Ships & Modules

Electronic Attack Frigates are clearly in need of some love, but I thought that perhaps instead of simply beefing them up, it'd be interesting to give them a role bonus that lets them take on a niche role of stealthy tackler that could act as training wheels for flying cloaky recons.

The role bonus wouldn't necessarily let them use covert ops cloaks, but it would have to remove or significantly reduce the targeting delay after decloaking and the scan resolution penalty. Here's what I'm thinking would be ideal:

Role Bonus: 99% CPU Reduction for Cloaking Devices, no targeting delay after decloaking, 50% reduction in scan resolution penalty from cloaking devices.

With this setup players would have the option to fit a CPU intensive Covert Ops Cloak for 100 CPU, or fit a lesser cloak for almost no CPU. This would let them choose between doing more of an ambush and wait solo fit with a cheap cloak vs. a covert ops fleet tackle that can cloak in warp. The Hyena would need a CPU buff with a setup like this though to be more in line with the other EAFs. With this kind of bonus I'd be tempted to say it should just be considered a Covert Ops ship instead of a separate class though.

Thoughts?

You can already tackle in an emergency with a covops. Especially if you fit a TD on one.

Frig-sized cloaking recon sounds just a bit too much.

Now I'm confused. But I think I see where the confusion is seeping in. I'm not talking about a role bonus, I was talking about the actual role, as in the advantages the ship has, the strategies it uses, and the part it plays in battles. EAFs don't have a role bonus mostly because they don't need one to do what they're theoretically able to do, the same way combat recons don't have a role bonus. All you really need is the slots, some hefty ewar bonuses, and proper base stats, you don't need any modules to behave in ways they don't by default. Now if you made a force recon parallel like you were seemingly talking about, those would likely get a role bonus, even if it's just the "Note: can fit covert cynosural field generators" that generally goes along with being a stealth ship.

Both bombers and covops tend to make poor tacklers due to being absolutely paper thin, so I think this is a valid niche for a ship type, and would be a good way to go about it. We don't just want rifters and merlins with covops cloaks duct taped to them, so a paper-thin ship that can still conceivably survive a fight if it's well-piloted, like a recon/EAF, seems to fit the bill.

I'm gonna paraphrase Fon Revedhort from another recent thread: "this game do not need more gank-tools".

I'm not sure that he meant it entirely like i do here, but one of the largest problems with buffing the EAF and the covert- and/or EW style of gameplay overall is that it's very powerful in a limited scope of the game where it doesn't need to be better, only broader so it apply in more situations and appeal to more players to pick up.

The Falcon changes, as always, serve a good example of how it can pan out if you don't do it right. Falcons are still as popular as ever - at the specific things people wanted to see nerfed (but were not knowledgeable enough to understand or express) - but these days they are only good at that. Most peripheral, and decently-balanced, use of the Falcon have disappeared instead - so everybody loses.

Rebalancing EAF meet similar problems. Your everyday gank-drop or gate-camp don't need a buff. The ships that already partake in such activities don't need additional ships that usurp their roles in that small scope. The ideas mentioned in this thread already reflect those issues with a powerful cloaky tackler that outright make it easier to just gank with superior numbers or full cloak-EW bonuses which would only serve to either usurp Recon (or not competing with Recon, leaving the EAF in shadow).

The one potential change i can see working, bar creating completely new bonuses and roles, is slapping together EAF with the standard CovOp (either as one ship, or as one class similar to Recon). CovOps as they are used today are much too specialized. Their feature only meet balance conflict in three situations: you have extra ships to afford a "civilian" gang member (this feed blobs and alt-use; which is generally detrimental for gameplay, but of course appealing to the wallet); you are exclusively in a "civilian" situation (ie., you are core-probing) and lastly; when you have already been replaced by an inferior bonus (where people probe with Bombers or Recons instead because their cloak is sufficient without the bonus to take on the role of a "combat prober").

In essence, you very rarely see a main character fly a CovOp in a combat situation today, where you don't vastly outnumber your opponent. The natural way to adress the EAF is to poke them into that.

Mashing the EAF together with the CovOps and creating a ship balanced between probing and limited EW with a cloak, alternatively two ships with probing bonuses: a combat version with EW and a civilian version with PvE bonuses, would not really create more balance conflicts. It would however create a new line of ships that could be coveted - a prober that have an ulterior use that make it appealing to fly but not one that would usurp another ship.

So,

- No instant-locking gank tool.
- No usurping of the CovOps
- No usurping of the Recons

Still a useful ship, that would add something interesting to assymetrical warfare.

Some of them would of course be Covert tacklers (racial EW), just as the OP propose, but with a more balanced role.

It's better to have those tacklers be "probing tacklers" than "instalocking tacklers for your risk-adverse gank/camp".

ed. it also doesn't create more cloaky ships as the sour space-captain below gruntles about, as it essentially take two underused ships and make them one; to give them a more allround outlook for a single main character; not "more cloaks", which come back to the whole "not more gank-tools" thing again.

Marrying the probing bonuses of covert ops ships to the EW bonuses of the EAF is an intriguing proposition. Most of the EAF have one or two bonuses related to cap useage. You would probably need to have a role bonus to compensate for that. Ships like the sentinel have three bonuses to make their ewar work. They would be difficult to address.

They are frail, but it's perfectly doable to do with a covops alt, especially if target is juicy enough. TD is actually a good part of your tank on one because a lot of the guns just can't hit you with either range script loaded (medium guns). I mean ofc, a ship loaded with frigate countermeasures, starting from warrior IIs, is bad news, and the element of risk, naturally, exists.

However from a ship which is great at scouting (because frig hull with covops cloak) and can probe people out, expecting interceptor-like performance in tackling, much less recon-like would be just too much. Of course that it is mostly flown by alts, since the ship doesn't require your attention except while probing or scouting/moving, and when combat starts you send it somewhere, cloaked.

But I mean, hypothetically, if I could do this with a Kitsune, then it would not be sent off somewhere cloaked, but ecming from 50km which is almost as hands-free activity as sending it somewhere cloaked, and puts one large ship out of the fight easy. Things get bad? Warp it off and cloak it. And you have to admit this would be a little broken.

The role of cloaky tackler which provides EW on top and is not a suicide-mobile (but costs as much as other T2 frigs) is broken.

For EAFs, a revamp like done on the Assaultfrigs will do fine.

- Remove nonsense Boni and look into Slotlayout.
- Reduce Signature arround 10-15%, buff EHP a bit.
- Introduce an 40-50% MWD Signature Role Boni.

Alternative:
An +2 Warpstrenght Boni like Transporter. Enabling EAFs to pick Fights and Escape until overwhelmed.

pretty much this ^^

a while ago, CCP experimented with assault frigates giving them a 10% bonus to the speed bonus of afterburners per level; they found that this was incredibly overpowered and turned assault frigates into solo win-mobiles.

This was because assault frigates tank and do damage pretty well, but EAS do neither of these, and it would provide them a much needed tank bonus, as well as a reason to use them over T1 electronics cruisers.

The idea of having a warp strength bonus on a pvp ship is... well... yeah, interesting. It could actually accomplish a lot of the same things a cloaky tackler could without overdoing it. They'd be a little safer to roam with and the ability to pick a 1v1 fight and then high-tail it at any point before their backup shows up makes you even harder to kill than a cloaky ship in some ways. I think a bonus like this would turn EAFs into the solo-frig pilots new mainstay ship. They'd even be a little bit more survivable in fleet situations since they'd require extra tackle to hold. I like your other suggestions as well Kraschyn.