Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I'm not discussing Amarr ships as I won't fly anything Amarr so I don't feel qualified to accurately assess them.

Cruisers- The work horse of any Navy. These ships are cheap enough to use in a variety of ways but versatile enough to fill a multitude of roles.


Caldari-
Osprey- Shield logistics cruiser but the fitting is so tight it's difficult to really use this ship in combat. So many compromises have to be made for logistics use so let's fix that problem. First get rid of the mining bonus, not needed with the changes to barges and exhumers. Instead how about a role bonus of -40% CPU for shield transfer modules. Combined with the already existing 10% reduction to capacitor use and 500% to transfer range we now have a great tech 1 logistics ship while still not stepping on the Basilisk's toes. Finally add one more low slot to bring the total mids/lows up to 8 like the higher tier cruisers.

Caracal- This is the lone missile boat in the caldari cruiser line up. Even worse the bonus to missile velocity makes this a sniper missile boat. Ew. Remove kinetic boost and add a RoF boost ala drake changes. Change the velocity boost to a damage boost. Add a low slot (bringing up to 8 total mid/low) and boost CPU up to 450. The Caracal is still not a brawling ship, but it is a multi-role tech 1 missile boat, something Caldari desperately needs to make a smooth transition from frigs to BC's.

Blackbird- I honestly can't see any changes to be made here, the BB is just about perfect for it's EW role.

Moa- This is supposed to be the Caldari brawler but it fails miserably. The biggest weakness of the Moa are it's mid slots. Currently it only has four and this is just not enough for a ship that's supposed to close to short range. Move one low up to the middle retaining the 8 slot layout but making more sense for a shield ship. The bonus needs changing as well from hybrid optimal range and make it a 5% bonus to hybrid damage instead. A brawler is all about tank and gank and range is not needed when you are trying to close in tight anyway.

Gallente-
Vexor- The first true drone boat and a fun ship to fly. The biggest problem is the limited drone bay size. Change the hybrid bonus into a 20% bonus to drone bay size per level allowing much better drone options. Add one more mid slot to allow more options for drone boosting. The Vexor will have less damage from it's turrets but the added utility from having additional drone options will let this ship by a multi-role platform.

Celestis- The only change I'd make here is to change the damage bonus to a range increase on damps. As an EW platform the ship should be focused on filling it's role, not adding damage.

Exquoror- First, add another low slot to bring the total to 8 mids/lows. Next dump the cargo capacity boost and instead give the same -40% CPU to transfer (armor) module the Osprey gets. Now you have a dedicated logistics platform that doesn't impinge on the viability of tech 2 logi's.

Thorax- The Gallente brawler and it's almost exactly what it needs to be but the MWD bonus just doesn't fit. Instead of a cap reduction how about a 5% per level boost to MWD speed. Alternately skip the MWD all together and add a 5% bonus to hybrid optimal.

Minmatar-
Rupture- The ship all other brawling ships aspire to become. No changes need to be made.

Stabber- I realize a lot of people won't want this ship changed because they use it as a bumping platform, but I think this should be a multi-role ship instead. Leave the RoF bonus but get rid of the velocity bonus and instead put in a 5% tracking bonus. Next drop a high slot down to the mids and add a low to bring this ship to 8 mids/lows. Ideally suited to fighting smaller ships just like the other multi-role cruisers.

Bellicose- Target painter bonus? Really? Lets make this ship useful like the other EW ships and give a 10% bonus to stasis webifier range and remove the RoF bonus. Toss on an additional mid slot to bring the total to 8 mids/lows and now you have an EW platform you actually want in your gang.

Scythe- Another case of what were they thinking. Tracking links? How about we fit the theme of Minmatar of versatility and make this ship fit the role of a real logistics ship. Dump the mining bonus and we'll leave the tracking as is since some people actually like having the option. Give the role bonus of -40% CPU to shield and armor transfer modules. Then put in a 7.5% reduction to capacitor use for shield and armor transfer modules. Not quite as efficient as other logi's but fully capable of repping for either armor or shield since Minnie's do both. Make the 500% range apply to both tracking links and the transfer modules.


Each empire has a brawling ship, multi-role ship, logi, and an EW platform. There are no tier advantages rather each ship has it's own pro's and con's based on what each pilot wants to fly. No ship should be better than the others hands down, rather each one fills a role and the outcome should be based on piloting. There we go, my take on how Tech 1 Cruisers should be balanced. Tune in next time for a look at Tech 2 cruisers.

