Player Features and Ideas Discussion

If you are still around and willing to respond I have one more question. A lot of people in the 1.1 threads have been complaining about fit points on some of these ships (nighthawk and ishtar, etc and yes some of it has been addressed). I think a lot of players are confused on exactly just how you guys intend us to use the ships (in terms of what is fit on them) and to that end I've seen several requests for you guys to post some fits for us.

I haven't seen that happen ever really and I'm curious why this is?

I think it would go a long way into bridging the apparent communication gap that is evident between the players and devs on the true intended reasoning behind some of these changes. Personally speaking I wish you guys would so a couple fits for each of the ships you balance so that at the bare minimum the players can understand what you are advocating, and maybe perhaps point out holes with hard data? It would be far better than the theory crafting/guessing that is going on now.

It was mentioned that CCP doesn't feel the risk factor is balanced for the roq and orca yet. Those two ships are very slow and in the roq's case also completely immobile while in industrial mode. Combat boosting also has lots of different options from t1 ships all the way up to t3 which gives players a lot of versatility which can not be said about mining boosts.

So I'd like to address a bit of the premise of your question. We try to avoid declaring how we "intend" people to use ships. We of course want to ensure that every ship has interesting and effective uses, but in a sandbox like EVE we know that whatever we have in mind will be surpassed by the ingenuity of our players very quickly.

That being said, I can talk a bit about how I would start fitting the Nighthawk for some different uses right after 1.1 hits.

A HAM version for basic boosting and damage dealing in a small-medium sized gang that includes BCs and at least one Logi (you can swap tackle into the mids depending on what the rest of your gang looks like):

[Nighthawk, HAMs]
Ballistic Control System II
Ballistic Control System II
Ballistic Control System II
Damage Control II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II

Experimental 10MN Microwarpdrive I
Large F-S9 Regolith Shield Induction
Large F-S9 Regolith Shield Induction
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II

Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Scourge Heavy Assault Missile
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Scourge Heavy Assault Missile
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Scourge Heavy Assault Missile
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Scourge Heavy Assault Missile
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Scourge Heavy Assault Missile
Information Warfare Link - Sensor Integrity II
Siege Warfare Link - Shield Harmonizing II

Medium Core Defense Field Extender I
Medium Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer II


Warrior II x5


For a bigger focus on boosting and range at the expense of damage, more useful as gang sizes increase a bit:
[Nighthawk, HMLs]
Internal Force Field Array I
Ballistic Control System II
Ballistic Control System II
Ballistic Control System II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II

Experimental 10MN Microwarpdrive I
Large F-S9 Regolith Shield Induction
Large Shield Extender II
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II

Heavy Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Scourge Heavy Missile
Heavy Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Scourge Heavy Missile
Heavy Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Scourge Heavy Missile
Heavy Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Scourge Heavy Missile
Siege Warfare Link - Shield Harmonizing II
Siege Warfare Link - Shield Efficiency II
Siege Warfare Link - Active Shielding II

Medium Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer II
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I


Warrior II x5


This ship isn't the ideal solo boat, but it's still possible to create solo fits that are powerful (the expense will be what holds it back for most people):

Requires Genolution CA-1, CA-2 and a EG-602 at least.
[Nighthawk, XLASB]
Ballistic Control System II
Ballistic Control System II
Ballistic Control System II
Damage Control II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II

Experimental 10MN Microwarpdrive I
X-Large Ancillary Shield Booster, Navy Cap Booster 400
Faint Epsilon Warp Scrambler I
Fleeting Propulsion Inhibitor I
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II

Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Scourge Heavy Assault Missile
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Scourge Heavy Assault Missile
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Scourge Heavy Assault Missile
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Scourge Heavy Assault Missile
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Scourge Heavy Assault Missile
Small Unstable Power Fluctuator I
Small Unstable Power Fluctuator I

Medium Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer II
Medium Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer II


Warrior II x5

Could you double check that fit please, I'm seeing a lack of PG, perhaps you mean the EG-602.

The DPS off this is laughable when compared to the Astarte which is the designed opponent to the NH, and your tank with your ASB going cannot even deal with the raw damage that the Astarte will be dealing in 1v1. To add insult an ASB Astarte can tank full DPS from a NH with no sweat, please give the Caldari a little love.

First off, thanks for answering another question, and second for posting fits!

But another followup if I may?

The goal of balancing things "is the practice of tuning a game's rules, usually with the goal of preventing any of its component systems from being ineffective or otherwise undesirable when compared to their peers"? This would mean that balance takes into account things like the intended use of things given to players.

For example, Carrier's used to be able to be "medium" haulers because you could put unpacked indy's in them with their holds full of items. CCP thought this was an undesirable side affect of their intended uses and took that away even though "Eve is a sandbox". (Yes I was personally peeved about it considering jf's were introduced that essentially did the same job but much better and carriers never got their hauling ability back even though freighters can now scoop from space... but I digress)

Therefore it would seem that when balancing ships, it would be pretty important to declare how you intend them to be used, because without that declaration balancing would seem rather difficult (ie how do you balance something when you don't have an intended use for it?).

I guess my point is that I don't understand your stance on not liking to declare how you intend people to use ships when that is how you balance them. It just seems rather counter intuitive.

Yup I meant the EG-. Corrected the post.

And the XLASB Nighthawk tanks 1800 Therm/Kin dps before heat, so you are mistaken about it not being able to tank an Astarte while it has charges. Also, an XLASB Astarte would need to go without a prop mod to be able to tank the Nighthawk's damage with both EM and Explosive ammo (even without the damage bonus the Nighthawk would be best off using non-Kin ammo in this specific case).
An actually well fit armor Astarte has the advantage in a 1v1 between these two ships for sure, but that Nighthawk's projection advantage is very significant in many situations.

Haha, true enough (I'm a Sys Admin by trade, so I know what you mean).

One can dream though. How awesome would it be to have a full time dev just to answer player questions... :)

Can't believe I forgot to switch my tank damage type.

So, in other words it's ok if the Nighthawk can tank the Astarte, but the Astarte can't tank the Nighthawk, all while the Nighthawk has more range? As for your armor Astarte, what about the neuts you fit to the Nighthawk and the maar susceptibility to cap warfare? So maybe I'll indulge a whine here about you favoring the Nighthawk ~

Anyway, please don't post fits for ships. If Thaman Arnuad or others like him can't figure out how to be creative with fittings and just want to trot out the old Caldari whine of "I can't pvp with these ships", don't set them straight. Now we'll have to deal with Nighthawks fit as you just suggested. It would have been far better instead to have encountered some comedy fit, or just not seen them at all because he would think Nighthawks suck.

edit - and yes it's far too easy to fit shield ships as compared to active (or passive for that matter) armor tanking ships.

2nd edit - and I don't think I've seen any concern for the continuing problem of armor and mobility rigs basically nerfing each other, while armor + skirmish link ships somehow could have a coherent application on the eve battlefield. Giving bonuses for both these links to some ships is of little use while fitting rigs for both aspects on any of the ships in the fleet would be a stupid endeavor.

An actual solo fit armor Astarte would generally beat that XLASB Nighthawk in a real 1v1 given equal pilot skill, but the point is that it wouldn't be as big of a whitewash as some might think and the projection on the Nighthawk is really useful for stuff that isn't command ship 1v1s.