What's In The Hanger

While I was sick from work last week I took some time to sit down in front of the computer and consolidate all my ships in our home system to one station, and then vet them all to make sure they are fitted and ready to undock or get repackaged (excepting the Ninazu which needs a fit but has rigs). 

That's when I realized I have way too many ships.

I really need to get some of those ships killed.

My favourites? I love the Incursus for 1v1 plex fighting, my Garmur is my goto for fast frigate fleets, and any version of the Hecate is my favourite destroyer right now... which reminds me, need some new Magus Command Dessies.

BB71 - Analysis Paralysis

From the Blog Banter for this month:

Too Many Ships Spoil the Sandpit?
We all like important internet spaceships right? The more spaceships the better right? Or are we getting too many to be easily to remember them all. A Mastodon on scan? That the hell is that and what does it do? Oh! Never mind!
Are we getting too many ships. Is it too complicated to remember them all and what their traits are? Do FC's these days need an encyclopedic knowledge of ship types unless they want their fleet to DIAF. With more and more ships being released each year will we ever reach "too many" or do you think there can never be too many important internet spaceship types?

* * * * *

There was a time in EVE's past where the number of effective combat ships one might run into was pretty low.  Rifter and Merlins for frigs, Thorax and Rupture, Hurricanes and Drakes, etc. Sure, you'd run into the occasional newb in a Condor or Vexor but overall the meta was pretty static, enough that I can't remember during that time if I ever saw more than one Bellicose in space.

It was not a great situation. It was too static and predictable, too stratified against newer players, and wasted numerous hulls that were lower tiers and passed over so easily with quick skill trains.

Tiericide was the process to rationalize the ships, especially tech 1 ships, and bring about more defined roles other than "Combat" and "More Combat", introduce tech I logistics ships (remember the Osprey/Exeq/etc were originally mining cruisers!), and generally make the progression from frigates to battleships more intuitive and balance out the vast gulf of difference between tech II and tech I.

It was widely regarded as a success and the number of ships you could run into in space on a regular basis bloomed three or four times.

But as part of the Crucible era atonement CCP hit upon the fact that players loved their ships, LOVED them! And always a big hit with players was adding more ships. Tier III Battlecruisers, Faction Battlecruisers, Mordu's Legion pirate ships, Navy Faction frigates, Tactical Destroyers, Command Destroyers, Sisters of EVE ships, ORE mining frigates, not to mention an ever-growing list of Alliance Tournament prizes, gift ships, Tech II Logistics frigates... did I miss anything?

Now in PvP situations many of these ships are rarely seen due to unsuitability with combat roles or simple rarity but the fact remains that the number of ships a player must know the basics of in order to make decisions on a consistent basis in PvP has grown three fold if not more in this time. And there are more on the way in the form of the new Force Auxiliary capitals.

That's the current situation. The question is if we have reached the limit of too many ships for an average player / Fleet Commander to keep them all straight in the head now, or if we are close to hitting that wall in the future.

No and yes.

No in the sense that an experienced and competent Fleet Commander should be able keep track of the basic abilities and threat levels of all possible combat ships with the notable exception of Alliance tournament ships which are rarely seen in space. As new ship types get added its expected that the current FC cohort consumes the new data and integrates it into their OODA loop. Similarly, experienced pilots should also do the same to make sure they are up to date on the possible battlefield conditions.

However, I say yes in the sense that for a new player and new aspiring Fleet commander, the current array of possible ship names, classes, and threat levels to assess is staggering and daunting. I have concerns that this is going to recreate the stratification effect we had to begin with and make it difficult for new players to get into PvP or commanding fleets.

The new overview with icons per hull class help a little bit, but only a little. You can tell a frigate from a cruiser, for example, but you can't tell a combat frigate from an exploration frigate from an assault frigate without knowing the ship names and their classes intimately.

What I think should be added is a one click button on the overview to get a ship info card (not the whole Show Info window) that gives the basic information on a ship: its image, Faction, size, role/class, and if applicable main weapon types. That would help a lot for newer players and even older players that got rusty (or are just bad).

One thing is for sure, more ships in the future is probably the rule of the land.

The Magic of the Magus

I really really want to fly a Magus.

I could tell you its because of the tactical possibilities of changing the battlefield in an instant, or the excitement of surprise jumping away from a hostile force along with a couple of their ships, or the MUHHAHAHHA laugh of catching a kiter with a couple fast tacklers I give a 100 km boost to.

But really, I just want the joy of hitting the jump and going WEEEEEE as I teleport 100km ahead. I like using battlecruisers' micro jump drive but they are so slow and lanky compared to my favourite frigates and destroyers so getting to do it in a destroyer hull is very exciting.

Since I'm space rich I've bought a few I plan to try out this month. One fit I'm thinking of trying out, and man are my ship fitting skills rusty because I've gotten so used to relying on the experts in Aideron Robotics (recruiting all skill levels!), is for gangs with armour logi:

[Magus, Command Magus]
Adaptive Nano Plating II
400mm Rolled Tungsten Compact Plates
Adaptive Nano Plating II
Damage Control II

Micro Jump Field Generator
5MN Y-T8 Compact Microwarpdrive
Warp Scrambler II
Warp Scrambler II

Skirmish Warfare Link - Interdiction Maneuvers II
75mm Gatling Rail II, Spike S
75mm Gatling Rail II, Spike S
75mm Gatling Rail II, Spike S
Small Energy Nosferatu II

Small Trimark Armor Pump I
Small Trimark Armor Pump I

Warrior II x5
Hammerhead II x2
Hobgoblin II x3

It obviously does not do a lot of damage (only about 224 DPS) but has a very decent EHP of 16.5K, has over 2K per second speed, and provides a link and of course the Micro Jump Field Generator (WEEEEEE!!). The warfare link I'll select is based on the ship size of the fleet: skirmish links for frigate and destroyer gangs, armour link for cruiser and bigger. The duo warp scrams is optional, I could switch one out for a web.

