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[Odyssey 1.1] Heavy Assault Cruisers - round two

First post First post First post
Author
Mournful Conciousness
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#2441 - 2013-08-23 23:46:53 UTC
Lister Vindaloo wrote:
I've found this thread really interesting as I'm currently training towards HACs but I just wanted a little clarification, all this discussion of Ishtar and Deimos fits, particularly cap stability with local reppers, does sisi take into account the changes to rep amount that are due with 1.1 or are the calculations based on the current rep amount without the proposed changes?


The new repairer and booster amounts are live on SiSi. The capacitor requirement has not changed for them, but you get more hit points repaired per unit energy.

Embers Children is recruiting carefully selected pilots who like wormholes, green killboards and the sweet taste of tears. You can convo me in game or join the chat "TOHA Lounge".

To mare
Advanced Technology
#2442 - 2013-08-24 00:51:29 UTC
Veshta Yoshida wrote:
Aplier Shivra wrote:
Well, sacrilege had a random capacitor bonus as one of it's hull bonuses, and when rebalancing the hacs, Rise felt generous and decided to remove that as a hull bonus and give the sac a real hull bonus, but leave the increased cap regen as a part of sac's base numbers....

He did far more than that .. he removed the Sacrilege 25% bonus and effectively applied it to ALL the hulls, recharge rate changes as follows:
Sacrilege -24%
Zealot - 15% (WTF!)
Deimos -33% (hahahaha)
Ishtar -21%
Cerberus -30%
Eagle -24%
Vagabond -27%
Muninn -24%

So he was indeed generous, enough to give the Sacrilege bonus to everyone without giving anything to the Sacrilege in return Big smile

Command recharges are a tad low considering they are expected to run links .. but since they are not on-grid as of yet I am more than willing to let it slide as they will have to get a second, third, fourth pass once that fateful day arrives so there is ample time to sort it.



by the same logic it removed the speed bonus to the vaga and added it to the hull, doing the same thing to other hulls like cerb, deimos, and sacrilege via mass reduction, making the "boost" less meaningful.

one thing that comes out of this it is seems like the deimos got a collection of hidden boosts
Onictus
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#2443 - 2013-08-24 01:34:38 UTC  |  Edited by: Onictus
Mournful Conciousness wrote:

The T3 configurable/generalisation thing is too b0rked for words. These ship in reality come in a very few game-breaking flavours:
1. cloaked scout with massive EHP
2. EHP of 2 battleships with battleship dps
3. unkillable shield tank lolpwnmobiles
4. rapier with 150k ehp
5. mega-tanked 100mn scorpion replacement
6. off-grid booster (soon to be deprecated)

The distinct price characteristics of the subsystems tell the whole story there.

T3s need to be made a lot weaker, and need to be changed to allow subsystem refitting in a POS. Then they'll be sensible. At the moment they just damage the gameplay of Eve.




You don't fly T3s much do you?

1) fair, covert subs generally don't kill your tank.
2) if you fit for the eHP f two BSs you get the DPS of a T1 cruisers...or less.
3) They are perfectly killable, its called a web
4) Rapiers have a significanlt longer web range
5) Just lol ECM Tengu? Really?
6) like you said, fixed


T3s are fine HACs suck. Period.

:edit

http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=18181867 I tacked that with a friggin bomber, there is your unkillable pwnmobile.
Devon Weeks
Asteroid Mining Industries
Salt Mining Industrialists
#2444 - 2013-08-24 03:28:15 UTC
Phaade wrote:
Sergeant Acht Scultz wrote:
Devon Weeks wrote:
Quote:
- Its arguably the best HAC in large fleet with logi support


See, this is something that isn't mentioned enough. Scalability is a balancing factor, and, as was pointed out a page or two ago, it is a quality the Deimos simply doesn't have. The Sacrilege is an amazing ship, and it certainly scales well.



This.

Solo small gang yep, might be a tough thing to deal with, large fleets? -not sure at all and for heavy tackle Proteus is by far better suited/bonus than Deimos for ONLY double price tag cost, doesn't mean Proteus is cheap but rather Deimos is way too expensive for its small teeth.



