Player Features and Ideas Discussion

there is already HIC's that follow the T1 combat cruisers...

just... no.

HICs aren't combat cruisers. They're highly specialized ships that literally trade DPS for anti-capital support. attempting to turn them into combat cruisers would be a real mistake. HACS are the place where we'll get to see both ship lines extended properly.

and i thought the negativity over the indy changes were bad. so when can we expect the revised/round 2 of the hac changes?

Role Bonus: Can fit Target Spectrum Breaker. -90% to fitting and capacitor usage.

Now the HAC has a purpose that T1 cruisers, faction cruisers and aBCs can't do nearly as well. Engage the blob and perform decently at it. Now moving those utility high slots to a medium makes even more sense.

Easily the best idea by far.

The question that came to my mind when I read the proposed changes was "What do they think these ships DO?"

With the rest of the tiericide initiative, there has been clear roles assigned to hull groupings; you have logi hulls, attack(DPS) hulls, combat(tank) hulls, EWAR, etc. The changes to hulls based upon their defined 'role' were well done (imo).

However, looking at these proposed changes, I'm left wondering. Is there any sort of unified 'vision' for the roles that HACs should fill? The scattered, seemingly random bonuses imply that this is not the case...

I for one, would like to see CCP step back, determine actual Roles (capital 'R') for these hulls and then give them bonuses that allow them to excell IN THAT ROLE. I'd rather see it done right than see 2/3 of a promising hull class go unused. I can be patient. I really can.

40+ pages makes for a lot of reading, and I'm sorry if these suggestions have been made before, but perhaps they're worth re-stating:

1) Why do the HACs not get the same +2 slots that the AFs got over the T1 linup? +2 slots would go toward fitting consistency, and be an attractive gain to offset the increased training time and ISK cost of the hull.

2) The blanket "make MWD awesome" role bonus makes me sad, and doesn't make MWD awesome. I'd much rather see a "+100% to AB speed" if you feel a compelling need to have some sort of speed boost bonus. NONE of them (seriously, go look) have sigs that are smaller than their T1 variants (only the Ishtar manages to break even). Even with the proposed sig bloom reduction, the modified sig is easily large enough to be whelped by large guns. At least with an AB speed bonus, then sig returns as a factor. The "smaller and faster" argument only works if the ship is actually smaller AND faster.
Instead of a blanket speed/sig bloom bonus though, it would be nice to see a more interesting Role bonus - immune to webs, 50% reduction in enemy energy neut effectiveness, or some individual role bonus tailored to the hull.

3) There's two (obvious) roles that present themselves: 'Damage' and 'Tank'. Each race should have one of each, but there is no reason why they would fulfil the roles the same way from race to race.

Let's take a look at the 'Damage' role. Ships in this role should either do more damage than their T1 or Navy variant, OR have better damage projection. All other areas should be roughly equivalent to T1/Navy variants.

Proposed hulls for the 'Damage' role:
Zealot - Damage Projection (And already pretty balanced, I think everyone will agree.) You can add an extra utility high slot to bring it up to 16.
Cerberus - Damage Amplification. As a weapons system, missiles have plusses and minuses when compared to turrets, but a specialized Missile damage platform should be able to trade-off the delayed damage application inherent in missiles for extra-large fireworks. An extra low slot or utility high for the 16th.
Deimos - Damage Amplification. A blaster-fit Diemos should be terrifying once it get's into range, a rail-fit Deimos should hit like a brick. Why not 6 highs with 6 turrets to rain death?
Munin - Damage Amplification. Decent base speed, good gunship-oriented bonuses already. The specialization that I'd like to see would be +1 high slot and +1 turret.

Keeping in mind the "specialized" nature of these hulls, the 'Tank' role would excell at either repairing or absorbing damage, but not have much better stats in all other areas over the T1/Navy variants.

Proposed hulls for the 'Tank' role:
Sacrilege - Super-heavy; cap recharge bonus (love it) lends itself well to dual armor reppers. Already does anemic DPS, so no issue there. The drones can be set at 1 flight of lights, and add the 6th low slot.
Eagle - Rail buffs will provide the same DPS as other rail hulls, could replace one of the optimal bonuses for a shield HP bonus, or a shield boost bonus. You can leave the utility high slot in to bring the slot count to 16, which gives some versatility to the hull.
Ishtar - The oddball of the group, I have to agree that the +50m3 drone bay bonus is... well, kinda dumb. This could easily be switched to an armor HP bonus or a drone MWD speed boost without losing the ideal of the "completely dedicated drone carrier". +1 low slot and FFS +some CPU! PLEASE!
Vagabond - Part speed tank, part shield tank (soon), let's see +1 mid slot to harden things up. I'm not going to compare to the Cynabal, since the faction cruisers have yet to be re-balanced, and everyone already knows.

There's more I could add, but I think I've taken up enough of your time for right now. Thanks for all the good work!