A second option for small gangs where I have no logi-bros backing me up is a similar fit with an active tank:

[Magus, Kitchen Sink Magus]

Adaptive Nano Plating II

Damage Control II

Small Ancillary Armor Repairer, Nanite Repair Paste

Small Armor Repairer II

Micro Jump Field Generator

5MN Y-T8 Compact Microwarpdrive

Warp Scrambler II

Small Capacitor Booster II, Navy Cap Booster 400

Skirmish Warfare Link - Interdiction Maneuvers II

75mm Gatling Rail II, Spike S

75mm Gatling Rail II, Spike S

75mm Gatling Rail II, Spike S

Small Energy Nosferatu II

Small Auxiliary Nano Pump I

Small Nanobot Accelerator I

Warrior II x5

Hammerhead II x2

Hobgoblin II x3

Will be able to absorb the heat from one or two enemies while my fleet does the work on killing them. I admit this use case seems risky for an expensive tech 2 destroyer but I'm willing to give it a try at least once.

See you in space!

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:

Four new Tech II Destroyers that favor defense and speed and can fit the powerful and versatile area-of-affect Micro Jump Field Generators, which microjump you and any ships nearby far from your current location.

These things are going to upset all corners of null, low, and wormhole space but low sec especially will see extensive use of these things. We can`t even comprehend all the uses yet! Chaining multiple command dessie jumps in a row to fling a fleet multiple hundred km jumps away, pulling enemy fleets apart to take on smaller numbers at a time, getting the jump on kiters, surprising station campers, the list goes on and on. Fleets that are precisely composed and constructed and need to have the logi wing exactly X km from the DPS wing are going to need to be watchful that enemy ships don't infiltrate one or two of these and rip those fleets apart. You've got 9 seconds to react, good luck.

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.

Tech III Destroyers and the Current Combat Ship Meta

On the latest High Drag podcast Random and Fintarue got into a discussion about Tech III Tactical Destroyers and how the meta of combat ships is a little broken right now. I'm going to dive into a small investigation of the current "small" combat ship meta and discuss how things can be changed.

Definitions

The ships we are going to be looking at are combat ships that are cruiser sized or smaller which are: Tech 1 combat frigates, navy frigates, pirate frigates, Tech II assault frigates, Tech 1 destroyers, Tech III Tactical destroyers, Tech 1 combat and attack cruisers, navy cruisers, faction cruisers, Tech II assault cruisers, and Tech III Strategic cruisers.

We are not looking at specialized ships at these hull sizes such as attack frigates, interceptors, interdictors, etc as they have roles away from purely offensive damage and defensive. Attack cruisers we will consider as they are less differentiated compared to combat cruisers and have some role overlap with the other vessels we are looking at.

There are four main factors to consider for combat ships: offensive, defensive, maneuverability, and cost. 

Offensive covers not only raw DPS, but factors such as alpha, range, lock speed, tracking, neutralizers, auxiliary ewar like jams and tracking disruptors, and tackle modules.

Defensive covers local tank, whether it be active or passive or speed, and takes into consideration the ship's signature.

Maneuverability also considers speed but also agility and warp speed.

Cost simply refers to the ISK price to replace the ship and its modules when destroyed.

Status

I roughly evaluated the ship classes on a scale from 1 to 10, one being the worst and 10 being the best (for Cost, worst is highest cost). I threw the values into a chart:

And then made a graph (you guys love graphs I hear):

Now its a little skewed because I classed all the cruiser sized ships as maneuverability 1 because I'm not super familiar with the differences between a Vexor, Vexor Navy Issue, and Vigilant, and Proteus for example, but the glaring sore point on the graph is that for the high maneuverable ships, Tech III destroyers stand head and shoulders above the others and the cost differential between them does not make up the difference. And as noted elsewhere in podcasts and blogs, Assault ships, which had a niche as a hard hitting but costly alternative to Tech I and Navy frigates, are completely squeezed out by a ship that hits harder, has more tank, had equal or better maneuverability, for a slightly higher price tag. And I can even see why the Tactical destroyers can be preferable to some cruiser alternatives... has anyone seen Ruptures since the Svipul came out?

Conclusion

Sad to say, Tech III destroyers need a balancing pass, but as Random and Fintarue said, Assault ship definitely need some love as well to distinguish them from destroyer alternatives. 

Tomorrow we'll talk about ideas for the struggling assault ships.

By The Skin of your Teeth

So one of the things that came out of yesterday's CCP o7 Show was that ship skins would be revamped from the current system of blueprints and ship types to a system where players by licenses for ship skins and it applies as they desire and are not lost when the ship is destroyed.

First off, I think this is the right technical decision. When ship skins were first being released for purchase in the NEX store they came right out and said it was a test of the waters to gauge interest and not the best implementation. Well, that second part is accurate. The current implementation of ship skins led to a painful proliferation of ship types that were identical in everything except name and skin.

So this announcement confirms what I suspected: ship skins, despite being relatively expensive and temporarily (i.e. when ship dies its gone), are still popular enough to indicate that players want to customize their ships and will pay to do so. Given the evidence to support the argument from stakeholders that players want ship customization, CCP Product Owners have unleashed developers on a superior ship skinning system.

However, I am surprised by the pronouncement that players will not by individual plaint jobs but rather licences in perpetuity. This raises a lot of questions: what happens to current ships I have skinned in my hanger? Do I automatically get those licenses? What happens to existing unused blueprints for ship skins? Will there be any reimbursements? Can licenses be transferred or applied across organizations? Inquiring minds want to know.

One thing is for sure, I'm looking forward to seeing what the future is bringing for EVE's ships.

Whither the Rifter - Part 3 - The Punisher

This is my last post on the subject of under used Tech I Combat frigates. I looked at the Rifter and Tormentor already this week, and today we look at The Punisher.

Bonuses:
10% Steely Eyed Gaze per Level of Angst
25% Damage per Level of No Fucks Given

Wait, wrong one...

That's better!

Bonuses:
5% Bonus to Small Energy Turret damage
4% bonus to armor resistances

Slots: 4/2/4 with 3 turret hardpoints.

And for defenses that +4% per level of Amarr frigate yields these bases armour resistances:

At first glance you would think that the Punisher is built for brawling, right? Tanking bonus, damage bonus, no drones, utility high slot... seems ideal. The problem, however, is that with only two mid slots it has trouble keeping up with the current frigate meta, especially considering it has the same damage bonus as its sister ship, the Tormentor, but without any supplemental damage from drones. This means that like the Rifter its damage even with its close range weapons is anemic, and it lacks the ability to even choose the appropriate damage type.

