Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Hi! I am a newbie and I enjoy flying T1 cruisers in fleets while training support skills, but most of them seem to be terrible and more experienced players tell me that of the 16 T1 cruisers available, only about 5 of them are worth using. T1 support cruisers and electronics cruisers in particular seem to need some help. I'm interested in flying logistics, but there is no introductory ship for me to practice with. I'm interested in ewar, but I had to crosstrain caldari in order to be able to fly a worthwhile electronics cruiser.

Ideally, all T1 cruisers should have some use in pvp. T1 cruisers should be about giving newbies a cheap, low-skill platform in order to try out various playstyles and figure out which T2 ships they want to train for, rather than having to train all the way to Logi V just to see if they like it.

For example, I would like to suggest the following changes for the Scythe to make it into a newbie-friendly pvp support cruiser:

• 4/4/3 slots instead of 5/3/3
• Base CPU increased from 225 to 250
• Signature radius reduced from 100 to 85
• Minmatar Cruiser Skill Bonus: 20% bonus to mining laser yield per level. 6% increased Tracking Link Efficiency per level. 10% reduction to shield transporter capacitor use per level. 10% bonus to shield capacity per level.
• Role Bonus: -50% CPU need for medium shield transporters. +20% CPU need for large shield transporters. 500% bonus to range of shield transporters and tracking links.

At max skills, this has 35-45% of the repping power of a scimitar at 36k range. Runs 3 medium reps with 12k EHP or 4 reps with 8k EHP. Newbies won't have max skills, but a high-skill logi pilot using this won't make real logistics cruisers pointless. The shield hp bonus is taken from the Augoror (and would extend to all T1 support cruisers), and is supposed to help the ship have at least a little bit of a tank while fitting all the things it needs to fit in 4 mids. Other support cruisers would have similar bonuses, with the Osprey having bonused shield transporters and projected ECCM, Exequror remote armor reps and remote sensor boosters, and the Augoror remote armor reps and energy transfers.

A few more tweaks might be necessary, the Augoror in particular would be able to run 4 medium reps with extra lows leftover for a tank, but the idea is for these to be versatile, newbie-friendly support ships for trying out space healing. The penalty on large reps is intended to encourage using mediums instead, finally giving medium reps an intended use.


Next, T1 electronics cruisers could also use a look. From what people tell me, the Bellicose is the worst of the four, and the Blackbird is the best. Despite having abysmal damage and no tank, the Blackbird is a good electronics ship because it's able to function well at the electronics role, rather than trying to be a sub-par combat ship with a bolted-on extra bonus. For example, I would make the following changes to the Bellicose:

• 4/5/3 slots instead of 5/4/3
• Targeting range increased from 42.5km to 50km
• Signature radius reduced from 110 to 100
• Minmatar Cruiser Skill Bonus: 10% bonus to target painter effectiveness per level. 5% bonus to tracking disruptor effectiveness per level. 12% bonus to logistics destabilizer effectiveness and optimal range per level. +5m3 drone bay space per level.
• Role Bonus: -50% capacitor need for logistics destabilizers

Still able to function as a heavy tackler like the recon ships based on it, the Bellicose would lose its damage bonus and become more about electronics than damage. The extra racial ewar bonus encourages being versatile and trying things out, while crosstraining and long skill plans would still be required in order to do something well. This new focus on electronics would also be useful for countering logistics through the use of new LCM modules, something that would be more necessary than ever if support cruisers were also buffed.

• Logistics Destabilizer (Bellicose) - Increases the cycle time of remote armor reps, shield transporters, energy transfers.
• Logistics Multispectral Jammer (Blackbird) - Gives a chance to make the target ship unable to use remote armor reps, shield transporters, energy transfers for 20 seconds. Works on all races, but does not break targeting locks and does not prevent the target from doing anything else.
• Logistics Dampener (Celestis) - Reduces the optimal range of remote armor reps, shield transporters, energy transfers. Stops any overheating applied to these modules.
• Logistics Disruptor (Arbitrator) - Increases the capacitor cost of remote armor reps, shield transporters, energy transfers.

By giving T1 electronics ships more in the way of useful electronics, they can be valuable in pvp in a way that doesn't step on the toes of recon ships or other T1 combat ships. By strengthening support cruisers, they can finally have some use in actual pvp, and newbies won't have to wait an entire year just to find out whether they like healing.

I don't think I've asked for any t2 bonuses for t1 ships. The Osprey can already fit 2 large reps and put out just as much throughput as what I've suggested, but has a large sig and can't survive in actual pvp for any amount of time. Meanwhile the Scythe recommends the Logistics Chief Basic certificate, yet can't reasonably use anything on it. I asked for the Scythe to get the Osprey's bonus (and the Augoror to get the Exequror's) so the support cruisers can all perform basic logistics, plus a few minor tweaks for utility and so that they don't die to a BC in seconds.

