Ship balancing proposals

EVE Technology and Research Center Player Features & Ideas
1

Two Interdictor destroyers are very sad. The Flycatcher and the Heretic which both swap one high slot for another low slot, both cpu and powergrid remain unchanged.

  • The Hawk wants a different bonus than this minmatar smelling 7.5% shield boost bonus, +3 powergrid, +10 cpu, +76 capacitor.

Edit: The Hawk wants the missile application bonus the Flycatcher and Corax have or +4% shield resistance per Assault Frigate level.

  • The Harpy wants +2 powergrid, +4 cpu and +40 capacitor.

  • The Ishkur wants a different bonus for the drones and the 50mÂł built into the hull. Gets +2% drone damage per Assault Frigate level.

  • The Enyo can live without a drone and gets +45 capacitor.

  • (The) Vengeance best serv- errm I mean fine.

  • The Retribution wants +62.5 capacitor.

What the minmatar want is not my concern.

  • The Phobos is very sad and feels really fat. She would like to go on a diet and get -15m signature radius.

  • The Blackbird wants a 4th launcher hardpoint (not slot). 3x missile launcher +1 turret doesn’t feel very Caldari. This would make it a disruption turret boat or missiles boat.

  • The Scorpion wants another launcher hardpoint or turret mount (not slot). This would make her a disruption turret or missiles boat.

  • The Rook wants much more capacitor.

  • The Nighthawk wants freedom of damage types and 50 more powergrid.

  • The Nighthawk wants to have the same missile range the Drake has.

  • The Absolution wants to become a lazor sniping boat or and optimal bonus

  • The Moa wants her optimal range bonus back and decides, she didn’t want the damage bonus anyways.

  • Large railguns want to do 10% more damage with the same bad tracking.

  • The Merlin wants and optimal range bonus instead of the damage bonus.

  • The Apocalypse is very sad and wants to do 10% more damage and trades two turret slots for two utility slots.

  • The Abbadon is even more sad and wants 25% more capacitor.

  • Both the Gila and the Worm want to have 4 legs and 20 cpu each.

  • The Nightmare wants to go 10% quicker (at maximum afterburner speed). This would make a speed increase from 880,7m/s to 968.77m/s (with an x-type afterburner).

  • The Phantasm wants to go 10% faster (at maximum afterburner speed). This is a speed increase from 1273.2m/s to 1400,2m/s (with a t2 10mn afterburner).
    She will still be the slowest pirate cruiser in the game and even if you have a black credit card to buy an a-type 10mn afterburner, at 1701m/s (if that simulator was correct), even the Moa could in theory catch up with her.

  • The Apostle and Minokawa want more powergrid and 5-10 more cpu.

  • The Manticore wants to deal much more (kinetic) damage and cpu.

The tengu wants to be a good boat again. It is very sad right now.

  • The Coercer wants +6km base targeting range.

  • The “enduring” and “restrained” mwd have their benefits confused and the enduring doesn’t last longer as it should. That benefit is currently on the restrained mwd.

  • All t2 missiles launchers want a “smaller” launcher version for the same class. On a turret boat you can fit smaller guns of the same class. Launchers do not have that option.

  • (Does not apply when the ships on the list get the powergrid increase.)

Blackops want a balance pass.

Covert Ops probing frigates don’t need any kind of damage bonuses but would like a salvager range and difficulty bonus instead.

Stealth bombers want to feel very special and like to throw bombs and torpedoes at the same time if possible or viable.

Stay tuned for more action news on CB- no errm, I mean ideas.

Edit 1: Format

Edit 2: Added Coercer

2

Do they really? After the Tengu nerf hammer and the loki supremacy (ie. deliberate imbalance just so that CCP can change around ships again instead of doing useful things)?

What exactly is wrong with BLOPS (except for no cloaked warp)? They have ewar capabilities and very strong capacitor warfare capabilities, they deal 900 DPS easily with a 90k buffer tank, now they can even bridge their range-bonused logi T3 with them, they have greater range than capitals and a strong fatigue reduction and ample fitting room. What exactly are they missing?

Not so sure about the Apocalypse suggestion, but I wholeheartedly agree with the Abaddon. It goes cap dry just by putting your capsule into the ship.
I am strongly against turning the Absolution into a sniper boat. I am sick of sniping being the only viable way to do fleet warfare these days. I think the Absolution bonuses are fine as they are, but it needs a bit more fitting room and capacitor. I find it hilariously pitiful that you need a CPU rig in order to make a T2 fitting with fitting cost reduced guns work.

