Player Features and Ideas Discussion

The only thing getting of the way of Marauder PvP for me is the lack of a Caldari Gunship. Tech 2 (and Tier 2) Rokh please.

Boost sensor strength.

Add a jump drive.

I agree.

Though, thinking of a jump drive in a marauder made me think of missions where the faction agent would cyno you into an unknown system. Could be an interesting mechanic. (though a completely different topic than we're discussing here)

My suggestion is on creating tier 3, t2 ships.

my theory behind this is that they would be the first ship dedicated specifically designed for wormholes, making really the only ship fitted to do so.

All of them would have resist bonuses.
All of them would have bonuses towards probes and probe launchers.
All of them would have a relatively high sensor strength.
They would also have significantly large hold designed for prolonged durations in WH
(possibly able to fit cloaks with no targetting penatly, but no warping cloaked)

All of them would also be specifically dedicated to cruise missiles.(bare with me, it's just a suggestion.)
The reason for this is due to the superiority missiles have against other weapon types when dealing with sleepers.
However, to counteract the power of strong sensors and cruise missile range/damage, they're limited to damage bonuses specifc to their race.
So,
amarr - em
Gallente - therm
Minmatar - exp
Cald - kin
When facing sleepers the type of damage you do is generally a non-factor, but in pvp can be a limiting factor that would greatly help to balance these ships.

So, just as an example

Group of ships - Plunderers (a suggestion, though not really a bad name)

T2 Rokh (Croc)
Racial bonuses
caldari bs - 5% bonus to cruise missile velocity,
Plunderers - 5% bonus to cruise missile exp radius and velocity per level, 5% bonus to the effectiveness of probes

Role bonuses - % bonus to the damage of kinetic cruise missiles, CPU reduction for probe launchers, and no targetting penalty when using improved cloaking devices(would still retain the velocity penalty)

Slots (same amount of slots as a Rokh, only aranged differently, and minus one rig slot)
6 high
8 mid
5 low
2 rigs
4 launcher hard points

Same drone bay and bw
As well, mostly everything else would stay the same except the cargohold.
We'll saying something like 3000-4000m3 cargohold.

These ships aren't designed to salvage on the go like Marauders, so they would require support in order to do so. However, they're specifally designed for prolonged life in a WH and can withstand a significant amount of punishment from sleepers, and are much less dependant on cap than other bs class ships.

Now, the reason why I didn't give a set damage bonus towards missiles in the role bonus is simple.
I'm not sure if you'd want them to have higher, lower, or equal dps to Marauders.

Now, the gallente boat would have it's bonuses significantly leaning towards drones. It would have a quite large drone bay, and would be able to field 125bw worth of drones. However, that significantly large drone bay would take away from its cargohold.
So, while it may have something like a 700m3 drone bay, it may only have a 2k-3k cargohold.

The Amarr boat would have less focus on drones, but would still have a large drone bay, which is typically the design goal of amarr, however, to set them apart and give them a specialty, they would also have a 10% per level bonus to the velocity of cruise missiles, not only giving them greater range, but faster engagement time as well.

Now, the minmatar boat would have less dps than the rest, but would also have a smaller signature radius, be faster and have more agility, while at the same time also having a larger cargohold.

The reason for the cloak in all cases is specifically a defense mechanism. If someone shows up in the WH they're not willing to fight, then they have the capability of cloaking somewhat in place in order to hide out till they're gone or till reinforcements show up. However, they also have the same theory design as a Buzzard for example, in that they can safely probe for objects while cloaked and relatively safe from harm.

So, you have Caldari with heavy focus on missile damage.
Gallente with heavy focus on drone bay and drone damage.
Amarr with heavy focus on missile range and engagement time.
Minmatar with speed, agility, and capacity.

While they would all be using cruise launchers these differences would set them apart and set a reason for why a player would choose one over another in preference.

To break down the possible slot layout of the other 3 ships

t2 Abaddon (Bishop)
6 high
5 mid
8 low
2 rigs
4 launchers

T2 Hyperion (Gurzil)
6 high
6 mid
7 low
2 rigs
4 launchers

t2 Maelstrom (Tsunami)
6 high
7 mid
6 low
2 rigs
4 launchers

That said, with these changes you would have 1 bs focused on pvp (black ops), 1 bs focused on high sec pve (marauders), and one focused on Wh pve (Plunderer).

The problem is that the massive sig radius of Marauders counters any bonuses they receive atm.

I mean, when I was flying a Golem I was already taking a massive amount of damage before the npcs were even at their optimal because Marauders are so easy to hit.

Giving them resists bonuses instead of rep/boost bonuses would greatly help to boost their tanking capabilities in pve.
It would also make them much better at spider tanking as well.

I more of a fan towards my idea of taking tier 3 bs's and making them Wh ships.

high resists, use missiles, and carry a lot of ammo. Sure, my design doesn't allow for salvage, but you can bring a buddy or a cloaky transport with a mwd and a salvager, or maybe just bring a noctis and fit a cloak on it while you park it somewhere.

Well, at one point myself and other had a discussion about npc ewar immunity.

While this would still allow them to have their weak sensors in pvp, and possibly even reduce them more, it would make them extremely powerful in pve.
This coupled with 150% bonus to tractor beam range
noctis style bonus to salvagers
and higher resists/resist bonus instead of rep/boost bonus

would make them extremely powerful in pve, and they would be the go to ship for pve like they should be.
However, as they sit now, many people prefer to use a standard bs over a marauder simply because of the sensors alone, let alone the other issues.

I'm currently flying a nightmare in pve and it surpasses by tengu that I was flying that had 705 dps at 105km, and i'm not that skilled with it yet. Now, the tengu surpassed the golem that it replaced due to size, mobility, range, and damage application.

these are commonly occuring issues amongst all Marauders.

I believe it is when you're solo at least.

It's not so much tanking, but rather their sig radius' that negate any bonuses you receive from tanking.

If it were resist bonused, then you'd actually be quite a bit more tanky, but rely less on capacitor which is actually quite a big issue for all Marauders including caldari and minmatar because the only way they can have high efficiency is with x-large shield boosters, and with the golem it relies heavily on at least 2 target painters. This leaves 3 slots for resists and a cap booster, and since you MUST have t2 range rigs in both rig slots for a torp golem, then you're left with only your cap booster to compensate cap.

They have low recharge rate, and little room for any type of cap module other than the cap booster.
many players comment that they have large cargoholds, so can carry quite a few cap boosters, but last time I checked those holds were supposed to be for loot and salvage. That's not possible if it's full of boosters.