Rev2.2 changes: Khanid MkII + Nos nerf

[Simond]

New Devblog up:

revised nosferatu mechanics and khanid mk 2 on the test server
reported by CCP Fendahl | 2007.07.30 14:07:57 | NEW | Comments
For Revelations 2.2 we are planning to revise the effect for Nosferatus and implement Khanid mk 2. As you may know, both changes are now out on the test server so you can try them out if you're interested. Juicy details below.
Nosferatu Changes
In their current implementation Nosferatus not only neutralize cap of the targeted ship, but also leeches energy for your own ship. For instance a Heavy Nosferatu I gives you 8en/s and the peak recharge rate of a Megathron is about 20en/s with good skills, so a single Heavy Nosferatu I gives you about 40% increase in cap recharge rate. Even if the Nosferatu didn't leech energy it would still be a useful module since it can neutralize a capacitor at no (energy) cost to yourself. The problem, then, is that Nosferatus allows one to both leech energy off a target and at the same time neutralize its capacitor. This makes the Nosferatus too powerful since there is no compromise involved.

To address this issue we have changed the effect on Nosferatus (but not on Energy Neutralizers) in order to make the Nosferatu less powerful as an Energy Neutralizer without affecting its ability to leech energy. Under the new system, the amount transferred by a Nosferatu is based on the relative capacitor charge levels (measured in percent). Energy is only transferred while the charge percentage of the targeted ship is higher than the charge percentage of the ship that activated the Nosferatu. This means that the target is no worse off (energy wise) than the attacking ship.

For instance, if a battleship with 30% capacitor left activates a Nosferatu on a frigate, then the frigate is not drained below 30%. In other words, the Nosferatu would not drain the capacitor of the frigate completely, though an Energy Neutralizer would do the job nicely (but at an energy cost to the battleship). It is, however, still possible to use Nosferatus to drain a target if one is willing to sacrifice ones own energy to do so.
Khanid mk 2
The Khanid ships currently suffer from a lack of direction. They have mixed laser and missile hardpoints and a bias towards shield tanking, but with armor bonuses. To rectify this, Khanid mk 2 (as originally suggested by Sarmaul -- much love for this awesome idea!) focuses on missile combat and armor tanking exclusively. This overlaps somewhat with Caldari missile ships, but the revised Khanid ships focus more on close range combat with bonuses to rockets/heavy assault missiles (and hopefully torpedos eventually). The Caldari ships remain superior at longer ranges due to missile velocity and flight time bonuses and their higher CPU output for Standard/Heavy Missile Launchers. Generally speaking, the new "Khanid bonuses" are:

    * 5% bonus to rocket/heavy assault missile damage per level,
    * 5% bonus to armor resistances per level and
    * 5% reduction of capacitor recharge time per level.

Most Khanid ships do not favor any particular damage types, which increases flexibility with respect to damage types. Their damage output is higher than that of their Caldari counter parts when using non-kinetic rockets/heavy assault missiles, but lower with kinetic standard missiles/heavy missiles. The armor resistance and capacitor recharge bonuses enables the Khanid ships to field very tough tanks, which helps them to better survive at close range where they are most effective. Sensors have in general been adjusted for slightly shorter range. The mass and maximum speed on the Vengeance and Sacrilege have been improved so they can close in on their targets faster, though they remain slightly slower than their traditional Amarr equivalents. The Impel (deep space transport) and the Curse (combat recon) have not been changed as they are already in line with Khanid mk 2. The changes for the other Khanid ships are listed below.
Malediction (Interceptor)

    * Hardpoints: 3 launchers (+1), 1 turret (-2)
    * Fitting: 135tf (+10tf), 35mw (no change)
    * Sensors: 925mm scan res (+25mm), 18,500m max targeting range (-4,000m)

Bonuses

    * 5% bonus to rocket damage per FF level
    * 5% bonus to armor resistances per FF level
    * 5% reduction of signature radius per Interceptor level (no change)
    * 5% bonus to missile EM damage per Interceptor level (no change)

