The tiericide locomotive is well on track so far. Retribution ship changes are already packed and ready to be delivered to your personal fireplace on December, the 4^th.

With the bulk of our work out of the way though, this begs the question, what are we going to do now with all that precious free time? Eat marshmallows on the CCP office balcony? Impossible, it’s snowing outside. Break CCP Fozzie’s fingers with the Nerfbat™? Already done. Fondly trim CCP Unifex’s hairs while singing dirty French limericks? No can do, he is desperately and irrevocably bald.

Well, guess that leaves us no choice but to move forward with future balancing plan then. Let’s assume 2012 is not the end of the world, the universe and all things we hold dear, and let’s take a peek into what we want to start tweaking next year.

Battlecruiser operational

Yes comrades, battlecruisers are indeed next to get through the tiericide revolution. Let’s face it, they had it coming, as current tier 2 variations perform too well while tier1s are found wanting. With this in mind, the plan is to adjust total slot layout to 17 on all of them and split them into two categories depending on their expected role.

First, the attack version; they favor speed and damage over resilience, which fits the current tier 3 battlecruisers extremely well.

• Oracle, Naga, Talos and Tornado: are mostly fine, except for the mobility which is a little too high, and signature radius, which could be increased a bit. Apart from this, little needs to change.

Second, the combat flavor, which follows in the footsteps of the frigate and cruiser variants – made for front line duty, they have a good balance of firepower and resilience.

• Prophecy: expected to be changed to a drone boat. This is a role revamp that will radically modify its slot and fitting layout. It will most likely have less bandwidth but more drone bay than the Myrmidon.
• Ferox: we would like to reinforce the sniping nature of this ship, most likely by replacing the shield resistance bonus with a hybrid damage bonus. Nothing is set in stone yet, as we need to find ways to ensure it doesn’t compete with the Naga.
• Brutix: this ship role conflicts a bit with the Talos, mainly because the latter is more mobile and packs more punch. We want to explore options on how to turn the Brutix into a more reliable close-range brawler, while the Talos keeps a kiting advantage.
• Cyclone: ancillary shield boosters have significantly improved this ship performance; however, it won’t hurt to make sure it’s in a good shape before moving on.
• Harbinger: assuming direct control. Problems on this ship are tied with the shield versus armor tanking issues, which need to be looked at.
• Drake: once again, blame the modules, not the hull – while missiles are being looked into by CCP Fozzie, shield tanking is the root of the problem here.
• Myrmidon: this vessel is mainly fine, but it couldn’t hurt giving it a bit more drone bandwidth and bay to make it more of an improvement when compared to the Vexor.
• Hurricane: counting CCP Fozzie’s adjustment to its fitting, the cruiser boost should reduce its over-the-top versatility, especially if battlecruisers slot layout is altered to 17 as mentioned above.

That’s the big lines for battlecruisers. As usual, your voice will be heard through feedback threads posted on the proper forum sub-section when the time is right. It is also worth noting that we will adjust ship mineral requirements as we continue with the rebalancing.

You sunk my battleship

Next on the ship rebalancing queue, battleships suffer the least from the current “tier” system, and most of them are fairly well balanced. However, some still require a little face lift, since we are one year into the future and we have the technology.

As usual, we would like to keep up with the ship line classification we have been using for frigate, destroyer and cruisers so far. This is not designed to arbitrarily pigeon-hole vessels into narrow roles, but to provide a basic line of operation for anyone to understand and follow through. The ship role and purpose on the battlefield will still greatly be influenced by the choice of modules, rigs and ammunitions you make.

First, let’s have a look at the disruption line, which only has one ship so far:

• Scorpion: fine at the moment, it dies fast in fleet of course, but that’s what the ECM role brings to the hull anyway.

