Ships & Modules

Right on Nois! Finally a post that I can actually understand. Have a like from me

Ok. Well to address these points.

No argument from me that they left things in an imbalanced state for far too long. At least now there seems to be an understanding that it is very important and an effort to address the imbalances.

The heavy missile nerf was still needed. HMs simply did too much damage at max range. Actually they still sorta do, but every weapon system should have something. I think they could have structured the numbers slightly differently on faction v precision v fury and accomplished the same goals. The drop off in use though is only a reflection of the press button wait for damage notification mentality that so many had who flew these ships. Apparently the ammo switching that gun users have always had to engage in is inimical to the HM crowd. And having to think about range, etc just too hard.

That said of course the long(midling) range setups of Rokhs and Maels, Dreads, Carriers with sentrys, Arty Lokis, Apocs, etc with very long range point and web recons is the thing. Of course if that were hit too harsh then AHACs or some other fleet type would gain accedancy again. There will always be some preferred fleet setups.

It would be interesting to as you say have counters to the long webs and painting. I think though that they are partially already there. A few Arazu/Lach with damps instead of points to counter the opposing painting, webbing, and pointing ships should work, right? I haven't flown in null for a couple years now. So not up on the latest stuff out there in the land of bubbles and 5 hour fleet battle processes to enrich some moon overlord or whatever.

Alternatley the pending TC/TE/TD changes may present some alteration of the range best of all mechanics that predominate. I think they could hand out small module nerfs to damps and TDs and then compensatory buff the specialized ships again. This would mirror ecm boats. And prevent any new TD mechanics from making TD a mandatory mod on every ship. But anyway, if you have some proposals for other new anti-ewar ewar by all means start your own thread. Just post like this last one and avoid the style of your previous posts and I think you will get a better response.

As for FW, I'm perfectly happy with the small stuff and the field of battle we have, kiddy pool or however it might be perceived. Actually always ignored lowsec in the past but have come to find gate gun mechanics and lack of bubbles and need for actual close range tackle to be enormous fun. You scoff at atrons, but lots of fun can be had with cheap **** and a banzai attitude. If it weren't for stabbed and cloaking isk farmers FW would be the absolute best part of eve imo. Maybe CCP will tweek things to remove/diminish the farming incentives.

Anyway, heavy missiles are fine. The BC nerfs were needed. Now cruisers are not woefully inadequate against BCs. It would have been nice if they had done a better job balancing the BCs. But one can hope that they do get to it before another 3 or 6 years goes by.

edit - forgot to mention target spectrum jammers or whatever they're called. Are these things even used in the null mongo fleet battles? Has anyone developed any tactics around microjump drives yet? It seems to me they trying to find ways to make the numbers and range less powerful. Here's hoping they get there.

Ok so sentries vs missiles


1. Sentries are turrets.
2. Missiles are missiles.

Turrets != missiles

Comprende amigo?

If you don't know the difference between a missile launcher and turret then I really have nothing else to say to you.

First off, thank you for a good post - despite me disagreeing with it. There were interesting points raised nevertheless.

You are looking at Supers and Tech III or whatever would help rich players more backwards though. I can understand why you belive the slogans that hail it (Oveur on Titans, etc.), but like many other people you only look at the obvious: "They are expensive, i am poor". You are not looking at it from the perspective that they are expensive, so losing them means you lose the ISK. EVE was once balanced around that: losing ships meant you had to rebuild from scratch. New players caught up with you.

In fact, nothing serves old, rich players better than the current paradigm. Where everyone can throw away cheap ships at each other, while old and rich players in old and big alliances preserve exclusive ships that are expensive to you, but not expensive to them, so they can use them against you indiscriminately to preserve their advantage on you.

For every ship that is cheap to you, an older richer player will have a larger and better ship that is cheap to him; and losing that to your ships doesn't matter more to him than you losing your Atron. It's all about how quick you recoup losses. A Carrier is to some what an Atron are to others; both are recouperable within 5 hours of gameplay, depending on if you pull 150m/hr or 1.5m/hr. What sets them apart is that losing a Carrier means 700m free ISK.

The problem is that large, old and rich alliance don't hurt each other either, so they don't send down their defeated peers to rebuild and give someone else the chance to take their place, providing the political scene with true new blood. Now it's just the same old blood recycled, while the new blood play FW or w/e, and faces similar issues at the smaller scales.

