Ships & Modules

Proxxxxy - since the blaster boost, its become much more reasonable and advantageous to use Void. It has a higher optimal and it tracks pretty well to boot. Here's how it breaks down on a Neutron Harpy:
- Old Void S: 0.29672
- New void S: 0.35606
- Old FN AM: 0.39562
- New FN AM: 0.47475

-Liang

This nerf to the Thorax is totally uncalled for!

But Thorax and Ruppie still pwn's you all.

About damn time! Now it's time to dust off those retributions i have laying around my hangar

as it should be. AF's should be on par with t1 cruisers like the Rupture, Vexor, etc., because they require more SP and cost 3x as much. AF's are a specialization. as things stand, AF's get shredded by medium and even large guns.

and i agree with Dane. even with these buffs, AF's may not be able to stand up to properly fitted cruisers/BCs.

But they already are on par with the lower-tier cruisers and are a more expensive (cost + death rate) alternative to the higher-tiers due to the whallop they already pack .. a boost of the magnitude on Chaos pushes them so high that even Ruppies/Vexors will be rare sights.
Not to mention pirate frigs which were recently balanced to equal or exceed T2 .. since I do not think of them as cruiser level (except damage wise) they'd need a hefty boost as well as they need to be above. Same for Navy frigs which are supposed to be just below T2, big boost for them as well.

As I said, it is awfully crowded in the light classes and there is just no room for a meaningful tank/spank boost without upsetting the applecart .. better, easier and more diversifying to look at alternative solutions for the 4th bonus.

PS: What is with MWD specific nature of the bonus anyway, not only does it overlap completely with the interceptor bonus (2/3rds the strength) but it effectively pigeon-holes them into using MWD's as no one likes wasting bonuses .. plus it is a massive benefit to multi-mid hulls which are already viable DP ships (Jag/Ish).
The only 'related' bonus that does not pigeon them or benefit the few extraordinarily would be to give them cap-free propulsion (ie. both AB and MWD). Sure you'd have oversizing to contend with but a few tweaks to AF fittings and prop module requirements would alleviate that .. cruisers/BCs generally have no issues fitting prop unless min/maxing so they shouldn't feel an increase in prop fittings as long as its not extreme.

Hell, one could probably give them a cap+fitting bonus to promote oversizing, giving them a torpedo like behaviour on the battlefield .. considered it as a solution for blasters way back when but with no XL drives the BS wouldn't be covered so never passed 'random thought' stage with me. .

The Ishkur would still be lacking a slot over it's other Assault Ship brethren after these changes. I'd say it needs an additional 5-10 base CPU and another midslot. This keeps the fitting relatively difficult (in line with the other Tech 2 drone boats) and gives players a little more incentive to use the Ishkur alongside the massively boosted Enyo. This also gives a very versatile 4-4-4 slot layout characteristic to Gallente drone boats. (Ishtar's 5-5-5 or the Myrmidon's 6-5-6)

Oh, hey, that was 200x and this is 201x.

Nowadays, your average frigate pilot has to land at zero to 30km (who the crap flies 40-80km towards anything? you warp out), burn into scram range, hope the enemy doesn't have a scram, tank his drones and play 'Hungry hippos' with him as he tries to save them from you and you try to gank them, all the while sig-tanking his guns, before you start working on his tank. Which is either an armour cane, which will take so long to vape his buddies will turn up (nanocanes have already escaped you), or a Drake which you need 3 AF's to kill anyway, and you are trying to witstand neuting pressure. And thats if you Unicorn the whole enterprise by finding a lone BC you warp to at <30km who is not aligned out.

Or you roll an AB-fit RR AF gang and you absolutely smoke the opposition because you can tank a whole gang yourself and you've got 6 x 130DPS tanks hitting ou from your 6 mates in the Vengeances and all of you are pshing 120 DPS outwards.

So. The plan is to give AFs another slot, a bit of extra buffer here and there, and a half-gimped MWD sig bonus. You will now be able to, as said before, land at 40-80km to attain tackle, with a sig penalty just big enough to kill you on the way in to scram range, whereupon you risk getting your MWD turned off (or go dissy/MWD and become a T2 Dram, basically) and have to try kiting without an AB. Which doesn't work quite as well as with the AB.

So it is now a choice, like with other hull sizes. AB sig tank AHAC style (good luck, Caldari ships, you all suck), or MWD kite Vagaceptor style. Theres not much of a middle ground aside from the putative ideas revolving around "MWD+Scram+Active tank will totes work, rite? Cause no one fits neuts, rite?"

No.

Personally, I can see the idea. EVE, clearly, is heading toward a nano-renaissance. Lets not fool ourselves that the tier 3 BC's are anything but nano-sniper boats and the Talos for wormholes and people AWOXing nubs they fleet up and get warp to zero upon. Everything in that class of ship is geared toward alphafleets (and yet, somehow, with the way logi is at the moment people wonder why the Naga is FOTM amongst the knowing few), nano shield gangs (Nado+Lach+Rapier alphananogangs), and so on and so forth. Aside from w-space where you do get the warp-to-zeros and need the buffer-gank brwling setups.

This rejiggering of AFs makes them into...heavy...assault...ships. You send the ceptors to get the points and then the AFs roll in a few seconds later to get secondary point, tank respectably, and maintain point while the DPS tries to outwit the logis by swapping primaries and trading neuting/EWAR. The AFs are like the shock troops, with enough DPS to worry the enemy and maybe threaten their EW ships, hassle their logis and cnfuse the melee.

Most of the opinions expressed here are just hot air and theorycrafting based on either, as quoted above, bittervets talking about the days of yore before alphafleet dctrine became popular, and egoed-up basement trolls declaring the false to be true to confuse their conteporaries while they try to work the new MWD sig bonus into Alphafleet, Hellcat, crapcrapcrap doctrine in private so they can maintain an advntage for a week or two longer before everyone works out why, eg, the Naga is in fact better than the Tornado (and not just because it gets 660 vs 600DPS).

Hey, you never responded to this:





Just thought you'd want to take a chance to back up some of this hogwash you keep spouting.

-Liang

Good Liang;

I am afraid some of your math is off here.

0.5 ^ tracking_miss_chance * 0.5 ^ distance_miss_chance
is not the same as
0.5^(tracking_miss_chance + distance_miss_chance).

Suppose both chances=1, then you are saying the square root of 2 = 1. Clearly false and just one counter example.

your humble servent
Seasaw