Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Why did I even train BC II when the tier I is better?

Ok, so the patch is live and I've started playing around with the ships. I don't know if this is where further feedback will be monitored on BC's but here are some initial observations.

Drake: HAM fit is excellent. ~80-90k EHP depending on fit and ~700 dps at 17kms overheated w/ warriors! Plus med neut! That is superb. Plus with some logi, T1 or T2, simply a great fleet boat. Not as agile but sorry folks, it can't be everything.

Ferox: Impressive fleet blaster boat, far better than Brutix. High resists run it around ~75-80k EHP w/ ~600 DPS with faction antimatter/ flight of warriors, able to use full rack of neutrons. The range projection (which is key) with null puts it 9.4+8.8 which is fantastic range projection for med blasters. Oh also a Med Neut! Even cooler run one Large ASB and a Large Extender and you get ~500-600 burst tank and still have 60K ehp to play with while reloading! So good for small gang or fleet w/ logi. And everything fits easily.

Prophecy: This will sadly have to replace my Mrym as my Drone BC of choice. This thing is a beast. You can fit it so many ways it is going to give anyone pause before messing with it in small gang work. Potentially a great drone fleet boat, rare as that beast might be. With armor logi even more scary. Easy to get ~ 130K buffer ehp out of it and still sport 2, yes 2, Drone Damage Amps. While it might not produce as much top end dps as the Mrym, it easily outperforms an armor Mrym (buffer or rep) for drone damage against frigs and cruisers, because the bonused light drones and medium drones benefit from the 2 DDA's. This means against many engagements it will far out dps the armor tanked Mrym. And its drone bay is so vast that you can have all kinds of options out there. Kill my drones, no problem, it has more! You must shield tank the Mrym to compete DPS wise against this ship engagements where 5 light and/or 5 med drones are called for. (But shield Mrym has meager tank.)
Here is the best part, it triple reps 926 with a MAAR (unheated, no fleet bonus or drugs) while still sporting 4 Dual 180 autocannon II's AND a Medium Neut. Everything running to including MWD near stable (21minutes) while cap boosters last. That completely outclasses the triple rep Mrym. Amazing cap on this thing. Only draw back is that then the prophecy only does around 448dps compared to the Mrym's 547dps when both trip repped. (but with the larger drone bay, vastly better cap performance, and a constantly running med neut, that tips it heavily in Amarr's favor.)

Mrym: Well, the above pretty much covers everything that the Mrym is not. Triple reps only 852 with the MAAR, (unbonused, no drugs, no heat) with ~547 dps with 5 180mm Autocannons. Sadly, no medium neut. Capacitor significantly lower performance than Prophecy. Explosive hole still exists. An ASB Shield Mrym with an XLASB and a LASB nearly outperforms a triple rep armor tank though has vastly higher DPS (~835) despite the many fitting mods needed to make it work. Shield tanking or armor buffer will still be preferred fittings for this boat. There might be some fleet applications with 4 sentries but, meh. DPS application, when armor tanked, will be less against frig/cruisers since it doesn't have the lows for DDA's that the prophecy has, nor the drone bay. Is this really working as intended?

- For example a double 1600 plated Mrym (just for the sake of comparison ok?) comes in at ~108 EHP and a full flight of Warriors, to kill that pesky frig, at ~120 drone dps. A very viable 1600 double plated Prophecy (130 EHP) puts out ~172 dps from those same warriors (2 DDA's.) The one extra high slot gun does not make up the difference, sorry frig's out of gun range! And the Proph can run a med neut no problem to boot. Thus the Gallente model of greater drone dps vice Amarr starts to fall apart no? Same story for Med drones, which hit better against cruisers and arguably many BC's due to travel time of heavies.

- The MAAR,? marginal improvement, but overall, not very good. Still needing to have all the cap boosters really just makes it too unattractive vice ASB's. If I want to active rep, can't see many reasons to choose armor still over shield. And certainly not in the two Gal boats, sadly as that is nearly all I fly.

