Test Server Feedback

Yeah that is what I've noticed. Even if you approach a Hurricane and are already locked from 50,000m. Heavily tanked assault frigates are able to survive the approach just fine. I suggest pilots attempt to also orbit a Hurricane with a heavly tanked assault frigate @ 24 or 28,000m (heat), with a warp disruptor. On average, most assault frigates are able to do this for 1min, 30 seconds. Do the same with any interceptor and compare.

Use Cynabal, Vagabond, Hurricane, Drake and Ruptures. Go beyond that and compare interceptors and assault frigates against 2 of these ships @ once.

The fact they're more of them are able to do this with these changes is great! However, Interceptors (which is my point)...

You won't get a consensus. Any thread on AFs- some will say no change needed; ignoring ships like the Retribution and Enyo. Others will advocate a fourth bonus that shifts like the wind. Or a role bonus. Or a logistics role FFS. I'd honestly be happy with a 5-3-3 Enyo with the increased damage bonus. Or the wolf and jag with a tracking bonus. But start a thread asking for just that and the same faces will appear shouting OP!

I'm not arguing about all the possible bonuses that could be, Zarnak. I'm arguing that the package as presented is extreme overkill and will be detrimental to game balance as a whole. At the absolute minimum, the extra slot needs to go.

-Liang

Based on Prom just ripping me a very large painful one, 3 times in a row, the Ishkur.

Naomi Knight is one of my characters = )

Okay lots of chatter to catch up on...

@Anja

When it comes to frigate 1v1s or similar, that may very well be the case. Ship types and fits play a huge role.
However when it comes to larger fights or targets player skills will still be needed and you can't win a fight just by hitting F1-5

@Suleiman
The BattleHelios you speak of was developed by my ex-corp of 2+years.
So yes, I know just how devastating the ship can be. The thing is, those have a TINY engagement list, and like the Hawk, are swatted out without too much trouble.

Removing the mid slot would limit the Hawk to only engaging frigates. Your tank wouldn't be stable enough to handle larger targets, and you wouldn't have any range control if you decided to tank (like it is on TQ).

@Alex
Everything you said about the AFs would be true if they were simply limited to killing other frigates.
Once you step up to Cruisers those truths fade away, some more than others.
I'm not gonna go over the advantages of the slots for each ship, since I think myself or someone has said it before
If you really want to know what I think the slots do for each ship, fire me an eve mail

@Vimsy
AFs don't really need a propulsion mod to stay under the guns of larger targets.
Some work better than others in this respect, but the ships that don't have other strengths that outweigh.

@Cosmic
There's no argument, right now on TQ there is absolutely no need to fly an Enyo over an Ishkur. At all.
Heck, up until the Crucible patch the Ishkur was even faster than the Enyo even though it had a web to start with.
The Ishkur still remains a strong ship because of it's damage application. YES you can kill the drones (they're a bit tougher now), but you can't devalue its ability to choose its damage type. You would never bring an Enyo to fight something like a Harpy because the Ishkur has far better odds in damage application as well as fleet utility.

And by relation of the topic, the Enyo/Wolf matchup is pretty damn close. Unless said fight begins from scram range, the fight is usually in the Wolfs favour.

@Zircon
In regard to #2, if a nano cruiser is dropped on by any quick high dps ship, AF or otherwise, it's going to die in short order.
You've just described something that happens on a day to day basis that wouldn't change with this boost.

As for point #3, I was referring to nanocanes. I felt that if I had omitted them someone would of corrected me
A gang of AFs, no matter how much better they become after this boost, is always going to be less threatening than a gang of cruisers or battlecruisers. The reason being is that they are still frigates and they can still die to the same things. That permanent reduction of threat is a big big deal.

For #4, I have no idea what they would do to the lower tier cruisers. For the most part, I think they have poor fitting which prevents them from doing anything worthwhile. Their actual abilities, layouts, and bonuses aren't too terrible for the most part.

@Liang
So bad
You're someone who doesn't pvp very often, let alone mass frigates, and let alone test them.
Your comments are based solely on what you think they can do, not what they can actually do.
Go and try them out and realize how hilarious everything you just said is.

