Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I had this concern also. I believe a better solution would be to let players choose their ships role which gives a certain role bonus. This role bonus could be the ships "second" bonus or could be a third bonus that is role specific.

So, how would it work?

Well when you assemble a ship you are presented with 3 ship configuration choices. These are:
Combat
Attack (please rename this role to "Skirmish" or "Strike". Attack is confusing with Combat)
Bombardment

The Roles would then give a specific "racial" bonus to the ship that compliments that role. For example:

Incursus:
Current Bonuses are a 5% damage and a 10% falloff
If this ship was configured for Combat Role it could receive the proposed 10% armour repair per level bonus as it's role bonus.
If it is configured for Attack (Skirmish) Role it could receive a 10% to MWD cap penalty per level bonus
If it is configured for Bombardment it could receive a 10% falloff per level bonus (yes a double bonus but it's the only way to get a real bombardment frigate)

Essentially, the configuration of the ship would give you a role bonus like this:
Combat: Offensive or Defensive bonuses
Attack (Skirmish/Strike): Mobility Bonus
Bombardment: Range Bonus

Obviously, some ships would favour a role over another.

That the stealthbombers er all armed with siegelaunchers doesnt necessarly mean that each race should get a missilefrigate. I leave it to CCP to figure out which medium weapon system would benefit this class.

Given how schizophrenic Caldari about Hybrids vs Missiles, you don't think that it should happen on Caldari vessels? Or should they just make up their mind and pick one?

I have conflicting thoughts about either case. I guess that makes me a good Caldari.

Love the idea about the Tormentor becoming a long range frig. It needs it. My problem tho is (as it is currently) the number of mids on the Punisher. With its current load out you can get 3 guns, a vamp, a prop mod, and a fair tank, but the problem is unlike any of the other ships like it (Rifter, Merlin, Tristan) it lacks a 3rd mid. This prevents it from being a ship you can use for solo work. My suggestion is to take the new Tormentor fitting slots and swap them with the Punisher. This way the Punisher can operate with heavy tackle at close range (Which is good for its new role as brawler) This also makes more sense for the Tormentor as it doesn't need the extra mid slot for tackle it its going to be hitting people from a distance, also the extra high could be used for a neut to counter tacklers that are too close or if it was given another hard point more firepower.

Another thing for me is the Merlin, I feel that it becoming a guns only ship is perhaps not the best thing for it. With it having only 3 highs now. I think it would be not a unreasonable request to give it 3 missile hard points and the bonuses as well, because you could only effectively use one weapon system at a time. This would give the ship far better fitting potential, and would relieve new caldari players of the old question Missiles or Guns? Also the shield bonus is something that I think should stay.

So for me:
Swap the slots for the Punisher and the Tormentor
Maybe give the Tormentor a extra turret it it becomes under powered
Remove one of the Merlin's turret bonuses and let it keep the shield bonus
Give the Merlin 3 missile hard points and a launcher bonus equal to the turret bonus

The combat, attack and bombardment roles may be more restricting than helpful. It generalizes the ship designs by giving each race pretty much the same things. I noticed that the racial bonuses were very emphasized on the proposed frigates, perhaps as a way to re-introduce the racial flavours when everyone gets essentially the same ships, but that solution is more likely to limit the ways these ships can be fitted and it seems to go against the "forgiving and flexible" intention of the T1 ships.

Also, the three roles are practically the same thing. Bombardment is just combat or attack but with missile weapons, so it doesn't really count as a role, it's like having laser ships being in a role of their own. Combat ships have tanks, attack ships have speed. This can already be achieved simply by selecting the appropriate modules on a decent hull (rep-rifter, buffer-rifter, nano-rifter). While the proposed roles seem to offer diversity, in actuality, they could end up just inhibiting ships by limiting their fitting flexibility.

