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Suggestions RE: Gallente BS Rebalance
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Johnny Aideron
Order of Rouvenor
#1 - 2013-04-17 11:31:06 UTC
I have a lot of concerns about the Gallente BS rebalance so I'll post my overview of what I think here. I'll start by examining what CCP has done and then what I think should be done.

Firstly: The Dominix:
OLD
Currently the Dominix is a versatile and popular battleship used in all sorts of roles. It's a bit short on powergrid and ehp, but makes up for it in being cheaper to build.

NEW
The improvement in fittings and ehp is certainly welcome, although the switch of role bonus from hybrids to drone tracking&optimal poses a lot of questions.

*Why not shield tank it with autocannons and stuff the lows with damage mods? The advantage of the new hull bonus is that you need less mid slots since you effectively have several omnidirectional tracking links built into the hull, which is a buff to shield-tanking Dominix (Domini)? This is not bad in terms of increasing the Dominix's utility, but isn't it supposed to be an armour-based ship as the Gallente's historic ship of the line? Why would you ever fit hybrids on it now?

*Conversely, if you armour tank it then you have the same problem as the Hyperion: a lack of lows. An armour-tanking Dominix will struggle to fit both tank and gank, while possesses a superflous 5 midslots. Without the need for Omnidirectional Tracking Links it really doesn't need 5 mids.

*Plus, how can you use the Dominix drone range effectively? For most players their drone targeting range is about 50-57km. To use the hull-bonused Bouncers and Curators out to their effective range you will have to add a bunch of Drone Link Augmentors to the highslots, otherwise you'll be getting killed at 60+km by other ranged battleships since you can't actually order your bonused drones to shoot.

If you are doing this then you probably want to shield tank the Dominix to get adequate DPS out of those 5 sentries by using the lows for DDA's. The Dominix also has a low base targeting range considering that it has a hull bonus which suggests a long-range DPS role, so you can put a Signal Amplifier or two in your lowslots too, you've got seven of them to spend on whatever when shield-tanking.

The Dominix seems slightly confused at the moment. As a proposal for a new drone-based fleet doctrine, it seems to work best as a shield tanker with the highs split between projectile artillery and DLA's, the mids shield tanking and the lows fitted with DCU, DDA's and signal amps. That sounds like a reasonably good ship, honestly, but its not a Gallente ship!

The Megathron
OLD
The Megathron is moderately popular despite it's flaws. It does a decent amount of DPS with good tracking and is fairly versatile. It's main flaws are that it has capacitor issues, is starved of CPU and the ehp is mediocre. These issues blight what would otherwise be a decent ship. It has strengths, that, if worked on could turn it into a much more popular battleship than it already is and which it will certainly need once the new construction costs are implemented.

NEW
You've essentially switched roles between the Hyperion and Megathron. Whereas the Hyperion was the pure gunboat now it's the Megathron, while the Hyperion becomes the more versatile ship. This seems like an aesthetic mistake since the Megathron looks more the part in that aspect, it already has 7 turret points on the side rather than 8 so there is no uglyness in making it a 7 turret ship, as opposed to the Hyperion and it's now vacant turret hardpoints.

Anyway, in it's role as an attack battleship is the Megathron going to be able to take advantage of that extra speed and agility with 8 lowslots? It seems that after you slap a bunch of 1600 plates and trimarks on it then it's going to be pretty slow regardless. Indeed a lot of people have been coming up with fits that would give the Megathron a place in fleets of combat battleships. The decision to make the Megathron an attack BS seems arbitrary and contrary to the way most people use the ship currently or will do with 8 lows.

The Hyperion
OLD
The much-derided Hyperion is mostly used as a dual or triple rep tanker or as a shield gankboat. It struggles to be useful otherwise since it doesn't have the lowslots to both tank and gank simultaneously. It's 8/5/6 layout allows it to field a strong active armour tank but with relatively little DPS.

