What do you guys think? Should Black Ops Battleships be able to fit Covert Ops Cloaking Devices instead of just up to Improved Cloaking?

it already has a 625% cloaked velocity modifier lol

No, because that would lead to the ship class becoming very overpowered. It would become a nigh uncatchable battleship with the ability to covertly cyno in reinforcements. If you want that ability, use a cloaky T3.

I always thought it was stupid that BO can't use a covert cloak. So my vote is to allow it, for consistency among the covert ships, and that it just makes sense. so..

yes

Assume 100 m/s base.

Improved cloak penalty: -75% -> 25 m/s
Black ops V bonus: 625% -> 156 m/s

Wow, amazing bonus.

you're underestimating this bonus

it allows you to warp away almost while still cloaked since you can get up to warp speed while cloaked.

plus you move faster than any other battleship class ship while cloaked.

I say no. I would rather see them have the ability to run their prop mods while the cloaks are on and then apply the velocity bonus. This will them make them unique enough to train for. Imagine sneaking up on a target cloaked at 4-km/s.
Lots of other ships can warp cloaked and tackle, you want something tough and sneaky in a black ops ship, well I do

you're underestimating this bonus

it allows you to warp away almost while still cloaked since you can get up to warp speed while cloaked.

plus you move faster than any other battleship class ship while cloaked.

So a T3 is allowed to do it (with a bubble nullifier, no less!) but a slower, easier to lock, and less agile ship, isn't? I'm sorry, I'm just not seeing the "overpowered" here.

I'm not underestimating it. I'm just not understanding how running away faster from cloaking makes Black Ops worth their SP investment and price tag in any way, especially since T3 already do the running-away aspect magnitudes better than black ops due to nullifiers.

As for moving faster, any battleship-sized vessel with an afterburner or MWD will still outrun it by far, and what's the point of crawling around cloaked in a black ops anyway, if it can't warp without giving itself away on d-scan?

BOs already get bonuses to the improved cloaking device, so, no. the only thing that a covert ops cloak would add is the ability to warp cloaked, which is nice, but not that important.

OP because in the case of the Widow, it also jams

did you just rebut me with a completely different ship class? please explain why the falcon's existence supports the widow getting a covops cloak

Well I was wrong about the range, but yes. The ECM strength is the same so the whole the widow has ECM is a moot point for the covert ops cloak.

The tristan should get a 400m^3 drone bay because the dominix has one.

When the Tristan can field a full flight of heavy drones come back with that comment.

The tristan should be able to field a full flight of heavy drones because the dominix can

The Widow and Falcon have had the same ECM strength bonus for a long time. They were both designed with that same bonus. The only difference of there E-War capabilities is the covert ops cloaking device.

But the Widow has more EHP than the Falcon: And the Scorpion has more EHP (even before the odyssey BS balancing) than the Widow.

No, because that would lead to the ship class becoming very overpowered. It would become a nigh uncatchable battleship with the ability to covertly cyno in reinforcements. If you want that ability, use a cloaky T3.

They make for very lousy black ops due to not having the ability to warp while cloaked, and that's made obvious by how unpopular they are. I still don't understand why CCP decided that a ship type designed specifically for stealth doesn't get the same tools as other ship types in the same category.

You know using blackops successfully involves jumping to the target and not warping to it right? They could have no cloak bonus whatsoever and still be as good.

I blops, k? i love them. but really, for DPS, blops with covops cloak only needs to go as high as a rook. sig radius/strength in numbers. you don't need a covops cloak widow... you need more rooks and falcons, is the solution.

Really, now? What ever happened to roaming PvP gangs? Or are we just playing Hot-Drops Online now?

admit it: you wouldn't even like the widow if it still looked like this

What do you guys think? Should Black Ops Battleships be able to fit Covert Ops Cloaking Devices instead of just up to Improved Cloaking?

I'm not dismissing the usefulness of a Black Ops having a jump drive, but if the only merit of this ship type involves being cyno'd straight into battle, why wouldn't everyone just use a carrier for it instead? The difference in price isn't really that large, and a carrier can project a lot more DPS on target, tank like a champ, and even provide logistic support for the rest of the gang.

