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Carrier Rebalance
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Kenrailae
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#61 - 2015-09-27 08:54:34 UTC
So let me get this straight:


You call out a bunch of people for stating things in simplest form......


Then say exactly what they said and call it your own?



Lol.... Go be friendly to a Trinket or something.

The Law is a point of View

The NPE IS a big deal
Lloyd Roses
Artificial Memories
#62 - 2015-09-27 11:42:09 UTC
I once noted carriers would be a lot more stylish if they were limited to fighters. People quickly noted how you can't kill off ceptors and dictors on your own with fighters in time...
Trobax
Doomheim
#63 - 2015-09-27 14:10:42 UTC
Trinkets friend wrote:


Buffs to local tank for the nid and Thanny might seems fine, but could throw this wide open if you can use 2/3rds as much to tank locally as before, which leaves the Nid especially open to massive outbound RR. This, particularily, would be liable to exploitation.

This is why the silly statements like "you can triage fit a Thanny, honest" expose the author as having a shallow and erroneous grasp of reality. If an carrier enters Triage, it seals itself up into the system with whatever capacitor it has and whatever it can generate internally. Thannies have lower capacitor and lower resists, so they have to run their reps more often to achieve the same tank as an Archon. This means they burn out of capacitor about 30-60s earlier, and then they blow up. Nidhoggurs, armour fit, actually do better, and due to the more punchy RR can run that less. After all, there's little use in a carrier being on field if it's not repping its gang.



Well its not erroneous or shallow, its based on the fact that you are better off not triaging the thanny than any other carrier, due to loss of a bonus, lower res and as you mentioned lower cap.

Most people took on this thread as an attempt to make carriers identical. Far from it. All im contemplating is the ability for any carrier to go battle triage if it has to, without being an archon of chimmy. The rep / Shield boost bonus would be inline with gallente / matar races.

Archons have demonstrated to work flawlessly phasing in and out of triage, would you call that exploitation? Not really. Try that with a thanatos, watch how fast local will spam with "GF". Your capacitor advantage on the archon could be offset by the extra boost on reps.

As for the racial drone damage bonus, that was just an idea to ponder on.

Last but not least, every triage will die with neuts, thats well understood. That alone should not keep you from going triage, if you have to..




Reaver Glitterstim
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#64 - 2015-09-27 17:04:38 UTC
Trinkets friend wrote:
The key in balancing triage and local reps is to force a tradeoff between outbound RR and local tanking; the Archon barely has to worry about this, especially with links and drugs, but the others do. Buffs to local tank for the nid and Thanny might seems fine, but could throw this wide open if you can use 2/3rds as much to tank locally as before, which leaves the Nid especially open to massive outbound RR. This, particularily, would be liable to exploitation.

My suggestion was to remove the outbound rep bonus on the Nidhoggur and give it an onboard rep bonus along with the Thanatos, which will make all carriers have the same net rep strength but with different defensive and capacitor considerations. The changes I suggested would make the Thanatos and Nidhoggur able to rep more EHP per cycle than an Archon or Chimera, making them more capacitor efficient at the cost of a weaker base capacitor. This plus their triage capacitor cost bonus gives them the edge in triage mode without marginalizing the other two into being useless for triage.


Trobax wrote:
Most people took on this thread as an attempt to make carriers identical. Far from it. All im contemplating is the ability for any carrier to go battle triage if it has to, without being an archon of chimmy. The rep / Shield boost bonus would be inline with gallente / matar races.

You're suggesting they all get resist bonuses, but that's just going to make all races more similar. The neat thing about rep bonuses instead of resist bonuses is that you can get a higher net rate of repair by focusing type of repair and sacrificing effective hit points. It means that rep bonuses shine in some areas while resist bonuses shine in others, and both are giving it a defensive advantage.






Trinkets friend wrote:
There needs to be a discussion around mobility, too. The relative immobility of capitals causes some of the incentives towards Slowcat blobbing, aggregation of larger blocs which can hotdrop larger forces onto immobile enemy capitals (locked into place with triage or siege), etcetera. Why cannot capitals be at least moderately maneuverable? Why can they not scatter out of bubbles, gain transversal on one another, move about the field?

