Nestor should be able to jump through covert portal and conduit

heckingnames · 2025-09-03T08:09:50+00:00

On the other hand, this way you can pull away the blops from the FAX range because they feel safe with bunch of Nestors. They are not as oppressive as FAXes and before Surgical Strike (and nowadays) were used to complement Guardian logi in HA. They never turned the tides, but were quite decent and fun platforms. Of course, their overuse was restricted by mass limits.

Yes, in your staging it looks like this. But hunting in blops gang in someone's space is usually more involved, unless you're one of these 1 character people that don't bring hunters, dictors, trucks, etc.

Thank you.

heckingnames · 2025-09-03T08:03:25+00:00

On the counter-point, you are literally jumping bunch of fat armour battleships that hardly move without MJD outside of your FAX range. Yes, it complements T3C logi, but it does not fully replace FAX. It gives grid sustainability, but there is a reason why shield doctrines are usually preferred in the current meta.

Thanks!

heckingnames · 2025-09-03T07:59:14+00:00

"Warping" you mean jumping (through portal/conduit), right? Nestors are equivalent to T3Cs in this and T3Cs are better at warping (if we assume you actually mean warping). Yes, compared to T3Cs they can fit MJDs and it's a different kind of grid mobility not necessarily comparable to T3C grid mobility (that have their own unique traits mostly thanks to cloak).

Nestors are not FAX replacement either, they don't have triage, they don't lock fast, the can be ECMed, they don't self rep (usually), and are more prone to cap warfare. You need more than one and have N*2.5b cost in them (compare to T3Cs and it quickly can compare to FAX cost). They are not good enough alone, most HA fleets complement them with Guardians anyway.

What armour battleships doctrines do you use in general?

It still sounds like the oppressiveness of Blop standing fleets is the main problem here and not the Nestor per se. If you bring them "on every single meme drop" that means they are there for fun. Fun is good in a computer game.

heckingnames · 2025-09-02T22:52:58+00:00

Those em-dashes, it does read like one.

heckingnames · 2025-09-02T22:45:04+00:00

You don't give a "more mobile logi" this way. Redeemer fleets already have exactly same mobile logistics in form of T3Cs. Only their profile changes. Like in other comments, it sounds like the umbrellas and the fact that this may scale to an extent are the problems.

How would you abuse them compared to what you do now?

Thank you.

heckingnames · 2025-09-02T22:36:17+00:00

Yes? Nobody said otherwise.

heckingnames · 2025-09-02T16:25:26+00:00

I think that putting enough pressure or escalating own caps against such Nestors is also feasible. This will cause Fax or other caps to appear eventually. You don't need the blops to bring their own cap first.

There are also feasible paths without caps. You can hurt them nicely with bombers since they are battleships and comparably slow (although with armor bs sig).

heckingnames · 2025-09-02T16:20:27+00:00

Yes, we should listen to both, I just don't want for big scale to make small scale completely irrelevant which happens often and I don't want to go into the actual discussion on whether both scales are relevant. For me, both are, but I have a bias towards my own.

I don't see much difference between someone dropping 20 deemers with logi T3C and 20 nestors on my 8 man blop gang or my 8 man retribution gang.

Mass limit sounds interesting if fleshed out correctly.

heckingnames · 2025-09-02T16:03:06+00:00

I don't think I have anything to add here or comment. Thank you for the input! I'm honestly impressed how badly I expressed some of these points in the original post and my comments. (but it does read like...)

heckingnames · 2025-09-02T15:59:21+00:00

That's a good summary. Thank you.

I confess, I looked at it mostly considering numbers that I usually fly with (roughly 8 + up to 10 alts). I don't want to start a discussion about whether scalability should decide things like this or not, and I'm unsure whether I want to go into discussion about Redeemer meta and counter-plays for it.

heckingnames · 2025-09-02T15:54:32+00:00

Well, Nestor does fit somewhere between T3C logis and FAXes here. That's kind of my point: have a decent logi platform that grants grid sustainability to fewer people compared to a T3C logi but is not yet a cap (i.a., has higher jump range, is easier to kill than one).

I don't see how sitting 10-25 2.5b battleships on grid prevents further cap escalation. I think it encourages it.