Right, you can't fit a plate onto a Deimos. Or rails.

And it's rack of ion / neutron blasters with 550 dps are certainly "small teeth."

On a side note, is the Proteus really that cheap?



Oh? 1600mm plates are all that's needed to make a ship fleet worthy? I anxiously await the footage of your fleet Deimoses in acion.

Where'd I put my popcorn?
Mournful Conciousness
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#2445 - 2013-08-24 08:42:12 UTC
Onictus wrote:
You don't fly T3s much do you?


Yes, we use them all the time. We have no choice because the wormhole arms race has settled on these ships as the optimal concentration of firepower, maneuverability and survivability.

On the whole, bringing another class of ship to a wormhole fight is a waste of a pilot.

So the presence of these ships in their current form reduces the number of rational tactical choices and thus removes depth, complexity and richness from the game.

I completely understand that existing owners of lolpwnships (including myself) would feel the loss of all this power in the short term, and many would want to resist it. But they would adapt, and learn to use a wider variety of T1 and T2 ships in their place.

I my view, the resulting diversity would be good for the game.

Embers Children is recruiting carefully selected pilots who like wormholes, green killboards and the sweet taste of tears. You can convo me in game or join the chat "TOHA Lounge".

Cade Windstalker
#2446 - 2013-08-24 09:31:01 UTC  |  Edited by: Cade Windstalker
Mournful Conciousness wrote:
Onictus wrote:
You don't fly T3s much do you?


Yes, we use them all the time. We have no choice because the wormhole arms race has settled on these ships as the optimal concentration of firepower, maneuverability and survivability.

On the whole, bringing another class of ship to a wormhole fight is a waste of a pilot.

So the presence of these ships in their current form reduces the number of rational tactical choices and thus removes depth, complexity and richness from the game.

I completely understand that existing owners of lolpwnships (including myself) would feel the loss of all this power in the short term, and many would want to resist it. But they would adapt, and learn to use a wider variety of T1 and T2 ships in their place.

I my view, the resulting diversity would be good for the game.


So, as someone who doesn't particularly care for T3's personally (not in a, I want them to go away sense, I just don't like the skillpoint loss as it applies to me) I'm somewhat conflicted on this.

So rather than post an opinion I really don't have I'll toss in the results of a discussion I had with a very experienced wormhole person with regard to T3s and that comes down to a couple of points:

One, T3s are used primarily in wormholes because they allow you to put a good combination of tank, DPS, and utility on field for comparatively little mass. You can cook up various other fleet comps that can do horrible things to T3s, but if you want to go somewhere else in W-space and do things then you bring T3s, which means that's what you have on hand when someone else decides to crash your hole. Combine this with a dread-blap PvP meta for W-Space that kills Battleships worse than T3s and you sort of end up with a ship ship occupying a very oddly shaped niche that's rather hard to replace.

Two, T3s definitely step on the toes of HACs. They're more expensive but no longer hilariously so and field similar DPS, more utility, and better tank, especially in the context of small gangs with logistics. They make up for this in skill-point loss when they pop. If they lose most of their current tank and/or DPS then they also no longer deserve the SP loss penalty since at that point they are both far easier to lose and far less special. They're simply able to do all of the other things the T1 and T2 cruisers can do but not to the same extent and not at the same time, even if they can sometimes do them in interesting combinations.

Third, any such examination and re-balancing of T3s should probably come after the various ships they mimic so there is a strong base-line for where T3s are over-performing compared to their more specialized T2 counterparts. That's probably less than ideal from the perspective of a HAC user, but if you want to fly more Recons then you'd probably be glad for it.

The rest of Eve would probably survive just fine, W-Space on the other hand would need an answer to dread-blap and probably a lot of little tweaks to things like mass limits and site compositions. I mean, if you're going to yank the rug out from under the life blood of an entire area of space it's kind of fair to give it a transfusion, so to speak.
Devon Weeks
Asteroid Mining Industries
Salt Mining Industrialists
#2447 - 2013-08-24 13:26:34 UTC
Quote:
So, as someone who doesn't particularly care for T3's personally (not in a, I want them to go away sense, I just don't like the skillpoint loss as it applies to me) I'm somewhat conflicted on this.

