Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Hey everyone.
In Rubicon 1.3 we are making a few small tweaks to Damps and the Celestis cruiser, to lay the groundwork for another damp change that we have planned for a later patch.

Damps are a very powerful EWar that have the ability to create some interesting tactical situations and we feel we are getting very close to hitting the mark with their balance, but they are a little more effective at extreme ranges than we think is appropriate.

In 1.3 we'll be reducing the base optimal range of all damps by 16.66% and reducing the damp range bonus on the Celestis to 7.5% per level.

The new optimal range values for dampeners will be:
Name Old Optimal New Optimal
Remote Sensor Dampener I 30000 25000
Remote Sensor Dampener II 36000 30000
Low Frequency Sensor Suppressor I 34500 28750
Indirect Scanning Dampening Unit I 33000 27500
Kapteyn Sensor Array Inhibitor I 31500 26250
Phased Muon Sensor Disruptor I 36000 30000
'Broker' Remote Sensor Dampener I 36000 30000
'Executive' Remote Sensor Dampener I 36000 30000
Shadow Serpentis Remote Sensor Dampener 36000 30000

Thanks and let us know what you think!

Will 1.3 be out before or after NEO?

Apart from that, +1, good iterating

Have you considered jacking the cap use up on ewar?

Nothing

The Celestis really does have ridiculously long range on it's damps. And anything that involves balancing EWAR is long overdue.

A nerf like this suggests interesting changes to come in the future.

Perhaps a remodeled Celestis that doesn't resemble Matari interpretive sculpture of a banana will accompany that change.

While I agree that Targetting Range dampening can be quite powerful atm, what about Scan Resolution dampening?
Any chance that this can be not nerfed or even buffed?
(dampener base stats or scripts)

I don't feel like these are 2 equally powerful flavours of damps, there are only very few situations where scan resolution dampening is really useful.

Does this mean your finally adding these to the loot tables?

It's only taken 8+ years :D

Why nerf the Celestis when unbonused ships (read: armor tanking fleet DPS ships) are running damps and are being generally just as effective than the dedicated ewar ships because they are so much harder to kill? I hope that the "upcoming" (2016) change addresses the issue of using such effective damps on ships that don't even have bonuses for them.

In my experience, both are useful in a roughly equal number of different situations. Range damps to either pull DPS or logi in, scan res on hostile logi if you're switching targets.

While you are at it can you nerf the lock range on celestis and blackbirds? As it is now the celestis base lock range is 75km and the blackbird is 85km while the bellicose is only 42.5km and the arbitrator is 50km. The celestis and blackbird have longer base targeting ranges than most gallente and minmatar battleships and is +/- a few km on amarr/caldari battleships. Would help nerf their long range dampening in my opinion since they would be forced to lose a damp for another sebo to lock as far as they have been.