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[Saede Riordan]

I'm oh so very excited.

[Katrina Oniseki]

I like it

[kalaratiri]

General info about the armour tanking changes: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=2503173#post2503173

Ok I'm going to respond to some themes from the thread so far.

Firstly I want to assure everyone that whatever we end up releasing in 1.1 will not be the end of the line. We'll be continuing to iterate on tanking in many different ways from patch to patch.

Also yesterday I was overly curt and snarky with some of my replies, I apologize for that as it made our communication more difficult instead of easier.


Resist Bonus vs Rep Bonus
There's a couple issues here that I'd like to address.
I completely understand that resist bonuses are stronger than active tanking bonuses. Resist bonuses are just about the most powerful bonus we ever give T1 ships in fact. That being said ship balance can incorporate bonuses of varying degrees of power as long as the complete ships end up in the right place. The desire to move rep bonuses back to 7.5% comes from the desire to ensure that active tanking is at least somewhat viable on non-bonused hulls. I would rather see active tanking mods and effects balanced to the point where 7.5% bonuses are enough than rely on the bonuses entirely and essentially disallow active tanking elsewhere.
In addition, my comment about the power level of active bonuses applying to remote reps was both unclear and exaggerated which was a mistake on my part. I have absolutely no desire to increase the effectiveness of T2 Logistics ships in fleets beyond their current state, or to push fleet warfare further in the direction of alpha being the only resort for breaking reps. Filling in the lower-end with less powerful repping ships that provide an upgrade path is another story, but I don't want to move beyond the current maximum. The extension of active rep bonuses to remote reps is something I feel would take fleets in the wrong direction, and if anything I am investigating ways to make resist bonuses a bit less powerful in those environments.

Differences between Shield and Armor tanking as a whole
There has been a lot of discussion around the major differences between shield and armor tanking. The use of lowslots vs midslots, reps hitting at the start vs end of cycle, sig vs mass, crystals and slaves are some of the splits that separate armor and shield tanking and that can seriously complicate balancing. I am of the opinion that as much as possible the armor and shield tanking need to stay distinct, but this does not mean there are not areas where changes must happen. The gap between low and midslot tanking is affected by the balance between low and midslot modules such as for instance the TE and TCs. The rep at the start of the cycle is a major advantage for shield tanks that needs to be countered by corresponding advantages for armor tanks and armor tanking ships. Both signature and speed play major roles in the tracking formula, but the ability for the faster ship to dictate range, control the engagement and manipulate transversal more effectively make speed the much more important attribute overall. Getting signature where it needs to be in more situations is a longstanding desire of mine that is going to take time. These changes as proposed do not get us all the way there, will likely require changes before release and even then will only be one step forward that must be followed up on later.

Addition of new skills and modules
Many people have expressed objections to the addition of new skills and modules to the game rather than rolling all the changes into existing modules. I understand the feeling many people have that skills create a gap between older and new players, but that logic can be applied to any existing skills as well. Skill systems in games like Eve do provide a certain advantage gained over time, but the diminishing returns over levels helps to balance the playing field. I disagree that Armor Upgrades is any more a "must train skill" than any other support skill, and many players will find quickly training it to level 2-3 will get them most of the way to the bonus enjoyed by an older player at a far lower time commitment. Also note that half the plates are receiving mass reductions completely unconnected to the skill.
As for the new module and rig, I agree that in general having fewer modules/ships/features that all work is better than having many that don't. However we feel that these additions open up useful design space by allowing the tanking mechanics to be influenced in different ways. As flawed as it was in many ways I do think the ASB provided a useful service by adding a new line of burst-oriented tanking modules that can be balanced in their own way. Modules built towards burst tanking will be definition overshadow other tanking types in many pvp scenarios, but I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing as long as sustained tanking systems have their own effective uses in the game. The AAR is a unique mechanic that fills the same general game niche as the ASB while remaining quite different in operation and gameplay. It does put more pressure on cargoholds, however keep in mind that an AAR goes through cap boosters much much slower than an ASB.
Heat is a mechanic that I think has been underutilized over the years by CCP, but I don't want to rely on it as the only method of burst tanking.

Powergrid usage penalty on active rigs
When looking for a replacement for the speed penalty on active tanking rigs our goal was for the penalty to be something significant (useless penalties are something we want less of) without being onerous. The rep PG penalty had the advantage of being much easier to work around through fitting adjustments than the speed penalty, while being significant enough that it could not be completely ignored. I'm open to possible changes to that mechanic, either through changing the penalty itself or adjusting the PG use of medium and large reps a bit.

