Just putting it out there that the Gila will be doing less dps with its 2 hammerheads than the Ishtar with sentries on top of the fact that the gila is now limited to not being able to field a full flight of any drones.

you could leave it, but nerf webs down to 50%. they could let it dictate range with web or scram resistance or immunity. 90% webs are dumb and break the game.

Hi Rise/Fozzie. I feel like the Cynabal overlaps far too much with the current Vagabond which currently is better in a lot of ways over the Cynabal and is generally superior. The Cynabal only offers better agility and a slightly better drone bay for all-around poorer performance. The extra mid does add some options but the vagabonds T2 resistances give a better performance than a 3rd tank items does from the Cynabal and the vagabonds shield boost bonus makes it the superior brawler. The vagabond has far better cap stability, t2 resists which help a lot for local/remote reps, better targeting stats and a powerful local rep bonus.

The cynabal only has a slight fitting advantage over the Vagabond if the Vagabond and Cynabal are both fitting 425mm Autocannons, otherwise, it's inferior. And that slight grid advantage doesn't allow you to offset the disadvantages.

I think the Cynabal needs to find a new niche;

wtb rep bonus

I'll get together with the other balance guys and talk about the Cynabal asap and get back to you all. We talked initially about the overlap between Angel and Minmatar and decided to try and make it work without making large changes. All three Angel ships are very popular (relative to other pirate faction ships) and generally regarded as 'fun' as far as I know, so risking negative impact with a bigger change didn't seem worthwhile.

I'll make sure we take another look though.

I am not a fan of the Gila change. I mean Medium drones would really need an AMAZING balance to even begin to make up for what it is currently. At the moment the GIla is the mini-Rattlesnake. Solid tank, great drones, highly versatile.

I don't see this change being the same.

Bandwidth for only 4 unbonused light drones means dealing with Frigs will be painful, even more so as a DRONE BOAT.. And I don't like droneboats being FORCED to use a specific type of drone regardless of situation.

Here's my idea, since clearly you don't want to have it fielding Sentries/Heavies as effectively.

Change the bonus from MEDIUM drones, to ALL drones. It'll still be only able to field 2 Mediums, or 4 Lights. But at least the lights will be bonused, and able to remain effective against frigs.

The other things to remember about these drone changes. CCP what you are doing is Locking these ships into a PVE role forever, as it denies them the ability to use their drones for EWAR.. Being able to field 5 light ECM drones, or any other drones should CCP get around to making them, you know, useful, is a big deal. It gives you the chance to get out of trouble, or to hold a target at bay.
Now I know the Gila is a PVE Queen now as it is, but it will only be moso now, after this. Which is kind of a shame given that it's a PIRATE hull.

Maybe a hull bonus to the effectiveness of ECM/Neut/Web/etc drones too ? Might open up a lot of new doors for it outside of a just a mission queen.

Cynabal nerf is pretty big, this isnt "keeping it the same" at all.
It's losing 1/4 of its powergrid.

Hang on, you say sig size there. Checking EFT, Do medium drones really have the same sig size as large drones? Or is my EFT broken :s
That's mad.

Not able to really comment on the orbit velocities. I've always found them pretty tough to nail quick enough when orbiting you firing as they are currently, let alone with a boost. Don't they struggle to track at the speed they orbit at normally? I'm rusty with drones! :p

Think rolling damage bonuses into one, and then giving it a tracking bonus might work?

Rolling into a single damage bonus and giving it basically the same stats as the dram with tracking speed would be the perfect route to go from a logic and consistancy standpoint. You would not only be continuing the same bonus line as the dram initially, but it would add a unique flavor to it, especially if it gets carried over into the mach. You'd have the advantages of both the regular stabber and stabber navy rolled into one, and wouldn't step on the stabber navy's superiority with tracking speed if you go with the same 7.5% bonus.

It would be neat, clean, simple, and nobody would have any good reason to complain. :)

Rattler will likely retain role as a sentry boat, but I admit that I am displeased with how the missiles were bonused. I think that in the end a good rattler balance will focus around extra dps, which the current ones are doing well. They just need to have an omni damage for their missiles.

Not saying it won't happen, but how do you know it will? Sentries are the same band as heavies which removes the issue of the band limits which are necessary for balancing the current line of bonuses.