A Level 5 Punisher with Small Focused Pulse Lasers, Heat Sink II, and Imperial Navy Multifrequency puts out 144 DPS at 3.75 km and 3.5 km falloff. This is comparable to the Rifter with autocannons and a rocket launcher (148), but significantly lower than the Tormentor with drones (183), Merlin with Light Ions (165), or Incursus with Neutrons and drone (177). So for a brawler, its not hitting as hard.

Secondly, the Punisher has to sacrifice one of the holy trinity of tackle mods since it only has two mid slots. Either it goes with a long point and risks fighting kiters who are unimpeded with their MWD on, or a scrambler and run the risk of fighting a brawler with afterburners who is getting under the low native tracking of lasers, since you have no web to slow them down. There is the option to try the "No Point" fit and use just a prop mod and a webifier and hope your opponent is too invested in the fight to get out before dying. There is a sweet spot for the Punisher, that of being fast enough to hold the right range and point, but its a hard balance to maintain.

Its not all bad for the Punisher, though. The tanking bonus coupled with lots of low slots means this thing can be a brick if it so desires, taking punishment unlike many other frigates. Alternatively, it can downgrade the tank and improve its mobility with some propulsion upgrade modules like an Overdrive Injector or Nanofiber Internal Structures, giving it the option for kiting with pulse lasers using Scorch ammo where it can do 115 theoretical DPS with 11km optimal and 2.5 km falloff.

My Suggestions:
Compliment its low damage with a small base speed increase and agility improvement, allowing it to naturally fit in the kiting role. I'd even consider swapping the armour bonus for an optimal range bonus but that might be too radical.

* * * * *
Post Script:

Prior to writing today's post I was contacted by a Punisher fan named Draiv Solregard who wrote a lot of words about his favourite frigate. He agreed to let me share them here:

I read in your post today that the "Punisher" has no quick serious defenders, so I thought I'd write you my thoughts real quick :þ

If you look at my KB, I almost exclusively fly the Punisher and its T2 counter-parts. One of the main reasons I fly this ship is because it's gorgeous, the symmetry and design flows together quite well and seeing it fly in space enhances the effect. (Still looking for a decent desktop background with one.) I was constantly told reasons and given fits for other ships whenever I asked for advice in fitting one of these puppies. Problem is...I don't like flying stuff I don't like. lol So I kept tinkering around with it and died plenty as I learned the effects of modules and the current meta.


Moving past my first reason (because that's not what a lot people look at when flying a ship). There is quite often an oppressive force in Eve when trying something new or thinking outside the box (it gets kind of obsessive). I personally believe that the Punisher is not considered brawler worthy unless in a fleet where its faults can be distributed (and even then it's frowned upon not to have a point). It has some nice resists and a bonus to damage but that 2 mid-slot layout is a kick in the crotch for the standard web/scram brawler fits.

I've found the most success using my kitey fit (which may need a re-look now that I've played a lot more and have more skillpoints, the fit is old). With its natural boost to tank and damage you are able to fit less or different modules which would gimp most other ships. I found that extending my range beyond what is expected is quite advantageous. Almost everyone considers this a brawler and so I can get quite a few brawler engages which basically turn into shooting fish in a barrel.


But with this fit, I'm also not afraid to engage a brawler, swap ammo to IN Multi's and then try to maneuver to get the best transversal and shoot away, if they try to run it turns into a turkey shoot as you can now use the MWD and stay outside of web/scram range easily. It's a rather cheap fit if you get some decent prices during the market tides.


While it may only hit 100 dps with Scorch, you're guaranteed almost max damage between 9km and 16km against another kitey ship (which seem to be all the rage right now). You can push just under 3km/s, while not spectacular with a bit of good piloting it's proved sufficient so far. Also, even though the resists are not super, It does not have any mods which boost its resists. The lows allow for some quick on the fly changes which don't slaughter the whole fit depending on what is needed to complete the objective. You can easily add more tank, speed, or damage as needed.


Its faults in my opinion, fall under the same thing that afflicts the entire Amarr ship line, which is capacitor. If you do not have max capacitor skills you probably shouldn't fly an Amarrian laser ship. Just from experience of trying to make a cap stable fit which can compete with the other ship lines is quite frustrating, and heaven forbid if you want an active tank. Because cap is so essential and life saving (even to just fire your guns) you need to really be on the ball when managing your cap usage and the operation of your cap consuming modules. With CCP having so much fun removing the cap usage bonuses from the lineup, without perfect cap skills it's very hard to survive.


With this ship (as well as 90% of the Amarr lineup) you should avoid anything which fits a neutralizer on a regular basis, UNLESS you can guarantee staying out of range of it. (Let me tell you it's not fun waiting 3 minutes for a neut frig to kill you and not even have the able to shoot once in a while. I eventually just turned off my DC to speed up the process since I couldn't get help at the time.)

I do have an ok brawler fit, but unless I'm 150% sure I'll be fighting a brawler I don't use it.


Quite a bit longer than I thought but I do love me some Punishers. I probably have over a 100 sitting around waiting to be fit and used, and then only a couple of other Amarrian ships on hand.

But hopefully my defense of this beloved ship made some sense and wasn't just incoherent babbling.


Best regards,

~Draiv Solregard

Whither the Rifter - Part 2 - The Tormentor

We already looked more in depth at the problems facing the Rifter, now let's look at the first of the two Amarrian candidates for tweaking, the Tormentor.

Bonuses:
10% bonus to Small Energy Turret capacitor use
5% bonus to Small Energy Turret damage

Slots: 4/3/3 with 3 turret hardpoints

Defensively, its more inclined to Armour Tanking:

The basic brawler weapon profile of the Tormentor is impressive. Three Small Focused Pulse Laser IIs with Imperial Multifrequency crystals has a 3.75 km optimal range and 2.5 km falloff and sports a theoretical damage per second of 144. This is lower damage than our Merlin and Incursus exemplars from yesterday but with longer range, plus the Tormentor can fit two small Hobgoblin II drones which add add almost another 40 DPS to push the overall to 183, which is actually higher than my two yardstick combat ships. Very nice! I can see why it has some fans.

