Happy Valentine's Day to you Fozzie! Where do we send the chocolates for all these ship balance changes?

We are increasing the fuel cost of all Black Ops bridges by 25%, as well as increasing the size of the fuel bay of all Black Ops Battleships by 25%.

don't tell lies

don't tell lies

Although the Tiericide project has a clear end point (which is on the horizon) the job of rebalancing ships in EVE will never be completed. We will be continuing with a rebalance of Tech 2, Tech 3 and Capital ships (none of which are afflicted with traditional GÇ£TiersGÇ¥), and we are committed to balancing on a regular basis to keep things fresh and to follow up on reactions to the earlier passes.

Wait just a second.

The F&I thread said you were decreasing the costs. I do hope this is a typo.

Faction? Guess you didnt forget they exist? ;-)

Yeah it's a typo, fixing it now my bad.

for half an hour hot manly tears were running down the faces of blops pilots as they screamed in despair at the heavens

CCP Fozzie,
You mention a mass reduction to 400mm plates,
is this correct?

Neug

CCP Fozzie,
You mention a mass reduction to 400mm plates,
is this correct?

Neug

Read the damn thing.

I am a little dissapointed with the limit of one AAR per ship. It seems like it would have been more EVElike to just make it much harder to fit PG wise, meaning that you would have to make a lot of sacrifice to fit two (like the ASB and CPU). Or just put a penalty on the boost for more modules of the same type running - are there any other tank modules that are limited one per ship?

Our latest Dev Blog on Ship Balancing in Retribution 1.1 can be found here

Read what's going to be happening to Battlecruisers, Armor Tanking, Black Ops Battleships, and more courtesy of everyone's favorite game designer and Canadian lumberjack CCP Fozzie.

Nice to see it all confirmed in a devblog. Looking forward to flying a triple-rep myrm with one of the new AAR modules!

fozzie is Canadian?

cool stuff i thought he was american for some reason...

what city is he from?

you ever going to come to a Toronto Pub Crawl?

Thanks for all the hard work Fozzie.

It was probably wise to emphasize that there will definitely be further balancing passes based on feedback and need. Not that I think much will be needed (if any) but that should calm down the crowd that likes to panic based on theorycrafting untl they actually have a chance to use these things live.

Born in Montreal (anglo parents), went to U Waterloo, most of my family lives in southern Ontario with everyone else in Canada

If there's ever a Toronto meet while I'm visiting home I'll definitely try to make it. I was gutted that the last December one was just before I went back for Christmas.

If I say it was an intentional attempt to troll Trebor would any of you believe me?

Born in Montreal (anglo parents), went to U Waterloo, most of my family lives in southern Ontario with everyone else in Canada

If there's ever a Toronto meet while I'm visiting home I'll definitely try to make it. I was gutted that the last December one was just before I went back for Christmas.

I'd like to eventually reach the point where everyone just assumes that we'll keep iterating as needed, but I know that kind of trust takes time to build.

I'd just like to confirm that the ship balancing effort is a fully supported long term project that I see as core to developing and caring for our game.

Fozzie mentioned tech 2 and 3 ships in the pipeline as well as capitals.

What are the plans for faction boats? I know you've said that some are already fairly balanced, but what about ships like:

-scythe fleet issue
-osprey navy issue
-augoror navy issue
-exquror navy issue
-worm
-succubus
-gila
-caracal navy issue
-vexor navy issue
-stabber fleet issue (great ship but it's supposed to have similar/better speed to a normal stabber, which is currently not the case)
-hookbill
-comet
-slicer
-firetail

that have been left a bit behind in the balancing updates (navy cruisers are pretty lacking in velocity in comparison to the T1 counterparts)

Faction ships are definitely part of the plan. The reason I didn't mention them alongside the T2, T3 and Caps is that Faction ships have tiers, and therefore fall under "Tiericide".

Based on the discussions I've seen, I think the next balance pass after Retribution 1.1 will be Summer 1.0 and should contain Battleships, Industrials, Black Ops, Command Ships, and EAF.

A response of "that sounds reasonable" would be great.

