Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Personally, I think the Ferox is just fine. Please post comparisons for the fitted ships, not just something based on the hull bonuses.

Ferox is one of the stronger BC's right now. Good range, decent damage and more forgiving fitting than it used to have. Not to mention you can squeeze big tanks on them now. Its tank is just as sustainable as a brutix, but better, with less dps. Thats the price you pay, but you can still get around 550-600 dps with a fit like this.

[Ferox, XLASB]
Co-Processor II
Internal Force Field Array I
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II

X-Large Ancillary Shield Booster, Cap Booster 400
X-Large Ancillary Shield Booster, Cap Booster 400
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
10MN Y-S8 Compact Afterburner
J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I
X5 Prototype Engine Enervator

Heavy Electron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
Heavy Electron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
Heavy Electron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
Heavy Electron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
Heavy Electron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
Heavy Electron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
Small Energy Nosferatu II

Medium Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I
Medium Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I
Medium Anti-Thermal Screen Reinforcer I

Acolyte II x5

This doesn't even touch on the fact that many alliances and other groups are using Ferox as cheap rail doctrines. Where they will be better than brutix as a rail platform. That is their main role, long range sniping. Something the brutix cannot do well, and the harb is marginal at.

I cannot agree with the assumption the Ferox is underpowered compared to other BC. Especially in fleets, the Ferox' longer lock range compared to, for instance, the Hurricane makes it more viable than the Cane. Damage output is also similar to the cane. I probably don't need to mention that the tank on the Ferox also outclasses that of the Hurricane.

In your last post's comparison, you compare the Ferox with Spike to a Harbinger with Faction short range and a Brutix with Faction short range ammo. I hope you see the mistake yourself.

You called spike javelin. I did a double take too.

That might be true if the Ferox actually had better tank than the Brutix but it doesn't. It has similar damage projection to the Brutix despite the Brutix being the one with considerably stronger defense. The Brutix gets its damage projection with one skill bonus while the Ferox has two skill bonuses dedicated to its weapons, and from that it gets only as much as the Brutix gets with one.

Not sure how this is difficult to see.

If we assume that the Harbinger and Brutix are in the right place, then the Ferox, Drake, Hurricane, and Cyclone are all underpowered. If the Drake isn't underpowered, it's because cruiser missiles are overpowered (which they aren't).


Allow me to demonstrate:

Harbinger:
Turrets: 6
10% damage bonus plus a standard weapon bonus
Effective turrets: 9, not counting weapon bonus
Utility high slots: 1
Utility Weapons: 0
Drones: 50mbit/sec

Brutix:
Turrets: 6
10% damage bonus plus a standard defensive bonus
Effective turrets: 9
Utility high slots: 1
Utility Weapons: 0
Drones: 50mbit/sec

Ferox:
Turrets: 6
5% damage bonus plus a standard weapon bonus
Effective turrets: 7.5, not counting weapon bonus
Utility high slots: 1
Utility Weapons: 0
Drones: 25mbit/sec

Drake:
Launchers: 6
10% kinetic only damage bonus plus a standard defensive bonus
Effective missiles: 9 kinetic, 6 any other type
Utility high slots: 1
Utility Weapons: 0
Drones: 25mbit/sec

Cyclone:
Launchers: 5
5% rate of fire bonus plus a standard defensive bonus
Effective missiles: 6.667
Utility high slots: 2
Utility Weapons: 2
Drones: 50mbit/sec

Hurricane:
Turrets: 6
5% rate of fire, 5% damage
Effective turrets: 10
Utility high slots: 1
Utility Weapons: 1
Drones: 40mbit/sec

In case you don't see the disparity yet, let's do some cross-canceling. They all have at least 25 mbit/sec drone bandwidth and 1 utility high, so I'll eliminate those. They all have a skill bonus other than damage, except the Hurricane. I'll also erase the turrets consideration and skill bonuses for now to condense the chart further.

---

Harbinger:
Effective turrets: 9
Drones: +25mbit/sec

Brutix:
Effective turrets: 9
Drones: +25mbit/sec

Ferox:
Effective turrets: 7.5

Drake:
Effective missiles: 9 kinetic, 6 any other type

Cyclone:
Effective missiles: 6.667
Utility high slots: +1
Utility Weapons: +2
Drones: +25mbit/sec

Hurricane:
Effective turrets: 10
Other skill bonuses: -1
Utility Weapons: +1
Drones: +15mbit/sec


So here in the condensed chart you can see that the Harbinger and Brutix both have 9 effective turrets. They fill 6 slots to get this, and pay powergrid/CPU for 6 turrets. They then have a utility high remaining, +25mbit/sec bandwidth over the minimum, and either a weapon bonus or defensive bonus.