It's really kind of jarring that the t2 logistics is one of the most useful, in-demand ships in the entire game, yet the t1 logistics is less useful than the rifters my alliance gives out for free.



I didn't have to wait at all, I just crosstrained into a different race and now I'm plenty useful with rifters and blackbirds. I wanted to try a useful t1 cruiser and the blackbird is it, to the point where I would like other electronics cruisers to be similarly useful. I would also like to practice logistics while I wait however long it takes to do support skills, but the consensus is literally just "fly a rifter instead". I like flying a rifter, but I'd also like being able to find out whether I enjoy space healing or not without having to train a whole cruiser 5 and logistics 4 and several different support skills to 5. Finding out that I don't like it when I'm flying t1 ships would mean I can train for something I will like instead.

OP, please keep your stupidity limited to the SomethingAwful forums.

Hell, anyone who pays to join a club of idiots is...well...an idiot.

You should be learning how to play the game and listen to your fc right now instead complaining that your ships are underpowered.

When you get to the point of knowing what you want to specialize in, then you pick the right ship.

If t1 ships were buffed, t2 ships would need to be buffed even more, and you would be in the same situation.

Your post = illogical.

edit: Fyi, goons fly a lot of mass t1 hull fleets. You probably haven't even played long enough to realize that. Get off EVE forums for a few months, play the game, realize what the current metagame is, then come back here and make more informed postings

I also honestly think that a viable way of going the support career from the early beginning would help the game a lot!
making T1 cruiser more balanced towards there T2 counterpart is a good way to start that.

In my opinion there are already some interesting roles in the game, but as the OP said correctly, there are a few T1 ships which can not handle the supposed role (like remote repair role and the like) accordingly. So take these existing roles and work on top of them. I would start with T1 logistics ships, because logistics is a very strategic and also very interesting role to play.

Honestly, I didn't read the whole post. I will say that you are about right on the "5 good ones" comment. Personally, I just think these ships need some more slots. Same with frigates. Ok, a touch more CPU/PG too, but not too much more.

Keep this in mind though: Some cruisers are meant to server as stepping stones. The idea is that you want to outgrow them in time. When Eve first started, back before BCs were introduced, the idea of cruisers was to be a filler between frigates and battleships.


I would like to see more ships in general. The new BCs seem like a good start. To give you an idea of what I mean, how about a cruiser with the Abaddon’s bonus or the Myrmidon’s bonus. While the Caldari have the Caracal, what about a bonus like the Raven or Drake? As for the Minmatar, maybe the Maelstrom/Cyclone.

And for crying out loud, give the Gallente a decent drone frigate already.

Buffing up t1 cruisers in their specific roles too much would make their tech 2 counterparts pretty much useless. Of course, if tech 1 ships are buffed, their prices will go up as well since they will be more in demand thus they will be even less available to new players and it's obviously not what you want.

PS: Quoting yourself like that only fucks up the topic and confuses people to what you want to say. At least, add something to further the discussion and explain what you mean in your response!

I don't really understand. Currently, 2 rifters will tackle better than a single jaguar. 2 ruptures will do (a lot) more damage than a single muninn. 2 blackbirds will jam more targets than a single falcon. 2 ravens will rat better than a single golem.

Meanwhile, one scimitar reps better than five scythes, at 5-10 times the range. To me that seems like an outlier, and the fact that no one uses the support cruisers pretty much ever in pvp seems like a real problem.

I'm not really concerned about increasing the price of the lighter t1 cruisers. Drakes and Hurricanes are the most popular ships in the whole game and they aren't very difficult for a newbie to afford. I'm also not really concerned about increasing the demand for these ships, I live in the busiest 0.0 region there is and the market data shows only 51 Scythes have been traded in the whole region in the last YEAR. There are quite a few shiptypes in my home region that have more trade volume than that every single day, some days well over double that.

I'm not against the idea that some ships are supposed to be stepping stones. I'm disappointed however that these ships have no further use once you're beyond the stepping stone phase. Rifters don't suddenly become useless once you can fly a thrasher. Thoraxes don't become useless once you can fly a hyperion. It's fine if t1 support cruisers are intended to have a pve role as a stepping stone mining cruiser (or salvage cruiser, for the exequror), but that doesn't have to be where its role ends. Other traditional stepping stone mining ships like the dominix and the rokh can be used in pvp perfectly fine after a quick refit, and this could also be true for support cruisers. Improving their logistics wouldn't affect how they function as a mining cruiser at all, since if you were going to use it as a mining cruiser you'd fit mining lasers and guns rather than remote reps.