Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I've been following since the onset of this thread… Have any solutions been presented yet? This isn't intended as criticism; just curious.

Appreciated, thanks.

The problem with battleships is that they're just no longer fun to fly. One of the reasons is that they almost depend entirely on warfare links to achieve the level of performance they probably should have had from the outset. Another is the warp speed nerf, which has made them entirely too easy to scan down and tackle. And while this can be offset to some extent with hyperspacial rigs, modules and Ascendancy implants, the penalties and associated loss of EHP or damage usually gimps the fit. The substantial drone overhaul hasn't helped things, either.

What Battleships (and to a lesser degree, Battlecruisers) need are a few improvements to balance things out. Any kind of adjustment that can be enhanced through warfare links is probably ripe for abuse/exploit, so I think this rules out things like EHP or DPS improvements.

• Inherent warp core strength: +2 Battleships, +1 Battlecruisers, ±0 Marauders/Command Ships. This won't make battleships or battlecruisers immune from tackle, but it will ensure that at least a handful of ships are required to pin them.
• Improved micro jump drives: Medium and large MJDs should be immune to warp scramblers with a side effect being that the effective range drops from 100km to 50km. Not enough to necessarily guarantee an escape - but provide at least some chance.
• Secondary point defense batteries: Battleships and battlecruisers receive half (rounded up) the existing number of launcher/turret slots that are limited to medium (Battleship) and small (Battlecruiser) weapons only. These would utilize the T3 subsystem slots in the fitting window and are subject to existing powergrid and CPU requirements. Battleship and Battlecruiser ship models already have additional hard points allocated for this.

For most uses of battleships right now, and particularly in null warfare, links are usually there to provide battleships with a little more buffer, a little extra speed, and sometimes a little extra lock range and reduced sig radius. Often the links are t3 links and its not as marked as it would be, and it generally doesn't extend the capabilities of a battleship in the way that a booster running 7 links on a claymore with a faction mindlink implant would. I don't think that links should be as much of a consideration in redesigning battleships as it would in something like a pirate cruiser.

Links might make battleships a little more survivable, or help them get out of a bubble a little faster, or lock a target at slightly longer range, but they don't extend the envelope of what the class is already capable of in the way that they do for something like a kiting ship.

I agree that using ascendancy implants, warp speed rigs, warp speed modules, and alignment modules isn't a measure that is particularly feasible for most battleships. It could work on something like a geddon if a cruiser gang wanted to have heavy neut support, but on more combat oriented hulls a battleship would start having a hard time being able to fit all of the modules needed to tank or apply damage to the kind of targets that it was brought in the first place to face.

As far as drones are concerned, the rebalance has probably helped battleships more than hurt them. In any situation where a battleship is scrammed a battleship has at least a few more options for being able to clear tackle before the rest of the gang arrives. Should ECM drones fail, acolytes are now a completely viable choice for chasing off shield tanked interceptors, and have the speed, tracking, and correct damage profile to be able to quickly deal with them. They've saved my butt a couple of times now.

I'm generally really not a fan of introducing warp core strength to ships. It's a bonus with really ambiguous utility; the MJD, ecm drones, mobile depot, and heavy neuts are already good escape tools for battleship users. Making the MJD scram proof, even while halving its jump range though, would in effect make battleships impossible except in a few circumstances, such as having a large enough bubble field, an inty with them pre-locked waiting for them when they land, or an arazu pointing them and I don't think that's going to put them back into balance.

Secondary defense aren't something that need ever happen either. I think a better solution is to look at battleship weapon application today, instead of when the weapons were last balanced, and make changes to them according to the attributes of ships that were rebalanced during the last iteration of the tiericide initiative. It introduces a new mechanic when it isn't necassary and brings up a lot of potential balance issues.

While I know that you think it's necessary, I still don't think you have an adequate argument for why autocannons should have more optimal than blasters. Basically all I've seen is they should because they should. Which is wholly inadequate for an argument.

By giving them more optimal you are effectively buffing their already strong range advantage over blasters. There's really no reason other than maybe OCD. Projectiles can hit targets reliably far into their falloff, which gives them a huge range advantage over blasters.

If we compare an electron blaster cannon to dual 425mm autocannons the ranges are as follows:
Blaster:
Optimal: 4000
Falloff: 6000

Autocannon:
Optimal: 3200
Falloff: 16000

As you can see, they have basically double the range of blasters. There's no need or reason to buff specifically their optimal above blaster optimal. Projectiles are supposed to fight in falloff, that's why they have 3/4ths of their range in falloff.

I think your battleship assessments are solid, but your logic on weapons is suspect in my opinion.

Its actually, an overall range nerf (falloff is more important than optimal on ACs once beyond scram range) to go along with a damage increase, and a change to allow the medium and long range ammo to actually be useful. As it is, there is hardly reason to ever swap out of the -50% ammo. The overall effect is to give them a slightly longer plateu in each ammo type for when it is useful, but shorten the total range, while putting their damage with short range ammo just above blasters with the long range ammo loaded. This means they still have fairly low DPS, but beat blasters outside the blasters short range ammo ranges, while remaining less kitey than pulse lasers and the actual long range weapons.

That's more of the response I was looking for.
Edit: I just noticed you had some hard numbers in a separate post outside the document. Sorry for glazing over that.

I'm ok with a slight damage increase to be honest, but I think it's both poorly worded and unsupported to say that the only ammo of any worth is -50%.
First we need to establish what 50% we're talking about. If it's optimal then this is a discussion about T1 ammo, in which case autocannons beat out blasters by usually 30-50%(at L V(sorry for the switch in metric, but T2 without skills is a little silly)) in every large turret line up. If we're discussing falloff, then hail maintains about a 50% range advantage over void, and barrage has about 30%(with some slight variation) on null.

There's hardly a disadvantage in range, and if we can tolerate a little anecdote here, I've been on both ends of how effectively projectiles can hit targets outside of their falloff. These are very effective kiting weapons, there's no need to nerf it. Projectiles maintain a range advantage over blasters, but have a damage and tracking disadvantage. The prudent course of action is to kite a blaster boat. Next if it's a laser boat then you simply rush the target and take advantage of their tracking inefficiency. Minmatar hulls have a natural and often bonused advantage to speed and alignment, so range control is not an unreasonable expectation.

Basically, I'm trying to say that we already have what it is that you're saying we don't. Autocannons are not supposed to be able to slug it out directly with blasters. Neither are they supposed to out range pulse lasers. So the concluding factor is that projectiles need to be able to adapt better to changing circumstances as they are a more active form of gameplay. I think it's fair to say that the 5 second reload timer probably should have gone to projectiles and not hybrids.

Maraner: If just increasing warpspeed is off the table, what kind of battleship performance would it take to get you to fit the warp speed increasing modules?

Correction to your statements about needing implants, a rig and a low above: Even without going and using the implants, it takes 1 low and 2 rigs or 2 lows and 1 rig to match a cruiser, and with the 2 of the top grade lows and 1 t2 rig you can now warp with the HACs.

This is well thought out James and has come a long way from the other threads concerning the Battleships I have previously seen. I'm not sure I entirely agree with all the suggestions but this Doc should go a long way to bringing the real issues to CCP's attention. Honestly I'm more interested in finding more niches for the underused battleships. Pipe-Bombing is a good example of this growing from player ingenuity and shouldn't be discouraged but encouraged among ships that have no such rolls.

If battleships could easily escape scram (or invulnerable to scram) from Interceptors and other frigates, forcing destroyers and cruisers to tackle them instead, risking them would become much more viable and help players discover new ways to utilize these ships from their current stats.

Thus the push to boost them to the point where they meet one of the following criteria
A: they're either worth waiting for, and running fast tackle to get initial point
B: They're worth making the sacrifices to get that free rig and 2 lows
C: People in low don't mind shelling out the isk for ascendancies.
D: CCP states that they want battleships to suck.

Alright fair enough. Those are some numbers I can appreciate. I think I misunderstood what your point was though. After looking at your graphs, I really wasn't aware that autocannon T1 ammunition was that broken.