Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Agreed. I pay 400 for a stratios because it's a little different to your run-of-the-mill covert T3 and does roughly the same job for roughly the same money.

I pay 150m for an astero because it can do something no other covert frigate can do - survive once it's tackled something.

What would I pay for a Nestor? It's a drone boat with low mobility and no range bonuses for sentries. It's not much use for RR unless in a smal gang where it can pre-lock friendlies, but those friendlies better stay very close... If the fight moves 20km away then you can forget getting RR from this ship.

You can spider tank it, but again limited mobility and drone range means that almost any fleet can simply evade and either move on, reinforce or reship and come back in deadly force.

The rattlesnake is often mentioned and it's an excellent, tough ship that's excellent and finishing off what a tackling cruiser starts.

The Nestor is not as good in the same role.

I have always maintained that for me the Nestor's clearing price is 450m. On reflection, that's too high - it's not as valuable as a stratios to me - and I am someone who tries to think of creative ways to use ships that no-one likes.

Amarr bonus: 100% bonus to the effect radius of smartbombs per level
Gallente Bonus: 50% bonus to RoF of FoF missiles.

Now put them in a spider-tanked blob...

:-)

No other RR concept has the range a Nestor does. So in that it is the best ship in the game for RR.
(other than Logistics Ships of course)
Drone Range can exceed 100K+57K Falloff, so I guess ya ships can run away.
Rattler is better in a solo setting, in a fleet setting Nestor dumps all over it.

You haven't thought that far out of the box if you think any of the above 3 points are incorrect.

I like a challenge as much as the next man.

In order to use the drone range you mention, you must fit 4x DLA II to either ship. This leaves 3 slots for RR on the nestor and 2 on rattlesnake.

Put 4 hardeners a DCII and a DDA on the nestor. Mid slots will need some cap boosters and then whatever else you need (omnis, target painters [but useless at that range], ecm [ditto])

Put 4 specific resists an and adapative on the rattlesnake, a couple of resist rigs , DC II, 3 DDAs and 2 expanded cargo holds (for cap boosters) on the rattlesnake.

The rattlesnake tanks 75% of what the nestor tanks per repping partner (1838 vs 2460 - I have used overheated hardeners since that's what you would do if you were primary).

The rattlesnake delivers 657dps compared to the nestor's 484 - 135%. Inverting that, the nestor delivers 73% of the rattlesnake's damage.

The rattlesnake can survive a longer engagement, the nestor more short term punishment. The rattlesnake has 40% more EHP.

The rattlesnake will deliver more damage to enemies which will (hopefully) reduce the incoming dps.

To me they seem roughly equivalent in the role of long range RR sniper.

The nestor has a 16.8km rep range, the rattlesnake 8.4km. Is there a practical difference? I suppose if you positioned your nestors very carefully in a sphere of 8km radius you could argue that this structure is less vulnerable to bombing runs, but it's a stretch.

How much further out of the box do you suggest I think?

Again, the only reason to fly a Nestor for the time being is because...everyone wants to kill one.

Fit as bait, have some friends around and lose it in style..

So, rather then just dumping my Nestor directly on the market, I've been flying it when my Corp is doing missions together. I know its expensive, and far from optimal, but we're a high sec corp and I'm doing it for fun.

You can criticize me all you want, but I thought I should give some feedback based on my experiences and the Nestor's current stats, instead of asking for arbitrary changes.

A little background: I normally use a Sentry Domi to run level 4, so I tried to place a similar fit on my Nestor. It's far from an optimal setup, but I'm able to do a decent job cleaning up smaller ships quickly, while my corp mates are dealing with the battleships.

Here is the setup I was using:

---

High:
Salvager x2
Drone Link Aug. x3
Med Remote Armor Rep x2 (Planning on swapping one for hull rep - for drones)

Med:
OmniDirectional Tracking Link I x3 (2x Distance, 1x Tracking Speed)
Sensor Booster I (Target Distance)
Micro Jump Drive
100mn Afterburner II

Low:
Drone Damage Amp II x3
Reactive Armor
DCU II
Large Armor Rep II

Rigs:
Sentry Drone Damage
Drone Optimal Range
Explosive Armor

---

Gameplay:

I was just messing around, and I'm not an expert on how to balance ships, but after playing with the Nestor for awhile a few things stood out to me.

