Player Features and Ideas Discussion

this has been brought up a few time but i believe it holds merit. With a plethora of t2 frigs and cruiser I feel that exploration ships would be best used under destroyers and bc's.These could work in much the same way that marauders work for mission, making exploration a gull blown profession and no longer a mini profession. I have added penalties to make them useless in pvp aside from a scout, and expanded the cargo hold as many explorers live as nomads often bringing much of what they own with them. I bring you one of each:

[Amarr Prober] (high sec, some low sec)
Hull: Coercer
Role: Exploration destroyer

Low slots: 4
Med Slots: 5
High slots: 8

Turret hardpoints: 5
drone Bandwith: 0
drone capacity: 0

cargo capacity: 510

Bonuses;

Destroyer Skill Bonus:
10% bonus to Small Energy Turret tracking speed per level
10% bonus to Small Energy Turret Capacitor usage per level

Role Bonus:
-97.5% to -100% reduced CPU need for cloaking device
-90% to -95% reduced CPU need for scan probe launchers
15% increase to scan strength of probes per level

Role Penalties:
+100% increased CPU need for electronic warfare modules
+100% increased Powergrid and Capacitor need for energy destabilizers and vampires


[Gallente Deep Space Scanner] (Low sec, null sec)

Hull: Myrmidon
Role: Exploration Battle cruiser

Low slots: 7
Mid slots: 5
High slots: 7

Turret hard points: 3
Drone Bandwith: 50
Drone Capacity: 150


Cargo Capacity: 640

Battlecruiser Skill Bonus:
5% bonus to Medium Hybrid Turret damage
7.5% bonus to Armor Repairer effectiveness per level
15% Increased drone bandwith per level

Role Bonus:
-97.5% to -100% reduced CPU need for cloaking device
-90% to -95% reduced CPU need for scan probe launchers
20% increase to scan strength of probes per level

Role Penalties:
+100% increased CPU need for electronic warfare modules
+100% increased Powergrid and Capacitor need for energy destabilizers and vampires

Not really needed. AFs, Drone Cruisers, and T3s are already amazing explorers. Also, you're giving these ships obscene probing bonuses, they would have 5% probe strength if anything (even dedicated probing frigs that do nothing else only have 10% bonus and that's a ton).

And while more cargo might be nice, the only things that take up a ton of room when you're exploring are OPEs and Radar crap drops, both of which can be safely left where they are. If you're only taking the loot that's worth taking, you can still end up with 1B of loot taking up less than 200m3 just from highsec exploration. I don't know about you, but I'm going to dock up and offload some stuff before flying around in a faction-fit cruiser with 1B in the cargo, lol.

We already have plenty of good exploring ships, and these would try to fill a hole that simply isn't there. If you haven't yet, I would suggest you try out exploration before trying to suggest changes to it (especially because it really is a fully fledged profession, not just a 'mini-profession').

I would add in that certain AFs and faction frigs make good all-in-one explorers (for highsec atleast) and the Gila and Pilgrim are also both quite good at it if fit right. Also, its easy to fit an all-in-one T3 without having to carry around much of any extra modules (well, unless you refuse to fly anywhere without a cloak that is).

I do agree that more ammo room would be nice though, lack of ammo does reduce the ability of certain ships to stay out on long exploring roams (though I will admit that I've never run out of ammo before I felt the need to dump shiny drops off at a station).