NEW
Ugh, where are my 8 turrets?! Instead of fixing the Hyperion's problems you just gave up and turned it into a different ship. When I first started playing EVE I thought the Hyperion looked badass with it's sleek design and aggressively-placed banks of large turrets. If nothing else, you've make an aesthetic mistake by trying to make the Hyperion into a versatile battleship when it's whole look screams “focused killer”. Leave that to the Megathron.
Johnny Aideron
Order of Rouvenor
#2 - 2013-04-17 11:33:40 UTC  |  Edited by: Johnny Aideron
So I'm personally unhappy with the new BS setups. I feel that the Dominix is turning into an shield projectile boat, the Megathron is just weird with it's low base EHP and then 8 lows for tanking while the Hyperion is doing the job that the Megathron should be doing. I think you're trying too hard to differentiate them and should focus on improving what they are already good at and do a more conservative makeover with them.

In my view the roles of Gallente BS should be:
Dominix: fleet drone ship, utility neut/RR
Megathron: fleet turret ship, small gang versatility
Hyperion: small gang/solo ganker/tanker, less versatile than the Megathron and more focused on DPS and/or survivability

MY views on how the new BS should look are as follows:

DOMINIX
Gallente Battleship Skill Bonuses:
+10% Drone Damage, Drone hitpoints and drone targeting range
+5% large hybrid damage

Slot layout: 6H, 5M, 7L; 6 turrets , 0 launchers
Fittings: 10000 (+1000) PWG, 600 CPU
Defense (shields / armor / hull) : 7200(+1731) / 8000(+1789) / 8500(+1859)
Capacitor (amount / recharge rate / cap per second) : 6000(+1000) / 1087s / 5.51
Mobility (max velocity / agility / mass / align time): 109 / .1254 / 100250000(+3150000) / 16.88s
Drones (bandwidth / bay): 125 / 375
Targeting (max targeting range / Scan Resolution / Max Locked targets): 72.5km / 90 / 7
Sensor strength: 22 Magnetometric Sensor Strength
Signature radius: 465(+45)

*In my view, this is still a good “fleet” Dominix while retaining it's Gallente flavour (armour and hybrids). With a bonus to drone control range you can effectively fire out to around 70-80km with drones while still using the highslots for bonused railguns (as opposed to unbonused artillery). You can replicate some of the thrown-out hull bonus by adding some omnidirectional tracking links, which makes the 5 midslots actually useful to have. Even with the bonused railguns, the DPS won't be as ridiculous as a shield domi since you have to use the 7 lows for both gank and tank. This hull works better as an armour-tanker. Of course not everybody fits turrets to a Dominix in the first place and that's fine, but if they do fit turrets then they should be hybrid turrets.

MEGATHRON
Gallente Battleship Skill Bonuses:
+5% Large Hybrid Turret rate of fire (replaces large hybrid turret damage)
+7.5% Large Hybrid Turret tracking speed

Slot layout: 8H, 4M, 7L; 7 turrets , 1 launcher
Fittings: 15500 PWG, 600 CPU(+75)
Defense (shields / armor / hull) : 7200 / 8000 / 8500
Capacitor (amount / recharge rate / cap per second) : 6000(+375) / 1087s / 5.51
Mobility (max velocity / agility / mass / align time): 115 / .122 / 98400000 / 16.4
Drones (bandwidth / bay): 125 / 150
Targeting (max targeting range / Scan Resolution / Max Locked targets): 72.5km / 95 / 7
Sensor strength: 22 Magnetometric Sensor Strength
Signature radius: 465

Changing the Megathron to a combat BS leaves Gallente without an attack BS, but so what? These roles are purely arbitrary and there's nothing wrong with discarding them where they don't make sense, such as in the Gallente BS line-up. This Megathron gets all the ehp, fitting (CPU!!!) and capacitor bonuses of a battleship upgraded to what was previously the tier 3 level, while retaining it's versatility with a utlity high for a heavy energy neutralizer and a sizeable dronebay. It loses a lowslot over the current proposal but makes up for it somewhat with more base ehp while losing some speed and agility. It retains the rate of fire bonus which makes the 7 lows easier to work with.