Lacks the range of the Crow, but has a bonus to armor resistances, a better capacitor and better speed. CPU is tight when using standard missiles.
Vengeance (Assault Ship)

    * Hardpoints: 4 launchers (+2), 1 turret (-2)
    * Fitting: 160tf (+10tf), 43mw (-5mw)
    * Sensors: 655mm scan res (+55mm), 38,000m max targeting range (-7,000m)
    * Propulsion: 235m/s (+5m/s), 2,000,000kg (-75,000kg)

Bonuses

    * 5% bonus to rocket damage per Amarr FF level
    * 15%/10% bonus to shield/armor resistances per Amarr FF level (no change)
    * 5% bonus to armor resistances per AS level
    * 5% reduction of capacitor recharge time per AS level (no change)

Lacks the range of the Hawk, but is faster and tanks better due to its slot layout and bonuses. CPU is tight when using standard missiles.
Anathema (Covert Ops)

    * Hardpoints: 2 launchers (+1), 1 turret (-1)

Bonuses

    * 5% bonus to rocket damage per Amarr FF level
    * 5% reduction of capacitor recharge time per Amarr FF level
    * -98% to -100% reduced CPU need for cloaking device per Amarr FF level (no change)
    * 10% reduction of duration time of Astrometric modules per Amarr FF level (no change)

Weapons are largely useless on Covert Ops frigates, but the Anathema has none the less been given a Khanid flavor for the sake of consistency.
Heretic (Interdictor)

    * Hardpoints: 6 launchers (+1), 2 turrets (-2)
    * Fitting: 230tf (+19tf), 57mw (-9mw)

Bonuses

    * 5% bonus to rocket damage per DD level
    * 10% bonus to explosion velocity per DD level
    * 10% bonus to missile velocity per Interdictor level
    * 10% Interdiction Sphere Launcher ROF per Interdictor level (no change)

The Heretic has similar bonuses to the Flycatcher, but the rockets only damage bonus and the low CPU makes rockets more suitable than standard missiles. The Explosion velocity bonus makes the Heretic better for taking down high speed targets vs. low speed, low signature radius targets for the Flycatcher.
Sacrilege (Heavy Assault Ship)

    * Hardpoints: 5 launchers (+2), 0 turrets (-4)
    * Fitting: 400tf (+50tf), 1030mw (-70mw)
    * Sensors: 260mm scan res (+25mm), 50,000m max targeting range (-10,000m)
    * Propulsion: 205m/s (+30m/s), 12,000,000kg (-155,000kg)

Bonuses

    * 5% bonus to Heavy Assault Missile damage per Amarr CC level
    * 5% bonus to armor resistances per Amarr CC level (no change)
    * 5% reduction of capacitor recharge time per HAS level
    * 5% reduction of missile launcher ROF per HAS level

The improved speed and mass helps getting the ship in close, though it remains slightly worse than for the Zealot. The armor resistance and capacitor recharge bonuses allow the Sacrilege to field a very hard tank, which helps it to compete against blaster ships (with its relatively lower damage output).
Damnation (Command Ship)

    * Hardpoints: 5 launchers (+1), 2 turrets (-2)
    * Fitting: 440tf (no change), 1300mw (-210mw)

Bonuses

    * 5% bonus to Heavy Assault Missiles per BC level
    * 5% bonus to armor resistances per BC level (no change)
    * 5% reduction of capacitor recharge time per CS level
    * 3% bonus to Armor Warfare Links per CS level (no change)

Relatively low damage output compared to other fleet command ships, however the reduction of capacitor recharge time enables the Damnation to tank better than any other fleet command ship.

As always, the above changes are not final and subject to change if they turn out to be overpowered or under-performing. Of course we would like to hear your feedback on the Nosferatu and Khanid changes (from Caldari pilots too). More balacing changes for Revelations 2.2 to follow.

[Fordel]

So NOS goes from "I-Win" to near useless?

Though I'm sure some one will figure out a way to abuse cap regen rates by locking it down at the ideal regeneration point for high level missions or something similar.

