Yesterday afternoon CCP Rise has posted the proposed stats for the SoE battleship, the Nestor. For those who expected the first Covert Ops battleship: sorry, not this time. The rumors about Clone Vat Bay turned out to be false as well. The ship has some other traits though, most noticeably its mass, which is about 56% of other Battleships mass. It also has the exploration and hacking bonuses that its smaller siblings have. The initial review is “hmmm… that’s interesting, but…”
Let’s have a look at the tables first
| Nestor |
|---|
 3D webgl preview Role bonus: 50% bonus to remote repair amount 100% bonus to remote repair range 50% bonus to large energy turret optimal range 50% increased strength for scan probes +10 virus strength for relic and data analyzers Amarr Battleship Bonuses: 4% Armor resistances per level Gallente Battleship Bonuses: 10% drone damage and hitpoints per level Slot layout: 7/6/6 |
As you can see, it has quite a set of bonuses. We’ve got armor resists, we’ve got drones HP and DPS, we’ve got exploration and hacking and instead of Covert Ops cloak expected by some players, we’ve got 50% to remote armor rep amount. With 4 Large remote reps and 3 cap transfers, Nestor would dwarf Guardian and Oneiros. But there is one issue: Large Remote Armor Reps have slightly over 8km range. Question that is currently open is: will it be better to drop the 50% rep amount bonus for a 100% rep range bonus? Or should it have both? This question is a tough one to answer, because with both bonuses this ship would be seriously overpowered, and better specialized at remote reps than dedicated ship class (Logistics). On the other hand, in it’s current iteration it would be rather vulnerable to bombs.
UPDATE: CCP Rise added 100% remote armor rep bonus. Is this the first ship with 5 role bonuses?
Nestor’s stats also make it a decent PVE boat, rather similar to the Rattlesnake (but the latter can be 100% passively shield tanked). It also seems at least partially useful for Incursions, where crazy remote reps and high resists would be very useful (but to be honest I don’t know if Incursion doctrine is still all around shields, as it used to be when I last played with them. Can anyone shed some light on the current state of affairs?).
It’s going to be expensive
Now let’s have a look at the LP store price tag. It won’t be cheap I’m afraid:
| Item | Sisters of EVE (hi-sec) | The Sanctuary (0.0) | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LP cost | ISK cost | LP cost | ISK cost | |
|
|
600,000 LP | 150,000,000 ISK | 400,000 LP | 100,000,000 ISK |
|
|
1,000,000 LP | 100,000,000 ISK | 800,000 LP | 80,000,000 ISK |
If we assumed the LP rate for SoE loyalty points at 1,000 ISK / LP (typical exchange ratio), the blueprint-made version would cost around 985M isk, and the pre-built one would be 1,100M (rather cost-ineffective). But that is a very optiomistic scenario. For example, Stratios currently sells for 435M ISK, and takes 120,000LP, 30M ISK and 10M in minerals to produce. That leaves us with 120,000LP = 395M ISK equation, which brings the SoE LP ratio close to 3,291 ISK / LP. Nestor’s initial prices will be counted in billions for sure.
More reading: