EVE General Discussion

I know not everything is set in stone and that is the reason for this post.

Based on the skills they gave so far Gallente alphas looks like they will be either more powerful, or much more powerful than all the other alphas.

First there is the issue of drone skills. Gallente and Amarr both have much better drone skills than minmatar or caldari alphas. Caldari and minmatar have gun and missile skills. Which seems balanced unless you play eve. People rarely if ever use both guns and missiles on the same ship. But they almost always use both guns and drones. When you look at a gnosis this means Amarr and Gallente will have about 2xs the dps as caldari or minmatar. This is a huge disparity.

Second is the gallente industrial skill. CCP has not said what will happen with pi. If you have an omega clone set up multiple pi systems what happens when your subscription lapses? CCP has not directly answered this but they have given some vague notions that they may leave them running. If you have ever tried to extract pi skills you know ccp doesn't really have a handle on what pi you have running. Ok so *if* they allow pi to continue to be farmed (or can't prevent it for technical reasons) then the epithal will be a huge benefit for gallente.

I started my characters years ago with the assurance that race didn't matter. The 2 things I mention above matter allot.

What can be done? Lots of things.

Eg.,
1) allow characters to choose the racial skills they want as an alpha. or

2) give all races the same drone bonuses (either the lower ones or the better ones whatever)

3) Don't allow alphas to continue pi set ups that only omegas can start. or

4) if you do then at least let all races have access to the epithal.

There are plenty of other things that can address these problems but I just want to make sure ccp is ahead of the game on this.

edit: feel free to mention in this thread any other race imbalance issues.

I'll address this because it is the most apparently relevant argument. The problem here is that ships are balanced on a per-ship basis. So it doesn't matter that an amarr or gallante ship has both drones and guns where a caldari or minnie equivilant ship will have only one system. The role equivalent ships will be balanced, or if not then it is the SHIPS that will need to be balanced. I was actually pretty impressed with the skill lineup, of course I like drone boats too. The alpha skills are to enable alpha pilots to fly the racial ships effectively, and it looks like a pretty good lineup atm.

Also, I don't think alphas can fly pirate ships. I thought it said that somewhere. So no gnosis, and gnosis is a BC and again, no BC for alphas. Cruiser and below only. Racial ships only. So Amarr alpha can only fly Amarr frigates, dessies, and cruisers.

2> I hate PI and don't really care.

Interesting. One thing to keep in mind though, the price of the Gnosis is likely to shoot up if it becomes the go-to ship for alphas. Most omegas will start stocking them in the hanger for when they go alpha.

It seem better to me to call for an Alpha Gnosis restriction than a skill restriction that would impare a pilot's ability to fly her race's ships effectively.

Without planetology skill, you're going to have a very hard time finding out where to put your extractors.