At CCP Game Design, we are proud to take great care of our new recruits through a very well-established training program. It involves three months solitary basement confinement, intense brainwashing electroshock techniques, and accelerated body-building sessions complemented by clever use of relevant motivational soundtracks.
While CCP Fozzie handled the process well, he sometimes cannot contain his excitement, which can create problems (that’s where the straitjacket comes in). However, with the new addition of CCP Rise to our militia of bloodthirsty ship balancing maniacs, we are now confident that we can tackle various projects more efficiently.
Speaking of projects, the one we would like to introduce today is about navy ships overhaul.
For those who just joined EVE, navy hulls mainly offer improved performance over regular tech1 ships. They can be acquired at your nearest navy or Factional Warfare (FW) militia friendly store if you don’t feel like obtaining them through other players on the regular market.
However, those vessels haven’t been touched for a while. The last iteration on them dates back to late 2009, which, in term of Internet standards may as well be the Bronze Age. Some of them, the Navy Cruisers especially, even go back way before that, and remain dinosaurs waiting to be put down by a giant smiling space rock.
Thus, as the Tiericide initiative nears completion, we decided to apply the same effort to the navy ships in the Odyssey release.
Navy Frigates
These ships are receiving less intense changes than their larger counterparts.
- Imperial Navy Slicer: is keeping its basic role intact and benefitting most significantly from an increase in available CPU. It is also gaining some capacitor and lock range, amongst other small tweaks.
- Caldari Navy Hookbill: is the most dominant navy frigate in the current meta. It is receiving a decrease in mobility, softened by a noticeable increase in hit points and other small changes.
- Federation Navy Comet: is receiving small buffs to HP, CPU, and capacitor.
- Republic Fleet Firetail: is the frigate receiving the greatest changes in this expansion. Its damage bonus is increasing from 20% to 25% per level and it will also benefit from increased HP, fittings, and capacitor.
Navy Cruisers
As mentioned above, Navy Cruisers were not iterated on during the Dominion expansion, and many of them needed extensive work. The navy cruisers currently range widely in ability, from the excellent Stabber Fleet Issue to the virtually useless former “Tier 1” Navy Cruisers (Augoror Navy Issue, Osprey Navy Issue, Exequror Navy Issue, Scythe Fleet Issue). As we did with the standard hulls, we are removing the capability gap between the former tiers, although it’s important to note that we are not turning the former “Tier 1” Navy Cruisers into Navy Support Cruisers. They will serve much better by staying as combat hulls.
- Augoror Navy Issue: this ship is currently defined by the interesting 10% armor HP per level ship bonus, but the lack of any other useful features limit its role to that of bait ship. We are keeping the hit point bonus but removing the laser capacitor use bonus in exchange for a large 25% per level energy weapon damage bonus for three turrets. This leaves this vessel with solid turret damage, an excellent buffer tank and two utility high slots.
- Omen Navy Issue: expanding on the Attack role of the standard Omen, the Navy Omen is gaining significantly more speed and a new energy weapon optimal range bonus in exchange for fewer hit points and turrets. It deals less turret damage than its standard counterpart but gains much better projection and speed to control engagements.
- Osprey Navy Issue: takes the Attack role of the Caracal to the next level with more speed and a larger kinetic damage bonus. The addition of a utility high slot, an extra low slot and (most importantly) a sixth medium slot makes the Navy Osprey extremely versatile. It can choose to fit a strong shield tank or take advantage of the mobility and medium slots through electronic warfare.
- Caracal Navy Issue: this vessel has been changed to be a heavier version of the regular Caracal, more suited for brawling than kiting. It is keeping its 6th launcher that already set it apart from the standard Caracal. Bonuses to missile damage and velocity have been replaced by 5% rate of fire on launchers and 5% missile explosion radius reduction per level, giving it excellent damage application against smaller targets.
- Exequror Navy Issue: the ultimate glass cannon, it has kept its double hybrid damage bonuses which paired with an extra turret give it unprecedented amounts of close range damage. Fast and hard hitting, it however lacks the Thorax tracking bonus, making less effective at hitting smaller moving targets.
- Vexor Navy Issue: this vessel has been overhauled to be a pure drone boat. We removed the hybrid damage bonus and three turret slots in favor of 5% to drone velocity and tracking per level. It also now has a 125m3 bandwidth and 200m3 drone bay, giving it the ability to fit a full flight of heavy drones as well as spare sets of mediums and lights. We expect this ship to be very effective with either heavy drones close up, or tracking-bonused sentries at range.
- Scythe Fleet Issue: this is our attempt to redeem the old Minmatar tradition of split weapon systems. Instead of forcing two separate weapon types this ship has a choice between two equally valid weapon options. It has been changed to have 5 launchers and 5 turrets, with a 10% bonus to medium projectile turret rate of fire and 10% bonus to missile damage per level. Since these bonuses have twice the strength of the bonuses the ship would receive normally, it effectively has four weapon bonuses, two of which can be used at a time. This will allow the Fleet Scythe to have an exceptional element of surprise as opponents will never know what to expect until they see the ship arrive on the field of battle.
- Stabber Fleet Issue: The current gold standard in Navy Cruisers, this ship performs well and as such is receiving only small modifications. The main change is an addition to the ship’s mass, which reduces its agility and speed slightly.
Navy Battlecruisers
Like the sweet, yummy sugar and cherry frosting on that desert you are about to eat, we decided to introduce navy variants of the Combat battlecruisers to fill the gap between Navy Cruisers and Navy Battleships. That would be the Harbinger Navy Issue, Drake Navy Issue, Brutix Navy Issue and Hurricane Fleet Issue.
