Black ops battleships are meant for hit-and-run PvP strategies.
Not to fight equal foes head on.
They’ve got a battleship hull but are specialized in overwhelming a foe fast and getting away before their own tank matters.
They do not need 100k EHP to do that job. In fact if they get too much EHP this enables other unwanted and oppressive strategies, such as a quick response defense fleet that cannot easily be fought. That’s a problem for the game, so their EHP is kept lower than that of regular battleships.
So did your that Black Ops are meant only for short hit-and-run tactics.
(To which I see nothing wrong if I need a fast response fleet to defend my assets, wherever it do not fit my current need, it do matter to others)
They were widely used in Incursions before.
What happened to that part of Eve?
That was not the intended role of black ops battleships.
They might have been good at it by accident through the EHP buff, so if that now no longer is possible then that’s a side effect of having a more balanced game.
Luckily black ops battleship cloaks, jump drives and ewar have little use for incursions anyway, so you could easily replace the battleship hull with some of the other existing battleship hulls. Faction battleships are good and so are Marauders. Have you tried those?
The players decide what is good or not for a role.
If they were good for Incursion, so be it.
People had fun covering that role…
what kind of thinking is it???
It was not the intended role???
Where is the freedom of choice here???
It’s really under the Sun. I don’t know what more to say.
Don’t you see the risk that going down this path eventually all
fleets will use the exact same ships, because they have no other choice?
And whatever was left is being eroded away bit by bit???
Wait, we are talking about doing vanguard incursions? Sites meant for 3-5 people and can easily just be done in battlecruisers and t1 logi? Blackops are meant for PVP mostly, not sustained PVE. I can see some use cases for level 5 missions, but that’s more a thing for Marshals imo. (Also over 70 messages since I last saw this thread last night…yikes).
When will people ever look beyond their own egocentric view when it comes to game balance?
Just because a ship is good at an unintended role does not mean the ship has to be balanced for that role, or has to stay balanced for that role when game devs attempt to bring the ship into a more healthy spot for their intended gameplay.
For example I could use a Panther as a hauler. It makes a great hauler, one of the safest ways to transport high value small volume goods, even safer than a blockade runner.
Should I be asking for the Panter to get additional cargo space, or complain when the cargo space were to be reduced for balance reasons for it’s intended role of hit-and-run PvP strategies and bomber support?
No.
I just am creative using a ship for a role that I could use. But if FCCP were to nerf it somehow I can still fall back to many of the intended ships for that role, such as blockade runners.
Likewise black ops battleships as damage dealers in incursions is not the intended role of the ship either. While blops battleships can be used for dps (like for hauling), PvE dps uses none of the unique characteristics of the blops, which are a jump drive, cloaked movement speed, ewar bonuses and everything to support a covert fleet to hunt targets. Yet it is possible to use the ship because it deals decent dps.
If this incursion role of the blops is then nerfed to bring it’s intended role in a healthier spot, you can just fly incursions in some of the ships that have been intended for high-end PvE like that: Marauders. Or faction battleships.
Or feel free to also use black ops, but don’t complain that it isn’t possible to use them because of ‘not enough EHP’.
You are right for my taste. I prefer the true sandbox of the old. As in ships without role designations, role bonuses, fitting restrictions of modules bound to role and so on.
Just so it is upon you on your ability to fit a ship to fulfill a certain role that you came up with.
Instead FC monitored how people used their ships, derived fixed roles from it and created role based ship classes, taking away most of the sandbox freedom.
Today it is not based on if you can come up with enough powergrid and CPU, so that you are fine to fit a certain module, instead there are flags today. “Can be fitted to shiptype”, “Can not be fitted to shiptype”.
In the old days there was much more skill required to fit a ship sufficiently and there were just so many surprises possible in a combat situation and elsewhere.
T2 ships are not better versions of T1 ships, they’re more specialized.
In the case of black ops battleships these are battleships specialized for covert hit-and-run tactics and guerilla warfare. To do this they have movement-while-cloaked bonuses, a covert jump drive, the capability to bridge or take along other covert ships, a fuel bay, decent dps and ewar bonuses.
As such they have a few strengths, but sacrifice other stats for it.
This means black ops battleships may not be better than T1 battleships for other combat uses where all these special roles are irrelevant, such as in incursions.
This right here is a very important trait with EVE ships. You see this especially in FW. T1 ships and their navy variants are general use ships, T2 are specialized to be very good at a specific role. T1 Battleships are seen in many roles throughout the game. Blackops are very much guerilla fighters and Marauders are siege equipment. A covops frigate will be very good at exploring, but can’t really fight back if caught, where the t1 hulls they are based on (and their navy variants) can actually do a lot more damage.
It’s the perspective that you get from watching some stats.
Unravel the clock back ten years and you would have said
people use it for scouting new area, prepare a footbridge that must resist
if attacked, untill the whole fleet arrive…
If multiboxers perfer to use it also for hit and run, covert ops, in their territory, that is a plus. I don’t see nothing wrong with it.
It’s a job that somehow must be covered.
These guys will go back and use Maelstrom to do the same job, idk, but the T2 weighs 50M Tons more than its T1 counterpart.
maybe it has a bigger engine. But then it should use better, lighter armor and shield material, and EHP should go higher, not lower…
It’s 10X the cost… with years for training…
It just don’t make sense.
The T1 win in almost all categories.
T2 ships from frig to Bc class are miles ahead in EHP resists.
Black Ops have never been this weak where actually a Hurricane
has more EHP than it, weighting 12.5Tons. 10X less weight than a Black OP BS.
We used them in Incursions where they had to endure a single volley of 100K raw damage. Glass cannons now.
I’m tired of this discussion, it’s leading nowhere.
If FNR can only cut content then what it wants is an impossible to move
powers game, completely predictable.
Good job.
It’s under the Sun.
Yet you’ll get burns if looking at it without your lenses.
