Friday, November 27, 2015

Seismic Shift

DISCLAIMER: Sadly this post has nothing to do with Seismic Stan.

If you live and fight and die in low sec, you might want to brace yourself for the coming seismic shift in the meta scheduled for December 8th. There are not one, not two, but THREE whole new classes of four ships each coming that will completely disrupt the current meta and throw all known doctrines into disarray for at least a couple months.

First off we have the new navy E-war frigates:
Navy Maulus
With instability spreading across the cluster, the Empire navies are hard at work developing new ships to reward and equip their dedicated loyalist Capsuleers. Four new Navy Disruption Frigates are rolling off the assembly lines, wielding powerful electronic warfare systems alongside strong applied damage. These ships are an excellent match for small gang and solo pvpers.
Despite already having tech I and II e-war frigates, these ships promise to up the ante in the novice plexes where the tech II version cannot dwell, with short range but powerful combat capabilities. These ships are not earth shattering, but only the start of the shift.

Up next we have tech II logsitics frigates:

New Tech Two versions of the remote-repairing Support Frigates are being released, opening up new progression paths for your friendly neighborhood Logibros. These ships are especially well suited for supporting fleets of fast-moving Frigates and Destroyers without falling behind the pack.
This is going to be interesting as there is definite hole between the light tech I logi frigs and the tech I cruisers, something tougher than the former and faster than the latter. I can see destroyer fleets especially benefiting from these little medics.

Finally we have the mind-blowing Tech II Command Destroyers:

Each one of these new classes individually has the potential to shake up the established doctrines and common knowledge, combined they will overturn almost every aspect of low sec combat.


  1. "Enemy ships don't infiltrate one or two of these"

    And that there is my biggest problem. Dragging along every ship within a 6km bubble...

    What the hell was CCP thinking? I could accept dragging two or three ships away from a blob, but dragging the whole blob is just going to kill more fights than it begins. Furthermore, combining this absurd ability onto a hull that's going to have links and absurd ehp?

    I'm deeply unimpressed by the implementation of this idea. They have little counter play, are patently absurd, and are going to be absolutely painful to fight. Perhaps I've missed something obvious (and I really hope I have), but these ships are designed to be (and I'll use the word I hate) cancerous.

    With this and the RR change, I'm just exceptionally unimpressed with the developmental direction CCP has taken lately. Making my life painful with no reward really makes me enjoy myself.

    1. On the other hand, CCP seems to believe fleet combat is too easy and prone to F1 anchoring. For every player frustrated by a harder situation is one who enjoys the challenge. Eve is kind of founded on the principle that it should be hard, and the difficulty is responsible for the sweetness.


    3. I guess my problem with that argument is that it fails to discriminate between the various roles a fleet requires.

      I fly logi 90% of the time. I'm co-ordinating: Broadcasts, Cap level, Cap Chain, Rep cycles, Watchlist, Heat, Scan-res and Lock range, and Jams. I'll also be calling for reps on our DPS, trying to judge the enemies' DPS and strategy, and trying to read the fight.

      Not exactly 'Anchor F1'.

      It gets worse (harder) when I'm anchor. I'm (i) the (/i) guy for positioning and co-ordination. I'm trying to place us in the best position we can be. I'm watching for un-anchored people, watching for jam cycles, watching for enemy warp-ins.

      And whilst I'm doing this, now I'll have to be doing (b) even more (/b). Are we close enough to hold Reps? If we're not, my fault. Are we going to be yanked away from the fight because of one screw-ball in his throw-away ship? If we are, well, my fault again. If we spread out so we're not in a ball, then half our fleet won't be at optimal reps, unless I stick us inside our DPS.

      I get that that is (i) interesting (/i) for other people. For me, more pain, less fun, no login.

      (I'm not going to even humour the idea of 'chained' defensive scrams. It is absurd.)

      What would I like to get to 'fix' these ships? MJFG should be a) targeted modules, to make them more easily counter-able, and b) have massive sig bloom. You want to light an 'I WIN' field inside my fleet? Better be lockable in a second or less by a battleship. Positioning wins, loses, and kills fleet fights. Stripping every pilot's control should be something as counter-able as it is powerful.

    4. I can't do formatting. Whoops. :S

  2. December 8th is not far away but so far there is no concrete info when is the tech 2 logi frig dev blog plus hard stats nor it was released on the test server

    1. Oops ignore that . They just literally released the t2 fire logi info in the forum


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