Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Contest - Redesign The Eagle

Rixx Javix over at Eveoganda bemused the doom of the Zealot and Vagabond at the hands of the new Oracle and Tornado and when he ended the post asking about other ships, in the comments I said this:
Naga: about third(!) of the price of a Rokh, with same range bonus, and 25% damage increase over the battleship. Sure, it can't tank like the Rokh but its more agile and cheaper and does not require BS 5.

Not to mention the Eagle (which was dead already) will never see the light of day now.
 And then on twitter Rixx responded:
good point about the poor sodden Eagle. Amazing how bad is it that it doesn't even get remembered? So sad
Yes, the Eagle even with the improvements to Hybrid weapons still is lackluster and now with the Naga available its even more undesirable. Sure, it can tank better but with Battlecruisers V a Naga can snipe out to 194 km with 400 DPS while at HAC IV an Eagle only gets around 156km optimal and 180 DPS. At approximately twice the price.

[EveNews24 Editor: For those who do not like the comparison between the Eagle and the Naga, I have reworded the comparison.  At lvl 5 skills, the Eagle can hit at 146+15km range while the Naga can hit at 194+30km range with 33% more damage without any gunnery modifying modules or implants and the Naga can fit 8 guns while the Eagle is stuck with 5 guns for twice the price. ]

Sure, there are advantages to being smaller and having superior tracking but overall the Eagle is not what you would call a desirable ship. On top of all that game mechanics, the Moa is one of the most reviled ship hulls in the game.

So here is your chance to be game designer AND art lead on the Eagle makeover.

Redesign the Eagle Contest!
Somebody Save Me!!!!
The goal is to produce a description of how you would change the Eagle (and/or all of the Heavy Assault Cruiser class) to make it viable in the new Crucible age AS WELL AS one or more images of a hull redesign for the Moa/Eagle/Gila/Onyx ships very much like how the Scoprion and Maller have been completely redone..

The submission deadline is Feb 1, 2012 and I will be judging the entries.

1st Place Entry - 1 x PLEX
2nd Place Entry - 1 x HAC of your choice
3rd Place Entry - 1 x Battlecruiser of your choice
EDIT: I've partnered with EveNews24 and they kindly added to the pot so that the prizes are now:

1st Place Entry - 1 x Pirate Battleship (list)
2nd Place Entry - 1 x Pirate Cruiser (list)
3rd Place Entry - 1 x Pirate Frigate (list)

For the mechanics change, it doesn't have to be drastic or super detailed in order to be a good entry. The same goes for the hull redesign; a simple pencil sketch will suffice as much as a professional graphic artist entry as long as I feel the design is cool and evokes the Caldari esthetic.

Get cracking!

14 comments:

  1. Awesome! I've always loved the 'idea' of the Moa hull, but the reality leaves much to be desired. But something about that ship...

    Should I play or not? hrmm.

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  2. I wrote about the Eagle some weeks back in both the rail and blaster roles:
    http://jestertrek.blogspot.com/2011/10/fit-of-week-utter-fail.html

    tl;dr: Eagles are under-powered and SLOW.

    My conclusions, though not explicitly stated in that piece, are:
    * Increase power grid by +100;
    * Add a 6th turret slot;
    * Remove the missile slots;
    * Remove the 5% damage mod bonus, replace with a speed bonus; and,
    * Create a 280mm Railgun module (with associated meta, faction, and T2 modules).

    I'm going to go against the grain and say that I like the look of the Moa hull just as it is. Is it ugly and symmetrical? Sure! But it's ugly and symmetrical in a way that makes sense for a Caldari spacecraft. I might tweak the engines somewhat to make the propulsion look more balanced, similar to what was done to the Raven. But I actually like the base hull. It's got a Serenity from Firefly feel to it.

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  3. Derp. Instead of:
    * Remove the 5% damage mod bonus, replace with a speed bonus; and,
    replace with:
    * Remove the HAC range bonus, replace with a speed bonus.

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  4. I'm accepting that as an entry, but you lose points for no sketch ;)

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  5. Entry up on my blog.

    http://eveopportunist.blogspot.com/2011/12/from-mehgle-to-eagle.html

    ReplyDelete
  6. From: Tsilo Ralttilo (Head of Ishukone Corporation Security Division)
    To: Ekulela Siakkawai (Head of Ishukone Corporation R&D Division)
    CC: Landea Vrankef (Head of Ishukone Watch Security Division), Mens Reppola (CEO of Ishukune)
    Subject: Eagle Class Heavy Assault Cruiser
    Classification: Confidental

    Dear Eku,

    Since the recent deployment of Naga class Battlecruisers, Hyasyoda had been gaining an increasing market share on the equipment provided to Caldari Navy. Today I have witnessed a discussion among our own troops in Ishukone Watch on whether our Eagles should be replaced with Nagas or not.

    As a person with military background I couldn't agree more with the idea(Naga is a damn good ship) but as the head of ICSD I know this would spell the beginning of the end for Ishukone's part in supplying Caldari Navy.

    So I joined to the discussion with my subordinates. An hour later we came up with the conclusion that Eagle needs to be revised. Here are the main ideas that came up during the discussion:

    * We all feel that Eagle was, is and always should be a sniping rail platform that can reach beyond 200k range. There are 3 basic requirements of being a sniper. Range, Volley Damage and Mobility.

