Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Ive been thinking and would like to propose the following changes based on feedback.

Escort Carriers:
Tech one ships with a designed role of combat support to BS gangs. Skills, capabilities, bonuses are as described in the OP but with the following changes:
Remove role bonus to fit capital repair, remove racial bonus to specific capital repair modules.
Remove ship maintenance bay.
ADD bonus of 7.5% per level to drone effectiveness. Drone effectiveness is defined as damage for combat drones, repair amount for logistics drones, Jam strength for ECM drones, SIg Radius boost for TP drones, web amount for Web drones...you see where this is headed? All the drones get 7.5% more per level at what they do.

Intended use is as listed in the original post, but without the ability to allow fittings changes, and without the ability to provide large logistics. The boost to drone effectiveness means that ANY drone is (at max level) 37.5% more effective than drones from another platform. This means the these ships can fill a wide variety of roles including some logistics from logistics drones, some ECM or EWAR from drones, some extra damage from damage drones, etc. The high slots would be used for utility like nuets or smart bombs or even large repair modules (but with no bonuses toward them). The corp hanger allows them to provide things like cap boosters, ammo, nannite repair paste, etc to their gang.


Assault Carriers:
Tech two ships with a designed role of dealing damage via drones. Skills would be Racial Escourt Carrier 5, Drone Interfacing 5, Drone Navigation 5, Assault Carrier 1.
No role bonus to fit capital repair
No ship maintenance bay.
ADD 99% reduction in CPU need of warfare link modules.
ADD T2 resists.
ADD Racial Resist bonus 5% per level
Remove drone effectiveness bonus, replace with 15% per level bonus to drone damage.
ADD 5% per level to drone control range.
Add 1 low slot to all to allow drone damage mod.

Intended use is as a gank ship with high DPS and pretty good damage. Having all of your gank in drones means that your weapons can be destroyed however and that keeps these ships from being overpowered. The extra resists would give them a really good buffer tank. And with the 15% boost to damage per level, a max level pilot with all ten drones out would be doing as much damage as 17.5 drones from other platforms. In addition, the range bonus makes them able to use their drones from very very far away. The warfare link module allows this ship to plus up a gang in the same way a T1 battlecruiser can, but note that it cannot use more than one at a time, so it is NOT a command ship. Other high slots would be for combat utility most likely like smart bombs or nuets.

Support Carriers:
Tech two ship with a designed role of support and logistics for sub capital and capital fleets. Skills should be Racial Escort Carrier 5, Drone interfacing 5, Repair Drone Operation 5, Logistics 4, Support Carrier 1.
Retain bonus to fit capital repair modules
Receive NO bonus to repair amount or range.
Nerf capacitor so that the ONLY way to run the capital repairers is with capital energy transfers from real capitals.
ADD Ship maintenance bay with the size listed on the OP.
ADD bonus, 20% per level to non-combat drone effectiveness.
ADD bonus -10% per level to logistics drone cycle duration.

Intended use is as a support/logistics carrier for BS gangs by providing ship fitting capabilities to re-ship in mid roam and also provides some logistics capabilities or other capabilities for any drones that are not "Combat Drones" this includes Combat Utility Drones, Logistics Drones, EWAR drones, etc. The 20% per level means that non combat drones are as effective as a double number of un-bonused drones, add in the 10% per level to logistics drone duration and 10 logistics drones become as effective as 40 logistics drones from a different platform making these ships good at logistics for sub battleship gangs, and decent for battleships as well. If I have done the math right, the Logistics cruiser would still be better suited.
10 Heavy Armor Maintenance Bots=1800 armor per 2.5 second cycle=720DPS reps with the drawbacks that they cannot be changed from one target to another quickly since they have to travel, and the enemy can shoot them.
In order to get the same repair from a logistics cruiser, you can put 4 large remote armor repair modules on the same target, the target can be switched quickly with the drawback that the logi can be jammed.


Intended use as a support to capital fleets would be as additional repair capability. If cap is balanced correctly, then a single capital energy transfer from a real carrier should allow these ships to provide much increased remote repair capacity. This role would only be viable when receiving energy from capital ships though.

This comment is from pretty far back and the fighters were already removed from the OP.

I'd like to see more Mid-Size Caps i.e Orca, Freighter size stuff that is combat ready as stepping stones up.