Simply some ideas:

IMO, T1 Logi is bad - T1 ships are Versatile, T2 are specialised. Logi is a specialisation. Any ship can fit a Remote Repper/Shield Transfer and go to town, but a ship needs major bonuses and specialisation to be good at Logi - with the removal of the Mining Bonus, the T1 Logi ships would become Specialised - something that T1 ships arent supposed to be.
With this in mind, I believe that the T1 Logi hulls should become Combat Hulls. Examples below.

Moa: Hybrid Damage and Hybrid Range
Role: Long Range Rail, Medium Range Blasters.
5 Highs, 5 Turrets
5 Mids
4 Lows
10m3 and 10mb/s

Osprey: Shield Resists and Hybrid Damage
Role: Medium Long Range Rails, Extreme Close Range Blasters
6 Highs, 5 Turrets, 1 Launcher
5 Mids
3 Lows
25m3 and 25mb/s

Osprey would be Slightly Faster, have Slighty Lower Mass and Slightly Better Agility. Better PG but Worse CPU. Larger Base Capacitor, but less Cap/Second Regenerated (Osprey: Short Sprints with MWD to get into Blaster Range, Moa: Extended MWD use to Maintain Railgun Range) Significantly less lock Range, but slightly better scan Res. Moa would have significantly smaller sig

Caracal: Launcher Fire Rate and Launcher Kinetic Damage
5 Highs, 1 Turret, 4 Launchers
5 Mids
4 Lows
10m3 and 10mb/s

Major PG increase, Minor CPU increase.
Significant increase in Capacitor ammount and Major Increase in capacitor Recharge Time (Larger Pool, slower Recharge)
Major Speed increase

Both the Moa and Osprey could work with either Rails or Blasters, simply with different playstyles. Caracal would be Viable as a HAM Brawler, HML Sniper, or RLML Frig Killer.

I like the idea of T1 logi because it offers an affordable way to learn the role. Going from no logi use to hopping in a T2 ship to learn how to play is a bad idea. With all other roles you get a chance to practice with cheap fits, but logi is supposed to drop a few hundred million isk every time they make a mistake? By having the T1 ships focused on a single aspect instead of the multirole the T2 offer you still keep T2 better but allow some room to practice what to do.

Saying minmatar EW is supposed to suck and should be left alone is silly. The whole point of looking at the ships is to give the players reasonable options, and forcing minnie's to only have TP's is a travesty. The Recon ships get a bonus to webs which is great and used but how often do you see minmatar fleets sporting TP ships? Give them something useful.

I like the idea of a drone bonus for the Thorax. Optimal might not be the best way to go but I thought it would help make up for the loss of the MWD bonus. I'm not very particular about how to improve the Thorax's brawling ability, I just think MWD cap is a bad choice.

Giving the Vexor a drone bay boost won't increase it's dmg output, in fact my suggestion decrease's total dps while offering flexibility to load up more then a single bandwidths worth of drones.

I could see a speed bonus for the Moa but it should be limited to the same 8 mid/low as all other cruisers and not have 9. I like the resist bonus as it gives the Moa a different flavor compared to the Rupture with it's double dmg bonus. I think the biggest problem is adding an optimal boost isn't really adding a damage boost and there aren't enough mid slots for a shield tank.

For the Caracal I might have got PG and CPU mixed up. It's been awhile since I fit HAM's and I thought CPU was the issue, but if it's PG then by all means boost that. The Caracal is close to good but needs a little tweaking to make it truly versatile enough to suit missile users.

I thought of 10% at first, but that only gives an extra 50m3 of drone bay, 20% moves the drone bay to 200m3 while still only having 100 bandwidth. So you can carry a full set of spares or a few flights of lights or whatever you feel like.

IMO the MOA is a defensive brawler with it's shield resist bonus. So it won't have the same outright dps as the Rupture but the Moa has a stronger tank. So the two ships fill the same role but do so in a different manner. I don't see a brawler as something with massive DPS, rather I see it as a ship designed for nothing but combat whether that combat is a having a strong tank or if it's about melting the other guys face before he breaks a weak tank.

Not quite correct. T1 ships are not "more versatile" so much as they are less specialized. However they are generally preludes to their more specialized T2 versions in order to ease you into a T2 role. T1 Logistics Cruisers all have Logistics role bonuses they just all have a secondary perk is all. For a newer pilot, Logistics is really only viable on a T1 Logi due to the range from their role bonuses and the capacitor bonuses. Unless they want to be starving for cap and riding the ass of individual fleet members on another cruiser hull.

T1 Cruisers should maintain this theme so that lesser skilled pilots can still fly something in the role they're training towards Tech II for. While older pilots can utilize T1 cruisers as a cheaper alternative to T2 that can still generally fill the same role if needed. Homogenizing the T1 Cruisers isn't in anyone's interest. You'll just end up back in the same problem we already have: 1-2 Cruisers for each race being straight up superior to the rest.