Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Nice thread. Its nice to see people mostly staying calm and doing constructive discussion.

I don't think the reason for "no battleship with covert ops cloak" mooto of CCP is the battleship itself. I think it more about EHP.

lets go over all the ship classes that can fit covert ops cloak;

Covert ops: They dont have much tanking slots and generally cant do much damage. Thir main purpose is mainly not to get into fight at all.

Stealth bombers: These ships do massive damage especially to large targets. But when anything just sneezes their way, they die. And they have really no defense agains frigates.

Recons: This class of ship focuse on ewar rather than dps. generally they have low dps and ehp and try to provide support from range. If they are caught they die very easilly.

T3s: This class has not been ballanced yet. Some can have notable tank and good dps while being able to fit covert ops cloak (proteus) some other don't (loki). I expect them to be much more squishy with covert ops after reballance.

Astero + Stratios: With addition of these two ship the ballance went a bit in direction of more ehp for covert ops cloaky ships. However nither can fit formidable tank and they are very slow for their class (which can be counted to tank on these small levels).

Closely related are also BLOPS ships. They have not been ballanced yet, but again they are know for very low ehp for their class.




And finally we have nestor. A poor thing. It has quite decent tank for a battleship even though it has only 6 low slots. It is enough for staing on grid. No ather covert ops ship has this luxury. They are forced to hit and run tactic. And that is why covert ops nestor in current state wold be a bad thing.

I can imagine a scenarios where nestor has a covert ops cloak.
1) strip it of its offensive capabilities and give it defensive ones, weaker than logistics cruiser.
OR
2) lower its tank significantly to be on par with attack battlecruisers
OR
3) Make it simmilar to BLOPS with fuel bay (without coverrt ops cloak)
OR
4) some other ideas people mentioned before.

TL:DR nestor with covert ops cloak has too much tank and dps. Either limit its tank or dps substantionally to allow covert ops cloak.

I don't think it's fair to say that the astero and stratios are squishy.

Buffer astero tackler has 10,000 ehp and equivalent stratios has 60,000.

Dual rep AB stratios with gang links can tank quite a few ships at once, and it has a strong capacitor as long as you don't put lasers on it (small blasters work well).

I did preface that with "potentially".

If someone tried to fly a ship like that with such worthless skills, they'd be garbage- having a ship like this, even with a covert ops cloak, would be much weaker than any character of the same age with skills for a specific battleship and weapon type.

The ship, if given a covert ops cloak, should not have the ability to jump to a covert cyno- that'd be easy to do to fix that possible problem if it was made more like a black ops.

But really, it shouldn't be a black ops, it should just get a covert cloak- then it'd still have to warp, but it wouldn't have the luxury of jumping, which Blops do. it could do with some more capacitor, or at least a reduction to RR cap use, and the covert ops cloak. If it just had that, no jump drive, no other powerful bonuses, it would be useful in wormholes (which it was designed for) and a competent logistics vessel at the same time.

Additionally, it's a unique type of battleship as it is- a battleship with logistics and exploration capabilities produced by the only "pirate" faction that is accessible in high sec, which is really a humanitarian organization with darker, more obscure ties to finding the truths about the mysteries of New Eden- this ship is fine and a new class would only further complicate things.

Its still a wee bit odd that people want the ONLY covert ops capable BS to be a pirate ship which requires no special covops skills other than cloak IV.

The situation with the Astero and Stratios is different, numerous frigate and cruiser hulled covop ships already exist and the SOE ships simply allowed easier access in terms of SP invested at a cost.

Well it wouldn't be much different with a T2 cloak in null, if you couldnt uncloak a battleship on a gatecamp with interceptors no one could expect the game being balanced around players just being bad. And most are in fact very very good.
Overall, Exactly the same as any battleship using the MWD T2 cloak tactic.

Over a standard cloak in null when hunting? You know the player is there because you have local. Warping cloaked does not change that.

If it is cloaked, it is cloaked whatever type of cloak it has,

It has no ability to drop on someone and suprise them unless they are afk or a bot, just like any other ship. Plenty of time to warp away, and if suprised by a cloaky fleet, the small ships are the issue, not the battleship.