    * Right now Eagle is mainly outranged due to presence of BS class weapons. Those bigger weapons can reach further than eagles optimized weapon range. Still, being with smaller signature guns that have higher tracking has its advantages so most of the soldiers were content with the range Eagle provides. There were some concerns about acquiring a lock on targets at 200k. Right now Eagle needs to spend considerable resources to be able to lock on targets far away. The sensor boosters used for this purpose could be changed to more benefical modules, if the onboard targetting system can be improved for both range AND locking times.

    * The volley damage of an Eagle at 200k using spike ammo is lower than what some frigates do. What the sniper pilots love doing is making a "Hit'n-Warp" run. Right now it is "Tickle'n-Try to Warp, get tackled and die". I know we are limited to Hybrid weaponry in Eagle. But an optimization of firing timers to provide us with two(three?) consecutive weapon activations with longer(much longer?) cooldown times would be much more desirable on this platform.

    * The mobility of Eagle remains a bigger issue. Align times are simply too long. Many of our pilots stated that they would prefer having a faster and nimbler ship to optimized shield resistances. Is it possible to divert some of the shield optimization routines on energy core to engines to prodive this.

    * Most of our experienced (read: Old) pilots are complaining that sniping has been dead since Gallente scientists introduced new means of probing. Eagle is already benefiting from its smallish signature. But we believe you guys can optimize our shields even further to reduce the signature radius. We also believe an increase in gravimetric sensor strength will make our ship much harder to scan.

    * One crazy guy had an idea we all laughed about. But I'll put it here regardless. It was about the regular cloaking devices. The stealth bombers utilize special subroutines to be able to lock immediately after decloaking. We were wondering if it was possible to implement these subroutines to Eagles. Crazy right? Initially I thought so too. But whatever changes you come up with Eagle, its competitors will be on a different scale and league. This will make Eagle unique again.

    * Oh and one other guy suggested something about changing the hull. I've sent him to run solo surveliance runs in Angel space...in an ibis.

    These were the main points that came up in our discussion. I know our company has a good relationship with Hyasyoda but if we don't intervene, Hyasyoda is going to be the main contractor for Caldari Navy in a few months. We need to make sure they don't. With these changes to Eagle we just might do that.

    Best Regards,
    Tsilo Ralttilo
    Head of ICSD

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  7. TL;DR version:

    Increase Base Locking range to 150k
    Increase Base Scan Res to 450mm
    Increase Damage by 200% Reduce RoF to 1/3. (Same DPS 3 times volley)
    Change the shield resistance bonus to a mass reduction bonus.
    Reduce Base Signature to 115
    Increase Base Gravimetric Sensor Str to 24
    Reduce Sensor Calibration timme after decloaking by 100%

    The ship hull screams caldari. Bird beak, non-symmetrical. Please don't touch it.

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  8. Anonymous8:20 am

    Contracted you a prize for the most amusing entry.

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  9. I will make some oldschool handmade pencil/pen concept art. It will take some time, depending on how busy I will be at my university. I got some ideas already. See you!

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  10. Anonymous10:24 pm

    I almost think mine should be disqualified for conceptual artwork being TOO good, but just the same, here's mine:

    http://aidenmourn.wordpress.com/2011/12/16/talons-of-doom/

    Basic talking points:
    -better fitting
    -better base speed
    -removal of silly optimal range bonuses in favor of a tracking bonus and a, wait for it, point range bonus. Say hello to the Talon of Doom: the re-imagined blaster Eagle.

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  11. I'll pencil something up...scan it in to PS and maybe get something resembling creativity out of it.

    In the end it has to remain Caldari, so a long range standoff rail platform. The Moa also has missile slots which are not useless but are under-utilized

    10% to hybrid optimal range is fine, drop the shield resist bonus for 5% to damage/level, drop the missile hard points...add 6th turret hardpoint and pump up the base grid by 40. The Moa can sacrifice tank in a sniper encounter to hit well and hard.

    The Eagle should also have 6 turret slots, give it a 25m3 drone bay instead of 15 on the moa. HAC bonuses: 10%/level to hybrid falloff/level and 7.5% to hybrid tracking/level. This will let its 250's hit well and hard from nearly any range. Make it the long range gunboat of choice for cruisers.

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  12. @ Jester:
    I love your suggestion for fixing the Eagle with one crucial exception. Ditch the 280mm gun. As you already pointed out your not going to be outperforming a tier 3 battle cruiser even with a new gun so why bother? Especially when its gonna take more skill and isk to fly? Go instead with the speed bonus and reduce the sig radius to that of a proper HAC and then your talking. As is the new tier 3's cant stand 1v1 with any HAC or AF at close range simply because they're tracking is awefull. This will make HAC (Eagle too)a viable close-range platform for PvP.

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  13. Blaster eagles unite!

    +125 base grid.
    +50 base speed.
    Lose the missile hard points, gain one turret hard point.
    Trade the HAC range bonus for -15% sig radius per level.

    Now you can fit 6 heavy neutrons and an afterburner, and the sig radius will either make the Eagle a holy terror in a gang or let it trade out some of its mids for point.

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  14. I wish I could edit that last post. It should have been -10% sig radius per level. -15% would get, well, insane. I blame it on the holiday liquor.

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