Sentinel et al.? Same news about everything else: "later."

Crucifier et al.? They're here: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=142136&find=unread

News from the Bringing Solo Back podcast was that something like 40 ships are going to be changed in Winter, including I think the new ships. So you can tie your hopes to the math.

I saw the Sentinel changes,

No, you didn't. Only changes to T1 hulls have been posted so far.

If we change the tracking disruptor bonus on the Arbitrator and Crucifier, we will change the bonus on the T2 versions at the same time.

Still, perhaps I'm alone in this assessment, but in the past it seems that the four races had a primary and secondary weapons system, based on the tech 2 lineup.

Gallente -> blasters, drones
Caldari -> Missiles, rails
Amarr -> Lasers, unguided Missiles
Minmatar -> autocannons, artillery

If we change the tracking disruptor bonus on the Arbitrator and Crucifier, we will change the bonus on the T2 versions at the same time.

In exactly what way is a 542 dps Belicose with 0 disrupting effects a disruption cruiser?

It now does around 80 more dps than a 5% per leve damagel maller would do with 3 HS based on those proposed changes and about 31 more dps than the current 5 pulse 3 HS omen does. When does thinking ever come in to the picture at CCP?

Arbitrator, at least it's a "disruption cruiser" and does moderate dps. Belicose... i mean really?

And like several others have said, WTF do drones seem to be the primary balance tool for you guys when it completely goes out of character based on game lore. We've already had Developers say that 10% of server load during fights is drones.... want to make it even worse?

Good morning everyone. Gonna go over some of the key questions and comments I'm seeing in the thread so far.

That being said, building strawman fits optimized for EFT numbers is the oldest trick in the book for "winning" theorycrafting arguments and you shouldn't count on me not knowing the difference between the paper dps of a 4 damage mod rage ham setup and the actual value of that ship in space.
We're always open to evaluating ships with help from player feedback, but I'm going to ask everyone to make sure to keep your discussion constructive.

I'm actually quite a fan of "Cruisers that have effectiveness bonuses to targeted aggressive midslot modules" but my fellow designers say it's not snappy enough.

Tackling frigates Executioner, Condor, Atron and Slasher
These ships are already pretty fast and in general the fastest frigates of their respective races. The Executioner and Slasher are the fastest tech 1 frigs around but the Condor and Atron are simply too heavy and too slow to keep up as they are even slower than some of the other non tackling Minmatar frigates. Then there is the matter of the ExecutionerGÇÖs single med slot, Atron's targeting range bonus and Slasher's velocity bonus. These ships will then all get a speed boost at the very least with the Condor and Atron receiving mass reductions.
...
EWAR cruisers Arbitrator, Blackbird, Celestis, Bellicose
These ships all get EWAR bonuses similar to the EWAR frigates, that is the Arbitrator will receive a bonus to tracking disruptors, Blackbird to ECM, Celestis to sensor dampeners and Bellicose to target painters.

It's true that the gameplay for the Bellicose and the Blackbird will be extremely different, but as nice as it is to have more consistency between certain aspects of each class, my priority will always be good gameplay and giving people chances to make decisions that matter in the game.

It's quite possible that we may need to bump the Belli dronebay back to the 40m3 it has currently to balance it, we'll see as we go forward. As for the expansion of drones into more ships, it's a side effect of our desire to make drones a more mainstream weapon system instead of leaving Gallente pilots alone in the cold. The creation of the drone damage mod was another step in that direction and there's more we want to do. We balance ships based on their capabilities, not on making certain races specialized just for the sake of specialization.

One of the things that makes paper meet structure is TP. It is very effective for missiles and almost as effective for drones. My fear is that this ship will replace the Caracal. That 10% range bonus does little for HAMs and are almost useless for HMLs, esp if not at 5. TP makes HAMs a lot more effective; for HMLs it can hit what the Caracal can't and use medium drones to hit the same small targets. I am very curious how this ship is not going to be simply better than the Caracal.

You do realize that the Caracal is getting changed as well? That the bonuses it has now will probably change..?

So comparing the two as they stand is very silly.

We're going to work on them as well, but not until after we have the basic T1 cruisers done.

Well traditionally its a sniper and i cant see that changing myself it will prob get more slots in highs and lows so more dps but bonus will be the same i expect

Looks good and in line with the previosuly stated design goals. Some questions though:

- Why does the Arby retain its mining bonus to drones?
- Whats the reasoning behind giving the celestis the higest sensor strengt of the 4 ships? At 20, its even better than caldari battlecruisers.
- The Blackbird and Celestis are designed for ranged EW-support, so whats the reasoning behind the increased dronebay on the Celestis?

Blasters have better tracking than ACs.

I'd also bet that Lachesis will lose it's missiles for hybrids, or more likely drones, like Tristan.

...and a Drone Arazu, that would be sexy

You do realize that the Caracal is getting changed as well? That the bonuses it has now will probably change..?

So comparing the two as they stand is very silly.

Well traditionally its a sniper and i cant see that changing myself it will prob get more slots in highs and lows so more dps but bonus will be the same i expect

Lets hope it gets a missle trackign bonus like explostion velocity, or something useful like a dule damage bonus, lol. unlikely tho