Then, we have attack battleships, where most of the changes will be:

• Armageddon: this ship is performing well at the time being, and thus we have little reason to alter it.
• Megathron: just like the Thorax on the cruiser level, the Megathron role will be changed slightly to make it less resilient, but more mobile so to make proper use of blasters. Think of it as a ship closer to the Typhoon in terms of speed and agility. Next to a Talos, it will be more durable, more flexible, but still cumbersome to have in small gangs.
• Typhoon: this vessel is very good when you possess all skills on earth and beyond trained to 5 – for being a jack of all trades, it has nothing really going for it. That is why we would like to change its role to a missile platform. Next to the Raven, it would have less range, but more mobility for more close range in your face damage.

And finally, combat vessels. They share the same functions as explained for battlecruisers above, so without further delay:

• Apocalypse: is behaving well at the moment, so there is little point in changing it.
• Raven: the king of the hill lost its throne a while back. That’s mainly due to cruise missiles being terrible in most situations, and torpedoes not always being usable with a slow, cumbersome hull.
•  Dominix: still remains a popular ship. It is fairly good, except for the drone mechanics themselves, which are terribly outdated. While we are not certain when this can be tackled, it definitely has high priority on our to-do list.
• Tempest: we are mostly fine with it at the moment, no major change planned.
• Abbadon: a nice ship with fine purpose in fleets and large gangs.
• Rokh: is also all good, very competitive with the Abbadon
• Hyperion: the hull could be improved, but again most of the issues come from passive versus active tanking problems
• Maelstorm: has a good role as well, no need for major changes

Again, mineral requirements are most likely to be tweaked as we go through the balancing process. Below you can see how all tech1 ships come together with the new tiericide overhaul.

Click to enlarge

I love it when a plan comes together

As announced at the beginning of the year, skill requirements will be modified when we are done overhauling tech1 battlecruisers and battleships. This consists of:

• Breaking Destroyers and Battlecruisers skills into four racial versions with an identical training multiplier (thus making it four times harder to get all races trained)
• Changing skill requirements for Racial Cruisers from Racial Frigates 4 to Racial Destroyers 4
• Changing skill requirements for Racial Battleships from Racial Cruisers 4 to Racial Battlecruisers 4
• Changing skill requirements for capital ships from Racial Battleships 5 to 4, but introducing or increasing other skills to keep the same overall training time requirements

We are doing this for two reasons:

• Make ship progression more consistent over all sizes, instead of having a mix of racial and generic skills
• Allowing for faster tech2 specialization, and slower multi-racial diversification. In EVE Online, while you as a new player will never catch up with the total amount of skill points a veteran has, you can still be on the same level by specializing. This is precisely what we want to promote here. For instance, currently one needs Amarr Cruiser and Battlecruisers 5 to fly an Absolution, after the change the same pilot will only need Amarr Battlecruisers 5 (on top of the other skill requirements).

Reimbursement details:

• Let us repeat again: if you could fly it before, you will be able to do so after the change. Technically it means if you are able to fly an Oracle by having Amarr Cruisers 3 and Battlecruisers 3, we will remove the Battlecruisers skill from your character and give you Amarr Battlecruisers at 3. If you had Battlecruisers at 3 and Caldari Cruisers 3 instead, you would not receive Amarr Battlecruisers but the Caldari Battlecruisers skill at 3 instead. The same principle work with the Destroyers skill.
• With the way nested skill requirements work in EVE, it also means that you will still be able to fly an Apocalypse even if you don’t have the Amarr Battlecruiser skill trained at 4 after the change. It won’t matter as long as you have the Amarr Battleship skill at the proper level.

With this in mind, it becomes quite obvious to focus on training the Destroyers and Battlecruisers skills before the change to get the maximum return effect. We highly recommend you start doing so now.

Command and conquer

When we're finished with tech 1 hulls we are going to start looking into more advanced roles, starting with Command ships. They are seriously lacking at the moment for two reasons: first, regular tier 2 battlecruisers mostly fill the same combat role for less expensive operational costs, and second, tech 3 hulls are just plain better at gang link boosting.

