This post comes up from the OOC channel ingame, was discussing the lack of use for Khanid and Ammatar navy LP as they dont provide stuff like Amarr Navy ships to fill the gap. rather than going for that option i tried to come up with something else instead.
Reasons for implentation:
Khanid Kingdom, Ammatar Mandate, Intaki Syndicate and Thukker Tribe are minor factions in the game that are somewhat tied to their respective empire but at the same time are independent to a degree to the point of having their own sovereign space and corporations.
CCP has given unique ships in the past to certain factions like Mordus Legion, SoCT and SOE. so giving the same treatment to these factions would help fill some of the racial combination gaps without having to reinvent the wheel (like in the case of EDENCOM, not that im complaining tho).
What About the bonuses?
For this case i decided to follow the same line of thought given to the pirate factions. each minor faction contains a weapon system and one tanking doctrine relevant to its parent empires while also having a role bonus that is unique enough to shine over the other ships in the game while not being too out of the box.
Khanid and Thukker tribe already have ships, why giving them Factions?
Khanid Innovations and Thukker Mix are just contrated corporations that provide T2 research and vessels to their respective allied empires, their main faction as a whole is quite empty in terms of everything else. the vision is that they will have their own Faction Navy Ships to play with, while their R&D corps will still be contracted to provide T2 ships to the empires at the same time.
What role would these ships fill in the game?
In my case i decided to based these ships on the current T2 ships, Navy and Pirate usage of EWAR and other unused bonuses. The following ships arent meant to be I Win Buttons or a natural progression of the base hull but rather a different direction in design that is plausible within their respective racial origins. one example of what i want to aim is for example SoE ships or Serpentis ships.
with this in mind i propose the following new set of ships.
1. Khanid Kingdom:
After decades of providing R&D for the Amarr, the Khanid have decided to use the obtained feedback from these endeavors to upgrade their own local defensive forces. The Royal Khanid Navy contracted both Amarrian and Caldari experts in order to create a new set of vessels to completely replace their regular Amarrian fleet lines using knowldge of their popular missile vessels as a base.
features:
-unique models rather than reskins of the Amarr ships to differentiate them from the T2 ship line.
-Amarr and Caldari ship skill requirements
-Armor Tank
-Missiles
-Tracking Disruptor effectivenes
Khanid Navy ships are armor brawlers which make use of their capless weapon system to sustain longer damage soaking while dishing adaptable DPS. due to this they are quite limited on speed but what speed cannot do they will do with Electronic Warfare. after working with top of the line Amarrian scientist they have improved the performance of Tracking Disruptor technology.
example ship:
Monk
Amarr Frigate bonus per lvl: 10% bonus to Weapon disruptor effectiveness
Caldari Frigate bonus per lvl: 5% bonus to Rocket and Light Missile rate of fire
Role bonus: 100% bonus to Rocket and Light Missile damage
Slot layout: 3/4/5 (3 launchers)
The Monk follows a pattern similar to the basic Pirate ships, it has an EWAR bonus with higher strength than even T2 vessels but is designed to get close and personal to the targets in order to fight. to this end the Monk has 50% strength on Tracking and Guidance disruptor to either cut down enemy optimal ranges or tracking when fighting bigger threats. with 5 lows is capable of adding heavy tank albeit without serious armor bonuses (unlike the Vengeance) and 4 mids to carry prop + tackle + EWAR module. once in range its effective 6 launchers with bonused rate of fire are designed to punch volleys of selectable damage on their victims.
