Ships & Modules

These seem to be the red headed step children of the Caldari line. Their CPU and powergrid fittings seem guaranteed to cause distress. They have limited lows for damage mods. Even if you manage to get the Rails or Blasters on the ship - the fitting is so restricted it's almost impossible to fit a tank.

With the Hybrid buff some of these issues are alleviated. 10% more dps. 5% more tracking. Above all else you can squeeze some fits onto these platforms.

I'd divide the Caldari hybrid platforms into two camps -

1) Harpy, Eagle, Naga. These ships have a damage bonus. With the fitting changes and Rail DPS increase, these ships at least have a prayer of being decent now.

2) Everything else. This includes the Merlin, Cormorant, Moa, Ferox, Vulture, and the Rokh. These ships invariably have a shield resist bonus and an optimal bonus. The lack of a damage bonus really makes them subpar compared to just about anything else. So my questions to you are:

Should the bonuses be changed to shield resist and damage?
Should the bonuses be changed to optimal and damage?
Or do you like them the way they are and I'm off base?

Problem is sniping ships are only niche... or awesome en mass. In which case use arty for "wtf omg fleet alpha".

I suppose it could be the tactics like have your rail sniper fleet jump in only after the battle etc... but other than large fleets sniping...eh. See if blaster Rokhs become more useful with less fitting issues. Means more speed mods for longer. People complain that most dont get a damage increase however blaster do the most damage (under ideal conditions)

Suppose we'll see if they change the ships a bit more after the patch. Perhaps more prop mods or anti prop mods etc.

Sir, as of Crucible I'll be able to fit a 427 DPS Electron Blaster Moa with about 33k EHP. I don't think that's too bad. No web, but I do not intend to solo in this ship; this would be a little support-fire cruiser for aiding bigger ships, likely with larger calibre guns, in hitting cruiser/destroyer/BC targets if they're having trouble. I do think that it should get a small damage bonus, or a RoF bonus. A fifth medslot could do wonders too, as well as a little more CPU and grid- then I'd be able to fit a web and maybe solo in it. I don't see why it needs any more lows, nor do I see why it needs more guns or launchers. Maybe knock down the number of launchers to one, because generally, only one will be fit anyways. Nice little bit of bonus DPS. Another thing that I think would be just excellent, would be 200-250 more base shield HP, because it's really not very fast. Or make it slightly lighter. It's silly to notice that some plated Amarr ships can still go faster than some Caldari ships. Making it lighter would aid in using a MWD, which would also help it catch targets if you're using blasters, or dictate range if you're using rails.

Rokh NEEDS a damage boost. This is non negotiable. On Sisi, I've built an Ion Blaster Cannon II Naga fit that does 0.5 more DPS than a Neutron Blaster Cannon II Rokh. It's tank doesn't seem that bad until you compare it to various other ships; I know it's a bit of an apples and oranges thing comparing the Rokh to the Abaddon (Rokh's defence regenerates, Abbadon's doesn't, for one thing) but I do think the Caldari hybrid boats in general, not just the Rokh, could use a slight (SLIGHT) boost in defence to make up for their lack of speed. Or at least make it so that by default they're not very fast, but some facet of Caldari design makes it easier for them to work with range, which is a huge thing for them.

Edit: I totally forgot to mention anything about the tank bonus. That should stay. One thing that shouldn't, though, is the obscene weakness they have to EM damage. I mean seriously. Gallente T1 ships still have 10% explosive resist. Their T2 ships, I believe, have 10% still, with everything else boosted. Minmatar and Amarr have very even spreads with kin and therm dipping slightly; Caldari have a WHOPPING 0% hole in their EM resists, in their main method of tanking. The bonuses the Hybrid ships get to shield resists softens this a little, but not enough IMO.

First up, I'm writing this from the perspective that Caldari ships are meant to be good snipers and focus at longer ranges via the use of railguns, I'm not stating if that role is valid within the current mechanics, it's just a starting point.

This post is about the Ferox and the Rohk, which both have the same role in their size of class.

In light of that, I'd like to see the 5% Per level Shield Resist bonus replaced with a 7.5% Hybrid Tracking boost per level instead.

This will help with increasing the applied DPS of those ships, just like it does with the Megathron, something people forget when comparing potential max DPS in EFT.

Having the tracking bonus frees up lows for more magstabs or frees up a mid for a sebo, as there's less of a requirement for TE/TC.


The reason why I'm against a damage bonus (either direct or via ROF) is because you run the risk of making certan Caldari boats better at using blasters than Gallente boats.
Blasters are meant to be very good within their small engagement envelope and a damage bonus helps them with that. However if you stick a damage bonus alongside the current range bonus, you extend the engagement envelope and don't trade damage to do so, making blasters just out and out more effective.
When you extend that engagement range, you also get around the mobility problems both races have (don't forget, shield tanked Cald boats are probably on par if not more maneuverable than buffer fit armour tanked Gal boats), and it's my view that Gallente should be better at using blasters, but Caldari should be better with rails.

