Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Anyone got a spare riding crop? I have been learning the roles of different ships in fleet fights recently, and one role draws my attention especially. Tackle frigates can sometimes make or break a fleet, and currently that role is pretty much given over to interceptors.

I've noticed there are two facets to tackle frigates. Hero tackle, which im defining as a frigate that disrupts and holds an enemy ships as soon as possible, as well as duke it out with outliers in a fleet fight, and screening tackle, ships that buzz around nearer to the fleet, skirmishing with any enemy ship that tries to get close in ahead of the main enemy fleet.

It is my suggestion that we change the assault frigate role bonus to be a massive ab bonus, around 300 - 500% (I know thats quite a big range, I'm implying it be tested), essentially replacing the MWD with an afterburner. This turns the assault frigate in to what it's supposed to be, something that can really specialize in combat. Without having to fit an mwd, assault frigates can now not have to worry about dual prop fits, have more cpu/powegrid, counter scrams, and not worry about sig radius. Essentially, Afs can not only hold things but kill them too. AFs are great again.

I am trying to push AFs into a role that will make them be more necessary on the battlefield. In their current place they are good for applying more DPS, which in a fleet fight is rather useless if you cant apply that dps to something. Might as will bring another mainline ship. AFs and interceptors both have a place in fleet fights, one flying inbetween the exchanges of fire, applying tackle and dps where it counts, and the other flying around the outskirts, foiling enemy presence, holding down fleeing ships and providing support by warping to other skirmishers in need of backup.

An AB bonus that big would be ridiculously OP because it would make them impossible to hit and impossible to pin down. The Sansha have a 200% bonus, which is decent, but with AF resists and base tank that would probably still be pretty amazingly strong.

Also the 50% sig radius reduction on their MWDs is actually a stronger tanking bonus than any balanced AB bonus is gonna be, because it gives them the speed of a MWD and a good fraction of the tank of a speed bonused AB.

Not everything needs to be good in a fleet fight to be viable. What you've created here would be catastrophic for small ship gameplay outside of an absolutely massive fleet fight.

Also with this two AFs wouldn't even be able to hit each other. An ABing AF with aa 500% bonus to the speed effect would be moving about 3-4k/s. Since it can't be scrammed you'd need webs to stop it, and that only gets you down to ~1.4-1.8k/s with AB sig radius. Even another Frigate isn't going to be able to hit that while standing still, let alone burning at that speed itself.

You're viewing small ships as something that should be more critical to and survivable in a large fight than is ever going to be practical.

Which you arent going to get. Ceptors are ceptors because they're faster than basically every other ship in existence. AFs are slow, comparatively durable for hull size, and deals an acceptably large amount of damage for it's hull size. It trades tackle range/ability for that. Hell, you'd probably be better off using/fitting AFs as anti-ceptors where they can just lurk among the fleet proper and blap ceptors that stray too close.

First off, a large part of the reason you get such a big speed drop off there is because a MWD adds a lot more mass than an AB. Second, while you orbit slower the tighter your orbit you still have enough traversal at that range to easily out-track even small guns. A quick check in Pyfa shows that even small Autocannons have trouble effectively tracking a target using an AB going 2km/s or more, losing over 2/3rds of their DPS and allowing the target to easily speed tank.

On top of that a very fast AB can only be effectively caught and held by another very fast AB, because you can't scram to reduce velocity while your target can, and it's almost impossible to keep someone in the margin between web range and overheated scram range. If a MWD fit gets too close they get their MWD shut off and even with a web the AB fit can run away. This is part of why oversized AB fits have proven so restricting to the Small and Medium ship meta, because anything that can't deal with them gets pushed out as long as oversized ABs can be fitted cost effectively in terms of fitting space and trade offs.

Introducing a ship that gets high-end MWD speed out of an AB would be ridiculously broken. This isn't a case of you disagreeing or thinking it won't be, this is a case of we have in-action proof that ABs with the speed of an MWD are incredibly powerful. You're talking about a 500% bonus, the Sansha ships get a 200% bonus which doesn't get them close enough to MWD speeds to be competitive with them, and they're still not terrible ships despite not having much going for them besides that AB bonus.

What your asking for here would be ridiculous OP in anything other than a massive fleet fight, and I'm really not sure how you can claim otherwise unless you've literally never engaged even *once* in small gang or solo Frigate PvP.

Assault Frigates used to be a very popular and useful class. Then Tactical Destroyers came along and kicked them to the curb. The training requirements for T3D are lower than AF and, as I write, a Svipul costs 10% more than a Wolf. AFs have languished for more than 2 years now which tells me CCP don't know what to do with them either.

I doubt there is any realistic way to give them back their original role - T3Ds own that outright. I see a possible future for them as a pack hunter - where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Not sure if the game code will allow for a fleet role bonus - perhaps similar to the old leadership skills - but it would give them a unique role that would likely be quite popular.

The AF need overheat reduction bonus like the strategic Cruisers.

Sorry Cade, but tell that to all the poor Succubus's that exploded since the pirate faction rebalance.

Do Little,
you should know that this would be too strong. A Harpy with a 1mn afterburner II goes something like 1100m/s which is strong already.
In more than a decade of EvE I have noticed that whenever some boat is not being flown a lot doesn't make them bad.

It is just something this TV nation has "learned" to pay too much attention to and if said boat or class of boat is not on the front page of the newspapers or tablets they must have been forgotten and or bad AMIRITE?


What you don't seen to know it that with the recent logistic frigates, a small gang of ass frigates with a 1mn afterburner is basically unkillable by anything but a sooper dooper.
But since svipuls are all the rage on twitterthumble or read it, they are gooderererer than everything else AMIRITE?

Put a 400mm plate on an Enyo and have a handful of Deacons with you and you have a nice brawling fleet going all at the same speed even.

Or have some Hawks and Harpies with a handful of Kirins and everyone looking at you will have a really bad day.

The perception of something doesn't necessarily make it true.

The AF would benefit from an AB bonus. Not 300 to 500 percent, but still an AB bonus. Another option is no AB bonus and give them web immunity. Just webs, not grapplers. I know that freaks a lot of folks out, but it would actually give them a viable role and the grappler would be an obvious hard counter.

Keep in mind that when inty bubble immunity was rolled out eve was going to be broken beyond repair. We somehow survived it.


It's been agreed for quite some time that the AF role is 'heavy' tackle. But it doesn't get used for that. Why? Because it doesn't do well at it. Because a simple scram nullifies it's MWD bonus fits tend to go to dual prop at which point you can't fit a decent active tank and man sized frigate weapons. You have to start making compromises in the fitting window before you even think about undocking. They don't get much use because just trying to fit them out makes you sad. That's just not right.

Imagine an AF frigate w/ man guns(launchers), a decent tank and the ability to apply those features to a target.

In my ideal Eve an AF could tackle above its weight class and be able to fend of a reasonable amount of drones and hold onto it's prey. If an AF ever got a hold of an inty it would shred it (of course a reasonably skilled inty should be able to kite and AF w/ little problem). An AF could hold it's own in a 1v1 slugfest w/ a T3D. An AF wouldn't NEED 20 more AF or a fleet of repping frigates in support to make it viable.


Eve would be a better place if the average AF could run out and tackle the average kiting cruiser/BC and hold on to them for more than 5 seconds.

This would find a much better place on HACs instead of assault frigates. The sig is already small enough, but cruiser mobility and sig means an ab speed bonus wouldn't be too far-fetched on them.