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That's not what you said, your original statement implied, or at least I read to be that capitals should have no subcap counter.

If I drop a couple of hundred bhaals on two dozen archons, you better believe they should murder them.

If you disagree, then you can stop here and we can agree to disagree and move on. Equally if I've misread your originally quoted post then that's my mistake.

If not, then I don't think the changes are bad, I think the direction is good. Delineation of capitals roles is good. Whilst on one hand they said they are reducing EHP, they are also talking making capitals able to be much more effective at murdering subcaps. Whilst I've concerns about the precise numbers I've raised, I believe that overall direction is good. Just as your thanatos can no longer ignore 20 thoraxes, nor can the thoraxes ignore the thanatos (ship numbers and names merely for an example, don't get caught up in the details).

The direction is to move the meta into choices - sacrifices - more refined/rewarded player skill. I don't think they are in a bad direction. I also think that yourselves and PL stand to make the most effective use of these changes to boot.

The changes seem designed to bring make sure more things blow up, both subcap and cap. I'm particularly looking forward to revitalised "proper" combat carriers.

What your doing is not making it "engaging" your adding mostly unwanted, unnecessary complexity.
Your (further) removing the identity and usefulness of carriers. You removed the suitcase aspect of carriers (hurts smaller groups to no end), now you want to add so much complexity to just launching fighters it boggles the mind.

You've obviously never flown a carrier into combat, if you had you would never say it is not engaging game play.

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Yes reducing the effectiveness of slowcats would be a good thing but removing them is not the right direction.

Want to fix the slowcat problem, remove sentry drones from carriers, use part of your proposal and introduce fighter classes.
Not 30 or 40 fighters at a time, stick to 1 flight of 12 if you like (10 would be better - 5 base +1 per level ship skill) but make that flight viable. Drone control units can be done away with.

type 1/ high dps, high EHP, good application against structures and capitals (these could be killed by type 2 fighters and subcaps)
type 2/ would be effective vs subcaps but with the drawback of lower EHP (that of a Gecko??) and vulnerable to ewar effects
type 3/ logistics fighters, they can repair all types of damage but only 1 type at a time, selected prior to launch. Enough capability to keep your buddy in his bhaalgorn repped up but not enough to rep another capital. 12 of these would be the same as what a couple of Guardians can rep. Same EHP as the high DPS fighters but with a mwd battleship sig radius.

-- - -- - -- - --
Remote repping capabilities of slowcats - create a new "bastion module" for carriers. 120 second cycle time, remote reps can only be activated while in Bastion. 60 second delay between reactivation. You can still have active fighters but your ship gets no additional bonuses whilst in Bastion. So no added local rep capability, no remote reps whilst in Bastion, means going into this mode to rep your buddy leaves you vulnerable. Bastion mode could have a very clear effect added to the ship ( a bright blue glow) so everyone knows, your vulnerable.

Nearly forgot - Refitting Fatigue / Timer. I'm no fan of fatigue on pilots but if it helps with slowcats, then; put a 5 min timer on refitting. You can refit anything during a fight but only once every 5 mins, with a visible and clear timer.

Yeah cause that has worked so well so far, hasn't it.

Tell me, when did Goons become part of Darwinism?

Everyone knows Goons will 3rd party any fight they think will get them some jollies - Ask Faulty about his little effort the other night, 43 (to guard 4 Darwinism dreads) vs 8
There could have actually been some content there - Except for Goons turning up the only way they know how - Extreme force with overwhelming numbers.

So controlling 4 or 5 flights of (disposable) drones at a time is appealing to you?
Where your blob exists hitting F1 might suffice, for the rest of us there is a lot more to fielding carriers.
And if Larrikins capital experience is akin your in PL, he has no idea what the average carrier pilot is faced with on the field. Thanks for clarifying that.

See, this is why PL and Goons should not have anything to say about capital balancing. Not everyone has the luxury of just hitting F1, that is something only the elitist blobs can relate to.

Try reading the whole post, it explains why my stance is where it is and a decent fix for slowcats without creating unnecessary complication. Although that would be asking too much I'd imagine, reading more than the 1st 2 lines would be too taxing - It isn't an F1 answer.

Just to clarify - It removes a carriers identity completely - A carrier is a suitcase, it is a remote repping tool, it is an anom runner, it is a DPS dealer. With these changes, it becomes an overly complicated mess of fielding multiple flights of disposable fighters, while losing most of its other abilities. So basically - A carrier becomes a giant Domi but with far more micro management and cost involved.

