EVE Alliance Tournament Discussion

Are the stats released so far (here http://pastebin.com/nJw97cST) accurate. If so, are they final? It seems to me that CCP have altered their usual pattern of combining a hac with a recon and gone for a new strategy of somewhat more questionable merit. Now, that's not to say that I think the game needs a combination of eagle and falcon, I think we're doing fine without that, but equally I think the Etana is pretty poorly thought out.

The most obvious criticism that comes to mind is that it has been given the ability to fit a covops cloak and yet has the same number of highs as the basilisk, the ship it is meant to be an upgrade for. Either it is to be fitted with 4 shield transfers and 2 cap transfers, like a basilisk and with no covops ability, or you forfeit some of its repping ability to make it a cloaky. Pretty much every other covops ship ever has a high slot more than their hardpoints for their weapon system to avoid exactly this issue, maybe this is just an oversight.

Another less pressing issue is that basilisks work best in pairs. The AT prize ship is in fact half of a useful ship.

As Mr Bolton noted, the Etana, the result of much hard work upgrading electronics, has worse sensor strength than the non upgraded version. This is confusing.

In terms of simple utility, blops bridging is barely used and when it is the limitations on it force you to go pretty recon heavy. I question the gap that is being filled by dropping a cloaky basilisk onto whatever you're blops bridging for lulz when they're already being covered in falcons. For that matter, what advantages does this have over a falcon or a basilisk in whichever situation you would require one? You can already decloak a falcon to dishonour a fight and save your ship and you can already blops falcons onto people to put them in an unwinnable situation. When the AT prize ship comes in at roughly 100 times as much and is less gamebreaking than the basic bloping caldari cruiser it makes you question what exactly it's for. Maybe it's just for healing up your ships on grid in a large scale fleet fight or for running incursions but in that situation your covops cloak probably isn't seeing much use. Maybe that's why they gave it too few slots to fit the covops cloak. :S

Another alternative is that CCP feels that stealthy covops healing behind enemy lines is something the game needs. Bold teams of widows and Etanas sneaking through the blockades to heal up the pos where the enemy least expect them. Perhaps once put in the game that'll become a thing and we'll all have great fun doing it. Alliance high commands will be screaming at their minions for letting the Etana crack squad rep up the shields of the ihub but against the power of the cloaky basilisk what chance did the poor gatecampers have. Still, while that sounds absolutely incredible it occurs to me that a ship called a carrier already exists and can use a mod called a capital shield transfer and can in fact jump all by itself without the need for the widow. While a carrier has less ability to stealthily evade capture behind enemy lines it will most likely be around 3% of the cost of the Etana after insurance (assuming you lose your carrier) and has vastly more repping power.

Another point that has been brought to my attention is that to set up a cap chaining pair of Etanas will cost about 60b. While you now have the ability to jump a pair of basilisks behind enemy lines to rep up things where nobody will expect them this is limited to just the reps of two basilisks with a forfeited high slot on each. Perhaps a better option would be to use the isk to just buy a titan and then bridge hundreds of basilisks onto whatever it is you want to bridge onto. Admittedly they won't be cloaky but they have the advantage of being somewhat more disposable and you can jump them to normal cynos.

Maybe CCP knows more about this than I do. Maybe I'm being shortsighted in expecting it to have as much repping power as a basilisk, after all, a basilisk can't cloak. Maybe there are situations in which the covops ship you want to decloak to save your main as you're dying in a t1 battlecruiser is a 30b AT hull which can rep up your shields. I imagine there are groups in EVE who are just dying to get their hands on this mighty piece of Caldari engineering (I'm looking at you here Dirt Nap Squad). Still, I can't help but feel that CCP might want to reconsider what exactly this is for.

They will however see that you have two guys in local that you haven't shown and assume you have two falcons. The question is, after emotionally preparing themselves for falcons will they actually mind the Etana? If anything they'll be glad.
Also how is that plan superior to just logging two basilisks off on the gate at zero and just logging them on when a fight starts? They'll have more repping power due to their high slots and cost somewhat less.

The point is that a Falcon would be better for that role, but about a factor of 5, also it's 1/60th the cost. Also instead of buying an Etana, you could buy two to three more falcon alts, and put them in faction fit falcons, lose those falcons, then fit deadspace mods to the next falcons, and then field those.

Same effect really.

You seem bitter

*You're

Confirming that prom is known for hotdropping cloaky ships

So if you win then basically what CCP is saying to you is "sorry but.. err.. better luck next year?"
What if they just give you more Etanas when you win again next year? WHAT THEN?!??!

The point is that it's sort of useless as a cloaky ship, as you drop a high for the cloak and you need a second 30 billion ship to set up a cap chain. You might as well get some falcons, or set up a fleet with basi's.

The shear overheating power on those reps would be indeed amazing, but what for other than some rich team to lose in the AT? Is that it, is that all you want?

I just bet 2b against them

A comedy troupe not good enough to actually play professionally?