Based on the discussions I've seen, I think the next balance pass after Retribution 1.1 will be Summer 1.0 and should contain Battleships, Industrials, Black Ops, Command Ships, and EAF.

A response of "that sounds reasonable" would be great.

I'd like to eventually reach the point where everyone just assumes that we'll keep iterating as needed, but I know that kind of trust takes time to build.

dont forget about t3 nerf ( i am hopping for only 7 high slots perhaps the 8th for utility) and an agility nerf

also ogb nerf

also pretty please a tech III balance?

maybe add the TD/TE/TC to work on missiles like was planned but not yet implimented

how about a 4th bs hull for logistics?

also nerf the hell out of the 5% resist bonus as its the best bonus you can give a ship atm. replace it with a 5% bonus to passive resist mods.. that would bring the skill inline with the active rep bonus.

i would like to see metacide to make uselless 1-4 meta's worth usuing and make tech II better then some meta 4

oh and ffs drones 1.5 would be aweseom including a new drone interface the abiltiy to use nanite paste while a drone is in the bay and medium and small sentry drones plus rebalance of combat drones (give us a reason to use em drones) and please fix utilty drones

also fix beams and medium rails.

plus more ships i would love to see a frighter sized ship that uses oversized turrets/missiles that can only go threw gates no jump drive and can be used in high sec to kill all those pesky afk poses (think frieghter sized t3)

also fix torps/cruise and thier capital versions too.

What I would like this year from Santa list

Just a quick question about tiericide. Are you also
balancing the number of ships available to each race,
ie industrials.

Neug

Good stuff, started stocking BCs to sale them later

I'd like to eventually reach the point where everyone just assumes that we'll keep iterating as needed, but I know that kind of trust takes time to build.

Based on the snippets of discussion, as nothing has been confirmed, it sounds like at minimum a new indy for caldari and amarr. If we're lucky (and they can find 5 useful roles), we'll get 2 new minmatar, and 3 for the amarr and caldari.

Reactive Armor Hardener (notice a pattern here? ) and DC (that one makes sense).

Looks like the Ancillary Armor Repairers will be just as worthless as the Reactive Armor Hardeners in Incursions not denting the shield/armour fleet PvE imbalance there which was exacerbated by the Escalation Nerf to Incursions.

I did that with the mining/logistics frigates. Still not sure what I'm going to do with them. I've sold about 20 of the 15000 I have.

Armor Repairers

Alongside the change above, we are reducing the base powergrid needs of medium and large armor repair systems. All medium armor repairers will need 20% less powergrid, and all large armor repairers will need 10% less powergrid.

It's good that armour is getting some overdue love, however would any new player choose to spend months training the many shield skills over armour now? I wouldn't, and to be honest it appears spending nearly six months training up shield skills on some of my characters has been a huge waste of time. With the shield comps losing their passive bonus I can't think of a reason why anyone would train up the shield skills considering they take up months more time to train than training armour does.

Not really balanced is it?

Looks like the Ancillary Armor Repairers will be just as worthless as the Reactive Armor Hardeners in Incursions not denting the shield/armour fleet PvE imbalance there which was exacerbated by the Escalation Nerf to Incursions.

Slight typo in the title

no drakes - ship and module balancing in retribution 1.1

fixed it for you.

I want to make it clear that one of our goals in this rebalancing pass is to somewhat narrow the gap between higher cost and lower cost ships compared to the canyon that existed in the past. We are not planning on buffing the high cost ships to the same degree that we did with the T1 Frigates and Cruisers, as this would simply create direct power creep and leave us right back where we started. We want to reach a place where cheaper ships are more than just something you fly when you start the game, but instead present a viable and interesting option to be chosen by people of many levels of experience. Our vision for cost-balancing is that cost should play a limited part in balancing ships and that obtaining a roughly linear increase in effectiveness should require an exponential increase in cost.

I don't understand why people consider than shield is better than armor. It was and is still the contrary.

You cannot fit scramble/web modules without sacrificing shield tank on most of the Caldari ships, you don't have a buffer who can avoid some hits on your tank unlike armor who can rely a few on their shield, shield resists are always inferior than armor ones even on Caldari ships who rely only on it, etc.

