Test Server Feedback

Tried the new scouts on sisi with some friend using vindi's and machs, not even remotely worth the effort due to the jams. You really need to tweak the sites so they can actually be run in 2-3 minutes.

Why does CCP even bother to post feedback threads? It's pretty clear they don't give two craps about actual feedback. Everyone is saying the rewards suck and there's way too much jamming for anyone to bother, but the response is basically "who cares, we're launching pretty much how it was when we started". And they wonder why most people don't bother testing on SiSi.

Today, we formed a fleet to test the scout sites. As mentioned before, we encountered a lot of jamming, paired with a lot of EHP, which made the sites take a long time.

Fleet setup:
3x Nightmare
1x Rokh
1x Vindicator
1x Scimitar

You can see here that we were heavy on grid, also, we noticed that shortrange dps isn't exactly useful, so my next test will be 4 sniper ships and one logi, maybe even spidertanking battleships.

About the sites...:

Distress Beacon:
So many Arnons in the second and third wave. Their EHP is too high for a small gang. Honestly, the same goes for the other cruisers, the sniper cruisers die pretty quickly, but our primary was on the Arnons, since we didn't like losing about 20% of our DPS. Also, it seems that some of the bombers got lost, however, 5 of these would be a better spawn than 4 Arnons.

Forward Reconnaisance Outpost:
First wave was a bit light, so we managed to kill them quite fast, however, the Antems pulled range, which wasn't too much of a problem for our Nightmares, however, it's a notable difference from Vanguard sites.
The second wave brought us a Niarja and three Arnons, which was quite a pain, but we managed to kill them. Eventually. The next wave was an Orkashu Myelen (the Niarja's little brother) and another 4 Arnons, supported by three Mara's. Needless to say, this took a while. The fourth wave brought us another four Arnons, you might start thinking that Sansha Kuvakei wants to get rid of the civilians that were taken from Arnon.

Propaganda Cluster:
We decided to contest a Paladin and Nightmare who were shooting at Sansha's in this site, so when we landed the first wave was almost dead. We got to shoot at Uitra's, Mara's, Arnons, Vylades, a Parachiya, a few Raa Thalamus's and some Romi's to top it off. This took quite a lot of time, so after this we decided to get ourselves another logi and run Vanguard sites instead. We were all kinda burned out on shooting Arnons.

Overall:
Please, remove the Arnons from the sites, replace them with a few Niarja's and bring in more frigates instead of heavy tanked cruisers. This should make it more fun and probably more interesting to run sites. Using the "little brothers" of the VG/AS/HQ npcs (Orkashu Myelen instead of Niarja Myelen, Raa Thalamus/Romi Thalamus) is a good thing in my opinion. If these sites are supposed to show how other incursion sites are, drop the Arnons. You don't get jammed for a few minutes in VG's/HQ's, since your DPS will take out the targets in a pretty short time.

tl;dr: Remove Arnons, bring in more frigs, ECM isn't bad, unless it's tanky ECM (these Arnons outtank my Blackbird).

There used to be a complete post here, then I clicked "post" and it was gone :(

EDIT: I compared two waves in scout sites to a heavy spawn upon warpin in a Nation Mining Colony (Vanguard site). Both scout site waves had over 1 million EHP, while the NMC had just over 600k EHP. If the Vylades are removed from this the mentioned waves still have between 400k and 600k EHP. Suggestion: Remove the kiting cruisers, bring more frigates. Thank you for your time.

EDIT2: Thanks Kendra Zane for mentioning going back and hoping my browser still had the text saved!




I did not see this reply. Anyways, gives me something new to comment on.

Currently, scout sites on TQ are still under-utilised. They will stay under-utilised, since you only need to add two logi's to a scout fleet and you can fly a non-efficient VG fleet which will make more than a scout fleet. Grinding through mountains of EHP is no fun, especially if one of your DPS ships is jammed out.

Let me compare a wave in a scout site to the highest EHP wave in vanguard sites. All Sansha information was taken from this site. The Vanguard site is a Nation Mining Colony with a heavy spawn on warpin (5 Romi's, one Mara, and some frigates);
5x Romi: ±105.500 EHP/ship - 527.500 EHP
1x Mara: ±29.500 EHP
Assorted frigates (Tama's, Eysturs): Let's go with 100k EHP, we're talking about a heavy spawn here and I'm trying to prove a point.
That gives us just over 650k EHP to grind through, which doesn't take us too long, since all these ships (except the Mara) are brawlers which will orbit at max 18 kilometers.


