Next Summit Brainstorm - Ship Balance

Council Of Stellar Management Assembly Hall
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As the CSM begins prepping for the next summit in February, I’m going to open a few new threads to get some feedback.

Second up, we have a discussion of ship balance. In here, post your ideas for ships that you believe need a balance pass, and an explanation as to why the ship needs to be rebalanced, and any ideas you may have for doing so.

Example (this is tongue in cheek, please be more specific than this, you literalists):

Ship: Griffin Navy Issue:
Why: It sucks and nobody flies it

I know we’ve seen detailed discussions of battleship balance issues here, so no need to repeat that. But feel free to link other forums posts or the like if you want to.

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Ship: Damavik
Why: It tries to be diverse in it’s options, but with the fit of a frigate it’s good at none. IT was given the illusion of diversity when it’s fit really only suits spider fleet use. Tweaking the resist profile would go a long way and honestly don’t make much sense that a ship built to withstand the use of the entropic power would be so weak at the damage types the turret puts out.

Ship: Vedmak
Why: With near max precursor ship/disintegrator weapon skills it becomes decent, but until then it’s not worth the cost even if prices became sane. With no range bonus it almost requires a mod to increase the range and/or anti-senor dampening. To use it’s diversity of high slots it requires using mid, low, and/or rigs to flesh out it’s fitting capabilities. Like the Damavik suffers from a bad resist profile that is ironically weak to the things it’s made to withstand.

Ship: Drekavac
Why: Needs a +50% command burst range bonus like all other battle cruisers able to fit one.

Ship: Leshak
Why: This may be more of a preference thing and could be solved with a tankier counterpart precursor ship. The resist profile requires a lot of patching which takes away from it’s offensive purpose.

Not really a ship balance: Precursor weapons
Why: The ramp up rate on the bonus is too slow. I’m NOT advocating that it needs to fire faster, it already eats ammunition and that would effect DPS output too much. Rather that the per shot bonus ramp up should be increased 25-50%. Keep the cap the same, but make it feasible to actually hit your damage bonus cap outside of bash or C5 boss.

These precursor thoughts are trying not to take their obscene cost into play (that’s a isogen-10 and zero condensate drop rate issue, easily needs to be doubled).

Oh and nerf the Gila, I fly a kitted one it’s fun… but everyone knows it’s OP as hell. I’d like a reason to take something else to an absyssal.

1 Like
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I’ll start with navy ships.

Tempest Fleet Issue:
10% projectile Tracking bonus per level

10% projectile Damage bonus per level

Reason: This brings it in line with the firetail, stabber fleet and hurricane fleet issue. It fills a niche not currently occupied by any other large projectile ship. Its fine if this does less raw damage than a t1 pest, as you get great tracking as a replacement. It also may create a high alpha doctrine with artillery at the cost of much lower RoF compared to other options.

Typhoon Fleet Issue:
7.5% damage bonus to heavy missiles, cruise missiles and torpedos per level

5% signature radius reduction per level

Reason: Gun bonus on fleet phoon is worthless. It does less damage than t1/fleet pest, no difference in utility, as well as the mach and mael also being better gun platforms. So id like to focus more on its missile bonus and give it something unique. A tank bonus that could help against capitals, or in fleets/bombs. This would bring its sig radius down to that of a BC. Alternatively, you could go with the same t1 phoon application bonus, or a target painter bonus.

Raven Navy Issue:
-1 Launcher

5% Damage bonus to heavy missiles, cruise missiles and torpedos

5% bonus to explosion radius per level

Reason: 8 launcher slots looks cool, but it eats up tons of CPU/PG, especially with torpedos. Id like to remove 1 launcher, but leave it as a utility high for more flexibility. Then add a damage bonus while removing the velocity bonus, to bring it in line with the navy drake, nosprey and hookbill. Yes this gives it huge alpha with torpedos, cruise missiles and heavy missiles, more than the barghest, but it doesnt have the range, speed or scram bonus like the barghest. It would have the application to straight up brawl with and break active tanks. Or snipe with cruise missiles, or burst damage with RHML. Sprinkle in some extra CPU to make shield tank and torpedos viable.

