Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Lol, i'll give ya a like for that..

Other drone deploying battleships are also fine for their roles as drone deploying battleships.

Btw, you just implied your support for a new mini-carrier for the role of mini-carriers, as domi was not classified as the mini-carriers they used to be, but rather a drone deploying bs like any other drone deploying bs.

Btw, I'm not seeing you +1 any of my posts. Yet you clearly like me, as you keep responding to my numerous insights.

Aww... I like you too. Here's to the olden days, when Gallante was king.

Why is a dominix needed?
Drone specialty BS with the advantage of changing drone damage/size type or replacing damage/destroyed drones.

why is a rattlesnake needed?
Shield tanking pirate drone ship with serious defensive power.

Why is a gila needed?
Shield tanking pirate drone ship with serious defensive power.

Why is an ishtar needed?
T2 cruiser defense with BS drone offense. Bonus affords better drone range from a time with there was no other way (module or skill) to get it.

Why are carriers needed?
Support ship: helps defense through logistics and offense through fighters.

Why are super carriers needed?
clone bays plus extra fighter support, etc

Why are titans needed?
1) Symbols of power
2) jump gate tech
3) mad fleet bonuses
plus clone bays, hangers, and what not

When you made that list you turned off some older players (I can understand their descent). These aren't just flavors; they are tools with a purpose. Capitol ships are the some of the most purpose driven ships in eve. Take dreads: they are POS attackers. Even battleships have a purpose: they are the backbone of the fleet. There are different rolls in fleets. To give you a reverse example, the dominix is not a good sniper (it can do it, but not well). Mini carries, if ever introduced, would be just that: mini support ships.

Pirate ships are an exception to this. Those don't have to fit any role. CCP has made drastic changes to them in the past. Mixing the least and most purposed ships in a list of examples is a part of why some where turned off. I cannot speak directly for them, but that is my opinion.

There is another consideration. Carriers where controversial when introduced. Other races where intruding on a Gellente specialty: drones. That is why only the Gellente ships get a fighter damage bonus. Even with a focus on fighters, this reintroduces such conflicts.



As for the number of drones, better servers are not the answer. CCP will need better servers to fix lag, handle more players, and for new features. Smaller, cheaper ships with more drones in heavily populated highsec spells a huge problem (read the QEN). CCP would be shooting themselves in the foot if the limit was over 5. Vastly better servers would be needed for this novelty feature.

Note: even missile grouping was done to help with server performance.

I get the lag issues, there's no contradiction there, which is why we had discused allowing these ships to field 5 fighter drones instead.

Now, as to all your responses on why certain ships are needed.

You didn't really give reasons why those ships are needed or what their niche is, you just simply stated the novelty of those ships.

I do believe I did state that dreads had a purpose though.

All the listed ships, to include titans, carriers, and super carriers weren't really designed because they were needed, but instead designed and implemented as luxury items and were then given niches, such as corp bays, hangars, fleet bonuses, triage, etc.

However, going back to the NEED of certain ships, there isn't a ship in eve that is a need. Not one single ship was designed out of need. They were designed for more choices, a level of progression, and diversity for the players. If you were to remove every ship in eve that wasn't needed, then you wouldn't have eve at all. Frigs aren't needed, which means cruisers aren't needed, which means bs's aren't needed, which means capitals aren't needed. There isn't a single ship in eve that couldn't be removed and the game wouldn't be able to continue playing in both pvp and pve.

I tried to post on this once, but the post dissapeared, so trying again, and i'm going to try and shorten it a bit.

Ok, new ship class "Capital Command Ships"

Same round about size of and orca, but reduced cargohold to make up for the increased drone bay.