Our goal is to make them appealing to fly as a whole, not something you keep inside a POS forcefield while watching your favorite TV show. For this reason, we want:

• Tech 3 ships to be able to carry more gang links at once than Command Ships, but with less effect
• Tech 3 ships to be able to carry some gang links while still maintaining some combat capability
• Command Ships to carry fewer types of gang links than Tech 3, but with stronger effects (specialization over generalization) - if fitted with gang links, they have less combat capability than Tech3 hulls.
• All Command Ships to have a combat role on the field on top of having the possibility to be fit for a pure fleet commanding platform.

What does that mean in practice? We are removing the distinction between “fleet” and “field” Command Ships. All of them will now have 3% bonuses to two Warfare Link fields and be able to fit three warfare link modules simultaneously (instead of 3 for fleet versions only). That also means that the previous fleet Command Ships will be rebalanced to fit combat roles. Want to use an Eos as a truly effective drone ship? You can. Or the Damnation as a sexy Khanid missile platform beast? Be our guest. All that matters is the specialization choices you make before undocking by deciding to fit gang links or not, not something forced to you from the arbitrary "field" versus "fleet" hull.

Tech 3 treatment will focus on making them more generalized. Their Warfare Link bonuses will be reduced from 5% to 2% effectiveness; however they will have bonuses to three racial Warfare Link fields while being able to fit three Warfare Link modules simultaneously.

As a side note, as we announced a while ago, we are not pleased by having Warfare Links work outside the battlefield zone, and will be investigating options to move them on grid. Command and Tech3 ships providing that much of an advantage should commit to an engagement instead of being safely parked inside a POS bubble.

Here is a picture summarizing the text below as a tl;dr version:

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Well that’s pretty much it for now, remember this is just a vision for the beginning of 2013 and as such, not final. We have more balancing changes to be planned and released, so keep your eyes peeled for updates.

Hope that helped and many thanks for your time!

 

Things have been going well on the ship balancing front as we ramp up to our winter expansion in the coming months. We began earlier this year with rebalancing combat frigates for Inferno, and then delivered improved mining barges through CCP Tallest. We also gave you attack frigates and rookie ship changes despite summer vacations taking many staff away. That’s a total of 19 ships, which is not too shabby to start with, considering it’s a little less than 10% of all available EVE Online vessels. Adding CCP Fozzie to our team has been a great aid in getting things moving along, a bit like hiring an extra half-naked loud hairy vocalist to a heavy metal band. Plus, he doesn't eat much (a few peanuts we launch at him in the morning do the trick), and usually he sleeps in a dark corner somewhere and works 22 hours a day. Not a bad deal.

Despite being happy with our first round of balancing changes, work has barely started and we really want to ramp things up for the next expansion. So, let’s check what you are getting for winter.

David versus Goliath (16 ships)

Frigates have the highest balancing priority so far, and the experience gained with Inferno is definitely going to be put into good use here. Here is the updated list which has changed a little since Fanfest 2012.

• Remaining combat frigates: Kestrel, Tristan and Breacher. Previously expected to become missile ships, we decided to keep their role in the same category as the Tormentor, Punisher, Merlin, Incursus and Rifter for consistency and simplicity purposes. The Kestrel will now have a new long range bonus. The Tristan is being overhauled into a true drone boat, while the Breacher becomes a resilient close range missile platform thanks to its shield boost amount per level. Would you like to know more?
• Exploration / scanning frigates: Magnate, Heron, Imicus, Probe. All of these ships are now properly focused by having mini-profession bonuses, increased probe scan strength and far better slot layouts in general. Would you like to know more?
• Disruption frigates: Crucifier, Griffin, Maulus, Vigil. The Crucifier is now fully dedicated to tracking disruption. The Griffin bonus remains unchanged, but has a better slot layout. The Maulus loses the hybrid damage bonus and specializes in sensor dampening with drone support, while the Vigil will no longer have a speed bonus and will focus on target painting. Would you like to know more?
• Support frigates: Inquisitor, Bantam, Navitas, Burst. A mix of formerly known missile and mining frigates that have been revamped to have logistics capabilities mounted on small, mobile hulls. Combined with a small remote armor repairer and shield transfer overhaul, it means new pilots or people interested in logistics support will now have a proper upgrade path all the way to the famously known Tech 2 logistic cruisers. Such a change will also dramatically shake up combat due to introducing repairing capabilities on small scale frigate fleets. Would you like to know more?
• ORE frigate: Unable to mount Strip Miners, it will neither have the yield, ore hold or resilience of the Mining Barges. Instead, it will focus on mobility for ore retrieval in hostile space (read ninja mining), as well as acting as a stepping stone for new pilots. Keep an eye on “Features & Ideas” forums for more information on this hull. Please refer to one of our previous blogs to see concept art of it