No update on changes yet, but I wanted to respond to a few more things.

On the Vigilant fitting (and similar fitting related comments) - as someone mentioned above, fitting a ship is not meant to be a matter of fitting all the biggest things. There are certainly times when the fitting allocation is too restrictive and we don't want that either, but for ship-fitting gameplay to be good it must include personalization/strategy/tradeoffs. That's what we're trying to accomplish.

There's some sentiment (as there often seems to be) that these changes somehow pigeonhole ships into roles that we have explicitly defined rather than allowing for more open or generalized ships. I would say that while some roles have shifted (no more Sentry Drones for the Gila being the best example), Pirate Faction ships remain a set of very good generalists. We have an opportunity, because of their flavor and cost, to give them some very interesting capabilities that go a bit outside the box, which is great, but we haven't tried to restrict them to a specific environment at all. The Gila will still have plenty of PVE application and I think you'd be hard-pressed to find examples of lost capability for the rest of these ships resulting from the proposed changes.

Sorry for the typos that were in the OP, hopefully I've removed the last of them now but if you see more let me know.

Personally, I don't see why warp speed should be a role bonus or hull bonus when it can easily just be built into the hull.

Web resistance is an interesting idea though......

The only issue, and it's a minute one at that, for the Gila (all drone boats for that matter) is that there are no small and medium sentry drones.

If these existed I believe many, many issues could be solved. Including the perceived power of the Ishtar.

Alright, you guys are getting major real time updates here, I might as well start live tweeting our meetings!

With regards to the Cynabal - we are not going to try and add some kind of web/scram immunity/resistance. While this kind of bonus would certainly be fun, it would force us to make severe changes to all three Angel ships to compensate for the increased power, which would surely feel terrible for all the people enjoying them now. This would be especially true for PVE players who couldn't make use of the new bonus but would be stuck with a much worse ship than they are used to.

The option we do feel good about is warp speed. It supports the hit and run playstyle that Angels are already best at without forcing us to make changes to the combat performance. So, we are looking at roughly a 50% increase in warp speed and acceleration for all three, putting the Cynabal at warp speed multiplier of 5, which is basically destroyer speed. I've also updated the OP with a new powergrid number.

We've also adjusted powergrid on the Ashimmu to make some more room for those PG heavy energy war mods.

We spent time playing with the Vigilant in a lot of different configurations and feel completely confident in the current fitting numbers.

Hope this makes you Angel fans more excited

The Serpentis web bonus is extremely strong. We went into this balance pass thinking it was probably too strong and that we may need to tune it down. In the first Pirate Faction thread (the Frigates) I asked specifically for feedback on this bonus and how players felt about it. We also brought it up with the CSM during the summit.

The vast majority of feedback from all angles pointed towards an agreement that in certain environments this bonus was extremely powerful but that it wasn't having a negative effect on the game overall and we should leave it alone. I'm not sure if anyone remembers by now but when I casually mentioned changing this bonus during a Reddit AMA there was an outcry to prevent us from doing that at all costs.

Internally we are a bit divided even though we all agree it's one of the game's most powerful bonuses. I want to try and leave it because unique points of power like this one, as long as they aren't oppressive, are more interesting than moving everything towards a middle ground.

CCP has this idea that 800mm plates are actually viable, I think.

When you say that you're also increasing acceleration, does that mean that you are decreasing how quickly they go into and out of their max AU/s warp speed, how quickly it can align then get into warp or both?

P.S. I like the idea quite a bit, but seeing something like carrying the same bonuses over from the dramial, dropping a gun and adding 2 launchers would be an ideal rebalance for the ship itself. I think you would see a lot more happy eggers if you focused on the ship's potential versatility with a 2nd high, and keeping the forming fitting, actually DECREASING the mass a little bit would help it to compete but not surpass its competitors. You don't have to respond to this part if you don't want to; more interested in the top half since that is what is likely going to be just applied.

Overall, I like these changes. Makes me have to rethink how I use the Gila. But I think I can still figure out good setups with medium drones, especially with the drone changes coming this summer.

