EVE Information Portal

No one hunts hulks in null with alpha squads. A logi or ECM boat will be able to provide plenty of protection to get a small mining fleet out.

This looks promising. Please keep us updated.

For the frigates the concepts look fine. Please give the bantam a new model as the current one is rather hauler-y. You might also want to add a logistic frigate later on to get those small remote reppers some use.

More destroyers are certainly welcome. For the cormorant I'd say the ship is fine but the chances to snipe are too difficult to arrange reliably. I'd also consider making a dedicated destroyer with a bonus to planetary bombardment rather than slapping it on existing ones. I'd see that the hull is too small to house enough systems for that many purposes and it's a chance to make another awesome hull line.

Miners were in destperate need of love. I don't think anyone would disagree with that. With the proposed changes there is now a real choice to be made between ships, which is a welcome change to the current covetor/hulk situation. And the new frigate looks just awesome. The art people really know their stuff.

Oh and the mining frigate picture has a typo in it. Topp on the top view.

CCP. I love you. That is all.

CCP Ytterbium, I've decided you need to be turned into a verb. Its the only way to describe the effect your missives have on me.

Ytterb
   [ee-terb]
verb (used with object)
1. to interrupt the quiet, rest, peace, or order of; unsettle. Resulting in mixed emotions: Rage, fear, grudging respect, and perhaps a little awe.
2. to interfere with or interrupt the status quo; challenge preconceived notions; requiring thought and discussion to interpret

You ytterb me, sir.

Had to pick up my jaw from the floor a couple of times.

On specific points:

Frigates, Heavy Payload Delivery - Interesting. I think the specifics will have to be looked at. Several of the frigates might as well be new ships as they'll be changed so much (bantam comes to mind). Hard to say yet whether there will be any holes or unbalances left, but I think it will be very interesting to find out. Most of the Frigs will need bonus and slot increases to catch up to the Rifter class Tier for their role. I find myself looking forward to it.

Will Frigs also have the Level 1 to fly and level 4 to proceed to next hull size? Makes sense from a Tiercide standpoint.

FYI - I think maybe Caldari should nudge slightly more in the drone direction. In my experience they use drones a lot and fits very well into their racial combat doctrine. Snipers without drone support are not terribly viable. Not to edge out Gallente, but just a bit more than they have now. 5m3 drone bays on the frigs would be extremely handy, larger but sub-gallente (or match in cases where they already do) as you go higher.

Barge in on me - Uh wow. I don't disagree that the barges really needed a look at but am surprised you rethought the whole concept. It took a bit to wrap my head around your new plan, but I think it will work well. Retriever/Mackinaw may need some alterations to the model to not be incomprehensible with larger holds than the Covetor/Hulk. Finally, a reason to have a Procurer. The specializations for T2 for ice and gas mining will still apply? And kudos to the art Dept and yourself on the Mining Frig. Do want. Skill requirements change is huge. Covetor down from 5 to 1? Wow. I recently decided to give mining a try and really hated that train. I think that's a good change, but it'll take a bit to get used to.

Destroyer of Worlds - Gawd yes! Orbital bombardment is a bit of a surprise, but sure. I would think the larger class vessels would be more used for this, but it would make sense if the Destroyer was an entry level into orbital bombardment. Destroyer Missile Platform for Caldari!?!?!?! Do want! So needed. Drone for Gallente makes tons of sense. Coercer and Cormorant suffer for having only one mid or low slot, turns out to be pretty crippling, that would help if you fix.

Taking a look at the Aegis class of destroyer (defense) would be pretty interesting too. Granted that is probably a bit more complex than everything else you have here.

The Plan - Delaying the racial Destroyer and Battlecruiser shift till you actually get to those hulls makes sense. I am still not sure I am onboard with this idea, but am starting to think that in the scheme of things it may not suck too badly.

Tl;DR: I am ytterbed.

All looks good to me, looking forward to seeing my Breacher seeing some love.

YAy!!! Awesome!!! that is more than expected!!!!

CCP FTW!

I'm glad to see the discussion start on the changes to the rest of the frigates, as well as the mining ships.

A couple of things:

Ship Skills
I know that ship skills provide bonuses based on the level of the skill, but I really think you should re-evaluate "all ships unlocked at level 1." Granted, with skills at such a low multiplier, the difference between 1 and 3 is only a couple hours, but I think you should consider unlocking hulls with skill level, with a cap that all hulls are unlocked by LV 4 for a Tech 1 ship. Logically, the hulls are different, and behave differently, so having a higher skill would also imply that the hull has a higher benefit in some way (which may even be true after the changes).

I really think skills are a whole can of worms - and maintaining just a little complexity here isn't a bad thing.

EDIT Read a good argument for the change in the skill setup for Tech 1 ships all being unlocked at level 1.

Frigates
Maybe I'm the only person who cares, but please ensure we still have a good selection of (inexpensive) Tech 1 frigates that can fit a cynosural field generator and 350 units of LO. in the cargo hold. Each race should have a semi-disposable frigate that can be a cheap cyno.

Mining Barges
I think there should be a tradeoff in tank and ore. Right now, all the barges are fairly thin, and easy to gank, but I like the idea that you can have a viable tank and still have a useful barge is interesting. Just don't go too far. The mining Rokh brought up earlier is an example of what's wrong with mining ships - if you have a BS-tanked ship it needs to compete (capacity and cycle time) with that. I also agree that gas mining needs to be addressed - although that brings all sorts of trickle-down issues with boosters and Tech3. Gas (like ice) is a fairly high-volume product, so perhaps an option like a T2 variant of the Retriever for gas mining (so you could invent Mackinaw or GasBoat) - that has bonuses for gas mining instead of ice?

Its summer devblog on the work on the ship balancing for the winter update. That's how I read it, anyway.

the issue is destroyers are frigate killers but die to anything else easily due to there sig and crap tanks... frigates die to destroyers but can pretty much sig tank damn near everything else


Personally im interested to see if next year sees more t1 destroyer variants and t2 frigate variants

I'm disappointing that CCP didn't see fit to create a new gas mining ship.

It also sucks that the Hulk isn't getting an EHP boost... But who cares?! I stopped mining once i realize it was the dullest mechanic i've ever experienced in a game.