Ships & Modules

Disclaimer: i'm a long time lurker of the forums, but don't often post. taking a stab at it here. I'm also not some extremely experienced guy with 500 solo kills, but through modest experience and lots of reading, i think i have a fair handle on the overall balance of the game.

Anyway, I think we can all agree that T1 cruisers are lackluster for various reasons. In no particular order:

1. They are outclassed by the marginally more expensive BC class.

2. They are outclassed in some cases by Assault Frigates. AFs are similarly priced, sometimes achieve the same role, and are MUCH more survivable. (EDIT: by similarly priced, I am meaning including modules)

3. They are outclassed by their T2 counterparts. (this is more understandable and even necessary, but still magnifies the overall problem).

4. The tier system makes the majority of cruisers useless when compared to other cruisers of higher tiers.

I'm sure there are other factors that I just can't think of right now. But the question is - how do we bring T1 cruisers back up to par? Or is there a reasonable argument for why we should not?

I'll make the first attempt at some balance suggestions. These are very broad, so some of our more experienced forum-goers can get into the particulars of each individual ship if they so desire.

1. Simply bring the price down by decreasing the mineral cost of all cruisers.

2. Eliminate the tier system and make all cruisers good at their intended roles, IE: make every cruiser roughly as viable as the highest tier cruisers of each race.

3. Reduce the sig radius and/or increase the agility of most cruisers to make them less cannon-fodder for battlecruisers.

These are just my ideas, and i'm sure many of you have a more in-depth idea of what should be done. Please share and let's try to keep discussion civil.

You have a lot of it right. just some quick notes.


A good part off it but the problem is that ships like the Nanocane are just plain better in all the right places. Not just the Nanocane but Shield DPS / Shield Range Battlcruisers in general tend to have the Scan Res and Speed required to be effective whilst having better fitting, better cap, better dmg, on avg more Drones and wholly superior tanks. They have to look at this kind of thing in relation to what Cruisers need so ships like the Cane can not tow there line.

As for T2's many of them are out classed by Battlcruisers often but more on that later.

Absolutely but it does not help that the higher Tier Cruisers are still inadequate

People will still fly Battlecruisers over them because they are not expensive. It is usability vs cost. Many Cruisers no matter the cost have low usability.

These are both on the right track.

Roles are a good start.

What you have to understand is it is not just T1 Cruisers it is every Cruiser that can not outrun Nano Battlecruisers or out tank and DPS. That is Faction and T2. Look at the most effective Cruisers. The Blackbird for one. It is a knife, focused on doing it's role and it can do it in a way that can not be copied. The other EWAR Ships have one EWAR Bonus and in general there EWAR is less then effective and can fit comfortably on a Battlecruiser. Recons get heavy use as do Logi and Cruisers that Kite or Sig Tank. They have focused roles that can not be copied.

Creating roles that can not be copied by Battlecruiser both Combat and Support that rely on Cruisers Sig / Speed /Scan Res and Bonuses to be effective in Skirmesh Warfare would be a big boost.

That and looking at there Fitting, Grid, Utility, Cap, Slot Number, Slot Layout, Bonuses, Tank, Speed, Agility and so on to find roles for each of them.

You don't need to buff T1 cruisers apart from a select few that have fitting issues. What needs to be done is nerfing some tier 2 BCs and some of the faction/pirate ships. Removing the tiers does make sense and I'd really like that tbh.

From a Gallente point of view, While fixing tiers would be great the Vexor would become a beast with more grid, hp and slot.

T1 cruisers also need balancing between each other. The Maller is terrible compared to the other tier 3 cruisers, and the Bellicose is terrible compared to the other EWAR cruisers, the Augoror is useless, and so on and so forth.

Also, I think tier 2 Battlecruisers should be nerfed a little. They are the ones marginalizing HACs and obsoleting T1 cruisers. They're too good all-around. A speed reduction would be good to leave more room for cruisers and HACs to fill speedy roles.

I agree that changing the tier system (for both frigates and cruisers) is probably the best way to go about this. But Alara makes a good point about making each ship more specialized.

I think having each ship fill a more defined role would allow a more fluid progression from T1 frigate --> T1 cruiser --> HAC/ Recon/ Logistics --> carrier/dread.

For example, a new player that's unfamiliar with eve could start out saying 'i want to be a healer', look at the ships and see a clear line all the way from frigates to capitals in logistics ships.

Taking a hypothetical modification of each race's mining frigate to include some kind of remote repping bonus as a given, the progression would look like this: Bantam --> Osprey --> Basilisk --> Chimera.

Of course this isn't perfect, as the skill requirements for each of these ships are all pretty big jumps, but it gives a general idea. The same kind of progression would be there for ewar, brawlers, and tackling ships.

Tiericide thread: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=467771#post467771

Cruisers don't need buffed above the level of current tier3- although they should all be brought up to this level to allow more roles and fits. A few do need tweaked though, like giving the maller some drones for example.

I fully agree - Tier 2 BCs are a plague - I seriously doubt speed reduction would suffice. Probably reducing their highslots and switching them to use large turrets as well so they have to deal with worse tracking and sig resolution would do the trick.
Overall dps should be a tad lower than they are now and they'd need a 50% range/falloff nerf. I actually proposed that about a year back.

However, T1 Cruisers still wont get better because of that although I don't have a problem with that - they're disposable low-cost, low SP ships. As for them being outclassed by AFs: That's exactly how it should be.

I agree on them needing some balance against each other - especially the Maller and Omen vs the rest (I kinda gave up on the logi T1s).

That is why.

O___o

Someone revoke this mans forum access.