Ships & Modules

Little ships have been killing big ships since the invention of the Whitehead torpedo in the late 1800's. Torpedo bombers were one of the biggest threats to capital ships in WW2.

Real capital ships have point defense and CIWS in addition to an escort fleet for area defense.

Eve battleships are frequently used solo in PVE and I believe all can launch a squad of light drones for defense against small craft. They also have weapon systems optimized for use against smaller ships - i.e. rapid heavy missile launcher.

Capital ships shouldn't fly without escort. Even if you give them point defense and CIWS, they will be vulnerable, high value targets.

You know I've mentioned this before, why capital ships don't have but only a few high slots and only cheapo abilities to terrorize any swarm of smaller ships...I don't get it.

A lay out for me would be;

High tier 1; slot layout =8 users small weapon systems.

High tier 2; slot layout = 6 uses mid size weapons.

High tier 3 slot layout = current fitting for the X-tra large stuff

A least gives the cap the ability to counter small gangs effectively as it should be, your correct when you say it should be fear to approach it, but nope, you get frigates solo tackling them and holding them down till reinforcements arrive and that is the problem, that solo frigate shouldn't last 5 seconds alone with a cap ship, I mean who builds capital ships with no teir level of guns to counter many different threats...

I agree that today EVE is designed this way, what I'm saying is that in this way it is NOT FUN.

There is no point in flying big ships today, even in smal, medium and even some large fleet, cruisers fleets are almost always much better.

There aer a lot of posts of ppl trying to optimize Machariel or rattlesnakes to do solo L4 missions faster... this is dumb and absurd when you can do those mission at even greater speed in a proper fitted Ishtar or even a Gila.

Again: today there are no real reasons to fly battleships in eve imho.
Mri

We got supers for that.

That's Eve.

I get what you mean though in my opinion it's not that bad. We don't have levels, neither on characters nor on equipment, we don't have "endgame" stuff. As game design goes, EVE is quite rock-paper-scissory. And even if we have FOTM here and there, CCP occasionally rebalances stuff to shake things up (per words of CCP Fozzie, if memory serves).

Going back to the topic, this big vs. small ship dilemma is briliant. While big ships have better damage, better tank and better range, small ones have better speed and better damage application. If I was creating similar game, this is one of few ideas I would steal outright.

For you, and did you think about player who are new and can't fly larger ships yet? Can you be even more selfish? If you don't think battleships are fun to fly don't fly them. I don't like capital's and even though I can fly dreads and carriers, I don't bother because I don't like them. I don't demand for a change so that they may fit my personal idea of fun.






Yes there is. Titans, Dreads and Carriers are still in use all across nulsec. And I always see battleships being used for POS take downs in highsec. A Spider Domi and Geddon fleet will roll pos's and citadels like it's a cake walk.





The Machariel is the best level 4 blitzer in the game. So you are completely wrong, or out right lying.


Level four mission blitzers, POS and Citadel takedowns, Wardec station ganks, POCO take downs, Spider-Fleets, Soloing, Small gang. Literally the list could go on. Can a cruiser do it to? Sure but a battleship will bash a structure down a lot faster.



Big Miker, Mr Hyde, Planet 6, Suitonia, worsteveplayerever, Baltec, Chessure, Casper24, and John Dress, are the first that come to mind. Most of which have a youtube channel where you can go about and watch them and maybe learn a few things before you decided to have a spurge.

This approach to balancing could be viable if Eve was a strategy game, but certainly not in a MMO where players are limited to controling a single ship.

If CCP were to implement your suggestion, where 50 capitals would always beat a 200 battleships, the result would be a lock-down of territorial warfare where rich alliances would become undefeatable, new alliances would be sentenced to live as vassals, and 0.0 would become dull.

As a student of military history and tactics I can tell you that there is no example in real life in which something big can't be defeated by something small. And that's true at sea, on land or in the air.

1. Aircraft carriers are designed to fight with escorts to protect them from air and subsurface attacks. They can certainly defend themselves with their own point defense systems, aircraft and anti-sub aircraft, but it's not doctrine to rely on those things because they can easily be overwhelmed. The same was true in the era of battleships. In fact, the battleship era ended because they were too vulnerable to smaller combat craft. Even in the 1500's, the great Spanish Armada was defeated in the Battle of the Gravelines by smaller English ships who used superior maneuverability to their advantage.

2. Tanks are designed to fight alongside infantry to protect them from dismounted troops with anti-tank missiles. If you add up all of the tank losses in the world since their introduction in WWI, the vast majority were not killed by other tanks. Most were killed by small, cheap anti-tank systems in the form of mobile infantry with big guns (tank destroyers) or missiles and rockets launched by dismounted teams. No doctrine in the world sends tanks into battle without infantry support to guard against small threats that have the ability to get in close.

3. In the era before mechanized warfare, you had heavy infantry that relied on body armor and shields. They were big and lumbering, but were often the decisive unit on the battlefield because they packed such a devastating force. But they were incredibly vulnerable to fast moving and lightly armored cavalry that could get around the flanks and archers that could rain projectiles on them well outside of engagement range (something that was eventually replaced by artillery and mortars when gunpowder came along). You never, ever sent heavy infantry in without support because of their vulnerability.

4. Even in the story of David and Goliath, Goliath was actually the underdog in that encounter because, as heavy infantry, he was the natural prey of a projectile warrior like David. Far from being remarkable, any tactician could have told you that David would win that encounter. It couldn't have gone down any other way.

5. In terms of air warfare, larger aircraft are always vulnerable to smaller aircraft. The heavy bombers of WWII were probably some of the most heavily armed aircraft ever sent aloft (relative to the time period) and yet they were decimated by small fighters when they attempted to fight without escorts. Even today, large aircraft rely on escorts or stealth.

I personally dispute the idea that bigger is better in terms of gameplay balance, but it's also not reflective of the way that real life combat works (or has ever worked).

Well explained thanks all for your contribution!

I wish to add a few things to the discussion:
I never said big ships shall always be able to travel without escort, of course they have to!
At the same time a lone big battleship that would cost 2Bil shall be able to take care of 8-10 T1 cruisers or 4-5 T2 cruisers without too much pain (provided pilots of the same skill level).
Also in no case a ponting frig (even an interceptor) alone, shall be able to last more than 10-20 seconds against such a monster wihtou help.

Why not?
Cause it's no fun! (and also absurd imho).

OK, let's assume BSs shall not be able to fly alone never: in this case you want a very expensive huge DPS platform that also need escort. So i nthis case they shall be able to delivery 10K DPS or so to make sense.


I flown most the BS in the game and still fly them sometime, so I well know how to use them in the current game and I can confirm you they are way too much undersused compared to all other ships in the game ( proportionally speaking of course, based on their isk value).

I also read the above statistic but i't something different: yes BS guns make most damage but you are not going to use them except in their specilized occasions since in all other cases you wont' do damage at all.

Look the thing this way: BS today are no fun, and it is demostrated by the fact that even if they are 1/5th (approx) of the flyable ships, only 1/30th or os of the pilos actually fly them.

Mri