Shuttles - Too Fast?

Summary: Shuttles are too fast and need to be nerfed.
Link: EVE Forum Link

NOTE: For the sake of argument I'm not considering microwarp drives or afterburners.

Ok, so we all know what shuttles are…cheap, easy-to-construct transportation throughout empire space, or a quick way to move a couple of modules back and forth. Unfortunately I’ve noticed a disturbing trend of shuttles being used not just in high-security space, but also low-security space and even 0.0 space. These ships are not being used as transports, but as an incredibly effective and cheap means to avoid gatecamps and penetrate alliance space. This is an exploit of the shuttle and needs to be stopped immediately.

Let’s go over the stats for the shuttle, shall we? Specifically:
-Speed (500 m/s)
-Agility (1)
-Signature Radius (25)
-Cost (9000 ISK)

The standard shuttle has a speed of 500 m/s plus any modifiers from the pilot’s navigation, giving it a top speed of 625 m/s with Navigation 5. This doesn’t seem that fast, but let’s take a look at frigates (the fastest T1 ships in EVE):

Rifter:
Speed: 320 * 1.25 * 1.6 for 3 speed increasers = 600 meters per second
Agility: 3.1
Signature Radius: 35
Cost: 300K isk

Ok so with a few fitting the Rifter can get up to 600 meters per second, which is almost as fast as the shuttle. But it’s agility suffers greatly compared to the shuttle – it’s three times as poor actually. In addition, the signature radius of the Rifter is about a third larger as well. But check out the cost – the Rifter costs over 30 times as much as the shuttle. Is this huge increase in price worth the couple high slots that the Rifter gains as a result?

Well, maybe we should compare the stats of T2 ships, surely interceptors would be better, correct? Yes, let’s do that! Here’s the Ares, an awesome gallente interceptor and the fastest ship I’ve ever flown:

Ares:
Speed: 450 * 1.8 * 1.25 = 922.5
Agility: 3.1
Signature Radius: 35 (down to 27)
Cost: 5 million ISK

Whoah! That’s a big increase in speed, wouldn’t you say? The 922 meters per second is definitely a lot faster than your average shuttle, but once again, you have to look at the cost here – the interceptor costs over 1200 times as much! In addition, it takes a lot of ISK in skillbooks and time to use interceptors, where any new player can use a shuttle immediately.

Well maybe we should look at this in terms of speed vs. cost!

Ares: 5000000/922 = 5420 ISK per meter/second
Rifter: 300000/600 = 500 ISK per meter/second
Shuttle: 9000/625 = 14.4 ISK per meter/second

No matter how it looks, the shuttle is by far the most efficient when it comes to cost vs. speed. No amount of high-slots or modules can make up for this, and it’s over 100 times as cheap as it’s closest rival in speed. Doesn’t anyone see a problem with this

The Shuttle’s impact in Alliance Warfare

It’s obvious that shuttles are the premier source of intelligence info in 0.0 space as well. Given it’s cheapness, low skill requirements, and insane speed it’s capable of outrunning almost any other ship and it can be used by disposable alts in case a blunder on the pilot’s part gets it killed. This has led to difficulties in mounting effective defenses since people know what’s going to attack through intelligence gathering.

How to Balance Shuttles

One possible way of balancing shuttles would be to reduce their maximum speed. Changing the base speed of a shuttle from 500 m/s to something like 50 m/s (and maybe increasing their cargo a bit) would prevent them from outrunning anything other than interceptors, and it would also give them more utility as cargo-carrying ships in empire…they might even become more popular except among the industrial crowd!

Another way would be to increase their cost significantly. If their costs were more in line with interceptors they might become less popular than they currently are and people would have to risk real ships in combat. I think a 5000% increase in cost (to about 45 million ISK) would be an honest representation of their value as intelligence gathering tool. This would also be good for producers because their 10% profit is now 4.5 million ISK instead of 900 ISK! CCP can adjust the market levels to compensate if they have to.

A third technique would be to make Shuttles T2 ships. This would be more in line with their speed and maneuverability, and would increase the cost to more reasonable levels as well. At the same time, you could significantly reduce the skill requirements for industrials so pretty much everybody will be able to use them.

What it Would Do for 0.0?

The reduction of shuttle use in 0.0 would make things more interesting and also help break up blob warfare since less intelligence will give people less time to form defensive forces and make them spread out a bit. It will also generally make things more interesting because spies will be used more in order to gain intelligence - their I-Win button of reconnaissance wouldn’t be available anymore.

I don’t post in the forum that often, so I’m interested in seeing how the community will react to these ideas. I appreciate your input.

P.S. – Another question I wanted to ask while I was at it. I went to a Mexican restaurant named Guapos last night and they had this really cool desert. I think they took bananas and fried it with sugar and cinnamon, then they put all of it on top of the ice cream. I thought it was awesome and wanted to look up a recipe myself.