Player Features and Ideas Discussion

As CCP is currently going through all the ships in a rebalancing exercise I have been looking at the 5%/10% cap usage per level 'bonus' given to nearly all Amarr ships that are expected to use lasers. The issue with this bonus is it makes Amarr laser ships very one dimensional ie what ever the other bonus for that ship is eg:

Prophecy = tank (resist bonus)
Harbinger = DPS (damage bonus)

These ships currently carry this x% per level 'bonus':
Impairor 10%
Tormentor 10%
Executioner 10%
Crucifier 10% (at the moment)
Magnate 5% (at the moment)
Coercer 10% (now and in planned rebalance)
Crusader 10%
Retribution 10%
Maller 10%
Omen 10%
Zealot 10%
Devoter 10%
Legion (liquid crystal magnifier subsystem) 10%
Prophecy 10%
Harbinger 10%
Oracle 10%
Absolution 10%
Armageddon (normal and Navy Issue) 10%
Apocalypse (normal and Navy Issue) 10%
Redeemer 10%
Revelation 10%

I make that 22 ships with viturally the same bonus (plus one T3 subsystem). I appreciate that this 'bonus' was introduced early in the life of Eve when lasers had their cap usage increased to punitive levels to stop non-Amarr ships from being cross-fitted with lasers. The issue with lasers is balancing cap generation (from the ship), cap use (from the weapons) and bonuses (which give ships a special 'role'). Amarr ships are probably the least varied in how they are fit.

One suggestion is that lasers have their cap usage decreased by 50% across the board with these bonuses removed. They can be replaced with other bonuses which actually give the ship a useful flavour eg turret tracking, turret range, laser turret signature reduction, reduction in mass increase from fitting armour plates, energy vamp/neutraliser amount bonus, partial resistance to energy neutraliser effects. This is not a request to make these ships have more DPS or suddenly perma-cap.

Will this suddenly result in people flying these ships having huge amounts of cap to play with? No because if you re flying one of these ships you have the relevant ship skill to 4 or 5 otherwise you probably aren't going to step into a laser ship.

The laser ships without energy usage bonuses (Avatar, Abaddon, Paladin, Imperial Navy Slicer, Nightmare, Bhaalgorn, Cruror, Succubus, Phantasm, Ashimmu) mightl need to have their capacitor size/recharge adjusted to accommodate this but as CCP are doing all ships now is the right time.

The fittings/EFT experts can probably work out if such a change will lead to lots of unbonused ships being fitted with lasers because this would make them better than the alternatives but for my money they will still be cap hungry with a limited damage type.

If that is the case then you could make the 10% bonus apply to all the ships on this list and give them an additional bonus (ie if the ship class normally has 2, the Amarr version gets bonuses 3 including the laser energy use bonus).

My final (not serious) alternative suggestion is drop projectile falloff by 50% and hybrid DPS by 50% and replace one bonus on the ships expected to use these weapons with a 10% per level bonus to falloff/DPS respectively so they haven't lost out (and no one will fit projectiles on an Amarr/Gallente/Caldari ship because of easy fittings and no cap usage).

The reliance on skills to reduce the cap demand also makes it disproportionately difficult to run an amarr ship on low skills compared with the other races, which is not a great situation to be in. Perhaps a role bonus would be better instead of a 10% skill

that would be awesome

because as it is right now , a punisher no matter what he does will never last more than 2 minutes on the field , and you know how cap unstable the abaddon is , even with max skills :P

role bonus might be too much though , people might question what would come of all the other races?

50% reduction on the guns activation cost might be the way to go. or just boost the ship's capacitor accordingly

See Blaze, Lux

Posting in support of some change, as long as it includes the removal of the laser bonus.

Or as suggested above, give all Amarr ships a role bonus to cap use, then give Minmatar, Gallente, and Caldari a nerf to some integral weapon system and have a role bonus on them that has the same effect. Bad for weird fits, good for differences between the races.

I heard a rumor during the tourney that CCP really loves ASB, blaster fitted Pilgrims though.

they could just add more cap to hull, which is what I think should happen, this prevents lasers on other ships and fixes the issue at hand.

They did that to the Apoc. It used to have a bonus to capacitor capacity. It was changed to range and the max capacitor was just given to them.

How is the Apoc on capacitor? I've never flown one. I plan on getting a Navy Apoc in the nearish future.




Is it a PvE fit for those ships? Just me, but I only use T1 in PvP.

The only amarr ships that are bad are some of the t1 frigs (although to be fair, I have not tried the remade ones much), the cruisers and the sac (and lets face it, most of the HACs and cruisers blow), and the prophecy.

+1