One of the widely ignored changes is that the warp initiation capacitor cost has been halved for recons, this will be a great relief to any alliance who use them in their fleets and burn long distances, especially when they have large systems in their route. Recons should now be able to keep up with fast moving fleets. Along with the warp cost capacitor changes, Recons have also had a 20% increase in cap regeneration rate and also a small increase in their capacitor pool as well.
Another change, which had some discussion, is that the resist profiles for Recons has been brought in line with their Heavy Assault Cruiser cousins. This will make Recons, which are generally called primary at the beginning of any fleet fight, less squishy and will hopefully mean that logistic pilots will be able to get reps on them before they are all alpha’d off of the field.
However, what got the Eve forum warriors and reddit aficionados really talking was the following;
Combat Recons will now be permanently undetectable by directional scanners
Yep thats right the Curse, Huginn, Lachesis and Rook will now not show up on directional scanners, though will still be identifiable by combat scanner probes.
I decided to get in contact with some FC’s within New Eden to see what their thoughts are on the announced changes.
The first is from a FW solo and small gang pilot from the Amarr Empire, Tikktokk Tokkzikk member of The Imperial Fedaykin;
As a Recon 5 pilot, I think D-scan immunity is no more overpowered than a Covert Ops cloak. There’s a few cases like Lachesis hunting ratters in gated complexes where Combat Recons will be stronger, but nothing too strong. I see a lot of “Eve is dying” in the feedback thread, but nothing new and gamebreaking that you can’t already do with a Force Recon. Keep in mind that when you exit warp with a Combat Recon it takes around five seconds to land after you appear on grid with a big *thump*, which also happen to be the Cloaking 5 decloak delay of a Force Recon.
Making Combat Recons a viable alternative to Force Recons is a good thing.
The T2 resists and improved agility will probably increase the usage of Recons, which as a solo and small gang PVPer will of course be annoying, but I’ll adapt as always and enjoy the T2 killmails.
I plan to use a Combat Recon to hunt ratters and I’ll probably play around with remote sensor boosting bait at some point, but until I can play around with them in EFT, I can’t say anything for certain.
Even though we now have the capless ancillary shield boosters, I still consider the Curse the best Recon around. Being able to completely drain a target’s capacitor to disable their defenses, tackle, propulsion and occasionally weapon systems from far away has always and probably will always be very powerful. Not to mention the somewhat niche heavy neutralizer Curse which can alpha the capacitor of a cruiser from up to 88 kilometers.
-Tikktokk Tokkzikk
Tikk has a point and makes it well, the decloaking delay on, say an Arazu is five seconds and the landing and starting to lock speed of the Lachesis would be roughly the same. The only difference? You would not be able to see the Lachesis land on your acceleration gate (if in a plex) like you would an Arazu ,who would have to decloak to use the gate. While this would only benefit the OCD d-scan masher, it is still a small warning that something might be coming your way if you are quick enough to see it.
This sentiment was also shared by Grath Telkin, CEO of Sniggerdly, Pandemic Legion;
Basically, what’s the difference between a pilgrim that decloaks and has 5 seconds to lock you and a curse that you didn’t see coming and has 4-7 seconds of warp declaration and lock time?
There isn’t really one, people are over reacting by huge margins, its a cool new idea, and its a bold step in the direction of limited free intel.
Dabigredboat, one of the main FC’s for Goonswarm Federation and the CFC said;
To be honest, I think being invisible to d-scan is pointless unless you are solo roaming.
For things that I do with a fleet, you already expect the enemy to have Force Recons on the field so not having them on d-scan won’t make much difference. In Low-sec smaller fleet fights maybe it would make a difference, in large nullsec fights, not so much.
Outside of Wormholes I still think the Huginn and Lachesis will see the most benefit from the resist changes but I am still not 100% on how good these will actually be.
Dabigredboat makes a good point, every FC will bring Combat Recons to his fleet if he can, the only question then becomes how many the enemy FC has brought and of what type? Is this information not worth knowing before warping your fleet into a fight? According to Dabigredboat, he does not see this as a large issue.
The next response was from corebloodbrothers, one of the main FC’s for Provi Block and member of the CSM 9 and also a candidate for CSM 10;
I think the d scan immunity adds an extra tactical layer to PVP, where as a Falcon could already cloak and decloak, now other tactics will be available for pew pew. I don’t see people deploying fleets of Recons that change Eve in the way, for example, a 200 man tengu fleet does, the balance of tank is a process still. As an FC I often lose recons, and I primary them as well, good isk to kill and they die easy.
I think boats like the Rook could be fun, its natural long lock range might put him back closer to being able to effectively jam and stay on the field.
If d scan immune logi would be introduced that would have my worried, this one I cant wait to see what people cook up for tactics.
The Rook, which will be less squishy with HAC resists and an extra 630 raw HP and still has it’s impressive 150km max lock range should be able to sit far enough away from the enemy fleet while still getting jams on targets that it won’t have too much incoming fire on it and enough tank that it could warp out before being vollied from the field. The only issue with that is the RNG nature of ECM’s at the moment. In my opinion the Falcon and the Rook need the ECM functionality to be addressed before they are completely viable ships again but in a way that makes sure that Rooks and Falcons do not become the ‘I Win’ button of Eve again in small/medium size fights.
