Ships & Modules

What balance issue are you trying to address? The only mention I can see is this:…the first of which isn't particularly true (BS can reach far higher tanks than BCs), and the second of which will not be addressed by this kind of change since those T2 ships benefit from the exact same modules. Oh, and the second “problem” isn't really a balancing issue — it's just the vagaries of fleet doctrines, which come and go on a seasonal basis.

Sure, love your mischaracterization above of everything I write. Most of all the other stuff you said prior to that is not really a disagreement or not worth arguing further. Anyway, yep I certainly have been posting that Drakes and Tengus are unkillable. However, I don't know why you think I care why you guys stopped flying Muninns. But I do care that HACs have receeded from view in general. One can still find AHAC usage in low sec where blobs are less pronounced and bubbles non-existent. The 30-40 +/- fleet size still flourishes there. In that environment AHACs do very well. But of course in the >250 fleet battles of the typical coalition meat grinder they are nothing but an expensive loss.

Aside from our differeing combat experiences, the evidence is unavoidable. Drakes predominate http://eve-kill.net/?a=top20 Drake- 183k, Hurricane-81k, Tengu/Loki/Mael/Tornado/Thrasher/Abaddon all in the 40's. Drakes and Tengus prdominate in pve, partially via ******** wormhole pve design and generally ******** pve design in this game. The game has degenerated and been stalled in Drakes/Tengus online, and we will see more of that and ecm online in the upcoming alliance tournament, again. It has finally come to bother CCP enough that they will change it. Although it will be an even further long wait.

Meanwhile, I do not see the plated Gallente gunboats in any appreciable numbers despite your disclaimer about their lack of downsides.

Also not sure if serious is Nosrevbus's fantasy land of Myrmidon gangs. And his even greater fantasy of Myrmidon gangs fighting and winning outnumbered against Drake gangs. Oh look at Myrmidons sitting on the eve-kill top twent . . ah well. It must be all that indestructible 3 heavy or sentry drone dps they pump out without any sacrifice to mobility Or yeah all those 50k ehp Mallers that appear everywhere.

This thread started with a flawed solution to a finally recognized problem. CCP has already said they don't want cruisers to be a mere speed bump on the rush to tier 2 BC and that tier 2 BCs, particularly the Drake, are too powerful atm. That Drakes lack the same fitting tradeoffs that other ship types face. So, Cruisers will be buffed. Tier 2 BCs will be nerfed. The distance between Cruisers and BCs will shrink a bit and the distance between BSs and BCs will grow a bit. But, you'll still have the easy(er) mode Drakes for another year at least.

You can push all four tier 2 BCs over 100k ehp.

It's stupid though, they move like battleships after all of the plates and rigs.


To the Myrmidon gang? Vs Drakes? That would be a slaughter.

The issue with the mrym is speed its frigging slow, Drake is no speed demon BUT its also shield tanked. So the mythical (I've never seen it) Myrm gang BETTER land in the middle of them and get points on every ship you can, because otherwise you are going to get your clock cleaned while the drakes burn out to range and you are stuck.

Unless you are running with sentries and a couple link augmentors, and that is equally silly at a whopping 120DPS per ship best case and you have to either park on them or leave them behind.

This is why people fly drakes, you can adapt the frigging things to anything, they do the same damage at 65km as they do at 10km and a decent tank for a non-battleship.

Its NOT BS level (generally) because by the time you "full tank" a drake you are flying around in a ghetto raven with half the buffer and a bigger sig, everything hits you like a bus then.

Good call, not entirely serious indeed.

However, you are still doing what i mentioned a post or two back. You are staring yourself blind on the example rather than adressing the point made. I never suggested you'd go out there in Myrms, i suggested you'd use it to understand the point of "100k ehp" and look at the actual figures. The point was rather, that even Myrms could potentially achieve it. Our friend from Silversnake have the same problem. He looks at the example, claims all BC can fit equivalent tanks (which is correct) but muses over the fact that it's quite exotic and then go on to throw around some popular belief instead of looking at the figures and realizing their practical application. The problem with that is that he doesn't understand the underlying point. Putting it the way he does would imply there's what i would call a "magnitude difference".

The speed difference is miniscule (100-200 m/s), even a plated Myrm is so close to a Drake's general speed that whoever apply tackle on who, have a slight skillpoint advantage, can flip a module or rig here or there, overload with better timing or have a better general approach will win. In my "fantasy land" everyone maintain tackle and adress primaries in a similar sense. There's no point to dabble in extreme hypotethicals such as either side being in perfect optimal, or one having LR tackle when the other does not. If either gang fall into a trap the opposing side is likely to win, which only serve to cement the point that no horrible imbalance exist.

It's such small margins that there is no "horribly overpowered" there. They have a reasonable fighting chance, and it's just as much on the Drakes to apply tackle and kill the Myrms. Anyone can tell that it's not popular so remarks about how you've never seen them or that they don't show up in statistics are just the same here as they are everywhere else: not an indication of balance. Balance and popularity are two different things. That's another point you need to understand if we are to have a fruitful discussion here, because you keep falling back to statistics even now. I'd assumed we were past that and discussed actual balance.