But please oh please, give us bonused Sentry drones on the Rattlesnake though. I hope we won't end up with just bonused Heavies on that hull which would make it too much of a niche utility ship. Would be unfair to do that to such a sweet looking ship :)

Yes, I am really disliking these missile specific damage bonuses. It defeats the whole purpose of missiles imo and I am not really sure what the point in it is. Keep the specific missile bonuses to stealth bombers, and leave the rest of the missile ships versatile.

Are we going to start giving bonuses to only specific ammo types for the other guns, as that is the next logical step.

For those of you are interested, i have some paper values of "regular fitting(s)"

these fits assume no implants / boosts / drugs or bananas

RLM fit.

[Gila Post patch, pvp]

Damage Control II
Drone Damage Amplifier II (x3)

Experimental 10MN Microwarpdrive I
Warp Disruptor II
Drone Navigation Computer II (eg of mid drone mod use)
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Large F-S9 Regolith Shield Induction
Large F-S9 Regolith Shield Induction

Rapid Light Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Inferno Light Missile (x4)
Medium Diminishing Power System Drain I

Medium Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I

Hammerhead II x2 (after the done changes these will be going 3 276m/s with the drone navi mod and )

this fit has 2 CPU and <3 grid spair
DPS: 790~ (170 missls / 620 drones) all lvl 5 skills could push this to 800 easy
Tank: 52 000~ EHP Buffer (12 700 shield HP / EM:64 TH:61 KI:71 EX:75) passive 100 DPS regen
Speed: 1.75km/s
Targeting: 72.5km / 344 scan res

fits with HAMs and HMLs don't change the DPS much the main meat is the drones of course
fitting HAMs or HMLs will require CPU rig as well as the loss of the med nos and slight drop in tank.

My remark was indeed sarcastic, but I think it's actually pretty accurate as to what's happening here.

I would love to see a point bonus on the Cynabal TBH.

I'm a bit concerned about role bonus instead of per-level bonus.

With new stats we can take Gila and like one week char - he could dish out a lot of DPS with quite a EHP. And take several of those and drone assist.

Also those tech 1 drones buffs.

OK, lets put it simple.

Why would anyone fly a kiting Cynabal after the changes over a kiting GIla, Vagabond or a rail Deimos?

You're right, sorry I missed it before. Will correct the OP.

The vigilants align time is much higher than the phantasm. I think the Cynabel should have higher align that the Vigilant though, right now they are equal.

There's a reason the cargo holds don't usually make it into the OP but it isn't a good one. I'll try to work on that in the future. I'm going to change the cargo for the cruisers to the following numbers:

Ashimmu: 430
Cynabal: 400
Gila: 440
Phantasm: 410
Vigilant: 450

Look for the battleship post at the start of next week.

that's not the useful kind of versatility, unless you're talking about mobile depots.

The Cynabal really needs a new niche. Having a warp speed one class below is not worth the price tag. It should either have 150% warp speed increase or something else.

What if it had a role bonus of reaching its top speed instantly? As soon as the prop mod is activated you are at top speed, or at least very close to it?

I think once you start playing with heat it becomes a really slippery slope...

CCP Rise, please pimp my Mach next week...
GÇó Drop one turret and turn it into a six-gun (looks better)
GÇó Remove one high slot and extend an additional mid slot instead
GÇó 37.5% rate of fire role bonus to offset the turret loss

Would make a lot of sense also as earlier it was mentioned that medium drones will have a lot of trouble engaging many fast targets. The Gila won't be able to switch to light drones, so perhaps a speed and tracking bonus would be the way to go.

Let me start by quoting CCP Fozzie:

"At the frigate level with the Daredevil, the power of 90% webs primarily comes from range control. At the battleship level with the Vindicator it primarily comes from transversal control (especially when used as a force multiplier). At the cruiser level it falls in the middle and ends up being (relatively speaking) less powerful and less oppressive as a result."

That said I find the counters to all three of these boats fairly reasonable and numerous. Which is why you really don't see many of them compared to some of the other choices. Plus committing these boats to a fight is always win..or die. Not like some of the kiting/GTFO options that exist in the other hulls.

I've been glad to see these boats keep their web bonus...but of the three that certainly did not need a power grid nerf, it's the Vigilant. You hardly see them used, and you'll see them less now. There is just simply nothing OP about a boat you can just neut and kill with ease.