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[Odyssey 1.1] Heavy Assault Cruisers

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Major Killz
inglorious bastards.
#921 - 2013-07-19 21:50:15 UTC
When CCP introduced tier 3 battle-cruiser. Many pilots like myself saw how they'd be used and suggested that CCP should limit tier 3 battle-cruisers to ONLY USING LONG RANGE TURRETS. Of course CCP did not listen.

Inf act I suggested destroyers be limited to long range turrets also. At-least tier 2 destroyers should (Thrasher, Coercer, Catalyst, Cormorant)

CCP is not in fact trying to deal with "power creep" at all and all the cheer leaders who fanned them ON don't seem as happy as they once were with all this "change for the better".

What about overlap? I'm not the only one who notices a Bellicose is as good as a Caracal and same for the Cyclone and Drake. Why is the Talwar better than a Corex with standard missile launchers? Why is the Prophecy and Armageddon overlapping with the Myrmidon and Dominix?

What is imbalance and power-creep? All Frigate and Cruiser ship classes. Since the changes to Navy cruisers why would anyone fly pirate cruisers? Why do tech 1 frigates out preform pirate, navy and tech 2 counterparts?

If these changes were introduced as is; what is the main difference between a Navy Vexor and Ishtar? Resistance however after fitting you'd obtain similar effective hit-points and resistance and SUBSTANTIALLY different hit points. The Navy Vexor has near twice the effective hit-points of the Ishtar and does the SAME THING.

Why would I really purchase a Sacrilege over a Navy Augoror? What about a Vagabond over a Stabber Fleet Issue or Scythe Fleet issue? In fact the Sycthe fleet issue has creped very close to the Cynabal in performance for FAR less of the Cost.

Reducing building cost would not be a bad idea as some have suggested but it would have to be significant. Also I like how players bring up the Zealot they are GOD SENT. AHACS were good back in the war in the borth with the OLD NC and when battleship fleets flew with little to no support. Unlike now with so many webbing ships being fielded. AHACS are a novelty and large fleet of HACS become effective. I've been in and lead Deimos, Sacrilege, Ishtar, Zealot, Cerberus and Eagle fleets. Fun fact. Provided you engage enough ret@rds any fleet concept can be successful and there's an endless supply of terrible in this game. What is the point of all those words? Give the Zealot and all HACS at-least 25mb in drones and the abil to use them. EVERYONE OF THEM (zealot is sh!t and so are most HACS).

Serious question. Is CCP going to use a signature bonus in all future changes to tech 2 ships? Is that the COP OUT NOW? Is that whats HAWT ON THE STREETS THESE DAYS?

[u]Ich bin ein Pirat ！[/u]
Namamai
Pator Tech School
Minmatar Republic
#922 - 2013-07-19 21:53:21 UTC  |  Edited by: Namamai
Going to make an argument about the role bonus from a different angle.

I'm not sure that the HAC role bonus will have a useful effect as implemented now, especially on the Vagabond.

A ship's signature radius factors into the turret tracking equation -- a decrease in sig radius has the same effect as an equally proportional increase in transversal, for purposes of determining chance-to-hit (and quality of hits). So, taking the Vagabond as an example, an orbit with a 2km/s transversal post-patch will have the same evasive qualities as a 3.5km/s transversal today.

This is basically a free set of Snakes/Halos for purposes of damage mitigation. However, given the typical targets that compete with Vagabonds today, I don't think this constitutes a meaningful change -- especially given the Vagabond's relatively thin tank and engagement range.

For example, most dual-TE Vagabonds firing Barrage have to be within 20km or less to put reasonable damage on target. Imagine that we're engaging a blaster Talos using our Vagabond -- what type of damage we take? Assume we're in an 18km orbit with 2km/s transversal velocity.

On TQ today:
* If it loads Null, the Talos has a 78% chance to hit per shot; expected average output of 685dps.
* If it loads CNAM, the Talos has a 62% chance to hit per shot; expected average output of 688dps.

