These forums have been archived and are now read-only.

The new forums are live and can be found at https://forums.eveonline.com/

Player Features and Ideas Discussion

 
  • Topic is locked indefinitely.
 

[Rubicon] Marauder rebalancing

First post First post First post
Author
Previous Topic Next Topic
James Amril-Kesh
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#2401 - 2013-09-05 07:05:52 UTC  |  Edited by: James Amril-Kesh
I'm really not terribly pleased with the latest iteration. Removal of the active rep bonus? Removal of the 30% nonstacking resists? Does the T2 resist change actually make up for that or does it fall short?

I like also how my question about stacking penalties was STILL unanswered.

Enjoying the rain today? ;)
Critical Issue
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#2402 - 2013-09-05 07:09:11 UTC  |  Edited by: Critical Issue
I think we need a "Juggernaut".

and yea ... new update screwed them totally, i was liking the first iteration a lot.
Patrice Macmahon
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#2403 - 2013-09-05 07:09:13 UTC  |  Edited by: Patrice Macmahon
Hey - Okay

Here is my first real Idea on how to make the siege module a real SIEGE module.


200% non-stacking bonus to weapon damage
50% Reduction in weapon Rate of Fire (Half the firing speed, Penalty)

Range Bonus X
Tracking Bonus X
Tanking Bonus X

2-3 minute counter.

Ta DA! Now you would have a siege tank.


OR!

You could do something like this:

20% Reduction in total damage
100% bonus to ROF (Double Firing Speed, Bonus)
100% Bonus to Tracking...

Anti Aircraft gun?



OR!

In addition to the Siege Module, you also introduce the ability to fit a single capital ship weapon with an x2 damage modifier on it... only usable while in Siege Mode.

OR!

A unique weapon with battheship characteristics that shoots AOE munitions (Miniture bombs). You can dictate range (flight time) of the munition utilizing scripts or the shells themselves. 5 seconds, 10 seconds, 15 seconds, etc....


But really, Just dumping pure tank on us for going into triage mode, while abandoning all outside reps, is pointless and suicidal without a significant (serious) increase to our ability to kill stuff.


Leave the tank alone (T2 resists + 25% bonus to reps mayhap in and out of triage) - Give us a REASON to want to go full suicide. Give us a reason to gamble. Give us a cost justification for potentially sacrificing a 1 billion isk ship that's not a carrier.

 "Much of this is crystallised in our philosophy, or as others call it "the Intaki Faith". We simply call it Ida - the literal translation is "to consider", and is a good description of the Intaki." 
Cade Windstalker
#2404 - 2013-09-05 07:09:57 UTC
Tyberius Franklin wrote:
With the focus seeming to shift from Bastion optional to Bastion+MJD mandatory I'd argue that range would be highly prized. Blinking out 100km on a megapulse+scorch boat and still being viable is one of my hopes that remain intact at this point.


Eh, maybe, but I'd kind of like to see the focus shifted from Bastion as well. Half the fun of a massive tank is actually tanking things. If they're going to give us a MJD bonus and Bastion to go with it I'd rather have pure damage application on Bastion and the tanking bonuses on the hulls.

IMO this ties into what you said about the hulls not being defined by Bastion.
Morrigan LeSante
Perkone
Caldari State
#2405 - 2013-09-05 07:24:15 UTC  |  Edited by: Morrigan LeSante
120 pages....usually I read it but with the changes half way it seems futile so forgive me if someone has already suggested this.

From the bits I have caught (been dipping in and out of the thread) there seems to be a great deal of difficulty in pleasing those PvP oriented players and the PvE players.


Has it been considered to have two modules, one bastion another $NAME which serve the respective different gameplay niches and only one can be fitted at once?

It would allow the devs more flexibility and remove some of the 'confusion' or 'identity crisis' around the hulls themselves.
Relic124
Abrupt Decay
Deteriorated
#2406 - 2013-09-05 07:24:17 UTC
CCP Ytterbium wrote:
Time for another update.

We discussed the Marauder situation further and came with the following changes:


  • Shield, armor and hull 30% resistance boosts have been removed on the Bastion Module - instead, all Marauders will now get proper tech2 resists. This will allow Marauders to have better RR use outside Bastion and reduce overall tanking effectiveness inside the mode.