So rather than post an opinion I really don't have I'll toss in the results of a discussion I had with a very experienced wormhole person with regard to T3s and that comes down to a couple of points:

One, T3s are used primarily in wormholes because they allow you to put a good combination of tank, DPS, and utility on field for comparatively little mass. You can cook up various other fleet comps that can do horrible things to T3s, but if you want to go somewhere else in W-space and do things then you bring T3s, which means that's what you have on hand when someone else decides to crash your hole. Combine this with a dread-blap PvP meta for W-Space that kills Battleships worse than T3s and you sort of end up with a ship ship occupying a very oddly shaped niche that's rather hard to replace.

Two, T3s definitely step on the toes of HACs. They're more expensive but no longer hilariously so and field similar DPS, more utility, and better tank, especially in the context of small gangs with logistics. They make up for this in skill-point loss when they pop. If they lose most of their current tank and/or DPS then they also no longer deserve the SP loss penalty since at that point they are both far easier to lose and far less special. They're simply able to do all of the other things the T1 and T2 cruisers can do but not to the same extent and not at the same time, even if they can sometimes do them in interesting combinations.

Third, any such examination and re-balancing of T3s should probably come after the various ships they mimic so there is a strong base-line for where T3s are over-performing compared to their more specialized T2 counterparts. That's probably less than ideal from the perspective of a HAC user, but if you want to fly more Recons then you'd probably be glad for it.

The rest of Eve would probably survive just fine, W-Space on the other hand would need an answer to dread-blap and probably a lot of little tweaks to things like mass limits and site compositions. I mean, if you're going to yank the rug out from under the life blood of an entire area of space it's kind of fair to give it a transfusion, so to speak.


These are very valid points. I flew in wormholes a lot last year while learning about tech 3s, and I have to agree that there really isn't anything I can see that will replace them adequately. They will need a hard look. They probably shouldn't perform leagues better than a HAC, as in hundreds of thousands of EHP better, but they should remain competitive in their intended environment. I'll have to think hard on that before I can provided any meaningful suggestions.
Mournful Conciousness
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#2448 - 2013-08-24 13:39:57 UTC
They are valid points but you know, the new navy cruisers are not so far away from T3s in terms of damage output.

HACs, logistics, recons, and all types of T1 cruisers will all fit down a wormhole just fine.

The reason you'd take a proteus (say) over an exequeror navy issue is because the proteus has 4-5 times the hitpoints while remote repairs on it are at least twice as powerful. So its value is something like 8 times that of an almost-equivalent navy cruiser.

No-one in wormholes is short of money, but they are always short of pilots, so a rational FC will demand a proteus over the navy issue cruiser every time without pausing to consider any silly arguments why not.

The presence of T3 in WH combat in their current form eliminate any rational choices that involve navy cruisers or battleships (complete with the mass tradeoff problem) except some very specialised choices (I accept that I am simplifying the issue for convenience):

a. Bhaalgorn (for draining the cap of a capital)
b. Vindicator for finishing up.

Any other battleship, even on home turf where mass is not an issue, is outclassed by the superior toughness. maneuverability and signature radius of a T3.

Embers Children is recruiting carefully selected pilots who like wormholes, green killboards and the sweet taste of tears. You can convo me in game or join the chat "TOHA Lounge".

Veshta Yoshida
PIE Inc.
Khimi Harar
#2449 - 2013-08-24 17:13:33 UTC  |  Edited by: Veshta Yoshida
Devon Weeks wrote:
These are very valid points. I flew in wormholes a lot last year while learning about tech 3s, and I have to agree that there really isn't anything I can see that will replace them adequately. They will need a hard look. They probably shouldn't perform leagues better than a HAC, as in hundreds of thousands of EHP better, but they should remain competitive in their intended environment. I'll have to think hard on that before I can provided any meaningful suggestions.

