Tier 3 BS

[Raging Turtle]

Just wondering what everyone here thought, as the noise ratio is a little high on the o-forums rigth now.   

My take -
Abaddon looks badass but may have issues depending on cap.  One hell of a ratting ship - If the cap issues work out, I'm not sure why you'd buy either other Amarr BS for pve.
Rokh is going to be kicking ass next to the Mega in fleet battles.
Hyperion looks like another 'wtfpwnyou' close range ship in the style of the Dominix.  Worthless at range? 
Maelstorm... no idea.  I don't know enough about Matari ships to judge this.

Abaddon

Bonuses:
5% large energy weapon rate of fire per level
5% armor resistance per level
The most obvious thing about this ship is that it isn't getting any energy weapon capacitor need bonus. The bonuses it is getting however are pretty powerful. It has the option of more damage than an Armageddon or a better tank than an Apocalypse. The problem starts however when it tries to do both at once.Slot wise its gonna have 8 turret hardpoints, 8 high slots and 8 low slots. Whether it has one more slot than the Apocalypse isn't really decided but its quite clear that if it does then it will be a med slot.

Rokh

Bonuses:
10% large hybrid optimal range per level
5% shield resistance per level
Caldari favor missiles and hybrids as a primary weapon system. They usually get a range bonus for hybrids which is a lot more beneficial to railguns than it is to blasters. Their "railgun" ships however usually have fewer turret hardpoints than other races turret ships. The Rokh does not, its not really lacking in the missile hardpoint department but it does have 8 turret hardpoints as well.

Hyperion

Bonuses:
5% large hybrid weapon damage per level
5% increase in capacitor when using microwarpdrive
You might have guessed from the bonuses that this is a kind of blaster ship. Its not only noticable by the bonuses but also the attributes of the ship. Everything on this ships is optimized for it getting in range fast. Its lighter and faster than Megathron, it has unusually large capacitor but slower recharge time. It has roughly the same peak cap recharge rate as the other tier 3 battleships but when it has to take that long sprint toward its enemy it has more cap when it finally gets in range.

Now you might be asking your self what is the use of megathron then? Well not everything is better on the Hyperion, it has really crappy targetting range, and I mean really crappy. It also has smaller drone bay than Megathron and obviously worse tracking. Megathron would therefor be considerable better long range ship, while still being a decent blaster boat.

Maelstrom

Bonuses:
5% large projectile weapon rate of fire per level
7.5% shield boost amount per level
A bit unusual Minmatar ship in the way that its rather slow and heavy but has a pretty good tank. In fact this ship can boost the most hitpoints per second of all the non capital ships. It has 8 turrets. It doesn't outdamage the Tempest as the Tempest gets a rate of fire and a damage bonus but Maelstrom's 8 turrets do outdamage Tempest's 6 turrets. When we factor in the two high slots that Tempest has it does outdamage the Maelstrom.

[Strazos]

No missile ships? Nothing for me to see here. The shield stuff is nice on the Rokh, but I can get a Raven instead.

[Merusk]

Oh excellent the Matari ship is a shield tank.. and a good one at that.

The biggest problem has been -for me- to make effective use of a Matari BS you need to armor tank it.  Not a big deal if your progression is frig->cruiser->bs, because you can train-up all those armor tanking skills and use them for a cruiser just fine.  However, as most of you realized, moving into a BC and then a BS is a lot easier on the sanity and the wallet.  If you've dropped into BCs for any length of time, (like me) you've been working on Shield Tanking quite a lot and ignored the armor tanking stuff.   

 I picked-up all the passive shield tanking bonuses, etc and ignored the armor ones when they came out.  So now, before I move into a (current) BS, I need to work-up a bunch of armor skills.  Bleah.

The damage stuff down at the bottom makes little sense.  I think they mean to say the 2 high slots on the Tempest can fit missiles, which up the DPS above just the 8-guns on the Maelstrom.

[Yoru]

Depending on its viability as a part-time missile platform, I'd invest in a Rokh - 8 turret slots on a Caldari ship would give me a dual-purpose mining-fighting ship instead of thinking about dealing with the utter insanity of funding two BSes at once.

[Vedi]

I'd love a Rokh for mining as well, but will these ships be insanely expensive? It's not clear to me if the blueprints for these will be limited like HACs or what?

[Raging Turtle]

The bpo's will be available for purchase from NPC's.  I'm expecting MANY people to buy a copy of a BS (or all four) and immediately crank out several to put on the market with a huge markup. 

I'd really like to be one of those people.  Who wants to give me a billion? 

[Vedi]

Ah, the "tier 3" made it unclear to me if this were a class of battleship above and beyond the "T2" ones or if they were simply the third "T1" battleship.

What are the expected cost of the BPOs? Hard to say?

[Yoru]

Tier 3 BS = tech 1, skill 3 required to operate.

Well within the reach of most people, once the initial price shock subsides.

[Reg]

The Gallente Hyperion looks pretty useless from a mission runner's point of view. The MWD bonus is completely useless to you on a deadspace mission. I'm glad. My dominix business look safe for now. :)

[TheDreamr]

Sorry if I've missed this already, but how does the Rokh compare to the Mega?

To me (Caldari BS nub looking to cross-train to Gallente at some point) it seems like the Mega is still a pretty attractive ship (dmg bonuses are always good, anything that makes turrets track better also good).

On the other hand if I was planning to do some sniping, seems like Rokh would be the ship to go for since I'd have range and boosted resists (should some cad actually attempt to fire back at me).

[dwindlehop]

8 T2 1400mms == super snipage. Better alpha strike with BS3 than a Tempest with BS5, and the DPS isn't terrible. Arty Tempests are used as the harassing sniper ship and I see Maelstroms taking that role over from Tempests.

As an AC boat, the Maelstrom might be interesting with a couple of L or XL Boosters and a cap booster. I wonder what kind of drone bay it will have.

I guess maybe the boost bonus might make it good for missions/complexes, but having very little experience in that area I couldn't say for sure. I bet the resistance ships have it better there.

Is there word on the new BCs yet? I'm wondering if they're going to make them into really good warfare link platforms a la fleet command ships or what.

[edlavallee]

Like Straz, I see nothing in here for missle boats, however the shield and range bonuses of the Rokh are attractive. Would be a large pain to switch to guns at this point tho, so is there any benefit to the Rokh over the Raven if you were going to fit them with missles?

[Raging Turtle]

Gunnery skils generally take a lot more skillpoints to be effective than missles, so I'm not sure about switching, Ed.

I'm pretty sure I heard from ths devs the tier 2 gallente BC is going to be a droneboat, and the caldari one a missle boat.  I've heard rumors of an Amarr droneboat as well, but I'm not sure so sure about that.  No idea on minmatar.

[TheDreamr]

Like Straz, I see nothing in here for missle boats, however the shield and range bonuses of the Rokh are attractive. Would be a large pain to switch to guns at this point tho, so is there any benefit to the Rokh over the Raven if you were going to fit them with missles?

Missile boats are supposedly getting some love in the form of the 2nd Caldari BC - assuming CCP don't make a pigs ear of it you could potentially have a very interesting ship right there for a quarter the price of a raven.

[Raging Turtle]

Like Straz, I see nothing in here for missle boats, however the shield and range bonuses of the Rokh are attractive. Would be a large pain to switch to guns at this point tho, so is there any benefit to the Rokh over the Raven if you were going to fit them with missles?

Missile boats are supposedly getting some love in the form of the 2nd Caldari BC - assuming CCP don't make a pigs ear of it you could potentially have a very interesting ship right there for a quarter the price of a raven.

Yeah - right now I'm thinking my next BPO purchase is either going to be a Dominix or the new Caldari BC.  Wish I had a money for an Abaddon bpo, but I'm expecting them to be around a billion or more.