  • We have removed all tanking bonuses on the Marauders hulls (Armor Repairer amount on the Paladin and Kronos, Shield Boost amount on the Golem and Vargur). Instead, we are giving them 7.5% bonus to the velocity factor of stasis webifiers per level. This will not only help reducing their tanking effectiveness, be more in theme with the ship role itself and help anyone using them with short range weapons. We are not giving them a full 10% per level back as this would be extremely powerful in conjunction with the other bonuses / Bastion. We are going to leave the full 10% web strength amount on the Serpentis ships for now and see how things evolve with time.

  • Also, we are removing the mass penalty on the Bastion mode. Tests have shown you can't really turn when it's active anyway, and we don't want to have players abuse that to collapse wormholes.


I will change the OP to match the changes.


This update is going in the complete wrong direction.

I wholeheartedly agree with the need for these ships to have superior damage application (though less DPS) when compared to Pirate Battleships. But if the proposed web bonus is along that line of thinking, shouldn't you take a step back? The Kronos and Vargur both track well enough with a single Tracking Computer to hit anything cruiser and above in a gang skirmish, which these seem to be designed for. Only the Paladin has tracking issues, and that could be solved by simply replacing the 5% Capacitor-amount-per-level bonus with a standard 7.5% bonus to Large Energy Turret tracking per level. This would very elegantly fit it as a design continuation of the Apocalypse, with its new dual bonuses to both optimal and tracking.

The Golem, the extremely lame duck of the group, might technically benefit from the effects of a strong webifier on a target, but it isn't worth losing another much-needed midslot in the process. At this point, the Golem would be obligated to dedicate TWO of its midslots to EWAR modules, which severely limits its tank compared to the other 3 Marauders. Either the Target Painting or new Web bonus has to go for this ship to compete with the others, and it should definitely be the latter of the two. It doesn't make sense for the Golem to effectively become a Minmatar EWAR ship at the expense of its survivability.

On that note, why should the armor rep amount / shield boost amount bonus should be replaced? The fact that these ships could tank high amounts of DPS while in Bastion was the damn point, right? They can't receive RR support, and they're weak to Energy Neutralizers (even the ASB tanks rely on active hardeners to work), so why remove the one bonus that is generally affected the most by Marauder's strongest counter? It seems to give both the Vargur and Golem something to work with, what with their precious midslots, one of which being used by a damage-application module. And it's common knowledge that even with the use of an Ancillary Armor Repairer, a Kronos's or Paladin's tank all but ends when it's neuted out. The inclusion of the previous active-tanking bonuses promotes intelligent counterplay, and on top of that, simply suits the ship class more.

Last but not least, it's obvious that these ships are designed for gang PVP. The affects of the Bastion module seem to point to that. But in the realm of gang pvp, why would a 1-billion-plus ISK battleship have a webifier bonus? Think about it: an 82.5%-strength web has little effect on a microwarpdriving enemy without a Warp Scrambler. But in every gang I've flown with, from a blob of destroyers and T2-fit Battlecruisers, all the way up to a mob of T3 Cruisers, Scramblers and Webs have always come hand-in-hand. Battlecruisers generally fit both a Web and a Scram in a gang fit. T3s specialize a bit more, admittedly, but a gang usually consists of the two types that get tackling bonuses - Lokis and Proteuses. If a Marauder is already obligated to fly with ships that already use both Webs and Scrams, why have it fit a Web at all? And beyond that, if there was ever a ship to be given a Web bonus without a need for one, why choose a class of Battleships, what with their slow lock time? Sure, a point could be made that these Marauder webs would only be supplementary to the initial tackle; that they'd simply be to keep the target as close to the locked-down Battleship as possible while the DPS is being applied. But stacking a strong web on top of one to three standard webs does extremely little, due to stacking penalties.

So. In the end, there is no philosophy of use for these Marauder webs.

Or, you know - tl;dr - I absolutely LOVE the changes guys.
Tanik Fera
Imperial Shipment
Amarr Empire
#2407 - 2013-09-05 07:24:51 UTC
Ok seriously now, I don't like the changes so far the role for maraders is a big fuzzy mess. I dont want marauders to be a jack of all trades, master of none. So I suggest leaving the role up to the person fitting their ship, get rid of these funky bonuses and go with something more traditional.

In true eve fashion make the bonuses like this:(add racial flavor as needed)
B1- damage
B2-projection
B3- application
B4- damage

T2 resists
Revert the ships back to their old speed, drone bay/band width and health if possible.
Better then average sensor strength
If you think you need a web or target painter, that's fine, fit one. Don't strap an anchor to the hull by giving it a bonus for them.