After the proposed HAC changes:
* If it loads Null, the Talos has a 51% chance to hit per shot; expected average output of 440dps.
* If it loads CNAM, the Talos has a 48% chance to hit per shot; expected average output of 535dps.

So, on paper, the role bonus gives us a ~30% reduction in incoming damage. This isn't anything to cough at! However, it's also missing the point -- 450dps incoming is still more than what the Vaga is putting out (~69% chance to hit, expected output of 340dps), and it's more than what the Vaga can tank with its 21k EHP of buffer. It will be forced to disengage.

In short, the proposed role bonus doesn't really change the engagement profile -- i.e. what ships I can't and can't safely engage in a Vagabond. If a ship can currently force a Vaga to disengage on TQ today, they will continue to be able to do so after the patch. The fact that the Vaga takes ~30% less damage is nice... but the remaining 70% is still more than sufficient to drive the Vagabond off. As such, it will continue to be passed over in favor of ships that can engage at longer ranges (i.e. Cynabal) or that have enough tank to make that 30% damage reduction worthwhile (i.e. Deimos).

The AF role bonus gives a similar effective reduction, but their base incoming damage was already small enough -- and their tanks powerful enough -that the role bonus visibly improved the class by virtue of increasing the set of ships they could safely engage.
Omnathious Deninard
University of Caille
Gallente Federation
#923 - 2013-07-19 22:01:43 UTC
Marlona Sky wrote:
Harvey James wrote:
Cearain wrote:
Ben Yahtzee Croshaw wrote:
Marlona Sky wrote:
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. Smile



I'm personally not a fan of this idea.


i also think its a waste of a bonus

It is a hundred times better use of a role bonus compared to a mjd bonus.

I personally think a 100% AB velocity bonus would be well served on these ships, makes them quite fast while keeping the signature radius low

If you don't follow the rules, neither will I.
Dev Tesla
Deep Matter Inc.
#924 - 2013-07-19 22:06:26 UTC
nikar galvren wrote:
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!


Bump for a good post to keep it from getting buried.
Mutiny Within
Intergalactic Restored Gravitational Aided Yields
#925 - 2013-07-19 22:07:31 UTC
For the love of god please give the Ishtar a little bit more CPU......
Tesseya
VooDoo Warriors
#926 - 2013-07-19 22:21:03 UTC
Mutiny Within wrote:
For the love of god please give the Ishtar a little bit more CPU......

agreed, very-very hard fit ishtar, especially shield.
or give one low-slot, anyway place for co-processor.
Prometheus Exenthal
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#927 - 2013-07-19 22:25:12 UTC
Also, serious question time.
If they ACTUALLY decided to give the Deimos 4 mids (cringe), what would be the downside to exchanging the (now useless) 5% mwd cap bonus for a 75% reduction in cap battery fitting bonus?
That would mean a large T2 battery would take 25cpu & 69pg instead of 100/275, and a medium would be 19/19. Keep in mind, batteries also have a neut reduction bonus (12.5% on large).

This would be the functional equivalent to a nos, but with a large reserve in cap.
People who want to shield tank can shield tank.
People who want to inject can inject.
And people who like flying the way I do (brawling w/ nos), can continue doing so.

Seems like a fair deal IMO.

https://www.youtube.com/user/promsrage

DO YOUR JOBS, CCP DEVS. FIX THE GAME INSTEAD OF FKING IT
Harvey James
The Sengoku Legacy
#928 - 2013-07-19 22:25:24 UTC  |  Edited by: Harvey James
Perhaps with the ishtar you could give it a unique role focused on medium drones.
Ofc you would have to increase medium drone engagement range to allow for the range increase and add a drone falloff skill. and a drone orbit velocity skill would be nice too. Although looking at medium drones optimal and falloff ranges they could use a big buff there .. well that drone overhaul would be handy about now anyway.