Reducing ganglink bonuses and increasing effectiveness in other ways
As I've said before, this is something we definitely want to do. Links are both too effective in their direct bonuses as well as their ability to be used off-grid. However getting this specific issue fixed is going to need to wait until after 1.1. Once we have the room to implement some changes to the way warfare links work from the ground up, expect changes to a lot of other modules and mechanics to happen at the same time.

Limiting oversized mods as a way to simplify balancing
I completely agree that limiting more modules to certain ship sizes would make my life easier.
However giving people the freedom to be creative with fits is part of what makes Eve so great and I don't want to lose that. It's going to take more work and more time but finding a balance without unnecessarily removing player choice is the ideal we're shooting for.

The overheating rig
Modules and rigs that interact more explicitly with the heat mechanic are something I think Eve can really use, and I am a big fan of the concept of making synergy with heat part of armor tanking's advantages. The rig as initially proposed would not have served the goal adequately but we're working on retooling it in a more balanced way and I'll bring it back if possible.

[kalaratiri]

Huuge post

Continued updates, first on Armour Tanking: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=2507395#post2507395

A few updates:

We're switching the AAR to use nanite repair paste instead of cap boosters. What we're looking at now is for them to hold 8 reps worth of paste, with the smalls eating 1 per cycle, the mediums eating 5 and the larges eating 10.

I'm also investigating our options for reducing the base powergrid need for medium and large armor reps a bit.

We're aiming to have all of this on Sisi before the weekend. Please note that just because things are on Sisi doesn't mean they can no longer change. It just means we want to give people a chance to try it out in the game client.

and also the Battlecruiser changes: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=2507518#post2507518

Ok time to get feedback on the next iteration.

Once of the things we have refocused on since this thread started is that with warfare link changes potentially on the not too distant horizon we needed to build these ships for the warfare links we want rather than the warfare links we have. The ability to use warfare links is a key part of what gives these ships their identity, even if that has been watered down in recent years.
As such we're working to ensure that each of these ships can fit a warfare link without sacrificing a bonused highslot. We eventually want links to be something you use on field and part of that will be ensuring that you can use links while also also enjoying the normal on-grid gameplay.

To get these highslots back we've moved the new slot on the Ferox from low to high, and given the Brutix and Drake the "double damage bonus fewer weapons" treatment.

We've also taken feedback from this thread and Sisi testing to make some adjustments to some other ships.

Most notably:

• The Harb was simply too hard to fit, and I had been too aggressive in reducing its fittings to go along with the slot change. So we've returned some fittings and brought it back to its old align time (while keeping the mass a bit higher).
• The Myrm was suffering too much from not being able to hold two full flights of drones, so we've doubled the dronebay buff to ensure that you can always have a full set of spares
• The rep bonuses on both Gallente combat battlecruisers remain in this version. I do feel that they can be well served by the bonus and still remain unique to each other's playstyle. I am however not set in stone on the issue and won't rule out changing it either before or after 1.1 if it appears the current bonuses are not able to keep them both fun and unique enough.

I'm about to update the OP to the new values, our changes in this version relative to the originally posted version are:

Prophecy:
Hull: -250

Harbinger:
Powergrid: +100
CPU: +25
Agility: -0.014
Align time: -0.2s

Ferox:
Highslots: +1
Lowslots: -1
Powergrid: +150
Hull: -250
Agility: +0.01
Mass: -260,000

Drake:
Change Kinetic Missile damage bonus from 5 to 10% per level
Launchers: -1
Powergrid: -40
CPU: -15
Hull: -250

Brutix:
Change Medium Hybrid damage bonus from 5 to 10% per level
Turrets: -1
Powergrid: -75
Hull: -250
Mass: +250,000
Align time: +0.01s

Myrmidon:
Dronebay: +25

Cyclone:
Powergrid: -100
Shields: +250
Armor: -250
Hull: +250
Capacitor: +600
Cap Recharge time: +158s
Sensor strength: +1

Hurricane:
Lock Range: +5km

Updated BC stats:

Prophecy:
Battlecruiser skill bonuses:
5% bonus to all Armor Resistances
10% bonus to drone damage and hitpoints
Fixed Bonus:
Can fit Warfare Link modules
Slot layout: 5 H (-2), 4 M (+1), 7 L (+1), 4 turrets (-2), 4 Launchers (+3)
Fittings: 1100 PWG (-200), 415 CPU (+75)
Defense (shields / armor / hull) : 3000(-419) / 5500(+617) / 4000(-395)
Capacitor (amount / recharge rate / average cap per second): 2850(+37.5) / 750s / 3.8 (+0.05)
Mobility (max velocity / agility / mass / align time): 150 / 0.704 / 12900000 (-600,000) / 8.5s (-0.4)
Drones (bandwidth / bay): 75 (+50) / 225 (+200)
Targeting (max targeting range / Scan Resolution / Max Locked targets): 50km / 210 / 6
Sensor strength: 17 Radar (+1)
Signature radius: 270 (+5)
Cargo capacity: 400 (+50)