This is the Megathron that I was hoping for CCP to introduce ever since they started “tiericide” and I've been apprehensive ever since I heard you wanted to turn it into an attack BS.

HYPERION
Gallente Battleship Skill Bonuses:
+5% Large Hybrid Turret damage
+7.5% Armor Repair amount

Slot layout: 8H, 5M, 7L(+1); 8 turrets , 0 launchers
Fittings: 15750 PWG, 630 (+30) CPU
Defense (shields / armor / hull) : 7500 / 8000 / 8500
Capacitor (amount / recharge rate / cap per second) : 7200 / 1250s / 4.8
Mobility (max velocity / agility / mass / align time): 115 / .1178 / 100200000 / 16.36s
Drones (bandwidth / bay): 125 / 125
Targeting (max targeting range / Scan Resolution / Max Locked targets): 60km / 110 / 7
Sensor strength: 23 Magnetometric Sensor Strength
Signature radius: 485

The Hyperion should be true to it's form and be a focused brawler. With an additional lowslot for another magstab and enough dronebay for a flight of heavies it should do enough DPS in it's armour configuration. This means the Hyperion will have 1 more slot than every other battleship which is a break from the norm, but I don't think it's a big deal. You already effectively gave the Brutix (a similar ship) an extra slot for all intents and purposes by lowering it's number of turrets and then increasing turret damage, so that it ended up with an “extra” high. You may as well go the whole nine yards and just give the Hyperion another slot. It could then afford to fit a magstab on top of it's tanking mods.

So there you go. My suggestions are more conservative than that of CCP, but I think that's a good thing here.
Suicide Smith
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#3 - 2013-04-17 13:04:07 UTC
For the love of god people.. Enough with the 8 turrets.
I don't CARE what it looks like, I just want it to work.

The current configuration of 8 Turrets make managing cap on the Hyperion almost impossible. Just the guns alone with Antimatter leaves the ship dangerously low on cap, and that's before you even think of reps, resists, prop, etc. Fit that stuff and you end up with either a 10sec lifespan, or filling most of your utility mids with Cap Boosters. Don't get me wrong, ships don't NEED to be cap stable, but if you Require a cap booster to do Anything with your ship, it's time to look at it.

6 Guns gives much improved cap management, and a reduction in Ammo that I'm thrilled to see. That extra high opens up a lot of utility high options, from a launcher for a little more DPS, nos/neut, smartbomb, cyno, drone range,.. to go with it's ability to finally field 5 Heavies.. which should be a MUST.. If a Thorax can field 5 Mediums, then a BS should field 5 Heavies.

You want 8 turrets, find a way to fit it on the Mega hull, but the changes to the Hype that have been suggested are what the ship finally needs to become useful.
Roime
Mea Culpa.
Shadow Cartel
#4 - 2013-04-17 13:25:05 UTC
That's a pretty bad suggestion, can I has my 2 minutes back?

.
Johnny Aideron
Order of Rouvenor
#5 - 2013-04-17 13:39:02 UTC
Suicide Smith wrote:
Don't get me wrong, ships don't NEED to be cap stable, but if you Require a cap booster to do Anything with your ship, it's time to look at it.


A lot of ships must need a look at in that case!
Jadiss
HUN Corp.
HUN Reloaded
#6 - 2013-04-17 14:16:49 UTC
Suicide Smith wrote:
For the love of god people.. Enough with the 8 turrets.
I don't CARE what it looks like, I just want it to work.

The current configuration of 8 Turrets make managing cap on the Hyperion almost impossible. Just the guns alone with Antimatter leaves the ship dangerously low on cap, and that's before you even think of reps, resists, prop, etc. Fit that stuff and you end up with either a 10sec lifespan, or filling most of your utility mids with Cap Boosters. Don't get me wrong, ships don't NEED to be cap stable, but if you Require a cap booster to do Anything with your ship, it's time to look at it.

