Test Server Feedback

Hello

Please post your feedback about Assault Ship balancing in this thread.

Thank you.


The changes are:

All Assault Ships

* Added role bonus: 50% reduction in MicroWarpdrive signature radius penalty

Retribution

* Added bonus: 5% bonus to Small Energy Turret tracking speed per skill level.
* +1 mid slot
* +15 CPU
* +200 armor hp

Vengance

* Added bonus: -5% bonus to Missile Launcher Rate of Fire per level
* +1 high slot
* +10 CPU

Harpy

* Added bonus: -5% bonus to shield resistances
* +1 low slot
* +200 shield hp
* +10 CPU

Hawk

* Added bonus: -5% bonus to Missile Launcher Rate of Fire per level
* +1 mid slot
* +10 CPU

Enyo

* Added bonus: +5% damage changed to 10% bonus to damage (like taranis does)
* +1 mid slot
* +200 armor hp
* +10 CPU

Ishkur

* Added bonus: 10% bonus to drone hitpoints per level
* +1 low slot

Jaguar

* Added bonus: 7.5% bonus to Small Projectile Turret Tracking per level
* +1 low slot

Wolf

* Added bonus: 7.5% bonus to Small Projectile Turret Tracking per level
* +1 low slot
* +200 armor hp
* +10 CPU

the changes look promising good to see this was not passed over for 2 more years

The Hawk is still broken.

The shield boost bonus is worthless on a PvP frigate (active tank uses up too much cap, you don't have grid/CPU to fit a very good one, and it gives you zero protection against the biggest threat to AFs: high-tracking medium guns), and it's a Minmatar bonus anyway. Please change it to a 5%/level shield resist bonus like all of the other Caldari ships.

The Hawk still doesn't have enough grid or CPU, especially since you just added another CPU-hungry mid slot. It's a ship that was already impossibly tight on CPU, and anything useful that you put in the extra mid is going to take way more than 15 CPU. And of course you've done nothing to help the grid problem. End result: it's a ship that looks awesome in theory, until you try putting modules on it and realize that nothing fits.

Light missiles are still useless. They don't do enough damage, and they're virtually impossible to fit (unless you sacrifice everything else to do it). This leaves the Hawk with only one choice of weapon (rockets), unlike all of the other AFs which have the flexibility to fit short or long range guns.


Also, you still haven't fixed the Wolf/Jaguar bonus problem (the Jaguar is the Vagabond-style fast autocannon ship but has a range bonus appropriate for artillery, while the Wolf would work well as an artillery platform but gets a falloff bonus for ACs).

[Jaguar, tackle close range]
Power Diagnostic System II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Damage Control II

Medium Shield Extender II
Catalyzed Cold-Gas I Arcjet Thrusters
Faint Epsilon Warp Scrambler I
Invulnerability Field II

3x 200mm AutoCannon II, EMP S
[empty high slot]

Small Low Friction Nozzle Joints I
Small Anti-Kinetic Screen Reinforcer I

[Jaguar, Tackle long range]
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Power Diagnostic System II
Damage Control II

Warp Disruptor II
Catalyzed Cold-Gas I Arcjet Thrusters
Ancillary Ballistic Screen Stabilizer I
Invulnerability Field II

3x 280mm Howitzer Artillery II, EMP S
[empty high slot]

Small Low Friction Nozzle Joints I
Small Auxiliary Thrusters I

---

These are my normal Jaguar fits, I use the Assault ship to tacke cruisers, BCs, t3 or BS, its allows me to tank well, give me 1 or 2 minutes of life until the rest of the guys arrive.

Looking at this fit, I would say the jaguar problems are:

Short range:

• The missing power that I need to compensate with a PDS because I miss 0,14 Power!!!!
• The fact I cannot fit a Warp Scramber T2 because I miss 3,25 of CPU !!!

Long range:

• The missing power that I need to compensate with a PDS because I miss 1,93 Power!!!!
• The fact I cannot fit a Kinectic Amplifier T2 because I miss 7 of CPU

Common problems:

• My sig is 263m -> but since you are giving a new bonus of 50% = 153% (still too high for a frig)
• For a close range tacking job, this frig needs a buffer!! It needs to tank drones and fire power of a ship at least 1 minute! So I have to fit a stupid Medium SE II for short range combat (that increase my sig even more), instead of fitting a web!!!
• The cap only lasts 32-39 seconds!
• I always have an empty high slot, I cannot fit a launcher, no power, no CPU!

What the jaguar needs is:

• 3 more base CPU
• 3 more base Power
• Remove the launcher slot, give 1 more turrent instead
• Give some bonus to guns fitting, so we can install 4 turrents (cannons or artillery)
• More shield buffer (round it to 1000)
• More cap stability (at least 1 minute cap)
• Finnaly, the Jaguar is a shield tanking ship! it doesn't need a low slot, it needs a middle one! If you want to give it a slot give a middle one! -> and if you do that it will need more cpu and more power so the slot can be properly used...

More tank on Ishkur and retro is getting another mid and more hp.... Bring Back large frig fleets of doom

The MWD sig radius is just going to make some ships, most notably the Taranis rapidly underused with all that extra ehp you will get from flying an Enyo in the same manner.

The role bonus as stated before needs to revolve around Afterburner usage. AF's are tough to fit and utilise their bonii as they are without the pigeon hole of another MWD vessel. That would leave the Hawk and Harpy especially as once more, completely impossible to fit without bursting through CPU and PG outputs.

I feel a bit of a rethink is needed there. These ships only have a finite amount of space and the current setups of bonii are almost asking you to utilise 1 or 2 of them rather than all of them. I would love to get all those mid slots on a hawk used so you can get a mean little boost tank on it but you are just never going to get half of what you need on with an mwd fitted.

The stat changes are a good change, but the role bonus is a bit pointless really. It's not that lower sig radius is bad or anyhting just that there aren't going to be many occasions where you get any real benefit from it.

Even if MWDs didn't **** the **** out of your capacitor, if you're fighting inside an AF's effective range you'll likely be neuted of scrammed an not running the mwd anyway. The only times i can see the mwd being on are approaching a target or running back to the gate, and on the approach you'll either be on top of your target in a few seconds or you're chasing another frig which will ignore the bonus. they're still slow as hell too, so this doesn't really open up the engagement envelope any further.

Out of curiosity, what role bonuses did you guys throw out before settling on this one?

I'd much rather have seen some kind of afterburner speed boost, or even a capacitor-related bonus that made active tanking more viable. Some of the crazy ideas (neut or web resistance etc.) could have been interesting too.

why do minmatar ships always get better boni than amarr?
retribution 5% tracking
wolf n jaguar 7,5%

if you decide to stick with MWD bonus, please remove the capacitor capacity penalty otherwise this will kill the active tanked vengeance.

Remove: MWD Bonus

Add: 100% Bonus to "Small" Afterburner Speed