I am far from a frigate expert, but from what I have seen frigates are mainly used as: support to fleets (scouts and tacklers, rarely ewar), as brawlers (fast and agile damage dealers) and as non-combat utility vessels (mining, probing, cyno's, shuttles etc). The frigates already have designs for these roles, the roles doesn't really have to change. The problem is, as you have already pointed out, with the tiers. Just by lifting the restrictions of the tiers, the T1 tacklers and the subpar brawlers should become viable ships to use. Possibly with some additional tweaking for missile ship bonuses, since missiles have real problems with fast moving targets.

Changes are fun, it prevents stagnation. The ship overhaul made me excited and it is something I look forward to very much. But changing every single ship, even the working ones, will create a needlessly big workload for yourself (you mentioned limited time and resources somewhere). It also destroys much of the accumulated knowledge that players have with those particular ships and how to use them. There is very little gain in changing them. It is a lot to ask for, but couldn't you please look at the tier impaired ships first? And if you still have time afterwards, then tweak the working ones. Having the well known and well researched ships as a reference point might also be of a big help when you are fixing the broken ones.

I've often thought that caldari should just focus on missiles, as sharing the hybrid weapons with another race (an enemy at that) that uses them in a completely different fashion is complicating the fixing/balancing of hybrids.

Merely the ability to mount larger sized weaponry is in itself not a specialization. The current Tier 3 battlecruisers are also Tech 1 ships.

What makes stealthbombers specialized is not the siege launchers itself, but the combination of battleship sized firepower, the covert ops cloaking device and the bomb launcher. This makes it able to mount surprise attacks in packs, quicly overwhelm its foes and disappear into the dark afterwards. It makes it able to be inserted covertly into enemy space. Finally, Its bonuses also means that rigged for range it can achieve extreme ranges in excess of 140 km, making it a far more specialized bombardement vessel than a proposed bombardement frigate will ever be, even with cruiser sized weaponry.

I think that the only way to balance the whole frigates, you should modify the frigates by role.

1- Long range attack fregate (30 - 50 km).
Bonus to Standard missiles, Beam lasers, Small artillery or Small railgun range or damage
Bonus to Beam lasers, Small artillery or Small railgun tracking or Bonus to Standard missiles velocity.

2- Brawler frigate (0 - 15km) or Heavy Takler
Bonus to Rocket launcher, Small pulse, Small blasters or Small Autocanons damage
Bonus to Rocket launcher velocity or Bonus Small pulse, Small blasters or Small Autocanons tracking
Bonus to defence

3- Mid range combat ( 15 -30 km)
Bous to small weapon damage or range
Bonus to defence


4- Fast transport or Mining or Salvage
Bonus to cargohold and 4 low slots minimum
Bonus mining laser yield
Bonus to salvage

5- Ewar support
Bonus to remote sensor booster or target painter
Bonus to remote repairer

6- Scout /Probe
Bonus to probe strengh
Bonus to afterburner speed


And their T2 version:

1- Long range assault
With better range bonus or with the capacity to fit medium waepons....

2- Brawler + Heavy tackler
Best resists than the T1 version

3- Fast Tackler
Bonus to damage
Bonus to ship speed
Bonus to scrambler range

4- Stealth bomber

5- Ewar attack
Bonus to sensor dampening or tracking disruption

6- Reco / Cyno
Bonus to probes strengh
and the capacity to use combat probes to find cloacked ship.

7-Drone destroyer (with Smart Bombs bonus)

Just going to say one thing: INCARNA DEBACLE!!!

The CQ situation was exacerbated because only the Minmatar CQ was ready and forced into the game,
CCP apologised for this when releasing the other 3 CQ's 1 major patch later, and promised it would NOT happen again.

http://community.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&nbid=2672

Partially tweaking the Frigates whilst fine for testing does NOT constitute a full Frigate patch.

Please hold off releasing Frigate changes until they are all iterated on the test server and then every Frigate can be changed at once on the live server.

Do NOT go the incarna route of 1 CQ with 1 set of Frigate changes then wait until the next patch to do the rest.

The same then goes for Destroyers, Cruisers, Battlecruisers, etc.

Is the T3 frigate on the drawing table then?

Has anyone discussed enabling cov ops cloak for the EAF? I would also like to see another medium slot or two to make them relevant.