The proteus now sits at an awkward position.
As an armor ship, it has an underwhelming slot layout( It can only achieve 7 lows with the hyperspatial speed subsystem and the augmented plating subsystem), and it also does less damage compared to the other T3s.
Is there any way to buff the Proteus that makes it at least comparable to the other T3s and more competent at what it’s doing?
Proposal 1: making the drone synthesis subsystem provide 125mbit of drone bandwidth , but in return, removing 2 turret hardpoints, making the ship have only 3 turret hardpoints.drone bay Also gets an extension, to 300 cubic meters. With this update, the drones deal 706 DPS(max skills, T2 wasp, 3x T2 DDA over 60km) compared to 706DPS on an Ishtar with 3 T2 DDAs (over 85km) , and 565 DPS when it has only 4 drones in space.
This seems perfectly balanced, as the Tengu does 840DPS with T2 HAM launchers using 3x T2 BCS (over 21km) compared to about 738 DPS with T2 HAMs (over 39km) by the Cerberus.
This makes the proteus deal comparable damage to a HAC, but at closer ranges, similar to the other factions.
Proposal 2: making the hybrid weapon subsystem provide an extra high slot and an extra turret hardpoint to make the proteus able to deal more damage at close range(which is how people use proteuses in PVP these days, playing rush)
With the current setup, the proteus does 845DPS(guns) with 3xT2 Mag field stabilizers over 3+5km(void), With rails, the proteus can do 646DPS with antimatter, 3x Mag field stabs and T2 250mm guns, and this is quite significant. However, the proteus does this amount of damage over only 3+5km compared to the 21km on the 840DPS HAM Tengu.With rigs and other equipments, the Tengu lobs HAMs over a longer range(along with the Loki), making the proteus less competitive. With the extra turret slot, the proteus could deal more damage, making it a more favourable choice.
Combined with the drone problems, while the proteus succeeds at damage dealing with blasters, it would fail at hitting ranged targets, and the blaster damage is only on Par with the HAM launchers from the other 3 factions, the latter without the problem of hitting ranged targets entirely. While the proteus can certainly make use of its 4 drones and fly them over a longer distance than the HAMs, the proteus fails at dealing damage that’s comparable to the other T3Cs.
With these changes, the proteus with the hybrid encoding platform does more damage at closer ranges, and does similar damage (about 750DPS with guns only) compared to the other T3Cs at longer ranges(with Antimatter of course), and the drone proteus would Also be more favourable, both in PVP and in PVE.
Changing the proteus to a massive glass cannon/kiting specialized ship could possibly Also help with the current situation, since nothing fills that niche in T3Cs currently. This could be achieved by giving the proteus better base speeds, so that it wouldn’t crawl with 450m/s with AB on anymore.