We didn't discuss yesterday with the Rifter what the Tech II long range ammo does for our ships, but we will definitely look at it for the Tomrentor as Scorch is infamous for being awesome. The Tormentor with those big small lasers drops to 115 DPS (plus ~40 more for Drones) with 11.3 km optimal and 2.5 km falloff. The Merlin with its Light Ion Blaster IIs and Null ammo drops to 132 DPS but only 2.6 km optional and 3.5 km falloff. The Incursus suffers a similar DPS drop (to 126, 145 with drone) and same range except an extra km on the falloff due to using Light Neutrons. So the Tormentor has no issues with amount of damage or applying it, outside some slower tracking.

The downside to the Tormentor is that it lacks a tanking bonus compared to the Merlin and Incursus and it has a slower top speed meaning it has to work more  to avoid having the enemy ships slip under the tracking of its guns.

For longer range kiting using three Small Focused Beam Laser IIs with Imperial Navy Multifrequency gives a DPS of 102 at 7.5 km optimal range and 5 km falloff, plus another 39 Damage per second from the drones. That's not too shabby for fighting out of scram range, and switching to long range tech II ammo Aurora crystals gives about 60 DPS plus 39 from the drones, and 27 km optimal range. Again, the issue becomes the slower base speed of the Tormentor; what sacrifices it will have to make to ensure it can maintain the range it wants to fight at?

My Suggestions:

The Tormentor is not bad overall, but its slow base speed hinders it in the two main roles of frigate combat: 

its slow and not enough tank for brawling out of the box, and slow for keeping range in a kiting role. But I think the slowness can be overcome with fitting choices and not every ship needs a tanking bonus. SO what would I suggest? Perhaps a ship without a tanking bonus could ask for a bit more in the base speed to compensate so pilots don't have to sacrifice as much to be competitive. 

Tomorrow, the Punisher.

Whither The Rifter - Part 1 - The Rifter

On Friday I decried the disappearance of the Rifter, Punisher, and Tormentor from the the battlefields of low sec with the promise of looking at these ships in turn and giving some recommendations of improvements that could be made. That post caused several notable pilots to step forward and defend the Rifter and Punisher:

Miura Bull7:48 pm
Hmm, I'm not sure I'd agree on the Minnie and Amarr stuff. I fly the Rifter a lot, and I know of corpmates and friends who do, and they have discovered some pretty nice fits within the current meta. Punisher and Rifter are like hard mode now admittedly but that's cool, you'll get fights! Tormentor is a great ship now also.

Rixx Javix8:27 am
I agree with Miura on this one. I fly them all regularly and while each has its pluses and minuses, for once in Eve they are all out and about in space. On an average day I see more variety in space than at any other time before, it is pretty amazing tbh.

Druur Monakh8:32 pm
I haven't done much solo flying in the last months (or for that matter combat flying) (nor am I any good at either of it :) ), but I have a number of Tormentors staged to take out on frigate roams. It's not the best of frigates, but doesn't have any glaring weakness either. I think the same can still be said for the Rifter.

Stabs2:05 pm
I've had some luck soloing with Tormentors. I beat 2 Incursi once. http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_related&kll_id=19973146

 So the Rifter and Tormentor still have fans! Excellent! I still find them lacking in the numbers I face in my rounds of low sec but I admittedly play less than most. And hey, the Punisher seems to have no quick serious defenders ;)

Regardless, I plan to go ahead and look at these three ships in detail starting with the famous Minmatar Rifter.

Bonuses:
5% bonus to Small Projectile Turret damage
7.5% bonus to Small Projectile Turret tracking

Slots: 4/3/3 with 3 turret / 2 missile hardpoints, no drones
Equal starting shields and armour hitpoints and resistance distributions:

This ship is designed to be either shield or armour tanked based on the pilot's preferences. This flexibility is part of the problem; since it has neither shield nor armour tanking predilection, that means out of the gate it will have trouble matching the tanking abilities of the Incursus, Merlin, Breacher, or Punisher.

For damage it sports up to 4 weapons systems but only three of them on bonused hardpoints. If you ignore the missile launcher and make use of the largest of the small autocannons with Republic Fleet Phased Plasma ammo and a Gyrostablizer II in the lows, you get a peak theoretical DPS of 129. Meanwhile a Merlin with Light Ions and faction antimatter and a magstab gets 165 DPS, and an Incursus with Neutrons, Faction AM, and a Hybrid Collision Accelerator I rig gets 158 DPS. Throw in the drone on the latter and the Pyfa numbers hit 177 DPS. If we give the Rifter a rocket launcher to increase the damage it cane get almost up to 150 DPS.

To be fair, the Rifter's guns have a fall off range twice as far (6km to 3km) superior tracking for hitting fast targets and the ability to choose damage type to hit the target's resistance hole, and these are not insignificant advantages. Not to mention that the fourth high slot can be used with a utility module like a neutralizer to increase it attack profile that the Merlin and Incursus lack. But in fast paced frigate combat these advantages represent an advanced mode of flying when compared to its close ranged contemporaries, especially considering it lacks any tanking bonus AND does on average less DPS even with four weapon systems.

Let's look at its long range options with artillery.

With big 280mm Howitzer Artillery IIs and Republic Fleet Phased Plasma ammo and  Gyrostablizer II in the lows, we get a range of 7.5 km optimal and almost 11 km falloff and a DPS of 100. But more importantly, we have a Volley damage of 692. In contrast, the Merlin with 150mm Railgun IIs and faction AM gets 9 km optimal, 7.5 km falloff, 119 DPS but a volley of only 327.  So they fight in similar ranges and do comparable damage, but the Rifter has the big punch compared to the Merlin's constant pea shooting. Again, an experienced and good pilot could use that alpha strike to punch through the defenses of the opponent by timing his shots and watching the traversal velocities and ranges, but again its hard mode in small ship combat. (And the Thrasher does the alpha strike so much better.)

So to summarize, we have a ship that doesn't do the most damage or have the most tank, but is superior in damage type selection and tracking at short range or alpha strike at long range. In other words, a Frigate experience in hard mode.

My Suggestions:

I think a ship without a tanking bonus should shine a bit more at damage application. Not a lot, but enough to make it a little scarier. Maybe bump the damage bonus from 5% per level to 6%? Or 7.5%? The former would bump the on-paper autocannon DPS to 134 while the latter is more severe at 142 (with Rocket Launcher, hitting around 160). I'm leaning more towards the 6% bonus which would give the ship slightly more "ommph" while still not making it the king of frigates once more.