Apart the first weeks after the release of the ASB, and before his first nerf, shield meant ****. And now people whines to boost armor tank ?

Did I miss something ?

Oh you're a wit that's for sure.

Notice the current usage stats. The Drake has a long way to fall before anyone should cry about it.

I kinda draw exception to the idea you won't be improving T2 as much as T1. Many of the T1 ships are now just outright superior to their T2 and faction counterparts.

-Liang

I don't understand why people consider than shield is better than armor. It was and is still the contrary.

You cannot fit scramble/web modules without sacrificing shield tank on most of the Caldari ships, you don't have a buffer who can avoid some hits on your tank unlike armor who can rely a few on their shield, shield resists are always inferior than armor ones even on Caldari ships who rely only on it, etc.

Apart the first weeks after the release of the ASB, and before his first nerf, shield meant ****. And now people whines to boost armor tank ?

Did I miss something ?

It seems pretty clear from the notes on the article that the problem with battlecruisers isn't so much that the Drake and Cane are too powerful, but that all the other battlecruisers are worse than cruisers. Would it not have made more sense to fix what was really and truly broken first, then see how the changes work in comparison?

I kinda draw exception to the idea you won't be improving T2 as much as T1. Many of the T1 ships are now just outright superior to their T2 and faction counterparts.

-Liang

I don't understand why people consider than shield is better than armor. It was and is still the contrary.

You cannot fit scramble/web modules without sacrificing shield tank on most of the Caldari ships.

[...]

Did I miss something ?

The lack of change to the drake means its still OP and will be the most used bc as a result aswell as HAMS having the same range as torpedoes is plain wrong they need a range nerf..... also when TD's affect missiles might also help balance things a little that and the drake will still obsolete the ferox which is hard to understand how fozzie doesn't understand this....?????

Can you give some examples of this, not including things like the scythe fleet issue and succubus that are in need of a rebalance already?

Keep in mind that T2 isn't supposed to be better in all respects by any means, just more specialized towards some role.

Faction ships on the other hand are supposed to be general purpose ships that are better than their t1 counterpoints, something I agree isn't necessarily the case, most glaringly in the case of the faction versions of the 4 logi cruisers.

i dunno the lack of dps for non kin damage will hurt the ship for pve thats for sure.

pretty sure the cyclone will be a much better pve ship now.

The most glaring examples are the Condor to the Crow and Crusader to the Executioner, but the same argument for made for the Firetail/Slasher. Other examples of things that are almost that bad are the Carcal/Navy Osprey/Navy Caracal/Cerb, Moa/Eagle, Thorax/Navy Ex/Deimos, etc.

-Liang

Although I don't really fly the Incursus a lot any more, I'm sad to see the 10% bonus go. This bonus made the ship worth having a rep on, and now it's basically a waste of a bonus simply because of a new module. Or rather, a regular small armor repairer is not worth fitting. I hope there are plans to properly balance both regular armor repairers and shield boosters. There is now no longer any reason to fit standard shield boosters or armor repairers, just because of new modules.

I know what you are saying, but it's a bit early to analyze this as neither the faction nor the T2 varieties have been adjusted yet... although I will agree this is a good time to put a bug or two in Fozzies ear concerning them.

Well, for PVE most of the time a sustainable and strong tank is more important than firepower.

Although I don't really fly the Incursus a lot any more, I'm sad to see the 10% bonus go. This bonus made the ship worth having a rep on, and now it's basically a waste of a bonus simply because of a new module. Or rather, a regular small armor repairer is not worth fitting. I hope there are plans to properly balance both regular armor repairers and shield boosters. There is now no longer any reason to fit standard shield boosters or armor repairers, just because of new modules.

which is why i am a fan of gist -c type sheild boosters. low cap and good rep amount

have not tried it out yet but pretty sure i will tank any lev iv or annoms in a cyclone now.