Scorpion Navy Issue:
5% rate of fire bonus for heavy, cruise and torpedo launchers

4% shield resist bonus per level

Reason: No changes to traits, SNI traits are strong and its a good ship. Just overshadowed by the rattlesnake being almost the same price. What it does need is for its sig resolution buffed. Its at 92mm which is worse than dreads and some carriers (literally takes 30s to lock ec300s). A PG buff of about 1500-2000 would also help with some minor fitting constraints.

Armageddon Navy Issue:
-1 Turret
-1 High
+1 Mid

10% bonus to large laser turret damage per level

5% bonus to armor hitpoints per level

Reason: RoF bonus with 7 turrets and cap bonus seem to cancel each other out. Makes it feel like the only reason the cap bonus is there is to offset how shitty lasers suck cap with a RoF bonus. This also gives weak alpha. Which makes the whole thing feel like a wasted bonus. So we remove a turret, reducing cap need and add a damage bonus. Then, move a high to a mid, to finally give amarr a battleship that can brawl or have some flexibility. The large dronebay, utility high and bonused lasers would mean it could do a lot of damage and control smaller targets to some extent. Removing the 1 turret would also help fitting. The tank bonus gives it something unique over the abaddon and keeps it similar in progression to the navy aug.

Apocolypse Navy Issue:

10% Tracking Bonus per level

10% Optimal Bonus per level

Increase base speed and cap

Reason: The napoc isnt a bad ship, just doesnt have a place in the current meta. Its bonuses arent bad for lasers. Hence why im keeping them, just upping the bonuses. Adding some speed could create new roles of being a small gang platform, like an Oracle, and cap addition to help it with any cap issues from 8 guns.

Megathron Navy Issue:
7.5% damage per level

5% Rate of fire per level

Make it a large navy exequor, able push out massive damage. Seperates from t1 mega as it has less tracking, same as vindi, but a lot more damage plus a utility high.

Dominix Navy Issue
12.5% bonus to drone damage and hitpoints per level

7.5% bonus to armor repairer amount per level

Reason: This was a hard one, as i couldnt think of a tank bonus that worked for gallente that wasnt active tank except for hull buffer increase. Not going hull bonus though, as it really cheapens the hull and frankly every Domi NI, Mega NI and Brutix NI is hull tanked and boring as hell. With active armor rep bonus, it might help shift the focus on hull tanking to armor tanking once again. This brings it in line with the Myrm/VNI but keeps it different enough from the hyperion. Would still retain turret hardpoints if you want some additional dps.

Caracal Navy Issue:
7.5% bonus to rate of fire for rapid light, heavy missile and heavy assault missile launchers per level

5% bonus to heavy assault and heavy missile explosion radius per level

-1 low
+1 Mid
+Extra CPU/PG
+15m3 of drone bay

Reason: The navy caracal in its current form has lethargic dps, poor slot layout and restrictive fitting. I see CCP’s original intent was to make it a pure missile ship that applies well. The issue is its fitting was poor to do anything more than an LSE+invuln for tank and not sacrifice your mids to actually utilize your application bonus. 6 mids opens up for more tank and/or application. The loss of a low means you do potentially lose some dps from a bcu or tank from the DCU. However, you bypass that drawback with a better base dps bonus. So 2 BCU w/ DCU will be comparable or better than previous stats with 3 BCU. The 3 extra drones gives it some minor additional dps to keep it competitive dps wise with other navy ships.

Stabber Fleet Issue:
7.5% bonus to medium projectile turret Rate of Fire per level
10% bonus to medium projectile turret tracking per level

+Fitting
+Speed

Reason: Needs more damage and fitting to go with artillery or fits that actually have some form of tank other than the ancient 1600 plate+180’s dual prop fit.