Mournful Conciousness wrote:
The presence of T3 in WH combat in their current form eliminate any rational choices that involve navy cruisers or battleships (complete with the mass tradeoff problem) ...

Why not make T3 a worm semi-exclusive, subject to sanctions and what not to increase their value .. opens the door for be being more lenient (to a point) in their balancing as general access to them would be reduced due to pricing/volume concerns.

Restrict construction of the subsystems to worm-space and reduce their volume to facilitate/help logistics operations. That means a worm denies passage of any ship carrying materials exclusive to worms .. or/and one could make it contraband for extra nastiness.
- T3's are, backstory wise, as pure military hardware as can be (mortal enemy of mankind and all that) so adding empire (read: high-sec) sanctions to the parts/sub-systems make all kinds of sense. Serves to not only make potentially OP hulls marginally more scarce but also adds a smuggling item, increases value of etc.

The End: T3's should be pricey, they should be powerful in whatever narrow niche they are fitted to occupy and they should be a way for the people outside of society proper to make a mint.
Would add that an entity that occupies several systems in worm-space should have to live with an increasing amount of external holes (relative to internal), that grows proportional with the amount of systems owned .. cosmic joke, natural forces coalescing .. there numerous ways to explain it but it all comes down to game balance Twisted

Example: Full T3 ships exiting worm space are generally kosher and ships carrying Gallente/Minmatar subsystems are persecuted in Amarr/Caldari space and vice versa .. gimmick is that it is high-grade military hardware which no nation/empire would permit in its space without having it under its control. When T4 comes along the rules change, obviously Big smile
To mare wrote:
..by the same logic it removed the speed bonus to the vaga ...quote]
Except that the Vagabond bonus was not applied to all hulls regardless of nature or affiliation .. that is what was done with recharge bonus. Sure there are some tweaks here and there but I'd wager you will find nothing even resembling the numbers I spewed fot the recharge .. even when under thrust.
[quote=To mare]...one thing that comes out of this it is seems like the deimos got a collection of hidden boosts

Welcome to the real world, hope you had a good time in fantasy land Big smile
Onictus
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#2450 - 2013-08-24 17:14:50 UTC
Mournful Conciousness wrote:
Onictus wrote:
You don't fly T3s much do you?


Yes, we use them all the time. We have no choice because the wormhole arms race has settled on these ships as the optimal concentration of firepower, maneuverability and survivability.

On the whole, bringing another class of ship to a wormhole fight is a waste of a pilot.

So the presence of these ships in their current form reduces the number of rational tactical choices and thus removes depth, complexity and richness from the game.

I completely understand that existing owners of lolpwnships (including myself) would feel the loss of all this power in the short term, and many would want to resist it. But they would adapt, and learn to use a wider variety of T1 and T2 ships in their place.

I my view, the resulting diversity would be good for the game.



I think that T3s are fine for that they are.

Like I've said, its the HACs that suck. Which isn't getting fixed.
Lloyd Roses
Artificial Memories
#2451 - 2013-08-24 17:21:18 UTC  |  Edited by: Lloyd Roses
Onictus wrote:
Mournful Conciousness wrote:
Onictus wrote:
You don't fly T3s much do you?


Yes, we use them all the time. We have no choice because the wormhole arms race has settled on these ships as the optimal concentration of firepower, maneuverability and survivability.

On the whole, bringing another class of ship to a wormhole fight is a waste of a pilot.

So the presence of these ships in their current form reduces the number of rational tactical choices and thus removes depth, complexity and richness from the game.

I completely understand that existing owners of lolpwnships (including myself) would feel the loss of all this power in the short term, and many would want to resist it. But they would adapt, and learn to use a wider variety of T1 and T2 ships in their place.

I my view, the resulting diversity would be good for the game.



I think that T3s are fine for that they are.

Like I've said, its the HACs that suck. Which isn't getting fixed.


