Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I heard somewhere a ship expansion was on the cards? Well as the saying goes, ship expansions, best expansions. And in ode to that particular cause, I would like to recommend a few classes of ships we've kinda been asking for for quite a while...

Before I continue, I must add:
NO NEW FRIGS OR CRUISERS, instead re-assess roles for, then balance existing Tech 1 frigs, destroyers, assault frigs.

Obligitory Nerf supercaps, buff hybrids, nerf dramial, boost/remove active tanking bonuses, boost legion, make 5th strategic cruiser subsystems etc etc



Now, in no particular order...

Industrial:
Dedicated ship carrier that could transport fitted ships through empire using stargates with a ship maintenance array large enough to hold +4 battleships.

A specialised gas cloud harvester. A Tech 2 Noctis. - None squishy version, with tech 2 resists or T3 industrial such as:
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=7085



Combat
Tornado and 3 other battleships to be added either as tier 3 tech 1 battleships, or new split faction ship variants (eg, caldari/minmatar, gallente/caldari, armarr/gallente, amarr/minmatar) with a similar strength to pirate ships.

Tier 2 carriers
2x for each race, one specialised for moving stuff around with extended jump range bonuses and jump range efficiency, less mass, less highslots. The other specialised with none triage RR, less jump range, more cap regen. Both would have less fighter dps.

Tech 2, Tier 2 battlecruisers or pirate versions

Tech 3 Battlecruisers with subsystems that include:
Pocket Dreads - with 1/3 dread dps, ehp, tank, with siege mode.
Wormwhole system effects generator
Covert Interdictor - with 5km sphere launcher, covert op's cloak, less guns, ehp.
System wide cyno-scrambler - forces incoming capitals +400AU away from cyno field
Specialised bomb launcher with de cloaking ability and anti fighter lockbreaker - disconnecting all drones, fighters and fighterbombers from it's parent ship within an aoe of Xkm.
A mimatar tech 3 with 7 midslots and no split weapons nonsense
A gallente tech 3 with 5 bonused heavy drones
A well balanced amarr tech 3 with drones or missiles as primary weapon system
A caldari tech 3 with a wealth of grid and cpu.

Some one mentioned escort carriers? What exactly could those ships do that couldn't be done with the other classes?

I get that there is a gap between capitals and battleships, but I think that the separation between classes in terms of performance is a good thing. When that doesn't happen, you have issues such as HACs vs Battlecruisrs, Commandships vs Stategic Cruisers. Too much overlap with the weaker choice being defunct.

Also goes to show somewhat why Battleships have become so much more underutilized - too small a performance gain over BC's for the isk/sp cost let alone the speed/tracking/sig tradeoffs.


And why no new frigates?

By my count, there are already 56 different frigates, excluding uber rare prize ships. Many of them useless. There are also 52 cruisers (compared to 34 battleships or 16 battlecruisers). I think that's enough until a great rebalancing, new game mechanics are introduced that open up new niches...

And no, I'm not proposing that we should add new ships instead of balancing.
We shouldn't have to choose, it shouldn't be either or and until the player base is brave enough to DEMAND this, post after post, with threadnoughts big enough to force the dev's to prioritise this, then it won't happen soon and we'll be worse off for it.

Nah, these are things that I and many others I've spoken to have a need for, and believe could enter eve without braking the game.

And if they demanded new game mechanics, so be it. Eve would be richer for the experience.

I don't see why the legion needs a boost tbh, I'd only suggest a drone bay and revision of the cov op subsystem at the very most. It has the 2nd best dmg projection in its class and it's more effective than a tengu at decimating small targets.

I like the idea of a high sec carrier that can transport a lot of ships at once and maybe jump in highsec? now that'll be epic . It'll change pvp and other aspects of the game for sure.

"I heard somewhere a ship expansion was on the cards?"

You heard wrong. Nothing outside of conjecture and rumor has been said by anyone.


"Industrial:
Dedicated ship carrier that could transport fitted ships through empire using stargates with a ship maintenance array large enough to hold +4 battleships."

Not even a Freighter with max skills can move more than ONE assembled battleship. Carriers can't more than two. You could move a small battle-ready fleet with one or two of these ships.
If you limited it down to say... one or two battleships... there might be room for discussion.