3

Show me that Widow that does 900dps. What I mean was that cloaky moving around bonus is not strong enough and they should have that sensor penalty for fitting that stupid cloak in the first place removed.
Which is the 4 is the Curse again?

4 
[Widow, Widow]

Damage Control II
Caldari Navy Ballistic Control System
Caldari Navy Ballistic Control System
Signal Distortion Amplifier II

Dread Guristas Multispectral ECM
Dread Guristas Multispectral ECM
Dread Guristas Multispectral ECM
Large Micro Jump Drive
Warp Disruptor II
Caldari Navy Large Shield Extender
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II

Caldari Navy Cloaking Device
Heavy Energy Neutralizer II
Rapid Heavy Missile Launcher II, Mjolnir Fury Heavy Missile
Rapid Heavy Missile Launcher II, Mjolnir Fury Heavy Missile
Rapid Heavy Missile Launcher II, Mjolnir Fury Heavy Missile
Rapid Heavy Missile Launcher II, Mjolnir Fury Heavy Missile
Rapid Heavy Missile Launcher II, Mjolnir Fury Heavy Missile

Large Core Defense Field Extender II
Large Core Defense Field Extender II


Praetor II x3


Mjolnir Fury Heavy Missile x14994

920 DPS with all V according to Pyfa. I can’t check it ingame because I don’t have Caldari BS V. Although the tank is only 69k on this one.

[Panther, sensimilliator's Panther]

Corpii A-Type Adaptive Nano Plating
Corpii A-Type Adaptive Nano Plating
Damage Control II
Republic Fleet Gyrostabilizer
Republic Fleet Gyrostabilizer
Syndicate 1600mm Steel Plates

500MN Y-T8 Compact Microwarpdrive
Large Micro Jump Drive
Medium Capacitor Booster II
Warp Disruptor II
Sensor Booster II, Scan Resolution Script

Dread Guristas Cloaking Device
Heavy Gremlin Compact Energy Neutralizer
Heavy Gremlin Compact Energy Neutralizer
800mm Repeating Cannon II, Republic Fleet Phased Plasma L
800mm Repeating Cannon II, Republic Fleet Phased Plasma L
800mm Repeating Cannon II, Republic Fleet Phased Plasma L
800mm Repeating Cannon II, Republic Fleet Phased Plasma L
800mm Repeating Cannon II, Republic Fleet Phased Plasma L

Large Trimark Armor Pump II
Large Trimark Armor Pump II


Hornet EC-300 x5
Warrior II x5
Praetor II x5

915 DPS with 83k tank, but some fitting issues.

Those 2 are taken from zkillboard and slightly improved (I don’t understand why people don’t fit T2 rigs to their BLOPS).

As for the Curse: What’s the point? Heavy neutralizers already neut to 25 kilometers and all BLOPS can fit at least 1, the Panther 2 and the Sin (990 DPS, 52k active tank though) can fit 3 heavy and 3 mediums if it wants to. Since you cyno in usually at point blank range of between 10-20 km so that you can use highest damage ammunition, you are always within the neutralizer optimal range. So, every one of them can be a Curse.

5

Ouuuh, that is just me being sarcastic.

To be clear, I did not say anything about tank or damage. My proposal was the sensor resolution be ungimped when you with that cloak.

CCP dammit, Caldari battleships are not titans. Jeebus it states “Has much technology … superior technology”.

Meaning the Widow should have a sensor resolution of 150mm not 12mm.

And moving 234m/s when cloaked is not much of a bonus. 500-600m/s would be sneaky.

1 Like
6

This is something that could be improved, I agree. But I fear that improvements would be paired with things that make them worse at the same time. After all, you can’t have the cake and eat it, too.

7

My widow does over 1k dps and anyone who uses blops extensively knows the cloak bonus is extremely helpful particularly in LS

The cloak penalty is just fine it provides an interesting trade off between what cloak to use our even to use one at all. If you don’t cloak these ships they have the best scan res of any battleship. The widows is low to balance its high sensor strength and its ecm

Blops are some of if not the most balanced ships in the game. Both with each other and in the overall meta.

8

This is one of those things. I may have blackops at 5 but with that price tag I won’t be flying one any time soon. I used to have a Widow but I sold her, since I didn’t what to do with her by myself.
If you fly and use them, I trust you have a better view on things. For me going only 234m/s with the cloak still too feels slow and with a cloak on the sensor resolution is less than that of a Chimera without the network sensor array thing.

I am however more concerned about the other ships.

