi will lock in time and so those that do could pop. 
However, they might save ships that would otherwise die, which makes so many more possible to use and allows them to use more utility slots for tackle, ewar, cap and such instead of trying to buffer the max out of your tank.

Point being: I am looking for there to be more good fights and less easy kills across the whole of EVE.

Solecist Project wrote:

You don't get how balancing works at all.

For gun boats, you would look at potential damage vs tank. Role balancing becomes more tricky and not even that is right. Tengus have the most EHP with resists, speed and relatively low signature, combined with rails and long range.

Tengu: 200K eHP, 233mm, 632m/s, 1359 volley, 412 DPS, 36 000m optimal with anti-matter
Loki: 123K eHP, 189mm, 751 m/s, 1994 volley, 260 DPS, 19 000 optimal with EMP

So, let us look at the Loki then. The Tengu has 30% less volley but hardly a penalty against the Loki that wants to keep you far away so you can not web it .... but needs to come closer with their longest range weapon.

That is just two ships designed as closely as possible to each other. Not even comparing the Tengu against other gun ships.

So, who does understand balancing then? I don't think CCP does.=P

A spot of fiction

Pardon me while I rescue this, I thought this wasn't too bad a piece of fiction. Seems that an ISD takes things a little too seriously and to the very letter and dot over every " i " of the rules.

Inspiration for the piece
---------

Put on your tin foil hats or in my case a second tin foil hat and a tin foil suit for added protection. 

I have already given my feedback here.

So, now join me on a little exploration of the imagination.

Consider what it must be like to work at CCP. You go through years of training, learning your craft, you have all these wonderful dreams of the games you will make. One day, you get invited to an interview and the job is up by the north pole! Strange. You apply and get the job. It turns out to be working on a space ships game.
Maybe you were hoping to be working on a fantasy game, with lots of bright colourful magic but no worries, they have rainbow lasers and you craft a really beautiful galaxy back ground for people to look at.

Life is really interesting and so nice, all those other people like you, all passionate about these things. There you are, having a good day, quietly painting a little model of a rifter in your cubical when a shadow suddenly appears on your desk.
You drop the model!
It breaks! 
Then this monotone voice asks you in an overly polite way to follow you to a meeting room.
You see the back of the man in the grey suit.
Looking around at others you try and figure out who he is and what this is about.
Everyone else looks away and pretends to be busy.
You feel a sense of dread but follow the man into a dark room.
You notice that he is wearing a light grey shirt with a grey tie and grey shoes.
Thinking to yourself how he might look so much better with at least a colourful tie.
He turns off the lights and turns on a projector. Then he proceeds to bore you for the next six hours about his vision for the company. You snap awake when he talks about the work you will be doing.
He says he wants to put you in charge of the way the players will see and interact with the game.
You feel great, you feel important.

Weeks go by, you keep sending him drafts and he keeps returning them with suggestions.
You find that the more simple work gets less criticism.
Your fellow workers tell you how he was an accountant in his last job.
Some of the coders complain about how he is judging their work effort by the lines of code they produce rather than the results.

Eventually, after so much frustration, he sits down with your team and the ship design team and runs over designs.
He makes his own decisions on how things should look.
Tells you exactly how he thinks you should do your job.
You can't argue, he can easily just fire you and get someone else.

Taking as long as you can, dragging it out you slowly work on the new GUI.
He corners you in the break room, bores you for another three hours and finally warns you that it must be released before Christmas.
You point out there will be quite a few bugs and only a skeleton crew to fix them.
He rhetorically asks if you have a wife or children.
Responding in the negative, he says that you can then obviously make sure things go smoothly.
No Christmas in your home town for you.

Finally, it is out.
You hold your breath.
Your heart sinks.
They hate it.
It is as lack lustre and lifeless as the bean counter in his grey suit.

You start drinking and are mildly drunk even at work.
How will you ever be able to apply to work at another game company when this is what you will have to point o as an example of your work?

---

A dark little story for a dark winter.

Hope you guys like it.

Miners and Industrials

Alpha gank delay

This applies to all ships:
The first volley takes 55% of eHP off. 1.5 second delay. Then all the other volleys have no time delay. It would give logi pilots a chance to save their friends.

Battle Rorqual

To keep it short it lacks the power grid for two cap transfers or basic base capacitor regen or a capacitor transfer bonus.

Orcas and Industrial fit Rorquals

I am starting to like the idea of a mini POS bubble more and more. Obviously, it needs to be limited in some ways. 

Need to have an asteroid targetted to activate the bubble.
Orcas get 5 minutes and Rorquals get 10 minutes
You can bump them and move the bubble. Possibly catch some slow miners that don't stay under it.

This gives a response fleet time to get there to help. More fights and less easy kills. Dock up or die is boring.


Consider if the enemy are organised and bubble up the stations and POSes? (Sure this scenario is more null and worm hole) any way. A 700M Orca could potentially save billions of ISK of Hulks.

Industrials

I feel that they like miners have already given up their ability to shoot back. Remote scramble removers would help them.However, they are big heavy ships and should get big tanks.

More fights, less easy kills.

Miners

Obviously as above I think they should get more tank with the alpha delay but a really funny thing would be if one week a year strip miners could take a random module out of a hostile ship. (An asteroid must be targetted). Have to go to a station to repair the strip miner and only one module per strip miner but imagine the surprise of the attacker jumps into a fleet of miners and their modules vanish!? :D

There is always one.

When ever you have moderators and GMs from the player pool, there is always one that is heavy handed and annoying on the forums. Thus, I have chosen to make a separate space.

First thing you will notice is that I use a lot of new lines.

Like this. The great thing is that it only takes two bytes and I don't run out of pages.

Right so, going through the list from here

• Tier 1 Battle Cruisers were "fixed"
• I still think no loss mails should be generated on newbies. Account < 21 days old.
• Glad inside stations was side-lined.
• Yes to remotely being able to remove scrams from a friend and following warp trails.
• I think bounties should be handled as contracts like courier missions.
• Glad to see Ventures and Prospects for gas harvesting (would be good if gas was used for other things.
• I think fleets should gain temporary status in wars, with cool down timers and the defenders of the wars should be able to add other corps and alliances to their side with confirmatioin and extend the wars for free.
• Low Sec control and home advantage could be ground up through faction warfare.
• Change the colour of POS modules' text based their status.
•  Glad to see ancillary shield boosting but two of them can be over powered for gangs and it doesn't stop you being alpha wiped out in fleets. Maybe allow logi to give them a temporary buffer to absorb alphas?
• Who would have guessed there would be gangs of Tier 3s running around like destroyer gangs? *rolls eyes* At least multi-boxing bans will devastate them somewhat.
• I would still like 95% GUI scaling.
• Cloaks - there should be some sort of no damage bomb to disrupt cloaks, skill and distances can alter in what ways and for how long.
• Something, something AI more like players, PVP ships for ratting, ganks less successful, something something.
• The launcher ... funny thing how people try and get around it.
• Camoflage cloaks
• Battleships are still too easy on skill requirements to sit in them. Still see loads of people quitting, even veterans after losing a lot of them.
• Active tanking could absorb attacks and convert the energy into tank, mitigating zergs.

Right onto the new things in the next post.