Now, let's take a look at a regular wave in one of the scout sites, Propaganda Cluster, third wave (information is probably incorrect, but if it's listed, it was there):
1x Lirsautton: No more than 20k EHP (don't have it written down here, also, what the hell
3x Arnon: 65.400 EHP/ship - 196.200 EHP
3x Vylade: 274.900 EHP/ship - 824.700 EHP
1x Antem: 87.700 EHP
1x Uitra: 132.000 EHP
1x Youl: I'll ignore this one, it's almost like it's made of paper
This brings us to a total of 1.260.600 EHP. Yes. That's pretty close to twice the EHP in a heavy first wave in a NMC, but... You have about half the DPS if you're going with spidertanking battleships, since one of your ships will be jammed out till the final Arnon drops. Also, all cruisers, except for the bomber, orbit at medium to long range, which makes it a pain to kill these ships.

Wait, that's not fair! This is an exception!

I present to you, the second wave of the Distress Beacon:
1x Lirsautton: Assume 20k EHP
4x Arnon: 65.400 EHP/ship, 261.600 EHP
2x Uitra: 132.000 EHP/ship, 264.000 EHP
2x Vylade: 274.900 EHP/ship, 549.800 EHP
1x Youl. Lol.
... for a total of 1.095.400 EHP. And again, all ships orbit at medium to long range, closest range is the Uitra, which orbits at 30 kilometers.

Ok, ok, we'll just remove the Vylades from the scout sites...

Propaganda Cluster, wave three: 435.900 EHP.
Distress Beacon, wave two: 545.600 EHP.
Both sites will still take ages. Again, I'd like to suggest using more frigates instead of high EHP kiting cruisers. Isn't the difficulty of incursions supposed to be scout>vanguard>assault>headquarters?

Agreed. Replacing the Arnons with Niarja's and the Vylades with Romis would already help a lot (get the EHP down). Anyways, we'll see if we're listen at when the next release comes out

there is the possibility this is exactly what was intended, to keep a full vanguard team busy.

Well you actually can take the 5 ships, fly VGs with them(4+1) and do the VG sites just as fast for 3 times the payout. Overall the jamming, EHP and the requirement of sniper, or at least have medium range dps setups is ridiculous(not a single VG site needs that). Beside it being a wasted opportunity to give smaller hulls a playground and use a bit of movement and hacking/re spawns/multi objectives on grid to favour smaller hulls compared to larger ones they are not even worth running in a expensive VG setup, leave alone being a easier entry option for newer players or small corps.

While there will be always Vanguard sites, there can be a issue of to many fleets try to run them, reduce every system to 2-3 sites what requires a lot of waiting, switching the systems and contests. Another thing is that you need a capable VG contest FC, not only being experienced enough with contests on grid, but that can also predict the movement of other fleets, has a eye on the other fleets and free sites in the system and know a lot about fleet composition of the other fleets to know what site will be most likely free. This kind of FC is normally a fairly limited resource for most channels, since that skills have to be acquired by doing a lot of VGs under such conditions, what not every channel does and requires a lot more dedication and patience than you will see on most newer FCs. Normally this solves itself by people upgrading her VG fleets into AS or the big channels start HQ fleet, what draws enough people out. Another thing is that this is mostly limited to the 12-18.00 TZ when there are a lot of IS boxing fleets around(currently more than real player fleets most of the time), that take a break, do something else in eve or go afk after 18.00.

While it is exhausting to run VGs as FC under such conditions(because it requires a lot more scouting and good timing if you only have 5-6 dps on grid because your ability to contest with that is close to zero), Scout sites would only pay 30M a hour, I can't scale the fleet like in VG, because doing the sites with only 1-2 dps would take forever by the jamming and I can't put 1-2 more people on grid with literally the same ISK/h to upgrade to AS or split into 2 VG fleets once you have enough. Overall in its current form it isn't a alternative for channels, what I don't even think is so bad, because if it would it would fill up with IS Boxers fairly quick otherwise. However the site type is also not really useful to anybody else, it doesn't provide a option for new players or small corps, it doesn't provide a playground for smaller hulls that are not likely to get on grid with most channels in bigger sites and what is rather sad in my opinion.

Ok I am very disappointed in the new scout sites. Before they were too easy and you got nothing from them but now you get jammed no matter what. Making it useless. I have been working on many different fits on the test server but none work. I created a loki with 60 ladar strength and it was jammed the moment I entered the site. I was then permajammed till i decided to warp out. No one will run these sites because they are such a pain. In all honest CCP just needs to cut out the jams. Their health is enough to make sure not many people run them. The isk payout is still too low to care. In my opinion it was a waste of time changing the scout sites.

tl;dr: Checked out scout sites, still broken.

I haven't posted a long reply for a while, so here we go. Grab yourself a drink before you continue reading.

After running a couple of HQ sites on my new incursion alt I decided to start a fleet with my own community, however, we didn't get enough people for a VG fleet, so, we decided to run a few scout sites, for science.

