Player Features and Ideas Discussion

So, I want to fly a Rook. If you want to TLDR please read the last paragraph of this OP.

I feel though that it suffers from "fitting penalties" that all 3 of the other combat recons do not suffer from. This strikes me as imbalanced. As I've never seen a Rook anywhere but on the market, I know they're not prevalent. I've most certainly seen all of the other combat recons in use for actual fights. The only real use I've even heard of is of people ignoring its ECM and using it as a simple dps ship, which overlaps with HACs.

To be clear, the problem I see is that nobody flies Rooks outside of trivial fights, because they don't reliably contribute the same as any of the other combat recon ships.

Specifically:
1) Low Slots
The other three combat recons have four low slots. Those four lowslots can be used for damage, tank (Armor, DCU), certain utility (signal amplifiers) or fitting (RCU, diagnostic, etc)

The rook has three low slots, which effectively kills any armor fit. In addition, however, to the above fitting choices, it must also add ECM effectiveness (Signal Distortion Amps).

2) Midslots
For EWAR effectiveness, the Rook must either sacrifice range+effectiveness and use multispectral, or rainbow fit (at a cost of virtually ALL of its tank), or combat refit at a depot if they have the chance.

The Curse requiring two disruptor types (guidance/tracking) shares this issue, but only marginally. The Lachesis and Huginn can both easily get away with fitting just two EWAR modules. Since the curse can armor tank, it can field the 4 EWAR modules in its midslots without going "pop" when someone looks at it.

Normally I'd say that's good balance, given the sheer effectiveness of ECM landing, it's a brawling ship. It has no range bonus on ECM, ergo HMLs are pointless. HAMs have 30km of range. A brawling ship with no noteworthy tank is a lossmail waiting to happen.

3) EWAR effectiveness
Yes, I know, people who hate ECM really hate ECM. It's a whole lot easier to answer to ECM than it is to answer to any of the other disruptive EWAR (RSD, disruption). Since ECM is "supposed to be their tank", and "is fitted in place of their tank", even at 80% overall jam chance you're looking at a very dead ship. Getting kited in a Lachesis is no different than getting jammed out by a Rook, and if those two fought the Lachesis would win every time.

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In light of the above, a few simple changes to the Rook would probably do a lot to bring it in-line with the other combat recons:

Option 1:
+2 lowslots for tank AND SDA (or extra tank/extra SDA)
SLIGHT increase in fitting space to account for the lowslots

Option 2:
+1 low slot for tank OR for SDA
ECM range bonus allowing optimal range out to 80 and falloff out to 140, allowing HML fits to become viable. (These would work very nicely in cerb fleets).

Option 3 (edit: Crappy idea, ignore 3 and go to 4)
Change the +30% ECM strength bonus to +45%, allowing the rook to forego SDAs in favor of some kind of useful DPS (again... BRAWLING ship...)
Add a Role bonus of +40% cycle time to ECM. This means your ECM modules would cycle every 28 seconds instead of every 20 seconds. Jam time would remain 20 seconds, meaning that even with 100% chance to jam, you're still looking at giving the enemy ship 40% dps time


Edit:

Option 4:
Go the way of the Griffin Navy, increase jam strength substantially however drop the range to utterly terrifyingly short ranges (10km optimal, 15km falloff).



TLDR: Don't TLDR. You will invariably read the above suggestions and argue they are invalid, having not read the reasoning behind them. If you wish to read the reasoning and then call me stupid, that's absolutely your call. If you don't read the reasoning and call me stupid, that makes you stupid.

you don't really need to change the rook all that much it's already a great solo pvp ship. if you really needed to change it all i could see adding is a single low slot.



your first problem is fitting SDA to a rook its lows are for BCU nothing else unless it is in a fleet then it flies like a falcon with more DPS and better E-war defence where once again it is fine.


the reason people fly falcons more is because ECM is a crap E-war for an actual fight despite what some people will tell you. ECM is only good for running and breaking tackle for a brief amount of time. for anything else you are better off with damps. So in that role having a cloaked ship on grid ready to help with GTFO is a better option. There is the argument that ECM is also a better counter to Poorly fit logi or against logi if you are in a small gang in this case a rook is still better than a falcon but you will still see falcons used more simply because a falcon is more likely to be in a pilots hanger.



basically the rook is in a fine spot. it is the ECM counter to a falcon being able to lock the falcon faster and having a far better sensor strength than a falcon. and the rook is one of the best solo pvp brawlers or kiters if the pilot fits no more than 1-2 jams and uses the rest of his mids for tank.(like with the Widow ECM is not in fact the tank for this ship)

Regarding the cycle time, you are very right. It is not a lack of understanding of the game mechanics, merely an oversight from a brain dump. Staggered offsetting of ECM modules would indeed permajam.

Option 3 as it stands, is no good then. I'll amend the OP.