ISHTAR
Role Bonus: 50% reduction in MicroWarpdrive signature radius penalty

Gallente Cruiser Bonuses:
10% bonus to drone tracking and optimal and falloff range to medium drones(was 5% bonus to Medium Hybrid Turret damage)
20% bonus to drone hitpoints and Damage to medium drones

Heavy Assault Cruiser Bonuses:
5 km bonus to medium Drone operation range per level
20% bonus to medium drone orbit velocity and mwd velocity

Slot layout: 4H(-1), 5M, 6L(+1); 4 turrets(+1), 0 launchers
Fittings: 700 PWG, 285 CPU
Defense (shields / armor / hull) : 1400(-6) / 1600(-18) / 2300(+191)
Capacitor (amount) : 1300(+175)
Mobility (max velocity / agility / mass / align time): 185(-6) / .52 / 11700000 / 8.43s
Drones (bandwidth / bay): 50 / 200
Targeting (max targeting range / Scan Resolution / Max Locked targets): 60km / 294 / 7
Sensor strength: 16 Magnetometric
Signature radius: 145

T3's need to be versatile so no rigs are necessary ... they should not have OP dps and tank

ABC's should be T2, remove drone assist, separate HAM's and Torps range, -3 HS for droneboats

Nerf web strength, Make the blaster Eagle worth using
raawe
Imperial Shipment
Amarr Empire
#929 - 2013-07-19 22:29:51 UTC
Rise, whatever you do with sacriledge, make sure to add 1 more low slot. It's supposed to be brawler and it cant fit tank and spank properly to use bonuses.
Heribeck Weathers
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#930 - 2013-07-19 22:35:03 UTC
Ok CCP Rise, so your telling me that the reason that HACs have been shuned for years was becuase of alittle grid here and there, alittle to many utility highs and not enough tank and most of all not having a MWD sig radious bonus? thats what has been wrong eh?

I think your wrong, and i think these changers are poor.

ONE: reduce their sigs across the board, these are cruisers not crummy BCs.

TWO: seperate them into tanky and kity liek you have with T1 cruisers and navy cruisers. Give kity cruisers all a role bonus that suits kiting, like 30% reduction in MWD cap usage. And give the tanky ones a role bonus to suit brawling, like a 25% bonus to the trackign of their respected weapon system.

THREE: give all the brawling Hacs a bonus to tank, That means the Diemost should get a 7.5% bonus to armor HP per lvl, and the munion should get a 7.5% bonus to shield HP per lvl (oh and move that new low to a mid plz, and remove that crazy shield tankign bonus from the vaga, that is a very very nitch roll ship, bonuses should be strived to be used, not only used in rare fits)

FOUR: increase the speed of all the kity HAcs to slightly above their T1 variant. Make the Vagas extra bonus a fall off bonus, yeah the vaga seriosuly needs more range to fight since the TE nerf.

FIVE: the mostimportant is fidle with the build requirements to bring their price down so its about 125mil instead of 175mil. at 125 its still about 50mil more than a faction cruiser and way more expensive than a T1, but its a bit farther away from command ship conts and three hacs will cost the same as a T3 rather than two hacs.
Warcalibre
NovaTech Holdings
#931 - 2013-07-19 22:37:51 UTC
What about giving two role bonuses, one for MWD and one for AB, making them great dual prop boats? I don't think any other type of ship has that, so that would make them different.

Also, I realize that we are supposed to get linear increase in strength for exponential increase in cost, but in this iteration it looks like logarithmic increase in strength for super-exponential cost.
Prometheus Exenthal
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#932 - 2013-07-19 22:41:51 UTC
raawe wrote:
Rise, whatever you do with sacriledge, make sure to add 1 more low slot. It's supposed to be brawler and it cant fit tank and spank properly to use bonuses.


It does this just fine.
The HAM boost from a few months back means you can actually use Rage ammo.
The Sac is well into the 600dps range now (before heat), even if you just have a single BCU.