Bastion McThingy-
I know I want to see a transforming ship so lets keep that but change it to be more like a F14 fighter jet(the wings fold back to go faster).
The bastion will now give X-speed bonus. But while its active you lose X? 100% damage bonus?
To mare
Advanced Technology
#2408 - 2013-09-05 07:24:54 UTC
Patrice Macmahon wrote:
Hey - Okay

Here is my first real Idea on how to make the siege module a real SIEGE module.


200% non-stacking bonus to weapon damage
50% Reduction in weapon Rate of Fire

Range Bonus X
Tracking Bonus X
Tanking Bonus X

2-3 minute counter.

Ta DA! Now you would have a siege tank.


OR!

You could do something like this:

20% Reduction in total damage
100% bonus to ROF
100% Bonus to Tracking...

Anti Aircraft gun?



OR!

In addition to the Siege Module, you also introduce the ability to fit a single capital ship weapon with an x2 damage modifier on it... only usable while in Siege Mode.

OR!

A unique weapon with battheship characteristics that shoots AOE munitions (Miniture bombs). You can dictate range (flight time) of the munition utilizing scripts or the shells themselves. 5 seconds, 10 seconds, 15 seconds, etc....


But really, Just dumping pure tank on us for going into triage mode, while abandoning all outside reps, is pointless and suicidal without a significant (serious) increase to our ability to kill stuff.


Leave the tank alone (T2 resists + 25% bonus to reps mayhap in and out of triage) - Give us a REASON to want to go full suicide. Give us a reason to gamble. Give us a cost justification for potentially sacrificing a 1 billion isk ship that's not a carrier.

100% bonus to rof would mean infinite dps....
ignoring that a such massive dps boost would make all mission runners wet their pants just for thinking at how fast they can gank missions.

the additional module and transformation crap is bullshit
give the ships a decent sensor strenght T2 resist same bonus on TQ and if we want a bit more (and a bil ship deserve a bit more) a 5th turret/launcher. this would make marauder good w/o the rubbish bastion thingie.



plus about the web bonus it might be a good idea on the armor tanking ships but its totally a wasted bonus ont the 2 shield tanking ships, would make much more sense to give a web range bonus to pally and kronos and warp scrambling range bonus to vargur and golem
Sobaan Tali
Caldari Quick Reaction Force
#2409 - 2013-09-05 07:39:44 UTC
James Amril-Kesh wrote:
I'm really not terribly pleased with the latest iteration. Removal of the active rep bonus? Removal of the 30% nonstacking resists? Does the T2 resist change actually make up for that or does it fall short?

I like also how my question about stacking penalties was STILL unanswered.


At this point, I'm just crossing my fingers that they screw this up so much that they end up throwing the idea out the window all together. If not, I'll be selling both my marauders come winter expansion. This was questionable from the get-go, now it's just plain ridiculous. They need to stop trying to bandage the wound and just start over or this bastion thing is just gonna kill off marauders as a whole.

"Tomahawks?"

"----in' A, right?"

"Trouble is, those things cost like a million and a half each."

"----, you pay me half that and I'll hump in some c4 and blow the ---- out of it my own damn self."
Cade Windstalker
#2410 - 2013-09-05 07:42:36 UTC
Relic124 wrote:
Last but not least, it's obvious that these ships are designed for gang PVP. The affects of the Bastion module seem to point to that. But in the realm of gang pvp, why would a 1-billion-plus ISK battleship have a webifier bonus? Think about it: an 82.5%-strength web has little effect on a microwarpdriving enemy without a Warp Scrambler. But in every gang I've flown with, from a blob of destroyers and T2-fit Battlecruisers, all the way up to a mob of T3 Cruisers, Scramblers and Webs have always come hand-in-hand. Battlecruisers generally fit both a Web and a Scram in a gang fit. T3s specialize a bit more, admittedly, but a gang usually consists of the two types that get tackling bonuses - Lokis and Proteuses. If a Marauder is already obligated to fly with ships that already use both Webs and Scrams, why have it fit a Web at all? And beyond that, if there was ever a ship to be given a Web bonus without a need for one, why choose a class of Battleships, what with their slow lock time? Sure, a point could be made that these Marauder webs would only be supplementary to the initial tackle; that they'd simply be to keep the target as close to the locked-down Battleship as possible while the DPS is being applied. But stacking a strong web on top of one to three standard webs does extremely little, due to stacking penalties.

