:( @ the 2/4/4 on the frig; needs more highs for pew pew and cloak/probe. 4/4/4 would be great!

On the Astero, it does not get a drone damage bonus. Hypothetically speaking if it did get a bonus are the following DPS values too much for a frigate? Using Hobgoblin IIs
1 DDA 182.6 DPS
2 DDA 219.17 DPS
3 DDA 247.93 DPS (lol Shield Tanked)
4 DDA 264.06 DPS (Trolol Shield Tanked)

Hiiiiii

I'm very sorry you guys had to wait 60 pages for us to comment here. If you didn't know (we tried to be kind of quiet about it) we had a company trip out of the country this weekend and weren't anywhere near the forums for several days.

I can't say anything yet on the ships because I have to catch up quite a bit of reading first and then probably chat with the balance team. Thanks a lot for all the feedback and I promise to be back shortly with some comments.

The cloak is the whole point of the ship. It would be yet another drone cruiser without it.

Hey wanted to check in again.

We've been talking about these ships quite a lot the last day or two and still aren't settled on making any changes. I think we're in a relatively good spot, which is great. We do have some minor concerns about the power level that comes with a resist bonus and a full drone bandwidth allocation. That said, with no projection or application bonuses and larger sig there's still no way the Stratios can compete with the Ishtar at a fleet level so it's just a matter of figuring out if it's too much at a smaller scale, which is debatable to say the least.

We are also talking about the virus strength issue and there's good arguments on both sides. I think any change here will wait until we decide about the rest of the ship and be made in relation to those changes (for instance if it lost any damage output it would seem very sensible to increase the virus strength).

For now, I want to let this sit a bit longer while we think things over and see how the sisi feedback plays out.

Thanks for the discussion!

Alright, after a lot of feedback and discussion I'm going to share what will likely be the last set of tweaks to the Stratios and Astero before launch.

We feel that while there are significant weaknesses in the cruiser that do balance it against major abuse, it's simply too strong in its current state. The combination of the covert cloak, black ops portal access and extremely high damage potential make for a ship that does a bit more than we are comfortable with. To tone it down slightly we are going to lower the drone bandwidth to 100mb/s and the drone bay to 400m3.

The ship will still have very high damage potential and will certainly still be very powerful overall.

This also makes me feel better about some other small changes that improve the ship, so we'll also be increasing the virus strength bonus to +10 and changing the laser cap use bonus to a medium energy turret optimal range bonus of 50%. We will also extend the virus strength bonus to the Astero.

Please post with feedback, but keep in mind that these changes are made after processing tons of feedback from the forums, my visit to EVE Vegas and a lot of internal discussion.

Thanks

Ishtar

Ishkur (this is easy)

Agreed. Why give it split weapon bonuses in the first place?

... Armour bonuses (amarr) and drone bonuses (gallente) along with the specialized ability to use a cover cloak was already enough to qualify it as a pirate faction cruiser.

Which battleships can the blaster gank version actually kill? If you're sitting at 2500m with keep at range you take full DPS from their guns and drones, you'll pop before they do unless you managed to catch them with a shitload of rat aggro and the rats don't switch targets at all. With my neut fit you can orbit at 7500-10000m and speedtank BS weapons down to very low DPS and kill basically anything that's not running multiple heavy neuts or webs.

what the hell are you doing in lowsec?!

Yep we thought of something like this also, but really it's much worse. Like others said above, the hp isn't nearly as useful on the cruiser, and it's a huge damage nerf. 50% instead of 20%.

That's a very interesting idea. Two sentries becomes equivalent to four and a flight of mediums deals the same damage as a full flight of heavies.

What are you trying to achieve with an approach like this?

That would be STUPIDLY overpowered against smaller ships.

This is a cool idea. Super scout drones.