... but then I remember tabletop wargamers don't understand humour.

I may have missed it if it's been brought up, but are we believing all the T3s will have these very same modes and sets of bonuses?

I'm mostly concerned with the Gallente one ending up not being a drone platform. And being largely blaster boats, any 'snipe/rage' bonuses are just wholly pointless for blasters. If hybrids are to be used to snipe then that's the Caldari's bit.

Or will we end up with two of nearly the exact same ones if they make the Gallente and Caldari both use rails?
That is if they put hybrids on the Caldari one instead of missiles.

For the benefit of those like myself who are looking into building these ships in order to have them at a lower cost, I've pulled up the requirements needed to produce these bad boys. I'm expecting this will be the same across the board with minor exceptions because of faction differences.

Along with the requirements I'll be putting in my two cents along the way to stress the points that I myself would like to make for those interested in reading them.

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Skills Required to Sit:

Spaceship Command I
Amarr Frigate III
Amarr Destroyer V
Amarr Tactical Destroyer I

Overall, it's a relatively fast training time (just under two weeks with no implants) to sit in it. Overall though, this ship appears to be very easy to fly, even for a low SP pilot -- even factoring the skills needed to fly it properly rather than just sit in this boat.

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Skills Required to Build:

Mechanics V
Science V
Industry V
Advanced Small Ship Construction V
Mechanical Engineering IV
Amarr Starship Engineering V

I myself will have to take quite the long chunk of time simply to build this. The skill requirements alone will make this ship a lot more costly to build, since the requirements to fly VS the requirements to build are that far apart. This, along with the parts limitations involved, will make this ship prohibitively expensive to pilot -- likely in the range of 100 mil ISK instead of 40mil.

In addition, the skills required to build the PARTS for this ship are also a question to be answered. While these aren't nearly as demanding as building the hull itself, it will still take a dedicated pilot to build the entire thing himself.

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Materials Required to Build:

Components:
1x Optimized Nano-engines
1x Warfare Computation Core
1x Fullerene Intercalated Sheets
8x Mettalofullerene Plating
1x Electrochemical Interface Nexus
2x Fulleroferrocene Power Conduits
1x Reconfigured Subspace Calibrator
2x Self-Assembling Nanolattice

Parts:
10x R.A.M. -- Starship Tech

While a player will be able to easily grab blueprints for these as well as the ship's hull, building these parts alone is a challenge in itself, in the sense that they themselves have their own components, reactions, etc. needed to get the job done in building this ship.

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In conclusion, producing (nor purchasing) this ship isn't going to be an easy endeavor at all. I'm seeing a price tag somewhere in the range of at least 100mil ISK in buying this boat off the market, and that's after prices stabilize. If the same trend occurs here as in Strategic Cruisers, we will end up seeing consistently low numbers of pilots able to build these ships, and an increasing number of pilots able to fly them at a much faster pace than they can be produced.

This will lead to steadily increasing prices despite any existing competition, as can be seen these days with Strategic Cruisers slowly becoming very expensive after the exact same fashion.

Thoughts?