Epithal - badly designed?

Communications Center General Discussion
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I believe the Epithal needs either ONE more low slot or a better powergrid.

The Epithal cant do its function with any proper fit.

It is meant to haul large quantities of Pi. But at higher values of Pi it cant MWD-cloak AND properly fit for poco use.

I’ve mentioned before that a strategy to mitigate this is to refit. But what would be better, obviously, is if CCP just redesigned the damn thing so you could fit an MWD-cloak on it with sufficient warp stabs.

Any discussion?

Why would CCP hamstring this ship this much? It is the Only industrial that needs to dual-fit this way

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A single ACR makes it have enough fitting for mwd. As for poco use. The only time you need the lows is to increase the cargo for CC’s to fit. Just fill the lows with cargo expanders when you are setting up your planets, then replace with with agility mods or wcs. Whatever it is you use. It’s not that big a pain. You only have to setup shop once and the rest is gravy with all that PI commodity space. Oh! it’s you Allstair! :slight_smile:

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No, go away.

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It’s a tech I industrial. How much performance do you expect from a ship that costs 1m or less?

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I think the whole point of the Epithal is that you are meant to make compromises in fitting. Have you considered using a DST if you want cargo space and MWD cloak?

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If you dont like Epithal then you can use another ship specialized for PI - Primae

:smirk_cat:

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Whoa, it’s almost as if CCP wants you to make a choice between defensive options, instead of using them all! Certainly bad design! /s

Seriously now: the epithal is a nice ship that’s perfect for it’s function. In fact I can’t think of a ship better fit for the purpose of hauling PI between your planets.

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I still think we don’t need a pi hauler.

Delete it and make everyone use proper hauling ships,

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Have been cloack-MWD- flying this ship countless times through low sec from my PI-wormhole. So much performance for such a cheap T1 ship. If you need more then there are the 270M Isk T2 versions. Or maybe you need higher skills? I really love how CCP forces you to make fitting choices in this ship, which are very real and reasonable imho. Even fitted them with probe launchers when looking for a good WH and lived out of them for several months until I had my first structure up. They are fine :+1::green_heart:

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By the way my Epithal is fit with MWD-cloak, sufficient warp stabs and still has space left over for some tank and hyperspatials. You should step up your fitting game.

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The Epithal isn’t poorly designed, it does what it says on the tin.

Whatever fit the OP is trying to use may well be, and his expectations are just plain whack when fitting is always a compromise.

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On behalf of most people who do pi…why should we be forced to fly a 300mil fitted ship to pick up what will usually be 30mil or so of cargo?

An extreme risk for such little gain?

The point of this thread is that pi at large is not a huge profit machine for most.

And the Epi therefore is an inadequately built hill.

Did CCP intentionally want the ship to be a sitting duck?

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I dont believe 2 warp stabs is sufficient.

But do you?

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In general that is cool. For the Epi it seems a little extreme.

I mean they basically want the ship to be flown for under 30m.

And there’s no between for that and higher risk like the DST.

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I think that the balance between the nereus and epithal works as it is. Nereus has better survivability, while epithal trades that for m3 space for PI. If epithal was buffed then every other industrial ship should be buffed as well to stay in balance.

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Pi is too bulky I see no balance there.

I’ve used epi risk fully for a while. So I’m not a stranger to it. I wouldn’t be able to have done what I’ve done using a Nereus.

Epi has only 500m3 cargo

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Assuming you’re in low sec at least, then it should be risky. You shouldn’t be able to eliminate risk completely.

It’s also been said that you can use an alt or friend to scout ahead, which is probably a really smart idea.

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The ship is pretty weak for the cargo it holds.

The only options are accept the weakness or go for DST?

See the problem there?

I think most people doing Pi wont be able to afford the jump just from Pi.

They would have to float their Pi operations from other activities

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As devil’s advocate a friend suggests a ranked Nereus.

Sure. Except for if you’re like me the p4 volume alone is 50000m3 and several trips.

So has to be Epi or DST.

As mentioned. There is no middle class variety

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I hear Blockade Runners are pretty useful.

Sure, maybe you have to make an extra trip or so. But you gain so much more safety with that sweet, sweet Covert-Ops cloak.

Don’t fancy making too many trips?
Break down the whole transportation line.

  1. Grab a high-cargo capacity ship and head to a low-sec “base” that you have established in advance
  2. Dock in said “base”
  3. Hop into your Blockade Runner that you have stored at the the “base” in advance and undock
  4. Do what you do and return to the “base” with the phat lewts
  5. Load up the high-cargo capacity ship and undock
  6. Oh nooos! Piwats be hangin at muh doorstep!
  7. Syke! Insta-undock mofos! Warpin back to high-sec
  8. Welcome back to high-security space!