Modules, Oh My
Some other fun things from the Inferno patch notes are the new modules:
Armor Adaptive Hardener I - Low slot. Armor Hardener that adjusts its resistance based on the damage received. Only one can be fitted. Just the tech I version now, but others will follow if this turns out well.
Extrinsic Damage Amplifier I & II - Low slot. A damage amplifier module for drones.
Small/Medium/Large/X-Large Ancillary Shield Booster I. Mid slot. A shield booster that gives a good boost, but has a very high capacitor need. Can use Cap Boosters as charge to negate the severe capacitor need. Only tech I version for now.
MagSheath Target Breaker I - Mid slot. A module that has a chance of breaking the lock of ships targeting you, the chance increases the more ships target you at one time. Also breaks your locks. Reduces scan resolution significantly as a downside. Only one can be fitted at a time and the can not be fitted to capital ships.
Small/Medium/Large Overclocking Processor Unit I & II - A rig that increases the CPU output of your ship, at a cost of reduced shield recharge rate.
Light & Medium Web Drones - Light and medium versions of stasis webifying drones.
Capacitor Battery edits - All capacitor batteries now also provide a defense against Energy Vampires (Nos) and Energy Neutralizer (Neut) effects. A portion of the effect is reflected back on the aggressor.
My thoughts:
The Armor Adaptive Hardener had better give much less of a resistance boost than a Tech II single-resistance armor hardener, which is currently 55%. If it's more than 25% to any single armor resistance, I'll be pretty ticked off. This looks to be useful MORE for PvP than for PvE, because in PvE you already know the damage you're going to receive. This kind of an adaptive advantage needs to be significantly under-powered compared to existing modules or everyone will use one.
Extrinsic Damage Amplifier is going to do all sorts of crazy things for Gallente ships. If the bonus is reasonably good, the Ishtar, Dominix and even Ishkur are going to be a lot more popular in a hurry.
Ancillary Shield Booster allows active-shield users to make a space/tank trade by carrying a bunch of capacitor booster charges around. I see this as being mainly used in PvP to give you a significant but short lived boost to survivability. Decent idea.
MagSheath Target Breaker I - Jester has discussed this to death and I agree with him that this module will have almost no impact on blobbing, which it seems to have been intended to help against.
Overclocking Processor Unit I (rigs) are a nice addition, I guess? For anyone who isn't passive shield tanking and needs more CPU, it's a free bonus. I'm not sure how often CPU is a problem in ships, so I can't tell what problems this solves.
Light & Medium Web Drones - Sweet! This will be great for frigate-sized drone carriers (Ishkur, Incursus) to act as additional tackle for fleet mates, or even in frigate-frigate combat.
Capacitor Battery edits - Depending on the size of the effect, this could be very interesting. If neut effect is reflected back onto the user, he may end up running out of cap before you do; or just by keeping it on all the time may break his own cap stability. I'm assuming reflection of NOS means both of you lose some cap and gain some cap back, depending on percentages... if it flips the percentage into your favor, the NOS will be essentially useless. Time to fit up cap batteries in PvP?
Conclusion: It looks like a good time to be a drone user. The other additions have potential, except for the dead-on-arrival Target Breaker.
10 comments
Hey, I sometimes read your stuff, but Im a slacker and dont do it often. Anyhow..
Imo, I think the adaptive thing is going to be amazing for pvp. It will suck to be a laser boat, however, if this module (you can only fit one btw) has a nice boost to whatever resist, it will add a new level of gameplay to pvp in the area of paying attention to what youre shooting. Instead of "knowing" the ships inside and out, you will have to watch your outgoing dps to see if it degrades over time or not. If it does, you switch to a different resist hole. For my Vengeance, this is going to be an awesome module to cover both my EM and thermal holes and allow me to open up a new rig slot instead of using it for tanking. With my fits, I am super tight on cpu, so maybe one of those cpu rigs will help me here and allow me to drop one of my implants.
The CPU rigging as mentioned, is nice. I have max fitting skills and use the genolution pair of implants as well as a 3% cpu implant to make my normal fit work. THe cpu riggings will allow some much more cpu intesnive fits. I look forward to using one or two.