If you want historical examples Mfume already gave you Gilas - his group is not the only to run those gangs - and there's been groups running both Deimos and Ishtars as well. In your link of a "lowsec AHAC gang" you see RK running a mix against what seems to be a numerical inferior foe (you can never tell with KB of course, but on paper they have a 2:1 advantage there). What you haven't considered is that the same group has run much more uniform Gallente HAC gangs in nullsec against more daunting odds. With that in mind, your example of "it works in lowsec" doesn't really depict a lowsec occurance but rather how those HACs apply anywhere up until the point where numbers and cost-efficiency begin to obscure all else. Not ship balance. When you understand that, you get my point with the Myrm-example.

The fact of the matter is Minnie ships are way to easy to fit compared to others.
Yes the drake may have a great tank, but it has crap dps. in order to make it tolerable you need kinetic missiles and that does limit it.

You have to squeeze fitting mods and plants in order to stuff a 1600mm plate on a rax and still get the smallest medium guns, not to mention struggling to fit a MWD as well. The minnie ship still have an agility and speed advantage.

The cane is even better when it comes to fitting. Fitting a 1600 plate and still out running some cruisers and laughs at other BC's

What makes drakes popular and viable is the ease for a new pilot to fly it. It still dps's like a wet paper towel.

The major problem with drone based gangs/fleets is bombs/smarbombs.

Some times can succeed but some dudes living in Deklein now for years already used Domi/sentry fleets years ago and face raped everything on grid at the time, then someone suddenly had a neuron left who and started using smarbombs and bombing runs in to them.

It can work, but you fear the sight of a single bomber.

Back to Drake and generally about Battle Cruisers, I can't understand why some people have so much hard time with this resist drake trade for a rof/speed bonus. This will bring Drake tank on pair with other BC's, just loose a tiny little bit of shield resist and 12.5% -/+ kin dmg, but win a woopin' +33% -/+ in dps with thermal/em/explo and speed for HAM's.

I don't know how this can be bad, seems very few crossed an HAM Drake on their path at current state, well better run after this is fixed because it's going to have a much higher tank than now but his major tank will be GANK, and what a gank ship still able to bring 65K+ EHP before fleet/gang bonus instead of 80.

I could also rabble about the 80K EHP armor tank Hurricane but it's a waste of time because unlike Drake this armor cane can barely pass over 350dps and is slow as hell, so it's a nice trade off, no need to change it unlike Drake.

Actually I'm using an 80K EHP Drake requiring a simple PG implant, Cap stable that permanently runs MWD and still spits over 450DPS, and those 80K EHP are solo, not taking in account fleet/squad bonus with dedicated ships.
Do you imagine how much EHP after those bonus this simple Drake pushes and still have a more than decent dps?

This is what is wrong with Drakes those are not T2 ships and after bonus push Battleship tank values (witch means above 100K EHP!!).
Drakes shouldn't be able to push that much DPS with so much tank and this needs to be changed as like Brutix needs to see that stupid rep bonus taken away to win something helping them apply dmg a little bit further than their nose.

I loved CCP Ybert job on frigates, he made them fantastic for newbies and older players. I can't wait to see his job around cruisers/BC and T3 ships. He seems to have a good vision of what "balance means" when you look what T1 frigs are now.

Finally we're getting on the same page .

Yes indeed, there is a tipping point. If you go back and look at the arguments i've made, you'll see that i identify that tipping point quite firmly when on-grid DPS begin to overcome the general buffer virtually any subcap have. It is a general design problem rather than a specific ship-balance problem. Incidentally that tipping point is beyond what most corps and even alliances in this game are capable of fielding with any frequency.

The Drake do indeed (together with all the other popular fleet-ships) have features that make it appealing in that specific area of the game. It's easy to train for, it's easy to replace, it's easy to fly, it has a reliable projectible dps and it has a resistance bonus that up it's buffer toward "critical mass". Those are the only two features of importance in that specific area of the game.

Now, here's the crunchpoint. You said it yourself: it's damage projection and simultaneous tanks crammed onto a singlar grid. That include all fleet ships. It's that together with the limited content in the game for scales that do not involve the same tipping point. It's also CCP's continued focus and encouragement of the "fleet scale" alone, while vast aspects of the game is not dimensioned for that.

Changing the Drake is not going to change that fact. If you remove the resistance bonus for example it does not affect the value of projection, reliability, affordability or accessability. Nore does that encourage the use or promote the value of unpredictability, mobility, snap, control and so forth. That's where the real imbalance lie: too many features have little to no impact in the numbers game. They are not balanced.

The best way to help the Harby and the Myrm is to make sure that there is content that involve those things. Where the advantages they undeniably have over the Drake has a meaning and use. The upside of balancing those things is that you create more content in the game and involve more groups of players on the scene.

They stand nothing to gain from popularity being nerfed. We will just have more ships not being used, while the scales at where they are used you may cause much more imbalance than we currently have. That is if you manage to nerf it, any attempts so far have had the opposite effect.