Next up we have Raknor Bile, one of the secondary FC’s in Black Legion. and member of Higher Than Everest. 
I will jump right in the biggest change, which is by far the tank buff. Recons used to be a weak link in the chain, the buff to their tank is massive, letting recons to actually survive in a fight. Having said that the d scan changes are great as well as it forces you to actually get eyes on the enemy gang and not just a d-scan. I just hope the buff does not increase recon numbers in fleet because after the first few, any extra is detrimental to your gang.
Raknor brings up a good point, this change will mean your scouts will actually have to be on grid with the enemy fleet to give accurate numbers to an incoming FC. The days of copying and pasting d-scans may well be over. If your a scout then you will have to grow some balls and get on grid with you enemies to make sure you give accurate intelligence and accurate intelligence equals winning the fight. Good scouts will now be a required necessity not just a wish by the FC. Also mentioned was the fact that, while the changes will make Recons more interesting and fun to fly, that they need to be teamed with the right number of logistics and DPS ships. It’s no good having half you fleet turn up in Huginns, Lachesis and Curses if you’ve called for a tengu or ishtar doctrine. (though I guess the Curse could work…)
Hidetoshi Rushd, another secondary FC from Black Legion. and member or Origin. also replied to my message and gave a run down on what he see’s as the good and the bad of the Recon changes. 
Great change. Rather see it implemented yesterday than tomorrow. This change needs to go hand in hand with a nerf on tech 3’s really, so we can get the diversity to doctrines back in Eve. Right now it’s Tengus all the way (with most groups using Ishtar’s as a sub-doctrine). In day-to-day fleets there won’t be immediate change. And the way CCP works, we might see a slight nerf after the initial buffing (because of tears from the people that play Eve to pay for their mortgage and feed their families).
On the d-scan part: scouts need to actually get eyes on hostile fleets before they relay their intel to their FC. Scouts that post a d-scan link to their FC and NOT mention hostiles have Recons as well, will basically cause a problem for their FC’s. A proper Recon presence in fleets has influence on tactical decisions of FC’s. Scouts are forced to grow some hair on their teeth and become more creative than the usual copy/paste d-scan-link to the FC.
Pre-buff Recons are underpowered all the way. Recons are an equalizer type of ship if numbered and utilised in the proper way. But they simply don’t have enough survivability. In larger fights you focus your fire on recons first because they die so fast, FC’s can be lazy for the remainder of their fight after they get rid of all hostile recons.
With Recons being able to stay on grid for a longer period of time, it will force FC’s to become more tactical on what they are doing and how they are doing it. Recons will probably still die easily, but the longer they are on grid, the more they will be able to influence the outcome. Just for this, I would actually give them even more survivability than what is coming (in exchange for whatever firepower they might hold post-buff). For solo and small gangs firepower on a Recon might make sense but for strategic/larger fleets, firepower on a Recon is useless > needs more EWAR.
I love the changes to the Curse making it a little bit more viable to use in large fleets (but not gonna say how and why, people need to figure it out themselves).
Also, the Huginn gaining an extra mid slot is a good thing. This might even prove to be a dealbreaker in large shield based engagements. After all the dust and tears settle, I expect Huginns to catch a small nerf to bring it back towards the way they are now. Because *tears*.
Better resist profiles will make logi life easier, will make compatibility with certain doctrines easier. This will have influence on the outcome of fights. They will still be called primary and probably die fast but extending their lifetime might prove to be decisive in strategic fleets. I haven’t crafted a lot yet (and if I did I wouldn’t give out what I cook up :p) but reading the new specs, I see lots of potential in terms of bigger fleets.
Hidetoshi hits on a lot of topics in his reply, including things we have already talked about, like scouts needing to grow a pair and get on grid with their enemies to give correct intel and also the survivability of the Recons in large fleets. However he does bring up a good point about the T3’s needing a rebalance too and this is something that CCP Rise also alluded to in the original Dev Post.
Close the gap somewhat between Recons and T3 Cruisers, though this will also be a goal during the T3 Cruiser rebalance.
How will this happen? We don’t know yet. But one main way of doing it would be to either abolish the ‘subsystem’ aspect entirely and bring them into line with the destroyers, where you can switch between different roles at your leisure. Do I think this will happen? No.
What I think will happen is that certain subsystems, the most used and generally thought of as over powered ones, will be nerfed slightly while the ones that are used very rarely will be rebalanced to make them fit a niche role. I don’t think we will see a ‘immunity from d-scan’ subsystem, as this will then destroy the Recon ship class once again. The T3 Cruisers should be a jack of all trades but a master of none of them, specialised ships like Recons, HAC’s and others should always outperform the T3 counterpart which is not specialised.
