Ships & Modules

The idea of the Tornado and its counterparts sounds interesting, if difficult to balance. However, it is depressing that you are taling about it as a tier 3 battlecruiser. Doesn't everyone accept that tiers are a bad idea?

The idea of tiers is to have a set of ships that are designed to be slightly less powerful and slightly cheaper. Tier 1 battlecruisers include the Cyclone and the Ferox. Tier 2 battlecruisers include the Hurricane and the Drake. The problem is that people are very rarely going to use tier 1 ships. Why use a bad ship, when there is a better version. We know that cost isn't a good balancing technique, this is particularly true when the cost difference is only 10-20% (after insurance, rigged and t2 fitted). CCP knows the exact statistics on how few people fly tier 1 ships, but we all know that you rarely see Feroxes and Cyclones, particularly compared to the tier 2 BCs.

Why deliberately design a ship to be weak and therefore unusable? Why not get rid of tiers and make all battlecruisers different, but equally powerful? (Same for battleships.) If the Cyclone was buffed, then it would be a viable alternative to the Hurricane for solo or very small gangs. People would have more ships to use, a greater choice of tactics and a wider variety of opponents.

Tiers just seem like a bad idea. Am I missing something? It would be a bit of a waste of time if these new tier 3 BCs just made the tier 2 ones obsolete and we still only really had 4 useful ships.

Ehe I don't know about you, but I use tier 1 BC/BS a lot for allt he right reasons because each ship is good at doing something. (granted ferox is meh)

So I see no sense in your reasoning.

I'm curious what industrial players think of tiers. I realize most players only think a difference in tiers means a difference in cost and number of guns, but the different mineral costs between tiers isn't something that should be so easily overlooked.

HA! The OP thinks that the Ferox is a ship!
It's actually a self-contained way of converting minerals into ISK using the insurance system.

In the same post you say Brutix is facemelting glass canon dps AND Hybrids suxx.

While the first statement is wrong, the second is right.

Most Mining barges have a very specific and unique purpose, ie the skiff is for deep core mining, mackinaw is for ice and the hulk is for ore. I feel tiered ships are ok if ther have a purpose for being tiered some are just bad ships.

Which is why it should either be the token stepping stone into the barge class, or balanced to be worth using. Applying relative specialisations amongst the ships isn't a bad idea if they're all equally potent at their jobs.

Well if anything they could make the procurer faster, more agile and maybe even give it more warp strength so it could be used as a ninja miner for those that want to. But there are other ships than just mining barges and BCs that need some balancing. the T1 frigates for example really need some balancing, I mean, the atron, condor, slasher and executioner only have 2 mids, and the slasher and condor only have 1 low, if they could at least get 3 mids each they could be somewhat useful as tackle but right now they're just slightly better than the rookieships.

Take the Proph and Harby into EFT and fit both for the biggest tank you can. The Harby will win, because of more slots and more PG. Don't let common wisdom fool you, the Harby outclasses the tier 1 in every way simply due to the increased space.

Strongly support bolded comment BTW.

Quite alright, I rarely read every single post in a thread.

The battlecruisers are the really sad part about the tier system for me, I was playing when the prophecy was new, and to see it so utterly forgotten because of the new battlecruiser which is just better makes me really sad.

I'd love to fly a ferox too, but I can't convince myself to bother right now with the state of affairs as they are. (Ferox arguably has an even stronger case for level balance because of the duality of Caldari weapon systems).