Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I flew the Dramiel on a minmatar alt for awhile and it's perhaps one of those most fun ships I've ever flown due to the massive speed and agility it has.

Aside from balancing the dramiel, I feel like a interceptors need a boost in speed and agility. Mind you; keep their actual killing potential the same.. but they need to go faster. An interceptor should not be easily out-classed by a combat frigate, in my opinion.

Ya i dont mind the changes, but honestly was more wishing for a AF boost instead of a dramiel nerf.... ugg

I now thread-necro because I just saw Logistics balancing included as part of Crucible features and the related forum posts point here.

Logistics cruisers should indeed have their warp speed increased, +1 to Team BFF! ALL Tech 2 cruisers have a 25% warp speed bonus (3.75 AU/s) over their T1 counterparts, except for the Logistics at present. The empires would not commission these ships knowing that they would arrive AFTER the combat ships do. Nor should they be the ones slowing down the faster vessel types when they warp together as a group. Warp speed differences have a minute effect on combat at this level, but for the nitpickers in all of us, it should be brought into line with their Elite brethren.

All Logistics cruisers should have their signature radius increased by approx 30-35%, in my opinion. Let me explain; a Scimitar currently registers as 65m stock, versus a Thrasher at 75m. Why do I compare the two? Because a destroyer is a significantly lighter vessel than a cruiser, by real-world AND game-world definition as well as by stats. A Scimitar is 268m long and masses 12,090,000 kg. The Thrasher is 276m long (I was surprised too!) yet masses only 1,542,000kg. Signature is presumably related to volume, mass, material composition, perhaps engine exhaust and a host of other factors. So how can a cruiser class vessel which weighs more than a HAC show be so small, as far as targetting/weaponry is concerned? Fancy materials? I thought so, then I did some more checking.

A Sabre has near-identical dimensions to a Thrasher, but masses almost 20% less than one yet keeps the same signature radius. Presumably, they had to lower the mass for both agility (a requisite of the design) and for the purposes of keeping the signature in line. I checked another T1-T2 pair; the Bellicose masses 11,550,000 kg and has a signature of 100m. A Huginn masses the same but yet has an even larger sig at 127m. The Rapier masses maybe 4% less and yet comes in at a whopping 132m. So what is going on here? (And before you ask, this trend continues across all races, with the differences becoming progressively less as you go from Minmatar->Amarr->Gallente->Caldari.)

Logistics were never described/sold as being small or difficult to target/hit. The closest justification for these stats comes in the Scimitar's description where it is described as "nimble for a cruiser." Nimble means agile and perhaps quick, not impossibly small. Here is what I propose:

Scimitar: 65m -> 89m (37% increase, 11m less than Scythe)
Guardian: 70m -> 96m (37% increase, 14m less than Augoror)
Oneiros: 80m -> 109m (36% increase, 11m less than Exequror)
Basilisk: 90m -> 117m (30% increase, 3m less than Osprey)

The new stats would make each Logistics cruiser still smaller than their T1 counterpart and thus still the "smallest" cruiser each race can field (besides tier-1 navy faction in some cases), but not by nearly as much. This is more in line with the fact that they consistently mass over the ship they are based on without any reduction in physical size. In order to account for the increase in received damage, these ships should have at least a 20% (preferably more like 25%) increase of HP in their race's main tanking area (shields for Minmatar/Caldari, armor for Gallente/Amarr). This would give a little more base HP in the racial tanking area than the tier-3 HAC and frankly doesn't unbalance them in relation to other ships.

The other option of course if for CCP to say that Logistics ARE in fact supposed to be more difficult than a destroyer to hit which probably won't go over well. So what do people think?

ALSO, I agree with changes to the Dramiel's mass, velocity and scan res, but more is needed. Shrinking the drone bandwidth to 10Mbit is necessary, as well as a small reduction in total cap (with a reduction in recharge time as well to maintain the current recharge rate).

Try Re-balancing EAFs too... They shoud have the abilitie to use covert ops cloaking device..... and the minmatar and ammar ones shoud have also reduced signature radius and more agility!!

Drakes are one of the few caldari ships that work well in pvp. The only 'nerf' I would suggest is lowering its base shield amount by a few hundred points, as it's head and shoulders above the ferox, much more than the other tier 2 BC's are above their counterparts. Plus with that extra midslot, y'know