2. Ammatar Mandate:
Serving as the buffer zone between the Amarr Empire and the Minmatar Republic, the Ammatars have a conjoined history between both empires and an uncertain future. Blessed under House Ardisaphur the Ammatar Navy has received a new influx of R&D projects aimed to improve the defensive and offensive potential of the Ammatar fleet, using the technology of their neighboring adversaries and the armor tradition of their master doctrine as playing cards.
features:
-Minmatar ships reskined with Amarr colors
-Amarr and Minmatar ship skill requirements
-Armor tank
-Projectile Turrets
-MWD Signature penalty reduction
Ammatar ships are based on Minmatar ships but modified to carry the most advanced armor tanking technology avaliable from the empire. Unlike the Golden Fleet and their lumbering laser platforms the Ammatar fleet is composed of fairly agile armored vessels with autocannons and artilleries that have adapted the propulsion technology of Assault and Heavy Assault ships to their advantage.
example ship:
Bennu
Amarr Frigate bonus per lvl: 7.5% bonus to Armor Repairer amount
Minmatar Frigate bonus per lvl: 10% bonus to Small Projectile Turret falloff
Role bonus: 100% bonus to Small Projectile Turret Damage, 50% reduction in Microwarpdrive signature radius penaly
Slot layout: 4/3/4 (3 turrets)
the Bennu follows a design doctrine similar to SOE, with a role bonus that provides the same functionality as T2 specialized vessels to a degree. in this case the Bennu is a discount Wolf with reminiscence of the old Rifter but with some improvements. the Bennu is mainly designed for fast tackling and kiting using MWD but can also do some short ranged fighting via armor repairer bonuses. Unlike the real Assault Frigates though, it cannot carry Assault Damage controls to survive serious volley damage nor has application bonuses to maximize damage.
3. Intaki Syndicate
The relations between the shady but neutral Syndicate and the Serpentis Corporation are well known. with the upheaval caused around the cluster by both Capsuleers, Triglavians and other inmediate threats the heart of the largest Black Market on the cluster has decided to contract some of their allies in order to produce a fleet of their own, one capable of being toe to toe with the Gallentean Navy if the situation arises.
features:
-Unique ship models (to differentiate from Serpentis ships)
-Gallente and Minmatar ship skill requirements (some Angel Cartel folks were hired for this job)
-Adaptable tank
-hybrids with Drone support
-Sensor Dampening
Syndicate ships contain adaptations of Gallentean and Serpentis ship design doctrines, but are more heavily leaning to Minmatar ship design due to Angel Cartel participation on the project. this has changed their focus slightly into shields rather than full on armor tanking, to supplement this issue their ships are equipped with new developments into Sensor Dampening technology to evade damage and/or obligue enemy targets to get into weapon range depending on the situation at hand.
example ship:
Dido
Gallente Frigate bonus per lvl: 10% bonus to Sensor Dampener effectiveness
Minmatar Frigate bonus per lvl: 10% bonus to Small Hybrid Turret Falloff
Role bonus: 100% bonus to Small Hibrid Turret damage
Slot Layout: 2/4/4 (2 turrets)
Extra: 20m3 dronebay , 10 mbit/s bandwidth
the Dido is more inspired on EWAR frigates but still has enough versatility to adapt to different battlefields. with 4 effective turrets and a small supply of drones it can engage on combat decently and its strong sensor dampening bonus allows it to either make enemies get closer or kite them to death.
4. Thukker Tribe:
Having provided R&D to the Minmatar Republic for years, the Thukker Tribe has started a series of projects aimed to upgrade and provide better protection to their moving caravans on the Great Wildlands. To this end they have made a joined operation with the Krusual Tribe, sending intelligence agents beyond the borders of the republic and into Caldari Space. The results have been more than expected.
features:
-Unique models to differentiate from the T2 ship line
-Minmatar and Caldari ship skill requirements
-Shield tank
-Projectile Turrets
-Target Paintet effectiveness
Thukker ships contains elements stolen from Caldari ship design, including a focus on long range weaponry. While Missiles are a supplemental and popular part of Minmatar ship doctrines, the Thukker have kept it in line with their T2 ship variants. instead opting to improve on the capabilities of artillery. to supplement the potential accuracy issues they have engineered improvements on the Target Painter technology used by the republic.
example ship:
Serval
Minmatar Frigate bonus per lvl: 10% bonus to Target Painter effectiveness
Caldari Frigate bonus per lvl: 5% bonus to Small Projectile Turret rate of fire
Role Bonus: 100% bonus to Small Projectile Turret damage
Slot Layout: 3/5/3 (3 turrets)
The Serval has many adaptations taken from Caldari doctrine, including a slot layout consistent to hulls like the Merlin or Kestrel. 6 effective turrets allow the ship to dish a fair amount of damage, specially if using artillery thanks to its additional rate of fire bonus. its main forte however is on its strong Target Painting bonus for increased accuracy.
this is all for now, thanks for reading.