Harbinger:
Battlecruiser skill bonuses:
10% bonus to Medium Energy Turret Damage
10% bonus Medium Energy Turret capacitor use
Fixed Bonus:
Can fit Warfare Link modules
Slot layout: 7 H (-1), 4 M, 6 L, 6 turrets (-1)
Fittings: 1425 PWG (-75), 375 CPU
Defense (shields / armor / hull) : 3000(-516) / 5000(-469) / 4500(-188)
Capacitor (amount / recharge rate / average cap per second): 3125 / 822s(+72s) / 3.8 (-0.366)
Mobility (max velocity / agility / mass / align time): 150 / 0.69 (-0.014) / 13800000 (+300,000) / 8.9s
Drones (bandwidth / bay): 50 / 75 (+25)
Targeting (max targeting range / Scan Resolution / Max Locked targets): 55km (+5) / 210 / 6
Sensor strength: 17 Radar (+1)
Signature radius: 270 (+5)
Cargo capacity: 375 (+25)


Ferox:
Battlecruiser skill bonuses:
5% bonus to all Shield Resistances
10% bonus to Medium Hybrid Turret optimal range
Fixed Bonus:
Can fit Warfare Link modules
Slot layout: 8 H (+1), 5 M, 4 L, 7 turrets (+1)
Fittings: 1250 PWG (+175), 510 CPU (+35)
Defense (shields / armor / hull) : 5000(+117) / 3500(+81) / 4000(+94)
Capacitor (amount / recharge rate / average cap per second): 2750(+250) / 723s(+56.33s) / 3.8 (+0.05)
Mobility (max velocity / agility / mass / align time): 140 / 0.66(+0.06) / 13250000 (-760,000) / 8.2s (+0.3)
Drones (bandwidth / bay): 25 / 25
Targeting (max targeting range / Scan Resolution / Max Locked targets): 65km (+5)/ 195 / 8
Sensor strength: 19 Gravimetric
Signature radius: 295 (+10)
Cargo capacity: 475 (+130)


Drake:
Battlecruiser skill bonuses:
5% bonus to all Shield Resistances
10% bonus to heavy and heavy assault missile kinetic damage
Fixed Bonus:
Can fit Warfare Link modules
Slot layout: 7 H (-1), 6 M, 4 L , 6 Launchers (-1)
Fittings: 800 PWG (-50), 500 CPU (-25)
Defense (shields / armor / hull) : 5250(-219) / 3250(-658) / 3750(-156)
Capacitor (amount / recharge rate / average cap per second): 2500(-312.5) / 658s(-92s) / 3.8 (+0.05)
Mobility (max velocity / agility / mass / align time): 140 / 0.64(+0.012) / 14810000 (+800,000) / 8.9s (+0.7)
Drones (bandwidth / bay): 25 / 25
Targeting (max targeting range / Scan Resolution / Max Locked targets): 60km / 195 / 8
Sensor strength: 19 Gravimetric
Signature radius: 295 (+10)
Cargo capacity: 450 (+105)


Brutix:
Battlecruiser skill bonuses:
10% bonus to Medium Hybrid Turret damage
7.5% bonus to Armor Repairer effectiveness
Fixed Bonus:
Can fit Warfare Link modules
Slot layout: 7 H, 4 M, 6 L (+1), 6 turrets (-1)
Fittings: 1125 PWG (-25), 435 CPU (+10)
Defense (shields / armor / hull) : 3500(-406) / 4500(+135) / 4750(-133)
Capacitor (amount / recharge rate / average cap per second): 3000(+656.25) / 789s(+164s) / 3.8 (+0.05)
Mobility (max velocity / agility / mass / align time): 155 / 0.704(+0.0352) / 12500000 (-750,000) / 8.2s (-0.1)
Drones (bandwidth / bay): 50 / 50
Targeting (max targeting range / Scan Resolution / Max Locked targets): 55km / 200 / 7
Sensor strength: 18 Magnetometric
Signature radius: 305 (+5)
Cargo capacity: 475 (+75)


