Navy Faction

Despite its reputation for over-reliance on drones, the Federation Navy makes use of a number of powerful "gunboat" designs at every scale of combat and the Catalyst's well-earned reputation as a potent anti-frigate platform led to a Navy Issue upgrade program. The Navy's updated Catalyst has been enhanced with improved armor technology and highly-efficient weapon systems. To accompany the improved agility and speed of this tough gun platform, the Gallente oriented their new Navy Issue variant towards increased target acquisition at range.

Imperial Navy ship design doctrine tends to return to the tried and tested approach of heavy armor and high-efficiency energy weapons regardless of advances in technology and experiments with tactics. The upgrade brief for the Coercer Navy Issue certainly exemplified this tendency, notably calling for heavily upgraded armor systems and significant improvements in the energy use and damage output of its weapons. The Imperial Navy's continued fascination with energy neutralization as a supplementary weapon system is the only deviation from the core emphasis on fashioning a vessel as hard to crack and potently armed as possible.

With the Cormorant well-established as a long-range anti-frigate platform, the Caldari Navy issued upgrade requirements that specified further enhancements to its ability to hit at range together with considerable improvements to defensive shield systems. Overhauling and expanding the energy systems and core processing systems to support these changes called for many changes to the base Cormorant's design. A joint tender from the megacorporations of the Ocean Faction proposing a total rebuild of the internal workings of the ship won the day. The resulting Caldari Navy variant of this proven railgun platform is ideally set up for sustained long-range engagements.

The Republic Fleet's requirements for an upgraded Thrasher focused on the doctrinal strengths of the Minmatar: speed and unleashing a hailstorm of projectile fire upon any foe in range. To that end, the designers of the Thrasher Fleet Issue paid great attention to the engine systems and reducing the downsides of using high-performance microwarpdrive propulsion modules. The improvements to weapons systems significantly increased projectile rate of fire and the range of effective firing solutions. Increased firepower at range came at the cost of reduced tracking systems and dedicated defensive module support, but additional base shield and armor were crammed into the design by the canny Minmatar designers.