I'm not underestimating it. I'm just not understanding how running away faster from cloaking makes Black Ops worth their SP investment and price tag in any way, especially since T3 already do the running-away aspect magnitudes better than black ops due to nullifiers.

Signed. If I'm paying that cost for the hull and that much in skills, cov ops is what I'd expect. I wouldn't even mind losing the cloaked velocity bonus. I'm hoping we see this in their round of tiericide, whenever that ends up being.

What do you guys think? Should Black Ops Battleships be able to fit Covert Ops Cloaking Devices instead of just up to Improved Cloaking?

The DPS on all hulls is fairly anemic. What they should really do is decouple the bridging aspect of the Blops to a different (or even new) ship. A covert cloaked Blops without the bridging ability would work in my opinion and not be too overpowered at all.

Of course this makes too much sense (and is highly opinionated), so whatever.

What do you guys think? Should Black Ops Battleships be able to fit Covert Ops Cloaking Devices instead of just up to Improved Cloaking?

Only on Wednesdays if the corner bistro has served some kind of gyro in the daily specials...

Nah, 2 classes would be the best solution, like all T2 ships has

And to the person that suggested the AWESOMO kill stats of BLOPS on various killboard metrics: You know damn well that these ships are only committed when the battle is already more than favorable to them. BLOPS are only used in the Sun Tzu moments where you know the enemy is screwed, and you are just going through the motions. That is why most fits rarely have any sort of EHP and fit straight for gank (excluding the Widow).

While there are always exceptions...I would think most agree that BLOPS are used when the "It's a Trap" situation comes and they feel cozy in the fight.

Really, now? What ever happened to roaming PvP gangs? Or are we just playing Hot-Drops Online now?

I'm not dismissing the usefulness of a Black Ops having a jump drive, but if the only merit of this ship type involves being cyno'd straight into battle, why wouldn't everyone just use a carrier for it instead? The difference in price isn't really that large, and a carrier can project a lot more DPS on target, tank like a champ, and even provide logistic support for the rest of the gang.

Some people drop them in real fights with either triage carrier support or logistic T3. I've personally witnessed Snuff Box doing it to great effect.

it already has a 625% cloaked velocity modifier lol

You know when you fit a prototype cloacking device or improved cloaking device your ship speed is reduced between 75 and 90%?

Try it out and tell me how fast you go with your Blops all lvl's with and improved cloak device or a Prototype one.

Improved cloaking device

Prototype Cloaking Device

*Dump the speed bonus when cloak and let it use Cover Cloaking device

*Add dmg projection bonus OR tackling bonus OR tank bonus

72.5% with a cheap faction cloak

http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Caldari_Navy_Cloaking_Device

means that the ship will be moving 72% faster while cloaked.

Who cares if it can move fastet while cloaked, you would need to warp to grid where target is uncloaked so target will already see you anyway and at that point a T1 BS would do the same job alot better for alot cheaper. It has covert cyno you say...and, you need to drop it right next to target and at that point a SB would be better or once again warp uncloaked to target. And yes I have been in plenty BO gangs and 90% of the time the bridger does only that, bridges.

BOs are weak enough right now that without any other changes, giving them a Cov Ops cloak wouldn't make them overpowered, although you'd have to put in a targeting delay after decloaking.

The problem is CCP is eventually going to address Black Ops (or so we hope) and when they do, we have no idea how they'll be balanced.

Every other CovOps capable ship is balanced by a lack of DPS, with the exception of the bomber which is balanced around a lack of anything but DPS. So, if Black Ops are given a CovOps cloak it stands to reason they would have to sacrifice one or the other. Sacrificing DPS doesn't make sense unless you make Black Ops into E-war ships, and then they overlap with recons. Removing the tank would mean flying a slow billion isk ship with no tank, which isn't very appealing.

So how do you balance it so it's worth the cost while at the same time not turning the ship into a solo pwn mobile?

Blops with a covert cloak would be dumb as hell.

Assume 100 m/s base.

Improved cloak penalty: -75% -> 25 m/s
Black ops V bonus: 625% -> 156 m/s

Wow, amazing bonus.