Myrmidon:
Battlecruiser skill bonuses:
7.5% bonus to Armor Repairer effectiveness
10% bonus to drone damage and hitpoints
Fixed Bonus:
Can fit Warfare Link modules
Slot layout: 5 H (-1), 5 M, 6 L, 5 turrets (-1)
Fittings: 1050 PWG (-125), 400 CPU
Defense (shields / armor / hull) : 3500(-406) / 4500(-188) / 4750(+453)
Capacitor (amount / recharge rate / average cap per second): 2850(+37.5) / 750s(+108.75s) / 3.8 (+0.05)
Mobility (max velocity / agility / mass / align time): 145 / 0.704 / 13100000 / 8.6s (-0.1)
Drones (bandwidth / bay): 100 (+25) / 200 (+50)
Targeting (max targeting range / Scan Resolution / Max Locked targets): 55km / 200 / 7
Sensor strength: 18 Magnetometric
Signature radius: 305 (+5)
Cargo capacity: 400


Cyclone:
Battlecruiser skill bonuses:
5% bonus to Heavy Missile and Heavy Assault Missile rate of fire
7.5% bonus to shield boosting amount
Fixed Bonus:
Can fit Warfare Link modules
Slot layout: 7 H (-1), 5 M, 5 L (+1), 2 turrets, 5 Launchers
Fittings: 1100 PWG (-110), 525 CPU (+100)
Defense (shields / armor / hull) : 5000(+605) / 3750(-156) / 3750(+331)
Capacitor (amount / recharge rate / average cap per second): 2850(+662.5) / 750s(+166.67s) / 3.8 (+0.05)
Mobility (max velocity / agility / mass / align time): 165 / 0.704 / 12500000 / 8.2s
Drones (bandwidth / bay): 50 (+10) / 50 (+10)
Targeting (max targeting range / Scan Resolution / Max Locked targets): 45km / 220 / 6
Sensor strength: 17 Ladar (+1)
Signature radius: 250 (+10)
Cargo capacity: 450 (-25)


Hurricane:
Battlecruiser skill bonuses:
5% bonus to Medium Projectile Turret damage
5% bonus to Medium Projectile Turret rate of fire
Fixed Bonus:
Can fit Warfare Link modules
Slot layout: 7 H (-1), 4 M, 6 L, 6 turrets, 3 Launchers
Fittings: 1125 PWG, 400 CPU
Defense (shields / armor / hull) : 4250(-47) / 4500(+188) / 3500(-16)
Capacitor (amount / recharge rate / average cap per second): 2250(-562.5) / 592s(-158s) / 3.8 (+0.05)
Mobility (max velocity / agility / mass / align time): 165 / 0.704 / 12800000 (+300,000) / 8.4s (+0.2)
Drones (bandwidth / bay): 30 / 30
Targeting (max targeting range / Scan Resolution / Max Locked targets): 50km (+5) / 220 / 6
Sensor strength: 16 Ladar
Signature radius: 250 (+10)
Cargo capacity: 425 (-50)

[Lyn Farel]

I am still not happy with the prophecy. It's underwhelming compared to the myrm.

[kalaratiri]

I am still not happy with the prophecy. It's underwhelming compared to the myrm.

DPS wise, probably, but it's tank is incomparable. The Prophecy can easily get up to over 125k ehp while still having two damage mods. Only real issue I can see with the prophecy is that even with an mwd, a frigate with an afterburner will outrun it

[Lyn Farel]

The myrm too has a tank bonus. Not for eHP, true, you may be right.

[DeadRow]

The myrm too has a tank bonus. Not for eHP, true, you may be right.

Resist bonus trumps the Rep bonus when numbers become involved. Also Proph has more base fittings and the ability to hold a lot of spare drones.

Myrm isn't all bad after patch but I expect to see a lot more prophs.

[Laerise [PIE]]

You do realise that with the new armor ASB's the myrmidon will have a cap independant tank rivalling that of a triaged carrier, right? 

Also, who the flour flies tier 1/2 BC's outside of lol-small-gang?

There's absolutely zero reason to do so.

Tier 3s are way superior for kiting + dps/alpha.

Which is the only thing that matters anymore.

This is armor rebalance is a farce.

Unless armor tanked ships become faster than shields it doesn't matter how well you tank.

The shield tankers will simply disengage and move on.

This is why it's called 'winmatar' by the way. 

[Mithfindel]

You do realise that with the new armor ASB's the myrmidon will have a cap independant tank rivalling that of a triaged carrier, right? 

It is a relatively reasonable assumption to not read devposts and assume that CCP is shit. However, in this case, it is worth to note that AAR does not work the same way as an ASB. I assume that if you're still interested, you can read for yourself, so I won't bother to play a broken telephone and the mechanics here.