Skill required to fly
Capital command ships lvl 1

Skills required to train Capital command ships
Faction related battleship lvl 5
Drones lvl 5
Spaceship Command lvl 5
Leadership lvl 5
Warfare link specialist lvl 5

Role bonuses
50% bonus to drone control range
3% bonus to the effectivness of warfare link modules
10% bonus to drone tracking and drone velocity
10% bonus to drone armor or shield repair amount (faction specific)
99% reduction in requirements for warfare link modules, can use 3 simulaniously
15% bonus to fighter drone damage

Skill lvl bonuses
2% increased drone durability per CCS lvl
+1 Fighter drone can be fielded per level (max 5)
1% bonus to fighter drone tracking per lvl
5% bonus to armor/shield resistances per lvl
10% bonus to drone bay capacity per lvl

This may seem a bit much, but once you factor that these ships are the size of an orca and they're designed for high sec warfare, and/or close range drone support for low/null fleet warfare, has no bonuses to electronic warfare, is NOT immune to electronic warfare, and must be at a much closer range than standard carriers or super carriers, I'd say it balances out fairly well...

I can't determine the slot layout, cpu, powergrid, or anything like that cause I just don't care to think that hard right now.

Some might say the bonus to fighter drone tracking and damageis a bit much, but with all skills lvl 5 in a nyx, with no modules, you'll get 625 dps.
However, with this ship at all skills lvl 5 you would get 562 dps. That is much less that both carriers and super carriers, and even less than a lot of battleships to inlude the dominix.
It still has much less drone repair rate than carriers and supers, has no bonus to shield, armor, or hull rep modules, and has a much more limited drone control range the carriers ans supers.

So I think with all this in mind, this ship is perfectly in the middle of command ships and capitals. It's a step up from nighthawks and such related ships, with slightly higher dps, and slightly higher fleet bonuses, but much lower than capitals and supers, and being a large class ship than bs's, while still being smallers than caps and supers.

You get the point. I'm not sure if more skills would need to be added to intensify the skill requirements, or if what I've suggested would be enough. If it wasn't, then perhaps adding another skill to lvl 5 or so. What skill/s that would be, I have no idea.

Help me out here, I think i'm going in the right direction.....

P.S. I guess I didn't shorten it.....

If you can't see what two people have explained to you, well, then all I can say is re-read our posts, think about it, and let it spin in you head a bit. Try thinking about it terms of roles, advantages, balance, and purpose.

Here are three examples to think about.

1) The Hyperion. It is controversial ship. When introduced a lot of people where not happy with it. One of the complaints I read mentioned that while it would be a good damage dealer for small gangs, it overall was not as good at solo PvP as the Megathron. The devs replied something to the effect of "that's what we had in mind."

2) The Rokh. Another controversial ship. The Caldari had a mixed reaction (opinions are still mixed); the Gellente were very unhappy. Here was a 8 gun ship with a range bonus. It seemed better than the Megathron (dev blogs later went so far as to do the math as to which one was stronger at what ranges). The ship is designed to fit the role of long range gunner. Range is a Caldari strength and railguns are a range weapon.

3) The Ferox and the Drake. Believe it or not, I and my Caldari corp-mates where estatic about the Ferox when it was released. We fitted 5 HML to it (no HAMs back then). It really is not a missile boat, but we used it that way for PvE. CCP saw this and created the Drake. Now the Ferox is barely flown. The Drake is a much better fit for missiles and PvE.

Chances are you are ready to say: "Why do we need those ships/roles?" All I can tell you, at least as a Caldari, is that we were saying we needed ships like the Drake and the Rokh before they existed.

If you look further back, the Dominix had a bonus change ages ago. It did not have a damage bonus to drones. Go back further still. It did not have the bonus to more drones. I believe it just had a bay bonus. Think about why it was changed, what the advantage of drones are, and what it would be useful for. (note: no hulks or covetors in those days)

If you want some more food for thought, look into the change in bonuses to the Phoon, Sansha ships, and Guristas ships. I can give you a bunch of other examples, but those changes are very interesting when looked at together.

Would it not be better to give them a terrible jumpdrive like the Black Ops? Would make them more pheasable in cap fleets

The role would be identical to the old pre-nerf Domi- a small jumpgate using drone carrier, which is left unfilled now that it can field no more than the 5 drones that every other BS do, with the same 125mbit bandwidth of many other BS. But yeah, unnerf the Domi works too.

Bleh,
At least my escort carrier had a role that didnt involve stomping on somone else's existing role.

BUT that would require new coding for the 'dogfight' command.