Tomorrow, the Tormentor.

Whither The Rifter?

(... and the Punisher and the Tormentor.)

One of the nice things about faction warfare is the healthy spread of ships you see in a typical week, or even an average night. The nature of the plexes we fight over means that you and your opponents need to fly everything from cruisers to destroyers to tech I frigates, and then have some heavier ships on hand for bunker busting or POS/POCO bashes.

As a result you get to see a wide variety of ships flown by a wide variety and skill level of pilot, and over time you notice certain trends. I want to talk about the Tech I combat ships and the need for another pass of the balancing wand.

Each faction sport two combat frigates in which each one highlights the different weapon systems (except for the Amarr). For the Caldari and Gallente everything seems to be working as intended. For the former, the Merlin is a hard tanked brawler with blasters with the option of kiting with railguns while the Kestrel is a natural kiter with light missles and has the option of going in your face with rockets. For the latter, the Incursus is a personal favourite with blasters and an awesome active armour tank, and the Tristan has excellent engagement range with its bonused drones.

Things start to go downhill though as we get to the Minmatar. The Breacher has some followers due to its high speed and agility and missile weaponry; its very commonly seen with an Ancillary Shield Booster and a tough nut to catch and crack as a result. But the Rifter has gone from ubiquitous to mythical, its rare sightings being the cause, I suspect, of newbs who don't know better or veterans who hang on to nostalgia.

Things get worse as you go to Amarr. Already hamstrung with two combat ships that have extremely similar profiles in being 3-turret laser ships (the differentiating factor being the Punisher having bigger tank and the Tormentor doing more damage due to the extra small drones), they are further hampered by lacking a distinguishing feature to make them attractive in a frigate fight, i.e. not a lot of speed, not a lot of range, and not an overwhelming amount of tank. I can't even remember the last time I saw a Punisher in space, to be honest, and haven't seen a Tormentor in ages.

Next week I'm going to look at each of these three ships in detail and discuss some ideas of what needs to be done to bring them in line with the rest of the tech I frigates.

Coming Around On the Algos

When the new Destroyers were released back in the day I was a big fan of the Algos. Then I flew it and had some bad encounters. Disappointed, I left it for fleet doctrine use only and began my love affair with the dual repped Incursus.

Recently, as part of defending Heydieles from the endless hordes of State Protectorate Militia I entered a medium plex and encoutnered a pirate Algos that was on the beacon. I engaged and found myself quiet over my head very quickly. Despite having both reppers running I was reduced to a wreck and so flustered I allowed my pod to get caught too.

So when I ran out of Incursii later, I was forced to plex our base of Heydieles in something else. I picked an Algos and went into a small plex to run the timer down. Then on short scan I picked up a Dramiel, a ship I'm familiar with and fond of.

"Surely," I thought, "he won't come in here unless he has backup. The Algos has the range and tank to deal with him."

But into the plex alone he did come. I locked, webbed, and scrammed him and watched in disbelief as his ship was shredded and no support came.

Quite simply put, the Algos is a scary destroyer for solo frigs. Here's the fit I've been flying:

The railguns give it range to help project its DPS beyond the blaster range common for Gallente ships, and the drone DPS further enhances that projection. And anything foolish enough to get webbed and scrammed faces around 300 DPS and a nice 12K EHP buffer tank to chew through.

All-round solid ship for faction warfare plexes. But I still love my Incursus.

Trendsetting

Quick! Can you name how many player producible ships were added to the game between the Revelations I expansion in Nov 2006 which added the "Tier 2" battlecruisers (Drake, Hurricane, Harbinger, Myrmidon) and the "Tier 3" battleships (Rokh, Hyperion, Abaddon, Maelstrom) and the Incarna expansion in June 2011?

Amarr Magnate - Empyrean Age, June 2008

Orca - Quantum Rise, Nov 2008

EDIT: I was reminded that the four Tech III Strategic Cruisers were added in Apocrypha, March 2009

Noctis - Incursion, Nov 2010

Did I miss any? There have been other ships in that timeframe like the Primus, Zephyr, Apotheosis, but they are all gift ships from CCP that have limited numbers and typically limited utility. And how many have been added since then?

Tornado, Oracle, Talos, Naga - Crucible, Nov 2011

Venture, Dragoon, Algos, Talwar, Corax- Retribution, Dec 2012

Navy Drake, Navy Hurricane, Navy Harbinger, Navy Myrmidon - Odyssey, June 2013

Upcoming:
Astero, Stratios - Rubicon, Nov 2013

One of the big lessons CCP took from the Incarna disaster is that players love, LOVE, new usable ships. I didn't include the Gnosis in the above list as it was a limited gift instead of new ship but it was very functional and still sees a lot of use in space. Thus it is no surprise that for the past three years we have seen more and more new ships added to the game, and I expect this trend to continue for the foreseeable future.

But what roles can future new ships fill? Here are some ideas that I think are reasonably likely to be seen in the coming expansions:

Tech I Disruption Battleships - Caldari have the Scorpion, so expect the other factions to get similar disposition ships while the Caldari get a second Combat battleship to compliment the Rokh.

Tech II Frigate Command Ships - Call them Field Command Ships or Squad Command Ships, they are Assault Ships that also fit a single Warfare Link for those fast moving Assault Ship fleets coming in Rubicon I talked about yesterday. (Could also be a Destroyer hull.)

Tech II Frigate Logistics - The Tech I logistics see use but might be just a little too fragile or short ranged, this class will give a bit more pow while still not overshadowing cruiser logistics (either Tech I or Tech II).

Sisters of EVE Battleship - Its only a matter of time.

Navy Rokh, Navy Hyperion, Navy Maelstrom, Navy Abaddon - Hey, there was no real need for the navy battlecruisers either.

Any others?

Eagle's Niche

Ripard was going to do an Eagle FOTW post but opted for a Cerberus fit instead (one very similar to mine from last week) because compared to the Eagle "there are sooo many other ship classes in that attack profile at that range that I was kind of hoping for something that would blow me away a little". Agreed.

Let's take a quick look at the Eagle, shall we?

