Upwards Pressure

I've talked about downward and upward pressure before in relation to the optimal ship size that players feel compelled to select. For example  tiericide that improved frigates and cruisers put downward pressure on the ships player's selected. Warp speed changes also did this. However, micro jump drives put upwards pressure on the equation.

Recently we've been introduced to the massive overhaul of capitals that I covered in some detail here, and coming soon are new tech II Command Destroyers as described by CCP Rise:

So here's the basics. We are adding a new line of Tech II destroyers based on the Algos, Dragoon, Corax and Talwar along with a new type of module called the Micro Jump Field Generator, which the new Destroyers will have exclusive access to. I'm going to go through some basic questions here at the top and then give you all the details after.

These two things have something in common that makes me step back and go hmmmmm...

First off, from the capital dev blog about new doomsdays we have the Hand of God:

 Doomsday Codename: Hand of God
Utilizing Jump Drive technology, the Hand of God will generate an anomaly in space. After a short period of time, anything that isn't a structure or capital class ship will be teleported, together, to a random location in the same system away from the Titan, while the titan stays put. While the effect isn't powerful enough to teleport capitals, it will disrupt their warp and jump drives for a period of time.

And then from the Command Destroyers post:

Second, how exactly does the Micro Jump Field Generator work? This module is exactly like a Micro Jump Drive except that when it fires, it pulls any ships nearby along with it for the jump. There's a lot of specifics to consider here but the big restrictions you need to know are that you cannot use this module in high sec, you can not pull invulnerable targets (ships that have just undocked or just jumped through a gate and are still cloaked), you can not move capitals, and you can not jump into starbase shields. You CAN however do a lot of really crazy thing such as pull bombs that are midair, pull dictor bubbles or chain multiple jumps in a row using several Command Destroyers. As for numbers, we have a base spool up time of 9 seconds, a reactivation delay of 160 seconds, a pull radius of 6km from the ship and a jump distance of 100km. The module requires 5 PG and 31 CPU to fit and requires the same skill as normal MJDs to use.

The common theme here is that players are starting to get the ability to move enemy ships via some mechanism other than bumping. And not just a single ship, but multiple hostile ships. This is what we in the blogging community call a "BIG DEAL". The titan's Hand of God doomsday is one thing that will have impact on large fights involving Titans with that weapon installed; its safe to say its impact will be minimal to most of the EVE playerbase. But a destroyer based hull? That has massive long reaching ramifications in null sec, low sec, and wormhole space. The most obvious use is disrupting hostile logistics wings but there are so many other possibilities.

But what does it mean to the meta? This common theme of getting to relocate enemy ships points to, I believe, CCP game designers trying to break up the blob even more than the Fozzie Sov implementation has already tried to do. By giving players area of effect tools to disrupt enemy fleets, it will force fleets to spread out more to try and negate some of the impact. Furthermore, it will put pressure on players to be more self-sufficient in surviving as the frequency they find themselves without portions of their fleet should increase.

Due to this increase on self-reliance, I expect an overall slight upwards pressure on optimal ship sizes for players in fleets because larger ships have greater survivability when separated from the fleet or separated from logistics than smaller ships do. I could be wrong; it might be that smaller ships have better chances of regrouping after a hostile forced-micro-jump, but my gut suggests otherwise.

Thoughts?

BONUS: CCP Rise on twitter asked for a shot of all four command dessies for the O7 show this afternoon and I send him this:

I'm so proud. Look out Rixx! Next poster will be mine...