EVE General Discussion

Rather disturbing how a handful of people on these forums find it more important to find ways to argue than to find ways to understand each other.

BS != Marauder.

You know exactly what Infinity was trying to say there. Make an effort to understand before you make an effort to make your high horse taller.

These kinds of arguments are a prime example of why those new to the forums get an initial impression of a terrible community. Learn to DISCUSS not just argue.

And I understood your *many* points as well. Why? Because I made minimal effort to understand what you were referring to, instead of finding meaningless holes to poke in your perspective.

It works both ways.

So .. uhm.. I've never flown a battleship, as I don't have the skills yet.
But this all sounds as if battleships are not meant for soloplay but more for fleets with other ships providing what they can't do themselves, so they can do what other ships cannot do as well.

Is that so wrong?

Edit: I should have said "are not meant to be as good in solo play". I suppose you can still get your fights if you use them with baiting tactics, maybe?

we don't like your kind around here

basic logic is the devil's work

I totally read that in "Deliverance" voice :) .

Well technically there was never a "solo ship" in the first place. Look at the descriptions for the ships and you'll see that they have roles in fleets. Capsuleers are for the most part, with the exception of Strategic Cruisers, using empire-designed fleet ships.

Frigates are for other frigates and killing drones. Destroyers can kill frigates and cruisers. Cruisers can kill frigates. Battlecruisers are good for killing cruisers and destroyers. It goes on.

The Minmatar Thrasher for example was intended to work with the Cyclone. The Cyclone would be harder pressed to take on drones and frigates, but the Thrasher can do that job, and if the Cyclone is effective the Thrasher will not fall to enemy cruisers.


Then come the capsuleers who fit the ships in endless ways for an endless variety of tasks and styles. One of them is solo play, which non of these empire-designed fleet ships were intended for.

Now the "solution" might be to go with the fleet doctrine around the hulls. Let's say we wanted a small gang to do a roam. We can field some frigates that will be vulnerable to other frigates, drones, and some cruisers, so we can use some destroyers. Destroyers are lightly tanked putting more resources into DPS so we have to protect the destroyers with cruisers. Up it goes.. therefore our gang might need frigates, destroyers, cruisers... you see where this is going.

Solo play blows all of this apart. But adaptability is part of the game and a lot of players will use frigates, destroyers and cruisers. A blaster Thorax in your face solo for example is something even Rifter pilots worry about. But when we hit the Battleship level the baseline stats on the BS hull does not allow the flexibility. The role of the BS is stuck in fleets because of that, and the warp/align speeds make them a drag on small gangs too.


It would be "nice" to be able to solo in a battleship but as IZ points out correctly, a solo BS is only capable of getting ganked with little capability of forcing PVP in return.

And I would say again that it's odd for a ship weighing a tiny fraction of it's target to be able to tackle it.

Its not a case of they're not meant for solo play. Its a case of buffs to smaller ships and nerfs to the battleship have made it pointless to use outside of the huge fleet fights which happen rarely and PVE.

Battleships initially were quite good solo, 2003 - 2007 but since then they've all but disappeared from null and low sec for daily PvP purposes.

I have been to every area of null and currently I'm in Stain and other than myself in my Typhoon, and a few PvE ratting BS I have seen one PvP battleship since I've been down there.

IMO they should be difficult to use but they should not be totally nerfed from the PvP game other than for large Goon fleet fights. Its a waste of a ship that is famous for being a heavyweight fighter and I think a lot of people would get a lot of pleasure from using them if they were viable in PvP.

You see the problem with bigger ships, and bigger weapons, was that maximum damage is not delivered onto smaller and faster targets.

But a smaller weapons system on a larger ship yield maximum damage.

(this is why I can do a level 4 with a HM Drake with ease running an AB permanently)

And as I think Arthur will agree, there was help for the viability of larger hulls recently. It was in the rapid missile launchers that allowed larger ships to "size down" in missiles while at the same time in sacrifice of DPS against same-sized targets, it because more able to deal with smaller targets.

Thus it would have been more possible to fit a battle cruiser with Rapid Light Missile Launchers and make life very difficult for frigates, destroyers (just when you thought that was not possible to make things harder on those flying coffins) and cruisers. I even had a Cyclone specifically designed to kill frigate tacklers.

Then came the Rapid Heavy Missile Launchers which were delightful to those players who may have previously found themselves in a torp scorp getting kited to death the assault frigates.

The conclusion to be drawn here is that battleships were mainly good for other battleships but the damage envelope fell out with smaller targets and being able to equip for that changed the paradigm. A battlecruiser might even be able to stand up to an "inti swarm" or a battleship might have been able to break a frigate/cruiser camp.


And..... it's gone!


The Rapid Launchers were nerfed into oblivion and some potentially interesting fits for BC and BS and new situations around those fits were snatched away, like a hot tub dream ending just at the point something starts to happen.

Yes because Black Ops battleships are totally worthless and are never flown in null or low sec and when they are they only ever flown in blobs of 100 or more

Fact is unless you are roaming in a interceptor or a nullified T3 in null sec, at some point you going to land in a bubble and at that point it doesn't matter what ship you fly, chances are you are dead.

As for low sec, again at some point you are going to hit a gate camp and again regardless of what ship you are in, if the gate camp is half decent you are dead.

Solo PvP is great for small ships as they are fast, manoeuvrable and best of all, cheap.

Outside of FW, Solo PvP is a rare occurrence, especially in null simply because most people fly with friends, whether its just a couple guys together or a fleet.

Hehe, yup but you will find that it is usually a small number and not 100's like Infinity is trying to make out.