Ships & Modules

Vagabond needs a buff. This used to be the king of kiting nano boats, but now there is no real reason to fly one over a Cynabal or Stabber Fleet Issue

Since this thread got necro'ed and someone highlighted it by giving me a like (thanks), I figured I'd revisit it and throw in some examples of what I have been saying. If you're interested in what I am getting at, it would do you good to read my past posts in this thread to get some substance to the examples. These figures mean nothing without context.

Alpha-to-trading blows:

Tornado: Meta, ~7-10k alpha.

Cruiser / HAC / BC: ~100k ehp
Battleship: ~200k ehp
Faction BS: ~400k ehp
Tech 3: ~150k ehp (250k ehp)
Carrier: ~3m ehp

10-15 Meta Tornado to volley Cruiser / HAC / BC.
20-30 Meta Tornado to volley Battleships
40-60 Meta Tornado to volley Faction BS
30-45 Meta Tornado to volley LR Tech 3 (Web Lokis)
50-75 Meta Tornado to volley SR Tech 3 (Hamgus)
300-450 Meta Tornado to volley Carriers

Now consider that to the average gang sizes we see today in the game.

The point is not that people do this - but that it's not an unreasonable scenario or example.

Obviously, they need to hit as well, but that's where the current EW-issues come in.

Considering that the counters to Webbing and Painting have been forced into the Webbing, Painting and Damage range of these projection-concepts where they can't survive, or where you do not have those effects on similarily tanky platforms you will also see any tanky main-line ship (ie., your damage-dealers) forced with contending under Web-Paint where essentially anything is always hit by size+1 or where they have to try to out-range either the damage or the tackle in the narrow 50km gap between 100-150km (or the 80km gap between 70-150km if you are being a bit generous).


Effective hitpoints in the face of alpha to cost-effect:

Cruiser ~ 100k ehp / 10m (1.5m / 4.5m) = 100k ehp / 6m = 1:006
Cruiser II ~ 100k ehp / 150m (irrelevant) = 100k ehp / 150m = 1:150
Cruiser III ~ 150k ehp / 500m (irrelevant) = 150k ehp / 500m = 1:345
Cruiser III ~ 250k ehp / 500m (irrelevant) = 250k ehp / 500m = 1:200
Cruiser N ~ 100k ehp / 80m (irrelevant) = 100k ehp / 80m = 1:08
BC2 ~ 100k ehp / 50m (11m / 38m) = 100k ehp / 23m = 1:023
BC3 ~ 30k ehp / 60m (16m / 55m) = 30k ehp / 21m = 1:070
BC II ~ 200k ehp / 300m (irrelevant) = 200k ehp / 300m = 1:150
BS ~ 200k ehp / 200m (50 / 165) = 200k ehp / 95m = 1:047
BS N ~ 400k ehp / 500m (50 / 165) = 400k ehp / 385m = 1:095
BS P ~ 400k ehp / 500m (50 / 165) = 400k ehp / 385m = 1:095
Carrier ~ 3m ehp / 1.3m (230 / 765) = 3.m ehp / 765m = 1:0002*

* Carriers are obviously not quite as cost effective as even their Tech I modules cost a fair bit ontop of the hull. The figures are not exact or meant to be re-usable anyway. It's just a rough overview to illustrate the points.


Compared to the decline of HAC in 2009-2011:

Back in the Droneland mineral era a Drake was bottomed out and fully covered by insurance, leaving it's hull-price around 11m. Then you had to kill 10-15 Drakes for every lost HAC in a HAC/BC + Logi + Recon + Bonus fight, or a 25-man HAC gang running 15 HAC's (and 10 support) would have to fight 150-225 Drakes to come out squared in a trading-blow scenario. Considering those Drakes had an alpha of 2.2k you would find yourself in that scenario around 50 Drakes - which meant that the old HAC gangs found themselves at an impasse where they couldn't justify their own existance.