Lethal thrashing (8 ships)

As hinted at in a previous blog, destroyers are also receiving some well-deserved love.

• Existing destroyers: Coercer, Cormorant, Catalyst, Thrasher. Formerly known as Tier 1 destroyers, they are mainly in good shape since their first buff in Crucible. There are still a few points that need to be looked at before we can move on. Would you like to know more?
• New destroyers: while the exact attributes are not ready for review so far we can explain their roles a bit more than in the previous blog. Main roles will focus on medium range damage projection through drones and missiles. Amarr and Gallente will most likely have fully bonused flights of light drones to play with while being supported by several turret slots. Caldari and Minmatar will boast high-slots fully loaded with missile launchers. Slot layout is expected to be 13 in total with overall speed reduced and signature radius increased compared to existing existing destroyer hulls. In all cases please remember this still is work in progress; a new “Features & Ideas” forum thread will be opened when more details are ready for public review.

 

Cruising full speed (16 ships)

Due to the ship balancing team's excellent work during the summer we are able to move ahead of schedule and revamp all Tech 1 cruisers for winter. Tech 1 cruisers have fallen out of favor over time as new ship classes, like the new battlecruisers, have come along and made their role less useful in many cases. As a general rule of thumb we would like to change layout to 13-14 slots on all cruisers, slightly increase EHP and significantly improve mobility to make them viable against battlecruisers. Exact attributes are to be unveiled at a later date.

• Support cruisers: Augoror, Osprey, Exequror, Scythe. These almost extinct hulls will see a new purpose for being properly refurbished as Tech 1 logistic ships. With removing their current mining role, our goal is to make them useful enough to be actively picked in fleets when Tech 2 logistics are not available instead of having the FC sending you back to your momma. CCP Fozzie will post new details soon (if he hasn’t already, for he is a rabid animal), so keep an eye on the “Features & Ideas” forum section.
• Disruption cruisers: Arbitrator, Blackbird, Celestis, Bellicose. Our plan is to turn the Arbitrator and Bellicose into combat / EW hybrids (a bit like combat recons if you will), while the Blackbird and Celestis are more suited for fleet duty. The Arbitrator is quite good, but will receive a boost to be kept on par with the other revamped cruisers so it doesn’t become sad. The Blackbird is quite good so no major changes will happen here. The Celestis could use some real love due to the poor state of dampeners so expect the hybrid damage bonus to go away and we will expand on this in more detail in the future. The Bellicose will combine target painting with missiles on a mean, fast hull that will resemble the Caracal as an anti-frigate platform.
• Attack cruisers: Omen, Caracal, Thorax, Stabber. We want to clearly revamp these four ships to be dedicated to speed and damage. The Omen must be one of the most frustrating ships to fit so we are going to look at it. Like CCP Guard, it should be a mean miniaturized version of the Armageddon, not a public target for bad-taste midget tossing jokes. The Caracal is also good, but again, could use a tweak in regards to fitting and mobility to make better use of its damage projection. The Thorax will be revamped to fit the attack class role which means making sure its mobile enough to punch your face at close range without wasting a ship bonus dedicated to Microwarpdrive capacitor usage. The Stabber will most likely have its speed bonus integrated into the hull to make room for something more dedicated to Minmatar combat doctrine – some of you will ponder, surely that must be a salvaging bonus?
• Combat cruisers: Maller, Moa, Vexor, Rupture. Poor, sad Maller, your whole existence is a tragedy. Please let us put an end to this travesty by properly turning you into a mini-Abaddon, with an armor resistance and laser damage bonus to actually serve as something else than bait. The beautifully sleek shaped Moa has two options, just like the Merlin before it: either close range role with a shield resistance and hybrid turret damage combination, or sniping duty with hybrid turret damage and range synergy. Play testing and feedback will tell which one is picked. The Vexor is a good ship, and will receive some resilience boosts to fit into the new combat role. The Rupture, while staying a solid and versatile choice, could use more resilience and speed as well.

