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Sisters of Eve Nestor Battleship

Sisters of Eve Nestor Battleship

So, here is CCP’s upcoming baby, the Nestor, and these are its current stats:

Amarr Battleship Bonuses:
4% Armor resistances per level

Gallente Battleship Bonuses:
10% drone damage and hitpoints per level

Role bonuses:
50% bonus to remote armor repairer amount
100% bonus to remote armor repairer range
50% bonus to large energy turret optimal range
50% increased strength for scan probes
+10 virus strength for relic and data analyzers

Slot layout: 7H, 6M, 6L; 5 turrets, 0 launchers
Fittings: 11250 PWG, 680 CPU
Defense (shields / armor / hull): 8900 / 9950 / 9900
Capacitor (amount / recharge rate / cap/s) : 6200 / 1044 / 5.9
Mobility (max velocity / agility / mass / align time): 92 / .18 / 56000000 / 13.97
Drones (bandwidth / bay): 125 / 500
Targeting (max targeting range / Scan Resolution / Max Locked targets): 75km / 85 / 7
Sensor strength: 24 Magnetometric
Signature radius: 465
Cargo Capacity: 700

The Lore of Sisters of Eve

Okay, first off I like that CCP is developing an NPC Pirate corp and I hope this continues with the future Minmatar/Caldari pirate faction or even some of the other NPC corp factions (would be nice to see some more variety, yes?).  Now, CCP has decided (and wisely so) to keep the ships consistent with their Lore.  This can be found in two locations primarily: “The Burning Life” and CCP’s Story Collection.  They also appear momentarily in the book, “Empyrean Age”.

The combination of these stories produce that the Sisters of Eve have both a public persona and a secondary rebel persona that is militantly focused.  Normally that is okay.  But at this point, I already have a problem.  The militant aspect of SOE isn’t one that is popular with the leadership of SOE.  So it is VERY unlikely that they would allow them to design and develop a battleship class ship.  And oddly enough, in designing the “Nestor”, it shows that is really doesn’t work.

Now, I can understand how and why the Asteros and the Strateos work in the game and work in the Sisters of Eve lore.  Covert Ops ships because they are neutral and aiding everyone, which might not be something enemies want to have happen to the other.  Virus bonuses because they are often cited as getting confidential information necessary to do their jobs.  Weapons because, hey, it is Eve Online.  So yeah, capsuleers are hijacking the ships for use against Covert sites, but SOE ships make sense in that narrative as well.

But when we get to the battleship, the whole point of which is to make war, then we run into a problem.  Simply put, SOE would have NEVER commissioned a battleship.  I could see a Carrier, or a Transport, or a new role class ship, but a battleship clearly doesn’t fit the lore of SOE.

The Problem of Role

Unfortunately, the bonuses really don’t work in its favor even if the Lore allowed for it.  The Amarr and Gallente bonuses are fine and make sense, but the role bonuses are completely wrong.  Here is why:

1.  50% bonus to remote armor repairer amount/100% bonus to remote armor repairer range – This is a bad combination of bonuses simply because no one in their right mind would use this ship to support their own due to cost, which we can estimate to be somewhere between 500 million and one billion isk.  While each RR will rep 50% than that of what one can do on an Oneiros, its range is way short of what an Oneiros can reach, with a max range of just under 20km (by comparison an Onerios at Level IV can reach out to about 50km).   Add to that the problem of no capacitor bonus to help mitigate the energy costs of running a large remote armor repper, and now no longer are you not going to be repping anyone well, you potentially could drain yourself out easily enough that you cannot fire your weapons.

2.  50% increased strength for scan probes/+10 virus strength for relic and data analyzers – Being an experience explorer has allowed me to know that if I am hunting data and relic sites, the last thing I want to be in is something huge, easy to scan down, and has difficulty maneuvering through the obstacles that each site has.  True, it MIGHT be useful in Ghost sites.. but those are rare and can be just as easily handled by a Tech 3 cruiser.  Trying to fly around in null-sec looking for Ghost sites in this ship will mean that you will lose said ship rather easily to the new Rubicon inties.

3.  50% bonus to large energy turret optimal range – This bonus kinda makes sense.  Sort of.  When it comes to the bonuses, it becomes the armor and laser variant of the Rattlesnake.  And we want to do that because clearly the Sisters of Eve are renown mission runners.  Except that the Nestor is worse because, unlike the Rattlesnake, the Nestor has one extra turret slot and because it has to use cap for its weapon systems, it is going to require much more attention even in this capacity.

How would I fix it?

Actually it is rather simple and surprisingly, the Lore is open enough for quite a few options.  Personally, this is what I would think would be better (keeping the ship model, of course, cuz that is awesome!)

Make it into a carrier

You see, Eve has only one faction carriers and this would have been a great opportunity to really get creative about this.  “But we don’t need another carrier!” you say.  Heh, not if you need one, and CCP Rise, CCP Fozzie, and CCP Ytterbium could do something much different.  Here’s is what I propose:

The Nestor Carrier would be a multi-use capital, the first intentionally used in the game, able to both transport and support whatever fleet they are in:

Amarr Jump Freighter Bonuses:
10% bonus to shield, armor and hull hitpoints and 10% reduction in jump fuel need per level

Gallente Carrier Bonuses:
50% bonus to Capital Shield and Armor transfer range per level
5% bonus to deployed Fighters’ damage per level
Can fit Warfare Link modules
Can fit Tactical Logistics Reconfiguration modules
Can deploy 1 additional Fighter or Drone per level
200% bonus to Fighter control range

Slot layout: 5H, 5M, 6L;
Fittings: 725000 PWG, 730 CPU
Defense (shields / armor / hull): 3000 / 9500 / 140000
Capacitor (amount / recharge rate) : 62000 / 4100
Mobility (max velocity / agility / mass / align time): 80 / .18 / 1000000000 / 13.97
Drones (bandwidth / bay): 375 / 12000
Targeting (max targeting range / Scan Resolution / Max Locked targets): 75km / 85 / 7
Sensor strength: 30 Magnetometric
Signature radius: 1.9km
Cargo Capacity: 130,000m3

Now, true, this is my “wishful thinking” version, which probably has some holes in it, but I think this ship would be more in line with the SOE Lore as this clearly could be used to get into a system and support whatever SOE forces are involved.