Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I did not state that clearly. What i should have typed was - another sniping ship, but with light missiles.

You see I'm not so impressed with the current iteration of ship rebalances as they are being displayed with frigates. I think someone(s) in the dev team is still viewing racial characteristics as a straightjacket. So basically all new or reworked Caldari ships are getting range bonuses (which btw whose stupid idea was single and double 10% per level bonuses on the longest range guns while other races live with 5% range bonuses a la apoc).

This presents a problem as then all Caldari ships could/will be turned into long range snipers. The most extreeme example being sniper corms (which have ridiculous range that no other destroyer can approach btw). I think part of their problem in this is their propensity to give 10% range bonuses. And now that they are bowing to pressure by giving damage bonuses on top of it (naga) instead of tanking bonuses the temptation is to make every Caldari ship a sniper. So in order to restrict the condor from treading on a sniper role they limit grid to induce rocket fits and thus limit the ability to make it another sniper - only with light missiles.

Really what they should be doing is cutting the 10% range bonuses on Caldari ships down to 5%, or giving other races 10% range bonuses as well and thus the ability to create snipers. Since they are already dipping their toes into the pool of removing the 5% kinetic missile damage bonuses, and thus harming Gallente tech II resists, they could do us all the further favor of removing the amarr 10% cap use bonuses, etc. And, please don't make Caldari ships the only competent snipers, or that is all they will be made into and noone else will be able to compete with them in that role.

It helps neither Caldari, nor other races, if a whole combat role is wholly the property of one race. There can still be propensities because homogenization sucks just as badly. But they have to tread a fine line between not locking whole races into and out of a roles, while at the same time not diluting racial flavor into bland even distribution. I hope they are aware of the conundrum, but from what I'm seeing so far I am not confident that this is so.

edit - and in case you're still reading this thread Ytterby I'll direct you to this again https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=122188&find=unread Take a look at the eve-kill stats again http://eve-kill.net/?a=top20 Drakes and Tengus online as ever before. The tech moon problem is getting an interim fix (although I fear too weak of one). Still wondering how a simple change to tier 2 BCs would not further, in the interim, your present goals. Oh, and no Gallente in the top 20 (well except for the Lach which is there for the long point), and you have to get to number 16 before you find a ship that is armor tanked (even Zealots get shield tanked at least half the time). You have some real stark problems to address.

? The Apocalypse has a 7.5% bonus to optimal range per level. The norm for the Amarr lineup is a 50% bonus at max skills: Coercer, Slicer, Retribution, Zealot, Oracle, the last four all having +10% optimal/level, the first getting it with the hull.



They aren't. The Condor's bonus is to kinetic damage only.

Can't wait until you guys start to work on the Gallente Battlecruisers and Battleships.

Rokh, Merlin and Naga all in the top 20 list.

issue 1)
Marcel Devereux is right about this:
Longest targeting range has lowest scan resolution. Best scan resolution has the shortest targeting range. One of the other needs to be flipped on both the Atron and the Executioner

issue 2 )
And can you please change the name of Attack Frigates, it sound to much like AF's but it should be a cheaper tech1 version of interceptors.

Maybe call it Combat / Counter Attack Frigates ?

I agree.

I am a new player, I think I am the intended target of balancing frigates first. I have not the years of experience that most of the other posters have, I haven't even made a kill yet (though I keep trying), but I have played far too many games in my time and I can smell homogenization and balance decisions resulting in unintended consequences a mile away. (Or at least I like to think I can.) As a mostly Gallente trained pilot, the only difference I see with the Incursus and Atron (the only 2 Gal Frigs changed so far) is 250k something isk. Sure the Incursus has another low slot, the active armor rep bonus, and a 3rd turret, but with the Atron set up as it is, its just a smaller, faster, version of an already small and fast ship. I don't really see the massive difference between the 2 save the isk cost. In my very limited experience, I have yet to encounter anyone who hasn't fit Tech 2 guns and equipment on their Destroyers and Frigates, much to my detriment. (There's definitely too much isk flowing around in EVE, imo). But given that most players do have enough isk to outfit any pvp combat ship with T2 guns and rigs at least, I don't see how putting those guns on a far more fragile hull, for a little bit of speed, is a good idea.