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Harbinger Navy Issue: we decided to give this ship some much needed flexibility by adding a 5th medium slot, and replacing the medium energy turret capacitor reduction bonus with a 7.5% medium energy turret tracking bonus per level. However, the drone bay has been slightly reduced next to its regular counterpart.
- Amarr Battlecruiser skill bonuses: +10% medium energy turret damage and +7.5% to medium energy turret tracking per level
- Slot layout: 7 H, 5 M, 6 L, 6 turrets, 0 launchers
- Fittings: 1495 PWG, 410 CPU
- Defense (shields / armor / hull) : 4500 / 7500 / 6750
- Capacitor (amount / recharge rate / cap per second): 3125 / 822 s / 3.8
- Mobility (max velocity / agility / mass / align time): 150 / 0.69 / 13800000 / 13.2 s
- Drones (bandwidth / bay): 50 / 50
- Targeting (max targeting range / Scan Resolution / Max Locked targets): 55km / 210 / 6
- Sensor strength: 21 Radar
- Signature radius: 270
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Drake Navy Issue: unwilling to imitate our dear friend Victor by creating a Drakenstein monster, the navy version focuses on flexibility instead of improving the already good raw firepower and tank of the regular Drake. It has a 10% missile velocity and 5% missile explosion radius bonus per level, 8 launchers and improved mobility.
- Caldari Battlecruiser skill bonuses: +10% to heavy missile and heavy assault missile velocity and 5% bonus to explosion radius of heavy missile and heavy assault missile per level
- Slot layout: 8 H, 6 M, 4 L, 0 turrets, 8 launchers
- Fittings: 880 PWG, 550 CPU
- Defense (shields / armor / hull) :7875 / 4875 / 5625
- Capacitor (amount / recharge rate / cap per second): 2500 / 658 s / 3.8
- Mobility (max velocity / agility / mass / align time): 150 / 0.64 / 13329000 / 11.8 s
- Drones (bandwidth / bay): 25 / 25
- Targeting (max targeting range / Scan Resolution / Max Locked targets): 60km / 195 / 8
- Sensor strength: 23 Gravimetric
- Signature radius: 295
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Brutix Navy Issue: this vessel is an iteration over the regular version. The armor repairer amount bonus has been swapped for a 7.5% medium hybrid turret tracking bonus per level, another low slot has been added and it is a bit more maneuverable as well.
- Gallente Battlecruiser skill bonuses: +10% to medium hybrid turret damage and 7.5% bonus to medium hybrid turret tracking per level
- Slot layout: 7 H, 4 M, 7 L, 6 turrets, 0 launchers
- Fittings: 1235 PWG, 455 CPU
- Defense (shields / armor / hull): 5250 / 6750 / 7125
- Capacitor (amount / recharge rate / cap per second): 3000 / 789 s / 3.8
- Mobility (max velocity / agility / mass / align time): 155 / 0.704 / 11875000 / 11.6 s
- Drones (bandwidth / bay): 50 / 50
- Targeting (max targeting range / Scan Resolution / Max Locked targets): 55km / 200 / 7
- Sensor strength: 22 Magnetometric
- Signature radius: 305
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Hurricane Fleet Issue: over its regular version, this ship has 8 high slots, two utility slots, slightly more mobility and fittings, while the role itself doesn’t change. Kind of reminds us of something, but what could that be? Memory must be playing tricks on us.
- Minmatar Battlecruiser skill bonuses: +5% to medium projectile damage and 5% bonus to medium projectile rate of fire per level
- Slot layout: 8 H, 4 M, 6 L, 6 turrets, 3 launchers
- Fittings: 1235 PWG, 420 CPU
- Defense (shields / armor / hull): 6375 / 6750 / 5250
- Capacitor (amount / recharge rate / cap per second): 2250 / 592 s / 3.8
- Mobility (max velocity / agility / mass / align time): 165 / 0.704 / 12500000 / 12.2 s
- Drones (bandwidth / bay): 30 / 30
- Targeting (max targeting range / Scan Resolution / Max Locked targets): 50km / 220 / 6
- Sensor strength: 20 Ladar
- Signature radius: 250
The new Navy Battlecruisers will be available from:
- Regular corporation LP stores, 1 run blueprint offer: 250,000 LPs plus 100 million ISK for 1 run blueprint copy (BPC)
- Regular corporation LP stores, built ship offer: 300,000 LPs plus 1x built tech1 Battlecruiser plus two cruiser sized Nexus Chips
- FW Loyalty Point stores, 1 run blueprint offer: for 125,000 LPs plus 10m ISK for 1 run BPC
- FW Loyalty Point Stores, built ship offer: 125,000 LPs plus 1x built tech1 Battlecruiser plus two cruiser sized Nexus Chips
Click to enlarge
If you would like to know more, exact details will be posted for review in the Features & Ideas Discussion section of the forums as soon as possible.
Navy battleships
As the Tiericide locomotive is rolling through the various ship groups it’s now up to tech1 battleships to be put under the microscope – we don’t have accurate details yet, but expect changes to be announced on the proper section of the forum shortly as they are planned for Odyssey.
However, let’s not drift away from the theme of this blog. As a special-sized free one-kind-of-a-deal package bonus, navy variations of regular battleships are going to be looked at as well in the near future. If not released for Odyssey, to be delivered soon after: please remember that none of this is set in stone yet and subject to change before release depending on circumstances.
We do hope this sate your appetite for now – and if you are starving for more, keep an eye open for our Fanfest ship balancing presentation as well, as that’s sure going to be a juicy meal.