Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Except in a few special cases, accepted wisdom among Eve players is that the Guardian and Basilisk are better logistics ships than the Oneiros and Scimitar for fleet work.

One option for rebalancing would be buffing the Oneiros and Scimitar, but keeping them clearly differentiated from the Guardian and Basilisk, while also aligning them more closely with their Gallente/Minmitar heritage.

The Scimitar would have its bonuses extended to cover remote armour reps as well as shield transporters. This would be in keeping with the ability of Minmatar ships to fit either shield or armour tanks.

The Oneiros changes would be more radical: its bonuses to remote armour reps would be removed entirely, while significantly increasing its bonuses to logistics drones, as well as its drone bay size. This matches the Gallente's general preference for drones. Logistics drones have two significant drawbacks, of course: the time it takes them to travel to where they are needed, and the fact that they can be destroyed. To compensate, the bonuses would be adjusted so that with heavy drones the Oneiros can out-rep even the Guardian/Basilisk.

These changes would leave the Guardian and Basilisk as undisputed champions of dedicated armour & shield logistics respectively, but give the Scimi and Oneiros new life as the more flexible logistics platforms, each able to rep both shield and armour effectively. It would also mean that for any particular fleet or gang, whether armour or shield tanked, three of the four races logistics would be available.

Gal ships also often mount shield tanks.

Shield gank Brutix?
Shiled Myrms?
Shield Domis" (especially navy Domis"
Shield Hyperions?

I shield tank pretty much all my Gal ships to maximize DPS, and because active tank sucks

Drone based Logi would suck... it might be ok in small gangs...

I would jsut buff the tracking link bonus, and buff the cap a little, so its easier to get them cap stable.
Or buff their tank, since they may operate as the only logi since they don't need to be in a cap chain

So, feedback so far is largely...

a) Scimi is fine
b) Drone-based logi is not as good as standard remote reps

Are there any reasons why the Scimi should not get armour rep bonuses to go with its shield bonuses? Would it make the ship OP? Or just more flexible?

Also, if the Basi isn't clearly the logi of choice for shield gangs, maybe it should be. It is the Caldari logistics, and Caldari are the shield masters. Not sure if this would mean a slight Scimi nerf or a slight Basi buff, or a combination of the two.

Regarding drone logi for the Oneiros, how much buf would be required to make a drone logi Oneiros as attractive as a Guardian? If it could rep twice as much as a Guardian would people use it, even if it takes longer to apply the reps and is vulnerable to drone-killing?

The fundamental idea here is to clearly differentiate the four logis, in-line with their racial back-story, while still giving each a viable role.

if we agree that the oneiros is the armor logistics ship for non-fleet skirmishes, then drone logistics is not the way to go.

in fleet combat, ships stay relatively close together (warp in, align to x) and usually have large buffer tanks.

in smaller gangs, there usually is a lot more relative movement involved and the ships probably also have less EHP.

Logistics pilots need to be able to switch their targets quickly when the opposing force decides they have to switch because they cannot break a tank that the logistics focus on.

now if you make the oneiros primarily use drones, not only do you make the target switching more of a clickfest, you also make it take longer, since the drones have to travel.

combined with the probably longer distances between ships and the smaller buffers, theres little chance any small gang would choose an oneiros over a scimitar if both had the ability to repair armor and shield.

now, as we've seen on fanfest, CCP is iterating on the drone ui, so maybe the clickfest argument will be moot at some point. if you were really determined to make the oneiros a repair drone carrier, you would have to give it a ridiculous bonus to logistics drone mwd speed and/or logistics drone repair range, on top of the repair amout bonus. makes me wonder what an oneiros would fit in the highslots, tho...

I wouldn't take that as a given. Maybe for small mobile armour gangs the best support should be Scimi; for small brawling gangs the extra reps from the Oneiros drones would be better.


So improve the drone UI (needs to be done anyway) and give the drones a speed or range boost.


But the Oneiros would have better rep capability than the Scimi, as long as it can keep its drones alive and on target.