[Morat20]

So NOS goes from "I-Win" to near useless?

Though I'm sure some one will figure out a way to abuse cap regen rates by locking it down at the ideal regeneration point for high level missions or something similar.

That sounds a bit like an over-nerf, if you ask me. What is the base problem they're trying to fix?

[Fordel]

Ships forgoing guns in favor of NOS then doing their killing with drones, I think that is the complaint/issue. The fact a single BattleShip sized NOS will decimate a frigate is also an issue. Every other type of weapon system has the size penalty, where NOS has none.

[Morat20]

Ships forgoing guns in favor of NOS then doing their killing with drones, I think that is the complaint/issue. The fact a single BattleShip sized NOS will decimate a frigate is also an issue. Every other type of weapon system has the size penalty, where NOS has none.

What's wrong with forgoing guns in favor of drones? It takes a lot of skills, and if they're that worried about it adjust the drone-bonuses on droneboats to make it harder.

I mean, hell, can't you shoot the drones down? What's a droneboat going to do when he's out of drones? Nos you to death?

As for sizes -- I wouldn't mind seeing a Nos scale to the ship it's hitting. Hit a frigate with a BS-sized Nos, you drain a fraction of what you would if you hit a BS with one. Problem solved. No funky-ass capacitor requirements needed. If you wanted something really fun, scale it with sig radius so that you COULD suck a frigate dry -- if you target painted it and played all the other games you'd need to hit it with BS guns in the first place.

[Belce]

The epitimoy of the situation is the nosdomi.  With the change, I understand that a nos will now reduce your opponnents cap to be no lower than your own and does so in terms of percentage.  Neuts still work as before though, but they cost energy to run and it just goes away into space.   As a previous poster indicated, there was not a to hit check, a reduction due to tracking or target speed/size that occurs with guns and missles.  Turn nos on and it works and you get more cap to boot as well.  As it was it worked differently than other weapon systems. 

[Viin]

What's wrong with forgoing guns in favor of drones? It takes a lot of skills, and if they're that worried about it adjust the drone-bonuses on droneboats to make it harder.

I mean, hell, can't you shoot the drones down? What's a droneboat going to do when he's out of drones? Nos you to death?

You can't shoot them if you don't have any cap. So if someone put two heavy nos' on you in a cruiser, you'd be OK for 2-3 seconds then you'd be out of cap. Then you just have to sit there while drones chew through your shield and armor. (Since you have no cap you can't warp, boost away, or really do anything). If you happened to have a recharger with cap recharge packs (whatever those are called, I forget now) you could use those but would probably be reduced to 0 cap before you could warp - but I haven't tried that.

Edit: and you might not even be able to do that, I think it still takes energy (cap) to do the recharge packs, so if you are at 0 you wouldn't even be able to activate one of those.

[Krakrok]

The nos changes are lame. The existing trade off is that you do no damage with nos. Morat's suggestion to fractionalize it based on sig radius is a better solution.

Everyone will just use neutralizers and cap boosters.

[Belce]

A nos takes no energy to activate and transfers energy to you, it also recycles faster than a neut does as well, on the downside it does take more cpu than a neut does.  A neut takes less cpu and requires an equal or close to activation cost to the energy neutralized at the target.  It only makes sense to use a neut if your cap is better than your opponent or you think your recharge is much better or their activities are more cap intensive than yours.  You can use a neut against a tackling frigate to break scramble, using the volume of cap that a large ship has as an advantage, the thing is now it is at a cost.  Yes cap boosters are now more important for countering and continuing the use of a neut. 

Regarding no damage done, the game's combat system is tied to cap, if you have it you can do things, if you don't you can't do things.  To win a fight you need to do more damage then your opponent and reducing their cap to zero is a very effective way to do more damage than your opponent can do. 

Compared to nos, neuts at least place a cost to the user equal to or close to thier effect. 

Are nos still useful?  Yes, if you are going to be doing something that is very cap intensive, mwd, warp scramble, fire weapons, then you could likely see yourself quickly having less cap than your oppenent.  applying a nos to that target would transfer their riches to your poor cap. 