Essentially, if you are going to fit rails you are pretty much limiting yourself to fighting at extreme sniper ranges. Here's a fit I came up with:

Rail Eagle

I went with the 200mm rails as I found I could not get two shield extenders without needing a power grid upgrade with the 250mm railguns. This gives me a 30km optimal and 459 DPS with faction antimatter but low tracking even with the tracking computer fitted with tracking speed script. And that's the best case scenario; if a ship gets closer your low tracking speed will kill you and things farther away will require you downgrade your ammo and sacrifice your DPS.

Yes, you could go for uber range sniping with sensor boosters and 250mm rails with spike ammo but that is such a niche application with limited PvP opportunities that its almost not worth considering.

Let's look at a blaster fit Eagle. Perhaps the optimal range bonuses makes the blasters on this ship more flexible and dangerous?

Blaster Eagle

With faction antimatter and three Mag Stabs, the DPS "jumps" to around 526 and 5 km optimal with 6 km falloff. Colour me unimpressed. Yes, the 58K EHP tank is nice, but the speed is horrible at under 1500 m/s with MWD and a 6 sec align time with MWD off.

Compare this with a shield (!) Deimos:

Deimos

With its considerable drones put to damage use, it can achieve over 800 DPS with 2.25 km optimal and 9 km falloff, can be fit in low slots for a speed approaching over 2300 m/s and align time of 6 seconds with MWD on. The tank is far less impressive of course, but that is beside the point. If you fit the Eagle for blasters you are outclassed in damage and mobility by several other Tech II and Tech I ships. Its as if someone looked at the Blaster Moa configuration and asked themselves, "how can we make it worse?".

So to sum up, the Eagle's advantage of big tank in short range combat is negated by its slowness and anemic damage, and negated in long range combat by its extremely long range capabilities. The only niche it fits in , the Eagle's Nest if you will, is ignoring its tank and going full out snipe fit and hoping things will move slow enough or get tackled enough so you can hit them.

If you really want blasters on a Caldari cruiser, save yourself the ISK and buy a few Moas instead:

Blaster Moa

Ishkur Versus Incursus : Inches

The other night I was helping a respected Gallente Militia FC try out his pimped Enyo's DPS and tank with my trusty dual rep Incursus that I've used a lot over the past year. He asked if I ever tried the Inshkur instead. I replied that I had trouble making it work the same and he expressed surprise that I would have that trouble.

So I decided to take another look in light of the patch and see what it was that bothered me so much about the possibility of a dual rep Ishkur...

Oh right. I remember now.

Incursus

Ishkur

The Ishkur has less powergrid than the Incursus (52.5 to 56.25) which means at the very least I'm downgrading to Light Ion blasters from Light Neutron blasters. That's not a huge deal as the extra drones make up the raw DPS lost (Ishkur 249 DPS to Incursus 197 DPS), and the extra CPU (193.8 to 168.8) means I don't need to use meta damage control and warp scrambler for better resistances and range respectively. The tank with the improved resistances means the Ishkur is better at taking damage than the Incursus (238 points/sec to 223), and the Ishkur has superior targeting range (59.4 km to 37.5km),, sensor strength (14.4 to 10.8 ), and a slightly smaller signature radius (39m to 42m).

So far, so good: in almost every aspect the Ishkur comes out on top even with a lower power grid.

Then I look at mobility. Incursus has base afterburner speed of 1082 m/s with 4.5 sec align time. Inshkur move max 853 m/s and 6.2 sec align time.

I'm an addict to speed. I fly with low grade snakes and even my afterburner frigates move with a bit of pep. The thought of giving up a 150 m/s  and almost 2 seconds of align time makes me cringe. Overreaction? Perhaps, but its enough downside combined with the prices (fully fit Ishkur is about 4 times the cost of a fully fit Incursus) and the rate I throw my Incursus into any fight with willingness to lose it, I'm not sure I'm ready to risk Ishkurs at the same rate.

Still, I might give it a try and see after my next paycheque.

Commanding Attention

Command ships used to be divided into a "Field" and "Fleet" designation. The former was intended for front line combat with only marginal warfare linking ability and the latter was designed for pure warfare linking and marginal damage.

The end result was that the Field command ships were easily replaced by cheaper battlecruisers and cheaper/faster HACs and the Fleet Command ships only brought value to large enough fleets that only really occurred in null sec. That's not to say that some Command ships didn't see use; the tank and gank ability of the Sleipnir was legendary and the Astarte had some fans... but overall they were a dying breed.

On top of all of that, warfare linking strategic cruisers gave more bang for the linked buck while being harder to probe out and giving bigger bonuses. Doh!

CCP's response to this issue in the rebalancing initiative was threefold. First, they changed the bonuses that strategic cruisers got to 2% for warfare linking strength per level of racial defensive subsystem down from 5%. On the other side, Command ships all got a 3% bonus to warfare linking per level of Command Ships giving them the theoretical raw bonus advantage.

Secondly, in order to make all boosting ships more attractive, they balanced the warfare links and extended the bonuses each racial ship had. So Caldari ships give bonuses to Shield and Information warfare; Gallente has Skirmish and Armour warfare, etc.

Finally, they consolidated Fleet and Field into one hybrid class where they have impressive battlefield performance AND the ability to fit two warfare links without sacrificing their damage output.

So the verdict? Well, beyond some complaints about the homogenizing of the class and the continued emphasis on combat over support ships, I like these changes. If nothing else it makes them have obvious reasons for taking them in place of battlecruiser or HAC in normal combat. They are still massively expensive compared to other options but at least you are only trading off replacement cost and some mobility to get the  enhanced boosting capability. I'll have more to say on cost of HACs and Command Ships another day.

So let's look at a couple ships. First up is the Astarte since I have one in my hanger gathering dust and I want to see what I can do with it.

Astarte

Astarte

Boasting over 900 DPS with faction antimatter and drones (Void pushes it over 1000) along with a solid tank from the dual reps, this fit would be used in small gang skirmishes to bring the hammer on tough targets like bait battlecruisers and pesky Mallers and Vexors. And extra flight of light drones to deal with tacklers, and two links to make the gang that much harder.

Of course, local repair has issues and only really works with small numbers of opposing forces and this ship is no exception. And running everything, even with the cap booster running full tilt, is not going to last long.

For that matter, for the price a hard hitting Talos might do for a fraction of the cost, minus the boosts. So your mileage may vary.