I doubt that HACs suck, or will not be used/useful for wormholes.
Especially peeking at Deimos/Astarte/Cerberus/Absolution/Nighthawk, all of those offer some of T3s key-attributes without SP-loss and in some cases, even advantages. In little detail:

- Astarte is competing with the proteus, simply cause green blasterboat. Their Agility isn't far apart from each other, their damageoutput very similiar. Remaining advantages for the proteus are mobility (goes like 10% faster) and sigradius. And around two to three times the buffer... ... ... (rhetorical pause) WH-Proteus normally got mwd/Scram (with hell of a range) and EITHER web or long point, I didn't yet shoot one of those equipped with a cap booster.
Advantage of the Astarte: No one will laugh at you for fitting T2 tank and you lose no SP on death. Has neuts and a cap booster.
The Deimos though is just special. Guess it's a scout that survives when fitted with AAR, 800 plate, dualprop. You'd prolly achieve better results tackling with a (cloaky) proteus, but that Deimos doesn't make everyone and their moms shiver in fear. Deimos is an OP-Brawler, runs one MAR on it's own - sounds like slowly killing drakes in c2s Lol, waiting for them to bite.

- Nighthawk and Cerb... being the competition to the Tengu. While they are so much more fragile (Cerberus) or so incredibly much slower (Nighthawk) compared to a Tengu, a perma-mwd'ing Cerb with ONLY (*cough*) four times the sigsize and pretty much same damageoutput and still maybe sufficient tank could do, or if you are intending to chill around bubbles or directly on a POS brawling carriers: two med neuts onto the nighthawk, HAMs and a rig - and go 920+ kinetic rage dps. (mentioned the med-neuts that no tengu would ever have)

- Absolution versus Legion... Superslowbrick with accidentally neuts/smartbombs compared to a muchmuch faster and smaller brick that shoots much further. It kinda looks like the Legion is leading, but if you need to press utility into the hull and don't need that speed/range anyways, can stay with an abso for a near identical experience. On the upside I once slingshotted out of a lokis pointrange by overheating my active absolution's mwd. Never lose hope Cool

None of those four T2 ships outperforms their respective T3-pendant, however they are able to perform similiar and sometimes almost identical given a certain task.
With the current Gap in punishment upon loss (like some 200-300mil for T2, or 700mil+ and SP for a proper T3), losses of T2 are so much more sustainable that usage of them is attractive from that POV.

Since that rebalance will greatly lower the gap in performance, partly due to utility on CS and the ebefing up of HACs (hopefully everyone agrees that HACs will be a lot more useful now [esp. Sacriledge, Ishtar] 8) ), T2 should allow rather new starting PvP'ers to directly advance out of their prophecies/myrms/Drakes/Brutixes(?) into a resp. T2 variant, instead of transferring directly into T3s if they wish to ever get 'guns instead of knifes for those wormholeshootings' - hope that makes sense and hits the spot.
So just looking at the tengu and caracal - now there at least IS a tech-II counterpart.

I actually can't see anything wrong with strat cruisers' resistances. Those resistances are jsut what you get for blinging up that thing. Only Issue I can perceive is *Buffersubs 10%*, *Local-Tank-subs 10%*, *those shiphulls are larger (!) compared to batlecruisers, someone please step by, mention that somewhere and adjust that sigradius to like two times or so*

What T3s offer beyond that is that of a cloaky dps/tackle (which atm only the blasterpilgrim can do, haha tank), the option of being a nullified cloaky 600mil cruisersized scout (potentially with tank or links) and that of dedicated BLOPS-logi (legion/tengu), and a couple even more narrow niche applications unique to the game. Guess it's not bad to have those roles enabled by some ship afterall, it just happens that you always build it starting off with a strat cruiser.
Mournful Conciousness
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#2452 - 2013-08-24 17:21:29 UTC  |  Edited by: Mournful Conciousness
the Titan story is a lesson in why expense will never limit the proliferation of OP materiel.

t3s just need their bonuses shaved is that each subsystem only adds 1 bonus rather than 2, those bonuses measured in 5% increments rather than 10%.

that'll do it. you could even increase the number of types of subsystems to offer more choice. The ships would then be versatile without being OP.

