Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I would like to suggest that CCP (Fozzie) revisit the warp speeds of battle ships and battle cruisers in the game.

The changes to buff the warp speed of the smaller ships in the game was I believe well received generally and added some fun and purpose to ships serving as speedy tackle to run down and grab ships as they made a run for it.

I pvp a great deal, primarily in low sec and we often formed gangs of mixed ship type fleets, mostly around what are now attack battle cruisers and battle ships with some fast tackle and force multiplying ships attached.

However post speed nerf to BS that is no longer the case, yes I realise that we can use ascendancy clones and warp speed low slot mods but this has in effect been a quite significant nerf to battleships i.e. no slave clones, reduction in rig or low slot options to just keep up with fleets. So much so that they seem to be a very rare sight in low sec these days.

Added to this the removal of many of the utility high slots it reduced the flxability of these ships, mega's in low sec are now a genuinely rare sight, they can be kited into the ground and can effectively never get away form anything if there is not a station near to hand. I cannot remember the last time I ran into a roaming BS gang. Blap dreds have also taken their toll.

With the proposed jump range reduction coming in phoebe and the hoped for increase in roaming gangs I want to put out a plea for an increase to 3.0 AU warp speed for all BS / BC's in the game.

Let the pilots make the choices to allow them rapid warp speed in these ships by using clones and fittings if they so chose but allow mixed ship type fleets to at least try and make a come back.

I remember the days or RR battleships gangs fondly, they are no longer possible for a variety of reasons, I get that it's more fun to just assign your drones to someone else but please CCP consider allowing BS / BC gangs the option to at least keep up with everyone else without gutting their fits or clone set choices.

Thanks

I'm not asking for a nerf to all ships that go faster than 3.0 au. I am asking for the larger sub cap ships in the game to at least have parity so they dont get left behind.

Go on a roam with a BS in your gang if your not just sat on a titan and see how it goes.

By all means keep with the current speed for all of the other ships in the game but BS and BC should be roughly the same without gimping the fits on the ships.

Not asking for a nerf to cerptors or hacs or whatever, just a small buff to BS and BC's.

With respect I did review much of the previous material, however things have just changed a little with the annoncements of he jump changes in Phoebe. BS fleets sitting on a titan may not be quite what they were, plus the noted reduction in this class of ships in low sec makes it a not unreasonalbe time to take a look.


Thanks

I'm not inclined to search for it at the moment, but didn't baltec say you can make a megathron warp around as if it were an assault frig?

A single t1 hyperspatial rig brings a t1 BC to t1 cruiser speeds. Same relative thing with command ships and t2 cruiser fleets. This puts them in an interesting spot, as they are then able to stiffen a cruiser fleet without massively reducing its strategic modility, and still have their full complement of lows and implants, and almost their full complement of rigs and callibration for the t1 hulls.

Same thing for battleships, they can be pushed into a battlecruiser fleet with only align times reducing strategic mobility.

While I would like to see the lowslot modules buffed slightly, these ships are meant to be less roaming instruments of force projection than medium weight combatants, who cannot jump into every scrum unless they are already in the area. These two projection nerfs seem focused on making medium range strategy, such as pre-forming fleets and then using skirmish assets to catch and hold targets, divide forces into defensive and offensive capitals, and otherwise making straight blobbing less effective than a semi-organized or fully organized system, similar to a real military.

For the first 9 years or so of the game everything warped at 3.0.

It was great to see the changes, many of them have been welcomed but this tends to homongenise fleets. I'm sure everyone loves to see 40 ishtars of d scan.

In low sec it's very much all about the nano / kite setups. You have to roam distances to try and get into fights sometimes, this is a huge pain in the ass with BS these days, or the compromise is very significant if you are in armor setups. PLus I used to like seeing fleets made of BS, BC's , cruisers and tackle. It was much much more interesting that a bunch of single ship type fleet comps.

If anything the changes to warp speed made this even worse, try going 10-15 jumps with a mixed ship type fleet, people get left behind very quickly.

You should not nerf something to then introduce modules and clone types to bring the balance back. It's like the nerf to drakes and canes and then the subsequent navy versions of the same BC's - not that you see those much either.

The MJD helped somewhat but I feel that they are a neglected ship type and are just left home to grow dust. The main issue is that they cannot keep up at all now.

Or if they are fit with go faster rigs or low slots they are gimped from the get go when the fight starts.

Those that live in 0.0 may not find being titan bridged a lot of fun following phoebe as you will have to fly you ships back to base unless you dont care about the jump fatigue. For those that live in low sec go out and look for a BS gang, good luck finding one.

A warp speed return to 3.0 would be a good start, to increase the use of these ships.

Battleships are slow defensive ships, Heavy assault cruisers are fast attack ships... perhaps instead of asking CCP to change their stats to do something outside of their role, you could use the ship for the role it was designed to fill.

It's a fair point, but just a casual observation: A Megathron (and in particular, ships with high numbers of low slots) are more geared towards being able to reap the benefits from Prototype Hyperspacial modules and Hyperspacial rigs than say ships that typically sport fewer slots, ie: Caldari.

I'm honestly not sure if the tradeoff in lost DPS is offset by the gain in faster mission travel. I guess it depends entirely on how many jumps are entailed per mission. If I could trade two high slots in my Golem for two lows, I'd be a really, really happy camper...

Even if they warped faster, they would still be useless on roams.

BC and BS rebalancing was a catastrophic failure.