"A specialised gas cloud harvester."

Been requested many times. Don't see an issue with it. I'll say yes.


"A Tech 2 Noctis. - None squishy version, with tech 2 resists."

Even a T2 mining barge is "squishy" by cruiser standards. Unless it's geared for combat and/or combat support (and even then) it shouldn't be designed to handle it.


"Tornado and 3 other battleships to be added either as tier 3 tech 1 battleships, or new split faction ship variants (eg, caldari/minmatar, gallente/caldari, armarr/gallente, amarr/minmatar) with a similar strength to pirate ships."


Again... been requested many, many, many times. Doesn't appear to be any will in introducing these ships to the open market (in-game).
Personally, my money is on these ships appearing in the NEX store (either as ships with "standard" bonuses or as "skins" to apply to ships)


"Tier 2 carriers
2x for each race, one specialised for moving stuff around with extended jump range bonuses and jump range efficiency, less mass, less highslots. The other specialised with none triage RR, less jump range, more cap regen. Both would have less fighter dps."

Why? What's wrong with regular carriers? Wouldn't this obsolete them?


"Tech 2, Tier 2 battlecruisers or pirate versions"

Big fat "NO." Battlecruisers already overshadow most of their respective racial cruisers. Introducing more battlecruisers that are "better" would only exacerbate this problem.


"Tech 3 Battlecruisers with subsystems that include:
Pocket Dreads - with 1/3 dread dps, ehp, tank, with siege mode."

Why would anyone fly anything else when you can put out ~1000 DPS, have ~330k EHP, and tank ~3000 DPS with such a ship (especially when it uses medium weapons)?


"Wormwhole system effects generator
Covert Interdictor - with 5km sphere launcher, covert op's cloak, less guns, ehp.
System wide cyno-scrambler - forces incoming capitals +400AU away from cyno field
Specialised bomb launcher with de cloaking ability and anti fighter lockbreaker - disconnecting all drones, fighters and fighterbombers from it's parent ship within an aoe of Xkm."

This all smacks of an attempt at being able to effectively "lock down" a wormhole system (or any system for that matter). Wormholes were never meant to be claimed or permanently settled in. That's why you can't put down outposts, claim SOV, or mine ice there.


"Some one mentioned escort carriers? What exactly could those ships do that couldn't be done with the other classes?"

I get that there is a gap between capitals and battleships, but I think that the separation between classes in terms of performance is a good thing. When that doesn't happen, you have issues such as HACs vs Battlecruisrs, Commandships vs Stategic Cruisers. Too much overlap with the weaker choice being defunct."

Wait, wait, wait, wait... didn't you JUST mention wanting to add a plethora of ships that can do what CURRENT ships can do, but MUCH BETTER? Much of your "T2/T3 Battlecruisers" do just that. Same goes for your T2 carriers idea.


"Also goes to show somewhat why Battleships have become so much more underutilized - too small a performance gain over BC's for the isk/sp cost let alone the speed/tracking/sig tradeoffs."

The performance gain you get from battleships isn't "small." It's quite large actually. The thing that has been "killing" the use of battleships as of late has been the current FOTY (fits of the year) tactics which include, but are not limited to:

- having mobile ships that run through, bypass, or otherwise avoid the slugouts that battleships specialize in
- having bigger, badder ships that can be dropped on people's heads in under 5 seconds flat, can't be easily pinned down, and have HUGE buffer than a small fleet of battleships can't chew through in under 15 minutes (the time it takes for a ship to disappear after logging off)


"And no, I'm not proposing that we should add new ships instead of balancing."

Then what was the beginning of your OP about?


"We shouldn't have to choose, it shouldn't be either or and until the player base is brave enough to DEMAND this, post after post, with threadnoughts big enough to force the dev's to prioritise this, then it won't happen soon and we'll be worse off for it."

Can you re-read your post and PLEASE summarize/clarify the point you are trying to get across? I'm not sure whether you are referring to re-balancing ships (which I also believe is sorely needed) or introducing ships that can do everything so you don't have to choose between "this ship" or "that ship."

