EVE General Discussion

I'm a minimalist. We've learned year after year that adding large changes to EvE causes a lot of unintended consequences.

My proposal is this:

Large ship modules cannot be fit to T3 cruisers. End of story.




Take a look at this, you'll see there is no need for a massive nerf, just a bump in the right direction:

First Fit - Proteus


134k ehp / 575 dps with 1600mm
98k ehp / 575 dps with 800mm (-36kehp)

Legion Hotdropping

382k ehp / no dps with 2 x 1600mm
247k ehp / no dps with 2 x 800mm (-150k ehp)


Tengu Hotdropping

1.3k shield boost with XL SB
597 shield boost with Med SB


It is more in line with other cruisers.

[Proteus]
Centii A-Type Adaptive Nano Plating
Corpus X-Type Armor EM Hardener
Corpus X-Type Armor Explosive Hardener
Imperial Navy 1600mm Steel Plates
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II

50MN Quad LiF Restrained Microwarpdrive
Small Capacitor Booster II, Navy Cap Booster 400
Tracking Computer II, Tracking Speed Script
Tracking Computer II, Tracking Speed Script

250mm Railgun II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
250mm Railgun II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
250mm Railgun II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
250mm Railgun II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
250mm Railgun II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
250mm Railgun II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M

Medium Anti-Explosive Pump II
Medium Anti-Thermal Pump II
Medium Trimark Armor Pump II

Proteus Defensive - Augmented Plating
Proteus Electronics - Friction Extension Processor
Proteus Engineering - Power Core Multiplier
Proteus Offensive - Hybrid Propulsion Armature
Proteus Propulsion - Gravitational Capacitor

Acolyte II x5
Valkyrie II x2
Valkyrie II x3


[Legion]
Centus X-Type Armor EM Hardener
Centus X-Type Armor Kinetic Hardener
Centus X-Type Armor Thermal Hardener
Corelum C-Type Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane
Damage Control II
Imperial Navy 1600mm Steel Plates
Imperial Navy 1600mm Steel Plates

Federation Navy 10MN Afterburner
Republic Fleet Target Painter
Sensor Booster II, Targeting Range Script
Sensor Booster II, Targeting Range Script

Auto Targeting System I
Cynosural Field Generator I
Sisters Expanded Probe Launcher, Core Scanner Probe I
'Balefire' Rocket Launcher, Inferno Rocket
[empty high slot]

Medium Trimark Armor Pump II
Medium Trimark Armor Pump II
Medium Trimark Armor Pump II

Legion Defensive - Augmented Plating
Legion Electronics - Tactical Targeting Network
Legion Engineering - Capacitor Regeneration Matrix
Legion Offensive - Assault Optimization
Legion Propulsion - Fuel Catalyst




[Tengu]
Inertial Stabilizers II
Inertial Stabilizers II
Inertial Stabilizers II
Inertial Stabilizers II

Corelum C-Type 50MN Microwarpdrive
Gist X-Type X-Large Shield Booster
Pith X-Type EM Ward Field
Pithum C-Type Adaptive Invulnerability Field
Republic Fleet Large Cap Battery
Republic Fleet Warp Scrambler
True Sansha Warp Disruptor

Covert Cynosural Field Generator I
Covert Ops Cloaking Device II
Cynosural Field Generator I
Sisters Expanded Probe Launcher, Sisters Combat Scanner Probe
[empty high slot]

Medium Capacitor Control Circuit II
Medium Hyperspatial Velocity Optimizer II
Medium Hyperspatial Velocity Optimizer II

Tengu Defensive - Amplification Node
Tengu Electronics - Emergent Locus Analyzer
Tengu Engineering - Capacitor Regeneration Matrix
Tengu Offensive - Covert Reconfiguration
Tengu Propulsion - Gravitational Capacitor

You're like an angry child.

Yep its totally the oversized mods and not the fact that the proteus we use is getting 500 more powergrid than its nearest cruiser rival (several hundred more powergrid than T2 battlescruisers).





Now you are just talking ****, we still use them all the time. You won't find a lost T3C fleet because we don't lose them.

Lets think this from a different perspective.
You have a corpmate that has 10mil sp, he can fly pirate cruisers and thinks they are great.

Now after the proposed changes to T3s what reason he has to train them?

T2 cruisers are better and pirate cruisers are on par,
why would he ever spend months of training to fly a ship that is not a step up to what he can fly now?

And this guy honestly thinks that it's just a joke that you actually lose skillpoints if you die in a T3.

