While the Bastion module is active can you be neuted?

at the moment my first reaction is i HATE these changes.

I fly the Kronos more then any other ship in eve, and i am training the Paladin now.
Tell me what is the point of killing anything outside of 40KM range in a ship that cant move. Your making it so stuff takes longer.

And a nerf to the drones??
At the moment i fly with a set of salvage, scout and change between a set of 5 medium or 3 heavy/sentry drones.
I always thought this ship would be getting more drone ability, not less.

Not one of these changes has addressed that fact that other (pirate) ships do better then these ships.

The changes seem great for PVP
But not one single person who has trained these skills for this ship has done so for this reason.
I think you are giving new people a reason to train these at the expensive of everyone that trained these for their original purpose.

Just wondering on what the odds of these making decent anti-blap dread ships are.

Coast into Siege Bastion under prop (MWD or AB, whatever) while moving with semi-****** transversal, activate bastion, laugh as their attempts to web/paint you for the tracking dread overlords fail?

Of course there is the downside that you'll drift to the point that you've minimized transversal while still in range and die eventually... but if you haven't used your MJD, can you activate it during bastion (say, 10-30 seconds in) and jump out before you're in prime blapping range?

I wonder how these will work, and if you'll be able to MJD during it. That'll also make GTFOing real easy, unless you've got enemies waiting 100km in front of you.

I'm thinking these changes are pretty sweet. The range, tank and EWar immunity is awesome, but I'm just wondering how many ways there are to break things :)

Overall I'm intrigued by the changes. I'm more of general idea person rather than a specific numbers based guy so this is my opinion thus far:

• Screw the whole bastion thing. It's unnecessary and if you are trying to make marauders a stepping stone to dreads, why give them a completely unrelated skill. That seems totally counter intuitive and counterproductive. They should just make a new type of siege module specifically for marauders that have a lower training time than the maybe the standard siege mod, but still linked to the same skill.
• If you keep the Bastion Blah Blah Skill (or tie it into the siege skill), then change the bonus for Marauders. Having a skill that reduces Siege time is a bad idea in terms of fleet management. Especially if these are meant to be dread step-stones, then there is a good chance that people won't have perfect skills for them. Because of that and the way the skill is proposed to work, there is a high chance of people who have different Bastion(siege) timers than others. In terms of fleet management, having people with longer or shorter timers could be potentially headache inducing. Maybe change the bonus to increased tank in bastion mode, or reduced ammo consumption somehow?

You both do know that the Paladin has a 5% damage bonus (10 effective turrets at level V BS, so always 10 effective turrets), the Kronos has a 5% damage bonus (same as above) and the Vargur has a 5% RoF bonus (10.666 turrets).

Just saying.

Yes, this can be used in high-sec of course. You just get a weapon timer (requires security to be turned off though).

Do not underestimate the use of the bastion module, even for missions. The innate tank allows removal of tanking modules on fittings and the projection bonus helps a lot as well. I remember reaching 55-60km falloff on a Null Neutron Blaster Kronos on our internal test server

Only one bastion module may be fitted, but the resistance given don't stack, just like Damage Control. You can still fit one -with- a damage control though.

When I first saw this post I'll admit I was a little horrified, but I told myself I'd give it a couple of hours before I post anything. As time goes by I feel somewhat more acceptance to the idea. Some thoughts on the new bastion module and changes to the marauder hulls.

The bastion module is an interesting idea, and I like how ccp is trying something new by providing a way that people can hunker down in certain situations. Deciding to use the module in pvp situations is going to be a big decision though, because you're essentially forfeiting your ability to escape from a fight should the balance of it change sometime as it plays out. Its a big commitment, and a big drawback to the design, and it should be balanced with a powerful set of advantages. I hope that the omission of a sig rad bonus to large missiles was an oversight, though, it would be nice to see some equivalent feature for missile users.

As for the hulls themselves, I like the changes to powergrid, but I feel like the inclusion of another unbonused high slot isn't really necessary. My personal feeling is that the bonus to tractor beams should be removed completely. Marauders are never going to be as effective as a noctis. Putting that highslot back into lows or mids would be a much better choice, as players using a marauder for pvp are going to find that theres going to be a lot of pressure to fit cap booster etc. Leaving two free will let player use smarbombs, nosferatus, neuts, proble launchers, cloak etc just fine.

Also, marauders are already very light in terms of EHP. Reducing it even further is probably not the best choice. As it stands they're already very vulnerable to tornado camps in highsec. Compared to the tens of thousands of ehp these ships would be able to generate over the course of a fight where the dps incoming was at or less than the level of their tanks, a slightly stronger base ehp would be insignificant, and in a fleet fight it wouldn't do anything to improve their survivability against being primaried. What it would do is to balance out the profit threshold of a tornado camp somewhat, and give players coming out of a station who are being targeted precious seconds to decide what to do.

Summing it up, I think its a good start, but theres a lot of work left to be done to get it right, and achieving a balance ship that people are going to want to use is going to be tough.

Edit: Idk Im feeling a little wishy washy about the module. Part of me feels like id rather see a very strong hull with some of the dawbacks of the module, but without having to use it. That would give people a few more options as far as fitting goes, while keeping a ship that feels less like a mobile coffin.

