Ships & Modules

This is an itch for me. From what I've heard, the reasoning to attach these to this line of ships was purely comical from CCPs side.

But I feel like they are really toxic and misleading and would be up for their removal entirely, replacing them with something more suited for the role.

I'm aware that some "combat" fits exist, but it doesn't seem like these bonuses do them any merit.

Philosophy:
1)If you are fighting other cov ops in exploration sites, quite frankly you don't need those bonuses, you would pretty much kill them equally as fast due to random damage, and if not, its not like you are in a hurry.

2)For general fights, it has been repeated time and time again that these are not combat ships. When fitted for scouting and probing, you only really get 1 gun at most, doing a measly 30-50 DPS. When fit for damage, bar lacking any reasonable defense beyond a DCU II (unless you get a ton of fitting mods) the DPS is still frequently below 100.

To get on killmails, the damage bonuses are not needed.
To do any sort of solo combat, the DPS bonuses are not enough.
To do any ganking with a group, the damage bonuses are arguably desirable, but still not necessary.

Does anyone feel like these should be given a look and decided with certainty if there is any intention to put the cloaky explorers on some damage side, or just remove those bonuses entirely?

Why change anything? Cos it feels like if the role was purely for scouting (sticking an expanded launcher and using combat probes), then it is very narrow, shallow and has a high entry bar to be any good.

Sounds like an empty post.

I appreciate good design. I just think there is potential to make them interesting for gangs (of cov ops), with their use expanded beyond "let me get my scanning alt" and "Click here to find out how to (randomly) make 300mill an hour"

Yeah

This video in particular shows their potential
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97DjUru5Xw0

But the Helios is unlikely to be cloakable in this case, and the rest are lackluster and primarily hunt MWD, scram turret ships.

Just saying that outside of gimmicky encounters these bonuses don't do much, and to pilot one in a group they conflict with the role of the ship.

If you probe for a group, tackle or EWAR will get you on the kill and having guns is pointless. If fitting for damage, assuming you expect to not be targeted at all, you won't be probing, which is a space wasted which could have been used for a dedicated DD.

TL;DR, combat bonuses are cute but irrelevant. The options are to emphasize (not necessarily to improve) or replace.

Debatable until it actually happens.

They could be replaced for something that's useful for scanning and actually being covert related. More warp speed or acceleration, higher speed when cloaked, faster scans, etc.

If they are kept combat, they could be made so that you either fit for some damage, or fit for no damage, but in either case you don't do a half assed job with one lousy turret and further yet lousy bonuses.

cov op frigs could use a little help in fitting stats departement and perhaps give each of them 1 more highslot and a little bigger drone bay like their t1 cousins wich can fight off a manticore

I think the highslots are limiting on purpose - if they had 1 more, majority of Cov Ops frigs would have probe, cloak, and 2 kinds of cynos.

If the intention is to retain some of their combat bonuses, I think they should just get a role bonus of 100% to turret/missile/drone damage (whatever is relevant to the particular ship) as well as a removal of 1 hardpoint. With this, you either have equivalent 2 guns, or no guns, but in any case you don't do a half assed job - you either deal some, somewhat weak, but still noticeable damage (and lethal when in groups), or you focus entirely on cloaking, probing, cynoing.


This also alleviates some of the PG/CPU limits.

I don't think focusing on cargo/ship scanners will do the ship role any good, not that it's not a valid role, just that it doesn't do anything to take the ship class out of the "let me get my alt to do this" area. Nobody would really need to fly this class of ships as a primary focus and neither would it be appreciated.

Ship scanners are used, but usually by combat ships.