WHAT ARE ‘HULL UPGRADES’?
Hull Upgrades are a way to increase the power of an individual hull without having to swap out one piece of equipment for another. It is a direct power increase to the hull itself that can be undertaken in your Conquest Yard or Shipyard.
At max upgrade, Hull Upgrades increase the power of a hull by roughly 25% over its current maximum. For PvE hulls this can mean buffs to combat speed, additional weapon slots, as well as pure damage or defense bonuses. For PvP hulls this can mean making things possible that were not previously possible with the hull or being able to shut down problems that were previously unavoidable.
HOW DO I DO HULL UPGRADES?
The first step to doing a Hull Upgrade is to obtain “Upgrade Kits” from various activities. Upgrade Kits can be for a specific hull (i.e. Eradicator Upgrade Kits) or for a specific class (i.e. T8 Siege Upgrade Kits).
Once you have the required amount of ‘Upgrade Kits’, you can switch between the Refit and Upgrade modes for each Hull that has Upgrades. This is the only place to see how many Upgrade Kits you have available for this hull.
Starting this will undertake a Hull Upgrade as a project in your Shipyard (for PvE Hulls) or Conquest Yard (for PvP Hulls), as though it was any other type of resource build/refit project.
WHY SHOULD I GET HULL UPGRADES?
The fundamental reason for getting Hull Upgrades is that it trades build time for repair time. It’s an efficiency increase that will make targets easier - but the choice of whether or not you make this trade is yours!
Hull Upgrades also serve as a bridge, both between different tiers and between different fleets. A fleet with Hull Upgrades is going to be competitive for longer against the baseline of the next tier of hulls - which is important for PvE and PvP. Additionally, these upgrades serve as a halfway point between the efficiency of having only one type of PvE fleet built in a season vs having both types of PvE fleets built in a season.
The efficiency ranking for PvE looks something like this:- One Fleet Built
- One Fleet Built + Ranked
- One Fleet Built + Ranked with Hull Upgrades
- Two Fleets Built
- Two Fleets Built + Ranked
- Two Fleets Built + Ranked with Hull Upgrades
WHY THIS FEATURE?
It’s been discussed as part of the upcoming Defense Update that Battle Pirates is very binary right now. You are either absolutely successful based on your ship build or absolutely not successful based on your ship build. Well - what about the in-between? That’s where we’ve been focused.
The Defense Update is going to make it much more forgiving to have in-between build types, and Hull Upgrades is going to open a lot more doors to having in-between fleets. More importantly, it puts choice in player hands regarding managing build times vs repair times, which is something we always want to do a better job of encouraging.
FEATURE LAUNCH OF HULL UPGRADES
As mentioned at the top, we are launching this feature for PvP to start - the ship that Hull Upgrades will initially be available for is one upgrade level for the Breacher Dreadnaught and the Lurker. These upgrades will be available in Bounty 18.
Breacher Upgrade provides:
+12% Concussive Range
+85% Concussive Damage
This allows you to build a Concussive damage Breacher, which is a powerful tool for unseating Lurkers if you're among the players having difficulties with them.
The Lurker Upgrade provides:
+50% Depth Charge Range
Surfaced time reduced from 15s to 10s
Thermal Imaging range increased from 78 - 160
This makes the Lurker slightly more resistant to Depth Charge Rockets, as the time window they are surfaced and vulnerable has decreased significantly. It also allows Lurkers to spot subs at the maximum range of their Torpedoes, making them potent anti-submarine tools and providing them defenses against Gluttonies or similar hulls.