Wednesday 15 April 2009

New Patch, New Toys

Seems that everyone in the blogging eve universe is having their say about the new changes with the coming patch tomorrow.

ECM ship changes are the main focus, with some quite significant changes to the Falcon and the Rook to get them out of massive ranges (Falcon) or the Hangar (Rook)

Suffice to say that I don't really have much experience with the 'overpowered' falcon since I've only managed to train Recon ships up to level 2 so far, so I'd never done much with my Falcon other than a cursory test flight around highsec - so in short, I dont really have much to say, and I'll see just what happens when it happens, and I get to train another level or 2 on Recon ships.

The stealth bomber role change is looking a bit more interesting though. Firstly, the bomber is going to lose its ability to use cruise missiles acting as a long range sniper ship... this is good in a way, as the main problem with 150km cruise missiles were that they took about 30 seconds to hit your opponent, meaning that anyone with half a brain could leave before they had any hint of damage.

In its place, is the ability to fit Siege launchers and Torpedoes, with the role bonus being changed to no longer use 'big missiles to hit small targets' but rather 'bigger missiles to hit big targets.'

Unfortunately there are 2 problems with this new role:

1) I dont have torpedoes trained up. OK, not a problem with the system per se, but still annoying.

2) Its still going to take about 10 stealth bombers working in harmony to have enough damage to take out a battleship in one salvo - they still wont have the ability to withstand incoming fire for the second and third salvo to fire, and with the fact they will need to be quite close to the target due to the short range of the torpedoes, its putting them much closer to the action, and therefore at risk of being locked by an opponent.

Other issues are that the Bombs are going to be made easier to produce (20 per run rather than the current 3) - although im not sure if that will also have a corresponding increase in material costs to determine the expected value of the new bombs and it seems that these will also not be limited to 1 per ship now, as they are just being classed as a standard launcher hardpoint weapon.

Of course, bombs suffer in that they can only be used in 0.0 space, but for those that know their niche then they will have life a bit easier in getting them I guess.

Above all though, I'm looking forward to having another ship to fit a covert ops cloak to, mainly because as a Tech 2 cloak producer, anything that creates additional demand can only be good for sales. For my own use, it would be nice to have something other than the Buzzard to muck around all stealthy and cloak-like for a bit of a change of pace.

... Now all I need to do is try and find some time to train up Torpedoes.

5 comments:

Geaux Tiger said...

Correction about the bomb launcher: they can fit in any... yes any highslot. You can still only fit one of them though.

Also, range of torps should be max 60km-130km depending. And they are not a solo ship by any means. Think of possibilities with Rapiers/Arazus. :)

Anonymous said...

ok here you go BS warps in on a gatecamp...one HIc/ lt interdictor 40KM from gate while pilot is trying to get to the gate call in your bombers 2-3 would work...recon paints the target bomber launch the Torps and let em run from oh..40KM..they align instantly towards a reload point launch and warp away...running with an AB they will be what a 6-9 second lock time for a Sensor boosted BS, with scripts...I'm not sure how this would NOT make the tactically excellent. VERY VERY u-boat like... send em in Wolfpacks and watch people flee in terror.

StrangeApe said...

Let's not forget that they can now use covert ops cloaking devices, and therefore can now warp while cloaked. While not being the sturdiest of ship, i suppose, with my limited 0.0 experience that they'd be nice for 0.0 roaming or pirate hunting.

Karox Lominax said...

I wonder if the ship will be able to be tanked a little now you dont need to fill the mids with sensor boosters, if you take it against big targets, you might be ok due to a frigates ability to tank large ships.

Morph said...

Check out the rook prices at the moment ;). And Jita is all out, except for a few at 150mil O.o.