 

In the end

So all things being equal, we will be giving you 40 revamped hulls to play with this winter which is around 20% of all EVE Online ships. Not only does this allow new players to be more competitive from the start, it also ties well with Factional Warfare revamps and gives everyone more excuses to shoot others in the face while singing Christmas carols. It also gets us so much closer of the next long awaited ship class that needs to be purified with fire: battlecruisers. Prophecy, Ferox, Brutix, Cyclone, we know how you feel. Drake and Hurricane, we are coming for you too.

As a reminder, we would like to state there are no skill changes planned for the winter expansion - your Destroyers and Battlecruisers skills are safe for now, as we are not adjusting spaceship command skill trees until we are done with the Battlecruiser class.

Tired of reading, want to participate in balancing discussion? Then don’t hesitate to hop in the forum threads mentioned above and give constructive feedback. CCP Fozzie and I are on call. Want to actually test the ships and shoot some Devs in the process? Then come to Duality on the 19th-21st of September, where our first round of play testing will take place: all frigates and existing destroyers will be available for players to use – except the ORE frig, new destroyers and cruisers, which will be looked at later. As mentioned above, many Devs will also hop in to give you a chance to get sweet, sweet revenge for altering your preferred hull. Gotta catch em all! Please see this wiki article on how to connect to Duality.

Before we forget, since we also love shiny pictures, here is a small summary on how the revamped ship role layout looks like.

Hang on, what’s that on the background? Looks familiar, let’s have a better look at it shall we?

As the icing on the cake from our Art department (many thanks to all the people involved, including the amazing CCP Phor), we would like to let you know that the many cries of despair from Stabber / Vagabond pilots have been heard, and you will also get revamped models as part of the winter deal.

Enjoy!

It has been a while since our last Dev Blog about ship balancing: we´ve hosted Fanfest 2012 and released Inferno in the time that's passed. We deployed the first batch of overhauled frigates with Inferno, collected a lot of player feedback and thus gained experience in the process.

Now that we've had a good glimpse of how the new balancing system works in practice, we want to speed things up and deliver the following for winter.

Heavy payload delivery

As part of the effort that started with Inferno, we want to keep working on frigates as a whole; we are fairly satisfied with the iteration work we did on the Tormentor, Punisher, Merlin, Incursus, Rifter and time has come for the other hulls to receive the same amount of love. Here is a brief summary of our current vision:

• Executioner, Condor, Atron, Slasher: role dedicated to fast interception with weapon systems that support it – in order, energy turrets, missiles, hybrid turrets, projectile turrets.
• Navitas, Bantam, Burst: long range offensive platforms. The Navitas is being overhauled as a drone boat, a role currently lacking among tech 1 small hulls. The Bantam will replace the Merlin as the long range dedicated Caldari sniper. Finally, the Burst still is bit blurry at the moment – considered roles are mobile artillery platform, drone boat or a mix of both.
• Inquisitor, Breacher, Kestrel, Tristan: missile based ships – tank, speed, damage will depend on the missile system they use. Two choices on that front, short range with rockets, or long range with light missiles. Race fighting philosophy will most likely dictate engagement range.
• Magnate, Heron, Imicus, Probe: strengthening current roles as support frigates. Which mainly means scanning and possibly mini-profession operations, like hacking and codebreaking as well.
• Crucifier, Griffin, Maulus, Vigil: truly refocus their roles as disruption frigates. The Cruficier is being changed to a mini-arbitrator (swapping useless turret capacitor use bonus for drone damage). The Griffin has a fine role already, but like the others, will receive a boost. The Maulus improvement consists of having a look at sensor dampening, which was nerfed too heavily in the past, and possibly making it rely more on drones than turrets. The Vigil could be the most combat oriented of the disruption frigates by improving its target painting bonus and creating synergy by coupling it with missiles.
• Impairor, Ibis, Velator and Reaper: let’s not forget rookie ships, as they also are lacking at the moment. We want them to be very versatile ships, able to give new players a good taste of what their race ship philosophy is all about, without reaching the efficiency of other tech 1 frigates in any given role.

