Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Or - since you are thinking in ship-lines - somehow become more like something between the Vexor and the Domi.

...Gee, I wonder how that could be achieved.

Ok, on a more serious tone:
A second drone-related bonus would help it's 100 bandwidth more.
As it is now, droneships with over 50 bandwidth can only apply their damage to scrammed targets. Yes, even an MWDing shield-tanked battleship will reduce the damage Ogres do to it.
All the way down to zero, if it's a Phoon, or some other more agile ship (any minnie basically).

Ogre MWD speed: 1050
Phoon MWD speed: 1154 - not even catching it
Domi MWD speed: 1005 - Even catching a hostile Space Potato will take longer than... well, anyone's patience

Ogre orbit speed: 375 - So once it gets into range of any MWD BS and turns the MWD off, it gets left behind, can start chasing again... That can't be good for applied dps
And in case anyone is wondering, the Ogre's orbit speed is also below any AB BS, not that I have seen any lately.

...and
...you know, this is a BC, so it should be able to hunt other BCs and Cruisers, and on that level things get even worse obviously.

Interestingly the only one from these that works with an active tank without ******** amounts of links and drugs is the Incursus

...which has +10% per level to armor reps.

Small reppers have worked even without any bonuses, and on Incursus the gained reps from a SAR II are on par with SASB (similar fitting, )

So why only 7.5% on medium reppers

I doubt they will change bonuses on Gallente hulls. It seems they are going for something like

Drone boats: Prophecy and Myrmidon, with Gallente hull more oriented towards small scale pvp with its active tanking and a little more gank, and Amarr hull with bigger buffer and a smaller drone brandwidth.

Brawlers: Brutix and Ferox, with Gallente hull again being more specialized for small scale combat with more damage and active tanking while the Ferox has better buffer and with its optimal easier time switching targets and applying damage in larger battles.

Missile boats: Cyclone and Drake, where Cyclone is faster and with its bonus to active tanking more suited for small scale/solo and Drake for bigger fleets.

Gunboats: Hurricane and Harbinger, atm totally unbalanced in the favor of the cane in every department

This is what they are going for, two ships for each "role", one better suited for small scale combat and one for fleets. And i like the idea, especially since they didnt completely ruin the hulls and specialize them in one or the other niche. It kinda sucks for pilots who dont want to crosstrain and want to stay Gallente and be involved in large scale fleet battles, but then again medium blasters are not really a great weapon for this purpose to begin with.

They need to revert the nerf to Harbinger fitting and tank, take another look at drone boats, give all BC one utility high and take away some cpu from Cyclone, that thing can fit whatever you want with 0 fitting skills, raise repair amount for Gallente to 10% per level at least until the changes to armor tanking go live.

Thing is though is that the drake is still a brawler or at least its OP tank would suggest it is.
It would really be a better ship with a ROF bonus and a utility high for a link as caldari are the only ones without any utility highs and has two heavily tanked ships
Also droneboats don't need so much tank only brawlers do and as such the ferox and brutix should be the most heavily tanked.

Really the Brutix needs to be Harbingerised and have 7 high slots, 6 guns and a 10% damage bonus. This way it gets the utility high.

As with the cruiser and frigate rebalancing this initial sweep of changes looks crude at best with some very big questions that it's currently impossible to answer. To my mind the most pressing issues around these changes, and the following battleship changes, revolve around ;

1. Active repair does not scale.

2. Active shield tanking is considerably better than active armour tanking
- to some degree because of the amount of rep possible
- it is possible to active shield rep yet be cap insensitive through ASBs
- it is possible to remain fast and mobile whilst shield tanking

3. Drone bay size is overly limiting for some ships relative to their bandwidth. If a slot is sacrificed for the ability to fly more drones it seems unbalanced to not allow replacements for lost drones. Smartbombs are a specific drone defence, and very effective too when used correctly, so being in a position to have your whole bonused dps wiped out in a couple of smartbomb cycles renders those ships ineffective. Similarly for bombs.

4. Effective turrets seem to be out of balance given there is no redeeming counter feature for the lower turret ships.

5. Command links on these ships would benefit from the proposed 2% bonus slated for tier 3s. Unbonused links are weak and would continue to see little use on anything other than command ships and tier 3s.

6. Gallente ships both getting the repair bonus seems very odd given the diversity in every other racial ship line. It's too restrictive for Gallente pilots, you have very little real choice between these ships.

7. I've no objection to the ferox optimal bonus, limited as it is for blasters at medium sizes. The suggestion of a medium rail change is very welcome and could make this a much more worthwhile bonus for pve and pvp.

8. The bugbear of speed penalties from armour tanking remain as daunting as ever and desperately require attention as you move to the ships that suffer most. As well as the compounding effect to speed of plate mass and rigs I would also point out that mwd mass is far more crippling to battleship classes than any amount of plates you could choose to add.

The list could go on to ever decreasing but still annoying non-ship features, but motsly they would not need to be considered alongside ship balancing. Those listed above are so fundamental that I doubt any ship rebalance could be completely successful without resoving these

The active rep actually makes the Brutix interesting as long it has enough armor buffer to work.
The damage bonus makes people less willing to fit autocannons and only 4 medslots will see dual rep being possible with a cap booster, however I doubt many will use triple rep setups... I wont cry about this

Myrmidon atm is a beast, however it is rarely used in the designed role with blasters and an okay tank. It's always dual ASB and gank or triple rep with AC's. This is fine for me but at the same here is a chance to change the Myrmidon bonus to someting attractive and inspiring.

I would be happy to see Myrmidon lose the repair bonus and get a bonus rewarding people who fit blasters or railguns. Tracking bonus could be interesting as it fits the line of ships and helps where those damage oriented people have Ogres on the field? Bring on versatility and diversity...

Pinky Denmark

THIS.

I hate this dang laser cap use bonus that amarr ships are mostly required to have just to function. No other race has to put up with a silly bonus like that. It would be like minmatar having a 'ammo loader bonus' that allows them to reload their guns. Because of this silly laser bonus, almost every amarr ship has 1 less useful bonus than any other race!

I know that you are balancing T1 BCs.. but I always had a question about T2 BCs... Why all factions have 2 with the same base ship? doesn't the EOS for example look like a myrmy? but we have 2 brutix... just ask the designers to make new skins...

Nah,

I'd rather see them invest a bit more resources, and make completely new designs for all T2 ships. Some of them have just different textures on the same model.