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.

More Details On Tech 3 Destroyers

Crossing Zebras had an excellent interview with CCP Fozzie and CCP Rise and some new details about the Tech 3 Tactical Destroyers were revealed.

- The most likely way to switch between the modes will be new buttons on the left hand side of the HUD near the cargo and camera and scanner buttons, probably three mutually-exclusive radio buttons, as the functionality is intrinsic to the hull as opposed to a fitting choice.

- Their strength is in switching modes between sniper, speed, and defense so while in one of those modes they will NOT be stronger than contempories specially fitted for those roles. I.e. comparing a Cormorant Sniper to a Tactical Destroyer (aka TacDes) in sniper mode we should see the specialized ship perform better. That being said, they did say that the comparison should be more against the Harpy in this example as its more of the equivalent contemporary in terms of power and price.

- As per above, a TacDes should be in the same ball-field as assault frigates in terms of price (extreme interpretation on my part here)

- The role switching will be done through switching ship hull bonuses

- The relevant bonuses will be very race themed and geared to very straight forward roles. I.e. the Amarr Confessor won't get a neutralizing bonus in one mode as it makes the modules useless in other modes. Basically, you should not feel like you want to change your ship fitting per mode. I expect to see a laser range bonus for sniping mode, speed bonus for speed mode, and armour resistance increase in tank mode, for example for the Confessor.

In my mind, its like having a beam laser fit Corercer with a module on the ship that switches between tracking enhancer and energized adaptive nano membrane and overdrive injector when clicked.

Gallente Tech 3 Tactical Destroyer: Drones or Guns?

I got into a discussion in the super secret podcast channel with Connal Tara of Fly Reckless podcast fame about whether or not the Gallente version of the new Tech 3 Tactical Destroyers should be a drone ship or a gun ship.

His point of view was that Gallente does not need another drone platform as they are "rather prevalent after all" and my counter argument was that the line overall has more gun ships and that except for the Ishtar there are no decent choices for advanced drone ships in the Gallente line.

I thought I would use my blog here to expand on my point.

Ship	Hull	Type
Atron	Frigate	Guns
Incursus	Frigate	Guns
Tristan	Frigate	Drones
Catalyst	Destroyer	Guns
Algos	Destroyer	Drones
Thorax	Cruiser	Guns
Vexor	Cruiser	Drones
Myrmidon	Battlecruiser	Drones
Brutix	Battlecruiser	Guns
Talos	Battlecruiser	Guns
Dominix	Battleship	Drones
Megathron	Battleship	Guns
Hyperion	Battleship	Guns
Ares	Frigate	Guns
Taranis	Frigate	Guns
Enyo	Frigate	Guns
Inshkur	Frigate	Drones
Nemesis	Frigate	Missiles
Eris	Destroyer	Guns
Deimos	Cruiser	Guns
Ishtar	Cruiser	Drones
Phobos	Cruiser	Guns
Eos	Battlecruiser	Drones
Astarte	Battlecruiser	Guns
Kronos	Battleship	Guns
Sin	Battleship	Drones
Proteus	Cruiser	Mostly Guns

As you can see by my quick chart, most of the ships are gun ships and of the 9 drone ships you see 5 are tech 1 and only 2 of the tech 2 drone ships are main combat ships as opposed to expensive specialty ships. Specifically, the awesome Ishtar heavy assault cruiser and the Ishkur assault frigate which I find rather underwhelming compared to its Tech 1 Incursus ancestor.

On the other hand, there are 16 gun ships excluding the Proteus, 8 of them tech 2, with 3 of them what I would consider "combat" ships: the Taranis, Enyo, and Deimos. Also, if you count the Proteus which is often found in a gun setup when used as a combat ship, that's yet another advanced Gallente ship with guns.

So yeah, I feel that I would most like to see the new tech 3 Tactical Destroyer as a advanced drone boat to balance the scales a bit.