[Ratadm]

A nos change was needed.  As it was nos were overpowered and nos/drone boats such as curse/domi/myrm even more so.

[Megrim]

A nos change was needed.  As it was nos were overpowered and nos/drone boats such as curse/domi/myrm even more so.

But why not make them as all other weapons, scaling with radius/transversal?

[Fordel]

Because EVE needed more arbitrary illogical systems in place to add further depth to the combat system.

Did I do that correctly?

[Polysorbate80]

A nos change was needed.  As it was nos were overpowered and nos/drone boats such as curse/domi/myrm even more so.

But why not make them as all other weapons, scaling with radius/transversal?

Why not make them not exist?  I have shields and armor that can stop the most powerful weapon systems in the known universe, but I can't lock my gas cap?

[Raging Turtle]

A counter-nos module besides cap boosters would have been nice. 

Anyone else loving the new Khanid designs?

[Morat20]

A nos change was needed.  As it was nos were overpowered and nos/drone boats such as curse/domi/myrm even more so.

But why not make them as all other weapons, scaling with radius/transversal?

I'd actually love to see a CCP Dev explain why that wasn't their choice -- it seems simple, uses an existing system, and addresses the direct problem without adding any extra complexity.

So why didn't they do that?

Admittedly, I only use my Nos to keep my tank going longer -- I'm not really out to drain an opponent, I just want the juice for my armor tank.

[ajax34i]

My wild guesstimate is that the most use for NOS'es was to stop smaller ships from tackling your big ship (anti-interceptor defense), and tracking penalties would have nerfed that use about as much as this does.

Although, the simplest explanation is probably that this was just easier to code.

[Morat20]

My wild guesstimate is that the most use for NOS'es was to stop smaller ships from tackling your big ship (anti-interceptor defense), and tracking penalties would have nerfed that use about as much as this does.

Although, the simplest explanation is probably that this was just easier to code.

I can't imagine why -- I mean the tracking penalties already exist, they're just not used for Nos and probably should be. And neutralizers too, because if a BS-sized NOS can suck a frig dry, a BS-sized neutralizer can too, leaving the frig just as helpless.

As it is -- I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to do with the Domi setup I was looking at. I wanted Nos to keep my cap full while I tanked and my drones did all the work -- but if he's using guns AND tanking and I'm just tanking, my Nos is never going to suck power. I might as well ditch it and mount guns. Energy neutralizers would work, but I'd probably just use the cap they'd charge to fuck with him in other ways.

[Raging Turtle]

I'm more than a little happy I never spent that 1-2 months training for the Curse and Pilgrim.

The nos change is going to change so much of close-range, medium-to-small fleet combat.  It'll be interesting to see how everything shakes out a month or two after the patch hits. 

[Morat20]

I'm more than a little happy I never spent that 1-2 months training for the Curse and Pilgrim.

The nos change is going to change so much of close-range, medium-to-small fleet combat.  It'll be interesting to see how everything shakes out a month or two after the patch hits. 

That's kind of what I'm worried about -- I don't know if the Devs really have a good idea of how it's going to shake out, and it's a big change to be making on the "It'll all work out in the end" mindset.

I guess it depends on what they think the problem is. If it's people fitting heavy Nos and rendering tacklers useless -- why nerf Nos and not Neuts? Why not use the same code used on heavy guns aiming at tiny ships to nerf Nos proportionatly.

If it's people fighting with just Nos + Drones -- what's the problem there? Is that not a fighting style they want? Why not nerf Drone bonuses on Myrms, Domis, and whatever else uses them?

Do they feel Nos + Drones is overpowered? I don't see how forcing droneboats to fit neutralizers instead is really going to alter the calculus here.

At this point, with the changes they're talking about -- I'd use Nos in missioning to keep my tank up. PvP -- pointless. Fit guns or neutralizers, I guess.