Eccept (at least for those scenarios where active local tanking makes some sense) you will need to keep fitting standard armor rep because unlike the ASBs the AARs are limited to one per ship. So, to make any use of this new armor repper you will still need to have dual reppers (one AAR plus one standard repper). Also the AAR eats cap like any other armor repper so you will need to keep fitting a cap booster. So standard armor reppers will continue to see use.

I agree though that standard shield boosters have been overshadowed because the ASB is so powerful.

1.
there is dedicated tackle in pvp fleets so havings ponits and webs is not allways usefull

2.
RR is the big winner for reasons why shield is better

3.
you can fit extenders and rigs and not slow down (sig radius bloom is not big enough to count)

though for small gang or solo then yeah armor has its uses but overall its still not as good.

i am still going to be shield tanking my brutix after this boost.

Like the fact that, as a rule, Caldari ships have about as many mids left over after prop and tank as Amarr ships do, and with at least as many low slots to dedicate to damage mods and the ability to fit maximum size guns?

i dunno the lack of dps for non kin damage will hurt the ship for pve thats for sure.

pretty sure the cyclone will be a much better pve ship now.

3. The fact that shield don't slow down the ship was a balancing thing. Armor is more resilient but make you slow and maybe with less damage, shield don't hit your speed but require a big amount of energy for active tanking and give trouble with the fitting. This armor boost will destroy this balance.

No mention of changes (removal of passive resists, improved by the compensation skills) to active shield and armor hardeners?

Have you considered using a different naming convention for the new armor reps, considering they function differently compared to the ASB's? I'm thinking the word 'ancillary' in both modules implies they are basically the same, when they have a couple of really important differences.

I am looking forward to the day when Interceptors are buffed/adjusted a little, like a little more lock range, perhaps some extra pg on some of them... and also make warp velocity (AU/s) matter more, as in acceleration faster within warp... :)

Unlike the ASBs, AARs always use the same capacitor as a Tech One armor repairer to cycle. This cap use does not change when the module is loaded with charges.

All I can confirm is that the ships discussed in Ytterbium's Back to the Balancing Future blog are still expected to be among the earlier sets of ships we work on this year.

A lot of you MIST this

So Ancillary Armor Repairers use cap from your ship or Cap charges it runs 3/4 of the same size
and/or put Nanite Repair Paste in (or on top cap charges?) you get 2.25 the amount of a T1 rep.

That is if i am reading ok CCP Fozzie

The plus side of all this is I get to watch Quackbot spasm uncontrollably.

Would you care to comment and contrast your excellent communication of forthcoming changes with CCP Greyscale's dismal responses to his changes to shield and armor compensation skills.

Should we expect a Dev Blog from his holiness Greyscale, or would holding our breath just invite unconscienceness.

Just know that the skill changes (including the Battlecruiser and Destroyer skill splits) will not be taking place in Retribution 1.1. They are scheduled for the summer expansion.

Is this a typo also or did I get it all wrong? I thought the expansion on the 19th was the Destroyer and Battlecruiser skill split!

I love the idea of the Harb being turned into a droneboat, and while missiles seem weird on an Amarr ship, I'm not opposed to the idea. What I do find slightly irritating is the fact the high-slot and turret layout basically forces you to either have one launcher or one odd turret if you go the other way.

Based on the redesigns up to this point, I thought we were moving AWAY from that sort of thing.

Edit: Well unless things have changed since the proposed rebalance specs were posted a while back. I am noticing a few changes in the blog.

-snip-
But in all cases they are utility slots.

That change doesn't really require its own dev blog in my opinion, and it's a change I fully support.

The honest truth is that I have no idea why someone back in the day would design the active resistance modules to also have a separate passive effect. It's convoluted and provides very little value.

And considering that we have generally shifted the meta towards a lower number of neuts overs the past few releases, the change helps ensure that capacitor warfare serves a useful role.

Is the old CCP just making their own decisions and not caring how they effect the game back? You are introducing yet another barrier to newer players with the Drake nerf. CCP is backpedaling on modular POS structures. You are boosting AFK Cloaking to even higher levels with the black ops changes. Next you will be saying "We have no idea why someone would design something called a local and while we are at it why are these tech moons so spread out?"

