Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Smartbomb.

For solo Battleship work, a large smartbomb does wonders while a single neut would be crappy.

You might be using the Hyperion instead. Active rep, no speed penalty for trimarks, utility high slot, more dps, etc...

In any case, if Megathron is the "attack" BS, then it needs to be faster. If properly tanked, the combat BS (Hyperion) will go faster.

Exactly, was my standard setup from 2005 - 2009, Ion II's Large Smartbomb, 1205 DPS, no issues with ECM drones/elite suicide attack pods... (though really to ensure you clear the latter off the field, you needed double smartbomb)

Looking at the changes, I'm not sure cropping the drone bay to 75m3 is really justified, that's - 126 DPS off the bat which the ROF bonus doesn't really compensate for IMO.

Edit:

Ok looking at the numbers again it does seem to, just:

Current 7-gun Ion II setup, 1230 DPS, 913.2 from guns, 316.8 from Ogre II's
Future 7-gun Ion II setup, 1080.1 from guns (assuming add in a 3rd mag stab), 190.1 from Ogre II's = 1270 (1238 using a flight of Hammerheads)

Not as bad as I initially thought, but that is while losing the utility high slot, hence why I have mixed feelings (though setups would of course evolve once the changes go live). As the attack Battleship, I would have expected the Megathron to be the more flexible, and the Hyperion geared to slugging AM/Null at targets in large fights, but actually the Hyperion (combat) is now the more flexible, which is... odd.

Imo all the Gall ships should be faster. Hyp might make a better "attack BS" but there's something rather incongruous about a battleship that's supposed to be fast moving. The whole idea of attack BS really doesn't translate into reality imo. But I think that it's a problem that affects all the blaster ships. Even if we switched the names around and called the Hype the attack BS and the mega the combat BS, the truth is that they still would not work because they don't have the speed to get to target, they don't have enough DPS to make up for the HP they've lost getting to target, and on top of that they don't have the tank to really hold up even if they started at their optimal. That the Hype might be a bit faster fitting active rep doesn't really change much, because in a gang situation you're going to want to plate it anyway, lest it die in a ball of fire before you get two shots off.

What I'm trying to point out is that there is a fundamental design flaw with the blaster brawlers in their current iteration that is not being addressed properly with these balance changes. Even if the Mega was called the combat BS, it wouldn't change the fact that it's just not an effective ship with blasters and with rails it just is completely outclassed by the pulse baddon and the other ranged setups. This ship balancing pass was supposed to be the second part of the fix to this problem after the hybrid changes came in, and yet it really doesn't measure up.

Woah, why are you doing a deep dive into armor tanking when armor tanking still sucks compared to shield tanking?

Give the Megathron an extra mid slot so we can do shield or armor tanking.

After getting up to date with this thread, here's what I think:

Hyperion: Looks ok now, although I still consider the rep amount bonus subpar for Gallente ships; people have suggested a plate amount bonus, which I think is fine, considering it limits versatility somewhat. That or fix active armor tanking once and for all. Also, why do we need that much PGW and launcher slot now? A last, minor thing is that I hope the art department is studying all the ships whose turret slots after tiericide are not reflected by the 3D model, and plans to correct that.

Megathron: Needs a small amount of extra armor, maybe consider moving 500hp from shields to armor; aside from this, I don't really see the need for the drastic changes, but if you really want to play to the "mobile" theme, you could just go for the same slot layout and bonuses, reduce bandwidth by 75 (to 50) and add an 8th turret (compensate fittings). If this was done, I would suggest changing the Hyperion's bonus from 10% damage to 7.5% RoF.

Dominix: Honestly, I like it. It just needs "few" things to work properly, namely, a 50% drone control range bonus and a complete drone overhaul, but mainly that Drone Interfacing afftects all types of drones and that sentries gain the ability to move with the ship.

RR on BS isnt a mainstay thing in PvP and hasnt been for a number of years. With the new t1 logi thats even more so now.

The neut while handy isnt all that great. Most things are dead before they cap out and frigs regen their cap enough between cycles to render large neuts on them ineffective. They also suffer the same range issues as smartbombs and in a small gang a large smartbomb is problematic for your own frigates and drones.

Probers are not a massive loss as you cant fit combat probers on it and generally if you need a prober you will have someone in a cov ops anyway or for a WH gang enough probers around to not matter. The other use of a backup cyno for a fleet is no great loss either as you will have other ships for that too.

Most of the things you would put into that high will spend most of the time not getting used. An extra low however will provide more tank, more firepower, more speed, better ECM defence, more agility, more tracking, ect. Things that you will be using all the time. For people like me it will also offer room for more specialised fits for things the mega shouldn't really be able to do.

Obviously its for launching defenders to protect you from the Attack Ravens.

Eh, changes to the Hype and Mega look pretty decent.

But still not particularly happy about the Domi. Now it's even more pigeon-holed into the role of "low-grade fleet sniper with destroyable/leave-able dps" or PvE ****-ship. Because why would you use a Domi for close-range combat when you have the Hype? It will now do one job exceedingly well (PvE) rather than many jobs decently. It's become narrowed into a niche role, when I thought the idea of T1 ships was versatility whereas the T2/Navy ships get the narrow focus. Personally I'd rather just see the Domi as a BS-sized Vexor. But w/e, it's your game.

Hyperion :

Seems good to me, although im not sure if it can run dual repper to go with its bonus decently.

Mega :

The plus on the low slots is good,tho i believe most ppl here prefer 7/5/7. Not sure about the RoF bonus. and if u can just buff the armor a little bit it would be nice OR make it faster and more agile.

DAT DRONE BANDWITH/BAY! come on guys, at least keep it at 100/125. Nerfing it to 75/75 is too much!

Domi :

Im not sure how i feel about Domi, it seem now the Domi is meant to be use with Sentry with this bonuses. How about Heavy drones?


All in All, im afraid Amarr BSes will have more versatility and will do better at EVERYTHING compared to Gallente BSes. As a new player i hate for this to happen. I dont have time to train all BSes and its weapon system