Ships & Modules

I can't help but wonder if they aren't holding off on the Nighthawk because they really need to rebalance the command ship class as a whole. However, I feel like its a reasonable thing for someone to directly answer his question and show that the Nighthawk is in fact underpowered and that it is primarily because of grid.

-Liang

Being able to fit prop mod, medium cap booster and LSB without fitting mods would be nice. As it stands, you need a considerable amount of pimp to get a MSB NH up to the standards of today's EVE.

I have been saying this for years...

how do you take a t1 hull neruf its pg and make it a t2???

nighthawk has less pg than the ferox which is fine cause its a rail boat and guns do take more pg than missiles.
now it also has less pg than the drake. well the drake came in the game later on etc etc.
as it stands now the nighthawk has very low pg and you cant fit gang links on it or HAM.

I want a gank nighthawk with HAMs and buffer. its a field command ship ffs! needs enough grid for buffer+hams+link!

So! Some of you want CCP to change a ship so your shield boosting set-up is easier to set-up? I would like CCP to increase my Ruptures power grid so I can fit a 1600mm plate, mwd and 425mm auto-cannons. Cant atm and I think this ship is broken because of it.


-nerf winmatar so they don't win

No one was asking for heavy cap b00ster iirc. And it is of the same relation to NH as 1600mm plate+425mm's are to Rupture.

The problem with the Nighthawk is that just throwing grid at it to improve it for pvp is not so simple as the above observation with the Sleipnir shows, and could further imbalance it in pve. The Sleip is indeed lacking on grid when you slap 720s on it, but being as such a ship is pve it is just the usual bother to use some fitting mods or implants to get the ab and shield booster on. And for pvp it certainly does not need more grid. Conversely more grid on a NH for pvp but the NH does not need more grid for pve.

At present for another character I have I fit my nighthawk for level 4s with 2 LSE, Y-S8 ab, and 7 HML II, and all the other mods taking 1pg each bring me right in at 887/887.5. Its tank is a total snooze in pve. If I take that same fit and swap the purgers for extenders and 2 SPR for 2 PDS II, I can fit a Y- overcharged mwd inplace of the ab and permarun that mwd with 141k ehp before fleet bonuses and missile only dps of 470 (with 2 BCU) at 70km. Not bad really. Sure you are not getting the same raw dps as a sleip or abso, and you are a pure ranged damage dealer with no point, but you are getting range flexibility that those other two ships won't have.

Is one to give it more grid to fit and run a large or x-large shield booster for PVE? Aside from the fact that the level 5 capable pve tank has to be cap independant (and in this department it outshines other ships in class), I don't see what the ship gains from active tanking. Anyway, what would be the strength of such a tank with the resist bonus plus active tanking with an x-large shield booster?

As to the ganglink on these fits I think it is a misplaced argument. If you are in any kind of decent fleet you will have a Vulture or Tengu providing your shield links (similar boosters on other fleets, damnation or Legion). That last high is almos irrelevant. Liang says as much in deflecting the comment about on-grid boosting. I am a supporter of on-grid boosting but not for the reason of fitting a link on a NH or Abso etc, more for the reason of not having T3 boosters sitting at a pos or ss outperforming commands.

That we don't see NHs so often in fights is this probably more to do with the cheapness of the Drake, and the deficit of HMs in mixed fleets (people want to be applying that damage instantly to get the top damage dealer)? If HAM fits onNHs are what we are talking about with giving it +20% or more grid I would like to see that people have thought through the implications for other situations in the game that that grid would not harm.

I think Greyscale was saying these thinks in his quote. The problems with NHs in pvp may not so much be grid but much cheaper competition (the ubiquitous drake) and delayed damage (missile flight). I like his next quote, because he is displaying some concern with the strength of passive shield tanking in general. It appears that any major grid overhaul would likely coincide with some nerfing of passive shield in general.

tl:dr The NH is almost op for pve. If you strengthen grid for HAMs in pvp what effect could this have on pve? Fitting a link is sorta irrelevant.

The point is, Tengu has a much better powergrid yet it's said to be equally (im)balanced for both PvP and PvE. The same will go for NH.

omg, a wonderful XL booster at PvE NH. So what? How is that imbalanced?

Oh great forum ate my post.

Well since longer ranged missiles are easier to fit as opposed to turrets I think it's ok if one could fit 6 HML II+ LSE + Ganglink + MWD with a single fitting mod.

I'm not even sure if I would fly such a Nighthawk over my Ferox. No direct bonus to links on both ships. Usually people first shoot my buddies in their shiny Sleipnirs.

Only plus would be the better damage output and the Kaalakiota paintjob.

The bigger issue here is that CCP has always kept missile users at bay. There has been a myriad of small nerfs and tweaks to limit missile users more or less directed toward PVP. The two big ones I have noticed is:

1) Faction ships - look at them. Not a single one that is part caldari has a single missile damage (RoF included) bonus to it. The one that you would think would be a great candidate for a missile damage bonus would be the guristas ships, they are modeled after the caldari ships, but alas, have bonuses to drones, which need I remind you can be destroyed and thus severely weakening the ship during a fight.

2) The Naga - I know that it never hit TQ so was never 'officially' nerfed, but you can see the Devs thought process in its evolution to what the Naga will be once Crucible hits TQ. When it was first on Sisi, it had missiles and hybrids but no damage mods for missiles... Then they removed missiles altogether. We had a fairly large outcry on the forums to bring missiles back. However, look at the Naga now and see what its using.**

So, as you can see, CCP tries to keep missile users (mainly pvp users) down. Some say its because of lag or missiles are easy mode.. whatever. Its blatantly obvious its happening.


**I agree with the changes to the naga however. I would love to have the Naga a missile ship, but giving the application these ships are being designed for, hybrids just make sense.

+1

FIX THIS CCP