Incursion Impact:

In most incursion fleets, there is a significant need for sniper boats. All of the current sniper battleships will be set aside for these new Siege Battleships, and the SP training time will be make incursions even more elitist, and anti-new player.


Instead of getting frigates into high level incursions, (which I think is very much needed to: engage new players, player retention, etc); CCP is again raising the SP bar, and making it even harder for New Players to engage in a great Feature.

One more time:

Create Marauder / Frigate synergies to exemplify the "Marauder Hit and Run Harassment Meme."

Lots of options here. But, a battleship supporting frigates is such a freakin' awesome idea, right???

1. Frigate MWD Fleet bonuses.
2. Frigate Racial Fleet Bonuses in a Marauder Fleet.
3. Marauder Micro-Jump Portal Generator that paints ships 200km away, and allow frigate pilots to activate the portal and jump 10km away from the target that was 200km away.

Bring New Players into the Awesomeness! Make it so everyone is looking for new frigate pilots! Let Marauders be the tool that does it!

Highsec missions are the ONLY thing I see this module being useful for. The inability to receive remote reps = not usable in incursions. The "cannot move for the duration of the module cycle" = not usable in lowsec, nullsec or wormholes. And it now looks like you have balanced marauders around the expectation that they will use this module.

No offense, highsec mission runners didn't need this. IMHO leaivng the tank alone and increasing the damage output of marauders over other BSes would have been far more useful as you would still have your "ultimate carebearmobile" but it would also be usable by lowsec/nullsec mission runners, nullsec ratters, and even good in some classes of wormholes.

The only possible PvP use I could see for the Bastion module would be for some ASB/AAR gimmick fit designed to play station games in lowsec.

[quote=CCP Ytterbium]
Highsec missions are the ONLY thing I see this module being useful for. The inability to receive remote reps = not usable in incursions. .

What about converting tactical logistics reconfiguration to a percentage reduction in fuel use, adding a fuel bay to marauders, using heavy water as originally considered?

It would be nice to have a better range bonus for tractors, along with tractor speed and salvager cycle time or salvage chance when the bastion is active. A marauder could have the same range as a Noctis without being too efficient since the Noctis has more tractors, more salvagers, and is more likely to have salvage tackle fitted. If the marauder can't salvage the wrecks created at maximum range while en-bastion-ed, that kinda reduces the attractiveness of this ship for PvE. Even a 200% bonus to range will still make salvaging in a marauder more attractive :)

The current elitist view of incursions is entirely the result of the player-base, not CCP. You very much can do incursions in T1 battleships with reasonable efficacy. That most of the major groups don't accept them with any regularity is their decision to prefer isk efficiency over being inclusive. If you want incursions to be more inclusive then be more inclusive in who you take on your fleets. A higher SP player is always going to be preferable to a lower SP one.

Besides that you seem to be trying to turn these into something they currently do not resemble in any way that is specifically geared toward a single aspect of the game (incursions) rather than having any sort of application outside that. These are not command ships, that was last month's thread.

My only concern here is the vargur losing 1000 hull. Why? It makes no sense at all while all the other ships are either gaining hull or armor in smaller bits but nothing compared to the hull nerf of the vargur. Does it really need that much nerfing? The overall EHP of the vargur is way less than the other ships. Can you not do that please?

Listen if you want to hate on a Minmatar ship then hate on the Wreathe or something. It just isnt right tbh.

All in all, this would make it a MASSIVELY AMAZING OVERPOWERED RATTINGSHIP.. but it would be useless in pvp.. and thats what marauders should be.

Highsec missions are the ONLY thing I see this module being useful for. The inability to receive remote reps = not usable in incursions. The "cannot move for the duration of the module cycle" = not usable in lowsec, nullsec or wormholes. And it now looks like you have balanced marauders around the expectation that they will use this module.

No offense, highsec mission runners didn't need this. IMHO leaivng the tank alone and increasing the damage output of marauders over other BSes would have been far more useful as you would still have your "ultimate carebearmobile" but it would also be usable by lowsec/nullsec mission runners, nullsec ratters, and even good in some classes of wormholes.

The only possible PvP use I could see for the Bastion module would be for some ASB/AAR gimmick fit designed to play station games in lowsec.

I do understand the point of isk/hour ...

But, by having Marauders supporting frigates, like being able to micro-jump-portal them to the front lines, the SP barrier is broken....

That was the point of my entire suggestion.

CCP WANTS to redefine the Marauders, so your objection that I am turning them into something they are not, and making them more in line with CCP's "Vision" of them .... well, yeah, that's exactly what I am trying to support.

Allow frigate pilots and Marauders to have awesome synergy in hit and run raiding / marauding operations.

What is so wrong with this?

Frigates that can be pushed out instantly 200km away in the middle of an incursion fleet would be STUPID awesome. The PVP ramifications are INCREDIBLE.

Tournaments would be VERY awesome ....

New players would be able to participate with MUCH lower SP.

It would be a beautiful world.

"Rebalancing" isn't just about ships, it is also about "Roles" .... and the "Role" of the frigate pilot could be substantially increased if Marauders were used to support them in "Marauding" tactics.