Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Understandable.

I'm taking into account the fact that EVE works on 1 second ticks and that player reactions vary. The 5 second cloaking delay, while hindering, wouldn't have too much of an impact against catching most cruisers and above. Them locking you to apply dps is a problem though, but risking combat against someone that can actually hit you through a TD would be unwise unless you are confident in your skill level.

Edit: And I never really meant that you can ever have too much dps for a DED site. I was attempting to emphasize more that while having more dps is always good, you don't need that much to complete a site. And if said high dps caused an imbalance outside of PvE it would not bar you from continuing to complete the DED sites if the damage was reduced to restore that balance. Albeit you would complete them at a reduced rate.

It has been an interesting read thus far. CCP has proposed two ships for exploration. Of all the fits suggested only one is an exploration fit; ie has hacking mods. DED sites are combat PvE. This is fine but almost every fit listed involves points and webs. Don't really need those to run DED sites.

CCP suggested having these ships for long trips away from home. I can only take this to mean that you can go a long time without docking to unload the lootz. Is this why these ships are lasar ships? Crystals take less cargo space? If this is not the rational then why not include missiles? Amaar use missiles.

It is true, every ship in EVE can and will be subject to PvP. This is a good thing but if CCP really wants exploration ships then please remember the posts of the past that begged for dedicated exploration ships. Emphasis on exploration and less on combat.

In fact lets end the debate now. Remove all weapons except drones from these ships and replace with utility highs. The massive drone bay to be used to replace destroyed drones and the CPU to assist with the remote armour reppers. For those concerned with lore you now have a quasi logistics humanitarian ship befitting of SoE, focused on exploration (but not as good as covops/T3s) but could be used for PvP (but not as good as many many others).

Cov Ops

730 DPS

50k EHP

5 Mid Slots


Why use any other ship in eve?

You do not need a salvager for exploration anymore.

Besides which, a flight of salvage drones will fit in the frigate's bay just fine.




It's also going to cost significantly more than most other ships in EVE. While I don't mean to suggest that cost should be a balancing point, it should certainly be a point of consideration in choosing what ship to use for your purpose.

Ok, so after I clear a wormhole site I must just leave the wrecks there? That makes sense. Those nano-ribbons aren't worth the time. Or is probing out and clearing wormholes no longer considered exploration?

And unless things have changed, salvage drones don't hack sleeper wrecks. Not enough strength.

LP cost shouldTM be the same as all other faction frigs and cruisers.

Market price shouldTM be ten times that like for 12 hours after the patch and slowly come back down to about 50%-150% more than normal faction frigs and cruisers (if the current OP iteration makes it on TQ), same as the OP pirate ships always were.

I think it's considered more in line with mining these days
Seriously though, I don't think that Astero thing is something someone would fly for WH exploration.

Besides, you've ignored that you can use salvager drones for anything that frig can kill in WH space just fine.

1. Covops frigs have specific bonuses for relic and data, but cannot fight. It makes sense that the Stratios will have lower explo stats since it has so much pve combat potential. Otherwise it would have been overpowered and taken on the covop frig role as well. This has been covered at least 7 times so far in the thread, please pay attention.

2. Your implication that it sucks at the non combat parts of exploration was debunked in point 1. I am glad you agree it excells at combat epxloration which was my point all along.

3. You see the things you want to see in the presented information. Selective reading. If I were you I would have said "well the covops is there, so that explorer would move between sites freely and generally be able to move free around low/null". Which, unlike you, I am not saying since it would be twisting the facts. The cloak can be used for both pve and pvp, but since the intended purpose of the ship is for pve combat exploration that doesn't tip the scales at all.

It's good at pve combat and can be used for pvp, but it is bonused for exploration, so pve is its main objective. Twist it as much as you like, it won't change the ship stats :)


1. Yes and when you say it has been covered 7 times how on earth can you draw this conclusion?
Covert ops is designed so that it does wait for it.......... Covert ops.
In it's role it should never have to uncloak, it combat scans it spies,it gives intel.
It has a really neccessary bonus to virus strength which is great because it gives the pilots an income when they are not doing their real job!
An explorationnships role is wait for it...... Exploration combat and relic/data sites how can doing it's primary job be overpowered!
Give it thhe 10% virus strengh it needs.

Wow, this thread is truly going places. And sadly, a lot of people poasting should get a pair of training wheels with each covert cloak they order.

"But covert ops are meant to scout/explore! They're not meant to fight!"

Every clandestine operations corporation will laugh at you for saying that. A humble covert ops, fitted correctly, can not only kill someone but also light a cynosural field for black ops attacks.

"But Astero/Stratios aren't meant for PvP! They're meant for running DED sites and hacking!"

The Astero is outclassed in hacking. Period. It scans worse than a covert ops, it hacks worse than a covert ops. The only thing it can do in a decent way is try to fight back but even a T1 frigate will melt its nuts off, not bothering with killing the super-tough drones.

The Stratios is fine for lowend DEDs, but if it's appropriately overpowered in PvP... why not use it for PvP? It's not like there's a Bushido code and we swear not to use those ships to kill others.

"But they'll be expensive! Faction!"

Bullshit. Dramiel, Cynabal and other faction ships are expensive because they need to be exported out of low/null. Their LP can be gained by grinding missions in dangerous space. SoE have hisec agents, meaning carebears in 40b ISK golems can get in on the profit and flood the market. Due to popularity (low skill requirements compared to recon/covops frigate + a lot of people thinking they can fly one just because they have Amarr Cruiser/Gallente Cruiser trained to 1, covert cloaks etc.) their price won't be low but it won't go Cynabal level. I'd say between pirate and navy boats after the first few weeks.

Sure, SoE LP/ISK exchange rate was high until now - running their missions wasn't so popular, and the chief things to export were SoE probe launchers and probes. It's going to change a bit.

ISK never stopped people either. A good day of ratting in 0.0 earns you a deadspace-fit Cynabal, easy. Balancing things around absolute cost is how Titans happened.

"But a T3..."

Speaking of cost, usually said T3 will cost more than a Stratios. Training up to fly it will take longer. Losing it will cost you SP.

Relative cost is something we should look at, because Stratios will outclass T3s in combat and push them into raw utility.

The last part of it is the most brutal though. With the drone damage those things are able to put out, fleets of blackops bridgeable sentry-Stratii (Stratioses?) could pop up. If you think noone has the resources for that, look at the CFC which burned down a region using stealth bomber fleets. Now think again about them blopsdropping sentry cruisers even into cynojammed systems.

So I'd still say... go with a laser bonus (tracking, maybe DPS too instead of drone damage) for the Stratios. Reduce its mids to push the tanking in favor of armor. It doesn't need 5 mids, it doesn't need to have both exploration and PvP mods. We have space yurts, we can refit. Don't let people both have their cake and eat it.

Give the Astero a third high slot. As I mentioned before - it's a cloaky ship. If you're flying it without a covert cloak, you're either using a troll fit and are baiting or shouldn't be flying an Astero. In combat, a Dramiel will do everything better - so just spend some more spacebucks and get a Dramiel. Or a navy boat. Having a cloaky without an utility high that's used by the Covops Cloak module is just bad. Two pew pew lasers and a cloak would be fine for ambushing things that pop up - maybe give it a bonus to laser optimal/tracking since it's a speedy ship and if it doesn't have one people will just stuff ac's or blasters on it.