Perhaps one could follow the path of the Griffin Navy, and drop the range down to utterly ****** ranges in exchange for the substantial boost? Say, 10km optimal, 15km falloff. If that were done, the missile velocity bonus would probably be best replaced with a ROF bonus or something.

I remain convinced that given the lack of range bonus on the ECM modules, the Rook remains a brawling ship unless you ignore dps and tank entirely... in which case you may as well fly the falcon to have the range bonus and the covops cloak.. they'll have roughly the same tank.

Cade cited the statistics. The Rook might be a passable solo ship, but face it off against one of the many possible hard counters (anything with a sebo, anything with naturally strong sensors) and it'll get dumpstered real fast. While ships are SUPPOSED to have counters, that counter should not be "anything above T1 cruisers" (I am speaking in hyperbole, but you get the idea).

Also, you're dreaming if you think a Rook can force a Falcon off the grid. The falcon will jam it out 80km away, and warp off when the rook gets close (or just cloak and reposition if not locked). A Lachesis would be 10 times more effective, having the same strong sensor strength, with a 100% uptime against the Falcon. Scram kiting would mean the falcon would never be able to escape, if it was within point range. Regardless, RSD will own ECM a lot faster than ECM will own ECM.

The "solo" rook must also fit a point, and prop mod in addition to tank. It will NEED those jams to land to win the fight... which means SDAs instead of BCS, which means ****-poor dps. Which means that you'll lose when their friends arrive (which they will) two hours later. True solo fights are few and far between, and if that is it's only purpose, it needs a new purpose.

I used to use the rook in conjunction with a huginn/rapier. You'd be amazed at how people will take the rook thinking it's an easy kill.

Or using them in fights of any size, they draw all the fire because people are afraid of the ecm toy Mau not even Havre fit

I think your autocorrect is broken.

Good God where do i begin

For of players do not fly the best ship for a job they fly the best ship they have access to. They tend to have access to ships that are used in more/ more common instances.

The rook as a ship is in line with other combat recons in fact it's one of the best. ECM is the issue with the ships lower (Not low as you seem to believe) use. A rook can and does fit rainbow far better than a falcon just because YOU don't want to fit one that way is not a problem with the ship. A rook has a better chance of surviving using am ecm tank than a falcon and a falcon sure as hell is not using ECM AND cloak as its tank. Once again i would lime to advise you learn basic game mechanics. If they are in range to lock they are in range to be locked. If they are locked they can not cloak. Of they are cloaked they can not lock for 5 seconds after they uncloak and that is a hell of a long time for a falcon to have 0 jams active.

They are only used in a de- cloak jam manner when they are

A. Trying to break tackle and run

B flown by an idiot and/or green horn

.........

Did i or did i not say in my first ******* past

And having flow this ship more than any other non logistics cruiser i can tell you it is NOT for a sda but a BCU to get dps closer to a curse.

If we use these numbers across all hulls the same way then outside the rook the cures is the worst combat recon and needs attention. And yet if you ask anyone who regularly flys combat recons odds are they will tell you that hands down it is the best combat recon for solo and small gang. Odd that seems the two lowest scores have something I common each of them have many and far superior alternatives in terms of large fleets (fleets that just so happen to leave the largest kill logs) but are extremely adept at solo and small gang.

And what do the two most used ships have in common? They are equipped with powerful forms of the two forms of e-war no fleet unlocks without no matter its size

I would love to see you solo in a falcon but even a pilot with average understanding of solo PvP can do wonders with a rook.

You want a more brawl focused med to large fleet version of the falcon and in this misguided quest you ignore what else the changes would effect. Mainly its power in small gangs and solo. Rather than just using a good damn tengue that is exactly that. A brawler ecm boat. (One that will fill this to an op level if current numbers stay what they are with the rebalance.)



You are falling victim to the same problem people do in real life. A statistic shows under representation of something and you decided that is substantial evidence of your perceived problem.


A rook does not need to fill the same role as a falcon only better just like neither the falcon nor rook fill the sane role as a black bird or even get close. A widow doesn't fill the same role as a scorpion and a scorpion has a far lower representation than almost any BB only beating the Hyperion. The thing barley breasts out the ******* hyp in killboard representation and that's with all it's misuse in hs wars. Yet the scorpion is not a bad ship it is a ship with a niche a very, very small niche. It however fills that niche in a way no other ship even dreams of coming close to

kek i wasn't using the rook as a bait ship, I used it pre-rebalance with a full rack of ecm more or less. They aren't amazing, however, jamming out 4 loki's trying to kill you while they eat gate guns is priceless.

What it could need is some more fitting room. I tried to fit one yesterday and had no PG left for a full rack of HAM (could only fit 3 out of 5) or RLML (could only fit 4 out of 5) if I want to use an XL-ASB, a 10MN AB and no LSE, Invul or other tank mods. CPU is perfectly fine, I had loads available still, but PG seems to be extremely tight.