Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Rise, after your last statement about the cruor. So homogenized bonuses are not a good excuse to make a ship nearly useless and have no role that is not outdone by the EWar frigs.


Seriously, If one thing I think you guys have been doign wrong in tiercide, is too much designer approach to it, and too less engineering thinking on it. Does nto matter if looks cool if it makes no sense and its useless!

There is a reason why apple makes cellphones and not combat vehicles! Design over functionality is paramaut when you want to sell things to idiots that do not need them, not to make tools effective.

Here's some enlightment for you:

The AB Bonus will boost the ship's speed by a good amount. It will still have the same mass-addition as if it didn't have the bonus, so you are as agile as before, but now with more TOP-Speed.
And there we are, at the thing you don't seem to understand properly:

Top Speed. Top means 'Can't get any faster'. But you CAN go slower. There is this speed indicator, where you can click, and boosh, your speed gets changed.

Now, to your proposed weaknesses:
TD because of orbit because of tracking because of blabla you don't hit anymore.
This is false. The AB bonus will greatly INCREASE your performance against TD ships. How so?
If you TD an opponent, you have to make use of TWO areas: The Tracking Forumula and your opponent's mobility.
If your opponent is faster than you, you can TD him as you wish, he will still be in the position to apply damage onto you. If you didn't realize that yet i propose you go out there and try some stuff, cause it certainly works.
Neuts - Well, Utility high, fit a small NOS. (For the Succubus).
Daredevil - Well, a Daredevil has one 90% web. A Succubus gets the very powerful 3-4-3 Slot layout. Free your mind, boy. This thing can be armor tanked now without looking like some sheitfit.
Which gives you the possibility of two! webs, which will translate into roughly a 80% web.
Now, you have to compare the velocitys both can achieve. A Daredevil is somewhere at 1400-1600 m/s usually with an AB, a Succubus will be somewhere between 1800 and 2000 m/s.

So you have a Daredevil going at ~300m/s, and a Succubus, going at ~200m/s. This is enough velocity to keep his orbit highly elliptical and thus track him.

Also, keep in mind that a Daredevil going for max gank has a tank to be overwhelmed with ease. Heated Conflag, and you'll have a race which the Daredevil isn't so likely to win. Maybe still not the best encounter to go for in a Succubus, but still, 'doable'.

Also, your statement about 'keeping sig low so no shield tank mods' is just false.



All in all, welcome (one of) our new Frigate Overlords, the Succubus!

First, Succubus lasers are tracking bonused.
Second, if you are faster than your opponent, you can easily start moving away from him in a straight line, and move towards him in a straight line. This is called manual piloting. By this movement your transversal velocity towards your opponent will drop rapidly and allow for easy tracking.
This is the reason any frigate built for frigate pvp that wants to TD an opponent and then close in is a bad fitting choice. It is viable if you try to punch up a class, say, attacking cruisers in a frig.

Second, yes, two webs onto an 'unbonused ship'. Because two webs is better than one, not because it allows you to counter the opponent's web (as you already stated the AB does kinda already), but because it allows you to DOMINATE your opponent. The idea behind a double web setup is to have the ability to comfortably dictate range in a fight. It also greatly reduces the enemy's ability to GTFO, because his speed will be cut into half AGAIN. It is far easier to get out of scramrange when you have 400-500m/s, than with 200-300m/s.

Third: Armor tank, yes, no dmg mods, no. SAAR, DC II, Heat Sink.

Paperthin tank is not true, since you will be able to dictate range on all those close-range-brawlers while still hitting them in the face with scorch from scram range.

According to my rough calculations you could probably but an A-Type nos onto there, too, so your cap is doing just fine. Haven't run exact numbers on that, but look like it's doable with maybe 1 pg OR cpu rig and maybe genocore imps.


And, of course, you could still shieldtank it. No Dual MSE anymore, but ASB, or MSE, whatever.

Succubus is going to be great, and the AB bonus on it will be the reason why (together with the 3-4-3 layout).

