Ships & Modules

The Problem
The competitive and challenging gameplay for every player is what the games stands for. No matter which faction player choose they expect to be competitive. Currently we have huge handicap for gallente pilots cause theirs ships are much better than other factions ships. As a result we have that top teams in tournaments and most of nullsec corps are flying gallente ships. In fraction wars Gallente currently controlling 97% of planets whilst Caldari only 3%.

Let's look more precise at Gallente ships attributes. In general they have better speed, dps, tank and EW at the same time.

DPS
The root of the problem is an ability for Gallente pilots to use large weapons on cruisers. You know there are 4 category of weapons small, medium, large and capital. Heavy and sentry drones are considered to be large weapons cause the dps they have are at the level of large weapons used by battleships. I would even say sentry and heavy drones do more dps than large weapons like large projectiles turrets or cruise missiles. As a Gallente pilot you can install heavy and sentry drones on cruiser, as a result you can have Two times more dps than cruisers of other fractions. All drone ships still have enough turrets to do double dps from drones and guns. Most of Gallente ships have from 50% to 2 times more dps than ships of other fractions.

All weapons have counters. Guns have disruptors as counters, rockets have defender missiles, but drones have no counters. Depending of the target you can switch drones from light to medium or heavy. It is not possible to achieve the same flexibility with other weapon systems.

Speed
Gallente ships are faster, they have about 20-30% more speed than caldari and amarr. It is ok that minmatar has good speed, because minmatar ships has poor tank and not good slot composition for tanking. Gallente at the other hand has same speed as minmatar without the penalty to tank.

Defence
In this category Gallente again is the top leader. They have good slots composition to use cap boosters with multiple armor repairs. Add the armor repair bonuses and you get triple rep myrmidon, double rep vexor and incursus. No other faction cannot compete in tank against Gallente.

EWAR
Sensor dampers are currently by far the best ewar. There are reason for that. Dumpers affect all ships and have 100% chance of applying its effect. Disruptor at the same time affect only guns and ECM has only low chance to jam a target. With 3 dumpers you can reduce targeting range of any ship almost to zero, you do not need to care about ship faction and its sensor strength. Just for comparison with 3 ECM jammers you have very low chance to jam even a cruiser and you have to care about its sensor strength and faction.

The Proof
I would like to make few comparisons.
Vexor and Arbitrator.
These two are both drone boats. They should have approximately same stats, but they are not. Vexor has 50% more tank, 50% more drones bandwidth, bonuses to turrets, 40% more powergrid, 5% targeting range, 5% more capacitor. Arbitrator has only 20% more drone bay, 7% more CPU, and useless bonus to tracking disruptor.

Comet and Firefly.
Comet do same dps as two Fireflies. Comet has more powergrid, more drones, longer targeting range, more dps, better tank, better capacitor. Firefly has only 10% more speed.

I wouldn't compare Ishtar with other ships cause it is evident what Ishtar can fight against two other assault cruisers at the same time and win. You can also compare other gallente ships, but the results are always the same gallente always has more stats.

The Solution
Every problem has a solution. We need to adjust Gallante ships to make them more competitive and challenging to play. Generally we need to reduce gallente ship drone bandwidth for frigates to 15, for destroyers to 25, for cruisers (T1, T2 and T3) to 50, for BC to 75. It needs to be the same as Amarr currently has. Ships like Comet, Enyo and Incursos do not need drones, they are fine without them, Comet without drones can make same dps as other navy frigates no problem. All Gallente ships like Thorax where drones are not primary weapons do not need 50mb bandwidth they will be fine with 15mb bandwidth. Speed of gallente ships especially Battlesips needs to be toned down to make it the same as Caldari and Amarr.

Considering Dominix it is ok having 125MB bandwidth cause drones it is his primary weapon, but it needs the reduction in bonuses for drones optimal range. Also Dominix do not need so much power grid and cpu for drone platform.

Hyperion and Megathron will be much better with less speed and drones bandwidth having same speed and drone bandwidth as Rokh.


P.S.
Please do not consider this as a rant, it is an attempt to constructive discussion about ship balancing. You know what we have now in FW between Gallente and Caldari. It is not a competitive gameplay but a slaughter. Cadari has no ships currently to proper resists gallente.

First of all a using unbonused hulls 5 Ogre IIs does 317 dps while 5 Large Ion Blasters with CN antimatter deals 318. Both of these weapon systems also have damage application issues a lot of the time. While ACs and Lasers do more like 280 dps they are very often fielded in groups of more than 5, which you can never do with drones.

As for drones having no counter, they can be killed by anything that normally kills things and especially Ishtars dropping sentry blobs are extremely vulnerable to having a couple of smartbombers wipe the field clean of all your damage. This is also the drawback of using larger than average drones, you can't field as many replacement waves (Ishtar exluded, because Ishtar) and so every drone you lose is a big deal for a Vexor if you use heavies/sentries.

Gallente often self-reps better than Amarr and definitely better than Minmatar but Amarr are often competitive with Gallente for active tanks due to resist bonuses and/or extra low slots and/or superior capacitors. Amarrian ships are vastly superior plate tanking ships as well due to resist bonuses.

