Ships & Modules

+1
Finding people is definitely an overpowering ability for just any ship to have. In addition, CCP should nerf approaching other ships on grid, locking other ships, and possibly seeing them at all, as all these things make interacting with them so much more possible . . . and interaction is bad.

I, for one, support removing combat probing from the game entirely. In fact, there should be an exclusion zone of maybe 100,000 km around any ship in space not at a celestial. No warping directly to anyone!

That was like watching paint dry.

Expanded Launcher Heron, complete with a grav cap, T2 improved cloak, data and relic analyzers, some scan upgrades and a 1MN MWD

But yeah, the expanded launcher has stupid amounts of CPU because it;s made specifically to fit to ONLY the ships that are made for it. But if you're willing to gimp the hell out of a combat ship you're more than welcome to....

Pssst, less **** skills would be a good start. My heron can fit it just fine.

Congratulations, you have made a crappy heron that can probe down ships.... and run sites with no NPC's, and dies if anything sneezes in it's direction.

The CPU requirement is so high to stop any ship fitting it without sacrifice. That doesn't mean that there shouldn't be some decent non T3's able to fit it without sacrificing literally all combat ability. A T2 cruiser perhaps (Like those 'Recons, lets actually allow them to recon, especially those combat recons who totally should have combat probes). Which has a role bonus to bring the CPU cost down to sensible levels without making it 0.

It's a poor mans hack fix atm to a problem and could certainly be improved.

I can combat probe someone all day. If I don't have the ability to blow them up or otherwise interrupt them, what does it matter? And, if I do have the ability to interrupt them, then why should they be safe just by being out in the middle of nowhere?

Essentially, you are arguing that people need to be protected from other people, but, let's look at the protections that are already in place. There are warp-in beacons that suck you to them when you warp into some sites, mobile scan inhibitors, ECCM modules and other measures to make yourself harder to scan down, cloaking devices, warp gates that force you to go through a second warp cycle, force you to decloak, and prevent you from warping directly into contact, targeting delays after decloaking, no manual warp control, deadspace restrictions to on-grid warping within pockets, dscan, etc. And, after all that, you still have to gimp the bejeezus out of your battlecruiser to fit an expanded probe launcher in that utility high slot just to launch unbonused probes and scan half as efficiently as some noob-alt in a Heron who is going to squad warp his main to the same place in a fully-enabled combat ship.

I am far less concerned about a Hurricane or a Rokh scanning me down than a Helios or a scanning, cloaky Proteus. Tell me again about this "balance" that is achieved by preventing Ibises from warping in on me. I'm not seeing it.

Am I missing something here?

VI = V now?

To be quite freaking honest ...

It's really easy to fit a combat probe launcher on a tornado for sniping targets.

Did so in lowsec, was quite nice... sentry turrets are a bugger though.

what are you talking about? why would you even try to fit a tank on a heron? why would you do anything but a NPC less site on a heron? why would you want to carry around combat probes if you are doing sites?

the only situation where you would do sites with NPCs is if you were doing pve, and in that case a probe lancher is enough, and you will find the site in seconds thanks to the midslots/rigs filled with scan bonus stuff, then come back in a proper combat ship and do it. and the combat ship doesn't need an exp probe launcher for def, all it needs is Dscan.

honestly any scenario where the high CPU cost of an exp probe launcher would have any effect on the viability of the ship fitting it, is just made up.

You'd try to fit a tank on a Heron so that it doesn't die easily. You'd warp into something other than an NPC-less site if you had just combat probed someone down and didn't know what you were warping into but needed to get there quickly to land point, maybe. I'll leave it to your imagination why you'd want to have the ability to use combat probes in your PVE Heron, but rest assured that there are plenty of good reasons if you think about it.

You're really just begging the question. Nobody is talking about a theoretical PVE Heron needing combat probes, except maybe you. Heron is a Tech I scanning frigate, like a Condor is a Tech I tackling frigate, so, let me ask this: Should a Condor have to massively gimp it's fitting in order to fit a warp disruptor?

I've had plenty of scenarios where the high CPU cost of an expanded probe launcher significantly reduced my ship's tank, DPS, speed, etc. I made them up in my fitting window in the EVE client, so I guess they were technically "made up".



I've also managed to fit an expanded launcher onto quite a few ships that are not typically thought of as scanning ships, but I wouldn't claim that means it's not a problem. Without seeing your "fully functional" interceptor, I'm going to guess it has about it's entire low and rigging slots dedicated to CPU.

As for mobile depots, you could also say that stations make this discussion moot, or Orcas make this conversation moot, or carriers and titans make this conversation moot . . . but they don't. Scanning is an attention-intensive activity. Fiddling with a mobile depot and your fittings while you scan with unbonused combat probes is going to degrade the efficiency of the process and give you a larger blindspot in your awareness than you should find acceptable.

We all understand that fitting an expanded launcher onto most ships in EVE CAN be done, but there is a glaring reason NOT to do it, most of the time. That reason is that your ship will be dead on contact with any reasonably prepared opponent. That's why CCP literally has to gimp an opponent's ability to even see your scanning ship or it will have that little viability in a fight. It's also just one more advantage that is afforded to the larger force in the effort "to LOCATE, close with, and destroy the enemy." since the larger a force is, the more likely that it can spare a ship to dedicate to scanning.

. . .

Ya know; God forbid some elite solo player have the ability to use a competent combat ship to find you in space before your blob had properly formed up and and received its marching orders. He might kill half of you before you even knew he was there . . . and then he might kill the other half of you after you'd figured it out.