I think capital ships should have their low base movement speed reduced further, since it's primarily used for dodging/kiting, and they can move nearly as fast as battleships. Following that, they should be able to use their jump drive to make on-grid jumps that do not require a cyno beacon nor cost any jump fuel. It could be like the capital version of a MJD but instead of having a module for it, they just spend capacitor to do it. They could also have the advantage of being able to select more than one jump range option--say they can choose 50km, 100km, or 200km.

FT Diomedes: "Reaver, sometimes I wonder what you are thinking when you sit down to post."

Frostys Virpio: "We have to give it to him that he does put more effort than the vast majority in his idea but damn does it sometime come out of nowhere."
Trinkets friend
Sudden Buggery
Sending Thots And Players
#65 - 2015-09-28 01:04:38 UTC
I'm going to ignore Trobax, because he's not really contributing a great deal.

OK, so Reaver Glitterstim suggests rep bonuses of up to 37.5% for shield or armour on the Nid and Thanny.

Nidhoggur
Currently, a single rep shield Nid (because, duh) with meta rep, 2 x Invul, C-type EM, B-type boost amp, DCU, 5 true Sansha PDS's, 2 x T2 CCC's and 1 x T1 Semiconductor memory Cell is about the most burst tank you can get. 15,215 DPS burst tank, 6m cap with no RR running (also, it needs way more CPU to fit enough capital RR mods to this). That equates to 7,790 DPS sustained tank if you balance your capacitor. With a 37.5% bonus to shield reps, you would go to 20,920 burst and 10,771 sustained.

However, the moment you do any RR at all, it fall over. The cap life is 3m 10s with one outbound RR, and 2m 5s with 2. Since it cannot fit 3, it's a moot point how little capacitor it has beyond this point. Also note, that with only 2 outbound reps (which would be unbonused, giving you no realistic benefit over a Chimera now) you only have 4m 32s of capacitor.

So, yes, you could set up a triage Nid with a shield rep bonus but you can't be effective at triage because if you turtle up and don't send out reps, you fail as a carrier - in fact, your sustained tank is 1,000 DPS less than an Archon anyway and even with a 37.5% bonus to shield reps it's not much better. if you send out reps, your tanking is not a great deal better than a marauder, long term.

Compare this to even a T2 fit Archon, and you can make a dual rep Archon cap stable in turtle mode, repping 10,300-ish DPS with one pimp module (it's also 500M ISk cheaper, if that matters), or with 1 x outbound capacitor and 1 x outbound RR, you get 5m 2s with 1 local rep running. That's spot on the 5 minutes triage cycle time you need to coast out and let a second carrier take over. Incidentally, the Archon can fit all of this with loads of spare fitting room.

So, no, I don't think that even a whopping 37.5% local rep bonus matters. Again, because I love repeating myself, capacitor is king. The Archon gets boatloads more, and a better recharge rate to boot. Again, it is stronger, tankier, easier to manage the capacitor, harder to neut, reps 25% more sustainably than the Nid, gets a resist bonus to top it all off, and has defined the capital meta toward armour as a result.

So, I'll take your 37.5% rep bonus as a good start, but again demand
a) more capacitor
b) about 100 more CPU, ploxthx

Thanatos
The Thanny in turtle mode is cap stable (30.2%) and reps 8,277 DPS with a full mid rack of CPR's, 2 meta-0 reps, DCU, navy EANM, RCU and CPR, with 2 x T2 CCC's and T1 SMC. Again, that is without a single outbound rep. A 37.5% local rep bonus would push that to 11,380 DPS local tank which is more than the Archon. So that's good.

But put on two outbound reps and one local rep, and capacitor lasts only 3 minutes flat. That's 2 whole minutes less than the Archon. Again, a 37.5% rep bonus would assist in balancing capacitor and reps but it doesn't bring the Thanatos up into line with the Archon in triage. Out of triage, it might also be good for the Thanny to have a rep bonus so it can tank a bit more while laying about with it's fighters and drones, but remember this is in triage mode. If you start dropping capacitor modules for DCU's and omnis, you really start suffering.

Armour Nid
of course, I'm presuming a Nid gets a shield rep bonus because of its Minmatardation. The armour Nid can be dual rep fit, and in turtle mode does 8,277 just like the Thanny. So it's basically the Thanny, and would get 4 min 18s capacitor life with 2 outbound reps and 1 local rep - significantly more than the Thanny. Because, like I said, the Nid has better capacitor and is thus better than the Thanny in triage fit. Couple that at the moment with a 37.5% bonus to RR, and the Nid is actually competitive with the Archon for repping, it just suffers in the tank department. A stressed tank or capacitor begins to matter a lot.


Mobility
As for the mobility question, carriers have the sig of a small moon. I don't think that if you had carriers and dreads gliding around the joint at 300-500m/s it's going to turn into nano-Nids Online or anything, or you'll get an Archon orbiting an Apocalypse at 500m shedding DPS with sig tanking.

What it would allow is moving about a grid more quickly, to move with a moving fight, begin bringing some tactics into cap fights. Right now cap fights generally involve dropping on to grid and, just sitting still in place. This begets the preponderance of dreads with short ganky weapons (which enforces Moros supremacy because, blasters), which enforces certain tactics, and so on. Fixed and even decreased mobility won't bring anything new to the game, it just reinforces the status quo and keeps the meta stale and stagnant.

~~ Localectomy Blog ~~
Reaver Glitterstim
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#66 - 2015-09-28 03:03:15 UTC  |  Edited by: Reaver Glitterstim
Trinkets friend wrote:
I'm going to ignore Trobax, because he's not really contributing a great deal.

Trobax IS the OP.



Trinkets friend wrote:
OK, so Reaver Glitterstim suggests rep bonuses of up to 37.5% for shield or armour on the Nid and Thanny.

Nidhoggur
Currently, a single rep shield Nid (because, duh) with meta rep, 2 x Invul, C-type EM, B-type boost amp, DCU, 5 true Sansha PDS's, 2 x T2 CCC's and 1 x T1 Semiconductor memory Cell is about the most burst tank you can get. 15,215 DPS burst tank, 6m cap with no RR running (also, it needs way more CPU to fit enough capital RR mods to this). That equates to 7,790 DPS sustained tank if you balance your capacitor. With a 37.5% bonus to shield reps, you would go to 20,920 burst and 10,771 sustained.

However, the moment you do any RR at all, it fall over. The cap life is 3m 10s with one outbound RR, and 2m 5s with 2. Since it cannot fit 3, it's a moot point how little capacitor it has beyond this point. Also note, that with only 2 outbound reps (which would be unbonused, giving you no realistic benefit over a Chimera now) you only have 4m 32s of capacitor.


You can give a Chimera the same fit, only swap two True Sansha power diagnostics with two T2 cap rechargers and it has about the same capacitor life but quite a bit higher defense due to its resist bonus. The Nidhoggur only shines in total capacitor amount, and powergrid.

The Nidhoggur has approximately the same base capacitor as the Chimera but with more low slots it can have a stronger net capacitor at the cost of weaker defenses. The shield boost bonus would help make up for the Nidhoggur's lack of shield resist bonus for its own defense, but more importantly the capacitor cost reduction for using remote reps during triage mode is where it would really shine.

I'm going to write up my full list of proposed new carrier attributes, as I think there is something getting lost in translation here. Also, I just noticed that the Nidhoggur has 6 low slots and 5 mid slots, I would change that to 5 low and 6 mid along with my proposal which turns it into primarily a shield carrier and gives the Thanatos part of its role as armor carrier.