Barge in on me

Changing the mining frigates to have combat roles made us realize that we need something to replace them. Which lead us to realize how outdated mining barges are. That’s something we want to tackle over the course of the summer as well.

Our goal is simple: each and every single mining barge (and their tech 2 variant) should have an appealing role, and not just be a stepping stone on the way to something better. Players should'nt only aim for the Hulk without considering anything else when doing some hard rock and roll mining. That means playing with the following variables:

• Mining output: first and most visible balancing factor, plan is to increase all barge mining output to be within an acceptable margin of the Hulk, not miles behind as it is currently.
• Autonomy: mining barges should have proper cargo holds so they not always have to rely on jet cans (without turning them into industrials however). That means giving them large, specialized ore bays where all the ore will automatically go into when mining.
• Resilience: another point is to give some of them proper EHP not to be one-shot by anything that even remotely sneezes on them.

As a result we thus get:

• New ORE frig: we want this ship to replace current mining frigates as low barrier of entry vessel, but also fulfill high-end gameplay expectations by providing a very mobile platform for mining in hostile space. Lowest mining output, decent ore bay, little to no resilience.
• Procurer/Skiff: primarily made for self-defense. Better mining rate than the ORE frig, good ore bay, but capable of having battleship-like EHP.
• Retriever/Mackinaw: made for self-reliance. Has the largest ore bay, similear to the size of a jet can, second best mining output but less EHP than the procurer mining barge.
• Covetor/hulk: ore bay is identical to its current cargo hold, little to average EHP, but best mining output. Basically made for group operations when players have industrials and protection to back them up.

Concept schematics of the new ORE mining frigate - Click picture for full size version

Before we forget, part of what players now call “tiericide” is to look at skill requirements. We are not pleased with how they work specifically with this ship class, since the Hulk is currently only a few hours away from the Covetor in terms of skill training. That is why, after the change, all tech 1 mining barges will now only require the Mining Barge Skill at level 1.

We will most likely add the new ORE frigate skill at 4 as a Mining Barge nested prerequisite though, but remember our motto: if you could fly it before, you can fly it now.

Due to how nested skill requirements work, players who already have the mining barge skill trained WON'T need to train the ORE frigate skill to keep flying their Covetor for example.

Destroyer of Worlds

Destroyers are the next ship class on our to-do list. We acknowledge that they were already tinkered with in Crucible, but they still need some love as a whole. We want to make sure they are balanced against each other before moving on, as the Thrasher and Catalyst seem to stand out over the Coercer and Cormorant as things stand.

We also have another plan with destroyers: just like battlecruisers are used for gang warfare support, we are thinking to provide destroyers with an additional role. Since DUST514 is approaching and we want to forge both games into the same universe, they will receive some advantage for planetary bombardment, which should make them even more popular that they currently are.

But wait, there is more. More ships that is, as we think the destroyer class currently is a little small with only four hulls. That is why we want to introduce new tech 1 destroyers to fill roles that are not yet covered – as such, Amarr / Gallente would receive additional drone boats, while Caldari / Minmatar would be more missile based.

They rebelled, they evolved. They have a plan.

So, when all of this is going out you ask?  These changes will be out by the time the winter expansion hit, which will leave us in a very good shape to start overhauling tech 1 cruisers and battlecruisers next year, possibly earlier if things go well.

As an additional note and a follow-up from our previous balancing Dev Blog, we believe it is good for you to know we will not be changing the Destroyer / Battlecruiser skills for the winter expansion – such changes are to come only after these two ship classes have been properly rebalanced.