ADDENDUM: Adjusting and Filling the gaps
Decided to give an extra of potential new stuff to implement 2 more factions into the list along with overhauling the whole faction roster. As of now the current list of faction combinations goes like this.
Am/Gal : 1 (SoE)
Gal/Min: 2 (Serpentis Corporation, Angel Cartel)
Gal/Cal: 2 (Mordus Legion, Guristas)
Am/Cal: 1 (Sansha’s Nation)
Am/Min: 1 (Blood Raiders)
including the 4 factions proposed on this thread the list grows to this:
Gal/Min: 3 (Serpentis, Angels, Syndicate)
Gal/Cal: 2 (Mordus, Guristas)
Am/Cal 2 (Khanid, Sansha)
Am/Min: 2 (Ammatar, Blood)
Cal/Min: 1 (Thukker)
Am/Gal: 1 (SoE)
each empire got more combinations to play with but this also generates a bit of an imbalance. not in the numerical sense but in the weapon configurations. lets divided these factions on their primary weapon use:
Hybrids: 2 (Syndicate, Serpentis)
Lasers: 3 (Sansha, Bloods, SoE if you take in account the optimal range bonus)
Projectiles: 3 (Ammatar, Angels, Thukke)
Missiles: 3 (Khanid, Guristas, Mordus)
Drones: 2 (SoE, Guristas due to its horrendous role bonus)
i originally envisioned these factions so players would have more routes to fly depending on their weapon of choice but there’s still only 2 options for drones and hybrid weapons. in addition, certain factions have a bonus that seems over the top or unused (im looking at you Guristas and SoE). and there’s still pending to add meat to the Cal/Min and Am/Gal combination which is barebones. the following changes on the addendum are more a theory than a proposition but i think it was worth checking out.
Existing faction changes:
-Serpentis: wouldnt change them honestly, but reducing the damage bonus from of the Daredevil from 200% to 150% or even 125% seems tempting. just to keep it in line with the bigger ships later down.
-Blood Raiders: wouldnt change them honestly, but perhaps improving the capacitor a bit(?), its tricky taking Energy Warfare mechanics in account.
-Angel Cartel: no changes, having extra warp speed and being overly agile isnt really gamebreaking.
-Mordus Legion: reduce the Garmur Caldari bonus per lvl from 25% to 20% (to put it in line with the pirate ship weapon bonuses and the bigger ships of the line), otherwise the faction is solid.
-Sansha’s Nation: wouldnt change them honestly, mayyyyyybe nerfing the weapon damage bonus to 125% for all ships in the family but since all of them have less weapon slots than the others im not sure
-Guristas: this is the one that gives me the most headaches due to having 2 weapon system bonuses. im going to jump the shark and propose the following
Gallente bonus per lvl → 10% bonus to Drone damage and hitpoints (Astero and Tristan had this bonus changed to hitpoints and tracking some years ago, this should help differentiate)
Caldari bonus per lvl → 15% bonus to ECM strength
Role Bonus → Enemies jammed by this ship cannot target it back
Extra → All ships in the tree get a correspondent Dronebay and Bandwidth buff so they can pull an actual flight of drones/fighters of their respective size. missiles are still part of the ship but are reduced to balance out the drone usage.
I wanted to expand on the idea of Guristas having more emphasis on drones compared to typical Caldari missile specialization, in addition, ECM is the last EWAR that hasnt been touched so rather than make a new faction focused on it is just obvious to give it to a faction that already makes use of it heavily. in this case the new Gurista ship line still makes use of bonused drones with missile backup and a robust shield tank (due to inherent attributes) but now has a special bonus which is being able to jam people the old school way.
