Ships & Modules

Like any other pirate or to a lesser extent faction BS, the more fleets you lose the more expensive each fleet becomes.

kin/therm bonus I quite like. Not as good as a 50% damage bonus or anything, but still 6 effective launchers with two damage choices with 8 effective drones sounds without losing the tank bonus is all pretty amazing without sounding too OP.

And I really like the 2 drones that are each as powerful as 4 regular ones (or 2.6 bonused ones). My liking for this has nothing to do with drone assist however.

We don't really know whether the RS will get 2 drones, Rise has said that the concept is flexible so we might not see exactly the same implementation as the worm.

Hell, if you view the drone change as restrictive (no range/speed/tracking bonus, chaining the ships bonus to specific drone types) we might even see a bandwidth of 75mbit for 3 200% heavies or sentries. That would put the RS to 15 effective turrets (9 drones and 6 kinetic/thermal launchers), close to the vindis' 16 or the machs' 15,67.

hello youtube...XD

Having said that, the number of applications for an RS like that would be a lot, and its a very cool concept. I really don't understand why a lot of ppl oppose the Worm changes in the balance thread right now, running the numbers makes the new Worm infinitely better than the old one.

As Curtis LeMay once said, "This is not an airplane, it's a three-ship formation".

There are advantages for utilizing the re-balanced ship in brawling, kiting and support distances, solo or gang. We will see a couple of applications for it too.

New Worm is sexy, and the haters in that balance thread hate simply for the sake of hating, along with "It's not balanced! >:O".

When confronted with, "How isn't it balanced? It's 8 effective drones, versus the typical 7.5 on usual drone boats--the percentage change is 6.67% at most.", they digress to "But it doesn't FEEL right! I want my five regular, un-pimped [and boring] drones back!" *cue more numerically unjustified belly-aching*

That aside:

New Rattlesnake with [assumed] 300% role bonus (400% effective multiplier) to mediums and heavies with 40% of the original bandwidth (125 --> 50 mbit), same in-line change as the newly slated Worm, will allow me to laugh with hysterical glee.

Hammerhead II's, here I come~

(No need to make the revamped Rattlesnake another sentry boat - we've already got the Dominix and Ishtar doing that en masse.)

oh yeah, that was the other thing, unless it specifically restricts the number of drones, you'll end up with like 20 effective warrior ii's. That's some megahelldeath right there.

Thats why I think it will only get a bonus to certain drone types.

Were are speculating of course, but here is an example. If you have 50 bandwidth and a 125 drone bay with bonuses applying to all drones, you could put out a flight of 20 effective scouts with another 80 on bay, or 20 effective hammers with another 28 on bay.

If you limit the bonus to heavies or/and sentries, you will be still able to get out 8 effective ogres or gardes with another 12 on bay, but your medium and scout drone flights will be unbonused.

The other way to view this would be to limit the number of drones you can get out each time, by essentially adding an override to the bandwidth system and hardcoding an arbitrary number (in this example, 2). I think its a little worse mechanics wise (and destroys E-war/support drones as an option for the hull which - if the Worm can be used as an example - are NOT bonused), but you would retain the bonuses to scout and medium drones.


For BSes, sentries or heavies can be counted as gun/launcher equivalents if you want to make a raw comparison about gank. For example, a Mega pulse laser II with conflag gives 61.8DPS, a garde II gives 60 DPS , and an ogre gives 63.4DPS. OF COURSE, each weapon functions differently, and each hull can have a different mix of primary and secondary weapons, and different projection and application bonuses.

Here is a table for the current pirate lineup.

Vindicator have 8 turrets with 37.5% dmg role bonus (11 effective turrets), tracking bonus, a STRONG web bonus and 125mb drone for drones
Mach have 7 turrets with 5%/lvl dmg and 25% RoF role bonus (11.67 effective turrets), falloff bonus and 100mb for drones (+good agility/speed)
Bhaal have 4 turrets with 100% dmg role bonus (8 effective turrets), web range bonus and neuting amount bonus.
NM have 4 turrets with 100%dmg role bonus and 5%lvl dmg (10 effective turrents), tracking bonus and 75mb for drones
Current RS have 4 range bonused missiles, 125MB drones with 5%/lvl dmg and 4%resist bonus

Lets then assume a sentry/heavy = 1 turret (blasters do more, artillery does less)
RS have 7.5 effective sentry + 4 effective turrets = 11.5
Vindi have 5 effective sentry + 11 effective turrets = 16
Mach have 4 effective sentry + 11.67 effective turrets = 15.67
Bhall have 3 effective sentry + 8 effective turrets = 11
NM have 3 effective sentry + 10 effective turrets = 13

I meant drone type as in scout/med/heavy/sentry. Its a catch 22 really, you either have to arbitrarily limit the number of drones per flight OR put the bonus to the heavy/sentry types only.

I think the former would be preferable, as it could be effectively communicated in a single line. The concurrent drones limit would apply to everything, the 300% bonus would apply to everything.

You're saying that you'd be unsatisifed with the RS getting buffed from 7.5 effective to 8 effective, and will only be satisfied if its buffed all the way up to 9?