[5150]

(Since you have no cap you can't warp)

I'm almost certain you can warp away on zero cap (you just dont get very far)

Thing is you are probably tackled anyway.......

[Yoru]

(Since you have no cap you can't warp)

I'm almost certain you can warp away on zero cap (you just dont get very far)

Thing is you are probably tackled anyway.......

You can't on zero cap. It takes some cap just to initiate warp, but the amount is pretty small. If you've got a small amount, it can look like zero on your cap flower.

[Furiously]

Maybe it's to make Titans useful as NOS drainers.   

[dwindlehop]

I think the point of the change is that you should be able to neut smaller ships to zero cap easily. Right now, nossing them is just as effective, plus nos helps your tank so it is pointless to fit a neut in most situations. With the change, you now have to choose between your anti-tackler slot and your tank boosting slot. This effect is the Right Thing.

The use of player skill and modules to nuke one's own cap (neuts, mwd, shield boost) in order to nos your opponent is kind of a meh for me. On the plus side, someone doing that has to have zero cap to nos you down. On the negative side, it is still possible. I would prefer to see that possibility eliminated.

The point where I think they may have screwed up is the nos bonus in the situation where cap is not instanuked. That is, one bs versus another, or maybe a bc with nos vs. a bs. If I'm reading this properly, one nos on your attacker will even out with any number of nos on you in a 1v1 rather quickly, regardless of size. I think that's unfortunate and undesirable. My personal nos fix had one medium mounted on a cruiser countering one large on a bs, but one large on a bs sucked more than one small on a frig and two large always sucked more than one medium.

[Krakrok]

I tried fitting my nosdomi setup yesterday using neutralizers instead. Heavy Neutralizers use 2500 grid which is 500 more than heavy nos but only 40 cpu which is 10 less than heavy nos. In addition to that the heavy neutralizers only fire every 24 seconds or so which is a LONG time (I think nos are 10 seconds). It seemed practically useless to fill up your ship with neutralizers. Better off to just take 1 for neutralizing frigs and do something else against BSs. The data from QuickFit could be old but it seemed to neutralize 500 enemy cap and 400 of my own cap. I was really only able to fit 3 heavy neutralizers because a heavy cap booster is also 2000 (or 2500 I forget) and same goes for the large armor repair.

[dwindlehop]

Yeah, neuts are balanced like that. Heavy nos is 12s. The Energy Emission Systems skill actually affects neuts, unlike nos. Best named/T2 is a lot better cap efficiency-wise.

Only reason for multiple neuts would be the cap alpha against a BS. If you want to mix nos+neuts post nerf, I think you might want to look into a cap battery. Then you could neut your own cap down to a low percentage, still have enough cap in your reserve to activate your reps, and nos to sustain the tank.

[Simond]

Whee, CCP want to kill 0.0!

Based on feedback and requests from resource hauling players, we introduced the Rorqual ORE capital ship in my previous blog. This ship's unique ore compression ability allows the movement of ores from fringe regions to empire space for refining, a feature requested since EVE's launch. The Rorqual's introduction grants us the ability to incorporate older ‘metafeatures’ into EVE in a balanced and officially supported manner.

Currently, there are a number of items whose total volume of required ingredients are many times that of the resulting product. This leads to imbalanced compression rates as high as 430:1, such as the 1,000m3 Jump Portal Generator, a module requiring 430,000m3 of minerals to make. Upon completion, these modules would be transported to a new location and reprocessed with nearly zero waste, thus allowing the transport of a Freighter load of minerals with an Industrial.

While this imbalance has been around for a long time, it wasn't until the introduction of high resource capital modules that we began to see its use increase. With the introduction of a ship designed to facilitate and empower ease of logistics in low sec, we can now release a tool to address deep space needs.

There are approximately 170 items currently on Tranquility with compression ratios over 5:1. When Revelations 2.2 is deployed the manufacturing costs of these items will remain unchanged, however reprocessing the affected items will yield 80% of the materials required. Material transport will still be possible after Revelations 2.2, but it will no longer be profitable to do so.