The Blops cloaked speed multiplier is unique and actually has a niche role.. The Panther can reach well over 600m/s with a CONCORD cloak active. Take a look at ARGH28's Panther alpha kills on gatecamps on YouTube.

I have an alpha-fit Panther for sh*ts & giggles that volleys 9k and does 500m/s cloaked, and one-shots anything less than a cruiser (as long as it's stationary, which a lot of nubs on gatecamps are).

I think the real issue is that Blops are supposed to be flown as part of a gang or fleet and are defined as support ships. They were never meant to be flown solo, and it's solo pilots who are wishing for the covops bonus.

Not going to happen guys, not under current bonuses. A Covops BS with zero % retargetting delay after decloaking is way, WAY OP.

That said, CCP *did* briefly entertain the idea of splitting the Blops into two roles in a recent vid (sorry, can't remember which).

Something's going to change, maybe this autumn, but what?

why would a black ops have a 0% retargetting delay. Minimum delay for cloaking has always been 5 seconds even with highest skills trained. Then theres the gimped BS targetting time. Id rather a Blops decloaked and locked me with cov ops than T3 sinceT3 is 5 sec and much faster scan res.

Because the Black-ops have a role bonus simular to stealth bonus on decloaking,

and although it sounds pretty op, I can asure you it isn't. the scan resolution of B.O.'s make's sure that without any boosts, anything but a freighter will be able to warp aftert a BO decloaks.

SB's have a 300+ scan resolution the BO's have a third of that. then there is the fact that E-war doesn't come in sizes, so the recons will still be better at their game, because they will lock faster, are faster, their weapons will do better damage against smaller targets. SB's are exactly the same, are faster lock faster and have a better damage aplication, not to mention bombs.

No, PL was using a fleet of BLOPS to attack the CFC not that long ago, I was told by a friend who was involved in defending against them the addition of the MJD makes them very difficult to pin down, make them able to warp cloaked and they will be unstoppable.

Why would they be unstoppable?
You now you can use long range scrams to stop them and kick their thin poor tank ass?

A single double rep Proteus with links and a couple friends can decimate them one by one, first because they don't have such a powerful dps or when they have their tank is really paper, second because Blop drops will only pick on the lonely weak or dumbs running away the moment they see a cyno.

Man up and undock with a couple friends in auto canes (+600dps+1neut) kick their ass, even if you kill a single of them they'll move away with a +1B loss already, get insta canes or SFI blap those bombers etc.

The idea of a BO BS is great though I am not sure that a very clear role was ever defined for it. I personally would keep the jump and covert cyno abilities as well as fit the covert ops cloak to it.

With the covert ops cloak I would remove the scan res penalty as well as dramatically improve its tanking ability.

To finish it off I would remove all turrets and launchers from it and give it logistic abilities. This would give it the role as a covert ops utility platform making covert ops a realistic role to be that forward, self contained hit and run black ops assassin squad.

The simple idea of having a bs class covert ops killer ship just seams wrong when looking at it in relations to other covert ops ships and their weaknesses / strengths as well as looking at what is missing within the covert ops team, which as yet has no utility ship.

Why?

Dump the speed bonus for the ability to fit Cover Ops Cloaking Device sticks far better with a Cover Ops ship BS sized.

Why would this make them OP? -you can't probe them in warp, you can't probe them once out of warp and hit cloak anyways unless the pilot is really really dumb or drunk enough to jump instead of bridge.

You always know when a Blops gang is around when they killed some stuff, not because of their eventual ability to warp to whatever safe spot cloak, this is a bad argument.

T3 do a pretty good job at being bridgeable logis, I really don't see the point of making the role of blackops overlap with T3/carriers.

Maybe in 0.0, but in lowsec Black Ops range span multiple regions and no one got intel network casting such a wide net.

E.g. that range from a Black Ops from Osoggur at JDC 4 covers 84 lowsec systems over 7 regions. If you can't achieve surprise under those conditions, you are truly hopeless.

http://evemaps.dotlan.net/range/Panther,4/Osoggur