murder one
Gallente
CRICE Corporation
Lotka Volterra
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Posted - 2006.09.27 04:33:00 -
[1]
Gank oriented ships- more specifically blaster boats, and in particular the Blasterthron have been successively marginalized by each defensive change added to the game and here's why:
The current ship designs with respect to blasters and the ships that use them suffer from a knife edge balancing act with respect to their cap. Just a single nos can completely cripple a blaster ship. This is due to the increased combat times and increased cap use over the original requirements to kill a particular target, now that resistances have increased on average (armor compensation skills for instance) and HP have been added to all ships.
Using the Blasterthron as an example the Bthron has very little endurance in the field as you're practically mandated to carry a full load of 800 sized cap charges, and if you get into a fight with anything less than a maxed out amount of 800s, there's always some question as to if you're going to have enough endurance to finish the fight.
I can carry 19 800 charges plus another 4 loaded in my cap booster for a total of 23, and that barely gets me through a fight when in a small gang and doing a 3-4 vs 3-4 BS fight. Usually at least half my cap is consumed just getting to the target, and by the time I start engaging in earnest, I'm already reloading my cap booster.
Assuming we keep nos balance issues seperate, the amount of time required for a Bthron (as an example) to kill a target vs. how long it's cap will last when compared to prior kill times of past game design rules has steadily increased to the point that you're now running out of cap before you can chew through a target, and this is with one of the higest DPS ships in the game. It's particularly bad for the Bthron as it's pretty much the only BS (other than the Geddon IMO) that is so cap sensitive. All other BS designs either require no cap for their weapons, or use nos as their primary high slot weapon (Domi) so that it's not an issue.
With the upcoming additions of 'defensively oriented' rigs and the Dev's stated missions of wanting to increase combat times across the board, all this does is cripple the blaster ships even further.
While I've been using the Bthron as an example, it's even more critical with the frigs and cruisers, as it's completely impractical for them to mount cap boosters like the Bthron can. The Bthron can live as long as it has charges. The frigs and cruisers simply die after their cap is broken, which is quite quickly.
IMO a Thorax setup, regardless of how it's set up, just isn't as flexible or dependable in a solo engagement (i.e. nobody on your side, even though there may be multiple enemies) as a Vexor or a Rupture etc. When I'm flying around in my Vexor, I'm confident that I can take on most other cruiser pilots, regardless of their character age or fittings (I'm not going to bring up ECM  ). I should have that same measure of confidence with a Thorax, as it's a tier 3 cruiser instead of a tier 2 like the Vexor is, but I don't.
What do the rest of you think about where the game is headed with respect to increased combat times and decreased 'gank' effectiveness?
Because I said so...
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