This is the issue. You are "Fixing" things that while may have been an issue are NOTHING compared to the need for Modular POS, Ring mining, and ways to actually get newer players into these vaunted Nullsec groups you keep pushing them towards. And to be something other than cannon fodder.

We want to reach a place where cheaper ships are more than just something you fly when you start the game,

This can only happen (at least with regard to nullsec) if clone costs are addressed. If someone with high skill points goes out in a Rupture rather than a Muninn they are flying a ship which is more likely to die and often when your ship dies your pod dies. It's just silly for someone to fly a 100m pod around in a 10m ship.

This issue doesn't only affect old veteran players. As the veterans don't want to be in Omens because it risks their pod more than using Zealots would they decide upon a doctrine which everyone has to follow. This makes nullsec needlessly hard to get into. Some nullsec alliance mitigate this by welcoming rifter heroes but there's a limit for many new players to how much fun you can have being the disposable tackle that generally dies 2 minutes into the fight.

My concern is that after the BC changes and if this summer buffs Battleships we won't see so many roaming cruiser gangs which most of us feel is a great enhancement to Eve.

I kinda draw exception to the idea you won't be improving T2 as much as T1. Many of the T1 ships are now just outright superior to their T2 and faction counterparts.

-Liang

I <3 fozzie! He is the answer to all that complaining I did about ccp never talking about balance and whatnot on the forums!

When are you going to go back and fix the stuff you've already done, like rifter, tristan, etc.? I seem to recall something about 'the days of balance and forget' being over.

When are you going to go back and fix the stuff you've already done, like rifter, tristan, etc.? I seem to recall something about 'the days of balance and forget' being over.

if we wanted to

erm, whats wrong with the rifter if youd ont mind me asking?

blackbird (ECM) -> Falcon/Rook (ECM)
bellicose(TP) -> Rapier/Huginn(Web + TP)
Celestis(SD) -> Arazu/Lachesis (SD + Tackle bonus)
Arbitrator (TD) -> Curse/Pilgrim (TD+Nuet)

So all t1 cruisers get one special bonus, and the recon variants all get 2 except caldari? Is this because the caldari one is more often used?

March 2012 seems like a lifetime ago in terms of EVE development[.] Since that fateful day we have rebalanced Frigates, Mining Barges, Destroyers, and Cruisers.

I'm taking that to mean that you don't want to.



It just can't stand up to merlin or incursus. I don't see a reason to ever fly it over anything else. I forgot to mention punisher though, that's worse than everything.

You're putting your word in his mouth. Perhaps you should rethink that if you want anyone to care what you have to say.

Rifter and Punisher could use perhaps a slight tweak, although in the right hands both can still be very, very useful.

Some of the other changes coming down the pipe may end up fixing the minor problems without specific attention being paid to these two.

Tech2 will be looked at, however, in the new scheme, Tech2 ships shouldn't be plain better than Tech1 in all aspects. They should just be more specialized. So for example, Interceptors should be faster, more agile and far better at tackling that regular Tech1 Frigates, but not necessarily having more EHP or even firepower than regular Tech1 Frigates. Assault Frigates should have more firepower and EHP than Tech1 Frigates, but not necessarily as mobile.

It's about specializing hulls and tradeoffs.

No she's right it was incorrectly saying 400mm until she mentioned it and CCP Guard was nice enough to ninja fix it.

The plus side of all this is I get to watch Quackbot spasm uncontrollably.

Describing it this way, this is an awesome goal. It'll keep all hulls relevant while making the "specialized" ships that much better at their roles.

I'd really like to see *some* idea of what T2 ships will be balanced when though. I know you guys can't--and I'm not asking you to--lay out the next changes verbatim, but a general "we feel X and Y probably need the most love" would be great, and at least give us some idea.

That being said, I personally would love to have a reason to fly my Deimos over my Thorax. :)

If I'm to be completely honest, I don't like the way in which skill implants impose a skill point tax on active PvP players. It seems wrong that since I play daily I end up with fewer SP than someone that only plays on weekends and can use jump clones to spend the week in +5s.