I think we do have a minor miscommunication.

We agree that significant and overwhelming Sub-Capital forces 'must' have the ability to threaten Capital groups at an appropriate ratio that is not 1:1 or even 2:1 - though I am still of the position of maintaining Capital escalation.

I think the direction is not bad, that everything proposed other than the gutting of the Carrier with the Capital Ship family, is promising and I am anticipating numbers from CCP that ultimately validate my positive view towards the goals and general proposals being proffered.

CCP's inability to adequately inform the community of 'what the problem is', and 'why it needs to be addressed/fixed' is at the heart of any misunderstanding that may have arisen. Further, not imparting to the players this will affect why one particular Capital, the Carrier, is being completely eviscerated of what makes it special and unique amongst the other Capitals leaves too much room for interpretation.

*(Sarcasm) Or should we allow Carriers to have remote ewar for target painting and ECM, and split the other remote Ewar off to Super Carriers?

Each Capital has a unique place in a Capital Group, but these changes as outlined leave the Carrier a 'poor mans' Super Carrier, which I find unacceptable for many reasons; one of which unnecessarily encourages an exodus of pilots from the Carrier into the Super Carrier, and will start an Arms Race. And what then? Another rebalance, another evisceration to punish unintended emergent game play, and force the Players to conform with an development ideal, instead of developing around the genius of EVE players that spawned from the tools that CCP provided, and address issues by 'containment' mechanics and the introduction of adequate counters?

In my opinion, the Old Devs had it right in their approach to development, and while granted there has been some very alluring and positive proposals for features and content in this game, I dislike the New Devs style of heavy handed intervention in our emergent game play to create some 'Socialist' utopia of game design, and unnecessarily blur the line between sub-capital and Capital.

I would venture to say, that there is more than likely a school of thought among some developers at CCP who ardently believe that Capitals, especially Supers and Titans, should have never been brought into EVE Online. But if CCP is to both act, and be considered a "Care Taker" of EVE Online, then such musings have no business being given voice; let alone actually being developed upon.

I am one who believes that this game has grown so storied, that our player driven emergent game play content should not be subjected to revisionism, nor whimsical marketing proposals that are supposed to attract more players - the game sells itself, it always has, precisely because it isn't a theme park maintained by our benevolent socialist overseers who 'giveth' and 'taketh away' as they 'deem' necessary.

So yes, there are some things we will probably fundamentally disagree with, but I respect yours and everyone's opposing view points. And my positions, and opposition are intended to support the community at large by offering an counter to the prevailing 'sounds great, let's do it; and damn the consequences' voices.

Ultimately I hope these first 30 pages will push CCP to provide even greater clarity as to their perspective of why this 'level' of change is needed, why Carriers in particular are getting the shaft in this proposal, as opposed to the "Hey won't this be great?!", EVE Vegas PR reveal.

Ask Faulty, I can assure you it was nowhere near Dek. Shame your not involved with your alliance enough to know who they are helping. But then keeping tabs on the biggest blob on TQ would be a challenge, even for an active player.

Oh as for the Supers, yeah we've had PL on our doorstep for months - They are quite proficient at killing a lone procurer with 3 supers and a titan (just a tiny bit of overkill from the bored blob elitists). Seeing gate camping supers and titans was common place for a few months there. Knowing you can't be contested leads to some doing the absurd.

That's not a location.

I am part of a very large alliance, which is part of a very large coalition. I don't keep tabs on the activities of every pilot. That would be a fool's game. Portions of the alliance also operate under OPSEC, so I may not even have access to know what they're doing. Not to mention that I have no idea who "Faulty" is.

Delegation is a hell of a drug.

Regarding supercapitals, their main weakness, as a player without the means to counter them, is that the hulls can't easily be passed from player to player. Put known supercapital pilots and cynoing hotdroppers on your watchlist and track them using locators.

How can you accelerate from maximum?

As Carriers will not probably need: DCUs; RRs; or perhaps even Cap Tfrs...

As they won't need to target things, however, cloaks are very viable.

Why not let them have an otherwise possibly underused local defence weapon against the 'smaller' things - like giving them Turrets and Launcher slots that can fit HAWs?

Or perhaps Capital Smarties?

There will be fighter squadrons that will be better at shooting subcapital ships.