-Sisters of EVE: remove the optimal range bonus to energy turrets, i have yet to see a SoE ship that actually puts lasers on their highs instead of Cloak/neuts.
this should filter out inconsistencies on the primary weapon use and leave the factions organized like the following:
Hybrids: 2
Lasers: 2
Projectiles: 3
Missiles: 2
Drones: 2
with this now we can move to the next issue. which is adding more factions to bring the other weapon systems up in line.
The Candidates:
The following factions have been mostly cannon fodder in missions or are existing factions that dont have any kind of valuable use outside of special edition assets. i like the idea of giving a use to them based on general knowledge about them.
1. Equilibrium of Mankind:
A well known group of religious fanatics bent on purging the cluster out of anyone that isnt them. thanks to capsuleers though it seems they are just saturday cultists rather than a force to be reckoned with. but, what if they decided to up their game? after all these years of being hunted down they should have found new tactics in order to further up their agenda.
features:
-Amarr ships with a reskin (like in game)
-Amarr and Caldari ship requirements
-Hybrid weapons
-Shield Tank
-Sharpshooting bonuses
EoM Ships look like your typical Amarrian recolored armor lump at first but this changes when they start dishing railgun goodness from afar. While most Hybrid weapon platforms have perfected skills around big damage, rate of fire or just extra falloff. the EoM engineers have found a way to improve the accuracy tracking of their railguns to properly hit the target, and their blasters are probably equaly nasty.
example ship:
Ghoul
Amarr Frigate bonus per lvl: 10% bonus to Small Hybrid Turret tracking speed
Caldari Frigate bonus per lvl: 4% bonus to Shield Resistances
Role Bonus: 100% bonus to Small Hybrid Turret damage
Slot layout: 3/4/2 (3 turrets)
The Ghoul is the base frigate of the EoM, a reskin of the Tormentor with a layout similar to the Merlin. the shield bonus that originally belonged to the Gurista ships was moved here to diverge from typical Amarr engineering, instead of that the empire expertise is oriented towards improving the accuracy of the turrets. with 6 effective turrets this ship would be on par with the Daredevil if using blasters but the slot layout means it should be better suited for kiting with railguns.
2. Society of Conscious Thought:
This faction was chosen because of the long history of relations of the Jove Empire with both Caldari and Minmatar. yes, they have their own ships, but those are SPECIAL EDITION stuff. this new line of ships is meant to provide SoCT with a main stay of ships avaliable to the general public thanks to a little sideproject with Upwell Consortium.
features:
-New Models
-Caldari and Minmatar ship requirements
-Missiles
-Shield bonuses
-Microjumpdrive bonuses
This new strain of SoCT ships diverge from the well known line of the Sunesis, Gnosis and Praxis by being focused on a single type of tanking and weaponry. However, Jovian expertize has been applied to them in order to provide a rather unorthodox bonus, the hability to use Micro Jumpfields and Microjumpdrives at a minor size than the norm.
example ship:
Theorem
Caldari Frigate bonus per lvl: 10% bonus to Rocket and Light Missile max velocity
Minmatar Frigate bonus per lvl: 7.5% bonus to shield boost amount
Role Bonus: 100% bonus to Rocket and Light Missile damage, can fit Microjump Field Generators
Slot Layout: 3/5/2 (3 launchers)
the Theorem was designed based on the success of the Bifrost and the Stork. with the hability of being able to use a MJFG on a frigate sized vessel. this cut a lot in terms of durability and performance compared to a command destroyer but it has given birth to a pretty capable missile frigate that can use its strange bonus to reposition itself or its fleetmates for a situational escape/closing maneuver.
as you would expect the Cruiser version can carry a Medium MJD, the BS would have an extra bonus that increases the distance jumped to differentiate (reduced spooling should be left for dedicated T2 vessels)
at this point i have already exploited the last known minor factions i can think of. from here on there is mostly a blank space because here’s no more factions to cover that have dont have an extraneous origin like the Drifters, or the Rogue Drones and so on. the following factions were taken out of the hat and dont really have any kind of known lore safe for a few tidbits.