Either that, or leave them OP but increase the cost of loss to 1m skill points. Now there's a trade off. Dare you, or dare you not Big Man?


edit: apologies, crossed with the previous very valid post.

Embers Children is recruiting carefully selected pilots who like wormholes, green killboards and the sweet taste of tears. You can convo me in game or join the chat "TOHA Lounge".

Jeffrey Donovan
Science and Trade Institute
Caldari State
#2453 - 2013-08-24 17:38:39 UTC  |  Edited by: Jeffrey Donovan
why cant the cerbus have the same bonus as the hookbill?
20% bonus to Kinetic missile damage, 10% bonus to EM, Explosive, and Thermal missile damage
10% bonus to Missile velocity


or atleast

10% bonus to Kinetic missile damage, 5% bonus to EM, Explosive, and Thermal missile damage
Devon Weeks
Asteroid Mining Industries
Salt Mining Industrialists
#2454 - 2013-08-24 18:18:26 UTC
Lloyd Roses wrote:
Onictus wrote:
Mournful Conciousness wrote:
Onictus wrote:
You don't fly T3s much do you?


Yes, we use them all the time. We have no choice because the wormhole arms race has settled on these ships as the optimal concentration of firepower, maneuverability and survivability.

On the whole, bringing another class of ship to a wormhole fight is a waste of a pilot.

So the presence of these ships in their current form reduces the number of rational tactical choices and thus removes depth, complexity and richness from the game.

I completely understand that existing owners of lolpwnships (including myself) would feel the loss of all this power in the short term, and many would want to resist it. But they would adapt, and learn to use a wider variety of T1 and T2 ships in their place.

I my view, the resulting diversity would be good for the game.



I think that T3s are fine for that they are.

Like I've said, its the HACs that suck. Which isn't getting fixed.


I doubt that HACs suck, or will not be used/useful for wormholes.
Especially peeking at Deimos/Astarte/Cerberus/Absolution/Nighthawk, all of those offer some of T3s key-attributes without SP-loss and in some cases, even advantages. In little detail:

- Astarte is competing with the proteus, simply cause green blasterboat. Their Agility isn't far apart from each other, their damageoutput very similiar. Remaining advantages for the proteus are mobility (goes like 10% faster) and sigradius. And around two to three times the buffer... ... ... (rhetorical pause) WH-Proteus normally got mwd/Scram (with hell of a range) and EITHER web or long point, I didn't yet shoot one of those equipped with a cap booster.
Advantage of the Astarte: No one will laugh at you for fitting T2 tank and you lose no SP on death. Has neuts and a cap booster.
The Deimos though is just special. Guess it's a scout that survives when fitted with AAR, 800 plate, dualprop. You'd prolly achieve better results tackling with a (cloaky) proteus, but that Deimos doesn't make everyone and their moms shiver in fear. Deimos is an OP-Brawler, runs one MAR on it's own - sounds like slowly killing drakes in c2s Lol, waiting for them to bite.

- Nighthawk and Cerb... being the competition to the Tengu. While they are so much more fragile (Cerberus) or so incredibly much slower (Nighthawk) compared to a Tengu, a perma-mwd'ing Cerb with ONLY (*cough*) four times the sigsize and pretty much same damageoutput and still maybe sufficient tank could do, or if you are intending to chill around bubbles or directly on a POS brawling carriers: two med neuts onto the nighthawk, HAMs and a rig - and go 920+ kinetic rage dps. (mentioned the med-neuts that no tengu would ever have)

- Absolution versus Legion... Superslowbrick with accidentally neuts/smartbombs compared to a muchmuch faster and smaller brick that shoots much further. It kinda looks like the Legion is leading, but if you need to press utility into the hull and don't need that speed/range anyways, can stay with an abso for a near identical experience. On the upside I once slingshotted out of a lokis pointrange by overheating my active absolution's mwd. Never lose hope Cool

None of those four T2 ships outperforms their respective T3-pendant, however they are able to perform similiar and sometimes almost identical given a certain task.
With the current Gap in punishment upon loss (like some 200-300mil for T2, or 700mil+ and SP for a proper T3), losses of T2 are so much more sustainable that usage of them is attractive from that POV.