Chasing off a gang of thrasher in that is nothing special, you're basically designed to kill ships like that. Your overall DPS is so low though that an even halfway decently fitted Battleship can tank you indefinitely, and pretty much any two are going to be able to kill you. Plus it won't even take heavy neuting to bring you down, any neut pressure at all on that fit and the cap stability goes poof because that XL SB takes so much cap to keep running. Once you're capped out any neut pressure at all will be enough for a Battleship to break your tank easily.

If that Svipul gang had even a few neuts they could have swarmed and killed you pretty easily at the cost of a few hulls and come out very ISK positive in the engagement.

Also the Onyx is *far* less capable than the Tengu and that shows in the DPS it puts out with this fit. You've basically cherry picked a ship and an example here, but it just ends up proving my point. The T3Cs are OP, large modules are not the issue, and Large Cap Batteries on Cruiser hulls are not magic.



Because I think the SP loss is the most likely place where I'm going to heavily disagree with CCP, because I personally dislike SP loss as a mechanic, and because I feel that it punishes newer players disproportionately to older players and pushes them away from a hull class that should be an amazing ship for a newer player to train into because it lets them access so many different play styles and fitting options. Instead it's heavily disincentivized with SP loss that hampers their progression and training in other hulls.

Also thanks to injectors an older player is best off with a dedicated T3 piloting alt rather than flying them on a higher SP main character because it's cheaper to replace the lost SP that way.

I didn't say that my only concern was SP loss, I said that if I'm going to put any kind of effort into any kind of argument before CCP releases their plans it's going to be on the subject of SP loss. That's one of the few areas where we have any kind of information, it's one I feel strongly about, and it's something I can argue against without having to see details.

Anything else is going to depend heavily on the details of CCP's proposal. They've said they want to increase the sig radius but how much and what other changes they make along with that have a significant impact on the overall function of the hulls. I can see a bunch of potential ways to balance T3Cs, and I don't have any particular preference for any one of them. If CCP put something out that I very much disagree with then I'll argue against it, but putting together a comprehensive proposal that meets my own standards is just a waste of my time at this point.

This isn't a case of "putting in my ante" or whatever. I don't have to, and you have no right to demand that I do so. I'm going to spend my time in a way that is productive and enjoyable to me, and I don't feel that putting that much effort into something with no likelihood of significant impact is one of those things.



You either haven't looked hard enough or you're not looking correctly. Take a look through Reddit for any of the BRs posted in the last six months or so. I'd give like 80% odds on the comp on one or both sides being Pirate Battleships supported by T3Cs. Even the recent fights down in Provi have showcased this sort of fleet comp on both sides.

This is all nonsense.

Let me argue some of the stupidity in this and the previous post:

Any ship that is solo fighting 17 Svipuls with nuets will be capped out - thats part of EvE. The difference between Tengu, Onyx, Eagle etc fit the way I fit it with BS sized tanking modules and other ships is the other ships will explode in seconds while these ships won't. They're pumping out 2k+ tank cap stable. The BS sized mods make them able to take on a medium fleet of Svipuls and not only survive but win.

They don't have 50% more HP than other ships that's a lie. You can stupid tank them just like any other ship but they'll be bricks. The base Proteus has 23k ehp, the Phobos has 16k ehp. The Phobos is faster than the Proteus, warps faster, has longer targetting range, has more cap regen, and more power grid unless the Proteus fits the engineering sub. And of course the Phobos can pop a bubble, and doesn't need a mid slot for scram, and has infini point.

As for my Onyx having less dps, no not really, my Onyx against small ships has more deeps than a rail fit proteus using medium guns. Its all about application and role. An interceptor doesn't have an enormous amount of DPS so are you saying theyre useless?

Ok then.

Lets talk SP loss.

1) SP loss doesnt punish anyone disproportionately to anyone else.
Its the exact same SP loss for everyone, new or old.

2) Where did you get the notion that T3Cs should be a newbie friendly ship?

Its the pinnacle of the Cruiser tree and requires exponentially more skilling than any one T2 inorder to fly any one of the 4 separate hull's subsystem configurations well. The versatility of T3Cs requires extensive skilling into the skills native to those varied roles, each, whereas T2s require only specific skilling for one. The versatility of T3Cs is a moot point if you dont have the wide spread of skills to effectively utilize the options that versatility offers.

T3Cs are not noob ships.
They are BY FAR the most skill intensive Cruisers.
To fully enjoy the versatility T3Cs offer, you need skills that support each form that versatility takes.
Those are exponentially greater than what you need to fly a T2 for any specific form of those.