I really do not believe that anyone would be honestly concerned with a battleship becoming a racing car at around 100m/second. cloaked speed on the nestor is irrelevant. The argument about picking your range etc applies to smaller ships, not the Nestor.

The truth is the covert ops cloak would add nothing to it's power in Null over a standard cloak that couldn't be added with a sebo.
Null seccers would find it no easier or no more difficuilt than currently.
A covert ops battleship is in fact the least powerful implementation of the technology as long as there is a targeting delay.

On a blops with skills lowering the post cloak targeting delay, a different story, I do see potential for additional power, however this is a discussion for when those are rebalanced. I certainly understand that being a fuzzy line that CCP are cautious of crossing, but the nestor is not a Blops.

However in wormhole space, it would be able to take it's part in a travelling fleet. It Would be able to travel with them, and be useful.
Not more power, just having a flaw that prevents its use at all fixed. Without it, in reality it is limited to it's home system, Or under perfect conditions the neighbouring one, no further. Would anyone buy a ship that was so restricted in it's use? Seems we are not. Price while relevant, is NOT the main reason we are not using it.

So in summation.
If covert ops is added, no increased true power in hisec, null and losec. Becomes useable in wormholes.


To keep this focused, I will leave the discussion of lack of capacitor and repair abilities for another post.

I think more than a Covert Ops cloak the Nestor needs a defined role. At this point I think the best suggestions are a refitting bay and a clone vat. Those would make it extremely valuable.

Oh, I definitely agree with that and I've said so before. The Nestor may have decent base stats (not outstanding by any means), but the roll bonuses are a terrible mismatch for a BS level ship.

My question is why some people have latched onto the idea that a covert ops cloak will fix the Nestor. What do they think the problems are with the Nestor, and what will adding a Covert Ops fix?

Just because you can use a T2 cloak to escape gate camps does not mean the Covert ops does not add 'True' power in sec space.

In null space, for example, a Covert Ops cloak has a distinct advantage if you ran into a warp bubble or are trying to find a safe spot to log off. It's pretty common to hear a story about a Carrier or Dread that got scanned down during warp and then de-cloaked by a persistent group blindly bumping at the end point.

It may be fine to let a AF or HAC through a camp, but do you honestly think anyone at a gatecamp will let a Nestor get away with the warp changes? They wouldn't have a choice if it had a Covert Ops.

The module is restricted to certain ships for a reason.

Which brings me back to my original question... Why is it so important to have a covert ops over any other option? It seems like the main problem most people have is that the Nestor cannot participate in Covert roams through WH space. I'm not a WH resident, so I'm honestly asking what about the Covert Ops cloak is absolutely necessary?

I think with respect that there are three incorrect premises behind your position. If I may, I'll tackle them in order.

1. Evading gate camps. A covops nestor will travel at ~110m/s when cloaked. This gives the interceptor pilot in a gate camp a very high probability of decloaking the Nestor, since it will not be able to move any significant distance from the point of cloaking before the interceptor (or dictor) arrives within 2km. I would strongly advise against trying to beat a gate camp in such a ship. It will not end well. Once the Nestor is decloaked, it lacks the manoeuvrability to get back to gate. It's toast.

2. In order to log off safely in space, all ships must now have spent 30 seconds in space with all modules off, not in a fleet and not changing course. This includes cloaks. Since the recent changes, it's simply not possible to log off cloaked. If a scanning ship with combat probes knows roughly where you are when you begin your logoff, you will be caught either before you log and if not, certainly when you log back on. Remember that a combat scanner probe at 4AU range will get a Nestor in 1 scan cycle (6 seconds). Give the scanner 15 seconds to warp to you, and this is 21 seconds. If there is motivated scanner, he can get to you and lock you down before you can log. he'll be in a fleet who can warp to 0. You'll be toast.

3. It's not that I am asserting that a covops cloak is any better an idea than clone bays, refitting bays or any other idea that CCP have so far rejected. I simply personally believe, having evaluated the pros and cons of each, that this one will:
a) make the ship desirable in the space it was designed for,
b) not unbalance any other part of the game.

Hope this helps to clarify my position.