Vexor compared to Arbitrator is also not a fair comparison, one is a straight combat cruiser with double damage bonuses, the other is an e-war ship. The tank and damage differences in that case are by design. The fact that both use drones as their primary weapon is incidental. Tracking disruptors aren't useless in theory either, they are out of favor atm because of the emphasis on Ishtars where you need 5 disruptors to deal with a single Ishtar but they can still be quite effective against other things. This is also why damps are effective, because Ishtars often kite around their sentries and so damping them can cause them to lose locks and hence also control over their drones. Damps do work well in some situations but if a ship has locks on what it needs to lock while you are dampening it then nothing you do with your damp will ever matter. The proper Amarrian ship to compare to a Vexor is the Maller and while the Vexor will out damage a Maller it certainly will not out tank it.

Gallente get really good numbers on paper but can often struggle to get anything near the dps listed on their fitting window.

EDIT: Wait, comet does the same damage as 2 firetails? Not even if the firetail is arty fit assuming you are using a fit that is practical.

You know there's nothing stopping you from flying them...

You might be trying to be constructive, but your proposals would simply ruin the ship lines completely. I mean, honestly - make them as slow as caldari? Brawlers the same speed as kiters? Madness.

Shooting drones is not a counter. All drones usually have more ehp than the ship itself. Whilst you start killing drones, they kill ships.

Of course i fly gallente a lot. I tried many t1 frigates and end up with tristan. That is only one T1 frigate able killing T2 frigates and destroyers.

Oh no, not at all.

You can kill t2 and dessies in almost any frigate, you just need the right fit against the right target fit. In fact, the Tristan is actually pretty terrible at going against AFs unless they're piloted by a braindead pilot, since with his tank he'll have plenty of time ti just shoot your drones even if he can't shoot the tristan back. Also, generally gallente frigs don't do awesome against AFs because of resist profiles not favourable to hybrid weapons damage, still possible to kill one in a kiting frig against a pure brawly AF (barring tristan, because drones will be shot down in a moment lol), if the kiter also has good cap life, otherwise takes too long.


Also in your first post you comment on the Comet being a beast (well, it is) and pretty much 2 times the power of a firetail. I'll just say that the firetail is one of the best frigs at killing Comets ;)


also "usually drones have more ehp than the ship itself" ....... wat??? err.... no... just no

No they are not equivalent, the Arbitrator's bandwidth was deliberately kept lower to prevent its dps getting high and the bay was deliberately made large to give it a lot of options for extra drone flights. Secondly, its EHP is in line with e-war ships (would you want a Blackbird to have a high HP pool?). If you doubt it, feel free to dig up the cruiser rebalance thread in F&I, it's too far down for me to bother taking the time to find it or I'd link it for you. Arbitrators are typically fielded in a group of ships so mids on that ship are often MWD and 3x TDs so I don't know where you're seeing the lack of mids. Even if you do solo you have to drop either a cap booster or web to fit one TD which you will depending on whether you want to active or passive tank it.

Each race also got a fast attack cruiser and a slower tankier combat cruiser largely defined by their slowish speed and very high base EHP, the Vexor is the combat cruiser for Gallente so it's tank is to be compared to the Maller not the Arbitrator. As for saying the Vexor has a better tank than a Maller, this is either an instance of you having no clue at all what you are talking about or this is a troll. If you fit both the Vexor and Maller with 3 T1 trimarks, EANM II, Damage Control II and a 1600 mm plate II, the Maller has 8k more EHP and that's if we completely ignore the 400+ extra grid the Maller has meaning that plate uses about 35% of its grid instead of over 50%, nevermind the extra low slot. If you active tank them the Maller will win again due to the resist bonus. BTW the Vexor on paper can nearly double up on the Maller for dps, this is why you see Vexors reasonably often and the Maller not so much. The Vexor lifts while the Maller tackles and lights cyno for the gank squad but will a Vexor out tank a Maller...not in a million years. I'm not denying the Vexor on its own is a better ship than the Maller, I'm showing that Gallente are not the best race to tank with. If you think otherwise post both fits in this thread or I will write you off as a troll, show me exactly what you are talking about or I will not respond again.

As for drones having the same HP as a ship that's just ridiculous, an Ogre II on a Vexor has 3330 raw HP assuming you have drone durability and Gallente Cruiser 5 but it has a basic resistance profile and 1800 of that HP is in structure with literally 0 resistance to any damage. With no resists that is less EHP than most T1 frigates and at best you can carry two spare heavy drones assuming you are putting 5 drones on the field to maximize dps, lose those and your dps drops a huge amount. This is all assuming your Ogres can actually deal damage to whatever you're fighting, a pretty unsafe assumption. There's a reason Ishtars are not generally known for their Ogre flights.

EDIT: Mids on most Amarr ships with 3 mids is prop, point/scram/web/other?, cap injector. So yes it can cap boost for active tanking.

You can fly gallente ships and fight for other FW militias can you not? Other navies have worthwhile items to sell as well. Maybe go take part in the Amarr/Matar fight, heck bring your Tristan....

That just not profitable. Gallente faction items now in way more demand, who needs navy caracal? People buy VNI, so people join gallente to make lp and sell comets and Navy Vexors.

This thread again...IB4L

Not been playing Eve long? You're asking to revert several balances.

IMHO Gallante ships aren't any better than anything else except being picked for tournament play.

In real Eve, if you are looking for a fair fight you are a silly billy.