I hope you all have your towels ready, because it's time to panic. The MK2 Project

Have you ever wondered what role Heron is supposed to fill? It's not a very good tackler, even though it has 3 medium slots, because it is heavy and not very fast. It can't be used as an assault ship as it has got neither the defenses nor the firepower. The Heron is a good example of a ship that has no role.

Other ships seem to have a role but are not very good at it. Two good examples are the Burst and the Navitas. They are both supposed to be mining ships but are worse in nearly every way than the Imicus and Probe.

The MK2 Project is about creating a role for the above ships and ships similar to them, then balance all of the ships within their roles. The roles that have been created for the frigates are mining, tackling, scouting, electronic warfare and assault. For cruisers the roles are mining, logistic, electronic warfare and assault.

Mining Frigates Tormentor, Bantam, Navitas and Burst
These ships are getting a big boost. They need bigger mining yield bonuses, more CPU to fit their mining lasers and maybe even a bigger cargo hold.

Scout frigates Heron, Imicus and Probe
This is a new role for tech 1 frigs. Mostly they will be non combat oriented scouting ships, their specialty will be the use of scanning probes and therefore will get a boost to CPU.

Tackling frigates Executioner, Condor, Atron and Slasher
These ships are already pretty fast and in general the fastest frigates of their respective races. The Executioner and Slasher are the fastest tech 1 frigs around but the Condor and Atron are simply too heavy and too slow to keep up as they are even slower than some of the other non tackling Minmatar frigates. Then there is the matter of the Executioner’s single med slot, Atron's targeting range bonus and Slasher's velocity bonus. These ships will then all get a speed boost at the very least with the Condor and Atron receiving mass reductions.

EWAR frigates Crucifier, Griffin, Maulus, Vigil
These ships will keep their EWAR capabilities which will make them pretty unique. Some fine tuning might be done to grid, CPU and cap.

Assault frigates Punisher, Merlin, Tristan, Rifter and Inquisitor, Kestrel, Incursus, Breacher
These ships are fairly well balanced towards each other, so there is no need to change them to much. Some tuning on fitting requirements will be done and some bonuses might be changed.

Mining cruisers Osprey, Scythe
These ships are the best miners of their race and there is no reason to remove their mining capabilities. These ships haven't been changed and most likely won't be changed much.

Logistic cruisers Augoror, Exequror
These ships get some sort of logistic bonuses. They won't be as effective as some other logistic ships or the Apocalypse but they should still be a viable ship for any new player that wants to try out the logistics role.

EWAR cruisers Arbitrator, Blackbird, Celestis, Bellicose
These ships all get EWAR bonuses similar to the EWAR frigates, that is the Arbitrator will receive a bonus to tracking disruptors, Blackbird to ECM, Celestis to sensor dampeners and Bellicose to target painters.

Assault cruisers Maller, Moa, Thorax, Rupture and Omen, Caracal, Vexor, Stabber
Overall, these ships are fairly well balanced. Grid and CPU will be tuned and most ships will get a slight increase where it is needed and decrease where they have too much.

What about other tech 1 ships like battlecruisers and destroyers
The role of the battlecruisers and destroyers will not be changed. I'm taking a closer look at the powergrid, CPU and cap of those ships. The faction ships will also get an overhaul and might even be spiced up in a new way, more on that later.

How about tech 2 ships
They will also be taken a look at but don't expect any major changes. Overall these ships are very well balanced within their class but some minor tweaking might be done.

If you want to discuss, shout or just generally lynch me the go to the forum post in Ships and Modules forum where you can see more stats on the ships.