Player Features and Ideas Discussion

So, simply put, now that most T1 hulls are getting a boost in effectiveness, navy ships (cruisers in particular) are effectively being rendered useless. Some of them were already useless, but now, with the exception of a very few (looking at you, StFI), the T1 variants almost entirely outclass them. Look at the exequror navy issue VS the new thorax, or the Navy Omen vs the regular Omen. They may offer some extra base buffer or speed, but are terribly short on fitting room and slots, and in most cases attributes like agility, speed, or electronics-related attributes.

Compare the Thorax with the NExequror. The exequror costs more then 4 times as much, has only 85% the CPU of the thorax, 93% of the PG, 40% of the drone bay/BW, less targeting range, 95% of its natural cap regen, 90% pf its targeting range, 56% of its cargo capacity, 92% of its armor, one less mid, one less high, and (obviously) one less turret.

For trading all of that, it gets a 14% boost in shield HP, 5% boost in hull HP, 13% boost in scan res, 3% boost in speed, 11% reduction in sig radius, and 10% reduction in align time. Most importantly, it trades a tracking bonus for a more powerful ROF bonus...which unfortunately is negated by the missing turret.

This, of course, means that it and the other navy cruisers in its position are in line for a buff....but then we're moving into T2/pirate territory...and before you know it there's a game-wide power creep, which is not often a good thing.

My suggestion is to buff them nearly up to par on dps with the T2 variants, but give them the most forgiving fitting options, and the best resistance to ewar, making them literally upgraded versions of their non-navy counterparts. (or spiritual counterparts anyway...case in point thorax > NExeq)

In this way, you can even move them on par to pirate cruisers without really intruding on their niche of wtfpwnting everything with high dps at various ranges. So they'll never be as good at pve, or in any situation where the tank on both is "enough", but effective enough in their own niche to warrant being flown vs the T2/pirate variations.

That's just my opinion on it, though. I'm genuinely curious as to how this problem is going to be handled....?

Oh I've already started on that XD

Patience is a virtue, I know. It's just that. for the first time, they're really, truly obsoleting an entire ship class with the re-balancing. Navy frigates still have a good role at this point, if only because they're fairly different from most other ships and still somewhat cost-effective. The cruisers will not share this fate, so I'm curious as to what their plan is. It's only eight ships with somewhat-defined roles...doesn't seem like it'd be terribly hard to bump them up to being at least fiddled-with alongside the BCs. Maybe not even properly balanced, just bumped up enough to be "not pointless". The alternative seems to be living with a set of ships that, with the exception of the odd StFI or bait NAugoror, no player has any reason to fly, ever....for more than a year?

all navy ships are comparatively dirt cheap atm, thanks to all those afk fw players.
stock up on datacores too, proberbly never bee cheaper than they are atm.