Player Features and Ideas Discussion

For awhile now, especially since the naga was released, the ferox has been rather awkwardly placed from a bonuses standpoint. It doesn't perform the sniper role better than the naga, which is only a bit more than the ship hull, and is fairly inflexible in a pvp setting. As a hybrid ship it is comparatively a poor performer. So with this in mind, I'm proposing a fairly simple bonus change for it and a few tweaks to round it out to help give it a strong and unique role in the caldari lineup (even if it's a bit out of place from the ranged meta).

10% optimal range bonus to med hybrid turrets becomes 7.5% bonus medium hybrid turret tracking speed per level

+1 turret slot

+200 PG and 50 CPU

The sniper role gets swapped out in favor of an advanced tracking system. In addition to this, having a full 8 turret slots means that it applies comparable damage to ships like the brutix or hurricane (albeit still slightly less), and you have a ship that functions as either an excellent brawler boat with the tracking speed, or a good mid-ranged fleet sniper that fills the role of a heavy destroyer, picking off smaller ships.
Also, having a full 8 turret slots leaves open the possibility for effectively using projectiles or lasers, giving it an enormous amount of flexibility and unpredictability in combat.

Thoughts? I have loved the Ferox ever since I started playing this game 5 years ago. The deadly, focused look of it and its killer spikes have always been amazing, and I've been frustrated that anything other than a ranged blaster boat is lackluster in pvp.

It would perform worse as a brawler because you lose the utility high and tank. You would need a web when brawling anyway to control range and the web itself is sufficient for tracking unless you're a horrible pilot. Removing utility high and the damage bonus would do nothing but convince me to run autocannon feroxes so I get more ammo options and less vulnerability to cap warfare (i.e. the state of Feroxes before the Battlecruiser tiericide). In fact, if it loses its tanking bonus, I'm pretty confident I could solo your proposed Ferox in a Moa.

Caldari pilots already have plenty of options to "pick off smaller ships". The Ferox performs fine aside from the fact that it's a Battlecruiser which sucks in the current meta. But that's not a hull problem so much as it is a ship class problem.

I'd like them give us back ability to fit launchers on that thing (6 turrets, 6 launchers) so make it dual weapon system. And bonuses would be splitted by 5% to hybrids range/falloff and flight time for missiles. Make it interesting otherwise this ship boring as hell.

I do fly both Scythe FI and Loki with dual weaponary system works well.

Yes please, I really miss my heavy missile Ferox. Oh and while we are at it, can I bring my Drake??

Really? Give it +10% to damage like to other normal BCs, instead of +4% to resists. One hi-slot goes to medium and -1 turret slot.

PG and CPU is up to CCP in that case.
That would be a decent BC, currently its not usable.

Fair points all around, especially from the mjd/rail setup point that was made, Good idea there with the current build; Ferox is a quite a bit tanker than the naga, it just hasn't seen very heavy use from my end in lowsec fw. Could just be how strong the cruiser/frig meta is there, but I am seeing a lot of good points being made in favor of the current ferox, which has been refreshing since I was under the impression that it was pretty heavily underused.

Also in regards to to the 8 gun setup:
It does less dps that the brutix; 50% damage bonus to 6 guns translates to 9 effective turrets, while this only has 8. While I admit a large part of the need for that comes from my desire to fix asymmetrical gun placement on a symmetrical ship, being able to pull even more dps out of the ferox is a very appealing prospect.

Also, who said you wouldn't be able to fit a command link with 8 guns? You can just take one off.

Leaving you with sub-optimal DPS for that lost gun. It's just not worth the trade-off. The CBCs were rebalanced to all have a spare utility high for a Link or other module, without exception, and you're not making a compelling argument for breaking with this pattern. Personally I think the entire "CBCs as cheap command-ships" concept isn't really working out, but that has as much to do with OGBs as anything else right now, so while I think it needs a second look that should wait until OGBs get the axe.

Raw damage is great unless you can't hit what you're shooting at. The projection bonus on the Ferox is extra damage as long as you're not inside un-bonused optimal on the ship which is very significant with Rails and still manages to be a good distance with Blasters, and at most points between un-bonused optimal and the end of falloff you're dealing more DPS than the bonused guns are because of how sharply Falloff loses damage after the first third.

The Ferox needs possibly another mid and maybe a little more PG so you can fit that utility high without downgrading your guns, though that might be intentional.

The Ferox struggles on fitting a tank with the usual prop, web, scram since you're left with 2 slots whereas armour battlecruisers have a standard DCU and 2 damage mods which results in 3 slots for tank. You could argue that the Ferox does have that low for extra DPS, but the armour ships have the extra mid which is arguably more flexible / valuable ( cap booster is pretty much required for an active tank in PvP ).

Then happily get destroyed by neuts and be unable to fire your guns while you slowly die...

ASB is for multiple short fights, cap booster + repper is for one a long fight. Unless you get a second ASB but good luck actually holding someone within range if you do that on a Ferox. I guess it's more of a preference but I'm not a fan of ASBs on large ships.