So. In the end, there is no philosophy of use for these Marauder webs.

Or, you know - tl;dr - I absolutely LOVE the changes guys.


So, I agree with everything else *except* this. This vastly under-estimates the effect that a speed reduction bonused web can have.

At 60% you're dropping a MWDing Battleships's speed from in the ballpark of 1,000m/s to ~400m/s. This is not that significant and they can still easily escape unless you have a prop mod or they have a scram.

The regular 90% webs bring this down to about 100m/s, at which point a fast T1 Battleship can catch them, 2 90% webs brings you down to less than 20m/s at which point you can almost be caught by a cloaked Titan. Shocked

Two 82.5% webs brings you down to ~50m/s, which is still slow enough to be caught by anything that isn't also massively webbed. In-fact a Battleship that normally goes ~110m/s (like my Rokh, one of the slowest ships in the game) would still be able to catch you with a 60% web on it, going a blistering 66m/s Attention

So, yeah, speed bonused webs are hilariously powerful, especially in small gang fights, because of how stacking penalties work on normal webs.

For reference it takes four un-bonused webs to equal a single 90% web and you can, never reduce the overall speed of a ship with normal webs below ~91% with 60% webs.
Patrice Macmahon
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#2411 - 2013-09-05 07:43:09 UTC
To mare wrote:
Said Stuff - 100% bonus is infinite damage.... other stuff....


I meant a doubling of firing speed (Cutting the time between shots in half).

If you've been keeping up, I've been hollering for the Muraders to stay pretty close to what they are now. I agree that they should get their T2 resists, but not at the expense of their current rep bonuses. I would be estatic if they got both. But I want them to have that bonus OUTIDE of this triage module - I personally don't think this triage module (In its current form) justify's the suicide commitment for entering it (even as brief as it is).

I'm trying to throw ideas out there to help incentivize a player to actually use it. Just giving us bonus tank and meh range for sacrificing a billion isk Battle Ship doesn't make sense when compared to the larger, healthier triage carriers that do the same thing for about the same price.

Bastion needs to give us a REASON and a unique sub capital role for going all turtle. They are trying to make a siege tank, so give us some serious DPS output for risking our ships. This would definitely make "Sieging" up a very dicey, and very balanced method for putting a Murader into PVP, and even sieging it up in PVE combat situations.

I'm trying to give the CCP crew a better direction to reach their intended goal.

But I still want the siege module secondary to just keeping my basic Murader.

 "Much of this is crystallised in our philosophy, or as others call it "the Intaki Faith". We simply call it Ida - the literal translation is "to consider", and is a good description of the Intaki." 
Shantetha
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#2412 - 2013-09-05 07:45:18 UTC
CCP Ytterbium wrote:
Time for another update.

We discussed the Marauder situation further and came with the following changes:


  • Shield, armor and hull 30% resistance boosts have been removed on the Bastion Module - instead, all Marauders will now get proper tech2 resists. This will allow Marauders to have better RR use outside Bastion and reduce overall tanking effectiveness inside the mode.

  • We have removed all tanking bonuses on the Marauders hulls (Armor Repairer amount on the Paladin and Kronos, Shield Boost amount on the Golem and Vargur). Instead, we are giving them 7.5% bonus to the velocity factor of stasis webifiers per level. This will not only help reducing their tanking effectiveness, be more in theme with the ship role itself and help anyone using them with short range weapons. We are not giving them a full 10% per level back as this would be extremely powerful in conjunction with the other bonuses / Bastion. We are going to leave the full 10% web strength amount on the Serpentis ships for now and see how things evolve with time.

  • Also, we are removing the mass penalty on the Bastion mode. Tests have shown you can't really turn when it's active anyway, and we don't want to have players abuse that to collapse wormholes.


I will change the OP to match the changes.



ok this better for the paladin. I'm still not thrilled with the nerfed drone bay/bandwidth, but i can live with that.

Still you really need to give it better sensor str, like 20 radar(same as the t1 hull most t2's are +-3 of the t1 hull) and make the tractor bonus the same as the noctis 60% / lvl so that it reaches at least as far as we shooting in bastion. The marauders don't get salvage bonuses so this tractor distance wouldn't be OP to have on it given the new projection.

i can dream that the 5% per level capacitor amarr bs bonus gets flat baked into the hull with capacitor just flat gets upgraded another 25% and that bonus gets replaced with dmg, tracking, or something else. but that might be OP.