I unfortunately don't think that a light carrier adds anything to this potential, and I think we need a more unique role concept.

Like what?

I am already working on a light dreadnaught idea....

But please don't just come in and say "I think this idea doesn't add anything, we need something better" without stating WHY it adds nothing and without proposing the something different.

The proposed idea that support carriers would need capital energy transfers makes them useless in high sec, that us the point behind this thread high sec carriers, the cost of the t2 assault carrier with unbonused links means everyone would use Command Ships for there boosting. Without any sort of drone HP boost smart bombs would rip apart all drones that came near the ships. No speed boost makes heavys useless also. They have said during the test of the DDA that it is impossible to reduce drone cycle time.
Support carrier would work well as
CHA, SMA, 7.5% racial ewar, 15% racial logistic drone repair amount.
Assault carrier
10% drone damage and HP, 10% drone mwd velovity , resist bonus caldari/amarr rep bonus gallente/minmatar

If you are in null sec with capitals, fighting capitals, then you would have triage carriers to rep.
Without a speed bonus fast ships will take your drone for a ride then blow them up very quickly, heavies can't go 20k without getting destroyed.
The idea behind racial ewar bonuses is that it makes the ships unique to each race, like auto cannons, or beam weapons.
A 10% damage increase gives sentries the ability to do 900 dps before DDAs.
There is no gap between BS and caps, they have mentioned that there are removing the battleships V requirement for capital ships. This thread would make an interesting new battleship, and then a new type of t2 battleship. Capital carriers are fine, supers need a little bit of a look, but that is another thread.

You are missing the entire point.

I have been at BS 5 on my main for over a year and I am not yet into a capital ship. Why? Because the skills needed to get into a capital and fit capital modules takes so long that it is not worth the time when I could be getting more bang for my buck with filling out my sub cap skills.

Also, you never see a fleet battle of a bunch of battleships and a could of capitals, or vice versa. Capital fleets and support fleets have different voice channels and chat channels and FCs most of the time.

There is no blending of the two. ONce you get into a capital, you don't deal with sub caps as much.

The advanced spaceship command skill is a filler to make it take longer to get to capitals. Not a useful skill.

So, there is a gap.


Yes, if you are in null sec with capitals, you will have capital reps. Agreed. But your capital reps on the carriers can't follow the support fleet around at all if they have to jump over one gate. This bridges that gap a little bit in a small way.

Racial wear doesn't make them different, it makes Caldari OP ECM boats, and Minmatar useless. The distinction between racials should be in how they are tanked and fitted.

I still think that an assault carrier with a speed boost and drone hit point boost makes them OP. You disagree. Lets agree to disagree.

tbh.... we have carriers and supercarriers

we dont need a 'drone-superbattleship' or 'mini carrier'

now, a mini dread with no jump drive and 1/2 the dps of a sieged dread would go down a treat!

That would be a different type of ship for sure, and I have been thinking about how to implement such an idea.

However, saying "we don't need...." isn't helpful.

I have said many times and in many ways why this ship class would add something to the game. Do we NEED it? No. We also don't NEED more destroyers, or the Tier 3 BCs or marauders... But they ADD to the game.

So just because you wouldn't want to fly one doesn't mean we shouldn't ever have them.

As for the light dreads there are a few problems, and I will throw them out here cause I am interested in your thoughts, but I don't want to totally derail this thread.

Problem 1. What to call them. I would like to rename current dreads as SuperDreadnaughts. and make the new ones Dreadnaughts. Light dreads seems like a poor choice and heavy battleship seems kinda meh...

Problem 2. How to arm them and manage it well. First inclination I had was to have capital weapons with no siege mode. Then I thought what about battleship weapons WITH siege mode... The intended use of the "light dread" is to have a ship that excels at shooting BS's and is capable of putting stress on capitals while also being able to travel through gates instead of using jump drives. So the problem with capital weapons and no siege mode is that the DPS is pretty lackluster and the tracking is terrible. The problem with a siege mode of battleship weapons is that then the light dreads lose much of their mobility. I am not sure of any other method for achieving the desired effect, but I am sure there are some. Either way presents challenges for balance.

Now, back to Escort Carriers.

Would be good, maybe give a more minor one to t2 drones (5% or so), but other than that it seems pretty good.