Ships & Modules

I like flying battleships as they are, but they do need some love. The problem is where to put that love.

-Better tracking would be nice, but then they become overpowered against smaller ships. this would not be balanced.

- A 50% damage boost would also be nice, but again they would become the only ships worth flying. It would still be hard to hit smaller ships but when you do connect they are gone in one shot. I really can't see this being balanced.

- more mobility would be nice but really would not change much. And would not be fitting for what the class was meant to be.

The big fix I would think would make battleships much more viable for PVP without making them overpowered against other ships is more a targeting sensor buff. More sensor strength. Battleships should be almost impossible to jam. smaller ships already have an advantage by being harder to track and hit, and when hit only take partial damage due to there small sig radius. There is no reason for a battleship to be so easy to jam.

When battleships were the primary null sec PVP ships the most popular counter was ECM drones. Why? Because battleships are so easy to jam. Why do you never see Marauders in PVP? It is not the cost as T3 cruisers are about the same and are popular. It is because they are even easier to jam than their T1 counterparts. A massive buff to the sensor strength at least 3-4 times what they currently have, will go a long way to making battleships more viable in smaller scale PVP.

Add a small boost to base targeting range, faster lock times, and maybe a small boost to capacitor, power grid, and CPU and they will be much better ships, without adding anything to make them more powerful, or harder to kill. It will just give them the means to apply their damage more effectively, and consistently.

These changes may be small but I really do not think battleships need much to gain more PVP viability. In a lot of ways they are very balanced. For a buff to sensor strength to make a difference it will have to be huge. They need to be almost impossible to jam. They would be a great counter to the so popular heavy ECM that drove battleships out of much null sec PVP over the past few years. They used to be much more widely used, but they dropped off once ECM drones became a must have in null sec PVP. I do not want to see ECM get nerfed, it certainly has its place, but at least give this one class a sensor strength buff that will make ECM ineffective.

This would at the same time remove the one thing that makes Marauders useless in PVP. It does not matter what damage they can do if they can not target or hit anything. They do enough extra damage over T1 battleships to make them worth the extra money. Just not when their computers are so weak they can not apply that damage in a PVP situation. It is time to bring the ECM age to an end.

Coils guns are most probably not going to be the first generation and the damage to the "rails" on the latest iterations of the tech is significantly less than earlier models. There is also a smaller scale railgun system more or less ready for deployment that is capable of being fit onto many nations destroyers. These smaller scale railguns are designed to intercept incoming missiles by releasing a cloud of debris the instant before impact. With muzzle velocities close to mach 7, this new generation of railgun will be even more effective than the top notch cwis systems of the past.

As for the fawlklands disaster, the level of missile defense on the limited number of warships that saw action are no where near what modern navies have. The Goalkeeper (gau-8) which is arguably the mot advanced close in weapon system in the world is almost exclusively fit to British ships and I'm going to assume this significant improvement in missile defense was a result of transport ships being hit during the falklands war. As computers and radars get better the chance at identifying and destroying incoming missiles is becoming significantly larger. The end result is either to make missiles faster and more stealthy (lots more cash) or to start looking at new avenues of defeating these defenses, enter the railgun.

The railgun, once fully realized will be able to hit warships at similar ranges as modern over the horizon missiles (100 to 200 miles) like the harpoon however the per shot cost will be significantly smaller while also reducing travel time by close to a favor of 5. The main issue i see is how destructive these rounds will actually be considering that most warships are a honeycomb of water tight compartment meaning that 1 or 2 perforations at the waterline will probably not be lethal to the ship as a whole.

Anyway, back on topic... I think that battleships could use a small ehp boost across the board. This can either be achieved by a modest increase to resistances or a raw hp buff. The lack of t2 resistances ontop of large sig and slow speed means that they are significantly less survivable than t3s or t2s in larger logi supported fleets.

Ahhh... :) I wish POS bashing would come back into vogue... :)

It's already been started Ditching the power creep half way only fucks things up further than following through and trying to make the best of it.

There are plenty of reasons to use a battleship, assuming you have the support available.

Ok send BCs against battleships with equal numbers see who wins.

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Ok send BCs against battleships with equal numbers see who wins.
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With everything i've read so far, my orginal post still stands and i'm glad to see many agree.

But with that comment logic would dictate larger, stronger ships should have a good chance to win that battle to the point that being scrammed shouldn't be much of a worry. Following what you've said previously even you're aware that's not the case.

I never intended to have battleships with the DPS and tanks of a dread like some seem to think. Considering the base cost of a battleship hull and how much gets put into modules. 4 times the price doesn't mean 4 times the effectiveness with battleships. A T3 cruiser can be mad expensive but being the (highly qualified) space jack of all trades that it is, it certainly earns it's keep for example.

The Micro Jump Drive to be added from what i gathered is a "bail-out!" button for big ships but that's not much of an improvement and i'm sure it will take up a valuable mid or low slot.

I have long supported this idea, it's balanced because it makes BS better against small ships at the loss of value against other battleships. Though I would extend it to allow cruisers to do the same w/frigate guns.

The two classic complaints against this are: Everybody will fly battleships (not really as the small guns don't make them more agile or faster) small ships have the GTFO factor working in their favor.

The other complaint is that it allows senior players to dominate newer players, which they always can anyway, but what's the use of sticking with eve and training ships that take long to master anyway?

This simple change wouldn't make battleships overpowered, as you are trading off quite a bit for effectiveness against smaller ships, but would add in some nasty fitting options and make the typical AF/Intercepter pilot worry about more than "I wonder how many heavy neuts he has?" Imagine the shock of tackling a ratting raven in an AF and discovering he's got 6 bonused Assault Launchers.

Because EVE is a game where game balance and good gameplay design takes precedence over capabilities and realism. Battleships in EVE work differently because it's good design; because it leaves them vulnerable to a wide array of ships; because it ensures that they are not be-all, end-all of ships; and because paper-scissors-rock balancing demands it.

I think something that was said to me recently sums it up:

"Why fly a battleship when you can get the same EHP from a T3 and have a tiny sig? And if you're worried about money BC's are much better value"

BS's do need a serious balance. I think one major improvement would be to change neuts to cycle more often but for equally less energy neuted. i've had single NOS frigs be fully active against my twin heavy NEUT tempest (even with staggered cycle). Webs dont counter frigs anymore and neither do heavy neuts. Drones die to easily and smartbombs are pretty much designed to troll... but not good for a straight up fight.