Despite having a very low mass, the Nestor is a huge model compared to most other battleships and it feels sluggish. Since the TTA and TTW are still better then my Domi it may be a perception thing, but I feel like the ship is moving and reacting slower then it should. Why is it so large for a low mass exploration ship?

The Amarr and Gallente race bonuses seem good, but the role bonuses are a mess. I tried to fit the Nestor to chase down some Anomaly sites as a test but between the slow movement and alignment time (compared to a cruiser or frigate), I ended up giving up after a few minutes. The probe bonuses can be useful occasionally, but I'm not sure they'd be worth it without the Hacking bonuses, and those NEED to go. The provide a completely unrealistic expectation for what this ship can/should be doing.

The Laser Optimal Range and Remote Rep bonuses seem alright on paper, but they caused me a number of headaches when fitting. The problem is the bonuses really don't mix and match very well. Sure they give you options, but both are high slot modules that require a fair amount of cap. I found that when using both, neither was really effective. I don't know if this is a real issue of not, but it seems like most ships only have bonuses to 1 high slot, 1 mid slot, and/or 1 low slot module so they don't send conflicting signals about the ship's purpose.

Model:

The model is nice, but after awhile a few parts REALLY started to bug me.

Both the ring and the stabilizer fins give the Nestor a unique look, but the size and positioning just give it a feeling of unwieldiness. It feels like the ring was moved forward just to give it a different look than the Astro and Strat, and then the stabilizers added so the ring didn't look completely out of place.

For me this really becomes pronounced when the Nestor is in warp, or using propulsion mods. There are a set of engines at the end of the stabilizers which are so far from the main hull it looks like they should snap the stabilizers right off.

It's not a terrible design, but I REALLY wish the ring and stabilizer were less pronounced. They probably could have been 20-50% closer to the hull without sacrificing much detail, and still left it with the unique shape.

The other thing, as I mentioned above, is that the model is relatively big. It might have been forced perspective, but when I compared the size to my corp mate's Apocalypse the Nestor looks like it has the same length and double the width. It seems strange when both ships are supposed to have similar volumes.

Overall:

I don't think the Nestor is a bad ship, it definitely has it's advantages and I enjoyed playing with it, but the lack of focus REALLY hurts it. The role bonuses scream 'You should do this!', but even after giving it the benefit of the doubt and testing a few different scenarios I usually found myself asking 'Why should I do this?'.

That's the real problem with the Nestor right now, it gives you the option to fill a number of different roles, but doesn't give you a single reason WHY you should fit any of them. Thankfully, it has pretty solid base stats, and between the drone bonuses from Gallente and the Armor bonuses from Amarr, it's a solid ship without them. It's just a shame that I seemed to get the best performance out of the Nestor when I almost completely ignored the Role bonuses.

I think of Nestor.
Visually looks as a medical crutch for patients with cerebral paralysis.
It is enough of it that I didn't pilot them.

Do the new changes justify the current cost?

You will have to decide that for yourself. I have extremely little interest in speculating about current cost-benefits when there's plenty of reason to believe that the current cost will not hold indefinitely. Only time will tell where the market price eventually settles, but if we look at pirate faction BPC drops as precedent then we should concede at least the possibility of significant price reduction.

For my part, the changes address many (though not all) of the concerns I highlighted in my earlier comparison of Nestors, logis, and carriers. The increases to cap life and rep range are significant and the scan resolution buff somewhat narrows the lock time edge that logis have (and puts the Nestor greatly ahead of non-triage carriers for lock time, which was one key point of my comparison). The changes put it in a healthier place, and I'm glad to see a response to these particular concerns, at least. Probably there are some other changes it could do with, and possibly these changes don't go far enough; I haven't had enough time to play around with the new version to decide for myself. But I am glad to see that the ship hasn't been abandoned entirely.