Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Well, looking at how tiericide is going, I have to say that I'm happy with the changes, but I am in suspense on how BS's will be changed. CCP has basically said that BS's will have a progression chart that looks like this:

Tech 2 Battleships (Specialization)
^
I
Tech 1 Battleships -> Navy Battleships ->Pirate Faction Battleships. (Improvement)
I
v
Tech 3 Battleships (Generalization)

Although I see the logic, it seems to me that a better order could be had:

Tech 1 Battleships -> Tech 2 Battleships (Specialization) ->Tech 3 Navy Faction Battleships
or -> Tech 2 Battleships (Generalization) ->Tech 3 Pirate Faction Battleships

Note this would entail some renaming, as most current Navy hulls would become Tech 2 (Specialization) and the current pirate faction battleships would become labelled as the new Tech 3 (Generalization). I think this works because pirate faction ships have generalized requirements, they require 2 racial battleship skills to work and generally have additional hull bonuses that give them many threatening stat effects.

Note that the proposed tech 3 navy faction hulls would be roughly equal in stats/power to their pirate faction counterparts, but would require a racial BS specialization skill that would have a rank/cost that would make it longer to train than a second racial BS skill. They would feature a second and sometimes a third hull skill bonus that would make the tech 1 bonus better, but not deviate from or expand on that ships role, except on occasion to give it a single extra improved ability.

For example, a proposal for a Navy Faction Rokh:

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Hull Name: Hydra
Base Hull: Rokh

Description: Needing to upgrade their revered hybrid platform to face the unchecked menace of Gallente Pirate Vindicators, State R&D has put considerable effort in making a better Rokh, and it's recent investment has paid off better than expected. Even more stable and solid than before, recent improvements in turret mounting makes this ship able to hit out even farther than it's predecessor.
Most significant of the changes to the base hull is the new shield and capacitor generators, which is the best the Caldari State has to offer in this ship class. However, much of the armor hardening hardware had to be scrapped to make room, but this is considered entirely irrelevant by the overwhelming majority of Caldari pilots. Additionally, progressing miniaturization has increased the amount of space available for its internal bays, making room for more badly needed drone space. The sensor package has also been replaced by a more specialized model, giving a much quicker lock time and much greater sensor strength at the expense of targeting range. Curiously, Caldari scientists have decided to use some of the new empty space in the hull to fit Webifier enhancing technology generously gifted from the Amaar, giving the Hydra the ability to pin enemy battleships at midrange.
Sure to be a hit is it's default arctic white paint job, unique among Caldari designs.

Base Price: 1,300,000,000 isk.

Base Skill Reqs

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Spaceship Command 5
Caldari Battleship 4
Caldari Battleship Specialization 1
Propulsion Jamming 3

Hull Bonuses

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Skill bonus for Caldari Battleship: 10% hybrid optimal range and 5% shield resists per lvl.
Skill bonus for Caldari Battleship Specialization: 10% hybrid falloff range and 2.5% shield resists per lvl.
Skill bonus for Propulsion Jamming: 20% increase to Webifier range per lvl.

Structure

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Structure HP: 8,000
Cargo Capacity: 625 m3
Drone Capacity: 100 m3
Drone Bandwidth: 50 Mbit/sec
Mass: 110,000,000 kg
Volume: 486,000 m3 (50,000 m3 packed)
Intertia Modifier: 0.14
Stucture Resists: 0/0/0/0

Armor

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Armor HP: 8,000
Armor Resists: 20/10/10/20

Shield

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Shield HP: 10,000
Shield Recharge Time: 2,500s
Shield Resists: 20/50/50/20

Capacitor

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Capacitor Capacity: 7,200 GJ
Capacitor Recharge Time: 1,250s

Targeting

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Maximum Targeting Range: 48km
Maximum Locked Targets: 7
Scan Resolution: 60mm
Gravimetric Sensor Strength: 32 points
Signature Radius: 500m

Propulsion

---

Max Velocity: 100m/sec
Warp Speed: 3.00 AU/s

Fitting:

---

Max CPU: 800
Max Powergrid: 15,000
Max Calibration: 300

Low Slots: 5
Meduim Slots: 7
High Slots: 8

Launcher Hardpoints: 0
Turret Hardpoints: 8
Upgrade Hardpoints: 3
Rig Size: Large

Notes:
Caldari Battleship Specialization is not an actual skill in EvE, it just a placeholder for a similar skill. The design calls for the specialization skill to be rank 10. Per and Will based, under the Spaceship Command group.

