Incursus - Impressively Fast. Active rep bonus.
Brutix - Very fast. Active rep bonus.
Hyperion - Floating Brick. Active rep bonus.

Wut?

Make the Hyperion 7-5-7. Give it a 10% damage bonus. Make the damn thing go fast. Shake n' Bake. This by it's nature should be the Assault BS.

The Mega used to be favored for tracking, damage and rails. It would be the obvious choice for fleets if it were fixed.

That math is wrong, CCP. 50% faster ROF does not double times fired in a period of time, a 100% ROF bonus would do that. 50% isn't doubling something (2x), it's a 1.5x multiplier. Thus, the argument of "lel twice as many shots in same time!" is actually 1.5 times as many shots in given unit of time, and, obviously, not twice the damage. Your explanation is completely flawed. I thought you guys were programmers??

im not sure the domi needs all those high slots...

imo i would prefer you move a high to a mid

so this is what i would like to see

Gallente Battleship Skill Bonuses:
+10% Drone Damage and Drone hitpoints
+10% Drone optimal range and Drone tracking speed (replaces large hybrid turret damage)

Slot layout: 5H(-1), 6M(+1), 7L; 5 turrets (-1) , 0 launchers
Fittings: 9000 PWG, 600 CPU
Defense (shields / armor / hull) : 7200(+1731) / 8000(+1789) / 8500(+1859)
Capacitor (amount / recharge rate / cap per second) : 6000(+1000) / 1087s / 5.51
Mobility (max velocity / agility / mass / align time): 109 / .1254 / 100250000(+3150000) / 16.88s
Drones (bandwidth / bay): 125 / 375
Targeting (max targeting range / Scan Resolution / Max Locked targets): 70km / 90 / 7
Sensor strength: 22 Magnetometric Sensor Strength
Signature radius: 465(+45)

Megathron:

Let me say it right out - 8 high, 5 mid, 6 low. With the Megathron moving into an attack role explicitly, we felt that it could really focus on its strengths as a flexible, fast, hybrid damage machine. The new slot layout opens options like dual propulsion with microwarp drive as well as microjump drive. It opens options to tank with shield or armor. It offers more ewar resilience or tackle. The sum of all of these examples is a ship that feels more like a tempest, less like a Hyperion. For us, this matches the intended personality of an attack ship, and we hope you agree.

We've also moved some of its damage from drones to the guns by switching the damage bonus to a rate of fire bonus (rate of fire bonus are more efficient because of the way the math works. Think about how a ship with 50% bonus to rate of fire would shoot twice as often, doing double damage. That would be the same as a 100% turret damage bonus). The result is that more of your damage can capitalize on the tracking bonus, at a small penalty to cap need.

As one of Eve's most iconic ships, we expect you to have strong opinions here. Please share them. We're very excited about this version of the ship and hope you are too!

Gallente Battleship Skill Bonuses:
+5% Large Hybrid Turret rate of fire (replaces large hybrid turret damage)
+7.5% Large Hybrid Turret tracking speed

Slot layout: 8H, 5M(+1), 6L(-1); 7 turrets , 0 launchers(-2)
Fittings: 16000 PWG(+500), 550 CPU(+25)
Defense (shields / armor / hull) : 6300(+89) / 6500(-141) / 7500
Capacitor (amount / recharge rate / cap per second) : 5800(+175) / 1087s / 5.02 (+.15)
Mobility (max velocity / agility / mass / align time): 122(+7) / .117(-.0046) / 98400000 / 15.96s (-.63s)
Drones (bandwidth / bay): 100(-25) / 125
Targeting (max targeting range / Scan Resolution / Max Locked targets): 72.5km / 95 / 7
Sensor strength: 21 Magnetometric Sensor Strength
Signature radius: 380(-20)

Good post about the Domi.

People tended to run light armor tanks (2 plates 2eanms 1dcu 2 mag stab)

Hyperion:

The Hyperion in a tight spot. We can acknowledge that for the moment active armor tanking is struggling to find a place. We know that many of you would be happier to have the Hyperion lose this bonus and pick up something more practical in today's Eve. However, we're committed to helping armor find its place, and so, to keep continuity with the rest of the Gallente line-up, the Hyp will keep its current bonuses.

It will be gaining a low slot (giving up a mid), hopefully making its purpose as a pure brawler more realistic.

Gallente Battleship Skill Bonuses:
+5% Large Hybrid Turret damage
+7.5% Armor Repair amount

Slot layout: 8H, 4M(-1), 7L(+1); 8 turrets , 0 launchers(-1)
Fittings: 15750 PWG, 600 CPU
Defense (shields / armor / hull) : 7500 / 8000 / 8500
Capacitor (amount / recharge rate / cap per second) : 7200 / 1250s / 4.8
Mobility (max velocity / agility / mass / align time): 115 / .1178 / 100200000 / 16.36s
Drones (bandwidth / bay): 100 / 100
Targeting (max targeting range / Scan Resolution / Max Locked targets): 60km / 110 / 7
Sensor strength: 23 Magnetometric Sensor Strength
Signature radius: 485

I must say, you guys do have a theatrical flair.