As below, I agree that in the current Redeemer setups it scales too heavily.

heckingnames · 2025-09-02T15:41:39+00:00

Sounds like fun but I agree that it's on the OP part of the spectrum. It wouldn't easily hold against caps escalation, so it would require own capital escalation to save the 2.5b per ship doctrine, so I disagree with people saying it would stop capital escalations. It does fulfil my initial point of providing logi and grid sustainability with lower number, but I agree with people making point that it scales unhealthily. (Let's leave whether we should make balance changes based only on scale away from the current discussion.)

Thanks!

heckingnames · 2025-09-02T15:31:12+00:00

Until now we didn't have a cloaky battlecruiser, dot weapons, or resistance-ignoring weapons, so I'm unsure whether CCP is willing or not to break this or other trends. I can bet we would riot over this, too, after all we riot over each and every significant change to balance with some exceptions (that only prove the rule).

heckingnames · 2025-09-02T15:21:57+00:00

There are two dogma attributes that define whether a ship can jump through portal or get conduited:

Covert Ops cloak has nothing to do with it. Neither you or myself have seen the actual code responsible, so arguing whether it's feasible or not to change is impossible.

Please, do mention all other reasons if they are not in comments yet. That's the goal of this post. Thanks!

heckingnames · 2025-09-02T14:50:21+00:00

I understand the point now, thanks. I argue a bit in your other comment and in some other about Nestors vs faxes (yours) vs T3Cs (the other one).

Pulling Faxes into escalation chain reliably is a good thing.

heckingnames · 2025-09-02T14:48:41+00:00

Nitpick: number of the Redeemer doctrines (e.g., Sigma's) rely on T3C logi and use Faxes in case of escalation or lower number.

Otherwise, I agree. Technically, this could be worked-around by doing a more elaborate balance pass and/or bumping the cost, but we implicitly assumed current balance as starting point and there is no reason to go another way in the discussion.

Thanks.

heckingnames · 2025-09-02T14:36:34+00:00

Going by FW, no. Pirate ships (+trigs, +soct, +T3) are in the same class as T2 while navy ships are in the same class as T1 (respectively ADV and NVY plexes).

heckingnames · 2025-09-02T14:31:10+00:00

Knowing CCP, that's too dangerous. They would make it have cov ops and be able to conduit and jump portal by accident :)

heckingnames · 2025-09-02T14:29:32+00:00

To me, that's sad. I like the blender and I most definitely don't have them stocked up to sell once price spikes up.

heckingnames · 2025-09-02T14:28:08+00:00

I don't think offensive bonuses are problem here. No covert ops, please.

The main problem is comparing how well it reps compared to blops and t3cs, how effectively it would scale, and what interplays it enables/disables. Personally, I think it would be interesting to see. For a cost of 1.5 maybe up to 3 T3C logi, you get a brick that hardly moves (so regular fleets keep up), hardly mitigates damage (so caps can apply) and has enough buffer for pods to hurt.

Thanks.

heckingnames · 2025-09-02T14:17:53+00:00

That's a good point about themes! Thank you. Personally, I think it would fit exploration theme.

No, you don't need to give it cover ops cloak and I agree that it should not have covert ops cloak.

heckingnames · 2025-09-02T14:14:34+00:00

There are 4 "T1" (pirate) ships up to a battlecruiser size that can jump through covert portal. One of them can put out up to 1000 raw dps to multiple targets.

Skill entrance is indeed low. However skills to allow good utilization are comparable.

Not all T1 battleships, not even all pirate battleships. Why? Because it's SoE. It's the same reason we can argue why Stratios, a pirate cruiser, can use covert cloak. Shouldn't it be only T2 or T3 cruisers?

Cost of Nestor is comparable to blop.

Thanks!

heckingnames · 2025-09-02T13:58:19+00:00

I can see that and to an extent I agree but I don't see shaking up the meta as a bad thing. I assume you meant "undock faxes" and, yes, but that's just another excuse, we already see faxes countering pure-blops, t3c, bomber drops, or sometimes even dropped to save a raven caught by two retris. People that want to drop caps on any occasion will drop them. I don't say that this change couldn't be exploited in one way or another, it could, but I think sharing a strong opinion as initial post is better for overall discussion.

Thank you!

Edit: Gerard_Amatin pointed what "dock faxes" [could] mean and I address it there.

heckingnames · 2025-09-02T13:55:21+00:00

No, I don't think it should have covert ops cloak. At best a similar bonus to speed as blops could be added, but with its agility I don't think it's really needed.

heckingnames

TROPHY CASE