Looking at a tankable scenario you'd be somewhere below those 50 Drakes which meant you'd assume to fight them with 3 to 5 HAC to compete at equal risk levels. This didn't stop whoever wanted to take a greater risk to still fight them 10 vs. 50 as some groups still did, but even that is a bigger commitment (asset risk) to begin with - beside the numerical risk or odds in pilots and piloting. It's discouraged by the game even before you factor in preference of taking risk. It's pointless.


The greater picture:

Then people wonder why HAC-gangs disappeared or why small-gang pilots began putting their ISK into 100mn T3 (tank, web/paint counter-weight) or hotdropping Carriers (tank) that could actually deal with 50-100man gangs in small numbers.

Scale that up to the political level and you can see that the two ideals that compete today are the 1000-man groups whose powerbase lie in Capital and Supers (who have done the equivalent "T3 and Carrier" adaption at their scale) and 10.000-man groups whose powerbase lie in effective use of the 1:0x ship classes (BC2, BC3, BS and Carriers primarily).

It's pretty amusing because these two ideals that clash do so by trying to force the other into a scenario where they can't "trade blows" or have to "trade blows". That's where the overlap is today, somewhere around Carriers.

Groups like Goons and TEST are built entirely around forcing whoever they fight into a trading-blow scenario of ships that are cheaper than their nominal effect (1:0-) and hence only competing in numbers which is what they have most of - those wars are won, infamously, by making whoever you fight not wanting to log in. Groups like PL, NCdot or BL whose powerbase lie in Supers or effective use of Capitals (1:1+) are entirely devoted to finding ways to escape trading blows and drawing in whoever they fight into a upscaled war where assets are lost (ie., the most effective way to draw your opponent into a risk-dependent scenario is to accumulate Supers and force your opponent to risk assets in combat).

You will see smaller groups adapting similarily between close-region Cruiser / BC3 roaming (where they avoid the common 25-man+ gangs from larger entities and thus generate less fights) and close-region Capital drops (where they avoid the larger Capital-traps or use calculated risk: Triage, Bait and Suicide Carriers or Dreads, to force escalations or bait Supers).

You will equally see those small-gang ideals clashing and calling each other names in local, though rarely generating much more content between them than that .

I would know, I am one of them.

Pretty much what Malcanis just said.

Many people rage at HACs adn T3's without even thinking about a simple fact: you DON'T start balance with higher tiers but the other way around so yes, for the moment T1 counterparts do the same for a fraction of cost, T3's DPS fitted take the HAC spot not because they're too good but because hacks are simply awful.

We're at the point past battleship rebalance which means they should start attacking T2 hulls rebalance pretty soon but make no mistake and should not CCP do it as well.
They need to start again by T2 frigates with their different hull versions and roles, then cruisers, then BC's probably BS's and only then T3's so they can have a small but handy step back regarding T2 cruisers/BC performances and then take decisions for T3's.

It will take some time, doesn't really matter, Eve is a game played on the long term, I care less about having hacs op next week to get them nerf 6 months latter, I rather wait a couple months and have something decently balanced even if some hulls in the end will still miss something and other too op (at less extent but still exists after T1 rebalance with ships in need of another take a look at which is normal)

Be patient, have fun like you never had before flying T1 hulls that became really awesome, fly T2 inties and AssFrigs, test new BC's and BS's, there's so much to do and to have fun with you can skip T2 hulls and balance for the moment and months to come.

It seems you've forgotten that higher resistances are actually an advantage...

With respect to the Caldari HACs, CCP could delete T3s this downtime and still no-one would use Eagles or Cerbs. T3s don't "outperform HACs in every catagory" - Lokis don't go as fast as Vagabonds, for instance. Proteuses don't outperform Ishtars as drone boats and so on.

I don't disagree with the gist of what you're trying to say, but I do believe that it's a "perspective thing".