Rokh:
This one is really simple and is more for fun than anything.

It already has 4 launcher slots. Give it 8 launcher slots and 8 turret hardpoints. This makes it versatile in either a rail/sniping platform or a hybrid of the SNI and old/current RNI.

Also, fix its scan res, it also has 93mm scan res which is dumb for the same reasons as listed on the SNI.

4 Likes
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Nullification for combat ceptors needs to be reinstated.

2 Likes
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I was actually thinking we need to remove it from the other 4, and add it to shuttles.

2 Likes
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I am thinking you are thinking too much if you seriously consider this to be a reasonable suggestion. Seriously thinking that more interference potential in null sec should be removed can only come from someone like you. :slight_smile:

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Other stuff we can do to make hunting in nullsec easier. And if you have ideas, feel free.

I just don’t want any combat ships with nullification that don’t require some kind of significant trade off, like the T3Cs do.

1 Like
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Give Prospects nullification. That will make BLOPS hunting a bit less of a chore.

But then again, BLOPSing itself is boring because 90% of the time you just sit on the bridge and wait for the hunters to find something. And bringing in the BLOPS themselves is pointless because of super capital umbrellas.

NEAR2 needs to be prohibited as well to make null sec hunting a more rewarding activity.

1 Like
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Alright, lemme try !

Ships : Caldari EWAR frigate, cruiser and battleships, alongside T2 and navy variants.
Why : It’s something that has been said and said again since the patch, but ECM has never been so unused. As much as it wasn’t a common thing to pray on good luck on a hull without bonuses dedicated to this form of disruption, today the Griffin, Blackbird and Scorpion have fallen in disuse because they aren’t that great of EWAR ships anymore. I feel like the others nations have way more interesting EWAR ships during fleet encounter.

Gallente can basically make it impossible for a large target or a sniper to get a clear lock on someone, or make it take eon to lock a frigate.
Amarr can be the doom of turret and missile based ships with their tracking disruption, simply erasing the words “damage application” from the dictionnary.
Minmatar can transform any ship, from the smallest shuttle to the biggest titan, into a gigantic signature point that could be locked from Jove space.

I do have the feeling that against those big guys… Caldari ships are left a bit behind. Which is quite funny lore-wise, since they love packing a ton of electronics in their designs. In fact, well used Sensor Dampeners could bascially be thought as an alternate version of ECM, since it can shutdown any form of damage by preventing locks if well used… And isn’t chance based.

What I propose was already said multiple times, but I’ll try to make it more “readable” for the CSM : Caldari ships needs a new form of EWAR. And we could even kill two birds with one stone !
The idea would be some kind of Drone dampening, like CONCORD ships (the NPCs) already possess.

This could be quite logical, as the Gallente are the main enemy faction of the State, and their favourite weapons are Drones, combined with Hybrid turrets. The effects could be a temporary reduction of a ship’s bandwidth, basically losing control over its drones, or acting as a Tracking Disruptor for drones, reducing their application.

By saying “kill two birds with one stone”, I meant this could also be used to alter the proliferation of drone boats in the current meta, and give something a bit more… Fresh, I guess ? This new tool could be the favourite toy of hunters in nullsec, to make it an hell for VNIs, Gila and Rattlesnake to do their idiotic farms. Of course, I feel like carriers and supercarriers should recieved a reduced penalty by this module, not to make them completely irrelevant during capital fights.

Here, what do you think 'bout that ?

1 Like
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There are many things that are in dire need of love:

  • Navy battleships are too expensive and in need of some love

  • Some modules have been forgotten, just not by me.

