CCP Rise wrote:Vagabond: I'm still fairly confused about how there is so much resistance on this ship design. The complaints range quite a bit but I think the most legitimate one is that the Vaga struggles to project damage compared to its competition (Deimos/Cerberus mostly). I think you have to accept that the Vaga has huge advantages in some other areas that should easily outweigh its slightly lower damage projection. Compared to Cerberus for instance, you have an enormous speed advantage, a utility high, and significantly lower Signature. How valuable you think these things are will vary of course, but you can't expect the Vaga to push damage out as well or it simply becomes better in all cases.
I actually think that all of the advantages you cite for the vagabond are relatively weak, and you're strongly understating the strength of the RLM cerberus as a kiter when you make that comparison, Rise. Point-by-point:
1: The difference in speed and maneuverability between the vaga and the cerberus once you've actually fit them is smaller than it appears based on hull stats alone, since the cerberus can easily fit one or two nanos after fitting BCS, while the vaga needs its remaining lows for TEs and a damage control, so it can't readily fit additional speed mods. When you compare realistic kiting fits for the two ships, the cerberus is around 400 m/s slower while MWDing but has much better agility, which largely offsets the loss of raw speed. In addition, the cerb's superior projection further offsets its lower speed because it can start hurting things from much further away than the vaga can.
2: The utility high really isn't an advantage for the vaga at all, and the fact that it is required on the vaga but not the RLM cerb illustrates one of the latter's great strengths. The vaga needs a medium neut because if it gets scrammed by a frigate, it has no other options for getting away. The cerb can just smash the frigate to pieces with its main weapons, since they use frigate-sized ammo; it has a far more effective built-in frigate defence. The neut isn't a strength of the vaga; rather, the fact that it needs a neut reflects one of its biggest weaknesses.
3: Describing the vaga's damage projection as "slightly" lower than the cerb's is a rather strong understatement: with two damage mods on each (and the vaga having two TEs to boot, assuming it's fitting 220s and has barrage loaded), the cerberus starts outdamaging the vaga at 15 km. At 40 km (the edge of heated, skirmish-linked T2 point range after the 1.1 patch goes live), the cerberus is outdamaging the vaga by a factor of two. Phrases like "crushingly superior" seem more appropriate than "slight" under the circumstances.
4: You can fit an RLM cerberus with a full rack of launchers, a dual LSE/LASB tank, an MWD, two BCS, and two nanos with around 160 PG and 110 CPU to spare. On the vagabond, you don't even get enough grid to fit 220s, an LSE/LASB combo with an MWD, and a medium neut without needing a fitting implant.
Realistically, there's a lot of room for the vaga to be improved as a kiter before it comes close to the general capabilities of the RLM cerb. Something very similar happened with the RLM caracal and stabber in the first T1 cruiser buff: sure, the stabber was quicker than the RLM caracal and had more damage at point blank, but the speed difference became small once you started fitting nanos on the caracal, and the caracal's superior projection, greater array of midslot options, better tackle-killing ability, and much easier fitting made it into a far stronger kiting ship overall. As a result, no one flew the stabber. What you're doing with the vaga here is pretty much exactly what was done to the stabber - you're increasing its strength marginally while simultaneously introducing a massively superior alternative. Giving the vaga enough grid to fit a reasonable tank and 425s wouldn't make it overpowered, it'd just move it to a point where it'd be somewhat competitive with the new kid on the block.
:words: