Player Features and Ideas Discussion

In many cases a buff to CPU and grid is close to what certain hulls need to be more competitive, in other cases it isn't, which is why James has paid attention to most of the stats of the hulls. The discussion has been pretty comprehensive overall, with attention also paid to battleship sized modules, base hull stats, an exploration of possible fits, and theory crafting over possible role changes for ships.

For the most part this is just some fun meta-game theory-crafting and I don't expect that CCP would ever derive potential changes from this discussion. They do, however, seem to be aware that battleships are unpopular and have been for some time, even before the warp speed changes. I think what a discussion like this does is make CCP aware of what the player base feels are the deficiencies that battleships suffer, which is going to be relevant when or if they do decide to give battleships another balance pass.

If you've got a suggestion on what you think would help the tempest hull, please add to the discussion here.

This is a fix to battleships, ONLY if their previous role and relative relationship to other ship classes is what CCP wants.

These ideas, while admittedly detailed and well intentioned, feel to me like an effort to restore the BS class back to it's previous job.

I believe CCP's recent actions do not support this.

CCP's recent actions, if anything, would seem to support weening the playerbase away from using these as they have been in the past.

It is hard to say where the intentions are pointing, but it seems likely that they have been freed of previous responsibilities for a reason.

It is unlikely we will see any such statement.

The reason being, our community has demonstrated an ability to spin things in bizarre ways, when confronted with official statements, reported details of internal emails, or even rumors.
We don't have a great track record, when it comes to showing patience either. A heads up that we should expect something will probably not show up till they feel secure in being able to produce results, I suspect.

I would expect nothing until they feel ready to announce their plans, which will probably be shortly before they are ready to go live with them.

Gotta disagree with this one. Battleships flown well don't have many issues in keeping up with fast moving fleets.

People do silly things like that. Another example is their refusal to deliberately use the smaller sized large guns even though you have the fitting room for the biggest high damage ones.

James dear,
finally I got the time to look over your values and so far I like what I see.

Let me add a few comments on ships that I can sit in. Your doc takes very carefull into account where all ships are lacking and without making them "odd" you pinpoint exactly where I would point my finger on.

It is not a must but if you take "common" fits into account for the "attack" line, you sould know that especially the Hyperion, the Apocalypse and the Raven want to fit a mwd.

The Apocalypse will make this more apperent and losing 25% capacitor can make megabeam lasers taxing.

The Rohk still has no reason to have a singature radius of a small planet and 475 or even 465mm should be large enough.

The Scorpion is such an oddity. When I started she already was that large Blackbird but upon reason a little history, she used to be a turret boat.

I have no objections on the rest of the Amarr or Gallente lineup and you know I don't fly minmatar, so I cannot comment of them.

As far as the rokh: I haven't yet tweaked it's signature radius, but most configurations would have it shield rigged and with an extender or two for pvp, right? This will push it over the critical point for tracking based on sig in almost every case of PVP fits. It also does have the strongest buffer of any t1 hull, and the highest sig. I'm not quite ready to suggest a value I'm happy with on this, just like I'm still looking for a way to make the tempest more flavorful and do something interesting with the scorpion.

Current thinking on the scorpion:
Lots and lots of CPU and cap to free up the lows and PG for either a strong set of armor or neuts, or to have a smaller number of uberjams if shield tanked.
Add in a tank that went from very weak to medium strong, and the changes to scan res and lock range to make applying the long range ECM easier and it may be viable.

Tempest:
I'm of two minds:
1: Shift one utility high to a mid, and drop the base signature just a touch more to make it a shield attack ship with medium-high DPS and multiple tracking enhancers and nanos to make it a powerful midrange combatant and possibly make shield-arty pests viable for the less rich blocks.

2: Increase the signature a touch and the speed and agility such that it would still be attack battleship speeds and agility with a single plate fit (at perfect skills), to encourage it's position as a kitey, unpredictable nuisance, perfect for hit and fade and other skirmishing tactics and the battleship which will have range control if no tackle is applied.

What evidence do you have to support this? What else would CCP be doing with battleships? All that most of the people want here is to see battleships be something that could be a good choice for solo, small gang, and fleet work, along with PVE activity, not necessarily the best choice, but a viable one. Something that where the benefits are worth the drawbacks of bringing one.

If I were do venture a guess as to why battleships are what they are right now, I'd say that CCP probably has a mathematical model that they use to construct ships. The model probably takes into account factors like sig and speed tanking (which battleships don't really do against other subcaps) and is mildly broken at the end. Add in other changes, like some of the speed tweaks to smaller ships and the 50% MWD sig bonus and battleship gun tracking decreases a bit.

It's probably worthwhile to point out that battleships were changed almost a year and a half ago now and a lot has changed since then.

They will always have trouble solo unless you make them able to easily dispatch frigs and that is not happening.

They work in small gangs except people would rather warp faster and apply better than have extra buffer and raw dps.

They work in large fleet except :bombs: but that is not a BS problem.

I do understand. On one of my Apocalype fits I use smaller large pulses so I can fit two large reps or Ion blasters on a Navy Dominix fit.

There is nothing wrong with that. We have to make the same choices for smaller ships. One of the problems of large guns is that even the smaller model won't gain you much.



I didn't say you don't. You should also know that I don't always get to choose what I will be facing since I don't have a say in "doctrines".
I do wander in a boat and time of my choosing and have to deal what people throw at me.

But we can agree on that most of the fellas will fit for the occasion or just bail. That is what I take from my short years of experience.
Only every now and then you have an amazing fight that fits your boat and fitting perfectly.