The Sac changes are the best of the lot, and it doesn't need to be adjusted further.

https://www.youtube.com/user/promsrage

DO YOUR JOBS, CCP DEVS. FIX THE GAME INSTEAD OF FKING IT
Tiber Ibis
The Paratwa Ka
#933 - 2013-07-19 22:41:57 UTC
Looks like some really nice changes there. All good changes as far as I can see.
Omnathious Deninard
University of Caille
Gallente Federation
#934 - 2013-07-19 22:45:37 UTC
Harvey James wrote:
Perhaps with the ishtar you could give it a unique role focused on medium drones.
Ofc you would have to increase medium drone engagement range to allow for the range increase and add a drone falloff skill. and a drone orbit velocity skill would be nice too. Although looking at medium drones optimal and falloff ranges they could use a big buff there .. well that drone overhaul would be handy about now anyway.

ISHTAR
Role Bonus: 50% reduction in MicroWarpdrive signature radius penalty

Gallente Cruiser Bonuses:
10% bonus to drone tracking and optimal and falloff range to medium drones(was 5% bonus to Medium Hybrid Turret damage)
20% bonus to drone hitpoints and Damage to medium drones

Heavy Assault Cruiser Bonuses:
5 km bonus to medium Drone operation range per level
20% bonus to medium drone orbit velocity and mwd velocity

Slot layout: 4H(-1), 5M, 6L(+1); 4 turrets(+1), 0 launchers
Fittings: 700 PWG, 285 CPU
Defense (shields / armor / hull) : 1400(-6) / 1600(-18) / 2300(+191)
Capacitor (amount) : 1300(+175)
Mobility (max velocity / agility / mass / align time): 185(-6) / .52 / 11700000 / 8.43s
Drones (bandwidth / bay): 50 / 200
Targeting (max targeting range / Scan Resolution / Max Locked targets): 60km / 294 / 7
Sensor strength: 16 Magnetometric
Signature radius: 145

Sorry Harvey this ship would be a fail big time, it is under DPSed it has a bonus that won't work with the ship, it MWD velocity would make light drones overshoot there target providing 0 DPS.

If you don't follow the rules, neither will I.
mama guru
Yazatas.
#935 - 2013-07-19 22:48:06 UTC
Ishtar badly needs like +30 CPU and 1 low or about +400 armor if it's gonna be 1 less slot than all the others.

EVE online is the fishermans friend of MMO's. If it's too hard you are too weak.
Onictus
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#936 - 2013-07-19 22:49:15 UTC
Grath Telkin wrote:
None of your(player) silly ideas justify the 15x price tag over t1 cruisers or the 3-4x the price tag of ABC's.


You can modify these things all you want in a 1000 different ways, unless you jack the power WAY up, or drop the price WAY down, nobody will fly them simply because the cheaper options do as much or almost as much for a fraction of the cost.



You nailed the hell out of that one.
Maxemus Payne
THE BOARD OF EDUCATION
#937 - 2013-07-19 22:50:03 UTC
I don't think the changes are good enough to warrant being the T2 counterparts of the existing T1s. The strengths of the T1 are too simliar to that of the T2 and do not justify the price increase. Just a thought.
Harvey James
The Sengoku Legacy
#938 - 2013-07-19 22:52:15 UTC  |  Edited by: Harvey James
Omnathious Deninard wrote:
Harvey James wrote:
Perhaps with the ishtar you could give it a unique role focused on medium drones.
Ofc you would have to increase medium drone engagement range to allow for the range increase and add a drone falloff skill. and a drone orbit velocity skill would be nice too. Although looking at medium drones optimal and falloff ranges they could use a big buff there .. well that drone overhaul would be handy about now anyway.

ISHTAR
Role Bonus: 50% reduction in MicroWarpdrive signature radius penalty

Gallente Cruiser Bonuses:
10% bonus to drone tracking and optimal and falloff range to medium drones(was 5% bonus to Medium Hybrid Turret damage)
20% bonus to drone hitpoints and Damage to medium drones

Heavy Assault Cruiser Bonuses:
5 km bonus to medium Drone operation range per level
20% bonus to medium drone orbit velocity and mwd velocity

