Ships & Modules

So, with recent changes and buffs to assault frigs, the prices of the hulls for these has gone through the roof to the point where they're no longer cost effective as ships. Does anyone know if CCP has planned a review of assault frig production costs to bring them down to a reasonable cost:effectiveness ratio? As of right now most assault frigs hover around the 32-35m isk mark for the hull alone - this makes them completely ineffective when compared to the cost effectiveness of T1 frigates - and they don't retain that much more survivability or dps to show for the extreme cost.

For Comparison, a Cyclone that can do 500~ dps and tank 800~ without overheating or links runs about the same price as a fully fitted Enyo. I know there's a large training time discression, but that's even more to the point that they should be re-evaluated in terms of cost effectiveness, as more new players can easily get into the advanced frigates and the progression from a frigate to an t2 assault frigate is much easier than from a frigate to a t2 battlecruiser.

So in summary, why are battlecruisers ending up cheaper to fly than t2 assault frigates? Can this be looked at by CCP? Will it be looked at by CCP?

Thanks in advance.

You'll need some micro economics 101.

The materials needed to produce an AF are exactly the same as they always have been so that doesn't need changing.


Let me ask you this question: Did you buy an AF at the current prices?

If NO then you're helping to bring AF prices down, you won't get to fly them however.
If YES then you think the high price is justified no matter how much you complain about it on the forums. You're also helping to keep the prices at their current rate.

The only input from CCP that you can expect is some nerf/boost to technetium.

If that's true why were Retributions only 12m isk pre-patch and now are 32m post patch? Btw, Datacores are more expensive due to the fw changes, so perhaps invention has adjusted for the massive increase in cost?

This is true to a point, but it cannnot account for a nearly 250% increase in prices. For instance, the zealot has been raised in cost by about 8-10% from the last major patch.

Actually you can, demand is high (due to buffs and being naturally good ships) for these rather nice frigates and the prices of materials are up (for the above or other reasons). The market supports these prices by the sales, therefore the price is where it should be. Its not like you need t2 ships to be competitive. In fact most of the time (except t2 guns/ammo/points) you can get a better item at meta 4 (like ecm jammers) for the same or lower prices.

Don't mindlessly buy t2 and the market will respond eventually, its not always the best option. Here have a wiki article.

Prices are player driven and depend on supply&demand for both the minerals required as the produced ships themselves. Why should CCP have to look at that? If you feel that the prices are too damn high, why don't you start (moon)mining and producing those ships, more supply means lower prices. Go for it.

Because ships that are the logical stepping stones to the next tier of ships (frigates to cruisers) shouldn't be prohibitively expensive when compared to their overall effectiveness as ships.

Since when are AFs logical stepping stones towards a cruiser? they might be a prereq for some bigger ships but that doesn't make them a stepping stone. Actually in eve there ARE no logical stepping stones at all, there is no natural progression in ship types or sizes. All there is is specialisation.

If you feel that you are entitled to Fly AFs at a low cost because they're "a logical step up to other ships" them uhm... yeah. If you want prices to drop then don't buy them or start producing them, there's nothing more to it.

This is hardly an issue limited to AFs; most of the T2 hulls right now are stupid in terms of cost. CCP needs to rebalance moon mining and they have acknowledged that it is an issue (although not due to cost, just due to the nullsec mechanics), but who knows when that will happen.

If you're really interested, you should start by breaking down the ships in their cost to produce (including invention) and compared this cost to what is was some time ago. Ideally you'ld do this for all T2 frigs and some similar T2 and T1 ships to get a base to compare to. At this point you can apply some statistics to see wether or nether AF prices are an outlier atm or not.

The thing is, if you understand what I just typed, you'll also understand why they're expensive atm anyways so there's no point in doing this.

If you don't fly an AF worth flying, then don't. Simple as that. Tech nerf is incoming (one day)