I want to respond to a few of these points since they seem to be coming up a lot, though I'm not sure why.

First the tank - I showed you the armor tank that people are most likely to use, 2 plate, 2eanm, 1 dcu - this is the standard mega armor tank and its still completely viable. Now, you have the same tank, similar damage, but your ship goes faster and you have an extra mid. Seems like a fair trade.

And as far as the Talos. I would never expect this ship to compete with the Talos as a roaming kiter. That is not whats intended by "fast and agile". If you want to see some value from fast and agile, think about a situation where you have a new shiny armageddon tackled by your friend in a stiletto. The geddon is perma jammed by your friend in a blackbird. But! You have just jumped through the gate and are 35k away from the armageddon! Now, as you close in, the armageddon has 2 friends show up! An oneiros and a falcon. Now you have to make a run for the gate as fast as possible. This is just one example of where a BS's speed matters. If you are in a hyperion, you will struggle to get over there and apply damage in anywhere near the time-frame that this attack mega can. There's many other examples, but I just want to make the point that just because a ship can't kite as well as a Talos, that doesn't mean speed is not important.

As a final point for comparing BS vs Tier3 BC. Always consider the way they would perform vs each other. How does this new mega do in a 1v1 vs a Talos?

and you don't gain much from having more bay than the dominix already does.

As far as the dominix and its old unpredictability, I expect that to be completely preserved. It won't be capable of the highest damage numbers of any battleship now, but it can still fit blasters across the top and run mag stabs along with drone damage amps and heavy drones.

As a final point for comparing BS vs Tier3 BC. Always consider the way they would perform vs each other. How does this new mega do in a 1v1 vs a Talos?

Losing a heavy drone, while switching to ROF means no change (actually, it's an ever so slight loss in DPS). Losing a Magstab on top of that however, means it's actually a significant loss.

Basically:
7 guns, 5% dmg bonus = 8.75 turrets + 2 mag stabs (+47%) = 12.9
7 guns, 5% RoF = 9.33 turrets + 1 mag stab (+23%) = 11.5

and if you have more than about 2 people in fleet you would be better off having someone in a logi to rep you anyways, due to how horribad active armor tanking is on large ships.

But I love the neut on my mega

With these changes it [megathron] will be a great roaming BS yet also able to fill roles in larger fleets.

They are hoping that we'll dual prop the mega with an MJD. That would be interesting, maybe if the boat could naturally target out to 110kms or so. That way you could land and immediately scram/web the target but all that will happen is that the target will burn range before you lock. And if you go with this concept then you have to buffer armor tank, meaning any bonus to speed and agility is now lost to trimarks. Cap and fitting will be a big issue with dual prop and the boat will be very gimped. So I guess you could take the utility high and stick it in a low but a Mega without a Heavy Neut will be a very stuck Mega. Once scrammed it will be immobile and unable to apply DPS. So better to just get into an APOC and who cares if your tackled? You have lolscorch and Mega tracking, oh and drones, to kill everything.

So maybe go 7/5/7 (6 guns, 1 utility high) and up the Damage to 7.5% or something so that there is no loss in DPS. Up CPU and Grid to make it all work?

I do want to look at the dominix power grid and see if it we can't find a better balance with the Armageddon, by adjusting one or the other.

This is absolutely wrong ! This is a myth ! A LAAR+LAR or triple rep hyperion tank more than an abaddon with oneiros repair !

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.

Losing a heavy drone, while switching to ROF means no change (actually, it's an ever so slight loss in DPS). Losing a Magstab on top of that however, means it's actually a significant loss.

Basically:
7 guns, 5% dmg bonus = 8.75 turrets + 2 mag stabs (+47%) = 12.9
7 guns, 5% RoF = 9.33 turrets + 1 mag stab (+23%) = 11.5

Not to rain on your parade, but just use drones for neuting have get them to buff them so they work better.

I keep thinking that removing the 1 high on the mega and put it in the mid is the way to go. This along with fixes to drones could make the mega extremely potent as a shield or armor tank with a full flight of drones for dps or utility.

Of course this would mean making heavy drones not suck in pvp...

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)

Thanks for confirming, seemed like less DPS after the change but wasn't sure the exact numbers.

[quote=Olaf4862]

Using 4 Praetor EV-900s, you'd neut 100GJ less cap per 24s (heavy neut cycle time) than the neut. Add that to losing 200+dps to not having heavy drones (or 150+dps for mediums), and that the drones can be killed super easy, and this is a terrible idea. Neut drones are bad.