I look forward to testing this version or later revisions using bastion on the test server.

Quinn Corvez
Perkone
Caldari State
#2413 - 2013-09-05 07:48:08 UTC
It's crazy how little faith CCP have in their design ability. It's almost as if they don't focus group this crap before they release it to us.

These ships are now a direct competitor to the pirate faction BSs which I though was what they were trying to avoid.
Cade Windstalker
#2414 - 2013-09-05 07:49:30 UTC
Shantetha wrote:
ok this better for the paladin. I'm still not thrilled with the nerfed drone bay/bandwidth, but i can live with that.

Still you really need to give it better sensor str, like 20 radar(same as the t1 hull most t2's are +-3 of the t1 hull) and make the tractor bonus the same as the noctis 60% / lvl so that it reaches at least as far as we shooting in bastion. The marauders don't get salvage bonuses so this tractor distance wouldn't be OP to have on it given the new projection.

i can dream that the 5% per level capacitor amarr bs bonus gets flat baked into the hull with capacitor just flat gets upgraded another 25% and that bonus gets replaced with dmg, tracking, or something else. but that might be OP.

I look forward to testing this version or later revisions using bastion on the test server.


I would not count on this version being the one that hits the test server. You missed about 20 pages of yelling back and forth with the PvE crowd basically booing this iteration off the stage (and for good reason, it's worse for them than the previous one).
Periapsis Retrograde Burn
Hedion University
Amarr Empire
#2415 - 2013-09-05 07:55:51 UTC
James Amril-Kesh wrote:
I'm really not terribly pleased with the latest iteration. Removal of the active rep bonus? Removal of the 30% nonstacking resists? Does the T2 resist change actually make up for that or does it fall short?

I like also how my question about stacking penalties was STILL unanswered.


Where T2 resist do, in any case, fail is at hull resists. 72% hull omni hull resists with damage control and Bastion would have been kinda nice.

- - - - -

The problem that I see with CCP's approach to Marauders is a certain lack of creativity and out-of-the-box thinking. CCP kind of wants them to walk the treaded paths. But there are a lot of ships on these paths, so I don't really see them carving out a proper niche for themselves.

Maybe a more ... inspired approach would be more suitable:

The "Juggernaut"-Marauder, exemplied on the Paladin

Role Bonus: 100% to Large Energy Turret damage; 350% to Large Remote Armor Repair System Range

Amarr Battleship Bonus:

5% to Large Energy Turret Damage per level (seriously CCP, damage bonus on 'Marauders' is downright mean)
7.5% to Large Energy Turret Optimal Range per level

Marauders Bonus:

+8m³ Capacitor Booster Capacity per level
+5% Capacitor Capacity per level

Other stats like in the OP.

And now to the Bastion-Mod:

-50% Large Energy Turret, Large Hybrid Turret, Large Projectile Turret, Cruise Missile and Torpedo damage
-50% damage of all Drones
-60% velocity (a subcap that is standing still is more often than not a dead subcap, CCP)
Disallows capacitor transfer to the ship

+200% Large Remote Armor Repairer repair amount
Immune to EWAR

And while this concept seems pretty much OP (which, to a certain extent, it is, megarepair Paladin/Kronos of Doom and stuff), one must consider that a large group of Marauders will almost certainly face some serious obstacles, be it that a fleet of 1B ships in k-space will invariably attract larger fish (unless you are PL Blink) or WH mass limitations making moving a large group of battleships a headache.
Lucidia fern
Bacon.
#2416 - 2013-09-05 07:56:46 UTC
X
This latest revision of the changes does not look good. You are effectively taking away from the marauders original role as the PVE boat for missions and not giving it much back.

If you choose not to use the bastion module then your marauder will have lost the following :
rep bonus
most of your drones
some of the web bonus (that nobody uses in L4's)
base speed

The first iteration made the ship worth flying, this iteration actually risks reducing marauder use further if its not a hit in pvp. And if you think i'm dropping bastion in level 4 worlds collide or AE with how far you have to travel , lol NO!