Slot layout: 4H(-1), 5M, 6L(+1); 4 turrets(+1), 0 launchers
Fittings: 700 PWG, 285 CPU
Defense (shields / armor / hull) : 1400(-6) / 1600(-18) / 2300(+191)
Capacitor (amount) : 1300(+175)
Mobility (max velocity / agility / mass / align time): 185(-6) / .52 / 11700000 / 8.43s
Drones (bandwidth / bay): 50 / 200
Targeting (max targeting range / Scan Resolution / Max Locked targets): 60km / 294 / 7
Sensor strength: 16 Magnetometric
Signature radius: 145

Sorry Harvey this ship would be a fail big time, it is under DPSed it has a bonus that won't work with the ship, it MWD velocity would make light drones overshoot there target providing 0 DPS.


well you seem to have missed something there light drones aren't mentioned in my post :)
also i think you would still get a good 500 dps or more on top of any dps from rails
The idea being medium drones could orbit said target at say 9 or 10km and do solid dps along with the ship firing rails

T3's need to be versatile so no rigs are necessary ... they should not have OP dps and tank

ABC's should be T2, remove drone assist, separate HAM's and Torps range, -3 HS for droneboats

Nerf web strength, Make the blaster Eagle worth using
Noisrevbus
#939 - 2013-07-19 22:52:56 UTC  |  Edited by: Noisrevbus
I see that Grath Telkin is laying down the law Blink.

The only thing I have to add to what he's been schooling you on for the past five odd pages is this ...

T2 may need to be made less expensive relative T1.

However, it's not that T2 need to be cheaper overall or that T3 need to be nerfed to T2 levels.

It's that all the T1 stuff need to be made more expensive. In tune with their performance of course.

The overarching problem is not that T2 and T3 (or Capitals, or Supers) are too expensive. The problem is that most T1 subcaps are too inexpensive (which free up resources for T3, Capitals etc. to accumulate), to the point where losing them has become trivial and meaningless in combat. Most of the T1 subcaps are far too effective for their current pricetag. It's one of those "shortest route" things again. You can start dropping the prices and performance of every other class you revisit, but the bottom is BS and BC, that's where the balance issue originated and where it's suspended right now.

You'd think someone would realize the problem when losing multiple fleets of ships and the largest drawback is the game-wide production's ability to refill the Jita stock. It's not "oops we lost too many Rokhs so we're poor", no it's "oops we lost too many Rokhs so we have to wait for the market to bounce back, while our nonsensical war drags out into eternity and is determined by who grows bored with the game first". Killing a ship should impact it's player, killing a fleet should impact it's alliance or coalition.

It's such a simple equation that it's mind boggling that it can't seem to be adressed. As long as T1 Subcaps are so cheap, excess resources will begin to pile up. As long as no Subcaps are worth spending those excess resources on, they will be spent on Supers. That's what cheap subcaps encourages, (Super-) Capitals, wether it's a big evil coalition keeping nullsec full of Supers yet fighting with Battleships or a rich, old group hotdropping your "goodfites" in Lowsec.

Too many Supers? Fix subcap pricing.
Too much hotdrops? Fix subcap pricing.
Too large blobs? Fix subcap pricing.
Too much lag? Fix subcap pricing.
Too few roams? Fix subcap pricing.
Too few targets? Fix subcap pricing.
Too few political actors? Fix subcap pricing.
Too much diplomacy? Fix subcap pricing.
Too much moon-income? Fix subcap pricing.
Too much renters/bots? Fix subcap pricing.
Too much Logis? Fix subcap pricing.
Too many Lokis? Fix subcap pricing.
Too much "Drakes"? Fix subcap pricing.
Too few HACs? Fix subcap pricing.
Too few changes? Fix subcap pricing.

That's the common denominator, and you can't have the cake and eat it.
Onictus
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#940 - 2013-07-19 22:53:06 UTC
Maxemus Payne wrote:
I don't think the changes are good enough to warrant being the T2 counterparts of the existing T1s. The strengths of the T1 are too simliar to that of the T2 and do not justify the price increase. Just a thought.



I agree.

Not to mention that they are still going to be stomped all over by the attack BCs


There simply isn't enough of a departure from the T1 cruisers, and anything that is going actually brawl is generally done better by battlecruisers at the small gang level.