The AARs use the same cycle time, fitting and build requirements as a Tech One armor repairer of the same size. Their blueprint copies are found in all the same places where other blueprints for prototype modules such as the ASB can already be acquired.

I know I will be trolled for asking a question I do not already know the answer to, but I've searched a bit and can't find this info. Where are these other blueprints found? WH? Radar sites? Thx!

M

10% kin dmg bonus for drake, it's more like a bad joke than rebalalancing, killing one ship just to decrease his popularity is not a good way to keep balance. A lot of caldari missile ships suffer from this ridiculous "bonus" now you want to make this ship completely useless for PVP same as for PVE ..well at least cyno blobbers still find use for this cheap caldari brick.

Excellent question. They're in all the same exploration containers as the ASBs and similar prototype module BPCs.

the non cryptic answer is in null sec and in wreaks...

So, how much does nanite paste cost?
How does that compare to the cost of cap booster charges for the ASB?
How much do the blueprints for charges cost? How much do the blueprints for repair paste cost?
What mats are required for making charges, and what mats are required to make nanite paste?
How can you call this "balanced"?

...the weakness of medium railguns...

I'm extremely pleased to see official acknowledgement of the problem with medium rails. My question is, is this going to be addressed anytime soon, or are we going to have to wait until every bloody ship in EVE gets a balance pass before we start looking at the weapon systems? It seems like balancing hulls, important as that is, isn't nearly as important as sorting out things like this. Fiddling with the Ferox only helps the Ferox, whereas fixing rails would help a whole lot of things. You managed to squeeze the HML balance in last expansion, any chance medium rails can see some love this coming expansion?

Why are people comparing the AAR's charges to non-navy cap boosters?
(Though it makes sense for the MASB, not for the others, and there is no SASB *jedi handwave*)

To be true to this image, will CCP also rebalance AT ships? The ones given out in recent years are appropriately powerful, but the older ones have become less and less formidable as EVE evolved. The Mimir, for example, is a known example of a relatively useless AT prize.

Yep we're going to do a pass on them at some point, however I can't say for sure when that will be right now.

Will it be before or after the shuttle rebalance?

Very likely before :)

Why are people comparing the AAR's charges to non-navy cap boosters?

Because, even though the regular cap boosters are quite ineffective due to the sizes involved, the option to pay 1/70th of the cost is there. Where's the civilian nanite repair paste, same repairing power, 33% bigger size, costs 500 ISK to manufacture? Hmm?

Datachips seem to have jumped from 90k to 400k since the announcement.

That change doesn't really require its own dev blog in my opinion, and it's a change I fully support.

The honest truth is that I have no idea why someone back in the day would design the active resistance modules to also have a separate passive effect. It's convoluted and provides very little value.

And considering that we have generally shifted the meta towards a lower number of neuts overs the past few releases, the change helps ensure that capacitor warfare serves a useful role.

Suffice to say, my Dominix will probably still be using the ASB simply because I can dish out more Drone Damage Amplifiers with less risk involved in my Active Tanking.

Hi Fozzie,

Great work compiling all the stuff from the F&I thread into one dev-blog, and I commend you for that! Also, thanks for taking player input so seriously during this process. I am still annoyed at my beloved Canes getting nerfed so hard, but at least you provided good explanations at each step why you were doing it.

I do have some questions about this dev-blog though, as I blogged about yesterday:

1. Why did you guys publish a graph with no indication of where zero is and no scale? Is the bottom of the graph zero?
2. As a result, how many more Drakes are there than Feroxes, and how far has Drake and Cane use dropped (in percent) since their respective nerfs?
3. Will you be providing another updated copy of this graph before the summer release?

I was a big big fan of the former CCP Diagoras and the stats that he published on ship use, number of ships destroyed in PvP versus PvE, and decreasing and increasing use of ships. These same sorts of stats also used to (in the ancient past of two years ago) be published in QENs. Today, the players have do not receive these sorts of stats at all.

Have you considered using a different naming convention for the new armor reps, considering they function differently compared to the ASB's? I'm thinking the word 'ancillary' in both modules implies they are basically the same, when they have a couple of really important differences.

