The Surgical Strike Update: Resistance Is Futile

One would think that a player such as myself wouldn't care about CCP's attempts to change the capital meta in EVE Online. Wrong again! But first, let's look at the changes coming to super carriers in the Surgical Strike update coming on 15 April.

The changes, are mostly designed to change super carrier damage application, along with affecting the tank of both super carriers and titans.

• Removal of support fighter tubes for Super Carriers with the addition of one extra Heavy Fighter tube
• Bonuses to XL plates and extenders for Super Carriers reduced to 200% and for Titans reduced to 300%
• Long Range Heavy Fighter explosion radius increased 50%
• Short Range Heavy Fighter speed increased 50%
• Fighter bay size increased for Aeon and Wyvern
• Capital Capacitor Boosters limited to 1 per ship

But the big change, at least according to CCP, concerns resistance modules.

The biggest change coming in this update is a 20% reduction in the power of all modules that increase shield or armor resistances. That means energized plating, armor coating, armor hardeners, shield hardeners and shield resistance amps. This will lead to a drop across the board in effective hit points, but the more slots a ship has devoted to resists, the more important the change becomes. There is excitement here about this approach because not only does it lower Capital survivability, it also diminishes the overall power of logistics and will make modules focused on speed and damage a more attractive option. The hope is to see bloodier fights, less stalemates, and a huge cross-sectional shift in the fitting meta. This kind of shake up rewards those that adapt quickly, so get to theory crafting!

Alongside this update to resistance module power, tiericide for shield and armor resist modules is also underway, which you may have noticed beginning to appear on the Singularity test server. The tiericide adjustments are very small in scale and much more focused on sensible naming and organization of the modules in these groups, but you can expect the 20% reduction to be applied after the stats currently in place on Singularity for modules are affected by tiericide changes.

I realize I don't usually use more than one resistance module to negate a type of damage, but I'm not sure how well my Vagabond will do running Abyssal sites. Cutting down the effects from the Adaptive Invulnerability Field from 30% down to 24% might be enough for the NPCs to crush my Vagabond when I use a filament.

On the other hand, using battleships to clear out Emerging Conduits might become more attractive. T1 and faction battleships are receiving a 10% increase to base hp and a 30% increase to scan resolution. That means the small Triglavian hulls will become easier to lock up now. I love my Vagabond, but if CCP wants me to swap to battleships, I may not have a choice. Sometimes CCP makes a choice so obvious doing otherwise just isn't smart.

With these changes and the ones I know are coming up, I am really tempted to just mine, manufacture, and do distribution missions for the foreseeable future. The only time to shoot anything is to clear out an Emerging Conduit to mine in. I'll have to keep a close eye out to see if I have to take such extreme measures.