Vulture

Vulture

I've always loved the Ferox hull and started as a hybrid pilot so I've always had a soft spot for the Vulture but damn me that thing sucked harder than a vacuum on "Remove Face" mode. So how does it fair with the changes plus the new railgun stats?

Right away you see its doing 578 DPS (all skills V of course) at optimal of 40 km (falloff 15km) with faction antimatter. Tracking is unsurprisingly low of course. More interesting is the 168km optimal (19.5 km falloff) with spike ammo and the tracking computer set to range for 335 DPS. Overwhelming? No, but not shabby.

Is it enough to make me want to try one out? No, not really. The massive tank is nice but it won't save you if the enemy lands right on top of you. The blaster version has nice range projection with null but really the Naga with large blasters and null has similar range anyways. Overall, I don't see prices of the Vulture spiking (HA! Pun unintended!) any time soon.

Power Creep

On twitter last night I posted this:

Proposition: The alliance tournament prize ships should be distribute to more than just top two teams. Discuss.

I got a couple responses:

Allow me to expand on my thoughts more.

Pandemic Legion just won their fifth alliance tournament which is a remarkable testament to their skill, no doubt about it. Other recent tournament winners, Hydra Reloaded and Verge of Collapse, both did well getting to the final four with Hydra being the team PL beat to win the big prize. In fact, it is my opinion that all of the teams to get to the quarter finals did it on skill and blood and sweat and tears. Congrats to you all.

But how much money did it cost to get that far? A team can easily spend a billion in ships and modules in a match, if not much more. Implants for each pilot (even limited to only +3% or lower) can be hundreds of millions or more each. In double elimination if you fall into the losers bracket you have to get ships for extra matches too.

And then consider some of the compositions we see as the tournament goes on. Not only do we see faction and tech II ships galore but even previous tournament frigates and cruisers come out to play. As Mynnna said in a response to a twitter question of mine:

"Some spend hundreds of billions of isk."

WOW. And outside of the top two teams the rewards are essentially nil. The third place team in previous tournaments may have got a handful of PLEX or straight up 20-25 billion ISK, but compared to the possible hundreds of billions of ISK invested it is a drop in the bucket. And if you don't spend hundreds of billions of ISK to compete, your chances of advancing far are limited at best.

To be fair, not all teams that advanced far had massive budgets.

So it is possible to compete and advance far in the tournament without a massive budget, but just like a professional sports team, its a lot harder. And outside of the top two teams, the tangible rewards are nil.

But for the top two teams, the rewards are massive.

The second place team gets 10 blueprint copies with 5 runs each of a unique tournament prize frigate which are often more powerful than most other frigates in the game and which cost virtually nothing to build but sell for 20 billion ISK each. This Cambion BPC goes for 60 billion last week but does not mention the number of runs. Even assuming a base sell price of 20 billion each you have a winning prize estimated at 500 billion ISK.

The winning team gets 50 runs of a unique prize cruiser. Its hard to get a firm price fix on these as they don't get sold very often. Eve kill estimated the Etana kill at 50 billion, here's someone trying to sell an Adestria last year for 60 billion. Let's use round numbers and say 50 billion as a base price to sell a tournament cruiser. That means the winning team effectively won 2.5 trillion ISK in the tournament.

I was a little surprised too.

Here's my concern.

The winners of the alliance tournament are not just making a profit, they are making a massive profit which they can then turn around and use to their advantage in the next tournament, either for funding the best compositions money can buy for every match in every round, or using the powerful but cheap points-wise tournament ships in the compositions themselves.

Previous winners Pandemic Legion, Hydra Reloaded, and Verge of Collapse were in the quarter finals because they are excellent teams but I think that they have an advantage from previous winnings and second place finishes. A huge advantage? No, but one that increases every time they win either of those massive prize packages. For everyone else, the alliance tournament can be a huge money sink making it more difficult to compete year upon year. The gap increases every year.

I have a proposal to float of course, a simple one that can help alleviate this power creep for future tournaments.

I like the idea of a unique limited number of tournament cruisers and frigates being prizes, but I think we should reward more than just the top two teams (with token cash thrown at the third place). Here is my prize structure:

1st place: 25 runs of tournament Cruiser and 25 runs of tournament frigate
2nd place: 15 runs of tournament Cruiser and 15 runs of tournament frigate
3rd place:  10 runs of tournament Cruiser and 10 runs of tournament frigate
4th place: 5 runs of tournament Cruiser and 5 runs of tournament frigate.

What good will this do? Well, there is still a large payout for the winners (down from estimated 2.5 trillion to 1.750 trillion) but a doubling for second place (up from estimated 500 billion to about 1 trillion) and a a huge payout to third and fourth place (estimated 700 million and 350 million respectively). This also has the effect of ensuring that any overpowered ships are not concentrated and hoarded in a single alliance (perhaps depressing the price of said ships a bit but I suspect that they will always command huge sums being unique, and I don't think that is necessarily bad anyways) and allows a better chance for reward for teams that make it into the semifinals. I'm not opposed to giving tens of billions of ISK to the other four quarter finalist teams either.

By flattening the spike of rewards at the top of the tier you give more resources to more teams to have resources to draw upon for the next tournament. And since there are more "reward spots" you have more chance for a "dark horse" team doing well one year and earning the financial wherewithal for a better run the next.

Ultimately the goal should be reward the winners handsomely while still avoiding or limiting a self-reinforcing cycle where only the top two winning teams get advantages for the next tournament. Spreading the rewards is the best thing to do to fight this.

