Bubble immunity and warp core stabilization + warp core stabs is too powerful. You could mwd + cloak and warp away regardless of 2-3 ceptors pointing you.
You'd need a hictor and lots of stuff to decloak it on an inbound gate to ever catch these. They can't be stopped by bubbles, so they are effectively nullified t3 mega haulers.
They won't be deep space transporters, they will be blockade runners more efficient at outrunning blockades than the actual blockade runners which have to burn through bubbles and die painfully.

As opposed to BRs?

Look if you want them to see any use at all, you have to provide a comparable balance against a cov ops transport ship. Why would anyone risk a DST when they can just take a BR and be safer? 3 trips in a BR is safer than 1 in a DST.

meh. I'd rather see DSTs be immune (or less affected by) webs. The idea being that while cloaky transports get by on speed and stealth, DSTs are more like (American) football running backs: they are designed to take hits, they are not fast but they are hard to slow down, and its up to the attacker to bludgeon it with overwhelming force before it gets out of the bubble (or crashes the gate).

no amount of overheated tank will even make a difference once you're webbed/neuted/scrammed etc.

This is why I think the entire large-tanky-transport-for-getting-past-camps idea is a complete non-starter.

I've said this for a long time, and it's why I wanted a 100k cargo transport. The mini-freighter is a role that's currently unfilled (Orcas don't count, they are not on the same skill line). The dangerous-space DST is a role that's dead on the starting line.

All I see out of this change for my usage is an extra 10k cargo space and more EHP for my gank-resistant highsec hauler.

Hey everyone. Allowing launching and scooping of structures from fleet hangars is something that needs more investigation, so we're increasing the standard cargo holds on all the DSTs so they can easily deploy and scoop structures.

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One of the rare places where haulers intentionally put themselves in danger in null at least is when they are dropping or onlining towers. You can't drop towers from fleet hangar so now these ships that have bonuses that would be perfect for this kind of thing are completely useless. Could this be changed somehow?

A mid sized freighter will see a lot of use, by players in high sec who want the convenience of hauling medium sized cargo without forking over the cash for an Orca or Freighter.

Except for the fact an Orca can move ~92k m^3 of cargo with a 200k EHP buffer tank AND also carry 400k m^3 of unpacked ships (of any kind). Sure, a DST can do so faster, but it's a short trip where speed actually winds up trumping that kind of capacity.

Except for the fact an Orca can move ~92k m^3 of cargo with a 200k EHP buffer tank AND also carry 400k m^3 of unpacked ships (of any kind). Sure, a DST can do so faster, but it's a short trip where speed actually winds up trumping that kind of capacity.

Fleet hangars will follow the same rules as normal cargo when you attempt to place a ship inside of a Ship Maintenance Bay. And the numbers in the OP are currently correct.

Can you show me a fit where the Orca has 92k m3 of cargo capacity and 200k EHP at the same time? Am I cheating myself of potential bonuses by fitting sub-optimally?

So now that the shoebox is out of the way can we please restore the assembled volume to ~ 300k m3?

no, for the same reason that the hoarder is 400k m3.

Horder always was 400k right? But you used to be able to fit a DST+ cov ops in an Orca. No biggie since BR is the better choice most of the time though and it also allows for a cruiser on top.

Fleet hangar isn't the purpose of those ships. It's just a cool ability they have.

They way to bring them on-grid is to disallow off-grid boosts. 95% of what rorquals are used for and 70% of what orcas are used for is boosting. After this change, orcas will go up to 90% boosting, as the DSTs will be replacing them as a hauler for the most part.

Suggestions:

1. Take away the speed bonus and give a % reduction on powergrid needs for prop mods, with lvl 4 being enough to fit a 100mn AB on it, so a single web isn't enough to make your life miserable and burning out of bubbles actually becomes possible if scrammed.

The idea was considered and rejected as it would make DSTs too difficult to catch in nullsec and (especially) wormhole space and wouldn't provide much interesting gameplay.