[Reg]

I'm staying well away from the new BPOs. There's enough money out there right now that I expect the market to be saturated almost immediately and then I will smile as I listen to the bitching about the declining prices. :)

[Roac]

From the Caldari standpoint I'm not all that interested in the Rokh.  I think it was a good design decision from CCP: Caldari have always been toying with hybrids, but without a full line of ships to make use of them, it was a bit pointless in training gunnery up at all, except maybe the high SP people who wanted to fit big guns on the spare 2 slots on a Raven.  Unlike other races, Caldari get two weapon categories to choose from, which is good from a flexibility standpoint, but costly from a training one.  I wonder if this will bolster cross training between Caldari and Gallente ships, due to their relying on drone/hybrid setups? 

Unless all 8 slots also allow missiles, there is unlikely to be a reason for missile Caldari types to want to pick up the Rokh.  Reason being, with BS IV the Raven has an effective 7.2 launchers due to rof bonus.  This still leaves two turrets free to stick on a tractor, nos, gun, smartbomb, etc.  Even if the new boat could fit 8 launchers, it would give up that advantage for only a slight dps boost, and loss in overall range.  The other stats plus the 5% shielding hardening may make up for it, but it'll be a tough sell, since in gang actions tanking is normally viewed as a worthless endeavur.  Having 20% more shield hardening doesn't do much good when 5 people hit you at once.  I think the shield hardening is an odd bonus on a BS anyway; it makes the Rokh feel like nothing more than a Ferox with more slots. 

I am really looking forward to the Caldari Tech2 BC though.  Supposedly it will be a missile BC, which is badly needed as right now my options are cruiser or BS.  I have both a Caracal and Raven at the moment, and they're both good ships; however, the former is too small and the latter too expensive to put into PvP for my taste.  I could buy - and fit - a BC for the cost of premium BS insurance, so that's tough on the wallet.  Caracal doesn't have the punch or stamina to take down enemy BCs however, and doesn't really have the dps to stand up well to other cruisers every time either.  The Ferox is a good ship, but again, training gunnery is a limiting factor in its usefullness.  If the new BC is allowed warfare links as well, then that suddenly gives a huge boost to corp wolfpacks.  A group of 3-4 BCs, all suited up with warfare links, could be extremely deadly. 

[Sparky]

Really nice optimal range bonus on the Rokh, T1 sniping at 200km anyone?  The Caldari have needed a direct damage BS forever as missiles kind of suck in large ranged fleet battles when the primary is dead before your first volley struck home.

[dwindlehop]

The official forums note that the Rokh will completely own in fleet engagements as it will be able to hit at the limit of lock range and mount damage mods instead of tracking enhancers. Kinda sucks for the other racial lines, actually. I suppose the saving grace is the number of folks who have Caldari BS and large hybrids, esp t2, trained up.

[Roac]

Oh, it's a great ship.  It's just that it doesn't fit with typical Caldari mindset of using missiles, which means about 3 weeks of training to get suited up to fly it and ignoring the sp already spent on that.  The real worry is that it may be a better ship than the Raven (long range sniping/shield tanking).  If so, that also puts a dent on the use of missiles period, since Caldari are the only ones who get any milage out of them. 

[Raging Turtle]

It's also kind of useless (or at least sub-par) for anything other than long-range sniping.  So if you're not the fleet battle/gate camping type, it's not really for you.

[edlavallee]

I am really looking forward to the Caldari Tech2 BC though.  Supposedly it will be a missile BC, which is badly needed as right now  

I would be interested in seeing the specs of this Tech2 BC... I love missles and do now envy trying to learn guns at this point.

[Raging Turtle]

/quibble

Tier 2, not Tech2. 

[edlavallee]

/quibble

Tier 2, not Tech2. 

/kicktheturtle

What? It's a turtle, it's not like its gonna catch me or something.

[Simond]

The Abaddon sucks.

It has enough cap to tank...if you fit peashooter lasers. Alternatively, you could fit full tachyons and have great damage...for about ten seconds until you're out of cap, helpless, and with a weak passive tank.

The best loadout idea I've seen for it is ignoring the laser bonus completely and fitting artillery or guns (no cap use) and a decent tank.