Listening To Feedback

When the proposed changes for industrials came out as part of the continuing tiericide initiative, there were a few problems with them:

- Mammoth was not the biggest hauler for Minmatar, but rather the butt-ugly Hoarder was

- A lot of industrials lost the second high slot hurting their ability to fit a cloak and probe launcher for wormhole work

- Each race got a fast hauler and slow but tanky hauler, and the Gallente and Minmatar with their extra haulers just got balanced inbetween the extremes

Faced with a playerbase that was upset by the demoting of the classic Mammoth to also-ran status, the first issue was resolved very quickly. Then today after a weekend of going over feedback in the forums and 'other sources', he posted a change of heart:

-Special purpose bays - This will be for Hoarder, Iteron Mark II, III, and IV. We wanted to do this originally, but held back because of concerns about racial inequality. Based on feedback I'm now hoping you guys will be fine with this inequality, as long as it isn't so favored towards Gallente that no one would ever train another race for hauling.
-More separation between the two basic hauler types - I want to achieve this through several means including giving the faster haulers better warp time (up to 6au/tick instead of 4.5au/tick), taking a mid slot away from the cargo focused versions to highlight the tank on the others (this will partly be counter-acted by giving back the second high to the cargo versions), along with other small changes to make some of the tankier haulers stand out a bit more.
-More quirkiness overall - I won't go into specifics right now, and it won't be anything extremely drastic, but I want to try and get each ship within a role set apart from the others as much as possible to avoid any feeling of homogenization (though I still feel that the very simplistic hauling system doesn't provide a lot of room for variation that wouldn't severely handicap some ships).

This is a great step forward for this class and I'm sure I'm in the majority that having some uniqueness in the races is fine as long as its balanced out overall in the long run.

I can't wait to see what the special purpose bays are going to be. A special Ore only super hauler? A Planetary Interaction maven ship like the limited edition Primae? A hauler with a Ship Array that can carry 1-2 destroyers? The possibilities are intriguing.

In my Hanger

Drackarn over at Sand, Cider, and Spaceships did a post about what's in his hanger so since I feel like stealing ideas today, here's my post of my hanger's ships.

I have more stuffed away here and there, but this is the bulk of it.

Thoughts About the Newbie Atron

So there is this contest on Battleclinic to submit an Executioner or Atron fit for a new player interested in bounty hunting which I mentioned on Saturday.

I put together a fit that I thought would work:

Its cheap, simple to use, and grows with the player.

Over at Jester's Trek Ripard posted his version of the Newbie Bounty Hunting Atron:

[Atron, Battleclinic contest]
Damage Control II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Small Ancillary Armor Repairer, Nanite Repair Paste
Limited 1MN Microwarpdrive I
J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I
X5 Prototype Engine Enervator
Anode Light Neutron Particle Cannon I, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
[empty high slot]
Anode Light Neutron Particle Cannon I, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Anode Light Neutron Particle Cannon I, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Small Hybrid Burst Aerator I
Small Ancillary Current Router I
Small Low Friction Nozzle Joints I

I commented and we had a little back and forth:

I want to expand on my thoughts here, particularly about afterburners and microwarp drives. And bounties.

Ripard went with a MWD on his fit with the logic that you need to be able to be as fast or faster than a target to catch them. This is true when you are running down targets that do not want to be caught but if you are chasing a target over multiple jumps than a long point and fast lock time are more important.

I'm willing to bet that chasing a target with a bounty you are more likely to be faced with someone willing to turn and fight and in that case the MWD can become a liability.

When I am flying solo in low sec in faction warfare dominated space, my ship of preference is a afterburner fit Incursus, or if I'm feeling lucky, an afterburner fit Daredevil that operates almost the same way. Most fighting takes place near acceleration gates of plexes, either just outside or just inside. Sometimes you run into a target at a gate. If they turn and fight, a MWD may get you into range faster but if the enemy has a scram you are dead meat. If they have scram and web, you are REALLY dead meat! MWDs are great for getting tackle but not surviving a fight so I only want a MWD on a ship that will get a tackle and then have support come in to make the kill. Also, if I'm going with a MWD I'm fitting a long point to avoid scram range.

With an afterburner, if a target turns to fight then your scram and web puts you on even or better footing than your opponent if they scram and web you in return. Your afterburner still gives you some speed boost. Yes, there is some danger in getting kited and you need to be aware of that and use whatever you can to your advantage to close range to the magic scram range, or break his point and warp out to try and get better combat positions. Sitting inside a plex on the warp in point is an excellent example.

But overall, let's be realistic: a newbie player trying to do bounty hunting in ANY ship is going to die a lot to the players with bounties on them. I just think they will have a better chance or surviving in an afterburner ship than a MWD one.

Price As A Balancing Factor

One of the hardest lessons game developers at CCP had to learn was that in the long run price of something is not an adequate property to maintaining balance. We saw this with super capitals, nano-snake setups, Tech II versus Tech I, and Tech I tiers.

The base faulty argument is this:

If something performs significantly better than all other options but costs several magnitudes greater than them then its ok: the cost factor will prevent it from becoming too prevalent and dominating.

But ultimately what happens is players find the min-max solution that is better than all other options, it becomes known as those first adopters start to use it successfully, and in order to compete players are essentially forced to move to the optimal solution or be at a competitive disadvantage. The price of the optimal solution, regardless of how high, is merely subsumed as a cost of playing the game. The alternative is to not compete either by doing something else in Eve or quitting altogether.

The Tiericide initiative undertaken by CCP has the goal of addressing the most egregious example of the flawed reasoning and has done so admirably by balancing ships into roles per class and thus giving new life to ships that were not at the optimal point of the min-max graph.

Then the initiative hit the Battleship tier.

If the tiers could be said to have worked in any class it would have to be the Battleships. All twelve of the basic battleships saw use mainly because, due to their large size, there was enough variation in properties such as speed, tank, damage projection, fittings, weapon types, prices, etc that they were already slotted into roles. Yes, a Hyperion could do a lot of damage but the Megathron had a better slot layout. The Rokh had a better tank but the Raven had variable damage type and the Scorpion had EWar bonuses.

So faced with this situation almost no changes to implement the tiericide on the battleships was going to be received universally well as what happened mostly with frigates and cruisers. One of the biggest outcomes of the initiative is that ship prices for battleships will increase on average by 40 million ISK:

Let me give you the 'what' first, then the 'why':
The AVERAGE build cost of a battleship is going up by around 40mil
Former tier 3 prices will not change substantially, and so the majority of the change in cost is carried by the former tier 1 and 2s.
Prices will be differentiated slightly by role ('attack' and 'disruption' being a bit cheaper than 'combat')

If you had been smart a few months and had some liquid ISK, you could have predicted something like this, bought up a whack of Dominixes and Armageddons, and made a whack of money on selling them after the expansion lands.

Regardless, in the long run the tiericide / rolification of battleships will be good for the game as it will be easier to balanace ships within a class and a role as opposed to a tier. For the short term, expect things to get a little bumpy.