And in regard to your video;
You didn't actually showcase anything that AFs do better than any other ship. All you did was bait people into a fight, then drop the hard hitters on them at which point they typically stopped shooting at the frigates
And nice work using an Arbitrator vs some turret ships. I'm sure he was hitting them just fine without that, right

@placeholder
Don't be so foolish, plenty of pilots don't use their ships full bonus layout.
Hell, the entire Vexor/Ishtar have a medium hybrid damage bonus that I bet very few people actually use outside of their niche of ganking or plexing. Just because a ship gets a bonus doesn't mean you need to use it and the fact that it's there doesn't mean it isn't useful for something.

You're telling me that combat inties with only ABs are useful outside of Empire, and that the sig bonus on that ship is stupid.
You're also telling me that the bubbling abilities of the Interdictor classes make those ships useless in Empire
You're also telling me that BlOps are useless in Empire because there are no cynojammed systems for them to breach.

For one, the Harbinger didn't start shooting at you until you were in close orbit under his guns.
He's not going to hit you there at all, even if lasers didn't already have horrible tracking.

I hate to break it to you, but escaping a dual neut cane has more to do with said cane being bad, rather than some expert piloting by you.

As I said earlier, you aren't doing much other than tackle the targets. Another Ares would have been a better choice to bring to those fights rather than your AF. You had heavy damage dealers in every fight except for the one with the Arbitrator, at which point those turret ships weren't doing anything anyways. And to hammer it down even more, the video is what we call a *gank* video. It's what the Heretics do. Why the hell do you think I left? I got tired of blobbing my enemies to death, and hoping that maybe once we'd get a fight worth working for.

And as I've said repeatedly, prove that the extra slot makes said ships overpowered.
Except for the Harpy, they don't tank significantly more than they already can (less than TQ in the Hawks case, actually).
And except for the currently low damage rocket ships, they aren't dealing significantly higher damage without some sacrifice.

All frigates have high scan resolution, superior speed, and superior agility, with great acceleration as a By-product. Compared to all other class of ships. With-in their class it's not a big deal.

Currently, even if a Interceptor pilot were approaching a battle-cruiser or cruiser @ a angle. A battle-cruiser Set-up with 2 tracking enhancers and using pulse lasers or auto-cannons. That Interceptor Pilot would not be able to induce enough transversal to the point where the Interceptor would not take significant damage. When in a sustained orbit (20,000m or more). You still cannot not maintain enough transversal against a moving target. To the point where you are not taking any damage. Provided the Target is using modules above. Mind you, most Interceptors are paper thin.

The new assault frigates would be able to do the same (@ 15 - 17,000m). However, with significantly more ability to soak incoming damage. With the Option to just go into warp scrambler range and disable the targets propulsion module (micro warp drive). Could possibly just destroy the target alone. In situations where you are engaging multiple targets. A assault frigate becomes alot more survivable. Any frigate can tackle a single ship for their fleet to gank. In situations where there are multiple ships able to project damage. Interceptors get FLY SWATTED (Instant).

Assault frigates will outperform Interceptors because they're more survivable @ Interceptor engagement ranges. The extra range provided by some Interceptors are not very useful. Unless the target cannot project damage @ that range. then most any frigate with a warp disruptor will do. The closer you're to a target. The more you induce transversal. Moving away from a general shield-Hurricane set-up. Would just help that pilot track a Interceptor better.

Not hard to understand. You're giving assault frigates Interceptor like bonuses. With the effective hit-points of a cruiser.

Who wouldn't want to fly a DEIMOS or Vagabond, with the signature and velocity of a frigate. Still being able to have the effective hit-points of a cruiser. Not to mention a nice Interceptor like bonus to reduce signature radius of micro-warp drive. Cool, now a logistic ship will be able to lock these new interceptors. Instead of them just exploding to a swift breeze (Dramatic lol).


-proxyyyy

AF's are a go. they've already posted them as a ready feature on the Crucible 1.1 page.

Overall, I have to say, I like the work Tallest is doing. I just hope he buffs medium rails soon, fixes a few ship bonuses, and Gall should be good to go.

WOOT WOOT!




Party is over folks. Everyone move along.

Nothing to see here.

Move along.



EDIT:

This thread got an avg. of ~85.5 posts per day.

Fun facts are fun.