That’s it for now people, as usual, we will post feedback threads in Features & Ideas Discussion sub-forum to gather your input when the time comes, so don’t hesitate to drop by and post (constructive) feedback.

Between the Fanfest presentations, various cryptic Dev posts and latest Inferno changes we put out on the Singularity test server, speculation on Factional Warfare has been running rampant all over the forums, like a violent storm gathering strength across the horizon. And for good reasons if we may add, as this feature has been left in the dark for quite a while, sobering for some well-deserved love it will now properly receive: time has come for us in Team Game of Drones to shed some light on the matter.

Continue reading Factional Warfare overhaul →

I always find it fascinating how the most life threatening issues often come up from the smallest, most innocent moves. For instance, you could enjoy a meal at home, drop the dirty cutlery into the sink with the firm intention to clean it the day after, only to realize two weeks have passed and the kitchen is now inhabited by a new indigenous, hostile life-form derived from all the junk you forgot to wash during that time.

The same shocking, and quite horrifying principles apply with ship balancing. Tweak things a little up, down, right, left and right again, then notice you are two years into the future and are now faced with a system that is in dire need of an overhaul. Identifying roots that need to be plucked out and preparing the soil for healthy balancing is a daunting task, but we now estimate to be in a proper position to give you a glimpse of things to come.

Climbing your way up is a bumpy ride

The first overhaul we are considering is to clean ship progression and skill requirements.

We currently have four racial skill requirements for Frigates, Cruisers, Battleships and Capitals, while the Destroyer and Battlecruiser skills are totally generic. This creates a certain number of issues, such as:

• For tech 1 ships, training the Destroyer or Battlecruiser skill allows you mastery over all racial variants, provided you have their respective Frigate / Cruiser skills trained to 3. That means 12 ships unlocked by the Battlecruiser skill, for instance.

• For tech 2 ships, it creates an overcomplicated nest of skill requirements, as you need both the Cruiser and Battlecruiser skills to 5 to train for a Command Ship for example.

• It also impacts progression as a whole, as the Destroyer and Battlecruiser skills are not required to move into the upper classes at all. Training Battleships requires racial Cruiser at 4, not Battlecruiser.

Current ship progression:

Click to enlarge

As such, we want to streamline ship training by implementing the changes below:

• Split Destroyers and Battlecruisers skills into 4 racial variants, and turn them into requirements for training upper classes. Amarr Battleship would now require Amarr Battlecruiser at 4.

• Cut needless requirements for tech 2 ships across classes. Tech 2 philosophy is all about specializing into a specific hull and role, thus, requiring players to train for Assault Ships, then Heavy Assault Ships when aiming for Field Command Ships, is quite redundant.

• Increase progression consistency by ensuring all navy ships and entry requirement for upper classes have a skill level 4 requirement, while tech 2 has a level 5 requirement. For example, that means lowering the Covetor's Mining Barge requirement from 5 to 4, but also reducing Battleship requirement from 5 to 4 for capitals.

New ship progression:

Click to enlarge

To sum up, this means that tech 1 sub-capital vessels would take a bit longer to train for (from 9 to 17 days for Battleships for instance), capitals would be less time consuming (30 days faster) and tech 2 ships like Interdictors and Command Ships would require 14-20 less days to train for.

If and when such changes occur, we would remove the generic Destroyer and Battlecruiser skills, reimburse the skill points (and possibly the cost) not to penalize players. Due to the way nested requirements work, it would also mean pilots would not need to re-train anything to fly Battleships or Cruisers. All of this is work in progress of course and subject to change, especially since we are still discussing skill reimbursement options.

However, reducing training requirements for various ship classes is not a side-effect we are necessarily happy with. That is why we want to introduce new skills, tied with the new concept of ship lines.

Stating the not so obvious

To understand what ships lines are all about, let’s recap the four theoretical factors that sort ships out:

• Size, fairly straightforward for being the most evident to grasp. Size impacts on module fitting requirements, mobility, replacement costs, required player experience, play session length.

