I absolutely HATE the new minigame. It has killed explo for me in every way. Explo is now only about plexes for me.

Couple of days after Rubicon hits:

3-4 Stratios, cloaky Sabre, Falcon and 1-2 tacklers on EVERY frequented gate in eve.
Also T3s completely obsolete for carebear hunting.

:sigh: Rise, Fozzie i thought you knew better...

These ships are an interesting idea, but you guys have to make sure they do not completely wreck small/medscale ship balance that you're working so hard on.

...

(remember what the pre-nerf Dramiel did to frigate PvP?)

This.

In fact, Gila and Ishtar are still a lot more resilient and have more firepower than the Stratios. And the cloaky T3 have way more resilience and the same or more firepower. That's perfect infact IMO, just behind combat cruisers but with cloak and exploration capabilities.

As for the Astero, it have less resilience and firepower than both the Worm and the Ishkur ; and the +5 bonus to viruses keep the covops ahead for data/relic sites. IMO, the ship is perfect, just between exploration ships and combat pirate frigates.

And finaly, the SoE are not carebears despite their humanitarian missions. In fact, the lvl1 epic arc and the security missions clearly show that they won't think twice before taking care of any threat to this mission ; and they do are explorers as the probes and probe launchers can attest. So, IMO, the combat/exploration ships are way more relevant than a logistic ship could ever be.

Anyways you guys can toy around with these specs and let me know what we missed

A lot of people keep saying the cruiser is OP. Compared to ....?

I do agree with the general notion an explo ship needs its utility highs and as a cloaky theres one slot gone already. a 3rd slot on the frig would be nice that I agree with as well. Seems to be a number of people who are in support of that.

As for the cruiser, the bonuses to explo related stuff could pumped JUST a tad. The drone bay as many cry out, it friggen massive. Were getting a mobile fitting array, CCP how large will this thing be? If we can carry it to a mid point in a mission im assuming not all THAT big. 200m3 drone bay is more than enough to get an an engagement done unless you plan to launch heavy after heavy and lose a crop load of em. Carrying a MFA adds your cargo to the drone bay cap so nerfing that down doesn't really hinder it at all. That being said an increase in cargo size to carry more crap to include the MFA and spare drones would be nice. It do just enough to solve the whole massive DPS in a quick gank fight as if it loses a drone, you might not be ready to simply launch another in the same engagement which would in turn, for the pounced upon pilot make shooting the drones obsolete anyways as they have a butt load more at the ready. Just gotta let that heavy drone **** happen and hope for the best.

Giving a dmg bonus to the laser seems to be a common cry. but with everything else as is, your just adding to its pvp application. Drop a hard point and give it the bonus, it solves both issues. Makes using lasers viable but not OP and a Blaster gank fit would have as much gank.

If this was a faction battle cruiser id say leave it as is and increase the PG CPU and some other MINOR things. Pirate or no, its still a cruiser of a humanitarian faction at that. reducing 1 turret slot and adding a dmg bonus to compensate opens up a utility for those explo nuts too so theres another issues solved.

Personally I would lean more towards the 100mbit drone bandwidth, as mediums still pump out a good bit of DPS for a cruise and with that it can still launch 4 heavies. drops your dps and prolongs your drone bay being used up in one go. If I remember right there isn't many ships with 125mbits and all those are drone boats purposed for really nothing else but combat and even fewer are cruisers. If it lands with 125mbit, sure ill be happy about it. More is always better for me, but in the spirit of keeping it balanced, not stepping on other ships toes, pushing it towards its intended rolls and still making it viable (folks will still pew pew with 100mbit and a drone bay smaller than 500) I would still fly these happily.

The current cruiser build will do more dps than any other covert ship if fitted correctly.

The current cruiser build will do more dps than any other covert ship if fitted correctly.

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.

If the frigate should be able to probe, salvage and cloak without refitting, it needs 3 high slots.

Also, that cruiser is overpowered. Should only have a bandwidth of 75, 100 tops.

Ships like the navy vexor can also launch 5 heavies but on the navy they are bonused with tracking speed etc, even if you fitted the stratos for combat it would be less destructive than this. It has 2 turret slots so if the stratos also had 2 or 1 with a 2X bonused for laser turret it would not be overpowered.this is the closest combat ship in it's specification i can see. The large drone bay means it is NOT essential to carry the yurt when exploring deep null. And remember the yurt can be scanned down losing everything, it is not a mini POS.And sleepers murder drones in large quantities.
100% agree need to increase virus strength to 10/15%

For the CPU issue: How about dropping the laser cap use bonus for a double damage laser bonus, halving the turrets to 2, and taking off a high slot? This gives the same number of effective turrets, but for half the cpu and cap use, as well as a utility high for probes.

The current cruiser build will do more dps than any other covert ship if fitted correctly.

100 mb of bandwith would be a good compromise, but the drone bay would need to remain large to maintain the role of extended deployments, 400 m3 with 100 bandwith would work.

What?.. Why on earth kill the sole reason for it's existence! Unable to do relic and data sites anywhere else but hisec?
Logistics, a cloaky logistics to support big fleets! How is this exploration. Sorry if you want a different ship please do not try to cripple this one to make it into your dream ship for incursions.

CCP PLEASE keep this an explorer and not let them talk you into making this something else entirely.

what of the caldari/minmatar mix? you guys want to look at it in the future?

Keep in mind that no old cloaky ship got it's rebalance pass.