The Ferox falls short quite clearly, as it has just 7.5 effective turrets before the weapon bonus, despite it having to pay for those same 6 weapons. But it gets even worse, the Ferox has no extra drone bandwidth. It is rather impotent next to the much more powerful Harbinger, or the much more durable Brutix. The Ferox should at minimum have its damage bonus increased to 10% per level.

The Hurricane musters slightly more weapon power out of the same six weapon slots, but at the cost of lacking any other bonus aside from raw damage. Like the Ferox, the Hurricane has been shortchanged on its damage bonus. Now it can fit a utility weapon for a total effective weapons count of 11, but it must pay the powergrid and CPU to fit it, as well as using up the ship's utility high so that's not much of a bonus in its overall strength as a ship. Were it given a proper 10% per level bonus to damage, it would have 12 effective turrets but no other weapon skill bonus. Now I can see where that might be a bit overpowered, giving it too much room for use as a fast gank ship. So compromise and give it a 7.5% damage bonus per level. That will leave it at 11 effective turrets, 12 total effective weapons if it uses the utility high for a weapon. That high raw power comes at the cost of it not having any range or tracking bonuses, and since it's using projectiles it still won't have all that much DPS.

The Drake has a 10% damage bonus, but only to kinetic. To understand this problem, you must understand how missiles work. They deal less DPS than turrets (lasers and hybrids) for the same range because they have the advantage of being able to deal damage of any type. When you give a ship a bonus only to kinetic missile damage, you are taking away its ability to get top damage with its choice of type, making its missiles much more on par with laser/hybrid turret damage application. You must then follow through and give the ship laser/hybrid damage. The Drake should have a 20% bonus to kinetic missile damage, or 15% to kinetic and 5% to other types, or 10% to all missile damage. At 20% to kinetic per level, its effective launchers amount will be 12 when using kinetic, or 6 when using any other (other damage types will be essentially useless). You might think that 12 seems way too high, but consider how much weaker missiles are. I ran a comparison between Drake and Brutix. I used Railguns with Antimatter vs. Heavy Assault Launchers with Scourge:
Brutix: 23+19 | 340
Drake: 25.3 | 281//374
Drake with 9 effective launchers deals much less damage at shorter range. Drake with 12 effective launchers does a bit more damage which helps make up for the reduced range.

The Cyclone has only 5 launcher hardpoints, yet it gets a weak 5% rate of fire bonus. This is the weakest battlecruiser of all, as it gets absolutely no grand bonus to offset this huge glaring weakness. With 2 turrets fit, it still nets a mere 8.667 effective weapons, still less than a Brutix or Harbinger which have their utility high left over. Increase the rate of fire bonus to 7.5% and the Cyclone will get 8 effective weapons out of the 5 slots. Then with 6 weapons fit, it will have 9 effective weapons. The drawback of having mixed weapons on high damage fits is countered by its ability to use two utility highs and maintain full damage bonus from ship bonus.

In my opinion the Ferox is just fine the way she is. The only thing I don't agree on is the pricetag but that's for another day - if EVE stays online until then.
If you fly the Ferox like the most hated ship of all times - coincidentely a missile boat - you have a strong ship. Use Null M a lot, it helps.

I'm honestly not getting the problem.

Ferox with 250s and CNAM is 326 @34+19. The brutix is 391 @23+19.

That is quite a significant projection decrease and as I'm sure you're aware range is essentially a DPS buff for turrets.

If the brutix wishes to compete at that range then it has to load CNUR which is....wait for it....326 @34+19


Brutix is brawlier, ferox is a longer ranged beast. /shrug. Seems alright to me.


All done on empty fits with 250mm rails.

Range

I do not think giving the ferox MORE dps is a good move because that vastly strengthens the fleet use, where a rep bonus counts for absolutely nothing. Likewise a resist bonus has the same effect.

They're just different, I don't think the balance is a million miles away.

Yet somehow people love the ferox and it's featuring very strongly in fleets. EFT warrioring on very specific aspects with weird choices of numbers does not tell the whole story.