I dont use or char about drones, so meh, but the cap battery changes are interesting. I dont see them being used on pvp ships often, due to the fact that capacitor lasts long enough usually (2+ mins in frigates) that the fight is usually over before you run out. However, I do see these being used heavily in PvE ships or big active armor tanked ships like the dominix where if its cap drained, its basically screwed. Im not sure it will replace cap boosters though, so I could be wrong on these being used =P
Either way, for the most part all these changes are awesome for pvp; which is what EvE is about as well as this entire exspansion. PvE is taking a backseat for 18 months =P
If it works like I get the impression it will, the adaptive armour hardener may in some ways be a *buff* to laser/hybrid boats.
From the explanations I've seen, the resists are shifted towards the damage types you're taking - if you're only taking damage from a single damage type (true for drones, missiles, and to a lesser extent most projectile ammo), it will harden that one to the max at the expense of the others. Aside from scorch (which is almost completely EM), most common laser and hybrid ammo does close to a 50/50 split, meaning it'll only ever harden half the amount it would against a single damage type (for example 15% against both rather than 30% against a single, to take imaginary numbers).
Of course, this ccould be countered by splitting your weapons on a missile/projectile boat and loading multiple ammo types, or by switching ammo mid fight as you suggest. However with a 10 second cycle time on the module and a 10 second reload time on your weapons, you've only got until the next cycle ends before it shifts again.
It should also be a buff to mixed gangs or at least gangs using a range of ammo/weapon types rather than the currently trend for keeping everything standard.
On SiSi, the drone mod was 10% / 12% to damage, as I recall. Meh. I fly Gallente and have max drone skills, so it might be worth adding one on, say, a domi or navy dom. Less sure about my ishtar, though. 10% to drone damage is about 50 DPS on that hull, 12% would be 60. Is that worth the tank loss? Not sure.
I'm personally in favor of buffing Gallente drone damage bonuses directly and giving the Myrm 100 bandwidth, but that's not gonna happen, coz CCP hates Gallente. :)
Would have liked to see the drone mod reflect the other damage mods and provide 22% (damage + tracking.)
.02
The overclocking rigs will be relevant for mining ships. CPU is almost always the limiting factor for how many MLUs you can fit on a ship. Until now the only useful things to put in the rig slots of a Hulk were cargo rigs or shield rigs. This addition could mean we'll see more undertanked Hulks and Mackinaws out there in the high-sec belts.
Cyclone wins with the new x-l booster and a CPU rig omg crazy tank with either more range +tracking or a nano
The Target Breaker may find a use on HiC's, as the drawbacks would have no effect on the ships main purpose, bubbles.
Load a flight of those new light/medium web drones on a Gallente blaster boat, and surprise a few folks.... :)
"The Armor Adaptive Hardener had better give much less of a resistance boost than a Tech II single-resistance armor hardener, which is currently 55%. If it’s more than 25% to any single armor resistance, I’ll be pretty ticked off. This looks to be useful MORE for PvP than for PvE, because in PvE you already know the damage you’re going to receive. This kind of an adaptive advantage needs to be significantly under-powered compared to existing modules or everyone will use one. "
An EANM II gives 25% resists to all damage types (if you got compensation skills at 5, 24% for nooblets with comp skills at 4). For no cap usage whatsoever. So the Adaptive hardener with its massive cap use better gives a lot more resists to a single damage type to be worth fitting in any case.
It looks like it gives as much as a T1 hardener, which is about right, as the adaptation is delayed, you can fit only one and it uses more cap than a regular hardener.
It will be especially nice to plug holes on T2 ships, but not likely to displace EANMs on T1 ships.
The CPU rigs are a godsend for ships fitting X-Large Shield Boosters. I would not be surprised if they became cookie cutter on e.g. Sleipnirs, and if as a consequence modules that will cease to be mandatory on those ships like X-Large faction shield booster go down in price.
I've almost finished kitting out a Vexor Navy Issue with a bunch of drone mods, and along with an armor resist tank and a prop they gobbled up all available CPU pretty quickly. The rigs are a nice option to have.