I was mostly trying to make a joke with the universal large mount suggestion, although that sometimes comes through poorly with just text and emoji.
I'm pretty sure Alex's vision doesn't include adding a large mount of any type to the Eagle. To selectively quote Alex from a previous Eagle thread this year:
FWIW, the way I see its role as ... "fluidly holding an area" might be the best way to put it. Something that makes anything weaker back off, and can safely disengage from most stronger opponents after driving up their flux, but lacks finishing power.
In this thread's feedback, I was trying to get a feel for the organic growing of an Eagle focused fleet instead of just creating a fully formed fleet with "Here's my cruiser line, here's my DPS backing ships, here my distraction frigates". That was a set of tests I had already done earlier this year for a different thread, with a missile back up line (Gryphons/Conquest), comparing some ships in the line blocking role. Conclusions I walked away then were Falcons > Eagles in a shield tanking/blocking role, Dominators don't play quite the same role (they're line breakers than line holders for a mobile back line, also AI without orders gets Gryphons killed), weapon loadout effective range makes a big difference, and oddly enough Champions looked to be only smidgeon better at holding a line than the Eagle, although that might have been my setup choices.
And well, growing a fleet organically with a focus on Eagle(s) early is rough. Likely because an Eagle in a map wide speed comparison is not much faster than an Onslaught, but a pair of them doesn't have nearly the same presence or kill power. And early game fights often devolve into a frigate on one side of the map distracting 1/3 of the fleet, another on the other side distracting 1/3, and the Eagle slowly making its way from one side to the other.
I feel the problem is the Eagle in having its speed cut back to 50 compared to the current Falcon's 80, is it can't back off fast enough, while the Falcon can. Certainly, putting DP equivalents of the ships up against each other in that role with the same backing fleet has the Falcons walking away with the win nearly every time. And their ability to impact early game fights is better because of both their strategic and tactical speed.
What does 2 Eagles get compared to 3 Falcons is the fundamental question I'm constantly asking myself when I come to these threads. If Falcons are at an OK balance level, and Eagles give up 30 speed (out of either 80 or 105 avg speed, so 37.5% or 28.5%, or 300 units in 10 seconds difference in terms of relative range bands) along with +1 burn speed, what precisely are the Eagles gaining to compensate to make them OK? There is some hard to quantify fact that they are a single unit that can't be separated, but half the time, that's also a disadvantage since one Falcon can back off and vent while the other comes forward to soak damage on its shield. You can save an officer, but if it takes something like 3 skill/s-mod equivalents to reach parity in speed between the ships, I'm not even sure that ends up being in the Eagle's favor.
Going through the list of possibilities, it's not flux (1000 flux times 2 versus 700 flux times 3 is in the Falcons favor assuming maxed vents). It's not a significantly larger pile of OP, especially after taking into account s-mods. It's not significantly tougher in the aggregate, as long as the Falcons can step in and out for each other. 1000 armor on 2 ships and 750 armor doesn't sound that significant, especially when you have to go through 750 three times to 1000 twice (i.e. fewer missiles are more effective here against the Eagles). And it's only 33% more hull hit points per hull, but the Falcons bring a whole another ship, so 50% more. Eagles do have a higher baseline flux capacity (22,000 vs 21,000), but even a 5 point investment in caps on each ship equalizes it (24,000 vs 24,000). Shield focused builds with max capacitors favors the Falcons (34,000 vs 39,000). It's not weapon loadout which favors the Falcons (6 medium ballistic vs 6 medium ballistic, 6 medium energy vs 6 medium energy, 6 small missiles vs 4 small missiles, 12 small energy vs 10 small energy).
So the answer may be nothing, and Eagles are just intended to be weaker than Falcons at their DP values.
To visually give a better idea of the differential speeds in a straight line, I did some simulation races via vanilla showcase mod. So no enemies, no hullmods, no skills, just AI going from point A to point B (which means 0-flux boost was available as well). The first was showing off that burn drive is actually quite good for repositioning, given the Dominator is leading the Eagle and the Onslaught isn't that far behind. The second one was me grabbing all ships which use medium energy weapons as a primary armament, and what a real speed advantage looks like. That, graphically, is why Heavy Blasters and Ion Pulsers don't really work on an Eagle.
It means a solo non-SO Eagle can't really back off fast enough against over half of the cruisers and a majority of capitals (Onlaught, Legion, Odyssey, Conquest, Radiant). It literally needs half the map to get less than 1000 units of range ahead of the Onslaught (whose TPC reach out 1600 units with ITU). So Eagles end up being line cruisers since they need a line to back up into to be able to vent and cycle back. And since they don't have killing power, they need to backed by something that does that can shoot over them, hence missiles and fighters being the obvious choices. Which I think is supposed to be the midline cruiser school of thought, specialized cruisers which are greater than the sum of their parts when used together. Gryphons and Herons hiding behind a line of Eagles and Champions.
Although arguably Monitors and Falcons fill the tanking role better. Although saying that now, another way you could differentiate the Eagle from the Falcon is change the ship system. I'm almost tempted to say just put Fortress shield on them instead of Maneuvering Jets, although Monitors are annoying enough already. It would at least give Eagles some synergy with Heavy Needlers and Phase Lances though (long cooldown and high burst weapons are good for fortress shield ships), and cement them as a front line for the cruiser school, but at that point they're not particularly fluid, and base 50 speed and no speed system would literally make them the slowest military cruisers in the game (and likely drive me crazy trying to fly them.
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