Ships & Modules

Big ass tank


It can also solo level4s if you support skills are good, takes forever waiting for drones to get back and forth though.

where's the myrm doctrine then. problem is that minnie ships have big pg, but their guns have low pg requirements and can shoot and neut untill they pop while having big tank

The myrm is solid and can beat or force away any other BC (except maybe neut armor hurricanes) 1v1 if flown properly. The difference is it actually requires skill, SP, and not being braindead since it's active tanked and slower than a drake or a cane. You're also usually more committed to the fight.

EDIT2: This is assuming you're using ACs. It's still good with blasters, but makes things a lot harder in some situations.

Arties have high PG requirements.

And there are droneboat fleet comps out there, but based around boats bonuses that are actually appropriate for fleets, not solo/small gang like the Myrm's rep bonus.

I dunno how you fit shield Canes, but 51k EHP is perfectly achievable and is not paper thin.

Yeah, posting this topic really is like poking a wasps nest with a stick ( i was going to say bee hive, but bee related comments, kinda of a sore subject on these forums atm !!!)

-3/10

Apart from the Hurricane obsoleting almost all cruisers and CCP's proposed Drake change representing a significant boost to it, yeah...

I agree actually. It was a bit lazy of me to pick on the Hurricane like that, the other t2 BCs also contribute much to the cruiser-obsolescence problem. And the t1s have a share of the blame too.

When people want a flexible, cheap and respectably powerful but expendable ship, they jump in a BC. But surely this should also be a description of a cruiser too? Assuming that we can't just rework BCs, how would you make cruisers usable given that BCs exist? The cruisers must have an advantage in mobility (t3 BC problem here?) but the Hurricane in particular is worryingly close to the mobility of many cruisers. Would more mobility and easier fitting be enough, or should the cruisers have an advantage in terms of, say, tracking as well? How would this be achieved, bearing in mind that the many extra slots and far easier fitting of a BC often gives them a tracking and range advantage already.

Maybe when CCP gets on to tiericiding cruisers we'll see. Certainly in their attempt to increase the diversity of ships flown, it seems that they've chosen the "boost everything else" rather than the "infuriate almost everyone by nerfing the most popular ships in game".

This leads to the ever looming question...

Do you guys consider the event of stepping stones, tiers, training time and cost irrelevant factors? I mean, they are definately peripheral, but you've seen people on these forums arguing that those aspects shouldn't be considered a factor when balancing the game, at all. It makes me question how you intend to balance the game while looking away from that. Cruisers afterall take essentially no time at all to train for and essentially cost nothing to fly. On that background i'd say they are reasonably well used, at least the better hulls (Rupture, Thorax and Vexor comes to mind).

Doesn't rebalancing Cruisers in that spirit end up creating more "Drakes", while that is something there seem to be a consensus identifying as bad? (ie., the Tier 3 BC issue, achieving the opposite of intention).

I'm not saying "more resources should always win" no more with income and skillpoints than with numbers, but i do consider them factors in the greater scheme of things (just as i consider numbers a factor, while imbalanced today - it should still have impact not just such an exclusive one) and that making Cruisers "more balanced" involves a balance hurdle in itself. How good is something instant and free supposed to be? The BC already present a problem here as the "bang for buck"-option, where people shy away from fighting them because it difficult inflicting any lasting damage on them (ie., winning wars opposed to engagements), they definately don't seem eager to engage them with exotic options.

One of the points i've argued a couple of times over when people complain about HACs has been just that. It's not like HACs have any massive issues with BC on a whole. The problem is that HAC need to maintain well over a 10:1 kill ratio when you look at cost-efficiency while if you look at actual balance they are reasonably well-balanced. People didn't stop using either SHAC, NHAC or AHAC because they stand no chance against BC, people stopped using them because the risk-reward balance got thwarted by uncontrolled growing cost-efficient numbers.

It's not my inability to field the ship or inflict damage on the field - it's my inability to inflict damage or make a lasting impact in the game.



Just as with Tier 3 BC - do we really want more ships that are like that? That's where you'll ultimately end up if you make Cruisers better per principle. The natural chain of attention will go from Cruisers to Tech II Cruisers. Will we have HAC back at nano-era performance and from there we'll be back to looking at BS and BC balance again? The only thing you achieve is shifting goalposts.

I'm all for buffing HAC and stuff, but before the current lapse started there already was a reasonable balance and now we're going full circle. Buff the Tech I Cruisers to be like HAC, buff the HAC to compete with and even gain an edge over Tier 3 BC and get slightly more ahead of other BC. Then we discuss tiercide and whatnot as well, as a discussion on the side. Once again, goalposts and poor design.

When SHAC, NHAC and AHAC began going out of style in 2010 it was evident to me that the issue had nothing to do with the ships they faced on grid and all with the fact that whatever they faced had no risk, downtime or accumulative balance check. That is also something this game is originally built around, losses should put a dent in your wallet and have you off to lick wounds for a while. We're not playing a graveyard-respawn game. Well, we weren't meant to anyway.

It was nothing new in 2010, more an expected evolution. Already in 2008 when oldschool nano got "fixed" people pointed out that numbers couldn't be left unchecked. It needed to be balanced up to meet the change and make the swingboard enjoyable for everyone, yet that has still not happened to date.



It doesn't matter if you're PL, Goons or me - it's pointless trying to grief someone if what they do is effective yet represent no loss. I highly doubt people stop flying Cruisers because they are bad, and am quite certain that people stop flying Cruisers because once they can do that the BC is naturally a better option for basic tank-and-spank while you can sit in one of those instead within a matter of hours, at little to no additional cost.

It's the same with tiers, lower tiers are underused because none of the ships represent a sensitive loss. How do you intend to balance all these ships if cost-efficiency is not adressed? In a greater scope it affects economy as well, similar to the growth of Motherships and how none were lost for a good while and just accumulated. Acumulating numbers also promote tank-spank, so it's a closed circle. Making Cruisers better primarily make them better at what they already do.

Do you think people will begin to fly Cruisers simply because they get faster? What will that do to the few HACs people still fly? What will it do to Frigates and Destroyers, should we step back a third time and reiterate them? It all lack both insight and contingency somehow. A stronger Cruiser is more likely affect Cruisers in existing throw-away and anti-frigate roles than they are to let an agile playstyle impact the game (and thus make them appealing over say, BC).

Reading your posts that seem to be the honest ambition, but shifting ships around don't change the game. If there's to be an incentive to fly ships with an agile outlook, that gameplay have to be encouraged first.

Cost and tiers exist in this game as balance factors, rebuilding the entire game away from that on principle is a massive and unecessary undertaking, allocating development resources better spent elsewhere; and leave gaping holes in the roadside fenced with "under construction" signs (possibly, "men at work" signs ). Not very good game design.