Or, maybe they think that since the drone assist change is a pointless boondoggle anyway, supposedly only really a problem on tracking enhanced hulls that making a line of non tracking enhanced hulls that can get back to similar performance to the previous 10 years wont break the game.

I have trouble finding the reason where the sole purpose of the AB bonus is to 'increase the Succubus speed and sig tank'. It's a mobility bonus, not more, not less. You can utilize it in different ways, for example in flying it with an AB where everyone else would put an MWD on their ship (doesn't have to be a succubus), and then i can see how you're gonna get 'laughed out of fleet' because your 2km/s make you fall behind everyone else.

I can see a dualpropped Succubus with the MWD for high velocitys, and then Web & Scram for tackling and AB for sustain while counterscrammed.

I can see a Scramkiting Succubus as described earlier.

I can see a no-ab succubus totally forfeiting one of it's bonuses and going mwd kite with small beams or scorch.

I can see a lot of stuff, and most of it makes the ship powerful because it has the AB bonus AND the versatility of a 3-4-3 layout.


And I can also see how you seem to make the AB bonus a defining pigeonhole everything else has to get bent around to make it work, when the ship would be fine even without the AB bonus just through the slots.


You're in FW, have you never seen Armor Merlins?
Have you never seen Assault frigates without an MWD? It has a sig bonus towards MWD! You gotta utilize it!
Same for Interceptors?
Rocket-Condor?
Armor-Breacher?
Armor-Hookbill?



You're seeing this one bonus and feel like it HAS to be utilized in the way it is given, which is: High Speed without Sig penalty.
Even if so, why not put a MSE on there? Still, great improved tank, at the cost of just a little tad of signature.

This is just not true. You can fly it in a lot of different ways, and the AB bonus gives it tons and tons of versatility.

Also, maybe you should consider not fleeting up with your mates anymore if they 'laugh you out of fleet' for not strictly following their narrow minded fitting policies.




Edit: Oh, and flying it with no web because the AB bonus is all you ever need is false.
It appears to be true under the premise that every fight you take is a full committment of both combatants.
Every reasonable pilot would try to disengage in the event of impending doom, and while being webbed, and without webbing back, you will drop to some 700-800m/s, ... while your opponent is at 1.2km/s or so.

How do you call that?

Ah, i remember.


Good fight.

Haha, okay, you seem to not-understand the bonus.

It's a multiplier to the speed bonus over the normal speed that an afterburner grants.

Normal Speed is usually somewhere around 350 to 400.
With an AB on, this speed usually gets 1000 to 1200.

So the difference an AB grants is roughly 800m/s.

Double this, and you're at a speedbonus of 1600m/s.

Add this to the base speed, and you're at 2000m/s.

Take 60% off, and you're at 800m/s.

Now look at the other ship, if it's AB it will be above 1km/s if NOT webbed.


If it's an MWD ship, as you said, ...

You will have caught a bad pilot. No matter how you twist it, either he chose an MWD brawler to engage an AB brawler, or he flew an MWD kite ship and got hardtackled by a 2km/s ship.


Edit: I have to admit, a Dual-Prop Succubus could do that without the other pilot being utterly bad, ... But then you're either looking at some 'paperthin armor tank' as you stated in some posts earlier, or at a Shield-Tanked Succubus, which would come down to a 1-slot-tank (+ DC II ofc), ... which is eiher as paper thin as an armor variant, ... or gets the 'Sigbloom' you try to avoid so hard in your postings.

Slower AB fitted ships, such as the Incursus with it's 1km/s?

Also, taking speedmods into your Succubus will result in less DPS or Tank or Damage Application, all that while earlier you doomed a dualweb succubus as a laughable joke, while it fit basically 1 midslot to take EVEN MORE ADVANTAGE of it's mobility.

You're being a little bit double edged here.

Edit: And Tracking is, as mentioned earlier, the least of the Succubus' problems.

Remember your counter to manual piloting? Yeah, guess what, of course your enemy hits you when you're flying away from him, but as the TD use suggests, he will also hit you if you keep orbiting him...

people have been calling webs OP quite a bit recently. Where does this notion come from?