Look its 10pm and I'm trying to keep caught up on this, but I promise tomorrow we will go back through this Gal lineup and see if we can resolve some of the frustration.

I know I tried to lay out our intentions in the OP, but I want to lay it out again, just to make sure we're on the same page. I understand that many of you here aren't satisfied so we'll go back over it tomorrow and look at our options. In the mean time maybe this will help.

In the Megathron and the Hyperion, we had two ships that more or less shared some space. They were both armor focused blaster brawlers. The mega was armor focused because of its slot layout - but it had increased utility from one extra high slot and a larger drone bay, and also had an easier time applying damage because of the tracking bonus. Then we had the Hyperion which was bonused to look more like a heavy brawler - focused completely on damage and tank, because of having no utility high, less drones, and a tank focused bonus instead of tracking.

In my personal experience, I felt both ships came up short because they didn't play to their strengths enough. The mega seemed like it wanted to be more like a tempest, less concerned with tank, more focused on utility. A heavy tackler, a hit and run ship (MJD), a ship that could move fast and gank if supported. People tended to run light armor tanks (2 plates 2eanms 1dcu 2 mag stab) as the basic setup, but sometimes tried active setups which usually used more lows for tank. The hyp on the other hand always had almost all lows dedicated to tanking because of only having 6, and so its damage struggled to compete (unless it was some kind of shield fit).

The plan here was to fill in both ships' strength. The hyp would provide more power in pure tank and dps by having an extra low for mag stab or TE or resists, and it would sacrifice some utility. The mega would have more utility, again, playing to its strength - and the increased damage from turrets would make up for the lost low somewhat.

I can see many of you don't agree, and thats fine. I want you guys to love these ships so we're going to spend some time going over feedback and see what looks like a good direction to go.

I think if at all possible, we'd like to keep the armor rep bonus on the Hyperion. Its just too late in the ship line to toss out Gallente's signature tank bonus, despite the fact that many of you might want us to.

We are willing to consider many of the suggestions so far. Rolling another bonus into the rep bonus (like rep cap use) could be possible, changing the slot allocation, and adjusting fittings to give it more room are all on the table.

Thanks for the feedback, it won't be ignored.

[quote=Cambarus]

Maybe replace the damage bonus with a + drone control bonus? 10 Non-damage bonused drones would give it a reasonable amount of damage (+33% over 5 with a damage bonus, or just a hair over 1k DPS with a full set of gardes + 4 DDAs) while making it FEEL like more of a drone boat, rather than the proposed change that makes it feel like a drone/hybrid mix that just got a damage bonus removed.

The problem here is that a Battleship will never be fast or agile enough for these changes to matter much. All it means is you're putting the Megathron into the slot of "kinda sorta fast for a BS but will pop before it ever reaches blaster range".

What would happen if:
You swapped the rolls of the mega and hyperion?

I know the Art dept would never let you get away with a 7 high slot hyperion so...

Megathron
7/5/7
Becomes the tanky in your face brawler.

Hyperion
8/4/7
Gets tracking bonus, becomes the fleet ship or agile generic dps machine

Domi
6/6/7
Gets the right number of slots, trading dps for more versatility

Ah yes, the Armageddon vs Dominix.


I think the drone bay thing is kind of odd. Up the ship line you have Amarr with more bay, less bandwidth and Gallente vice versa, but at the BS scale you really can't give a drone ship less than max bandwidth, and you don't gain much from having more bay than the dominix already does. I didn't want to lower the dominix bay, so we just set the armageddon equal.

The mega seemed like it wanted to be more like a tempest, less concerned with tank, more focused on utility. A heavy tackler, a hit and run ship (MJD), a ship that could move fast and gank if supported.

Now go plug in every tank you can think of into the Megathron and bear in mind a respectable BS' EHP is around 120k. Hardly anyone uses the Tempest seriously for a reason!

Making an "agile and fast" battleship is all fine and dandy, except the Talos exists and will always fill that role several orders of magnitude more effectively in the Gallente lineup.

The problem here is that a Battleship will never be fast or agile enough for these changes to matter much. All it means is you're putting the Megathron into the slot of "kinda sorta fast for a BS but will pop before it ever reaches blaster range".

The "tier 3" / assault battlecruisers are filling the role you're trying to shoehorn these ships into. Don't. You're just making them into inferior choices when they already had their own niche.

Moving Sentries

This sounds like reasonable setup and also ditch the ROF bonus on the Mega, unless you plan to boost cap recharge on it.