Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Greetings spacefriends.

Those of you who have read the CSM minutes (You've read the CSM minutes, right?) will already know that we have a modest package of Black Ops tweaks in the pipeline that didn't quite make it into Retribution 1.0. These changes are meant to reduce some of the difficulties using Black Ops battleships for covert bridging, and hopefully open up some more options for those of you who are or will be involved in covert gameplay. This is not the big Black Ops rebalance, and we here at CCP do not consider Black Ops "done" after these changes. We are putting these tweaks out now since it may be a while before we can get to the full Black Ops rebalance and we don't want to leave them in their current state in the meantime.

None of this will be a surprise to you avid minute-readers, but for everyone else here's what we have planned:

• Increase the base jump range of all Black Ops ships to 3.5 light years (equal to that of Titans)
• Reduce the mass multipler used for Covert Jump Portal fuel costs from 0.00000018 to 0.000000135 (Reduces the fuel cost of covert bridges by 25%)
• Increase the fuel bay on all Black Ops to 1250m3 (25% increase)

:Update Jan 21st:
We have also refactored the methods used to limit older modules to certain ships. Most of the ships changed by this will simply have a more clear description (Can fit module X rather than -99% CPU to module X) but there are two gameplay improvements this change allowed us to make:

• Change the CPU requirements of Covops cloaks to 100 and change the bonus on coverts, recons and blockade runners to "-20% CPU needed for cloaks per level". This means that cloaks will use the same CPU at level 5 (0) but the CPU use at lower levels is less crippling, making the use of these ships at less than level 4-5 more viable.
• Open up the use of Covert Cynosural Field Generators on any Strategic Cruiser that has the Covert Reconfiguration subsystem fitted, as well as on Blockade Runners. This means that the availability of covert cynos is consistent and simple. If you can jump through the bridge you can light the cyno.
• As a more neutral side effect that is still worth noting: the Combat and Attack Battlecruisers, as well as the Blockade Runners and Deep Space Transports, will now be in separate groups. This means anyone with custom overviews will need to add the new Attack Battlecruiser group and the new Blockade Runner group to their list of groups that show up on the overview. The default overviews will be adjusted automatically.

These changes will not be in the current Sisi build but should be in the build after that so you can start playing with them. We're aiming to have the changes out in Retribution 1.1 on February 19th [Updated Date].

Let us know what you think of the proposed changes in this thread.

:Edit: Also apparently Two Step is getting close to me in likes so you should all like this post. Takk. :Edit:

/me blows dust off my space potato Sin

Yay. I'd like to see the CPU use of the jump portal decreased as well, but this is a great start

Finally my Widow will have a better use than sitting outside starter systems for new players to ooh and arrr at.

I would propose that the fuel bay size is still maybe a tad too small; jumping a blockade runner through with you to provide fuel is going to eat up a lot of fuel you originally had in the first place. This is doubly so if the fuel use is going to increase from jumping longer ranges.

good changes to start off with!

as i know you were looking into having 2 lines of Black ops BS's Fozzie, (one combat line another bridging line)
how about this idea:

Combat line: bonuses to tank - black ops skill lvl
Bridging line: 5% bonus to bridging range - black ops skill lvl.


(yes this will mean max bonused range = 9.84ly)
Black Ops are about penetrating enemy territory after all and as the types and number of ships able to be bridge are significantly less it does make it less OP than it initially seems.

Perfect, a great holdover for blops pilots.

without giving BLops a combat buff they'll still suck, but after those changes they'll suck a little less.

So.... BLOps are still just over-glorified taxis? Albeit improved ones. Yay?

Seriously, should have just used haulers as the base model for these rather than Battleships.

Want to make the Black Ops more worthwhile flying?

Simple, give them their racial EWAR bonus.

Right now the only ship benefiting from it's racial EWAR bonus is the Widow, and to good effect, because why would I jump a billion isk ship into a fight, when I could throw a stealth bomber into the battle instead, with almost double the DPS at a fraction of the cost?

Making the Sin a long range point with damps, the Redeemer a close range neut boat like the Pilgrim and the Panther a web bonus like the rapier would make them more worth fielding.

- Dread

Two lines of black ops??

Hey Fozzie, care to elaborate?