Archon
6 high slots, 3 mid slots, 7 low slots
Amarr Carrier skill bonuses per level
50% bonus to Capital Remote Capacitor Transmitter and Capital Remote Armor Repairer range
4% bonus to all armor resistances
10% bonus to fighter EM damage

Chimera
6 high slots, 7 mid slots, 3 low slots
Caldari Carrier skill bonuses per level
50% bonus to Capital Remote Capacitor Transmitter and Capital Remote Shield Booster range
4% bonus to all shield resistances
10% bonus to fighter kinetic damage

Thanatos
5 high slots, 5 mid slots, 6 low slots
Gallente Carrier skill bonuses per level
50% bonus to Capital Remote Shield Booster and Capital Remote Armor Repairer range
5% reduced capacitor cost of Capital Remote Shield Booster and Capital Remote Armor Repairer while in Triage Mode
7.5% bonus to armor repair amount
10% bonus to fighter thermal damage

Nidhoggur
5 high slots, 6 mid slots, 5 low slots
Minmatar Carrier skill bonuses per level
50% bonus to Capital Remote Shield Booster and Capital Remote Armor Repairer range
5% reduced capacitor cost of Capital Remote Shield Booster and Capital Remote Armor Repairer while in Triage Mode
7.5% bonus to shield boost amount
10% bonus to fighter explosive damage


I had originally intended to give both the Thanatos and Nidhoggur a 5% fighter damage bonus per level as their out-of-triage bonus, but I miscounted and that would have given them more effective bonuses than the Archon and Chimera, because while the Archon and Chimera have a range bonus to cap transmitters, the Thanatos and Nidhoggur both have a range bonus to both armor and shield reps. So I settled on a flavor bonus by giving them racial fighter bonus damage. The net damage increase at level 5 is 35% of the fighter's total damage, and the Thanatos and Chimera can do some cross faction bonused fighters with +15% net damage by using Dragonfly (Thanatos) or Firbolg (Chimera).

The Archon and Chimera get the following bonuses:
A.) main rep range
B.) capacitor rep range
C.) resistances
D.) fighter bonus

The Thanatos and Nidhoggur get the following bonuses when not in triage mode:
A.) main rep range
B.) off rep range
C.) onboard rep amount
D.) fighter bonus

The Thanatos and Nidhoggur get the following bonuses while in triage mode:
A.) main rep range
B.) off rep range
C.) onboard rep amount
D.) remote rep capacitor cost reduction

=============================================================

more follows in next post

FT Diomedes: "Reaver, sometimes I wonder what you are thinking when you sit down to post."

Frostys Virpio: "We have to give it to him that he does put more effort than the vast majority in his idea but damn does it sometime come out of nowhere."
Reaver Glitterstim
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#67 - 2015-09-28 03:07:38 UTC  |  Edited by: Reaver Glitterstim
Now you might be asking why the Thanatos and Nidhoggur get a full four bonuses either in triage mode or out, while Archon and Chimera get only three while in triage mode. Excellent question, and I have a very good answer for that: the out-of-triage bonuses lean significantly in favor of the Archon and Chimera.

* Despite the onboard rep bonus allowing the Thanatos or Nidhoggur to self-rep faster than the Archon or Chimera, they gain no bonus to EHP or to remote reps received. Total wuss at spider tanking.
* The range bonus to remote capacitor reps allows for a much larger and better-positioned convoy of spider tanking Archons or Chimeras than the Thanatos or Nidhoggur can muster. Their own range bonus to both rep types is nice for flexibility but doesn't help them spread out when spider tanking. This gives Archon and Chimera even more advantage to spider tanking.

So, to give the Thanatos and Nidhoggur a niche, I present to you balanced Triage Carriers:

* The carrier must rely on its own defenses while in triage mode. The Archon and Chimera gain some advantage with their resist bonus but the Thanatos and Nidhoggur have a greater total onboard EHP regen per cycle for the same capacitor cost.
* The carrier must also rely on producing its own capacitor while in triage mode, so that capacitor cost reduction to remote reps that the Thanatos and Nidhoggur enjoy is really valuable as it not only allows them to continue repping for longer, but the reps they put out leave more capacitor for their own self defense.


