[2020] Surgical Strike Update Follow-up

Hello capuleers!

Yesterday we posted a news item covering the Surgical Strike update coming on April 15th. Today, we would like to address feedback and layout plans for follow-up shortly after the release.

Battleship Scan Resolution increase

Many of you have asked for this increase to be passed along to tech II Battleships (Marauders and Black Ops) and we are pleased to say that we agree and will be extending this buff to those classes as well.

Structure Guided Bombs

These were missed in the 20% reduction to bomb damage and will be adjusted to receive the same change as normal bombs.

Capital Cap Booster limitation

We discovered issues with the implementation of this change and will be shifting approach slightly. Rather than limiting capital cap boosters to one per group, we will be adding a new limitation for FAX only which limits number of cap boosters fit to 1 per ship. This will include all cap booster sizes.

Suicide Ganking and the Void buff

This topic is more complicated to untangle but it is certainly not our intention to make suicide ganking easier or cheaper. While divorcing damage increases from suicide ganking is not simple, we are planning to increase freighter hp while we do some investigation on the current state of high sec ganks. Depending on results from those investigations we will look at further changes if necessary.

PVE and the resist change

Many of you are concerned about high end PVE viability under the resist module nerf. This was one of our biggest hesitations around this change as well so we will be watching closely. Our expectation is that in almost all situations some fitting adjustments will be needed and completion speeds may go down slightly if damage or speed has to be sacrificed. If situations arise where specific content becomes prohibitively difficult we will make adjustments to that content to bring it back in line.

When will this happen?

Due to the Easter holiday our release candidate is locked in for the 15th, meaning all of these changes will come in a deployment shortly afterwards. We are expecting sometime between the 16th and the 21st and will let you know as soon as the date is locked in.

Thanks for all your feedback, it’s exciting to see so much enthusiasm for deep balance work and big meta shifts.

Fly safe o/