Ships & Modules

This is a good example of someone diving deep into a conversation about a subject they have no clue about. You talk of "Gank" and 1200+ DPS. Sure, Black ops have damage bonuses. What they do not have is a large amount of guns. The only way to get 1200 DPS out of a Black Ops is to fit it with Top End Officer guns and hardwires.

For killing battleships we can already do this better in a T3. You can do it in a 30 mill bomber if you're careful.

For me its more about survivability than gank. I like solo hunting. I hate cruisers and love battleships but solo battleships in null are problematic to say the least - 1 500k frig at a gate and you're toasted.

Only fixes needed:

*Sort out the weird and/or useless bonuses (agility on Sin and velocity on Panther may have their uses, but they're kind of awkward in general, redeemer cap use and RoF are sort of counterproductive, etc)
*Lower mass while also lowering base velocity and increasing inertia, so that they consume less fuel when jumping but maintain a similar ongrid mobility
*Make the Jump Portal Generation skill apply its bonuses to the Covert Jump Portal Generation
*Slightly increase scan resolution to compensate for the cloak penalty

Done

Wasn't that this ship class' main role? Stealth and JB? EW 2nd, dps/tank 3rd...

So the stealth part sucks due to the lack of covops cloak capability and the JB part due to the (still) limited fuel bay.

One thing I've learned is there's no jack of all trades ship in this game. Even if some people try all sorts of loadouts or throw billions @ officer mods... still each ship class has its role and several other ship classes it can engage and several it shouldn't. There's no ship you can kill "anything" with. There are accidents that cause, for instance, BS km by 2 frigs (ok sure, stupidity) but that don't mean frigs (or any other ship) are/could be/should be universal pwnmobiles with lazors and big perky ****.

Black Ops boats have been around since Trinity (2007). They've been tweaked here & there, but until about three years ago remained largely the property of 'cool dudes' who logged on every now and then and did weird stuff.

Now, with so many more capsuleers edging the 100m sp mark or more and wanting Things To Train, BlOps is a lot more common as a skill under the belt. As such, the pressure to make BlOps actually, properly useful has increased manyfold.

I think the main issue is that they were introduced as Battleships. They didn't need to be, and probably shouldn't have ever been, battleships. That word itself raises expectations among most Eve capsuleers, because "battleships" *kill stuff* and can *tank whole gangs*.

When CCP brought BlOps into play they were doing exactly that. Playing. It was a fabulous idea - something that could bust through the wall of cyno jammers in null and get things interesting - but it was very poorly implemented.

I for one would suggest keeping them as BS but greatly reducing their abilities while expanding their specialties. Extending their range so that *all* nullsec systems are accessible from lowsec has got to be considered, in line with the long-term theme of "creation and destruction" touted in the Rubicon copy. I've no idea how that translates into Ly, but it's certainly a good deal more than the current anaemic range limit.

They should also be capable of deploying and bridging back a decent-sized gang without needing to bring fuel tankers along. Reducing the logistical needs will certainly make BlOps more attractive, and we *need* to see more BlOps being performed.

But I suggest forgetting using these boats for dps. They should never have had it in the first place. Remove it - and thereby remove the main objection to giving them 'OP' CovOps perhaps?

All that said, I actually reckon CCP will split BlOps as they are/have been doing in Tiericide. Assault version (tankier, gankier, very short range) & maybe Scout version or somesuch. Certainly, BlOps seems to be on everyone's lips these days and I look forward to what CCP comes out with.

/tuppence worth complete

Nah, those rich carebears will prefer paladins or faction battleships instead.

My point above was, there's no way for a larger fuel bay and covops cloak to make black ops overpowered, like some of the guys above were saying it would become.

Just because it COULD get to 100K EHP doesn't mean anyone will fly it.

It won't become a pwnmobile. It will simply become better at what it's meant to be doing - right now it sucks at it.

You countign the new OP SOE cruiser on that? Because it outdps some of the blackops :P