Why would I use an Atron over an Incursus to tackle? In my very limited experience, FW'ing, you never know whats out there, and generalization is exactly that, generalization. I'd probably live a few seconds longer in the Incursus, generally, against most ships, than if I was in an Atron. So unless I'm going after some specific ship that is vunerable to the Atron's specific layout, (whatever that would be) why would I ever fly one?


Given the range of blasters, it just doesn't seem to make sense to fly in and brawl while tackling and not use the brawling frigate. Would a Battleship even have a harder time hitting an Atron than an Incursus? This is a genuine question. And, why would I use either over a Slasher or Condor? (This is my admitted noob experience here. Every ship I've gotten close to in the Incursus has torn me to pieces, Thrashers mostly, and I realize this is their role, to destroy frigates.) Being able to out range an opponent has been important since the Mongols conquered half the world. Again, this is perhaps my EVE inexperience, but is the speed difference between the Combat Frigates and Attack Frigates really that pronounced? And, I know from a real world perspective, if I am building some small, fast, agile, and fragile ship, the last thing I would do is put close range weapons on it. Closer = less time to use my agility to my advantage (This is probably not true in EVE).

Further, and this is my total noobishness here, why would I use an Atron over an Interceptor if it was some kind of corp/fleet warfare and such ship types were called upon? Cost is the only barrier, and as I said before, it seems like there's way too much isk floating around for strategic decisions like that to have any place in anything but poverty warfare, which I will likely be a part of, but I don't know that its going to suddenly make the T1 frig hulls attractive across the board. know this is a video game, and an RPG at that, but tiers don't really work in the military. If you have a superior fighter plane, and cost and construction time is irrelevant, you order a **** ton of that plane.


And this leads me to the point of my little post here. If the Incursus/Rifter/Merlin/Punisher are the big combat frigates, what is their intended performance vs larger hulls (cruiser and above) and what is their intended performance vs the other frigates?


Also, it would be awesome if I could have some fast, annoying, rail gun Gal frig to fly. Let me pretend I'm a dogfighter.

That it doesn't require making them generally better than interceptors is true. However, it also doesn't require making them generally worse than interceptors, either. Interceptors should always have the clear speed advantage. However, the T1 variants, being generalists and not specialized, would ideally be marginally better at everything else. They should have more options: even if they'll never outshine the T2 variant at the T2 variant's specialty they should be marginally better than the T2 variant at everything other than the T2 variant's specialty.

This makes sure that the T1 line up isn't simply obsoleted in most every way except price by the T2 line up. A good(ish) example of this is the Probe vs the Cheetah. Cheetah can cov ops cloak, but the Probe has 2 drones while the Cheetah does not. Probe in general has more options and is even better at highsec exploration than the Cheetah is, thanks to those drones. Probe can do more in general than the Cheetah can, but it can't ever hope to match the Cheetah at what the Cheetah is designed to do.

I did not apply any skills so no they aren't bonused.

Wouldn't it be better to give each ship in the T1 frigate bracket a decisive something that would make them unique for specific tasks?
~ I'm reffering to a bit of an extremer concept sort of like with the Recon ships. Take Rapier as an example; it being iconic for webbing beyond the standard range.

Unlike going over the top like that with the frigates, I still think there has to be more to them than just shuffling around with slots and bits of fitting resources.

However, if such would be considered, there would be a cascade effect as several other of the T1 destroyers and cruisers would need something like that.

Nevertheless it would be good to see a few more modules specifically for frigate ships, as we see special modules only usuable by Covops or even the chubby Capital Ships.

edit: typoes, meant modules. not models.

So these attack frigates get a role bonus... I recall hearing about special skills that were going to be added that would be beneficial to certain ship lines. Does that mean the role bonus would be replaced with something like 'Attack line skill bonus: 15% reduction in the energy cost of warp disruptors and scramblers' in the future? Better than a blanket role bonus like what a t2 ship would get methinks.