Thoughts on the Tactical Destroyers

An interesting question came up on Derping through War podcast regarding the new Tech 3 Tactical Destroyers and it got me to thinking about how these new ships are going to fit into and alter the meta.

The question on the podcast was did they think that these new destroyers would be able to fit into Small faction warfare complexes. For faction warfare pilots like them and myself, its a very relevant question because it impacts the attack and defense of those plexes very much.

Right now, smalls can be entered by Tech 1, 2, and faction frigates and Tech 1 and 2 destroyers. Since Tech 2 destroyers only have a moderate offensive and defensive advantage over the capable Tech 1 destroyers while having a much higher base cost (not to mention their primary role of firing interdiction probes which does not work in low sec), there is no real incentive to using them to dominate the small plexes. Tech II frigates, notably Assault Frigates, are on par with Tech 1 destroyers for the most part in this battlefield so either choice can work.

However, if Tech 3 destroyers are allowed into the small complexes as well, the power balance could be changed dramatically if these new ships boast offensive and/of defensive capabilities far beyond their Tech 1 cousins and Tech II frigates. It could potentially reach the point where the fleet with the most Tech 3 destroyers owns the small plexes and become required assets for a serious push on a system, thus freezing out smaller groups with less resources to pull upon.

I suspect that CCP will disallow them in the small plexes due to the precedent set for the Tech 3 cruisers. While Tech 1 and 2 cruisers can enter the medium complexes, Tech 3 cruiser cannot; they can only enter large complexes like all other ships.

In the end I suspect that the Tactical Destroyers will only be allowed in medium complexes where they compete for supremacy with cruisers, and that begs the question... how good will these things be in their three different configurations? Its not hard to imagine a ships with base Tech II stats but sports frigate speed in speed configuration, cruiser DPS in damage mode, and cruiser tank in defensive mode.

And that has some interesting possibilities.

I Feel This Justifies My Earlier Position

During EVE Vegas it was announced that new Tech 3 Destroyers are coming to the game:

Each of the empires will get their version of the end result in the order in which they place… and what they are getting is Tech 3 Tactical destroyers.

Tech 3 Destroyers
The Amarr should get theirs as part of the Rhea expansion, which other races getting theirs with following expansion. There were even some mock-ups of potential models for the Amarr tactical destroyers shown.

Amarr tactical concepts

 I find it very interesting that these new ships are not using the Subsystem mechanic. I feel it justifies a position I took in a blog post two years ago titled "Strategic Cruisers are a Failure":

But the concept itself failed.
[...]
The concept is simple: you can pick what role / bonuses / slot layout your ship has AND you can change it whenever you want. The first part is part of the reason the ships are so ubiquitous but the second part has pretty much failed miserably. Most of the time, you use a tool like EFT or Pyfa to determine what setup you want for your Strat Cruiser including the 5 subsystems you want, and then you buy that setup, put it together, and most likely never change it again.

If you want a Strategic Cruiser for a different role, e.g. a probing cloaky ship instead or your sanctum running missile spammer, you are more likely to simply buy an entire second ship rather than just the mods to switch your current ship. My hanger, for example, has three Strategic cruisers in it: one for PvE, one for cloaky probing, and one for pure gank PvP.

Although a few commenters disagreed with me I have seen nothing in the past two years since I wrote the piece that convinces me I was wrong. And now with the new Tech 3 Destroyers ignoring the concept of subsystems entirely for a new mechanic, I feel vindicated in my opinion. Consider this: all the development effort to create the subsystem mechanic and support it since Apocrypha was disregarded for a new mechanic (or borrowed mechanic from siege mode, triage mode, etc) even though they are both Tech 3 ships. The only two Tech 3 things in the game, and they don't share the same mechanic that makes them special. Very telling.

All that being said, I'm super excited for these new ships and the gameplay they promise. More decisions to be made on the fly in the heat of battle? Excellent! More juicy targets trolling the space lanes of low sec? Sign me up.