    • Large remote shield boosters still have no storyline variant
    • A large portion of the module-cide came to a complete stop

  • Light fighters are way “too” light for their power, they make most subcapitals pointless to undock

  • The tracking titans and dreads are too oppressive for most subcapital misunderstandings

  • The loki is too strong

  • I would agree that the combat interceptors need their bubble immunity back - there needs to be some disturbance in “the force”

  • The Navy Armageddon is too weak for being an immobile brick, so she should either get some agility or an armor hp bonus like the Navy Augoror

  • The Harbinger needs a little more powergrid, 200 should be fine

  • All command ships are still missing the t1 battlecruiser range bonus

  • The cargo hold of the Absolution is too small. I suggest an increase from 375m³ to 450 or 475m³ because lasers need a ton of capacitor already.

  • Heavy missiles still need a tad more base application

  • XL cruise missiles are the worst weapons in EVE. Either increase XL cruise missiles speed to 50km/s or decrease the XL cruise missiles launcher cycle time down to 4.7 seconds at XL cruise missile specialization level 5 and Caldari Dread / Titan level 5

3 Likes
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Navy BS - price

BS warp speed - they are too slow and already suffer from worse align than cruisers - faster warp speed

SP lost on capitals

2 Likes
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I’d say you should try to be more precise instead of just throwing your propositions like that, would make it better for everyone :slight_smile:

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It needs to be higher, indeed. A lot higher. Ridiculously much higher, in fact.

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What do you mean by that, please ?

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It’s really simple, with SP trading it’s easy now to get to top tier ingame hulls, which hurt gameplay in overall (powercrep, ISK gathering). They suppose to be rare, now people rat in them.

2 Likes
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Rook - Its no longer 2012.
Remove the Kenitic damage lock and replace it with a application bonus. A velocity bonus will also help this ship 's engagement ablity.

Nighthawk - The navy drake is better
+1 mid
Remove the kenitic damage bonus
Add 5% missile dmg and/or velocity bonus
Add 7-10% shield hp per command ship lvl
+150 power grid
+25 m3 to drone bay
This will bring the Nighthawk on par with the damnation and slepnir.

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Alright, new players being able to sit in Titans on day one is bad, blablablah.
Nobody does that. Literally only 1% of the EVE population could afford to sink so much real money in a bunch of pixels to sit in the biggest bunch of pixels in the playground.

What new players need is a way to catch up. To try to at least come near the bitter vets in Delve and Querious sleeping on their 25 Rorquals. And skill injectors are a way to help them, even if you don’t like them.

Maybe today Supercarriers are used to farm puny rats in the safety of a supercapital umbrella. So what ? Just so you know, anybody with two brain cells connected would see that CCP has engaged on a sort of crusade to make ratting in nullsec even harder than it ever was. And I have the strong feeling the CSM meeting on February is going to shake a lot of people.

Harden the ■■■■ up. Skill Injectors aren’t moving an inch for now, and there’s nothing you, or me, or anybody here can do about it. Welcome to EVE kid.

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This is not rant about SP trading. Things in EvE must go BOOM, not enough of that and we we’ll have stagnant sandbox. Making ISK is part of that problem too. It’s too easy and safe. Supers must have meaningfull role in ecosystem. Now everybody have them because they can and it’s easy to get them. What’s next? T2 titans?

1 Like
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Well if everyone have them, this mean we’ll have one hell of a cap fight one day. We’re all eager to do better than B-R5RB.

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Wont happen. Servers will die, nullbears will cry.

Most FC’s dont want to deal with a 12 hour TiDi fest because of super+fighter spam. Not to mention there are no actual targets of opportunity worth spending that time on because citadels are a grind worse than POS ontop of nullsec asset safety.

Theres enough capitals in game where you guys could be welping daily, but no fights happen cause everyone’s too risk averse and just want to krab their hearts out.

Capitals need to be reigned in. Idk if SP penalty is the right path, id much prefer carriers just lose some of their application to subcaps so theyre not the easy win against almost every subcap engagement. Its pretty dumb that 8 capital ships have a stranglehold on the meta for 300 subcaps.

Trying to tie it behind SP loss as a time/isk sink just perpetuates the injector mentality. If capitals werent the go to ship for every engagement then it wont matter if you inject into one when it cant do/counter nearly everything.

3 Likes