First of all, Vindicators are not Gallente, they are Shadow Serpentis.
Secondly your idea for the new ship needs way more research as Minmatar are the race that has ships with bonuses to web range.

i have to say i would love a double resist bonused rokh would be nuts!

the only thing i don't like about the Rokh you have proposed is the dual hybrid optimal bonus as Railguns suck, the reason they suck is because of what CCP did to them like 3 years ago.

this is just bad idea.

battleship with uniform shield resistances 20/35/35/20 and 50% shield resist from skills at lvl 5 will sum up to 60/ 67.5/67.5/60 just from the hull and skills..u have decent tank from skills alone. Some ships have to sacrifice dps or tackling or speed to get that resistance sats and u want them just from training skills?
if u trow in 2 inv fields in there u get around 80% across the board with only 2 tanking modules thats sounds like overpowered to me, not to mention the DC in the lows.
leaving u with 4 low slots for dmg/range mods and 5 more mids to work with and full rack of turrets with crazy range bonus.

a sniper fit for this bs will put his range let's see.... 425 mm railgun t2 has a base range of 58 km . 62 km with sharpshoting skill ...and with your hull bonuses will add to 186 km optimal base....with antimatter that 93 km optimal range with max dmg ammo....trow in a tracking enchancer and 2 tracking computers and u get urself 140 150 optimal range with antimatter ammo....
not to mention a blaster fit will get a 40+ km range with null ammo.and u will get 16 km optimal with void well in range on your bonused webs.

so no thanks..... and judging by the skills u need to fly one .....its a fast train and t1 bs will become

No, the way you have described it is as a ship that can do everything. Ooooo drones and cargo, oooo extra range on guns, oooo solid tank without modules, oooo and slap on a webifier bonus too.

Small and Large rails are fine.

@OP: No, it's a terrible idea and an insanely overpowered one at that. If anything, Serpentis ships should be Caldari/Gallente, but that's it.

As far as the drones and cargo, that's more of a reflection that I think that ALL battleships have insufficient drone and cargo bays. Note that the amount of drone bandwidth has not been increased, limiting its deployment to 5 mediums at a time, like its predecessor. Also, the tank is meant to be tanked in the traditional manner with the Rokh, it is not meant to go without modules. The tank is supposed to be an answer/oppsite counterpart to the Vindi's unmatched damage bonus.

The webs were something extra to demonstrate the idea in the previous part of the original post, and is not really essential to the main thrust. As for the range bonus, that can be tempered a bit by changing the second range bonus to a falloff bonus instead of optimalx2, which should cut its effective range down about 7km off of blaster range, and 25km off of rails.

Furthermore, its not a Pirate Faction BS, its supposed to be an example of something different, and as far as it being OP, the stats can be tweaked without abandoning the original concept. I would also like to note that the stat improvements VS the Rokh were based on preexisting upgrade paths. Mind you, I don't mind criticism at all, its just that a post that just says "Sux! OP!" doesn't do much to help fix the concept.

Also, why would I want to make a new Caldari Rail ship? The Naga works fine for snipe work, I just want an upgrade path from my current position. Megathron pilots get the Vindi, Scorpion pilots get the Rattlesnake, etc, etc. There is just no decent tech 2/pirate faction/navy Hybrid battleships in the Caldari lineup.

OP Edit: Thank you all who have giving me some constructive criticism, I have changed several stats to bring down the power level of the proposal a bit:
The second optimal bonus has been changed to a falloff bonus.
The web bonus has been reduced to 20%
The base shield resists have been reduced 5% across the board.
The base inertia modifier has been lowered below the original Rokhs, making this ship slower and more vulnerable to tackling than its tech 1 counterpart.
Cargo capacity has been returned to default (I still think ALL battleships should have their cargo bay's doubled.)

Radhe, you realize that compared to both the Vindi and Hyperion, the Rokh doesn't get any damage bonuses at all, save for the optimal bonus used with blasters, and that isn't very useful against a Vindi's double web+neut/or/scram+cap booster+MWD at it's 10km optimal.

As for a tank, the Vindi does nearly 140% the damage the Rokh does, and it does it to mostly immobile targets, which means it doesn't really need all that much tank anyway. Also, the midslot picture looks a lot less rosy when you realize that to get the most out of this ship you need 2xWeb+MWD+Cap booster, which gives 3 mids and 2 rigs for a tank. That is an equal situation to the Vindi's 3 magstabs and 1 damage control, once again leaving 3 low slots and 2 rigs for a tank.