That's the crux of why I'm not in favour of a % dmg bonus or a ROF bonus, because it applies to both weapons.

IF you could apply a direct damage bonus solely to rails, then yes, I'd be all for the Ferox and Rohk getting that alongside the existing range boost, but I don't think that's possible.

So as it stands, I think increasing their applied rail dps via a tracking bonus and keeping the current trade off for blaster usage of increased effective range but lesser damage vs their Gal counterparts is the better way to go, not forgetting of course that even with no bonuses, blasters are still technically the weapons with the highest DPS and the 5% boost that's coming will help with that as well.

Edit:
Re: Giving Gal ships dmg and tracking bonuses. Might be kind of redundant now as I think with the 20% blaster tracking buff, they might have just enough base tracking to the extent that range becomes the more dominant factor between blaster users and that further increased tracking will have no measurable effect.

Actually thinking about it, that's probably a good indication that a tracking bonus is the correct way to buff Caldari ships as it'll have little effect for blasters in their operational range, but will have a fairly big effect on railguns at their range.

I don't get why the caldari gun boats almost all have some pointless utility high when they'd all be much better ships with an extra med.

Would even make some sense... you can accelarate those Iron charges a lot faster and turn the Turrets around faster because these IronCores dont care if they bumb into the cannister hull.

Now you can't fling the turrets around like that with Antimater... well you could... if you like fancy explosions of your own ship because the anitmatter inside the shell reacted with the shell hull because you turned it to fast ^^

Caldari hybrid boats will still be pretty bad post-Crucible. The lack of damage bonuses really puts them at a disadvantage, especailly since using rails from long range (as these ships are supposed to) is low DPS to start with.

The problem is, if you replace range bonuses (or even tanking bonuses) with damage bonuses on Caldari rail platforms, you're at serious risk of stepping on the toes of Gallente ships. CCP Ytterbium acknowledged this problem when he settled on the least-worst option with the Naga of its range + damage bonuses.

So I've been thinking about the best way to give Caldari rail boats decent enough DPS at range, without intruding on Gallente blaster boats' territory. I think the answer lies in damage types. Gallente's racial damage type is supposed to be thermal, while Caldari's is kinetic.

First, change hybrid ammo so that short range types do most of their damage in thermal, and longer range types do the majority of their damage in kinetic. So, to pluck some numbers out of the air, Antimatter would be balanced 70/30 toward thermal, with iron being 30/70 to kinetic (total raw damage for each ammo type should still decrease as range increases). Then give Caldari ships a damage bonus that favours the kinetic element of hybrid damage, and change Gallente's damage bonus to just give a bonus to hybrid thermal damage.

So a typical Caldari hybrid damage bonus would look like either:
10% bonus to hybrid weapons' kinetic damage and 5% to hybrid weapons' thermal damage per level.
OR
5% bonus to hybrid weapons' kinetic damage per level.

The Gallente bonus would look the same, but swap kinetic for thermal, and thermal for kinetic. Deciding exactly how you structure the bonuses, and what numbers you put in is a task for the Devs, but the principle is sound.

This would give Caldari hybrids a much-needed damage boost, but would avoid stepping on the toes of Gallente. Both races could use both hybrid weapon types, but their damage bonuses would make them strongest at opposite ends of each weapons' range envelope. The distribution of thermal and kinetic damage through the ranges shouldn't completely gimp Gallente snipers or Caldari close-range brawlers, but simply give them a clear advantage over each other at their intended ranges.

What do people think? If I get decent feedback here, I'll make a proper thread about it.

I've proposed that before, but I don't think that would work in combination with this idea. Because the different charges would vary range, total damage and damage type balance, I think there needs to be the same degree of granularity as we have now.


Here's a few of supplementary ideas to give some more depth to the racial distinction:

• Mechanically, hybrids would probably need separate damage modifiers for thermal and kinetic damage. Blasters could have a slightly higher base thermal modifier, and rails could have a slightly higher base kinetic modifier. The difference should be subtle, like 52/48.
• Faction ammos should only boost their racial damage type. So the extra damage of Fed Navy over standard charges would all be in thermal, and none in kinetic, with the opposite true for Caldari Navy charges.
• Two or three hybrid ships from each race should have 'neutral' damage bonuses (as in, not biased to either damage type), which would make them more versatile (they'd make the ideal Caldari blaster-brawlers or Gallente snipers).

But doing that doesn't address the problem of Caldari's poor hybrid DPS, or how to fix that without intruding into Gallente's combat philosophy. There needs to be some reason to choose a Caldari hybrid ship that isn't a reason to choose a Gallente equivalent, and vice versa.