Since that rebalance will greatly lower the gap in performance, partly due to utility on CS and the ebefing up of HACs (hopefully everyone agrees that HACs will be a lot more useful now [esp. Sacriledge, Ishtar] 8) ), T2 should allow rather new starting PvP'ers to directly advance out of their prophecies/myrms/Drakes/Brutixes(?) into a resp. T2 variant, instead of transferring directly into T3s if they wish to ever get 'guns instead of knifes for those wormholeshootings' - hope that makes sense and hits the spot.
So just looking at the tengu and caracal - now there at least IS a tech-II counterpart.

I actually can't see anything wrong with strat cruisers' resistances. Those resistances are jsut what you get for blinging up that thing. Only Issue I can perceive is *Buffersubs 10%*, *Local-Tank-subs 10%*, *those shiphulls are larger (!) compared to batlecruisers, someone please step by, mention that somewhere and adjust that sigradius to like two times or so*

What T3s offer beyond that is that of a cloaky dps/tackle (which atm only the blasterpilgrim can do, haha tank), the option of being a nullified cloaky 600mil cruisersized scout (potentially with tank or links) and that of dedicated BLOPS-logi (legion/tengu), and a couple even more narrow niche applications unique to the game. Guess it's not bad to have those roles enabled by some ship afterall, it just happens that you always build it starting off with a strat cruiser.


I've done HAC patrols in wormholes from c1 to c3. Beyond that, they often don't hold up. In a well organized c4 corp, I could see them getting some use. But, in c5 or c6, you run into the blapmobile problem and need those strat cruisers.
Xander Det89
T.R.I.A.D
Ushra'Khan
#2455 - 2013-08-24 19:42:45 UTC
Mournful Conciousness wrote:
the Titan story is a lesson in why expense will never limit the proliferation of OP materiel.

t3s just need their bonuses shaved is that each subsystem only adds 1 bonus rather than 2, those bonuses measured in 5% increments rather than 10%.

that'll do it. you could even increase the number of types of subsystems to offer more choice. The ships would then be versatile without being OP.

Either that, or leave them OP but increase the cost of loss to 1m skill points. Now there's a trade off. Dare you, or dare you not Big Man?


edit: apologies, crossed with the previous very valid post.


Except then they'd actually suck and no one would actually fly them :P
Alex Tutuola
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#2456 - 2013-08-24 20:24:48 UTC
It's been two weeks since our last dev response.

Well, guys, if you're done revising the HACs, can we fly them on TQ already? I'm ready to see them perform in ACTUAL internet spaceships, as opposed to the test server. :)
Mournful Conciousness
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#2457 - 2013-08-24 21:29:14 UTC
Xander Det89 wrote:
Mournful Conciousness wrote:
the Titan story is a lesson in why expense will never limit the proliferation of OP materiel.

t3s just need their bonuses shaved is that each subsystem only adds 1 bonus rather than 2, those bonuses measured in 5% increments rather than 10%.

that'll do it. you could even increase the number of types of subsystems to offer more choice. The ships would then be versatile without being OP.

Either that, or leave them OP but increase the cost of loss to 1m skill points. Now there's a trade off. Dare you, or dare you not Big Man?


edit: apologies, crossed with the previous very valid post.


Except then they'd actually suck and no one would actually fly them :P


They'd suck if they were OP, or they'd suck if they were highly configurable ships with T2 resists and 5 bonuses rather than a T2 ship's 4?

At the moment, they have a total of 10 bonuses and T2 resists.

Embers Children is recruiting carefully selected pilots who like wormholes, green killboards and the sweet taste of tears. You can convo me in game or join the chat "TOHA Lounge".