Infact Doomchinchilla, CEO of Collapsed Out and the Overload Everything alliance also alludes to the fact that the T3’s sometimes outperform their specialised T2 counterparts in his reply;
I don’t think it will have too much effect on our day to day life. It will make adashboard scans really annoying to get correctly, since recons won’t appear on them. I suspect it will suck more for plexers in FW where people will just sit recons inside waiting.
Overall I don’t think we’ll really use recons more just because of their resists, since in most fleets a T3 fits the same purpose and at times does it better. The Recons that we already use in nano fleets will finally be able to keep up with the fleet. The resists are nice since they can tank, but the ability to finally be able to perma-run their MWDs and be capstable will make shield nano/Ishtar gangs A LOT scarier.
The ‘best’ ship in my eyes is the Pilgrim, it was already one of the best hunters just because of it’s low slots/tank… and with the increased resists it’s only going to be better.
I don’t see the new recons effecting LS too much, they’ll see more use in HAC fleets and plexes but overall ‘big fights’ they still won’t be seen. (except in Ishtar fleets…. thanks CCP)
– Doom
Doom has a completely different view to most, having looked more into the capacitor side of the changes he has concluded, and rightly so, that these changes, while not only making the recons now able to make long warps within system without capping out, but they will also be able to run MWD’s or AB’s much longer and therefore will be more viable to use in mobile fleets like old style nano gangs.
Rixx Javix, of EVEOGANDA fame and the CEO of the lowsec small gang piracy corporation Stay Frosty, brought up another great point in his reply, the inherent cost of the hulls themselves;
My first reaction was extremely negative, yet another change that drives a nail in the coffin of solo and small gang lowsec players. But essentially this is just another form of “cloaking” on an already expensive platform, which will probably only get more expensive after this change. While we may see more of them in lowsec than before, the cost of entry is going to remain high.
While we see some people utilizing cloaking alts in low sec, it isn’t a common practice and I don’t think Recon buddies will become one either. I do think the strength of this change is going to be medium-large gang support, which is where Recons are supposed to be used. It is an exciting change and one we look forward to taking advantage of ourselves.
Rixx makes yet another good point, the price of Recons since the announced changes have tracked upwards, the Curse for example has gone from just under 140 million ISK on the 17th December 2014 to just over 190 million ISK on the 20th December 2014. Thats an incredible increase of 48 million ISK in just 3 days and all because of the proposed changes coming in the Proteus expansion and it is the same story across all of the Recon ship class.
The last response is from Noobman who is one of the primary FC’s for Hard Knocks Inc. who are a large wormhole corp who specialise in making themselves a nuisance in other peoples wormholes and also in connected K-space when possible. EDIT: Hard Knocks Inc. live in a C5 wormhole not a C6 and they never run the sites in their home wormhole. Thanks to the readers and member of Lazerhawks and Hard Knocks Inc. who made me aware of my error.
I think it is a needed buff to recons, before the patch we would pull in recons occasionally, now more people will want to fly them so I would expect to see them in more fleets. Before the patch Recons were underpowered and I think this will bring them into the game. I think the changes will make wormholes slightly more dangerous, but not overly so.
There was already light use in our shield fleet comps for the minmatar and gallente recons, now they will just be better, nearly mandatory due to the benefits they provide. Nothing new about long ass webs and points, just now they aren’t as squishy. d-scan immunity will be neat but not game breaking or anything.
I was surprised that Noobman did not think that the d-scan immunity was overpowered as I thought he, more than anyone else I contacted, as part of a wormhole corp would be the most opposed to this change.
The reason I thought this is because Wormhole Space does not have a local chat like we see in K-Space. It does not update as people jump in and out and the only way you know someone else is in the hole with you is either they talk in the local chat and hence show up in it or you see their ship on d-scan or in person (if you have eyes on your connections etc).
Removing the Combat Recon from d-scan will take away any chance of a wormhole plex running character knowing if they are alone or not, safe or not. I would say that Noobman is taking into account the fact that a landing Combat Recon will still take time to decelerate and lock a target, and if the ship in the plex is aligned, then they will be able to get out.
Obviously sieged or triaged capitals will not have this option but anyone doing this sort of activity would surely have collapsed, or brought to a critical mass, any dangerous wormholes and will have eye’s on any others to keep a lookout for uninvited guests. Add to this that a capital in siege or triage does not need to be pointed to keep it on field and wouldn’t be able to warp of even if the enemy ship had been on d-scan… the point is moot.
As you can see none of the people I contacted, and responded, were against the changes and most have praised the fact that the era of ‘free intel’ may be coming to an end. While I share this opinion I have to feel for those who enjoy running plexes in certain areas of space. To be sure that a Force Recon is not warping to them they will need to either have a combat probes launcher on their ship with probes deployed and scanning every few seconds or have an alt on their ingate providing intel.
Of course another method would be simply not to be AFK, get off the warp in to the plex (IE more than 80km away) and be ready to warp if something lands on your grid. While you may still be caught by a Lachesis pilot with links and a faction point, you will most likely be able to get away from most other Combat Recons with little to no difficulty.
If you have anything that you think should be reported on EN24, please contact me at @mail_lite on Twitter, email at [email protected] or Eve Mail me in game.