Changing the Drake's defensive bonus to an offensive one will not affect it's popularity one bit. It will still be used at fleet scale because of cost-effect and reliable damage application. It will still be used in the medium-large size, and it may even become better there - because most importantly any such change will create a further disparity between scales. I mentioned it with regard to the Tier 3 BC. That form of glass-cannon undeniably favours numbers. Having a larger group of Drakes will be even more effective, while having a smaller group of Drakes will be less effective.

Small-gang Drakes is what will hurt. There's the paradox.

The Drake is first and foremost popular because how effective it become when you have numbers above the tipping point and numbers above your opponent.

The nerf will not be 'Drakes' it will be 'small gang'.



This is also where you go wrong. The Drakes don't have enough buffer to benefit from the Logis at fleet-scale (wether that is 100 or 200-250 or w/e you see fit). No subcapital ships do. They don't tank more than the HACs and they don't tank more than the other BC. When the Baddon fleets began to profile cost-efficiency was the #1 reason.

They simply have a medium-projection weapon system with reliable alpha and a tanking bonus, which pretty much goes for all the popular fleet ships (Tengu, Baddon, Mael, Capitals and Supers). Among those the Drake is the worst, but also the cheapest to replace and easiest to train for.

Removing the Drake from that equation do not help the Harby or Myrm, nore do it help the game in any plausible way. Especially not when any levelled suggestions made regarding Drakes will not even remove them from that equation. That's one of the most important points i keep making over and over: any proposals or related changes CCP have done to adress the issue revolving the 'Drake' (note, marks) have had the complete opposite effect.

Crucible *buffed* Drakes and Tengus.

Trying to change the Drake to adress the problem is completely fruitless. The only thing likely to be achieved is further imbalance - because looking at the actual ships there isn't any intolerable balance issue.

The best way to nerf the hegemony of 'Drakes' is the nerf the hegemony itself: Numbers.

You do that by encouraging other forms of gameplay that do not scale exponentially with numbers.

The best way to buff all other BC and revive more actors on the scene (more wars, more [inter-]action) and create content in EVE - is incidentally the same approach.

This is yet another extreme example, so try to understand the point rather than rage at the example: If a single frigate could flip sov and steal tech, then everyone wouldn't be in Delve right now.

The real problem is that any such player-environment interaction today rely on tipped numbers that scale uncontrolled with amount of players and size of ships. Until you change that, it's all about Titans and blobs, or blobs of Titans.

No argument from me on that. I left 0.0 a while ago, and tried to go back again recently. It was not a good situation though, and I really don't want to go back until the huge coalition and multi maxed fleet battle instant alpha no matter what you bring for logi and tank crap gets nerfed. (well that and the coalition political ups and downs were a pita).

How to do it though. CCP has stated in the past they want to give smaller ventures a mechanism to ninja into sov space and set up a small operation and not get instantly detected and handed a rental bill or eviction notice (although one might come eventually). But whatever mechanisms they are working on for this are probably even farther off in the development cycle than ship changes.

The only thing i can think of atm would be to remove the ability to set standings and color code them on the overview. Your pilots would then have to add a column for alliance ticker and check it for all targeting. It might be an annoyance, delay targeting and firing, enough the buy time for reps to lock and cycle. I don't know.

But until these grand fixes come it is still imbalanced that one BC can play the fleet game with other more expensive and sp intensive ship types. Both due to it's better tank and better damage projection. If all the BCs could be used this way I would not find it as much a problem although I would still bemoan the cost-efficeincy disparity. But that's just it. All the BCs can't perform in this role. Additionally, the Drake's unique ease of features lend it to use over the other BCs in other areas of pvp and pve.

I do like the thought of buffed logi and ewar tech I cruisers and frigates. These can make small gangs more vibrant. Here the relative cost efficiency buff would add to gameplay. Having meaningful td (that affects missiles as well), tp, and damps will break up the stale hegemony of ecm. ECM boats won't be automatic primaries. In a way it might benefit pilots for those ships.

With Drakes though, being unique in class, and at the level they affect, the cost efficiency doesn't enliven or diversify the game. It does as you say encourage the blob. And it creates disparities in pve money making between the races to start with that is not lending to a healthy balanced game.

Have you or anyone you know found the target spectrum breakers of any use? I ask because I am on semi-permanent hiatus from 0.0 and large fleet fights (even after maxing every existing command skill and command ships). Does it change the equation of being volleyed in any way?


Not saying it was a great idea. I really can't think of, and I doubt anyone else has thought of, any good ones otherwise they would probably be getting acolades from every quarter.


Yes, tier 3s. But again the lack of heavy tank limits dependence solely on them. In a way they also make sense from a character sp development standpoint. An inducement to prioritize training your paritcular tech II gun tree over BS. And for tech II of the large size guns that requires a couple maxed gunnery support skills. Not a bad thing their introduction. The Talos while lacking the utility of the other 3 does however get a drone bay for what it's worth and has a different role it can fill. Tier 3s other than stepping on sniper HACs was not a bad thing imo. If HACs are not going to get an hp buff, which might make AHACs come back in an op fashion, they do need to find some new role(s) for HACs. I'm not sure what that can be. Maybe some limited ewar parital immunity