In most situations where Supers and Tech III are "overpowered", it's on the backdrop where they are amassed in large(r) gangs. It's not a question of having Supers, it's of having the advantage of having the most Supers. It's not a "large nullsec alliance" thing either. I know of 10-man corps in Lowsec that have 10 supers. I have seen engagements where there are literally 10 vs. 10 players engaging each other for Super kills. In that sense Supers are also very positive in today's environment because they provide targets worth fighting over (unlike SOV, POS, POCO etc.), they create content.

It is perfectly possible to kill both Tech III ships and Supers with smaller ships at smaller scales. A couple of Dreads will sink a Super and a couple of Frigates with webs, neuts and SR turrets will sink a 100mn Tengu. They never needed to be buffed to do that. The problem instead now, is that less and less people will risk expensive ships fighting inexpensive ships so the problem with BC is reproduced everywhere, not solved.

Numbers will always be an advantage. It's just a question of making sure that amassing great numbers is not arbitrarily better because that is what leads more Supers being better and more Tech III being better.

That's why balancing around ISK is good for the game, because it leverages the advantage of numbers against the advantage of ISK - while making sure that ISK is not a constant (if you balance destruction to creation).

Viking designers seem to have forgotten the economy their game rests on .



Yes, and your concerns would have been valid IF i had suggested nerfing Webs or Painters. Which is why i have been extremely careful explaining that nerfing Webs, Painters, TD or accuracy equations is just as stupid as nerfing HML.

I am merely suggesting restoring the balance between defensive (sensor) EW and offensive (tackle) EW. When i say restore, i mean undoing the streamlining that put all EW in the 45+X spectrum (that means 45+90 or ~45 + heat/faction/booster), effectively putting every Recon in the 50-100 range that means that any EW that snaps quicker, has a longer uptime and meshes better with LR damage and Logi RR is going to outclass all the other.

If Damps didn't face so many ships with sensors that matched 45+X it would make sense sticking them at 45.
If ECM could match the tanks of LR web and LR point it would equally make sense sticking them at 45.

Preferrably though, it would make more sense giving the projection-counters (Damps and ECM), better range instead of better tanks; and it would give the game some flavour. You could simply reverse the 45+90 paradigm to 90+45 and the problem would largely be solved. Damps would face less diminishing returns from range and ECM could operate just outside of Web-range with some implants or boosts (or within boosted Web-range, if you brought no boost of your own, which seems fair to me; in fact, it seems balanced, giving people a reason to risk even more ISK for tangible advantages).

In truth, i am not even suggesting we buff ECM and Damps, merely that we rearrange the paramaters. Improve their reach and returns, tune down other aspects of them. That's how you balance something, you take and give - not take or give.

Viking designers seem to have forgotten that too .

I agree with your reasoning, but somehow not the destination you've reached. You argue that cost balance works because it hurts more to loose, but you later state that some entities have the ability to field expensive setups with ease AND in numbers large enough to exasperate the issue. As mentioned before there is no ability for pricing to account for income disparity. A 2B t3 cruiser loss can hurt one player in the same way comparatively that a 100mill BC loss can hurt another.

You also point out, quite rightfully, that doing so against an equal or greater power is unwise and typically avoided. That being the case we can't reasonably expect a cost based balancing mechanism to undo this. We can expect powerful entities to squat on isk or material resources and continue to build up indefinitely barring most forms of failure save internal collapse.

The only way to have "leveraging the advantage of numbers against the advantage of ISK" is to prevent one side of a conflict from choosing both. Increasing performance of expensive ships allows one side to effectively nullify the numeric advantages of another even while being superior in number themselves. These combined lead to an overwhelming advantage.

It's abit more difficult to comment on this. We already have a potential link nerf incoming with stated plans to reduce T3 links to below command ship links and leave commands as is. This will help open the gaps between what you call defensive and offensive ewar abit. That aside I think you are oversimplifying the issues a bit. With the rebalance we are seeing HP increases, but we are also seeing focused bonuses to place the ships based around EHP + DPS the ability to remain distinguished from their counterparts in other roles.

IMO, this cost balance neglect a few things : risk aversity and accumulation of wealth. And at the end of the day, you need people flying in space anyway.