Have you ever flown an Abaddon? Even though the hull looks really cool, the laser bonus will just kill you by undocking, no outside force necessary.

What would a use-case for an Abaddon be with a +5% laser damage bonus?

I did try to pve in one but that was a terrible experience.

Okay back to some issues I need to put on the list also. The Amarr fax machine can run a 4x rep setup and a local tank for longer than one triage cycle and that is because there are remote rep rigs that reduce the capacitor activation cost for them.
The Minokawa is very sad that there is no shield rig providing the same benefit.

Citadel torpedoes and citadel cruiser missiles are a sad weapon. They direly need application, you know to a capital ships with the signature radius of Long Island going 100m/s.

9

the cloak speed bonus is not for moving while cloaked. (except in a prowling panther) The cloak speed bonus is for aligning. with it you align about as fast as a cruiser but with almost 0 risk to getting tackled unless you lag. this makes them great for baiting or just roaming LS. the scan res being bad is fine these are fleet ships remember that. remote SeBos and paints on your supports go a long way.(also use faction cloaks they are not as hard on your sensors)

as for the FAX the caldari and amarr are not just armor and shield versions of the same ship. The caldari one gets much more out of an expensive buffer tank than the amarr one. however the problem you listed isn’t an issue with capitals at all but the logistics rebalance in general. You just see it more on the FAX because they are the extreme level. Shield logistics reps less hp/gj than armor has a longer cycle and much shorter optimal (by the time shields start repping better you are already losing a lot). ccp claims this balances armor repping at the end rather than the start but this only holds true for inexperienced pilots(those are not normally the ones flying FAX) this is compounded by caldari having one of the worst cap pools with amarr having the best.

the burst tank of the caldari ship is also much, much better than that of the amarr FAX the amarr triage has always been better but the caldari one isn’t bad

10

Didn’t say bad, I said she is a little sad, that is all. Would you buffer tank a Minokawa in triage? I thought you would active tank her?

11

that depends entirely on the size of the fight. for med sized fights you can get far more buffer then you need to last a single cycle. remember shields have passive regen. the mino has a better buffer than the chimera and I can get my chimera to over 40kehp passive regen. I would need to play around with the minos fit to see what it can get practically.

12

@Lugh_Crow-Slave,

oh okay. Since they have been introduced, I have flown an Apostle once on TQ. I can sit in a Minokawa but I have been trying to fit her as I would have fit the old Chimera with an active tank.
I am surprised that the combat carriers are fit with a buffer too. At least as far as the Archon and the Chimera go. I am not sure that is the case with the Thanatos.

But let’s not stray too far of topic. It is just an observation I made on SiSi and not as important as the other ships I listed.

13

Name for me one reason to fly a blops BB into an engagement rather than just bridging in bombers and T3Cs? Blops BBs have zero role at this time other than bridging in other ships, and that is a horrifyingly boring way to play with what could be and has been a very interesting ship class.

More DPS? Sure. 400-600% of the price for 25% more dps - not worth it. More tank? Okay, but if you get an actual fight out of it, you’ll be losing your ship anyways - buffer or not. 25% of them (1 of them) have EWAR capabilities, the rest do not. The Widow, while having excellent ECM capabilities, will find itself quickly replaced by a falcon or three for still a fraction of the price.

Realistically, they’re not “unbalanced”… they’re “obsolete”. The relative risk (the cost of losing it) far exceeds the additional capabilities they have over a T3C, bomber, or recon.

14

And that’s where you are wrong two-ways: For one, they are not meant to be used like a T1 BS in big fleet fightss, that is not their purpose and should not be their purpose. Their purpose is to gank trapped people and have GTHO capabilities should too much opposition arrive on field. And second, they can be used and are being used in small engagements by competent pilots. They can very easily hold the field against limited numbers and they are also useful to disable certain sov infrastructure like cyno jammers, and can do both things now better than ever with the improved repair capabilities of covert T3C.

When it comes to big fleet fights, they are of course nothing more or less than titans: Force multipliers from afar, not force players on field. Are titans obsolete because of that? I do not think so.

15

Cool. So I ask for a reason and I get none, yet you argue the point without offering anything.

First, yes, their role is to gank. A gank is a kind of engagement.

Second, they have a fraction of the GTFO that a T3C with a covops cloak has (even more if they nullify as well). In fact if ■■■■ goes sideways and I need to GTFO, you can bet I’ll be hoping that I’m not the poor bastard in a scrammed BB.