Brutix: Ok, not sure what the ideal fit is here because other than shield tanking it (which is good, but might as well fly a Ferox then) this thing is really short on power grid. Shield fit it does have ~50K EHP and a nice ~800's DPS so all gank small tank. Wasting a hull bonus.
- Armor buffer: With a 1600 plate its slow but can scram/double web and deliver a nice ~700's DPS with Hammerheads/67K EHP. But of course, that's assuming it ever catches a target and can get to ZERO since you have to use ELECTRONS because nothing else fits. Ok, put on a 800 plate (really?) lose 10,000 ehp and still only fit IONs, and only get about 50-60m/s faster with perfect honeycomb skills. Waste a hull bonus. Fly a Vexor then, same performance, smaller sig.
-Armor Rep: So it's bonused for this right? Hard to tell. Double rep (one stupid MAAR) and its around ~673 tank. (I couldn't find a triple rep set up I liked as it needed a +3% power grid implant and left a highslot unfilled.) So with double rep it can only fit Electrons and needs two mids (cap boosters) to keep the boat running, especially since you will run up against neuts. This leaves it with no web. GOOD Luck getting this boat into range (to ZERO) to apply DPS. ELECTRONS? Really? This boat sucks.

Before I was ok with the thought of just giving one Gal boat the dreaded armor repair bonus, now I frankly despise it for both.

I haven't bothered with any other ships.

The extra materials trick is required to prevent what would be a pretty nasty exploit every time we update items. It's not being used without reason and we're not intending for every item to have it, just the items for which it is needed.

New issue with the duel system:

--> You fight one guy in a ship you think will be a fair fight. Then he warps off and docks somewhere and when he come's back he's in something way nastier with resists to you, alphas you, and pods you. The dueling system is shown to everyone in the system as something honorable, baiting isn't honorable or anything of the sort.

Please make it where if someone docks or changes ships the duel ends. Also, call me annoying, but I don't like the idea of being freely podded in HiSec when I just to duel for fun/test a fit and I'm not seeking vengeance. The duel should end at the ship popping when in HiSec IMO.

Have you even looked at the Harbinger?
- Armour buffer: 1600 plate and you can scram, single web (need a cap booster), and get less DPS than the Brutix, and it's still possible to get under your guns. Just as slow, and the only benefit is better projection. The ONLY benefit.

- Armour rep: So... no. Not even going into this. I won't even bother, you don't have the cap for it unless you put 2 cap boosters in the mids. At least. And without a web your odds of tracking anything at all are slim to you simply cannot.

- Shield fit: I got to remove a gun and upgrade my FS-9's to Tech II LSE's. Otherwise no change over previous except getting slower, less mobile, and losing EHP. Though I will concede that the Harb is better for this due to damage projection. It can out-project the Brutix while kiting. But again, don't let anything get close, because anything your size can mitigate most of your DPS/get under your guns without a web.

And on all fits: wasted hull bonus. It's not a bonus, it just lets me shoot my guns. How would you feel if your Brutix (and half the ships in the Gallente lineup) got a hull bonus of 10% higher weapon capacity per level? You would be asking for them to remove it as a bonus and just put it in standard.

Although I have to admit that after the patch with battlecruiser V the cap isn't that bad. I get 2 minutes of cap life on my Harbinger without running the cap booster, and I can keep myself operating (assuming nobody neuts me) for as long as I have cap booster charges. I'm quite liking it, and can't wait to get a few more of them. The Brutix isn't as bad as you make it out to be, and the Harbinger isn't as bad as I make it out to be. I've got a few corp mates flying Brutixes. They love the thing, downsides and all. Because, y'know, tradeoffs. You just can't have it all.

A valid argument for any L3 that lets battleships in, though slightly sideways from a BC discussion.
You could have said Ishtar just as well (and that would fill the afterburn between gates niche Beauregard mentioned even better, being lighter).

Bit unsure on your 95%+ resist on a T1 hull, usually mines are 84.7% against serpentis with one rep and two DDA and 2+2 hardeners.

This doesn't even consider that resist bonuses have advantages outside local tanking, and the bonus is never wasted, whether buffer tanking, in a gang, local, etc.

With local rep bonuses, you only receive the bonus when you locally tank, and you completely throw it away when you don't. One of the Gallente BCs should have received a Hurricane-stype treatment of 2x dps bonuses and the other should have had its bonus include remote as well as local reps.