You can't prevent people to be risk averse and doing everything they can to avoid losing what they have, and you can't prevent people to accumulate wealth, precisely because when you lose something, you definitely lose it. Hence, wealth (goods and isks) can define some idea of success : the more you have mean the more earn and the less you lose. This accumulation is also a form of power : the more you have compared to the other, the more you can do in the game compared to the other. But these are opposed to a healthy game, because they lead people to peace and avoid conflict, that's why you need conflict drivers.

And when a conflict finaly happen, all this wealth difference decide of the outcome of the war if cost is not balanced with effectiveness in itself. That's why titans were considered OP : once you had accumulated all this wealth in titans, you could take on any lower cost fleet, and if you know about your business, little can threat you, because you had the most powerful army in the galaxy. That lead to arms race more than to conflict.

So you can't balance everything with cost only, because that would only encourage people to accumulate more wealth to use the most effective ship for their use.

Unless I'm mising something ? Why do you think cost should be balanced instead of effectiveness ?

Yes, you are missing something Bouh. I have already tried to explain it a couple of times over, to no avail. The problem is that it's difficult to explain and understand, as it requires letting go of your preconceptions and start from another perspective.

See, you, similar to a couple of other people in this thread try to read my posts based on that preconception - you interprete them based on how it is now.

• It's impossible to solve a problem if your perspective is rooted in the problem it's trying to solve.
• You say, there's an accumulation of wealth.
• I have argued that every ship in the game should be more expensive, to make sure there is no accumulation of wealth.
• The problem is the accumulation of wealth.

The reason most of the big, old, rich coalitions are big, old and rich today have much less to do with the moons they own than it has to do with how ships are balanced that cause an accumulation of wealth.

Drawn to a highly exaggerated point for simple illustration: You could argue that nothing necessarily used in EVE anymore cost anything, barring Supers, so no one has to make ISK. The passive ISK from the moons goes directly into Supers. Supers are essentially the only thing that makes sense using, that also cost ISK, so that's what moons pay for. There are two factors that lead to moons: pilots and pilots in Supers. So more pilots + more Supers = more moons, and more moons = more Supers. Self-fullfilling, isn't it?


How is that? Isn't old = rich?

There is literally nothing in the game that stops a new player from accessing ISK: Everyone have access to 100m/hr sources of ISK. It's all about knowledge and experience. They exist outside SOV. That also means that for everyone, even if you just started playing the game, 100m is a trivial sum. That also means that the replacement of any ship that cost less than 100m is trivial. That essentially removes any Tech I sub-cap and Tech II Frigates from the equation.

The way ships are balanced now: It makes little sense to use a higher tech ship against a larger ship of lower tech. That is the second bit CCP has missed when rebalancing ships. They are rebalancing both a Tech II Battlecruiser and a Tech I Battleship to be 20% better than Tech I Battlecruiser. That would make sense if Tech I BS cost as much as Tech II BC after insurance. They don't. That malbalance exist throughout the entire game. So you have two equally good ships, but the larger ship is so much cheaper you can get more of them for the same price. The reason every ship should be more expensive, instead of making all ships less expensive or all inexpensive ships better is: accumulation of wealth.

The reason why big, old, rich coalition alliances are big, old and rich (and in coalitions) is because losing 500 Battlecruisers cost about as much as losing 25 Battlecruisers which cost about as much as losing 5 Cruisers. Do you see the problem? There is a difference of course, but it's negliable and that's the problem. When i say that ships are free i do not mean it literally, but i mean it in the sense that replacing them for anyone is trivial wether you have moons or not; and irrespective of how many you lose to how many you have.


What makes expensive ships so revolutionary?

It allows someone who is smaller to hurt someone larger, by simply killing more of them. You may scruff at that and not call it revolutionary enough, but then you should keep in mind that under the current system you can't even do that. Who kills more ships is currently completely irrelevant as to who wins a battle, wins a war, hold moons or take SOV.

Today most objectives involve holding grids. So if you have 10 ships and your opponent have 100 ships, if you kill 50 ships and they kill 10 ships - they have still won. Their losses mean nothing but they hold the objective which wins the battle, wins the war, lead to moons and claims SOV. They have also won at no tangible expense.