Fleet setup:
2x Artillery Machariel
1x Autocannon Machariel
1x Blaster Vindicator (refitted to railguns at some point, you'll understand when I tell you)
1x Railgun Tengu (joined later)

Employed tactic:
Warp to the beacon at zero, shoot everything in sight. Primary jams, then logi, then all others.

First site - Forward Reconnaissance Outpost:
At the warpin of our very first site we landed on a grid with the following NPCs:

• 1 Antem
• 5 Arnons
• 3 Maras

988 dps, 503.2k EHP, 5 jammers, 3 logi

With almost 1k dps (988), over 500k EHP (503.2k) and the aforementioned EWAR on grid I decided to nope out.

Second site - Forward Reconnaissance Outpost:
Initial wave:

• 1 Niarja
• 3 Maras

0 dps, 92.3k EHP, 1 jammer, 3 logi's

We quickly blapped the Niarja and spent a little more time on the spidertanking Maras (the RR is actually working now, yay?)

First reinforcement wave:

• 2 Niarjas
• 1 Jel
• 1 Antem

216 dps, 98.5k EHP, 2 jammers

This wave wasn't too hard either, our shortrange dps quickly killed the frigates while the snipers focused on the Antem.

Second reinforcement wave:

• 2 Niarjas
• 1 Jel
• 1 Antem
• 1 Arnon
• 1 Mara

380 dps, 139.4k EHP, 3 jammers, 1 logi

This wave wasn't too hard either, frigs died to our shortrange dps while the cruisers died to our snipers.

Third reinforcement wave:

• 2 Orkashu's
• 1 Jel
• 1 Eystur
• 2 Arnons
• 1 Antem
• 3 Maras

664 dps, 324.9k EHP, 4 jammers, 3 logi's

Same tactic as for the previous waves, however, the Maras were pretty efficient when it came to repping the other NPCs, which made it a lot harder to clear this wave.

Final wave:

• 1 Niarja
• 2 Orkashu's
• 2 Jels
• 2 Arnons
• 1 Antem
• 1 Mara

592 dps, 262.8k EHP, 5 jammers, 1 logi

The frigate jammers primaried the shortrange Machariel, but came within the web range of the Vindicator, o7 gf. The Arnons were again killed by the snipers.

Forward Reconnaissance Outpost time: About 20-30 minutes with 4 faction battleships and one logi. Most of the time was spent killing high EHP targets.


Third site - Propaganda Cluster:

Initial spawn:

• 1 Antem
• 2 Arnons
• 2 Maras

496 dps, 212k EHP, 2 jammers, 2 logi's

We managed to outdamage the Mara reps and quickly dispatched of the jammers, the Maras were next and the Antem was our last target, but this is where the fun starts....

First reinforcement wave:

• 1 Romi
• 1 Antem
• 1 Jel
• 2 Vylades
• 4 Maras

536 dps, 864.5k EHP, 4 logi's, 2 squad boosters

For the people who do not know the Vylades yet, they are squad boosters that give a boost in shield resistances for all other incursion Sansha ships on grid. Combining this with 4 Maras that are remote repairing they are a real pain. Did I mention that a Vylade has 275k EHP?
Anyways, we primaried a Mara, got it down to half shields, then it caught reps. We had the shortrange DPS kill the Jel (we just alphaed it) and the Romi (which took them some more time, but the snipers forced the Maras to rep eachother). After that we all started shooting the same Mara in an attempt to break the reps on it. Queue 20 minutes of frustration after which it died to armor bleed, followed by another 7 minutes of killing a second Mara. The last two Maras weren't too hard and the Vylades just took some time. However, we were almost 30 minutes in the site already. In the meantime we had the Vindicator refit to railguns to help us kill the Maras, also, our railgu joined us at the beginning of this wave.

Second reinforcement wave:

• 1 Jel
• 2 Youls
• 1 Antem
• 3 Uitras
• 1 Vylade
• 1 Mara

860 dps, 885.6k EHP, 1 logi, 1 squad booster

Another wave with RR and a squad booster, however, this time there was (fortunately) just one Mara, which died quickly to our combined fire. The short range targets were taken out quickly as well, but the sniper battle dragged on for a few more minutes.

Third reinforcement wave:

• 6 Romis

1920 dps, 633k EHP

In a Vanguard site, named Nation Mining Colony, you will encounter 5 Romis every now and then in the initial spawn. However, here you will (usually) have two logi's to rep you and up to 10 dps ships to take out the incoming cruisers. We had one logi, two artillery Machariels, one autocannon Machariel and a railgun Vindicator (the railgu bailed, he felt his sanity was at risk). By this time we were already 36 minutes into the site, we were facing a lot of DPS so I made the call to leave.

Propaganda Cluster time: 36 minutes (incomplete). We had 1 logi, 4 faction battleships and a T3 cruiser. Most of the time was spent breaking the Maras. Next time I'd like to try an ECM Scorpion to break their spidertank.

[second post incoming]