TL:DR : I'd rather you nerf the effectiveness of the bastion module instead of the effectiveness of the base ship. You run less risk of forcing the ship into a set use pattern and leave experimentation available
Zilero
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#2417 - 2013-09-05 07:58:14 UTC  |  Edited by: Zilero
CCP Ytterbium wrote:
Time for another update.

We discussed the Marauder situation further and came with the following changes:


  • Shield, armor and hull 30% resistance boosts have been removed on the Bastion Module - instead, all Marauders will now get proper tech2 resists. This will allow Marauders to have better RR use outside Bastion and reduce overall tanking effectiveness inside the mode.

  • We have removed all tanking bonuses on the Marauders hulls (Armor Repairer amount on the Paladin and Kronos, Shield Boost amount on the Golem and Vargur). Instead, we are giving them 7.5% bonus to the velocity factor of stasis webifiers per level. This will not only help reducing their tanking effectiveness, be more in theme with the ship role itself and help anyone using them with short range weapons. We are not giving them a full 10% per level back as this would be extremely powerful in conjunction with the other bonuses / Bastion. We are going to leave the full 10% web strength amount on the Serpentis ships for now and see how things evolve with time.

  • Also, we are removing the mass penalty on the Bastion mode. Tests have shown you can't really turn when it's active anyway, and we don't want to have players abuse that to collapse wormholes.


I will change the OP to match the changes.


So let me get this straight:

You are:

a) Totally removing the tanking capability of Marauders when not in bastion mode (yeah, T2 resists are lower than a full 37.5% boost increase!) making them "yet another ship meant for fleets with logistics" instead of something viable where you could use your bastion module once in a while.

b) Adding in VELOCITY web bonuses (NOT! range) AND keeping the RANGE bonus to weapons.

Seriously, who came up with this? Range bonus to weapons AND a web velocity bonus? It makes no sense at all.

Good riddance, yet another T2 ship class destroyed - will there be any T2 hulls worth flying soon? (in terms of isk/hull performance compared to T1).


Edit: First iteration was fine - I was not particularly pleased, but meh it was OK. This iteration is DOWNRIGHT HORRIBLE. Please CCP, get a grip.
Cade Windstalker
#2418 - 2013-09-05 08:04:12 UTC
Zilero wrote:
So let me get this straight:

You are:

a) Totally removing the tanking capability of Marauders (yeah, T2 resists are lower than a full 37.5% boost increase!) making them "yet another ship meant for fleets with logistics".

b) Adding in VELOCITY web bonuses (NOT! range) AND keeping the RANGE bonus to weapons.

Seriously, who came up with this? Range bonus to weapons AND a web bonus? It makes no sense at all.

Good riddance, yet another T2 ship class destroyed - will there be any T2 hulls worth flying soon? (in terms of isk/hull performance compared to T1).


Edit: First iteration was fine - I was not particularly pleased, but meh it was OK. This iteration is DOWNRIGHT HORRIBLE. Please CCP, get a grip.


The biggest threat the devs can ever make is to give the player-base exactly what they ask for. Lol

Seriously though, calm down, we've got months. At this rate I figure this thread can break 300+ pages.
Sobaan Tali
Caldari Quick Reaction Force
#2419 - 2013-09-05 08:08:56 UTC
Well, sure do hope so, Cade...

"Tomahawks?"

"----in' A, right?"

"Trouble is, those things cost like a million and a half each."

"----, you pay me half that and I'll hump in some c4 and blow the ---- out of it my own damn self."
Arrendis
TK Corp
#2420 - 2013-09-05 08:09:37 UTC  |  Edited by: Arrendis
dexington wrote:
I'm more then a little skeptical about the web bonus, especially on the kronos.


You're skeptical about it on the kronos?

How about the web bonus on the vargur? 'Here you go, have a bonus to a module that's going to cut into your tank, and by the way, if you were thinking of armor tanking it? You don't have the slots.' And now any tanking bonuses marauders had outside of bastion is gone, too.

Seriously, screw the web bonuses. They're ridiculous to begin with. You can't hit frigates? Drop some drones on 'em. You want to whine and moan for a bigger drone bay, go for it, but if all you're going to cry about is the web bonus? Buy a damned Vindicator and be done with it. The ship you're looking to fly is over there, it's a Pirate ship, and the second Battleship skill will take you less time and cost less than training up Marauders anyway.

But no no, we can't possibly only have one Megathron with a ridiculous web velocity bonus and extremely potent bonuses to its blasters, now can we?