CCP Rise, how about looking again at Sansha, the afterburner bonus will be useless on at least one of their ships, and the Phantasm is now forced to use one completely changing the current playstyle for the worse in my opinion.
I've been impressed in the past by how you have altered ships for the better after listening to feedback, and so I have faith you will always get to a good solution.
I've been editing the EveHQ database and come up with some rough designs of my own for what I think would be a much better direction for Sansha. I compared the stats against other ships of equal class and although a rought draft, these would fit in well to the current meta.
Also I'd just like re quote this as it was on what I based the concept of the proposals below.
Ghost Hunter wrote:the sansha gimmick is that their ships are a functional weight size above what their actual designation is
the succubus needs a clearer role designation so more overbearing firepower as a destroyer should suffice
the phantasm is a battlecruiser in a cruiser's skin, it outclasses its own weight size and gives most BCs a run for their money
if its meant to be the literal spearhead, emphasizing a tackle and hold role might suffice better
the nightmare is just an overbearingly accurate damage platform that can be retrofitted into a ferocious active tank
it's a marauder
literally they prototyped the marauder concept with the nightmare
used as a test bed
then left behind when everyone else got more powerful upgrades
Seeing as the Nightmare is the most contentious ship, I'll start by showing the rough concept for it which I have made.
Another turret slot is added bringing the ships damage very slightly over that of the current Vindicator, with pulses lasers matching blasters, and beam laser matching railguns.
Also another mid slot is added to make up for the missing slot, this also allows a greater shield capacity making the Nightmare one of the most survivable battleships if a full tank is fitted, base shield is lowered to make sure it will not be too powerful, although I was thinking perhaps to reduce it even further still.
Various base adjustments were made to the fitting and capacitor to allow reasonable fitting, although it will always be on a knife edge as should be the case.
Finally, speed is dropped and signature bumped up, to make this one of the slowest and largest signatured battleships, with MWD fitted it will go up to between 700 m/s and 800 m/s.
I predict it would perform very similar to a maurader, barring the fact that no bastion module can be fitted, and would become a powerhouse in pvp if you can work around its slow speed and agility, and balancing it's large capacitor consumption on a knife edge.
NIGHTMARE
Amarr Battleship Bonus:
7.5% bonus to Large Energy Turret tracking speed per level
Caldari Battleship Bonus:
4% bonus to Shield Resistances per level
Role Bonus:
150% bonus to Large Energy Turret damage
Slot layout: 7H, 8M (+1), 4L; 5 turrets (+1), 0 launchers
Fittings: 14800 PWG (+300), 740 CPU (+30)
Defense (shields / armor / hull) : 9000 (-735) / 8000 (-695) / 7800 (-460)
Capacitor (amount / recharge: 9800 (+2850) / 1025 (-130)
Mobility (max velocity / agility / mass ): 85 (-9) / 0.136 / 99300000
Drones (bandwidth / bay): 75 / 75
Signature radius: 420 (+20)Also as posted previously, this is the matching concept for the Succubus.
SUCCUBUS
Amarr Frigate Bonus:
7.5% bonus to Small Energy Turret tracking speed per level
Caldari Frigate Bonus:
4% bonus to Shield Resistances per level
Role Bonus:
150% bonus to Small Energy Turret damage
Slot layout: 3H, 5M (+1), 2L (-1); 3 turrets (+1), 0 launchers
Fittings: 58 PWG (+14), 195 CPU (+20)
Defense (shields / armor / hull) : 650 / 550 / 540
Capacitor (amount / recharge / cap per second) : 450 / 210000 / 2.14
Mobility (max velocity / agility / mass / align time): 320 (-20) / 3.5 / 965000 / 4.68s
Drones (bandwidth / bay): 0 / 0
Targeting (max targeting range / Scan Resolution / Max Locked targets): 34km (+2) / 650 / 6 (+1)
Sensor strength: 16 (+3)
Signature radius: 38 (+5)Finally the phantasm, I did not have too much time to play around with altering the stats, but from experience I would simply suggest adding an extra mid slot which was missing, and keeping it's damage at its current respectable level. The extra mid slot will allow it to perform it's role of webbing and scramming the enemy whilst still being able to fit a respectable shield tank.
I think these proposals would put Sansha in a very good place. I am not 100% on the Nightmare still, I think it may need its stats reducing slightly further, but this is simply a rough draft. And I hope these proposals may be of interest.