Click to enlarge

• Tech, which impacts ship performance, and roles. Tech 1 is the reference in ship balancing, while faction ships (navy and pirate variants) are most often plain improvements, tech 2 offer a specialized purpose and tech 3 give opportunities for generalization.

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• Tiers, mainly used for tech 1 and faction ships. In each class, it influences how many slots, hitpoints, fitting options a ship has next to others, and is theoretically used as a progression system for players climbing up sizes.

• Manufacturers, tech 2 schools that specialize in specific roles, like missiles for Khanid or sniping for Ishukone.

Combining all these elements, we arrive at the following ship trees:

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In practice however, after assessing ship slots, EHP, speed, fitting potential and role overlap, we estimate almost half of our currently available ships to have suboptimal use, or are just be plain not worth it at all for pilots looking to min-max.

There are many reasons for that, one is due to the way we balance ships according to the tier system. Indeed, because the tier system dictates raw slots and hit points, it directly impacts ship performance, and thus affects balance. This is most obvious with the tier 1 versus tier 2 battlecruiser comparison, or even with the cruiser class as a whole. Battleship hulls, for having comparatively more base slots to play with, are less affected by this problem than their smaller counterparts.

Introducing ship lines

That is why we want to remove ship tiers altogether, then refocus our balancing philosophy to be based on role. That means finding common themes, or lines that fit ships with the same purpose, then adjusting slot layout, HP and fittings within each class to support this goal.

• Combat ships: designed for direct fights, such vessels are usually found spear heading an attack force, or sniping from long range. Have great damage and defense, but poor mobility. A good representation would be 18th century "ships of the line". EVE examples: Abaddon, Rokh, Hyperion, Maelstrom, Ferox, Maller.

• Attack vessels: Made for hit and run assault, or flanking opportunities. Have great damage and mobility, but average defense. Similar in role with cavalry. EVE examples: Armageddon, Megathron, Tempest, Oracle, Thorax, Hurricane, Dominix, Myrmidon.

• Bombardment ships: provide heavy fire support to pin the enemy down with constant barrage of ordnance. Have great damage and range, average defense and mobility. Can be compared to artillery. EVE examples: Raven, Drake, caracal.

• Support vessels: mainly focused on assisting a friendly force, or disrupting an enemy fleet. Have average damage, poor defense, average mobility. Electronic warfare is the prime illustration of this line. EVE examples: Scorpion, Blackbird, Celestis, Arbitrator.

• Industrial ships: provide the mining and logistic backbone to replace military losses and cover operating costs. Poor offense, average defense and poor mobility. An Oil platform is a fairly accurate depiction of industrial ships . EVE examples: Covetor, Orca, Rorqual, Iteron V.

The advantages of such approach are multiple:

• As said above, ships that desperately need slots or EHP to fulfill their role will get them.

• Removing the tier system makes it significantly easier for us to balance ships, as there is no more artificial barrier dictating ship attributes within the same class.

• It groups vessels into easily identifiable lines for each race and allow us to add new skills to support them. That is the purpose of the ship line skills mentioned above, which could further boost respective advantages. Combat ship line skills could give a bonus to defense, while attack ship skills benefit offense and mobility for example.

• This opens up possibilities in terms of new ships. For example, why does the Amarr drone and tracking disruption line ends with the Arbitrator? Or the Gallente drone and dampening abilities stop with the Exequror? Can’t Minmatar use short range missile platforms to make use of that target painting bonus?

Paving the way for the future

So, how does all that affect you? Starting with EVE Online: Inferno, we will begin revamping ship classes one after the other, making sure obsolete hulls serve a purpose. This is still in the research phase and constructive feedback is most appreciated while we wait for the next ship balancing blog to come out, dedicated to how such changes will impact the Amarr Empire fleet.

 

 

Catch CCP Ytterbium and his game designing friends at Fanfest 2012 and chat with them about ship balancing or anything else that's on your mind! More information on Fanfest topics, tickets and travel can be found here.

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