Indeed, Mids > All on frigs. And yes, webs are powerful.

But the reason they are probably lies in the nature of the players. They want to have the best ship, and in case something goes utterly wrong, want the ability to gtfo. In order to be 'the best ship', you need your ship to dominate others. It isn't enough to overwhelm them with sheer firepower when they have the ability to just pull range and alas, off they go. You need the ability to overwhelm them with sheer firepower while simultaneously denying them any movement.
On the other hand, in case you have to gtfo yourself, maximizing your own speed is not enough, you have to create a huge difference in your target's and your own velocity. Webs are the way to go here, too.

Unless you, I or someone else finds a way to void this pattern, it will be the dominant doctrine in frigate pvp.

Even nerfing the webstrength will not lead to the wanted results, as the same rules still apply: Create the biggest possible difference in your own and your target's velocity (while blapping him in the face).

This is where the proposed Cruor changes start getting extremely interesting.
Up close the only factor that will keep the Cruor from taking the upper hand is time. The longer the fight goes, the better the Cruor will stand there because of it's NOS. There will be the point at which the Cruor's opponent's capacitor is reduced to 0 - and where it stays at 0.

This has some impacts:
An active tanked target will die really soon after.
Propulsion Mods will shut down.
Tackle will shut down.
Hybrids and Lasers will shut down.


With this achieved, the Cruor on it self would now not any longer need to keep it's own tank, propulsion, and tackle besides a point running.

Even if it was a Missile or Projectile boat, just because the tackle is shut down, the Cruor could disengage at will.

Now, the only thing a Cruor needs to achieve is: Keep the opponent from running away and/or be able to close in.

It has been pointed out that a scram has more range than a Tech 2 NOS, however, an A-Type NOS is kinda affordable and outranges most scramblers. Only with links, hull bonuses and/or expensive scramblers a ship would be able to kite a cruor just barely between max scramrange and max NOS range. Little room for failure.

While on the other hand, a Cruor can web anything between 20km (meta 0 cold) and 36,4 (Fed Navy, hot) before links.

This means, even MWD ships in their usual habitat will be in webrange of the Cruor, ... reducing their vmax by whopping 60% (dayumn, nerf webs!). Everything it takes now for the Cruor is a velocity of ~3km/s to catch most of the enemies. A MWD will suffice.

How to keep them from warping away when they're webbed at long range?
Simple solution, longpoint.


---> Cruor midslots are MWD, Web, Longpoint.

Following scenarios may happen:

Upon getting into NOS range, the Cruor gets scrammed, loses velocity, target pulls range, loses scram, mwd kicks in, cruor gets into nosrange again. Rinse and repeat until target is drained from cap and/or blasted apart by scorch.

Upon getting into NOS range, the Cruor doesn't get scrammed cause the opponent just has a longpoint.
NOS siphon cap, fuel Cruor's own tank, target goes dry, Cruor either gets the kill or disengages [for reasons].

Upon trying to get into NOS range, the opponent manages to scram him before NOS pressure can be applied and manages to kite the Cruor in his comfort zone. Cruor's only bet now: Scorch and it's 2 drones. DPS race.

Luckily, the ships having this scramrange (or other e-war range to shut down the Cruor) are few:
-The tackle-range interceptors, allthough those are fairly squishy when confronted with Scorch
-The Cruor
-A properly fit Rail DD
-A Sentinel
-A Keres
-A Hyena (with backup)
-Pimped frigs, such as Dramiels


...


This setup has the potential to break the current ongoing meta of Midslots, Midslots, Midslots with just it's Hullbonuses used correctly.

1 web,
1 point,
1 mwd and
the good old nos.



Sadly, this can't be translated onto other ships, simply because of the game mechanics. NOS can't keep a target empty, small neuts lack the range to do so and the Dragoon is too slow and has too few midslots (Midslots OP, nerf midslots!) to execute it.

... The Sentinel does it in some way, but everyone knows what a Sentinel can (and most likely will) do to you.

CCP have recognised that (90%) webs are broken overpowered, I think, but they just aren't willing to actually fix the game.