What you need to take into account when raising those points that you do is that the current profileration of T1 ships and the re-balance CCP decided upon is a "direction". It will, as you say, not be dealt with overnight - but it has also not appeared overnight. The issue I have from a longer perpsective is that the direction we have found ourselves on for the past few years have only exacerbated many balance-issues since both developers and many players have turned a blind eye to underlying problems or have tried to deal with non-issues based on popular concern.

The current non-issue of choice is appearantly M-Rails .

So while it's true that T2 hulls are to be adressed next I think it's important that you realize that this is nothing that have gone on for months: It has gone on for years, all the way back beyond 2008 when the most fundamental changes to gameplay-issues we see today were made. It's also important to distinguish between all these elements of balance (ships, players, resources) and not assume that you can achieve one by adressing another. That has been one of my central arguments for long time now - wether we talk about changing ships, a top-down economy or bark at player corporations for the way they play the game.

You say that you don't want to see T2 ships haphazardly changed into something that isn't balanced. Well, as long as CCP does not balance their ships based on their ingame economy, then they will never find an acceptible balance. Unless they deal with the issue that certain classes are way way too powerful for their cost-to-income levels in EVE, then it is highly unlikely that you will see them finding a good balance for more extreme classes even if they are given time.

If a Cruiser II is 1000% more expensive than a Cruiser - how much better should it be?
If a Cruiser II is 500% more expensive than a BC - how much better should it be?
If a Cruiser II is 100% more expensive than a BS - how much better should it be?

See, the problem with taking a shallowly logical standpoint such as "a Cruiser II should be 20% better than a Cruiser" without adressing the economy is that you will have a 1000% more expensive ship that of course is better than it's younger sibling but which is both more expensive and worse than a larger ship. That is exactly what we have today because we did not adress the economy and we did not consider that a Cruiser II should not only contend with Cruiser but also with Battleships in the same sandbox. Few players in Cruiser II's should also contend with many players in Battleships, in the same sandbox. That's exactly the problems that have been left untouched and festering since 2008. That's why bigger ships are better.

Ideally, a Cruiser II that is 1000% more expensive than a Cruiser should be (with some wiggle room) 1000% better, 500% better than a BC and 100% better than a BS since that assumes a holistic perspective (all ships) and not just some ships. If you look at Capitals and Supers they are a thousand- or a million percent better in similar comparisons so they do get used. Well, at least the game has not quite yet scaled to the point where gang sizes overcome capital sizes with relative ease (hence my statement in the last post - that the clash of ideals today is somewhere between BS and Caps).

The problem then become that having a Cruiser II that is 1000% better than a Cruiser I isn't very logical - which means that you have to make sure the Cruiser II is not 1000% more expensive. So far CCP have adressed that issue by making everything less expensive - and that has toppled the economy to the point that no one have to do PvE anymore.

Everybody gets to have the cake and eat it - and it takes time for them to realize that EVE (as any game) become pretty boring over time when you can have the cake and eat it. It will also meet player-resistance, since some players currently enjoy their cake and does not wish to part with it. Hopefully CCP see that form of egoism for what it is and does not pursue detaching PvE from PvP further ("I just wanna login and pew, yet my ship should be just as good" or "I want others to take risks but not myself"). Having an insurable 12m HAC (20% better and 20% more expensive than Cruiser cost-effect) that is worse than BC and BS wouldn't make EVE better either - so all the ships in the game need to be balanced to the game's economy (the missions, mining, moons and whatever else - a healthy game would imply not only that those roles and actions have a place in the game but also that ships have such a nominal value that they, and PvP, does have a place in PvE too - that's how you make "i just wanna pew" a reasonable PvE-alternative: expensive loot).

In conclusion: As much as ships may need to be designed in a specific order so the realities around them doesn't change during the process (see the qoute) - so does ships have to be adressed within the environment of the game's economy and environmental mechanics. In that sense it's foolish to adress ships while we wait for upcomming changes to POS, mining and whatnot since they are the fundaments the ships exist in.