It's not like old EVE, or any return to a balanced bottom-up economy lead to gold and green pastures for a new, few, poor or smaller players: but it does provide the tools to change that. It removes the accumulation of wealth. It does make sure ISK-effect matters: losing ships matters and killing ships matters. It means winning an objective will have to be weighed against the expenses. Also, if those objectives are things done by ships (ratting, mining etc.) then you also have more appealing targets for smaller groups. The fight is again determined by how many ships you kill and how effective you are at disrupting actions, by providing action.

Even if someone has Supers, killing their other ships will matter. The problem today is that the better groups in the game have Supers and killing their other ships does not matter, and they don't have to PvE. Killing their Supers matter today as in any other system, but you are facing a severe disadvantage getting to the point where you can kill their Supers.


What do i know that is not effective?

Laying blame on the ships most popular for accumulating wealth (Battlecruisers, Supers), and nerfing them one by one instead of solving the accumulation of wealth. At the same time improving other things that accumulate wealth: introducing new- (BC3) and improving existing (Cruisers) ships that are cost-effective and thus accumulate wealth and continue to give advantages to the old, rich, big - while reinforcing a balance that means bigger is always better - and so continuing to give advantages to flying big ships in big fleets.

with the recent change to t1 cruisers there's not much of a gap between them and the bcs now (ignoring attack bcs) a properly fitted moa has, in proportion to size, more tank and dps than a ferox and a caracal has versatility in the ability to fit hams, HMLs or RLML.

Heavies got nerfed sure, but they're stil pretty damn good compared to other long range weapon systems.

I don't think the the range nerf, is and was a problem.

neither is the damage reduction.


I do think the accurasy nerf is over done, the damage diference between HAM and HM in PvP is to big to realy bother with HM them aside of specific situation.

PvE this isn´t realy a problem and there is the range factor more importand because of the way you´re able to keep range, over the fact you need an extra volly to kill the little ones.

No one starts off rich, so how can it ever be anything but an effect? (result)

Accumulation of wealth, or deflation, exists when you have more resources comming into the system than going out. The problem isn't that anyone makes too much ISK, the problem is that no one lose enough ISK. That is a cause, with accumulation as a result.

A result is not a cause.


Performance (efficiency, power or potence) is what you always balance to something else:
It is not interchangable with ISK.

"Balance" assume weighing two concrete points against each other: ISK and performance ("effectiveness").

The balance CCP, you and some other players seem bent on pursuing is: Popularity and performance.

That's not a balance rooted in two concrete data: Popularity is a result of balance, not a cause.

A result is not a cause.

When i say balance ships to ISK, i mean balance the performance of ships to ISK. Any ship that is designed to be twice as strong should also be twice as expensive.

It doesn't work balancing a Tech II ship around 20% effect for 500% ISK, when you also balance Size +1 around 20% effect for 10% ISK. That is a problem rooted in the same misconception many players have too: that they stare themselves blind on class-balance rather than inter-class (or class-class) balance. Now, all the ships are meant to interact with each other in the same sandbox. That's why the arms race is all about getting the bigger ship today, because that has been made the most effective strategy (Supers).

This is why alot of small-ship roaming against large-ship dropping is dwindling, because they pay for the "style" not for the performance. The results of that cause is that players either revert to the more effective large-ship (large-gang) approach or adapt a small-ship (small-gang) approach that is limited to interacting only with other small-ship (small-gang) groups, in a limited stretch of space using a limited subset of ships (often accompanied by an additional social code: no ECM, no Links etc.). This is why we have themeparking behaviour even outside of the themeparks. That negative trend is present in all corners of space.


ISK is involved through the thing that malbalances the cost-effect of Tech I ships the most: Insurance.

Insurance is a cause, with accumulation of ISK the result. ISK that should exit the system or trade hands is preserved, accumulating, despite the action.

In terms of simple mineral-distribution, the performance-differences of ships have always been tolerable.

It's possible that mineral-balance could improve something as well, but that's not where the clog in the sink that requires a plummer is.