Reiterating this because I think it's important. You could potentially cut down on some confusion and complications without loosing any complexity by naming them differently from their shield counterparts.

What about the Pirate frigates/cruisers rebalance?

Should be coming with the faction ship rebalance. (Worm especially needs one)

Worms should be lowly. A kickass Worm is a contradiction in terms (and also unfair to moles).

Question (and forgive me if this has already been asked): Does the Repair Systems skill reduce the cycle time of the AAR like it does for normal armour repair modules?

Concerning iteration, I was wondering if the rifter is considered balanced now. I have a sensation that the minmatar workhorse became quite outdated after the introduction of the slasher.

Obviously, I am biased, as good old CCP Diagoras made clear: http://twitter.com/CCP_Diagoras/status/185397710394900480

Still... Why would anyone choose it over the faster slasher? The only advantage seems to be the possibility to add a rocket launcher... How about replacing the tracking bonus with a RoF bonus, making it a smaller version of the ruppie?

Suffice to say, my Dominix will probably still be using the ASB simply because I can dish out more Drone Damage Amplifiers with less risk involved in my Active Tanking.

The '"gank" ability of ships hasn't had any real help for years (with the exception of drone damage mods) and really could do with some looking at by the balancing chaps.

This is the expected outcome for a lot of armour repairing ships that have 4+ mids - they'll continue to shield tank for pve or pvp simply because it's better.

The question is:

"In 1.1 the Drake is trading one launcher for a doubled damage bonus, gaining slightly increased potential damage and lower ammo use at the expense of less damage flexibility."

Doen't that mean the drake will in effect, have the fire power of 12 missle lauchers? The math is (7-1) x 2 = 12 . I don't get how double damage bonus of 6 luanchers would slightly increase the potential damage. Someone please explain this to me.

Another great SMA post.

(Not)

As I mentioned in Battlecruiser Reballence thread, I'm a little worried the Drake will loose it's appeal aside for Blob warfare.

love how some of the changes to modules in the latest release of the Patch Notes have been filed under UNCATEGORISED half way down the page when theyre clearly without a shadow of a doubt changes to modules and therefore should be in the Modules section!

is there something ur changing that we all use that you'd rather we glossed over, thinking that stuff in the uncategorised section is not of interest to most players?

how do you justify lumping the changes to passive resists of ALL active shield and armor hardeners in with typo's and localisation issues?


its reminiscent of the old work ethic CCP used to have that got u guys into soooo much hot water not too long ago!
as a customer of yours this feel underhanded and worries me.

Because they are the result of an uncategorised bug I imagine. As the bug was the cause of the change.
Rather than part of module balancing efforts.

Doode , you realize that to fit a ship and get the max out of it takes dedication , time and money....I just get the feeling you are penalizing Vets that can fit ships to the max by removing ship slots...I mean take the cane for example, to have a descent tank , gank and those two neuts , you really have to have a F***k load of sp in the right places.

If a newb gets ganged by a more superior player ...the first thing HE WILLL SHOUT IS , ....its OP! I donGÇÖt want to create the impression IGÇÖm crying bucket loads of tears, cause I am ... but really keep the slots on the ships and just reward players thatGÇÖs willing to put the miles into ships ...to have a **** hot drake or caine.

I mean implement a skill that opens up a slot when trained to lev 5 or something ....or a combination of skills like the race cruiser skill to 5 land maybe elite certificates in core skills.

I think everyone would love to be able to choose a ship they like and say IGÇÖm going to train 6 more months or a year to make this my preferred tool of destruction....and customize the ship according to players abilities...that my friend is something called law of the jungle...you cant go against that lol


It really feels like the ships are losing their individuality and overall appeal and btw so does the races they are all becoming the same. I mean take the shield tanking vs armor tanking scenario...Since I started playing Eve my "elders" told me :


Remember effort = reward

Sorry, I am still not clear on this "If you could fly it before" business. Yes, I know it is not part of this patch.

So, is it that I must be able to get into and fly the **ship** before the changes. Then, I can still fly it after even if I don't have the prerequisites anymore?