3. Feythabolis Resistance:
A very poorly known faction that existed in the aformentioned region in nullsec. When Angel Cartel reached this region the found a small enlightened civilization based around scientific pursuit that was just starting to get into the space race. as one would expect the pirates took the region by force and subdued the population. this is the end of the story according ot the region description, AFAIK there’s no more mention of the “Feythabolians” ingame, BUT, this would be a good starting point to explore a new faction to fill on some gaps. this is what i have thought about it.
features:
-New Models
-Amarr and Gallente ship requirements
-Energy turrets and Drone backup
-Varied tanking
-logistics
the Feythabolians didnt seem like a people raised on warfare, so the headcanon for this faction is that the resistance was born of a few citizens that were able to escape from Angel Cartel control thanks to SoE and Capsuleer interventions in the area. this new “terrorist” cell has gathered followers both from the Amarr Empire and the Gallente federation due to its relation with the Sisters of EVE corp and a common dislike for the Angel Cartel operations.
their ships are designed with a different approach to other factions. following a sort of “Battle Priest” archetype the Feythabolian ships have logistic bonuses to reinforce their strike group while still being competent fighters on their own.
example ship:
Daeva
Amarr Frigate bonus per lvl: 10% reduction in Small Energy Turret activation cost
Gallente Frigate bonus per lvl: 10% bonus to Small Energy Turret optimal range
Role bonus: 100% bonus to Small Energy Turret damage, 50% bonus to Remote Armor and Remote Shield Boost amount
Slot Layout: 4/3/3 (2 turrets)
Extra: 25 m3 Dronebay, 25 mbit/s drone bandwidth
The Daeva has a strange loadout compared to other faction frigates. with a design more reminiscent of some obscure Minmatar vessel of old. a consequence of a small group trying to fight its way against an equally adaptable foe. Amarrian expertise has given the ship the means to do a really good job with energy weapons while saving capacitor and its Gallentean side improved the range while adding a small contingent of drones to support the vessel. with this in mind the engineers have been able to free the remaining slots towards the main role of the ship which is supporting the fleetmates with a bonus to both types of remote boosting.
4. The Seven:
Another very cryptic faction that only appears in missions. The Seven were a group that split from the Serpentis some years ago and now seem to operate as an independent organization which still has ties to the Serpentis. with some known members like Shmidt, Phenod, Kruul and others at different missions in the game during the early agent lvls. This is as far as it gets ingame, but this could go further into a new direction.
features:
-New Models (to differentiate from serpentis)
-Gallente and Caldari ship requirements
-Drones with backup weapons
-Varied tanking
-boosting
This is my way of compensating the change to the Gurista ships while adding another role that is usually not found on faction ships. The Seven are mostly known for their leaders so why not dedicate their bous towards command bursts?, in addition this kind of leadership role they have also stolen/copied the bonuses of the old Gurista ships albeit at a not so destructive effect.
example ship:
Enchanter
Gallente Frigate Bonus per lvl: 1% bonus to Armored Command and Skirmish Command burst strength and duration
Caldari Frigate Bonus per lvl: 1% bonus to Shield Command and Information command burst strength and duration
Role Bonus: 200% bonus to Drone damage and hitpoints, can fit 1 Command Burst module
Slot Layout: 3/4/4 (2 turrets, 2 launchers)
Extra: 30 m3 Dronebay, 15 mbit/s Drone bandwidth
The Enchanter is another rather strange frigate designed to cover a role that is usually focused by larger ships or by T2 vessels. The Seven not only include former Serpentis pilots in their ranks but also receive people from different corners of the cluster so having an adaptable ship that can take the lead is useful at all times. in this case the Enchanter has taken the mantle of the old Worm with a much less oppresive payload, using an effective of 6 drones and 2 unbonused support weapons. The rest of the layout allows the ship to go either armor or shield depending on the situation, with bonuses to all 4 command bonuses used by larger vessel (albeit limited compared to true command ships)