3) The existence of injectors is not relevant to ship balance.
Anyone can buy injectors to skill into anything.
There are 10yr vets poorer than 1yr noobs.

4) How many (or what) alts people have is also not relevant to ship balance.
If an old player has a T3C alt, so what? A new player can also have a T3C alt.
What characters you train what skills on is entirely a player choice.

5) Removing SP loss would advantage older players over new, as compared to now.
Older accounts would no longer have to offset cost of SP replacement via injectors at a lower SP% yield as compared to a younger player doing the same.

Example 1:
-If now an older account buys an injector to replace T3C SP loss, they get a smaller yield.
-If now a newer account buys an injector to replace T3C SP loss, they get a greater yield.
=Removing SP loss would benefit only older accounts, as they would no longer suffer an SP replacement malus via injectors for T3C SP loss.

Example 2:
-In the current situation, if an older player loses vs a younger player in T3Cs, the older player risks/ pays the SP malus to replace via injectors.
-In a no SP loss situation, the older player suffers no such malus.

Removing SP loss from T3Cs benefits only older characters. Not newer ones.

6) Furthermore, removing SP loss means older characters with wide, extensive and sometimes perfect supporting skills to fly T3Cs various versatile roles with, would no longer have to worry about SP loss on death, meaning their efficiency/benefit from T3C versatility would far outstrip efficiency/benefit from T3Cs to newer players with far less developed supporting skills towards the versatility the hulls offer, with no detraction.

7) Removing SP loss from T3C would benefit only older players, not new ones, over retaining the SP loss.

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Lets be real.

The issue of SP loss is not one of principle. Its a unique mechanic. So what. It is its own precedent.
Its not even about effect on new/old accounts (and factually only older accounts would benefit from removing it).

The issue is about SP loss operating as an inbuilt core mechanic counterweight in T3C balance, to justify its stats/performance/versatility.

If SP loss is removed, it is no longer an obstacle to nerfing T3Cs even further.
If SP loss is retained, it remains a counterweight against further nerfing.

I dont see any reason to remove SP loss from T3Cs.
The SP loss is the same for new and old players, and the cost of replacement is greater only to older players via injectors whom typically also have far better skill development to fly T3Cs more efficiently across all the roles its versatility offers anyways. And older players too can just reskill it with time as do newer ones.

The more versatile the roles you want to perform with on one or another of the T3Cs, the exponentially wider the range of support skills required. Versatility means nothing if you dont have the skills to actually perform those versatile functions.

SP loss in no way affects any of the above, except on ship loss, and then only to one subsystem level.
That can recovered just as easily by a new or an old player by retraining, or at cost via injectors which depends on a players own IRL/ingame wealth and is irrelevant to ship balance.

---

I personally use HACs, Pirate Cruisers and Command BCs far more than I ever do T3Cs.
The notion that T3Cs are somehow, even with existing (admittedly OP) stats, the end-all, be-all of cruisers/ subcaps is false.

Even with T3Cs current tank/fit issues, there are already other choices better for many tasks.

All of the Cruiser markets, ranging from T1 through T2 and Pirates, to T3C, are all robust and doing just fine.
There is plenty of demand for all of them.

You'd think, but it really doesn't.

There's a bunch of stages someone goes through in this game when they're training skills. Most of the people in this thread are at or close to the last one which is something like "roll the dice to see what you train next" because you have literally everything that might be considered a core skill for your play style.

For a new player you start out training core skills and whatever else you can squeeze in as you go up the ship tree for your race and/or branch out as you go. At some point you get enough core trained that you can do L4s reliably, contribute to fleets, ect. That's after about a year. This is about the point I'm talking about when I say "newer player", someone past six months who can fly some decent stuff but hasn't gotten too far into T2 hulls yet.

This is generally the point where someone starts to look into more specialized gameplay like Logi (there are other examples, but Logi is by far the most common these days).

This is the point where I think T3Cs should be a decent option, and with SP loss they're just not if they're not the OP little monsters they are right now where you don't really need much of another class of hull. If they're not a jesus hull that can do tons of different things amazingly then every time you lose one you're going to have to put off training into other things or improving your basic or semi-basic skills to fly the ships you already have better.

Someone who's deciding if they really need Amarr Carrier at 5 cares a *lot* less about the SP loss than someone who still doesn't have any weapon specs past 3 and can only fly , at best, a couple of non-T1 hulls.