[DeadRow]

You do realise that with the new armor ASB's the myrmidon will have a cap independant tank rivalling that of a triaged carrier, right? 

 

[Lyn Farel]

You do realise that with the new armor ASB's the myrmidon will have a cap independant tank rivalling that of a triaged carrier, right? 

The prophecy too then. Armor resist bonus = huge (active) tank too, especially with one more low slot.

The difference being that you can also fit it for a huge passive armor too.

[kalaratiri]

New dev blog: http://community.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&nbid=74215

Pop-quiz: What do the Autopilot Route, Current System, Factional Warfare, Incursions, Agent Missions and Planetary Interaction have in common? I’m sure it’s possible to engineer various clever punch lines to that question, but the boring, logical answer is that they all fight to conquer the screen real estate next to the Neocom. To avoid casually referring to them as the user interface widgets that fight to conquer the screen real estate next to the Neocom (it really slows down meetings) we decided to re-brand them as the Info Panels. Even though our uncanny ability to give shorter names to things would easily justify a dev blog on its own, I’m happy to announce that this is not all! As with many other parts of the UI, things have grown somewhat organically here, and we are currently in a situation where the worst case scenario (all panels visible, lowest screen resolution) will fill up the screen vertically, effectively inhibiting us from introducing new panels if needed. Also, there was almost a complete lack of a clear system; some of the panels could be configured, others couldn’t and the aesthetics didn’t really match up so well in many cases. To amend this, we’ve designed and implemented a new mechanism that gives you the power to decide what information is important enough to you, and your play style, to have it in front of you at all times. Also; sexier look and feel.





Configuration

To begin with, each panel now comes in three flavors; normal, compact and collapsed. Normal mode is the most verbose one, compact mode only displays the most relevant stuff, while collapsed mode will minimize the panel to the top icon row, where it can be accessed by hovering over the relevant icon. Going between normal and compact mode is accomplished by single clicking the panel header or the arrow in front of it, while collapsing is done either by double clicking, or single clicking the top row icon. We’ve also introduced the ability to re-order the panels, which is simply done by dragging the top row icons around.

We are also recognizing that the importance of information is highly scope specific. What I mean by that is that information that’s relevant to you while your viewing the space scene, may not be important at all while you’re, say, navigating the map, or clicking around in PI, and vice versa. Hence, the info panel configurations are view state specific, meaning that your configurations are persisted per view (the different views include station, space, PI, map, etc.). We have designed what we think are good defaults for each view state, but there is absolutely no need for you to agree with that verdict since configuration is so easy.

That’s fine, now get to the new features



Sure thing, boss.  While we were mainly focused on getting the old content into a shiny new system, we did manage to drag in some cool new stuff, the most significant thing arguably being the migration of the autopilot settings from a place that makes practically no sense at all (the map panel) over to a place that actually does (the new Autopilot Route Info panel). As a result, the old routine of multiple clicks, confusion and moderate swearing has been replaced with a single click. We must admit that we were very tempted to do a more extensive cleanup of how you manage the autopilot route (see mockup below) but that will have to wait its turn.



Another neat new feature, which is toggled through the new autopilot settings menu by selecting “Show route path in space”, will reveal one of our best kept secrets; the stars in the space scene nebula actually represent the solar systems of New Eden. By plotting the route in space you’ll feel more like you’re actually travelling through space while burning up your route, rather than just appearing at arbitrary locations. In the near future we’re hoping to add some neat stuff to this feature such as making the stars interactive.  Also, we (as in Team Game of Drones) didn’t really do any of the hard route plotting work. CCP Mannapi did. We’re just here to rob the credit. That’s how we roll.



Other minor tweaks include clearer, more iconic icons, smoother animations and improved UI layouts.

More later

Finally, I might tease you that we’re already plotting to do more Info Panel work in the future, both introduce completely new ones (a new notifications panel that would allow you to read the headers of all incoming notifications without opening a separate window), improving current ones (adding current system location entries to the System Info panel) as well as migrating old UI over to the new system (map panel anyone?). Here are mockups for some of those; it would be very interesting to hear your thoughts.





The new Info Panels are already live on our test server, Singularity, so please give them a spin and report back to us with your delicious feedback.

Hope you enjoy!

[Alain Colcer]

absolutely gorgeous development, unifying stuff like this only spells good news for both users and programmers alike.

[Silas Vitalia]

If you aren't hoarding or building black ops battleships get on that bandwagon.  There is a killing being made the things have jumped something like 250m per just since the announcement on speculation alone.