Justified Tears: The Great Deep Safe Nerf of 2010

When I read this on my iPhone through the Capsuleer APP, I knew I was going to have to write about it. For those that do not know what or how to make a “Deep Safe”, here is the original manual (PDF) that I found on the net a while back written by a GoonSwarm team.

Earlier CCP Lemur posted on the EVE Insider Dev Blog about nerfing the creation and use of Deep Safes: The Great Deep Safe Nerf of 2010.

The TL;DR is as follows:

Tl;dr After Tyrannis, for any point more than 10AU outside the furthest celestial in the system, you will not be able to open cynos, create bookmarks, or warp to that location. Also, all “stuff” outside this range will be deleted during Tyrannis deployment.

To some this is no big deal, to others it is a crushing blow to tactical maneuvering in 0.0 space, especially to large 0.0 alliances that try to fight for or defend sovereign space. To these large alliances this will cripple large fleet fights forcing the fleets to load on-grid which is already crippled with severe lag issues after the deployment of the Dominion patch.

To me, it was too good to be true when I found the manual and experimented with it in a high-sec system. I made a few of them and they were great, I even posted on my corporation forums on how we can utilize this for strategic positioning of fleets.

In essence, creating these deeps safes IS a manipulation of game mechanics, and like all exploits to the mechanics of the game once found, should be nixed by the game developers to protect fair play for all subscribers. However, the way the are implementing it is a little rough if you ask me, and I will point these out as well as bring up some points that others have made which I think are justified.

Even though some opinions on the matter are justified, I had to wade through a lot of tears on the comment forum. Something I hate about official game forums, that, and trolls, and self righteous ass hats, and… you get my point.

The Breakdown

We’ve been debating what to do about these bookmarks since before Apocrypha was even released: with the new scanning system, ships in these locations are essentially invulnerable in the majority of situations, and they can be utilized by any ship without any inherent cost.

Key Word: Cost

Simple, there isn’t one. If one pilot is scanning out a system looking for a deep safe sitting pilot, they will most likely not be scanning 1000 AU from the sun to find the deep safe pilot, thus giving him the same advantage of a cloak without having to cloak with the inherent cloaking penalties (scan resolution devalue + locking time extension).

What they are doing about it

What we’re doing

We’re defining a “deep safe” for these purposes as any bookmark which is more than 10AU further from the local star than the furthest-out celestial object (planets or stargates).

* You will no longer be able to create bookmarks outside this range
* You will no longer be able to issue a “warp to” command to any location outside this range
* You will no longer be able to open a cynosural field at any location outside this range

This should make these locations essentially unreachable, thus forcing ships within a given system to use the other measures available (docking, cloaking, warping around an awful lot) if they want to avoid being shot at.

Just as it reads, no creation of new deep safes, no use of the ones you already made, and no large 0.0 alliances loading their respective fleets off-grid to prevent node crashing and huge lag spikes. This is actually one of the reasons that is stopping me from going out to 0.0 and shopping my pilot to a 0.0alliance, that and I already fly with some great pilots.

I have been in 50 vs 50 ship battles when I was in Red vs Blue (RVB), I even sacked a carrier on an 80 pilot romp into 0.0 when I was just a few weeks old and new to EVE. It was a lagfest then when we only had 200 ships on grid, I can’t imagine being in a 1600+ pilot fleet trying to attack or defend something I can’t see for 45 minutes. Yes, I have read the horror stories.

The Bombshell

Additionally, please note that we will be doing a “clean sweep” during Tyrannis deployment: ALL OBJECTS outside the 10AU perimeter will be removed, and by “removed” we mean “permanently deleted”. Ships, cans, territorial structures – nothing will survive. If you have characters in ships outside this distance, the ship will be destroyed and your capsule will be returned to the station that your clone is set to. If you have things parked at “deep safe” spots that you’d like to keep after Tyrannis, or characters parked out there, we strongly recommend that you move them prior to May 18th.

If that’s not a swift kick to the nuts then I don’t know what is. Titans, Super Carriers and the like, gone. That’s enough to make me ragequit right there. If I was a Super Cap pilot, and, I was parked in a deep safe, and if I “didn’t get the memo”. Seriously, fixing a exploit is one thing, destroying a 120 Billion ISK – $7600 USD (converted) 3400 Hour time sink – is a whole hell of a different story.

Like This

“Originally by: Serj Darek – I hope you have a system to dock super caps when people take a few month break from Eve….”

Or those who are fighting in Afghanistan or where ever for a few months and parked their Cap, Supercap or Titan in a deep safe.
Really good idea CCP, well tought out.

Killa Bee – Agony Unleashed – Agony Empire

The Aftermath

It seems to be some fallout over this issue and it is spreading fast. The hardest hit are the 0.0 alliance pilots and the pilots that are curing themselves of EVE fever by taking a break. A rough implementation on CCPs part, and the tears are justified on the players part. How this will end or if CCP may change this in some way to compensate no one can say for now, but I am sure this will not be the end of it.

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