Player Features and Ideas Discussion

So, we all know that there aren't any real pirate faction missile ships. It's been talked about before, and I think Mordu's Legion would be an excellent match for the role: they already have a nicely fleshed-out story to them, and they'd be really fun to see getting some attention finally.

The first thing to discuss is the racial bonuses- Mordu's is technically a caldari/gallente mix, but I think it'd be acceptable to say that they ,"while composed mainly of ex-residents of the gallente federation and caldari state, Mordu's Legion ships prefer the advantages of missile combat, and therefore incorporated systems designed for minmatar ships into their hulls."

They'd be Caldari/Minmatar (caldari as main type, background), and would be both highly agile and speedy, as well as missile users and shield tanked.

Their ships could have bonuses for missiles (obviously), target painters, and maybe some sort of reduction to microwarp drive signature radius penalty, to make them able to speed around more effectively.

I named the frigate, cruiser, and battleship "Hourglass", "Metronome", and "Pendulum" respectively. The names sounded.. right to me. Especially "Pendulum". Time is an important force, no matter how you look at it- the time in an hourglass may seem short, but ignore it and it'll pass in a flash without you even noticing; the metronome's ticking is rhythmic and steady, keeping track and giving a perfect feel of time; a pendulum is a heavy, powerful device that pushes forward without stopping, and pulls time along with it. Sorry for the weird naming rant, I just wanted to explain myself somehow.

The ships would use the pattern the current Mordu's Legion rats have.

I have two (well, three) ideas for an additional, new, unique type of bonus for Mordus ships that would involve drones- one for shield rep drones, one for ewar drones (imagined after reading comment 1)
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Idea 1: Make use of shield repair drones- Mordus legion is tight-knit, with everyone respecting each other and treating each other as equals in and out of combat- they do not like to lose their own. I propose a feature in the form of a huge bonus to shield rep drones (obviously not as effective as a real logi ship) and one more strange bonus:

80% reduction to bandwidth usage of shield repair drones
150% bonus to shield repair drone effectiveness

This would make a shield rep drone use 1/5 of the bandwidth it would normally, so see it this way: 5 small shield repair drones would take 5 mbit/sec, but still take up 25m3 in the drone bay. This could allow mordus ships to use shield drones as logistics without giving the possibility to add additional DPS to an already powerful missile ship.
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Idea 2: make use of EWar drones, in much the same fashion as the shield rep drones: reduce required bandwidth for all ewar drones by 80% and give boosts to each of them:

80% reduction to bandwidth usage of electronic warfare drones
plus either
100% bonus to velocity of electronic warfare drones
50% reduction to signature radius of electronic warfare drones
or
100% bonus to HP and effectiveness of electronic warfare drones
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Drone Bandwidths/bays would be the following:

Hourglass(Frigate):
-drone bay: 30m3
-bandwidth: 5mBit/sec

Metronome(Cruiser):
-drone bay: 60m3
-bandwidth: 10mBit/sec

Pendulum(Battleship):
-drone bay: 150m3
-bandwidth: 25mBit/sec (this would let it use a flight of normal light drones if it wanted, too)
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So here are some ideas for the basic stats of some ships:

Frigate:
Hourglass:

Caldari Frigate Skill Bonus:
10% bonus to missile velocity per skill level

Minmatar Frigate Skill Bonus:
7.5% bonus to Light Missile and Rocket rate of fire

Role Bonuses:
50% reduction to signature radius penalty of microwarp drives
80% reduction to bandwidth usage of (shield repair drones / ewar drones)
(150% bonus to shield repair drone effectiveness /
(100% bonus to velocity of electronic warfare drones+50% reduction to signature radius of ewar drones /
(100% bonus to HP and effectiveness of ewar drones)

Slots: 4H,4M,2L; 4 launchers, 0 turrets
Drones (bandwidth / bay): 5 / 30
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Cruiser:
Metronome:

Caldari Cruiser Skill Bonus:
5% bonus to Rapid Light, Heavy Assault and Heavy Missile Launcher damage per level

Minmatar Cruiser Skill Bonus:
10% bonus to Heavy Assault and Heavy Missile Launcher velocity per level

Role Bonuses:
(Same Bonuses/Options as Hourglass)

Slots: 5H,7M,3L; 5 laaunchers, 0 turrets
Drones (bandwidth / bay): 10 / 60
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Battleship:
Pendulum:

Caldari Battleship Skill Bonus:
5% bonus to Cruise Missile and Torpedo damage per level

Minmatar Battleship Skill Bonus:
10% bonus to Cruise Missile and Torpedo velocity per level

Role Bonuses:
25% reduction to Cruise Missile and Torpedo rate of fire
+(Same Bonuses/Options as Hourglass+ Metronome)

Slots: 8H,7M,5L; 8 launchers, 0 turrets
Drones (bandwidth / bay): 25 / 150
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I'm going to think of more stats, but this is what I have for now. Also, I'll be uploading sketches of how the ships look in my head later.

Tell me what you think (and CCP Rise, I'd love a look-over from you)

I do see what you're saying here- and I've just thought now that maybe instead of bonuses to shield drones, it could get that same bandwidth reduction+ a bonus for ewar drones of all types- it could make for a very fun PVP ship that way too, I imagine

Hmmm... I'll add an "option 2" to the OP for this- thanks for the input/suggestion

I don't really have a constructive comment (sorry), but any idea for more ships I welcome! I think the amount of different ships is quite limited for a massive MMO game. I would like to see T3 ships for all factions and for all sub capital ships sizes. The Tengu is at least still somewhat customizable, I want to see that with many more ships. Also T3 should have an extra rig slot and more choice in sub systems.

I feel the opposite. EVE has such a glut of ships that it's difficult to give them all value. The frigate category is easily the worst, and Cruisers/BCs/HACs are stepping on each other toes all over the place during the latest rebalance. Unless there is a solid gameplay role that is not currently filled, all that adding more ships will do is muddle things around.

I'm drawing up some pictures now- I'll be adding them to the OP later.

This is how would I design them, hopefully Fozzie is reading

Role bonus: 25 % to the rate of fire of missile launchers of the same same
Caldari bonus: 10% to the velocity of missiles of the same size (even though there are already plenty of boats with missile velocity bonus, Gurista ships are going to lose them so it's a hole that might need to be filled)
Minmatar bonus: 7.5% to either Shield Boost amount or Target Painter effectiveness

Plenty of high slots, even amount of mids and lows, so high DPS but average tank (and probably cap)

If it's Mordus I'd make them speed/ecm tanked:
Caldari Bonus: +5% Launcher RoF
Minmatar Bonus: +5% Velocity
Role Bonus: +75% ECM strength

Use basic Caldari slot layout and add the faction bonus slots to lows.

If shield-missile, they needs to have some special ability to avoid being a pointless clone of the CN ships. But nobody is interested in bonuses to repper drones, and the only ewar drones that would be used are ECM ones, which would just infuriate people.

So, either give it a special bonus to distinguish them from the CN line, or make them armour-based. If you like the ewar theme, a suitable bonus might be a hefty one to any single ewar mod, giving powerful ewar capabilities without requiring, or indeed allowing, a full rack of bonused mods, enabling a reasonable shield tank to be retained.

angels are omni tanked like minmatar actually so its 3-3 .. also serpentis can be shield tanked aswell ....
even it it were 5-1 armour ships it wouldn't justify adding even mor shield based missile ships there are simply plenty already..

You're gonna have to loosen up on that a little, at least for the BS.