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[Proteus - January] Recon ships

First post First post First post
Mei Khlolov
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
#481 - 2014-12-18 21:44:12 UTC
Maybe a RLML bonus for the rook?

Looking good overall
Jennifer Maxwell
Crimson Serpent Syndicate
#482 - 2014-12-18 21:45:02 UTC
Suitonia wrote:
Also worth pointing out that this invalidates many guerrilla warfare techniques that solo and smaller entitys use to engage larger groups. One technique is warping to a different celestial in a system and engaging there, hoping the enemy forces are split up, and you can guage by the directional scanner what is following you and their arrival time roughly, with these new combat recons that is thrown out of the window entirely, even if a cloaked recon follows you they have to suffer from 5 second decloak timer+lock time, and the fact that they tend to be more vulnerable and bring less DPS than the combat varients, which gives you more counterplay, and time to try and disengage or kill your target before it can influence the fight, I really dislike taking away this ability.

Complex/Site/Mission runners will now need a mandatory alt watching the entrance of their plex, if you were vigilant with directional scanner you could detect covert ops invaders and the cloaking delay gives you time to try and escape or fight.

FW will probably be hit hardest by this, you see a t1 cruiser in a medium plex on d-scan, great, you go in with your cruiser, then find a curse and 2 rooks on grid. Likewise, you could be in a t1 Cruiser, see another t1 cruiser come in so decide to stay and fight. then 2 rooks come in and it's gg and you couldn't possibly prevent it without having an alt watching the entrance. A combat recon could also capture plexes without anyone ever knowing about it unless there is someone watching the inside constantly, which invalidates a lot of FW sieging and defensive plexing.

I only see this ability being used to gank people who can't possibly scout these ganks, unless they have meta knowledge, which is a lot like hotdrops (Which is one of the reasons why you nerfed long distance travel and jump bridge ranges to curtail this type of gameplay)

This ability is not useful to solo/small gang players who roam to engage other players in nullsec, and possibly more organised lowsec, since they'll quickly be reported in intel and as soon as a combat recon is spotted they know you're in one when they see your character in local and just leave whatever they're doing assuming you're there. this ability is not useful to large fleets who are scouted anyway, and are large enough that they can't really hide their shiptypes, and would probably prefer their recon pilots had covert cloak + cynosural field bonus for escalation potential.

I feel like this ability only punishes solo/small gang players

You realize that bombers can get lock the second they decloak, right? They have no recalibration delay. I've caught stuff like that before. Is that OP? How about if I sig tank it so it takes you 5 seconds to lock while the rest of my allies land? Is that too OP for you?

IF you're in a DED site, you're moving around. You're not sitting on the gate, even if you're armor tanked. You'll have time while the recon lands and starts locking you. It's the same as if a Garmur lands; you barely have any warning and it can point you from a hell of a long range.

As a small gang player, I disagree with you completely.
Pretty Pony Princess
Princess Club
#483 - 2014-12-18 21:46:33 UTC
The changes sound interesting and seem to make Combat Recons a viable choice compared to Force Recons.

CCP Rise wrote:
Combat Recons will now be permanently undetectable by directional scanners

As others have already pointed out this seems a bit OP in some situations. It provides something close to a covert cloak without the drawbacks.

Maybe it could be tied to a new Combat Recon specific module that provides this bonus when active at the cost of not being able to lock anything and requiring a sensor recalibration after deactivation.
#484 - 2014-12-18 21:49:44 UTC
Eve already has a lot of situations where you are screwed without doing anything stupid. I don't think it needs more (filthy solo casual here, for context).

If this goes live, I can no longer...

... check if gates/stations are clear (can you fit smartbombs on these things - surely enough for pods? okay, I didn't want those implants anyway...)

... check if plexes are empty (or have the content (heh) that I expect)

... gtfo if anything too big closes in on me


Fitting combat probes to everything is just no solution. Being forced to use 2 Accounts to play the game is just really stupid. It's bad enough as it is.

And yes, maybe this turns out to be a total paper tiger and nothing really changes, but it sounds eve would be getting a LOT more tedious and volatile and random for the small guy, and shift the advantage even more to bigger, richer groups. Yeah, QQ, I'll mind the door on the way out, but this is my perspective.

If you positively want to make something like this happen... couple the detection range to the scanning angle, maybe? 360° only detects them at, say, 100K Kilometers, but 5° at full (half? quarter?) range. Everything inbetween scales linearly or logarithmically or so. This way, you can use them to sneak up on people from an odd angle (which still is crazy powerful, but requires a bit more work - people CAN scan in direction of gates), but the "lol, im already here, invisible!!1" - trap is gone.
Richard Justice
The Carthaginian Solution
#485 - 2014-12-18 21:50:03 UTC
I got more than I wanted with these changes, thank you. Now I can stop nagging. Shocked
Amarr Empire
#486 - 2014-12-18 21:50:21 UTC
I LOVE RECONS... that said... even I think being completely immune to d-scan is a bit overpowered for the combat recons, especially in wormholes, and will abuse this role bonus to the fullest extent.