Summary of the advantages:

Spider tanking Archon and Chimera
Major advantage: resistance bonus
Minor Advantage: remote capacitor transmitter range bonus

Triage mode Thanatos and Nidhoggur
Major advantage: remote rep capacitor cost reduction
Minor advantage: onboard rep bonus


==============================================================================

How slot layouts affect the carriers:

The Archon and Chimera now have a 6th high slot, which gives them an easier time spider tanking. Like the Guardian and Basilisk, they can fit 2 remote capacitor transmitters and 4 remote armor or shield reps--though realistically one might actually fit 3/3 or 4 cap and 2 rep for sustained repping power.

The Thanatos and Nidhoggur have one less slot on their main defense (6 vs 7) but have two extra auxiliary slots (5 vs 3) which, among other things, gives them more ability to fit extra capacitor mods to help close the defense gap. It also gives them better flexibility, making it possible to use the Nidhoggur as an armor carrier, or the Thanatos as a shield carrier.

FT Diomedes: "Reaver, sometimes I wonder what you are thinking when you sit down to post."

Frostys Virpio: "We have to give it to him that he does put more effort than the vast majority in his idea but damn does it sometime come out of nowhere."
Trobax
Doomheim
#68 - 2015-09-28 05:42:08 UTC  |  Edited by: Trobax
Ignore me all you want , as long as people provide arguments.

This thread started with the mindset of closing the gap between carriers, then got refined by constructive input into closing the gap with a different approach.

Hopefully , when capital rebalance hits TQ, carriers will be equally capable, but different. That way , the monopoly on "niches" can be defeated and all carriers will be relevant, flexible and useful, for multiple situations and scenarios, with pros and cons to their use.
Reaver Glitterstim
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#69 - 2015-09-28 05:48:23 UTC
Trobax wrote:
Hopefully , when capital rebalance hits TQ, carriers will be equally capable, but different. That way , the monopoly on "niches" can be defeated and all carriers will be relevant, flexible and useful, for multiple situations and scenarios.

When it's all said and done, this is what we want, and I think we can agree we don't really have it.

FT Diomedes: "Reaver, sometimes I wonder what you are thinking when you sit down to post."

Frostys Virpio: "We have to give it to him that he does put more effort than the vast majority in his idea but damn does it sometime come out of nowhere."
Rawketsled
Generic Corp Name
#70 - 2015-09-28 11:21:16 UTC
Let's remove the resistance bonus on the Archon and Chimera.

Achieves a similar thing.
Reaver Glitterstim
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#71 - 2015-09-28 17:44:19 UTC
Rawketsled wrote:
Let's remove the resistance bonus on the Archon and Chimera.

Achieves a similar thing.

Why, though? All it does is reduce their racial flavor.

If you're talking about nerfing slowcats, you should be taking about reducing their sentry damage, or perhaps making a bigger loss in damage with full spider tanking capacity. There's no need to nerf carriers as a whole just because one way they're used is OP.

FT Diomedes: "Reaver, sometimes I wonder what you are thinking when you sit down to post."

Frostys Virpio: "We have to give it to him that he does put more effort than the vast majority in his idea but damn does it sometime come out of nowhere."
Flashrain
Dragon.
Pandemic Horde
#72 - 2015-09-28 19:27:43 UTC  |  Edited by: Flashrain
On a different tangent, how about making the carriers more ... carrier-esque?



  • Assign all sub capital hulls a drone bandwidth.

  • Allow carriers to launch all subcapital ship hulls as fighters.

  • Allow carriers to equip/configure each ship in its ship bay.



Proposed bandwidth mapping:


  • Small drone > frigate hulls

  • Medium drone > destroyer hulls

  • Large drone > cruiser hulls

  • Fighters > battleship hulls


  • Mining drone > all mining hulls



This will carry all current balanced mechanics over.


Before yelling OP, note that the carrier ship bay can only hold 1-2 battleships max. And likewise a limited number of other hulls.


It'll also make popping them that much more rewarding when other ships pop out of it.
Rawketsled
Generic Corp Name
#73 - 2015-09-28 21:51:56 UTC
Reaver Glitterstim wrote:
Rawketsled wrote:
Let's remove the resistance bonus on the Archon and Chimera.

Achieves a similar thing.

Why, though? All it does is reduce their racial flavor.