I was the one that mentioned escort carriers.

They're nothing more than an oversize battleship (fitting wise no capital repair modules for example) with price to match (250m isk appox) able to launch a single wing fighters wth one backup wing in reserve with not much else in capabilities, you shoot those down and you pertty much defanged the poor thing. Nothing much else more, they dont have jump generators and are gate only, thier mass makes them unideal for throwing though a jump portal as well but at least they can squeeze though a wormhole better than a super carrier ever could. Its also able to launch special Fighter Interceptors that attacks all of the targets drones or fighters instead of the ship.

yes it fills a role, does it well and doesnt tread on existing ships roles as much and its already balanced to a point all you have to do is figure out how much would a 250million isk battleship HP values would be at.

Fighters are far particularly useless when they DO have bonuses factoring into them. Escort carriers make up for the lack of large number of fighter deployment by having better telemetry links to its fighters.

Its role is to support skirmish fleets that cannot get a capitol ship into the system such as cyno jammed system or high security.

Fighter-Interceptors can nail Fighter-bombers well before they get into range and is more economical than deploying 5 destroyer pilots who might get shot down by heavy escort ships.

Escort Carriers are not anti-capitol ships by any shot if anything they're only effective against other battleships (as its classifcation puts it in the battleship range due to fitting and size) and can keep up with a roaming battleship gang easily as to oppose to waiting at a POS waiting for the jump anchor.

Yes, and 5 fighters with thanatos style bonuses with a max skilled character will do 600 raw dps - ie thats the maximum damage output before signature, tracking and speed attenuation is applied.


Carriers primarily support fleets in eve with remote repping. At best what your wanting "escort carriers" to do can be better done some other way, without the cost both in SP and Isk for a ship class that would get murdered by typical mothership blobs.

In addition, skirmish fleets are typically fast moving gangs of battlecruiser or smaller ships, I'm not sure how something with the handling attributes of an Orca would fit in, unless the goal is specifically "I want to use fighter drones in high sec"?


New ships only take away from others when there role is diametrically opposed to another (see HIC's vs Moms) or when there role overlaps another (see tech 3's vs HAC's, commandships). New ships with new game mechanics would do neither.

I like all of these ideas except for the T2 Noctis + gas harvesters ship, which should be merged into just one ship, and the idea of a T3 Covops Interdicting BC, which is just ridiculously overpowered.

I know what I like, and I like what I see.

At least you're not asking for t3 frigates.

Also, your work on the 'nado was awesome. Too bad we'll probably never see it on the market...


Now, to your OP:

Dedicated ship carrier: Not sure why this is really necessary when courier packages can take fitted battleships. It might just be because I"m poor but if you have more than 2 or 3 BS's and you're not a nullsec resident that needs like five fleet fit BS's, something's wrong with you. Lol.

Dedicated gas harvester: Always wanted that one, possibly the only commonly suggested idea that fills a currently empty niche.

T3 Industrial: read that thread, none too impressed by the concept. I'm sure the bears would love a covert cloaky barge though.

Already addressed the possibility of the Tornado and its class counterparts (which by the way you should totally make the models for), so we'll continue on the assumption that those will make it in... Soon(tm).

Tier 2 Carriers: Your first option would overlap with your dedicated ship carrier and/or a jump freighter with slots and drones. Your second one is essentially a capital-level logistics ship, a role that's already filled by Triage/Pantheon-style RR carriers.

Tech 2/pirate versions of the tier 2 BC's: I saw an interesting thread that would change the Field Command ship class to use the tier 2 battlecruiser hulls, but it went nowhere other than "let's do it for the variety". Until there's a need for a second (technically third) specialized BC-class vessel, I don't think these are necessary. And no, a bigger stealth bomber/hictor/recon is not a suitable need for a tech 2 BC. As for pirate BC's, I think we're fine with the current distribution of one ship from each size class for each faction (excepting the Revenant).

Tech 3 BC's: Same reasoning as above, though a Drone bandwidth disruption bomb is an interesting idea and could be merged into the Stealth bomber role as an anti-supercap measure.

Escort carriers: Agreeing with your reasoning on this count.