I have mentioned the Sisters of Eve Marauder idea before, so just to re-submit it:
Huge Drone Bay. Great drone bonuses. And the Tank of a Marauder. The Nestor-plus, basically. For when you can’t really Spider-tank it.
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But…
New Ideas:
Gallente:
The Domi Marauder. Blasters in the highs, with a great Drone Bay & Drone Bonuses. The next level of Domi NI, with awesome Local Reps.
Amarr:
The Geddon plus. Missiles & Drones, a great Drone Bay & Drone Bonuses, and Marauder Reps powered by Nosferatus.
Caldari:
The Scorpion Plus. A Marauder that can Jam too.
Minmatar:
I was thinking a Marauder that had a decent Drone Bay, could mount guns or missiles, and had a bonus to Salvage chances etc. Following the Roleplaying of Minmatar you’re in quick, pew-pew-pew, in a 'phoon-like versatile hull, you get that salvaging done real fast too, then you get out of the hot-spot.
I think the Amarr lineup could use a Khanid armor/missile marauder, the Caldari lineup a rail marauder, and the Minmatar their own missile marauder. That does leave the question of if the marauder concept can be adopted to drones for the Gallente.
If anything a drone marauder would work a lot like the Rattlesnake, taking the marauder’s few guns, majorly bonused approach and applying it to drones. The question then becomes how would we differentiate a drone marauder from the Rattlesnake.
why exactly do we need more missile and rail marauders?
more just to have more just means there is more chance for imbalance and wasted resources.
well the rattle wouldn’t be tied down to one place and generally expected to survive extended encounters so it would simply be better given how the marauder would just be defanged while the attacking fleet waited for it to run out of cap charges
Might be I haven’t had enough coffee yet, but to me drones are the best weapon system for marauders given their supposed ability to be deployed for long times. Now I know marauders aren’t really used for long deployments (just running L4s or WH sites), but IF they were to be consistent with their fluff, having an ammo less system (like the paladin) but with changeable damage types (like the golem) would make them very versatile. Just need a big drone bay.
So… what conclusion were you hoping we’d get to that I failed to reach? Do you consider it bad just because it could be defanged?
If new marauders were to be designed, it seems like they should have a different way to fill the marauder role. It would be nice to see more battleships that could compete with the Machariel in blitzing missions. A marauder with warp speed, MWD, and tractor beam bonuses would seem to fill the role of a ship that can get in somewhere quick, terrorize an area, and get out quick. Perhaps make it a smaller Battleship that has to give up cargo space for smaller signature radius or more speed as well. But still give it some toughness to fulfill the role of extended range behind enemy lines.
Bastion module likely will not work well with this new marauding style. Perhaps a new type of siege module could be created as well. I don’t have any ideas at this time, but perhaps someone else can give creative suggestions.
In regards to the OP, it seems like most of his ship suggestions could fill these roles with the suggested bonuses, except for maybe drone boat. Not sure I can see drones combined with blitzing, but maybe I’m not imaginative enough.
This inspired an idea for a new siege module. Perhaps to be fit only onto a new type of marauder with even fewer drones or bandwidth. Or current marauders if it’s not OP. Whether it’s a good or bad idea, I’m sure will be soon judged, but perhaps some will help refine it as well.
A high slot siege module that is a point defense system the equivalent of 4 light or medium guns. Has half the bonuses of bastion module, but allows movement at half speed with 2x inertia penalty, and cannot warp while active. Point defense only targets nearest aggressor. No weapons timer.
Such a module would allow for the idea of a marauder that can get behind enemy lines and be able to fluidly fight/escape out of some sticky situations.
As much as a drone-based Marauder would be fun, I just don’t see it happening. At least until drones are overhauled and not relegated to tertiary weapon status. A Pirate Marauder would also be cool but runs into the problem of introducing T2 ships to a Faction hull line.
I wouldn’t make it this complicated, I would simply introduce something that we could call CIWS or flak cannon for battleships (and for dreadnoughts for that matter).
Currently I’m thinking about it’s missile based system for Caldari, my basic idea is to take the cruise missile launcher and fill it with 70 light missiles. The way I was doing the math (includeing reload and RoF) makes this have slightly less potential dps than what a heavy launcher has. The capital version could hold 300 light missiles, while having slightly better dps than a heavy launcher, also, this one needs 75 seconds to reload.
The reason for these “expanded launchers” as I call them to be efficient against small targets.
We already have a few T2 pirate ships, only as limited tournament rewards though.
It definitely would be interesting to see the abilities of a pirate marauder! And as a tournament prize, we wouldn’t really need to be worried about how OP it might be, we won’t see it often (or at all) anyways.
Yah, it’s just impossible to predict what the devs would have in mind for a new line of T2 battleships. In gallente terms, dominix got turned into T2 black ops, and megathron into T2 marauder. That leaves Hyperion, which has no variants, as a possible T2 candidate, but whether the devs would turn it into a new marauder, or into a completely new role, is totally unknown. Kronos is already an amazingly tanky vessel, what could they possibly have in mind for the Hyperion hull, if it were chosen for T2, as it is also already amazingly tanky??
The defense system could be separated from the siege module, into a new module, if necessary. The idea behind a combined system though, was to make a “weaker” but more mobile version of bastion module. Adding the defense system to the new siege module was just a way to possibly offset the “weakness”, as a lot of people don’t use the current bastion module because of its immobility. And I figured it would possibly be not to difficult to code in. But any new ideas to offset said weakness would be welcome.
I do like the the idea that the defense system should require ammo.