The difference is that the Vindi gets a big bonus to damage and the ship I posted gets a big bonus to tank. Also note the reduced rig points. I think you are seriously underestimating the benefit those damage bonuses provide, and how long it takes to break BS tanks without them.

I agree, more ships for the sake of more ships does no one any good, but there is also another side to this. I understand that not many people will be able to take this one on one, but like you said, that is also true of the Vindi. The other side of that is, is not many people are going to want to risk a 1.6bil hull in PvP, so the cost of the ship balances out the effectiveness of it some.

As for why I want more ships in this class, there are very few ships in it already, and the decent ones are either restricted to races I don't play, or weapons I don't use. There are logi ships for each race, attack cruisers for each race, etc etc. I just want to see a balanced selection of ships on the high end for all players, no matter what starting race/faction they chose. People should be rewarded for specializing, no matter what they specialize in.

As for the role, it fills the same role that the Vindi does, but in a different way, and for a different race. There is nothing wrong with each race and pirate faction having such a ship, of course I imagine that a Minmatar navy ship would concentrate on alpha strikes, and a Amaar ship would focus on its laser batteries, but the fact of the matter remains that the current Tier 3 gunships of each race could use an upgrade path for those who are a fan of such ships. like me.

To me, the upgraded hulls should be based on the previously existing pirate faction hulls, as there are very few of those already, and that part of the game could use some exploring. After all, each faction and pirate faction has 5 different frigates, each with at least 1 upgrade path, why shouldn't they each have either a Navy or Pirate hull for each tier 1 BS in the fleet? There are only 12 basic BS hulls last time I checked, and at least 3 of them already have pirate faction ship upgrades, and at least 4 others have navy ships I just want to extend these upgrade paths across the board for all players, regardless of which racial skills they decide to specialize in, instead of forcing them into a very narrow skill-list if they want to experience the best, largest, and meanest subcaps.

I would also like to point out that PvP fights are rarely one on one, and that this ship's preponderance of tank and lack of damage bonuses is also a bit of a weakness in and of itself, as the longer a fight takes to conclude, the greater chance your opponent has to call his friends and get them on the field. Its a slow and ponderous ship, and that is one of it's big weaknesses. Also, if you are engaging the enemy without superior numbers, you are doing it wrong. This ship is nowhere near invincible, 2 osprey's and a drake could pin it down and kill it with ease... eventually. Indeed, since this ship takes so long to conclude its combat, it provides fertile ground for accumulating smaller fights into larger ones, which I think is a good thing.

Sir, that infographic and article are what my OP is based on, there is no misunderstanding here. As I said in the OP, I was proposing a different way of organizing things, allowing for "plain improvement" faction ships to also fall inside the specialization/generalization dichotomy. I assure you I read the dev blogs and news releases religiously, and have done so for the past 3 years.

My issue with the Tech2/Tech3 labels are they dont really label what they are identifying properly, and CCP expects people to use a legend to figure out what it means. Teiricide goes a long way to fix this, not because having similar ships of progressively greater power levels adhering to a numbered system of labeling is a bad thing, but because the current tier 3 ships offer far too much benefit over their tier 1 and tier 2 counterparts for thier cost, and Faction ships really fit this role better.

So you have both tier 3 and faction ships competing for the same "ecological niche" for no benefit at all. Thusly to me the point of tiericide is to get rid of the tiers, and have strict improvements in ships done with recolored hulls with better stats (A classic technique straight out of the first console RPG's, I might add, approvingly) so that all the hulls designed by the artists may have equal popularity. This effectively increases the number of dissimilar hulls in play, which improves the gameplay experience for everyone.

But there is nothing wrong with having 3 levels of power that you can buy in each hull shape, and I think CCP is going to realize this after tiericide is complete that things will start to order themselves this way naturally. The old tier 1 hulls will be the lowest level of power and desirability, followed by the current Navy and tech 2 ships, followed by Faction and tech 3 ships.

And thusly at the end of teiricide we will end up back where we started, except with far less redundancy, and far more unique hulls with unique roles. Success!

OP Edit: OH! I just realized you were saying that the tech 2 and tech 3 labels in my original reproduction of the chart had the labels switched up, corrected.