Perhaps something odd like a reduction to the range they will appear on d-scan, like to 2 or 4 AU?
Ersahi Kir
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#487 - 2014-12-18 21:52:21 UTC
I would like to offer an alternative suggestion for the combat recon role bonus:

Flex slots:
Make it so that two of the slots in combat recons can be used for either low or mid power modules. That allows you to include all the racial ewar in fleets, instead of trying to wedge them in with Tech 3 ships.

That means armor fit rooks/hugins could exist and shield fit curse/arazu can fly in fleets. That seems like a much more balanced way to fit these into fleets than trying to make another "something immune" blanket.
Shaleb Heworo
Amarr Empire
#488 - 2014-12-18 21:52:41 UTC
What about cargo space? When you want recons to actually enhance the possibilities of mobile solo/small gang players recons need A LOT bigger trunks. Seriously CCP, this is very important. Since they somehow fit the same niche give them cargo space similar to the Stratios.

And D-scan imunity really needs to go. Solo/small gang plexers will just not enter medium plexes anymore when somebody is in local. This is really bad!
Sebiestor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#489 - 2014-12-18 21:53:21 UTC
Very interesting news!

Is the lachesis hull getting a redesign aswell? LolRoll
We pooped on your lawn
#490 - 2014-12-18 21:53:29 UTC
Drew Li wrote:
Combat Recons
Curse and Pilgrim

  • +20% neut/nos range per level (+100% range at Recon 5)
  • -10% Neut/Nos cycle time per level (Double strength at Recons 5)
  • -85% powergrid for Neut/NOS (Allow fitting larger neut/nos for range)

This would give the amarr recons a lot of interesting fitting options for neuts.

I like the thought, but they really need something to save the capacitor then, otherwise they'll go out of cap in absolutely no time.
With Neuts time being cut in half, it's likely that NOS wont do much good, or not enough to save the capacitor from being dry in 30 seconds
Chainsaw Plankton
#491 - 2014-12-18 21:54:43 UTC
with the warp changes I almost feel like invisible on d-scan is more powerful than a cov-ops cloak. I think I'd rather spend a few seconds in warp than a few seconds of just sitting there waiting for the cloak deactivation to go away. Plus with bookmarks and/or gang member warp ins you can land in a wide array of places rather than be sat in one place cloaked. sure it doesn't really matter vs scan probes, but well, that involves having a prober around.

interesting change to say the least Shocked

@ChainsawPlankto on twitter

Silvetica Dian
Imperial Shipment
Amarr Empire
#492 - 2014-12-18 22:00:46 UTC
Iain Cariaba wrote:
To everyone saying, 'how is dscan immunity different than covops cloak,' I will simply remind them that, if you're actively paying attention to dscan, there is always a brief period of time between losing jump cloak and activating cloak module. During this time, you are seen on dscan. With dscan immunity, you lose even this brief period of visibility. If you're in an anomaly, trying to make isk to buy PvP ships, you get zero warning before the recon ship lands on grid. Even the most rabid dscan spammer won't see this coming.

don't sit on the warp in........

hunting someone that sits on the warp in then use combat recon.
hunting someone that moves off the warp in use a force recon.
choices choices.

Money at its root is a form of rationing. When the richest 85 people have as much wealth as the poorest 3.5 billion (50% of humanity) it is clear where the source of poverty is.

Saraki Ishikela
Caldari State
#493 - 2014-12-18 22:01:44 UTC
You've essentially made the ultimate solo hunter. Not being detectable on D Scan? Sure it sounds awesome from the side of the hunter but creating a mechanic in which the player has no defense to or can't protect himself from isn't any fun for the victim. You're creating a scenario in which players will have no recourse to protect themselves no matter how skilled, or what fit. The advantage is purely in the hunters had being invisible on both D Scan and cloaked physically they can choose any engagement they want and their victims upon reflecting on their death cannot logically say what they could have done differently to change the outcome of that engagement with the exception of docking up any time anyone comes into system with them.

TLDR Game Mechanics should offer counterplay and reward players for smart choices and decision making. This ship stacks the deck in one side.

