Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Cue "what society thinks I do" image.

Marauders are billed as, well, Marauders-- ships you can take behind enemy lines to wreak havok. Instead, what we get are ships that only really work for PvE, and even in this role they are objectively inferior to pirate battleships (which, incidentally, are also better "marauding" ships).

I think this should change.

If I had my way, Marauders would be reworked into ships that fit their description. This rework would require a couple of things:

• Axe the sensor-strength thing. Seriously. No ship that can be perma-jammed by a three day old newbie in an ECM Navitas is going to see extensive use in PvP-- not behind enemy lines, not behind friendly lines, nowhere. You don't need to buff sensor strength as you do for pirate BS, but not-gimping it would make Marauders much more useful.


• Gear these ships away from active-tanking ability and towards agility. Make them better at skirmish warfare. As it stands, these ships are bonused to active tanking and EWAR, only one of which is useful in small-gang warfare (and is rendered easily-counterable due to Marauders awful sensor strength). In small gang fights, mobility is life. Active tanking is either totally unecessary (if things go well), undesireable (if you take return fire from more than one or two opponents), or utterly worthless (if you actually get caught, active tanking only prolongs your death... slightly). Active tanking is for PvE. Ships that align like a depleted uranium bathtub are for PvE.


• Consider trading the "salvaging" bonuses for something support-related. Make these ships the hub around which a Marauding gang would revolve, somehow. Salvaging bonuses are only really going to be used for PvE, and in PvE scenarios these abilities are pretty much entirely eclipsed by the abilities of the Noctis. Some possible alternatives to the salvaging bonus could be: a fitting service, some kind of remote-repping ability / bonus, I don't even know. Something that benefits gang members and is more useful than a salvaging bonus. A mobile-warp disruptor carrying bay for supplying a gang with anchorable bubbles. Who knows?

If you want a class of PvE-specialized ships, rename Marauders. Otherwise, I'd be excited if you made Marauders actually excel at marauding. As it is, they're unsuited for deployment in hostile space in pretty much every conceivable way (except their highslot-layout).

That would be a shame, since an actual Marauder class would be cool, but anything is better than the current situation! :3

Yes, by all means, let's balance all ships based on what they can do while deadspace fit with Legion armor bonuses. Let's also fit afterburners on our small gang PvP ships, because throwing a 5b isk, easily-jammed bricks around hostile space makes a lot of sense.

I know you don't like the fact that I called out your bad blackops BS idea, but that doesn't mean you have to come **** on me every time I post.

Because Marauders suck? I don't need to deadspace fit my pirate BS to field it successfully.

I'm just pointing out that there is a whole class of ships that claims to be designed to fit a specific role, yet finds itself objectively inferior in that role to a host of other generalized ships. Does that seem right to you?

If you want a more fact-based argument, I could show you a comparison of the Vargur to the Mach, or the Kronos to the Vindicator (hint, both the pirate ships are vastly superior skirmishers than their "behind enemy lines" equivalents).

I know these threads are coming from the ship balancing of inferno. But the common interpretation I'm seeing in all of all of them is that they are balancing them, not buffing them or nerfing them. That may sound like the same thing but it isn't, rather than make a ship better the idea is to make them play a different single role but not multiple and all roles of it's class. Think about this on both the threads we are posting on.

Active tanking is the only way to pvp in any marauder honestly, also I see a problem with point of views here. My main point of view is from High sec and low sec in gangs no more than thirty, where as you are a member of goonswarm who I hear loves the 250 man maelstrom alpha fleets. Where an active tank would instantly die. In my world, an active tank is viable. In yours, it might as well be a shuttle with a capital sized rep and a triage module.

You don't have to pvp on undocks in low or high sec. I try to keep things off station as much as I can. The marauder would be useful when taking on a small force behind enemy lines that doesn't have nearby back up. Most fleets are hesitant when engaging a marauder, it has 3 utility highs and any one of them could hold a cyno generator. Also with 170k ehp and a 8000 dps tank it's not dieing any time before whatever it wants coming through that cyno comes through.

Also, a vargur can get a tank above 20k dps if you can pocket change for 40 or so bil. For about 10bil with a faction and deadspace tank it can tank 10k or so dps I believe.

False.

[Golem, Golem - The New Drake]
Damage Control II
Ballistic Control System II
Ballistic Control System II
Ballistic Control System II

Stasis Webifier II
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Warp Disruptor II
Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II
Prototype 100MN MicroWarpdrive I

Torpedo Launcher II
Torpedo Launcher II
Torpedo Launcher II
Torpedo Launcher II
Medium Energy Neutralizer II
Medium Energy Neutralizer II
Medium Energy Neutralizer II

Large Ancillary Current Router I
Large Core Defense Field Extender I


Warrior II
Hornet EC-300
Warrior TP-300

Unfortunately, I think this description describes its ability to get behind NPC enemy lines and wreak havok on them, but not so much getting behind pvp enemy lines.

However, even when you factor them as being purely pve centric ships, they still suck. My tengu can pull just as much dps as a golem using javelin torps and do so with better tank, more effective dps, more speed, more sensor strength, and better scan res.



He started that specific thread because he wanted Marauders to be better at what their initial design was for. While CCP did set pirate faction ships above t2 ships in effectiveness, their effectiveness is supposed to be more towards a balanced approach, where as Marauders should be the over kings of pve combat, to be outperformed by no other ship, unless that ship has a significantly higher isk put into it, such as a fully dedspace fitted pirate bs.

I'll state what the best parts of balancing marauders in pve would be to me, as listed in that thread.

1) Npc ewar immunity - this is so they can be the kings of pve without effecting pvp
2) remove rep % per level bonus for a resistance % per level bonus, thus making them better buffer tank ships(cause they're hard to fit stable)
3) Give them a 150% tractor bonus, which means with t2 tractors they hit 60km
4) Bonus towards salvager cycle time per level

Ther rest of the buffs they could use are specific to the ships themeselves such as web range, target painter % bonus, drone bw and bay, etc. etc.