There is very little difference. When a covops cloaker decloaks he has to wait 6 seconds (noone trains Cloaking V) before he can lock you. Your imp cloaker is visible in warp, but he can lock immediately after landing on grid. You don't get much more warning against the latter, even if you spam dscan.

Well... OK. It's true, but actually I have said that it should duplicate CovOps cloak in any way except cloak warping so recalibration delay can be simply not totally removed but reduced to the same 6 seconds as for CovOps.

The point is to make these ships much like Combat/Force Recons in terms of gank/stealthiness

plz dont force us to use lasers....
as a pilot who has every race but amar skilled (ships and weapons) and enjoys exploration this sucks cause i have to train both cruisers 5 and med weapons 5 just to use those awesome ships... if i could use any turret weapon on them it would be way better

......which also does nothing, as the recalibration timer will expire while they're warping.

Well, isn't it lovely that auto cannons can switch their damage type, and are good everywhere? See the problem with lasers against tengus, for example, is that if you use Imperial Navy Multifreq, most tengus will have over 90% thermal resist with a single invuln alone, thus making you loose almost half your dps right there.

You could switch to scorch, but then you loose 20% of your dps right off the bat. Also a tracking penalty from scorch, which may or may not hurt you against an AB fit tengu. Now, lasers aren't bad in this situation, but autocannons are better because you'll want to web him since 90% of tengus are ab fit anyway. And once you're in web range AC's win.

Just to be clear: lasers aren't bad.

It's just that for cloaky PvP, unbonused blasters and autocannons are FAR better than cap bonused lasers. Dehval's fit is a pretty good example of this.

What's really disappointing is that the community is stuck in some old mindset that "anything different = overpowered" or that anything expensive is suddenly overpowered.

This is NOT overpowered. If anything, the frigate needs a buff in damage.

You guys are right, this thread is definately the best place to discuss whether lazers are better than projectiles, in general, endlessly.

You guys are right, this thread is definately the best place to discuss whether lazers are better than projectiles, in general, endlessly.

Well, isn't it lovely that auto cannons can switch their damage type, and are good everywhere? See the problem with lasers against tengus, for example, is that if you use Imperial Navy Multifreq, most tengus will have over 90% thermal resist with a single invuln alone, thus making you loose almost half your dps right there.

You could switch to scorch, but then you loose 20% of your dps right off the bat. Also a tracking penalty from scorch, which may or may not hurt you against an AB fit tengu. Now, lasers aren't bad in this situation, but autocannons are better because you'll want to web him since 90% of tengus are ab fit anyway. And once you're in web range AC's win.

Just to be clear: lasers aren't bad.

It's just that for cloaky PvP, unbonused blasters and autocannons are FAR better than cap bonused lasers. Dehval's fit is a pretty good example of this.

They are different, they don't have analogs (why one should train gallente/amarr skills to use the only ones cloaky exploration damage dealers?) and they overlap with CovOps - why would you ever need one with these beasts?

So, they don't belong to one of the currently existing ship classes which makes them what is called "a fifth wheel of the cart" because they are somewhere between CovOps and usual damage dealing ships.

They are different, they don't have analogs (why one should train gallente/amarr skills to use the only ones cloaky exploration damage dealers?) and they overlap with CovOps - why would you ever need one with these beasts?

So, they don't belong to one of the currently existing ship classes which makes them what is called "a fifth wheel of the cart" because they are somewhere between CovOps and usual damage dealing ships.

repairing the drones on the go is very important as well.

Pirate ships ARE supposed to be a bit better than T2 ships. Analogues will come, give it time.

Just because a ship class is new does not make it overpowered. Plenty of things can defeat these easily.

Keep a single light armor repair drone in your bay, same thing you do in a pilgrim.

After seeing the 1000dps blaster fit shield cruiser, I'm inclined to JUST use this ship in PvP. Cloak, approach, 0, and kill. Ogres (either a second set to say F* you. If they kill one, woopty friggen do) and Blaster II with void.

Keep hearing people cry "no laser bonuses? wtf? Needs more pew pew." I saw, wheres my hybrid turret bonus? I could use more dps on top that 1000. Go home.

A small change in the original post - The Astero has 20% drone hp per level, not 10% drone hp/tracking. This was actually just a mistake I made when copying the post over by grabbing an older version of the bonuses. Sorry about that.

In general there's a lot of good feedback coming in already of course and I'm already imagining and beginning to discuss version two with the CSM and Fozzie etc. (looking closely at the drone bandwidth/bay, CPU situation and hacking capability of the cruiser especially) but I want to give plenty of time for us to think it through and let you guys discuss in detail before any changes are made.

In the mean time keep the feedback coming and we'll give you updates as they come.

Keep hearing people cry "no laser bonuses? wtf? Needs more pew pew." I saw, wheres my hybrid turret bonus? I could use more dps on top that 1000. Go home.

Have fun with that lock time delay and lack of tank.

After seeing the 1000dps blaster fit shield cruiser, I'm inclined to JUST use this ship in PvP. Cloak, approach, 0, and kill. Ogres (either a second set to say F* you. If they kill one, woopty friggen do) and Blaster II with void.

If this was meant as an exploration cruiser for long deployments, I'm not seeing it. Going by everyones suggestions and the bonuses as is, I see drone version of the Vigilant that can cloak on top of that.

Thought the idea was exploration with some teeth? I see lots of teeth with a little bit of explo.


Increase cargo bay, by quite a bit, drop the drone bay size to say.. 200? an decrease the bandwidth to 100. Its a CRUISER. Not a battle cruiser. Not a battle ship. Its a long deployment explo cruiser. Even if you strictly focused on that people are going to break it for Pvp so theres no worries there.

The mobile fitting array will take care of any needs regarding swapping out drones. This will be an essential NEED for "long deployments" so why not focus around the fact that one is going to be carried?

Keep hearing people cry "no laser bonuses? wtf? Needs more pew pew." I saw, wheres my hybrid turret bonus? I could use more dps on top that 1000. Go home.

"Roll Bonus: Can fit Covert Ops Cloak" <---

Yes, keep nerfing it and expect it to deliver on promises. It needs the big drone bay if it is to fulfill it's goal.

So restricting it to lasers will be an excellent choice. You won't have to worry about that blaster DPS anymore :)

Giving it a hybrid bonus would strengthen the Gallente side too much. It already has drone bonuses.

Useful after a fight. I'd rather keep my dps at 100% and rep it on the go.