Expect all ship, module & ammo prices outside of empire to go up by at least[/i] 25%.

[Trippy]

I need a translation again of the above.

[Raging Turtle]

Explain a little more?  I know I'm missing something, but I feel like easier-to-move-huge-amounts = lower-mineral-prices-galaxy-wide, as more people can move more minerals more easily.  More.

[Simond]

OK, quick version:
Point one: Nobody in their right mind mines high-sec ore (veldspar, etc) in 0.0 - it's just pointless.
Point two: Most 0.0 corps & alliances get most of their bulk minerals (trit, etc) by either buying them in empire and 'compressing' them for reprocessing in 0.0 (making modules like tractor beams, passive targetters, and so on which all take up much less space as a finished product than the raw materials would otherwise do)*, or just buying the modules in empire themselves.
Point 3: The new mining capital ship, as a capital ship, cannot go into high-sec. If anyone wants to compress minerals with it, it'll be in low-sec/0.0 only...and as per point 1, that means compression of low-sec/0.0 ores.

CCP nerfs mineral compression, and people will have to either eat the @20% refinery loss (putting prices up ~20% to compensate), use less efficient compression (meaning less minerals per trip, meaning higher overheads), or just stop production (leading to less competition, leading to higher prices). Trit prices are going to go through the roof in 0.0


*Example:
Small Tractor Beam I

Module volume

    * 10m3

Refines into:

    * 100,000 tritanium compression ratio: 100:1
    * 25,000 pyerite compression ratio: 25:1
    * 9,000 mexallon compression ratio: 9:1
    * 2,500 isogen compression ratio: 2.5:1
    * 350 nocxium
    * 20 zydrine
    * 40 megacyte

[Trippy]

Okay I understand the 20% "tax" thing on certain items but I don't understand this:

Material transport will still be possible after Revelations 2.2, but it will no longer be profitable to do so.

Were people only getting a 20% markup on the items (turned back into minerals) they were transporting from Empire to 0.0? Seems unlikely give the risk involved (or is there little to no risk?).

Also why all the doom and gloom on the forums (beyond the typical MMO forum hysteria)? Is the economy in 0.0 so precarious that a 20% tax is going to plunge the economy into total chaos?

[Ratadm]

Nah it's just kind of a dick thing to do.  Everything in low sec/0.0 is already expensive enough and doesn't really need nerfing which is what this will do.

[Sparky]

Okay I understand the 20% "tax" thing on certain items but I don't understand this:

Material transport will still be possible after Revelations 2.2, but it will no longer be profitable to do so.

Were people only getting a 20% markup on the items (turned back into minerals) they were transporting from Empire to 0.0? Seems unlikely give the risk involved (or is there little to no risk?).

Also why all the doom and gloom on the forums (beyond the typical MMO forum hysteria)? Is the economy in 0.0 so precarious that a 20% tax is going to plunge the economy into total chaos?

Hard to generalise but certainly when I was up in goonspace the margins on imported minerals were pretty thin.  It's really not a great risk if you can package and carrier jump, just a pain.

[JoeTF]

1) You can still load your minerals into freighter and move them the way they're meant to be moved.

2) Mineral->module compression was borderline exploit, it's finally getting plunged.

3) Stop whining.

4) It's just 20%, meaningless.

5) I always wondered - if the prices are going up by 20%, why is final consumer price going up by 25%? Need that 5% to compensate for ginormous amount of efford required to adjust your buyorders?:P

6) Stop whining. No, really.

[Endie]

I agree with Joe again (hey, Joe, why no updates in the war thread?).  It's a 20% efficiency hit, which means a 25% rise in the trit component price, there's a new capital ship which will compress lowsec-mined ore massively, and our logistics guys are awesome anyway.  It's no biggie.

Of course, if the insurance price doesn't change (which it won't) then the 25% increase in trit price means a doubling of the cost of battleships after insurance, but fittings are the pricy thing, anyway.

[Simond]

Someone had a good idea on the Goonfleet forums - add a new ore in 0.0 which refines to a lot of trit/pye.