The Eagle does also need some love beyond a nominal speed increase. A 25m3 drone bay and a better damage bonus to put its rail DPS on par with the Deimos would go a long way.

As it stands, is there *ever* a compelling reason to use an Eagle over a Deimos? I can't see a niche for cruiser gun sniping, since at snipe ranges the sig/tracking of the guns doesn't matter so much, so wouldn't you just snipe in a Naga instead?

EDIT: The Eagle/Deimos comparison is even stranger as I think more about that drone bay. The Deimos is tailored for blasters which can hit smaller targets, and also gets the bay and bandwidth for light or medium drones for the same purpose; meanwhile the Eagle is tailored for rails which cannot hit small targets up close, and is also denied any drones at all, making it doubly vulnerable to smaller attackers. What's the logic there?

Why not drop the ishtar's drone bandwidth to 100mbit/sec . Nothing else would need to be changed then :P

Because ships are not balanced according to how they perform in a 1v1. In a fleet fight, the change you are suggesting makes virtually no difference.

1: All ECM's need to start functioning against drone carriers. A jammed ship loses it's signal to the drones makes sense. Let's implement it. Tracking disrupters should also translate over to drones. If people could use a tracking disrupter to cut the range of Ishtar sentries we would not even be having a discussion on Ishtar nerfing. This topic also carries over to the next one because....

2: Drones currently don't use ammo. That's fine. They need that to function in the game. But you know what else doesn't use ammo? Lasers. You know what they use as ammo? Cap!

And by "solid" you mean essentially relegated to missions, incursions and null-sec fleets...? Battleships need a serious buff to overall hitpoints to even begin to offset the various nerfs - in particular, the huge hit to warp speed. You can solo in a strategic cruiser or command ship - but it's basically suicide to venture outside of high-sec in a battleship.

Why can't we push off the changes that affect ship bonuses and the like until after the tournament? I thought that was the whole point of this 6-week patch release schedule, so that if something wasn't ready, or would cause adverse consequences for gameplay, it could be delayed.

Glad to see CCP management appreciates our hard work trying to put on a good show.

Nope. rails ahve far more effective range. 100km range and 20 falloff is SEVERAL times better than 20 range and 100 falloff.

I would really like to see other ships being competitive choices with the Ishtar and while this is a step in the right direction I think there's a few stairs left to climb. A big part of the issue though is that the highs on the Ishtar are somewhat irrelevant often being fit with small guns if any at all or downsized modules allowing a large part of the fitting to be devoted to making a really strong tank. The issue is that with drone ships there is no direct way or addressing this short of removing slots and I don't want to suggest that either.

I like the changes you have put on here Rise

a 8-4-7 Tempest is good aswell, however i would like to mention that this should apply to the Republic Fleet Tempest aswell as the vanilla.

Battleships especially seem to be in a pretty solid place....
PS - how would you feel about an 8/4/7 Tempest?

I'd rather not. Tempest fleet issue is 8-5-7, why would you want to nerf it that hard?

What i meant was another low slot for the RF Pest i.e 8-4-8

pretty bland, having so many ships with the same slot layout.

what the Tempest needs is a tracking bonus. remove the damage bonus and make it a tracking bonus keep the ROF bonus. 7/6/6 slotlayout to go with this and you got yourself a great ship.

Regular Pest: 7-5-7, same stats as now
Fleet Pest: 8-5-7, 7 guns, 5% Damage, 10% Falloff per level.

Regular Pest: 7-5-7, same stats as now
Fleet Pest: 8-5-7, 7 guns, 5% Damage, 10% Falloff per level.

I feel battlecruisers and battleships are in dire need of a balance pass. Many BC's are completely obsoleted by faction cruisers. The issue with BC's and BS is their speed and damage application is pathetic in a world where everything is going 2k to 5k per second.

Oracles, Tornadoes, Talos, and Naga's are still good, but Drakes, Hurricanes, Harbingers, and Brutix are in a terrible spot. They lack speed, agility, dmg projection, and damage application. (All the things that faction cruisers excel at ) You have to scram web most stuff just to be able to apply any dmg to it, and you can't catch anything because you're way too slow. You can't run because you align like a brick. So if your enemy has you outnumbered/outgunned you die in a fire, if you outnumber or outgun them, they leave.

BS's at least have big drone bays so you can actually do dmg to things, but if your not in a dominix your drones aren't actually doing much dmg. They have the same problems as BC's only much worse. The only thing I see BS's doing nowadays in pvp is smart-bombing pods or pipe-bombing frigate fleets.

The armageddon with it's neut bonus's was a stroke of genius. You should perhaps consider giving other BS's some ewar bonus's. Perhaps give the minny BS's a web or paint role bonus, the gallente a point/scram range bonus. The caldari and amarr both have ewar BS's.

The sniper BC's, Tech 3's, Faction cruisers, and T2 cruisers make flying a BC or BS gang non-viable. There is nothing balanced about it.


Then again, why even field a battleships gang, you'll just get into a fight and hear "They lit a cyno"

Good morning Rise & Fozzie, how's the weather?

Nice, nice...

Now back to work, fix sentries:

You need to be within 5000m of a sentry drone to issue commands to it.

PvE: not affected
PvP: affected
Ishtar: bombed

You heard it here first folks, scan resolution make you blap small ship. Fit your dreads with SEBO for pure pwnage of anything on field.

Battlecruisers and battleships (minus a few noted exceptions) need a serious overhaul with respect to hitpoints/EHP. Battlecruisers (minus command ships) could easily see a +50% hitpoint bump. +100% for battleships (minus Marauders).
If these are the "new" ships for Hyperion, I can't wait...

Regarding the Ishtar, sentry drones are the problem, not the ship. Increase the signature radius or completely change their mechanics by having them stay within 5km of the ship and not be an independent stationary turret, which is unbalanced when compared to how every other weapon system works!

What's going to happen when this change makes no difference whatsoever? Are you going to remove the tracking speed bonus completely?

so you add a falloff bonus, but it still has absolutely no damage at all. this is a projectiles problem and a tempest problem. I think there should be changes to both.

Tempests Alpha is insane. It's not a DPS ship - it's about blapping things and projecting damage further than other BS. If you want to melt things point blank then gallente is the way forward.