If you're talking about nerfing slowcats, you should be taking about reducing their sentry damage, or perhaps making a bigger loss in damage with full spider tanking capacity. There's no need to nerf carriers as a whole just because one way they're used is OP.

To be honest, I really don't want to see the resistance bonus removed. I just want to see OP's thoughts on the matter - because while they won't have a rigid tank, they will at least tank consistently.
Rawketsled
Generic Corp Name
#74 - 2015-09-28 21:52:58 UTC
Flashrain wrote:
On a different tangent, how about making the carriers more ... carrier-esque?



  • Assign all sub capital hulls a drone bandwidth.

  • Allow carriers to launch all subcapital ship hulls as fighters.

  • Allow carriers to equip/configure each ship in its ship bay.



Proposed bandwidth mapping:


  • Small drone > frigate hulls

  • Medium drone > destroyer hulls

  • Large drone > cruiser hulls

  • Fighters > battleship hulls


  • Mining drone > all mining hulls



This will carry all current balanced mechanics over.


Before yelling OP, note that the carrier ship bay can only hold 1-2 battleships max. And likewise a limited number of other hulls.


It'll also make popping them that much more rewarding when other ships pop out of it.

Carriers deploying Ishtars, that deploy Sentries.

Very balanced.
Kenrailae
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#75 - 2015-09-28 22:02:00 UTC
Yo Dawg, I heard you liked drones so I put drones in a drone boat then launched it from the drone bay of my carrier like a drone so it could be my drone and launch its own drones so I now have drones' drones.

The Law is a point of View

The NPE IS a big deal
Trobax
Doomheim
#76 - 2015-09-29 00:02:03 UTC  |  Edited by: Trobax
Rawketsled wrote:
Reaver Glitterstim wrote:
Rawketsled wrote:
Let's remove the resistance bonus on the Archon and Chimera.

Achieves a similar thing.

Why, though? All it does is reduce their racial flavor.

If you're talking about nerfing slowcats, you should be taking about reducing their sentry damage, or perhaps making a bigger loss in damage with full spider tanking capacity. There's no need to nerf carriers as a whole just because one way they're used is OP.

To be honest, I really don't want to see the resistance bonus removed. I just want to see OP's thoughts on the matter - because while they won't have a rigid tank, they will at least tank consistently.


If slowcats is the problem, then allow only Fighters. Problem solved. No more sentry barrage. Supers led the way, carriers should follow.

As for removing the res bonus, then we go back into the realm of "equally ****". Which closes the gap btw just fine.
But every race has a strong and a weak point. Amarr and Faildari got res, Gallente and matari got reps. But those traits are not to be found in the carrier class.

Since this discussion has been built up considerably, consider this.

All Carriers maintain their RR range as is (common trait). For a first bonus, Archon and Chimera keep their resistances, while Thanatos and Nidhoggur get a Local Repair boost, as proposed by others . The second bonus would be 5% bonus on racial Fighter damage.
Since the shield boosting carriers have capacitor lifetime issues, allow the shield compensation skill to have an effect on capital sized modules. That way they get an extra 10% less cap consumption.
Thanatos's ability to rep 37,5% more, would allow it to run them reppers less frequently, and conserve cap.

That way, you could argue that all carriers are "equally" battle triage capable, and more or less on par in slowcat configuration. Without sentries, slowcats will not have such an advantage.

As for ratters, since carries will only have fighters, fit some high slots with smarties for scraming frigs and some meds with webs, tp and omni links. You will compromise cap regeneration and dps, but will get the necessary tracking grip to effectively kill anything as small as a cruiser. After all fitting 5 Drone control unit on highs has been the norm in ratting carriers, now you get to gamble with your fit.

Any capacitor advantage the archon might have after the changes, can be offset easily by a small nerf on its cap capacity, if necessary.

Last, the drone hull bandwidth launching other dronnies, might prove cumbersome to execute. If i have to fit my ship , and then lose time fitting mah drones, then lose them to some @sshole smartbombing them, and go all over the rotten business again, I would probably never use drones ever again, but if I had to, would most definitely start using serious drugs (pi$$off boosters they called).