Third, I never said they “cannot” be used. I said there’s no reason to use them. I “can” fly a fleet of procurers into a fight. Doesn’t mean it’s anyone’s goto choice, when there are a hundred better options. The only reason to choose a BB now is purely because you don’t want it to sit in a station doing nothing.

Fourth, at no point did I say they were intended for big fleets. Now I would certainly love for them to have a role in medium to large fleet fights, but that is a pipe dream I expect.

Ultimately, my argument is not that they do not or cannot be used, my argument is that any sane person would just take T3Cs, bombers, and/or recons to accomplish their objective - be it a gank, or sov shenanigans. They accomplish everything the BB can do for a fraction of a price. The BB is relegated to being a bridging ship even “in its niche”.

16

Except for that you need to have enough of them and need BLOPS to bridge them back. In my opinion and from my experience as BLOPS user, it sometimes is viable to use the BLOPS only as bridge, other times it is not viable at all because it is easier and quicker to get 2 or 3 BLOPS in your fleet to quickly gank someone instead of waiting for 5-10 suitable T3C/Bombers/recons to do the same job.

The GTHO capabilities of the BLOPS are their MJD and the neuts to get rid of tackle should they get tackled in the first place, as well as their jump drive to get out of a bubbled system. No bomber or recon can do that easily, and nullified T3C still have to travel or need a bridge back, which requires them to have a covert cyno fitted. BLOPS BS only need that cyno in their staging and on the targets.

17

Yes, if you’re very short on warm bodies and you need to make every bit count, that extra 25% performance over ships becomes relevant. However the extreme increase in cost is to me far from worth it.

Personally, we don’t drop on something unless we have the numbers. Yes it means we miss out on the odd kill, but it also means we don’t lose BBs. The isk efficiency goes out the window real quick when you lose even one of those.

AKA they jump in after the fight, bridge their buddies back. The exact bridging role they’re pigeonholed into now.

Bombers and recons can simply burn out of range with a standard starburst - even if you somehow lose 20 bombers you’re still more isk efficient than you’d be with a single BB. Bombers are nice and fast, anything you’re dropping on will probably be slower.

T3Cs also have neuts, and recons have more than enough ewar to peel things off. Arazu can RSD, pilgrim can neut, falcon can jam, rapier can web. Put them together in a coordinated effort and nothing will be able to hold tackle on you before you get out.

On the other hand, you’ve got the BBs. Yes they can MJD if they aren’t scrammed. They probably will be in any situation where they actually need to GTFO. As you say, they have neuts, but neuts cost cap. Any fight that lasts, they’ll be struggling to maintain jump cap so that they can jump out, so their use of neuts is careful at best.

At the end of the day, the simple truth is that in any situation where a blops drop is going to go wrong, it’s probably going to go very wrong. Losses will happen, and no amount of GTFO will prevent them. Losing 350-450m is in every case preferable to losing >2b.

Yes, those other ships still need a ride home. But as mentioned, that’s the BB’s only role right now.

18

This needs to be at least 10 different threads or it’s going to get absolutely ridiculous when someone says something like…

The Arbitrator needs its third gun slot as an alpha ship. 3 missile slots don’t help it as an alpha ship because alphas can’t mix missiles and Arbitrators. Unless they shoot missiles at Arbitrators, hmm.

19

If you have enough people to put dozens in Recons/Bombers/T3C, that is a different story. When I BLOPS, I rarely have this many people and thus BLOPS beat waiting for more people to log in/JC to your staging or not dropping at all.

Seeing BLOPS as bridge only does not do their capabilities justice and is rather a sign of something else than lackluster ships. Indicating that you want to keep your BLOPS at jump cap during a fight is kinda showing what I mean. They have cap boosters to keep their fighting going, not to stay at jump cap during a fight. Waiting for jump cap happens after the fight is over and they are cloaked somewhere.

And again, it’s not like I am saying they are in perfect shape. But portraying them as being as useful as a rookie ship is not justified at all.

20

@Old_Pervert

if you really want to know what a blops can do that a bunch of t3s or recons can’t then you are asking the wrong question. for starters what can any larger expensive ship do that a bunch of smaller cheaper ones can’t.

but I will give some examples

the sin can put out a butt load DPS instantly after landing on grid to any size of ship.

the panther or two can alpha away most webbed/painted logistics ships from over 100km out

the widow can instantly jam anything smaller than a T2 cruiser 100% of the time.

all blops can fit grapple beams this tied in with being able to drop right on tope of a target is extremely powerful. the redeemers tank makes it great for this.