One newbies quest to ExploreEVE: [u]Youtube[/u]: - **[u]**Blogspot:[/u] [u]Twitter:[/u]** - [u]Facebook[/u]:**

Altirius Saldiaro
#494 - 2014-12-18 22:02:16 UTC
What I really like about this change is it puts the Recon back into the non-cloaky recons. The whole point of reconnaissance is to gather intel without detection.
Dead Sky Inc.
#495 - 2014-12-18 22:02:20 UTC
For fleets a T3 is still way tankier and so better. But the recons are now faster than HACs who are designed for speed, that just sounds wrong. Most of them will actually beat a Muninn 1vs1 with ease.

Pilgrims do not get used so little because people kite them outside of neutrange, they are flipping cloakies and engade at 0 anyways. But because there are very little viable soloships that stop shooting you when neuted out since someone turned Eve into Game of Drones. And after this change you will need even longer to neut someone out before you explode.

D-scaninvis will hurt alot.
FW plexes will be permacamped outside of the gate to farm easy kills, a Lach+Huginn will be easymode. Same goes for any other PvE behind a gate f.e. DEDs. Lach lands on grid and points you, no way to prevent this but to have a scout outside. People talking about them not being able to sneak up have to look at some stats: C1-3 Sleepers do not spawn outside of Lach pointrange and I can´t remember a DED where the gates are further than 60 off each other.
It is covertcloak light without targetingdelay (same as if you uncloaked while in warp), the second a covertcloaker is visable between jumpcloak and recloaking. Also the ship itself is way scarier than a cloakyrecon.
Also it really screws over intel for smallgangs. If you bring a cloakyrecon it can be seen when jumping into system or when taking a fleetwarp. With this change EVERY gang will look like 20% less people without forcemultiplier #1 before landing on grid.

They will also be supersafe PvEboats since you cant hunt what you cannot see.

I instead support the idea to make the a bit better in PvP (but not better than ships designed to shoot stuff) and give them bonuses to combatprobing.
Zansha Expansion
Brave Collective
#496 - 2014-12-18 22:02:37 UTC
Altirius Saldiaro wrote:
You shouldn't even be commenting on recons if you don't even know the difference between them.

And you are?

Eve Minions is recruiting.

This is the law of ship progression!

Aura sound-clips: Aura forever

Villore Accords
#497 - 2014-12-18 22:02:47 UTC
I also have to say that living in wormhole space will be very unpleasant with the absence of Dscan.

At least you can spam dscan constantly and hope to see someone before they cloak while running sites. Now, you're just screwed no matter what you do.
Hard vs Soft
#498 - 2014-12-18 22:03:15 UTC
Combat Recons will now be permanently undetectable by directional scanners

How is this good in terms of balance?

Curse and Falcon are still OP. Neuts and ECM "counter" almost everything. Can it be fixed? Apparently not this time.

These changes look more like power creep than actual balancing.
Necharo Rackham
The Red Circle Inc.
Ministry of Inappropriate Footwork
#499 - 2014-12-18 22:05:51 UTC
Discomanco wrote:


As a tangent, there's nothing intrinsically wrong with some ships having poor cap. At the moment every ship comes out of its balancing pass capstable.
sten mattson
Red Sky Morning
Local Is Primary
#500 - 2014-12-18 22:06:14 UTC  |  Edited by: sten mattson
since i only fly the clearly superior amarr recons, im going to tell what i think was wrong with them before the rebalance:

-bad capacitor
-bad speed/agility
-bad powergrid on both ships although more pronounced on the curse
-curse only has 4 lows
-pilgrim has no range bonus

now most of those points have been cleared away with the current rbalance proposal, except for the following:

-curse still has 4 lows
-curse still has bad powergrid
-pilgrim got his range bonus, but lost its amount bonus, making its neuts less effective

*4 lows on the curse is not enough to make a semi decent tank out of it, although with the added racial resists, it may lessen somewhat. I would love for the curse to either loose a high or a mid to get a lowslot.

*pilgrim loosing its amount bonus makes it even more underwhelming, considering that the curse could already outneut a pilgrim with 5 High slots vs 3 usable ones for the pilgrim (1 high slot for the cloak). Just by highslot amount alone, a pilgrim is about as half as effective than a curse.
But now with the pilgrim loosing its neut amount bonus, the curse will now be 4 times more effective than a pilgrim!!

With these changes it may look like people will be flying the pilgrim for its surprise Tracking disrupting and extra drone dps, but certainly not for its neuting ability!

As for the curses Dscan immunity, i just cant see it not get too powerful. either in w-space, where dscan are actually our eyes and ears rather than local chat, or in Militia lowsec inside gated plexes, thinking you'll land on a lone moa in your omen, but land amongst 5 curses instead.

Hiding from dscan with no impunity is just plain lazy, and you should need cloaks for that!

EDIT: also, you might want to add those resist stats to the first post.