Injectors don't really fix this either because that injector could still be used for something else, unless the org the player is flying for comps their injectors to re-skill, but that absolutely isn't a balancing factor.



I didn't mean newbie, I meant newer player. The sort of player I'm talking about above. I said newbie once when I should have said "newer player", I've corrected the post, it was my bad.

I sorta disagree with the rest though. T3Cs shouldn't be the pinacle of Cruisers. That's where they are now and why they're so OP. If they're in a spot where they're no longer the best at any one role then they're not really on top of anything except hybrid roles only they can do.

They also don't require much more in the way of skills than any other T2 Cruiser hull. They need a few more supporting skills to take advantage of all the subsystems, but the actual skill train for the hull itself isn't much more in practice than a single T2 Cruiser to 5.

Skilling into everything required to run every subsystem for a T3 requires *way* less SP than skilling into each of the relevant T2 hulls. In fact you can pretty much get most of the relevant supporting skills for any given subsystem to 4 faster than training another T2 ship hull to 5 for *just* the hull, not any of the prerequisite skills for the T2 skill.

This means it's a good idea for a newer player to skill into them because he can try out a lot of different playstyles by skilling those skills to, say, 3 and try out EWar or Logi, or Cloakies, without actually investing everything that's required to fly the dedicated T2 Cruiser hull.




Here I really have to disagree.

Firstly, because it changes the nature of the trade-off here. It goes from a time or SP trade off to one that's freely and easily converted to ISK.

Secondly, because for the newer player the trade off for that SP is steeper. See above for more about that. It's the same injector for a newer player, but for someone whose been in the game a long while even if it takes them more injectors to get back their skill that they can't then use that SP on something else matters *far* less to them on average.

Like, I've got 160-ish million SP. It takes me at least two times the injectors to get a T3 skill replaced of someone who might even vaguely be considered a "newer player" but not having that SP hurts me way less. I've happily delayed a remap for a year as new ship skills came out and I go convinced to round out some ship skills I didn't have yet. I have two Carriers at 5 for no other reason than I couldn't be arsed to go buy skill books for a month, twice.

Also, lastly, just because *some* newbies are rich doesn't mean most or all are, and most of the time it takes some pretty focused training to get to that point quickly. As a rule, on average, older players have more ISK and can more easily absorb a large loss than a newer player.

Once again restricting their use of BS sized modules removes around 30% of their total HP. In the case of your friends super tanked legion it removes more than 100k ehp. There is absolutely no reason to complete remake the ship which if history is repeated is either going to result in the T3C being completely irrelevant (the way you want it) or being exploited to be overpowered again because CCP will likely screw it up, Again.

Phobos is not far inferior to the Proteus. You simply do not understand the role of the HIC if you're saying that. Its not supposed to be equal to the Proteus or any other combat ship. Its not a combat ship. In addition the Phobos and the other HICS are the most agile cruisers in the game with their bubble out. I've exploited this to do things that no other cruiser in game can do - such as making 100mw mwd 7k p/s runs on kitey Orthrus, hitting my bubble on scram, giving me a 2sec align and perfect orbit at 2k p/s.

I can hear your nonesense now, but but that doesn't conform to my alliances current meta. Well guess what, no one but your alliance cares, the majority of combat in EvE is not PL's metagame and the majority of ships blown up and not blown up by supercap drops, or 100's to 1000,s of people in fleets. The majority of combat is medium to small gangs and that's the thing CCP should be concentrating on. Not your minority style gameplay.

My solo Onyx was used to scram a bunch of ships so that the Horde fleet could then jump in an kill some of them trapped in bubble or on the other side of the gate after they've burned to it. It was to negate the efffect of the spys on the other side causing the Svipuls to warp off to safe when the Horde fleet warped to the gate. It was an extremely useful ship for that purpose given the difficulty we had with spys and the likelihood that they would attempt to pop and giving themselves a aggression timer. Hardly useless.

Cade Windstalker:

You seem to have two conjoined arguments.
A) You want T3Cs to fit your vision as an optimal cruiser choice for "newer" players
B) You want SP removed to facilitate that.

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The problems with A) are:

1) T3Cs are more far skill intensive than T2s.

2) T3Cs require V racial cruiser + V racial subsystems, EACH.
T2s require only V racial cruiser + V T2 class skill.
In T2s, once you have the V T2 class skill, it applies to ALL T2 cruisers of that type.
Result is that training into another racial T3C takes twice as long as training into another racial T2 of that type.

