Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I know that the current sov system was set up in order to give the "little guy" a chance to own sov instead of just alliances with capitals, but as some have noted, it doesn't always produce enormous, exciting fights like the old sov system did. If we were still in the old sov system with structure grinding, what if the fix had simply been a battleship buff instead?

To me, the major distinction between a group that owns a system or two and one that owns an entire region of space is mobility. The more space you own, you either need:

a) More troops to defend that space.
b) More mobility to rapidly move the troops you do have to the fight.

Capital ships fit this second criteria, allowing groups which own large sectors of space to easily defend it all. However, if you only control a small area of space, that mobility goes somewhat to waste. This is where I think battleships could have filled the void that the new sov system attempted to solve.

To me, this would have looked like a buff to battleship damage, with a corresponding nerf to application. This would have helped fix the old sov system in two ways. First, battleships become the premier sub-capital structure grinders for those who can't afford dreads. Second, they would be the subcapital answer to capital ships, making dropping a large group of capitals onto a fleet of battleships not necessarily a good economic choice. Specifically, with insurance, a fleet of T1 battleships outfit with T2 and/or meta gear would have been very affordable for even a small organization, but would have been able to bring tremendous firepower to defending small areas of space, especially against capital ships. I emphasize small, since their lack of mobility would make them suboptimal for defending large areas of space, which would require the mobility of capital ships.

To be clear, I'm not suggesting that battleships should be as good as dreads. I would see the comparison as follows:

Dread:
-Significantly more expensive.
-Significantly higher DPS and range (w/ siege).
-More mobile (via jump drive).
-Worse against subcapitals.

Battleship:
-Fairly cheap with insurance.
-Lower DPS and range.
-Less mobile.
-Better against subcapitals.

This being said, I would expect battleships to be significantly more cost efficient than dreads, such that a handful of pilots in battleships could do the DPS of a dread and have the equivalent HP of a dread, for 1/5 of the cost and much less SP required, but you would need 5 pilots instead of just 1.

EDIT: Removed EHP buff suggestion. I don't want to turn battleships into mini-dreads.

Nothing, the only difference would be that battleships would have higher dps against bigger things and the same dps against everything else. The idea was to convey that this balance would remain true.

The focus of the post is supposed to be the dps increase, not the EHP buff, which isn't nearly as necessary except to combat bomber fleets.

Reread my post, I had removed the EHP buff from the suggestion prior to your post.

Also, they would really only have 2000 DPS against structures and capital ships. DPS wouldn't change against everything else.

The whole point would be, under the old sov system, it would have given small groups that only wanted to hold a handful of systems an effective and cheap-ish way to defend their space without using capital ships, by giving them a way to defend against capital ships without having their own. It would have worked by reducing the cost-benefit of bringing capitals in to fight a large group of battleships, since the capital group would lose more isk than the battleship group, ideally speaking. Might not make a difference to corporations with unlimited funds, but it would have been a start.

Simple compensate the boosted damage with worse application, so you do about the same equivalent DPS against subcaps, but more against capitals and structures. It's a pretty simple concept...

Or you just leave the battleship and two support at home and you bring 3 cruisers that'll not only apply more dps but will be able to hit stuff that comes to attack them and won't be a big floating pinata.

T3 bs with capital guns then hello high sec grind and gank!

Completely remove SOV

system upgrades are based on structures in them and nothing else