[2022] 3/17/22 - Singularity Updated - Rorqual Conduit Jump

Hello Fellow Capsuleers,

Some time ago you saw a glimpse of plans for the Rorqual to get the ability to conduit jump with other mining ships, to help it get mining fleets into position with ease. These changes are now on singularity and we’d love for your assistance in testing them.

Along with these changes we’ve done some large scale refactoring of how the jump harmonics code works with the goal of allowing us to add and change jump functionality with ease in the future (what can portal/conduit, what ships can use which beacons, what ships can take the conduits and all such things relating to jump mechanics). Everything should continue to work as it did before, with the exception of the new Rorqual changes in this build.

As of today those changes are now on Singularity to test! You can find the new Rorqual module under the name of “Industrial Jump Portal Generator”. This module functions similarly to the Black Ops module in that it allows for the Rorqual to both create a ‘bridge’ for other mining ships (barges, mining frigates and exhumers), as well as conduit jump with them to the destination. The Rorqual is also gaining the ability to jump to industrial cynos!

Please try out this new module, give us your thoughts and let us know if you run into any issues.

Questions and Answers
Q: How many ships can it take with the conduit?
A: 30

Q: What types of ships can use the portal / conduit?
A: Exhumers, Barges, and the mining frigates (venture, endurance, and prospect)

Q: No Porpoise?
A: Not at this time, under consideration. It was just a bit odd to include the Porpoise but leave out the Orca.

Q: Won’t this make it too easy to yeet a mining fleet to safety?
A: The conduit jump cannot be used while the the Indycore is active - this limits the chance that they just instantly blink a fleet out to safety and should allow for tackle / dictors to get into place in most cases. If players take to sitting non-indycore rorqs in belts as an extra means of escape, that too would be a risky move as there’s a potential to zone out and be too slow (and the risk of being caught by a blue scout is high). I think in this case we’re still happy to have the rorqs out in space and capable of being caught.

Q: Won’t this open up the possibility for people to drop battle Rorquals?
A: Given that rorquals are more vulnerable outside of asteroid belts and FAX aren’t able to follow them through it may simply be okay to open room up for this to be a possibility (they could have done it already with recons, this is just a cheaper cyno option). A group that becomes know for doing this frequently opens themselves up quite wide for a counter drop and is likely to lose a lot of Rorqs. Particularly at the current price of capitals, this seems like an okay balance.

Q: Wait, so it’s called the Industrial Jump Portal Generator but it doesn’t actually jump Industrials?
A: Yeah. We agree that’s a bit confusing and the name is likely to change.

As with anything we’ll monitor and adjust if any of these things prove to be too strong.

Known Issues in this test build

• You cannot currently create a corporation
• Directional and probe scanner windows are not working at this time

It can take up to 30 ships - only Exhumers, Barges, and the mining frigates (Venture, Prospect, and Endurance)

These things have all been considerations.

Competing with PANIC as a defensive action

The conduit jump cannot be used while the the Indycore is active - this limits the chance that they just instantly blink a fleet out to safety and should allow for tackle / dictors to get into place in most cases. If players take to sitting non-indycore rorqs in belts as an extra means of escape, that too would be a risky move as there’s a potential to zone out and be too slow (and the risk of being caught by a blue scout is high). I think in this case we’re still happy to have the rorqs out in space and capable of being caught.

Battle Rorqual Drops

Given that rorquals are more vulnerable outside of asteroid belts and FAX aren’t able to follow them through it may simply be okay to open room up for this to be a possibility (they could have done it already with recons, this is just a cheaper cyno option). A group that becomes know for doing this frequently opens themselves up quite wide for a counter drop and is likely to lose a lot of Rorqs. Particularly at the current price of capitals, this seems like an okay balance.

As with anything we’ll monitor and adjust if any of these things prove to be too strong.

This was considered but left out because we didn’t want to include the Orca (just due to concerns about this being too strong a tool for material transport). I know that may sound like an odd reason, but they’re related ships in a sense. I’ll think on it.

Changing the name of the JPG and the Cyno are both under consideration. Very likely for the JPG, quite possible for the Cyno.

It’s also starting to feel like “Industrial” has long been an unfortunate name for EVE’s light cargo carriers as a holdover from ancient times.

We’ll see though.

DZ

I’m not sure what the plans are for them, but I wouldn’t rely on Singularity as a total guide for features such as that.

Thanks for the feedback, I’ll have another look at the Strontium consumption this coming week.

Conduit jumps are a flat fee by design at the moment, which is already quite low. Originally this was to make the conduit jump for blackops particularly attractive over the portal to encourage the ships to get on field - and we just decided to stick with that paradigm here as well, rather than adding in new complexities to it.