Large Collidable Object
morons.
#2458 - 2013-08-24 21:41:36 UTC
Lloyd Roses wrote:



I doubt that HACs suck, or will not be used/useful for wormholes.
Especially peeking at Deimos/Astarte/Cerberus/Absolution/Nighthawk, all of those offer some of T3s key-attributes without SP-loss and in some cases, even advantages.



Three out of five of those 'HACs' you mentioned are in fact CS - just saying.

And I still don't see the point in a relatively skill-intense & expensive ship class that gets a role bonus which is useful for frigs and whose most distinct specialization is at being slow.
You know... [morons.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gjOx65yD5A)
Cade Windstalker
#2459 - 2013-08-24 21:46:16 UTC
Devon Weeks wrote:
These are very valid points. I flew in wormholes a lot last year while learning about tech 3s, and I have to agree that there really isn't anything I can see that will replace them adequately. They will need a hard look. They probably shouldn't perform leagues better than a HAC, as in hundreds of thousands of EHP better, but they should remain competitive in their intended environment. I'll have to think hard on that before I can provided any meaningful suggestions.


I've only rarely seen a T3 with EHP 10 times that of a similarly tanked HAC and they tend to give up DPS to do it. The trouble point is more the sweet spot where they're doing about HAC DPS or a little better but have the EHP of a well-tanked Battleship. This tends not to be several hundred thousand more but more in the range of 100-150k EHP, which is still pretty silly when you factor in their small sig radius, speed, and resists.

Mournful Conciousness wrote:
They are valid points but you know, the new navy cruisers are not so far away from T3s in terms of damage output.

HACs, logistics, recons, and all types of T1 cruisers will all fit down a wormhole just fine.

The reason you'd take a proteus (say) over an exequeror navy issue is because the proteus has 4-5 times the hitpoints while remote repairs on it are at least twice as powerful. So its value is something like 8 times that of an almost-equivalent navy cruiser.

No-one in wormholes is short of money, but they are always short of pilots, so a rational FC will demand a proteus over the navy issue cruiser every time without pausing to consider any silly arguments why not.

The presence of T3 in WH combat in their current form eliminate any rational choices that involve navy cruisers or battleships (complete with the mass tradeoff problem) except some very specialised choices (I accept that I am simplifying the issue for convenience):

a. Bhaalgorn (for draining the cap of a capital)
b. Vindicator for finishing up.

Any other battleship, even on home turf where mass is not an issue, is outclassed by the superior toughness. maneuverability and signature radius of a T3.



Pretty much, yeah. Though you might be able to add the Scorpion/Falcon/Rook there for powerful ECM projection, but even that may not be worth the trade-off with an ECM Tengu unless it's a home defense fleet and you can use bouncing warps to keep the enemy at long range.

The Vindi being there is more of a problem with the Vindi and less of a problem with T3s >.>

Really I think the comment about the pilot to EHP and DPS ratio is really the crux of the issue for WH pilots. The question is whether or not it should be changed.

Veshta Yoshida wrote:

Why not make T3 a worm semi-exclusive, subject to sanctions and what not to increase their value .. opens the door for be being more lenient (to a point) in their balancing as general access to them would be reduced due to pricing/volume concerns.


This was the balancing logic that originally lead to Titans with AOE doomsday weapons. "Because there would only ever be about 5 in the game".

Alex Tutuola wrote:
It's been two weeks since our last dev response.

Well, guys, if you're done revising the HACs, can we fly them on TQ already? I'm ready to see them perform in ACTUAL internet spaceships, as opposed to the test server. :)


They're probably still getting metrics/feedback from the test server.
To mare
Advanced Technology
#2460 - 2013-08-24 22:31:13 UTC
Jeffrey Donovan wrote:
why cant the cerbus have the same bonus as the hookbill?
20% bonus to Kinetic missile damage, 10% bonus to EM, Explosive, and Thermal missile damage
10% bonus to Missile velocity


or atleast

10% bonus to Kinetic missile damage, 5% bonus to EM, Explosive, and Thermal missile damage

i dont know...
maybe for the same reason the vaga dont have a +25% to projectile damage like the firetail