Ships & Modules

Please position that last turret that is on the back top side to the empty left side underneath the face of the harbinger. It looks stupid when there are seven guns.

Have you tried moving your guns around your slots? Every ship now has as many turrets as it does high slots, even if it doesn't have that many hardpoints. Your module locations influence where your guns show up.

If this doesn't fix your problem, I apologize. Best of luck.

Way back in the day... when Tier 2 BCs were first introduced... the Harbinger used to have 8 turrets. Not sure whether it was just before or just after they were released... but CCP realized how OP the Harbi was with 8 turrets and chopped one off.

Hopefully this will be fixed with the V3 re-skins... but I wouldn't hold your breath. It's one "detail" among hundreds of other details that other ships have that are MUCH more visually offensive.

Quite frankly, I'm not sure why it was removed. The Drake and Hurricane both outclass the Harbinger by a fair margin. Even with an 8th hardpoint, the Harbinger would still only have 10 turrets -- which is precisely what the Hurricane has.

Edit: I think the Myrmidon does too, but it's really too different to do a fair comparison. The Hurricane and Harbinger compete for more or less the same niche, being ganky 8-4-6 slot gunboats, which is why I'm picking on the Hurricane in particular.

An 8-gun Harbinger would be extremely limited by fitting constraints and would need to give up a utility high slot to benefit from the change. Meanwhile, an autocannon-fit hurricane has enough powergrid and CPU left to comfortably accommodate two energy neutralizers, and its capless guns ensure that it will have the juice to put them to good use.

I'm not sure who made that decision, but I hope they're not in still in the balance department.

Assuming either of those ships actually comitted to the fight, the harb would win hands-down. The reason the harbinger is "outclass"ed by the cane and drake is both (with appropriate fits) can simply disengage from a plated harb if need be. Call that a tactical disadvantage if you like, but the word "outclassed," doesn't fit at all. I have no experience with the shield-gank variety of harbs, so no comment on that variant.

Justify it however you like, but the ability to pick your battles is a fundamental factor behind game balance. The Pilgrim is quite obviously an inferior combat vessel to the Curse, but the cloak lets it choose its engagements in a way that still gives it a niche. This is why the Curse gets a range bonus and the Pilgrim does not.

The fact that a Harbinger "would win hands-down" is quite irrelevant, because it can't force the engagement. And against any opponent which it can engage (read: Battleships), it loses outright.

Edit: Incidentally, I'm not convinced that the fight would be so clear-cut as you say. An armor-fit hurricane would still have superior mobility to the armor fit-Harbinger, so would be able to dictate engagement range. By closing range, the Hurricane could simultaneously reduce damage loss to falloff and start causing tracking issues for the Harbinger.

Furthermore, the Hurricane could use Fusion ammo to fire right into the Harbinger's explosive hole, while the Harbinger is stuck firing EM into a 60% EM resist. That is to say, if it could fire while under the energy neutralization pressure that the Harbinger can bring with its utility highs. When the Hurricane gets to deal 80% of its damage and the Harbinger only gets to shoot 40%, the fight becomes a little more interesting...

Or just give it an 8th turret to balance things out

open fitting and put in 3 guns, empty slot (or neut or whatever) and 4 guns and looks right.

You've taken my argument and turned it into a straw man. In no way did I ever state that fight selection was the only important attribute to a PvP ship. My argument merely questioned the value of winning a fight that you can't make happen.

We've essentially got four scenarios:

1. I can force the engagement and will win if I do so.
2. I can force the engagement, but it would be suicide.
3. I can't force the engagement and if my opponent does I will lose.
4. I can't force the engagement but would win if I could.

You've postulated that the Harbinger engagement is type 4. As I explained earlier, I'm not convinced that's the case. If that is the case, it's going to be irrelevant, because the Harbinger doesn't get to force the engagement and the fight doesn't happen. In game balance, we generally ignore type 4 matchups because they represent pilot error. Someone screwed up and they should die in a fire for it.

Similarly, most covert ops engagements are of type 2. They can choose to fight almost whoever they please, but it's generally going to be a losing battle. An intelligent pilot won't engage, so it's not generally going to happen. We can ignore these matchups, because they are uncommon and represent pilot error. Someone screwed up and they should die in a fire for it.

Essentially, it's the balance of type 1 and type 3 engagements that determine whether a ship is good for PvP. It's really not a hard thing to understand -- if you can get fights you can win and avoid the fights you can't, you're in good shape. The problem is that people ignore this and try to justify bad ships on the grounds of engagements that should never happen.

Actually, I was speaking more to the fact that the Hurricane has more effective hardpoints, easier fittings, better mobility, better neutralization, superior tracking, capless guns, and the ability to select damage type. But we can throw on the ability to choose fights to that, sure.

I love how you're justifying the Harbinger by saying it just needs a tackler. I think I've been hearing that about the Retribution and Coercer for a while, now, too...

Edit: And if the target's already tackled, why am I using something with the crap damage of a Harbinger? Bring something that can actually do damage. The Talos comes to mind.