EVE General Discussion

Post 554 and below. Ofc, Seelene quit not that long after this so...

http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1038754&page=19#556

i think this deserves another bump

After considering the idea of having them turned into an anti-capital/supercapital class ship with capital class weaponry, i have come to the conclusion that it will still render them unpopular and be relatively useless. It would lead to them only being used to gank carriers in sanctums and such. The reason why is very simple. A black ops BS costs about the same as a dreadnought, but has far less tank, and almost certainly less dps. If you had to choose between having a black ops bs in a fight (which would be useless against everything but capital ships) and a dreadnought, you would almost always choose the dreadnought.

An expensive ship and no good way to have it in combat without getting it primaried when uncloaked. Probably needs a lot more defence to be able to be of any use on the battlefield.

It is a bit odd that it is so expensive, other bs usually have better tanking ablity. The only thing that makes up lack of
tanking is the cloaking and its speed boost when cloaked. But you still can't really use that on a battlefield without someone targetting you and removing your chance to cloak again. Unless you're planning on warping away right after firing, like stealth bombers usually do.

Almost the same price of as a carrier. I know which one I'd rather have on the battlefield attacking. It just isn't meant to be on the battlefield attacking and within easy reach of the enemy.

The ganglinks idea is probably the best idea I've seen so far. I doubt anyone would use the covert bridge if they could warp cloaked.

IMHO, a few things sorta need to happen for BOs to be more useful.

On one side of things, simply giving them more space for fuel, increasing jump range, and possibly looking at expanding their portal abilities somehow. Right now, to effectively use a BO for bridging, you almost have to have a covert transport along as a fuel truck. If you're doing a big bomber op that's fine because you'll need the extra bombs anyway (hopefully), but when you're not running a big op, it's pretty lame to have to run two accounts just to use your BO.

On the combat side of things, while all the BOs could use some sort of buff, it's the Sin that really needs it. Currently it's the only BO that literally can't do anything other than bridge. It's not able to fit a decent tank (Dominix tanks WAY better, sadly), it can't fit enough or heavy enough guns to put out significant DPS or alpha, and while it DOES have drones, it cannot cloak and use drones at the same time, as you lose control as soon as you cloak, and then the drones may decloak you if you get too close anyway. Even "sniping" with sentries is really not an option, because you either give up 5m+ in drones, or you have to sit next to them, not moving, and essentially wait to get tackled, which since the Sin costs what, like 600-700m, is pretty likely to happen, especially since everyone knows it can't tank and will die in a fire quickly. Really the Sin needs to be re-worked to fit guns, or sentry drones need a re-work to be more easily recoverable. (I didn't mention standard drones because if you're close enough to use them, you're probably gonna die anyay). Any kind of HP buff though should benefit all BO hulls.

At least the Redeemer and Panther can fit guns that put out DPS, and the Widow can fit cruise missiles and jammers, and while cruise missiles aren't exactly optimal for dishing out damage (especially to smaller targets now), at least you can stay aligned while using them.

CCP just needs to look at why people fly the Redeemer and Panther over other BO hulls. It's because they can both fit 1400 howitzers, and can do good alpha, which is what under current mechanics, a combat BO needs. The Widow gets a bit of a pass because it can jam, and it can at least put out DPS while aligned, but the Sin is just godawful bad at everything but bridging, which any other BO can do. I literally bought a Sin once, tried to fit it, and resold it the same day, even though I didn't have any other BS trained to 5 at the time. It's just so bad I would rather not have a BO at all than to own a Sin.

bumpity

Black Ops ship uses same cloak as any rifter...

nuff said

all i want is a little more jump range and a slightly bigger fuel bay. if i can have that ill be one happy camper.

ccp never boost BO we have new 60 things in crucible maybe 4 Useful others are crap

A million times this.