6 Guns gives much improved cap management, and a reduction in Ammo that I'm thrilled to see. That extra high opens up a lot of utility high options, from a launcher for a little more DPS, nos/neut, smartbomb, cyno, drone range,.. to go with it's ability to finally field 5 Heavies.. which should be a MUST.. If a Thorax can field 5 Mediums, then a BS should field 5 Heavies.

You want 8 turrets, find a way to fit it on the Mega hull, but the changes to the Hype that have been suggested are what the ship finally needs to become useful.


If a ship is cap starved then the basic cap amount or recharge could (should) be increased imho. The megathron needs this too because of the new rof bonus. I don't understand why mostly slot layouts are changed and this isn't taken into consideration.

For the " ...8 Turrets make managing cap on the Hyperion almost impossible. Just the guns alone with Antimatter leaves the ship dangerously low on cap " part

Lets check some EFT.:

Bare hyperion: 8 neutron blaster cannon II with antimatter -> cap: stable at 64%
Bare hyperion: 1 large armor repairer II -> cap: 7m 13s
Bare hyperion: 2 large armor repairer II -> cap: 2m 38s

I think that not the turrets are that ruining cap management here , but the LAR-s ..and you need at least 2 of them to make the ship viable !!!

Now lets try this

Bare hyperion: 8 blasters+2 LAR running -> cap: 2m 8s
Lets remove the 2 turret
Bare hyperion: 6 blasters+2 LAR running -> cap: 2m 14s

So with the removal of 2 turrets we gain...+6s cap life... that sounds very improved.... and there are no resists ,magstabs or mwd...

I know that EFT is not accurate but it cant be that wrong.

All in all I think its a very little trade of for the loss of an effective turret dps , the cap starvation remains an issue...and it looks lame on the top of that.

The extra utility high: you can fit smartbombs, neuts/nos on gun slots too.
StoneCold
Decadence.
RAZOR Alliance
#7 - 2013-04-17 14:41:51 UTC
New Mega will relay more on turret damage then on drone damage (which is awesome). I played a bit with eft and the new mega -> its doing ok with numbers.

In my case: the additional low doesnt mean more tank, but more gank (as my megas usually only bring 2 magstabs).
CPU / PG is fine as it is / was.

Can´t say something about the dominix, havent used one for like 5 years.

My true stories
mama guru
Yazatas.
#8 - 2013-04-17 14:56:12 UTC  |  Edited by: mama guru
Dominix changes will go through as it will make it the only Gallente BS viable in fleets since 2007-2009. The hybrid bonus was removed because the ship doesn't have the powergrid to properly support it, and if it did, it would be overpowered.

With the hybrid bonus replaced, you can easily afford to fit Drine Link Augmentators and some kind of Remote Rep/Cap Transfer setup without loosing out on your 2nd bonus.

EVE online is the fishermans friend of MMO's. If it's too hard you are too weak.
Asuka Solo
I N E X T R E M I S
Tactical Narcotics Team
#9 - 2013-04-17 15:02:37 UTC
I fully endorse CCP Rise's 7/4/8 Mega layout with sexual favors free of charge!

Can't say the same about your OP tho..... In fact, this topic should be purified with fire!

Eve is about Capital ships, WiS, Boobs, PI and Isk!
mama guru
Yazatas.
#10 - 2013-04-17 15:43:38 UTC
The OP is a high/lowsec pvp'er, they tend to favour 700m/s mwd blasterships with 15k effective range for some reason. Split weapon systems have been proven a stupid concept in this game.

There is a reason the Dominix is getting these changes

There is a reason the Phoon is getting it's changes

There is a reason the myrmidon, nightmare and a whole score of other ships have been changed the way the have.

EVE online is the fishermans friend of MMO's. If it's too hard you are too weak.