3) To perform versatile roles in a T3C, you need a commensurately wider basis of skills to facilitate that.
You cant fit a covops cloak on a T3C unless you have the skills required for covops cloaks.
Though T3C hulls offer versatility, that doesnt mean much if you dont have the skills those roles require (much less to perform well)
So the skill requirement between T3Cs and T2s is additively wider as a result.

Its not just the hull you have to train for, its the skills which actually facilitate the roles that versatility offers.
Sure you can fly it with crap skills, but the output will hence also be crap.

3) Thus T3Cs are, de facto, the pinnacle of the Cruiser line, as they not only involve a longer train, each, but additionally require the supporting skills that ALL specific T2s need inorder to perform their roles, inorder for the T3C to be effective at emulating any of the T2s. Plus SP loss risk.

T3Cs are the optimal choice for players who already have T2 specific skills for their roles covered.
T3Cs offer those players the capacity to use a single hull to emulate those T2 roles, and switch between them.
If they dont need/want to switch, both new and old players are better off with a T2 or Pirate cruiser.

Flying a Command or Logi T3C is completely pointless if you dont have Command and Logi skills covered, ESPECIALLY if you have no intent to perform other roles on that T3C.

4) I dont see any sense or reason in your view that T3Cs should be an optimal, or even feasible choice for newer players.
They are much better off flying the T2s, or Pirate Cruisers, until they have a wide and developed enough skill set to actually fulfill with any efficiency the swappable roles that a T3C offers.

5) This notion that T3Cs should be ideal for newer players cannot work, and is false, due to the far larger skill requirements They dont have the skill sets to effectively apply the roles the T3C versatility offers.

T3Cs ARE OPTIMAL FOR VETS, NOT FOR NEWER PLAYERS.

6) Furthermore, this notion that T3Cs should be ideal for newer players runs completely contrary to the idea of incentivizing T2s.
Newer players are far better off skilling into T2s than T3Cs. Only once they have skilled the support skils for those T2 roles, should they consider a T3C which offers versatility as a "T2 equivalent swiss-army tool".

A T3C SHOULD BE A ROUGHLY T2 EQUIVALENT MULTITOOL FOR PLAYERS WITH THE EXISTING SUPPORTING SKILLS TO SWAP BETWEEN ROLES AND PREPARED TO PAY MORE AND RISK SP LOSS.

7) Cruiser status quo vs post-change:
-HIC: No T3C equivalent. T3Cs cannot use bubbles.
-Combat Recon: No T3C equivalent. T3Cs cannot be DScan immune.
-Force Recon: Imo remove cynos from T3Cs, to avoid super penetrating cloak/null/cyno T3C fits.
-Command Cruiser: No T2 equivalent. Not an issue.
-T2 Logi: T3Cs have less repair bonuses.
-HAC: T3Cs have less PvP fit suitability.
-Exploration: T3Cs offer alternatives to Stratios.

---

The problems with B):

1) SP loss has no direct effect on T3C stats/performance.
If functions as a core mechanic on T3Cs to equalize against its versatility.

2) SP loss does not penalize newer players rather than older.
The penalty is exactly the same for both. One subsystem level.

3) Currently older players lose a premium % in replacing SP loss with injectors.
If SP loss is removed, this only benefits older players in the status quo.
Removing SP loss is made doubly irrational by your own statement that older players are typically also wealtheir and more capable of replacing it with injectors, or have alts or infrequent action enough to just wait it out.

i) Example of the current situation:
-If a newer and older T3C player face-off:
--If the older player wins, the newer player can replace SP loss via injection more efficiently.
--If the newer player wins, the older player can replace SP loss via injection less efficiently.

ii) Example of if SP loss is removed:
-If a newer and older T3C player face-off:
--Doesnt matter who wins, cos there is no SP loss.
--Older players is more likely to win, cos more skills.
--Older player no longer suffers a malus for SP replacement via injection, as compared to newer player, as before.

There is NO equity to newer players from removing SP loss.
There is only equity to older players whom no longer have to incur a loss in SP injection % to replace it as compared to newer players.

4) Removing SP loss just makes T3C life even more comfortable for older players, without any equity to newer ones.
It infact de-incentivizes T2 use for vets with extensive SP pools, in favor of T3Cs that no longer incur SP loss.

5) If T3Cs are brought in rough alignment with T2s, no sensible newer player will fly a T3C instead of a dedicated T2, especially considering the potential risk of SP loss. Thus T2 use will increase among newer players whom a) dont need the versatility of T3Cs b) dont have the skills to exploit that versatility c) dont want to risk SP loss.