Certificates & a frigate buff

After finally getting on the server last night, I was able to to try out the changes brought to Tranquility (TQ - The main and, for most of the world, only server). The first thing I did was get all my current certificates - 72 of them, and immediately spot a hole in my basic core skills. Said hole would only take 3 hours to fill, so I lined that up and proceeded to get my cov-ops cloak in my Prowler.

After the changes my prowler feels a little more sluggish than it used to be. I removed the MWD at one point and it felt much quicker. I think we'll be finding that the mass addition of an AB or an MWD now that nanofibers can't compensate for ship mass to be a factor in being able to warp quickly. As I was practicing in high sec, I noticed an annoying feature that I'm going to have to see if it translates over to the cov-ops. If you de-cloak just before a jump you've got like 15 seconds to wait on the other side before you should move or your cloak won't re-engage for a few seconds. I don't know if this is new or something I just hadn't noticed. It should make cloaky ships with bad pilots more vulnerable.

Since to-warp speed is no longer as important as it used to be for the prowler and the nanofiber is like 75% of an OD +75% IS in it's non-ab/mwd base speed effect, I think I'll replace the IS with a 2nd Nano. The two low friction nozzle joints will still allow for nibleness. This will have the nice effect of increasing my speed under cloak without impacting my cargo space.

The mobility modules

Looks like the trinity of mobility modules looks like this:
OD - Max speed at the cost of cargo space (and effectively cost maneuverability since it will take longer to get to 75% point since accell is un-affected)
IS - Maneuverability at the cost of signature. (orbit tighter at same speed, get to warp faster)
Nano - Speed boost and maneuverability boost at the cost of structure. (I don't hull tank so...)

What combo you use will depend on the combination of slots you want to use and effects you want with stacking penalties taken into account.

Initial impressions of what the changes mean

Looks like the frigates are still heavily affected but the cruisers and BS much less so. Effectively this is a frigate boost (and all frigate pilots cheered). Destroyers just became more important than the were previously, mainly due to frigates getting a boost. I have yet to check it out but apparently the AF just became MUCH more viable than they used to be. The stabber is still rather fast for a cruiser (reports that it can reach above 3k reliably under mwd)

I'm going to have to mix in some scrams with my disruptors on my frigates. A fleet will want a mix of both. Smartbombing BS and Cruisers just became the vogue - an MWD BS or Cruiser will probably fit a SmtBm or two to take care of scrambling frigates. We'll probably see the revival of arty/disruptor vs ac/scram on the minmatar frigate side. The wolf got a boost because it can be setup as an AC/Scram and forget about the web entirely and basicaly go after MWD cruisers and BS. Mind you this is all crystal balling. We'll have to see how things shake out over the next few weeks.

RRBS gangs will of course rule for the people with the skills to use them properly. ECM as the counter to this type of gang will remain unchanged, but we may see more ECM frigates in gang with the mobility advantages they now enjoy.

Certificates for my alt

I had been working on a "get everything to 4 then buy new skills" plan for my alt. I think I'm going to change that to: work on the certificates and see how that progresses since he got a grand total of 4 certificates (yea he was rather specialized as a hauler alt). This will allow me to realy see the utility of this system for newbies since my alt realy is a specialized hauler alt with very specific skill sets for that job).