Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Light Carrier (Escort Carrier)
Light Carriers are a smaller and more compact version of the standard carrier. The sacrifice a lot of their fighter wing size and their logistical capability in order to make them small enough to fit through jump gates. With a frame slightly larger then most battleships, they provide the basic logistical needs for small corporations. Though their full capabilities are limited their main ability is to operate in high security space.

* Light Carrier: light carriers are the ships that allow players to take their first tentative steps into capital ships. Not yet full fledged capital ships, they operate in high sec and anything below. They give pilots the ability to jump to distant star systems or use jump gates. They let pilots use a single 5 man wing of fighters, and they allow pilots to start to use some of the heavier capital tanking modules. They lack the long range and durable repairing capability that their larger cousins have, and they lack the size in their storage bays that the carriers have. What they are for is for small alliances and corporations to use for tower repairing, small scale capital support, and small scale rapid transportation. Fittings should not allow any more then 1 or 2 capital modules to be sued at once, they can not use Triage Modules.

Balancing Requirements:
Because the Light Carrier (Escort Carrier) would be the basic carrier chassis that would mean that the current carrier (Fleet Carrier) would move up a tier and become the tier 2 carrier. That means that as the player moves up the ranks in the Carriers they both gain abilities and lose abilities. They slowly lose the ability to use gates, and eventually dock in a station. In addition to ensure that super carriers need to be supported by fleets, they would lose the bonuses to any logistics module.

Note:
I know there are other light carrier ideas out there, the main difference between the ones i have seen and this idea is that the Light Carrier is a fully fledged capital ship.

- If it's going through high sec and gates, then keep the capital parts off of it.
- I don't know if I like them being able to fast travel around. Especially if they are escorting.

Other than that, I would like to see Fighter Drones come to High Sec.

light carrier should be able to use 10 drone at a time, not fighters
it should have big bonuses to medium RR module or small RR modules as currently these are mostly useless.
let it in highsec

bonuses to drones similar to arbitrator cruiser.

I would have to see a stat layout to realy judge it. You have to be carefull not to make a ship that outclasses battleships has the heavy combat ship of hisec and more mobile low and 00 fleets, maybe even go as far as removing the jump drive as the extra drone bay space removes any chance of one fitting within the hull kind like how jumpfrignters give up cargo for their drive. I'm just afraid the combination of a jump drive, fighters, gate travel and capital logi would make for an overly mobile hightank heavy logi with teeth.

I will try and come up with an idea for what i think the light carrier should look like as far as fittings. Might take me a bit.

I'd be interested in seeing a near-battleship sized escort carrier that's capable of fielding 10 drones that are heavy drones or below in size. Personally though I think they should much more resemble battleships than carriers in terms of fitting (save weaponry; they will have very extensive drone bays and bonuses to such but at most maybe 4 launcher or turret hardpoints, maybe even less). They should definitely be more combat oriented than how multipurpose regular carriers and supercarriers seem to be. Not to say that they'd be totally out of fitting RR, but they do give up some of their multipurpose abilities to exist literally anywhere in the game. I also don't think they should exceed other battleships in terms of tanking ability, or at least not go very far above them.

Perhaps they not only get bonuses to drone damage but also repair drone repair amount, as well, based on which faction of escort carrier this is?

This is the thread you are looking for.

The role I'm looking to fill is the rather huge gap between the current carriers and the maximum level battleships. simply looking at price difference you are looking at a ship that is nearly 4 times the cost just for the hull. And in combat capability you are looking at a ship that does a lot more DPS has a lot more versatility.

The main purpose of the light carrier is to give pilot the option and the stepping stone into capitals. The ship itself is much faster and more maneuverable than its larger cousins but gives pilots the same operational versatility to a lesser extent.

The problem i have with a damage bonus and fleet command bonus is that these are suppose to be basic carriers. They don't have the room for command and control systems and they lack the storage and command and control for huge fighter wings. The use of these ships is that they are cheep easy to deploy and easy to get into. If you want heavy repairing capability over a long period of time, you need to get into the Fleet Carriers. If you want damage output and huge tank you want the Super Carrier. But if you just want to use a carrier for jumping some small stuff around, escort fleets through small sections of high sec, fly with a battleship fleet, or operate in small groups to repair towers or other anchored objects, then you need an Escort Carrier.

That being said the bonuses should prevent it from becoming a pure gank boat. This is a rather fragile capital as capitals go, they can not operate totally unsupported.

Haters gonna' hate, but the idea of the Light Carrier being the stepping stone towards Capital Size Carriers is far from a bad idea.

When I think of a Light Carrier, I think of an Orca Sized Carrier with instead of Industrial Logistics Services: Fighter Capability and Ship Logistics (maybe a 250,000m^3 Ship Bay) + Repair Logistics Ability.

These ships would have the ability to use 5 fighters (based on the level of the Drones skill trained), have the ability to store those 5 fighters and a small handful of other drones (one third to one half as much as a Carrier), and lack the ability to use Capital Size Mods (these ships can not use Capital Size Reps nor can they use Drone Control Units).

These ships should not be allowed in high-sec because this would be abused in the form that they could just assign their fighters to someone running level 4 missions and they would blitz the missions and would make station games a living hell. I would want to see these ships as a type of fusion between Logistics Cruisers and Carriers and used only for the purpose of Gang/Fleet Support (however this fleet would be extremely slow if they waited for these Light Carriers to keep up).

Bonuses to logistical mods (200% fixed bonus to range + per level capacitor usage reductions), racial 5% bonus probably best being identical to their carrier variants (Amarr: Armor Resists, Caldari: Shield Resists, Gallente: Drone/Fighter Damage, Minmatar: Remote Rep Amount), and a control range bonus (100% bonus per level to fighters and drones).

These ships will move like Orcas, Tank like Battleships, Rep like Logistics, and Deal Cruiser Like DPS.

I'm having mixed thoughts about if they should be able to use gates, jump drives, or both.

just want to point out that the highest dps carrier the thanatos does only 1250 Dps with 10 drones and max skills, whereas its quite common to see battleships under 200mil do the same dps and some fits can get 1500-1700 dps while still managing a decent buffer tank.

so before you go rattling off stats and ship comparisons its a good idea to fact check first if you want people to take your ideas seriously



i cold see a ship such as this fitting into eve, the real question is if you should keep it able to use fighters rather then just heavy drones with a domi-like bonus, remember that not only are fighters able to warp and be assigned but they can take a lot more punishment