There is no way to disrupt a source of income when prices are so bottomed-out that you don't really need an effective source of income anyway. This is the problem a bottom-up economy change faces on the backdrop of current ship-balance, similar to the FW economy: If 100m/hr sources can be farmed by (afk-) Frigates, shooting those ships do not sink resources out of the game, do not reward the attackers in resources and do not deter the defenders from losing ships.You stand nothing to lose, you stand nothing to gain and they stand nothing to lose beyond bragging rights.

As for concrete alternative suggestions...

An incredibly simplistic way of putting it would be:
1. Nerf moons (buff nullsec mining and ratting).
2. Nerf insurance (review mineral balance).
3. Buff Damp and ECM range (nerf ECM stacking).

Together, those things solve the following issues: (with the Drake)
1. Small-gang targets ([BC-] class balance), Pasive income (SRP influence), Grid-based objectives ("F1" scaling **).
2. Cost-effect (class-class balance), Bottomed-out pricing (SRP influence), ISK-Pilots balance ("Welp" scaling).
3. Counters to Web-Paint (oversized accuracy / missile accuracy / HML ~ damage*), Buffer-projection ("F1" scaling).

*) Keep in mind: HML (a Cruiser weapon) does about 50% of it's potential damage to an unwebbed-unpainted Cruiser signature running a propmod. A turret does not have such accuracy loss, while EFT also do not factor in criticals. Turret accuracy is based on the relative movement between attacker and target (0-100%), hence a faster turret-ship always dictate the accuracy of a slower (Caldari ships are slow). The chance-base vs. mitigation-base difference in missiles and turrets swing both ways, and is not a performance modifier, more so a situational one; one is better some situations, the other is better in other situations (missiles are predicatable, turrets are unpredictable).

**) All improvements to "down-scaling" improves active tanks relative passive tanks, SR high-damage weapons relative LR high-application weapons, Alpha relative DPS, EWar relative sheer damage thus active tanks to RR and all forms of multi-role flying (thus utility slots to focused slot layout and execution, ie., "skill" to "F1").

It's a cause, because core gameplay mecanics imply players accumulating wealth. Accumulating wealth is the first thing you need to do in EVE, and a thing you will always have to do only to *do things*.

Whatever you do to prevent people to accumulate wealth will only increase the "difficulty" of the game : the artificial barrier to players to do things in the game, up to the frustration barrier (when the game is too hard, people stop playing it, but it's relative of course, and that's another topic).

So in fact, a good part of players wealth (the "too much" in the wealth balance in the game) is only a reflect of the capabilities of players. In the end, if you want people to fly in space, you *need* them to have some wealth.

Hence, rich players are only those who succeed to the game : those who manage to accumulate and to not lose their wealth. Most of the time, people will simply accumulate enough to make a reserve of "doing".

That's why "people are always richer than we think", among other things, and that's why nothing you can do will prevent people to accumulate wealth.

And that's why I consider wealth as a cause and not an effect in the game, because wealth is required in EVE more than in most other game, and such a core mecanic of gameplay rule most other things. People don't lose enough isk because of the way they play the game, and they play the game this way because that is the only way for them to continue to do things in the game.

But do not think I'm advocating for more income or easier ways to accumulate wealth in the game : this need its balance too, because that give meaning to the actions of players. But one must be careful with this balance : if the game is too hard, less people will play, and if it's too easy, less things have meaning.

And that may be a problem you see : there may be too much wealth in nullsec so things have less meaning, but again, the best fix would be to allow the income sources to be disrupted by small gangs I think.

In fact, I agree with your alternative suggestions, but I still think the balance of power between ships is not a given, and that some work may be required. The problem here is more related to having more different kind of ships flying in space and not a ship to do everything. The problem of the Drake wasn't only it's capacity to face battleships while being cheap, it was its almightyness, its ability to do everything from fairly well to excellently.

So the rebalance so far may not solve the global problem you are refering to, but I thing they are a rather good thing : more good hulls mean diversity, which mean more possibilities.

And finaly, the effectiveness you are talking about : the problem here is to compute all the strength of a ship in one value we can associate with isks, but how to do this when ships have so much caracteristics (dps, speed, tank, slot layout, fitting,...) ? How can you say a T2 cruiser have the same effectiveness than a T1 battlecruiser ? In the end, that's exactly what we are discussing in all these balancing threads, and dps/tank is not everything ; and IMO, the recent changes to cruisers were very good to give them a purpose without obsoleting other classes of ships.