Player Features and Ideas Discussion

There is a very important role in the EVE microcosm that is completely vacant. There are no sub-capital ships specifically designed to kill capital ships, and in the aftermath of the last super capital ship bloodbath, a ship in this class would have been very useful in turning the tide of battle, in slaughtering the losing side, and in recovering from the catastrophe. Subcapitals can be turned out much quicker, at a much lower expense, and can be fielded by lower skilled pilots. They can also move around the battlefield much quicker, so offensives can take on more tactical depth than a simple spreadsheet battle.

Here's the design: We want a battleship-class ship that can deploy quickly around the battlefield, that can project DPS at least two to three times as much as a T1 battleship (a double-repped Archon can sustain 15k hp/s, for instance), but is not overpowered in relation to all sub capitals.

The solution is a MWD-driven battleship, perhaps using the Tier-3 Battleship hulls (Abaddon, Hyperion, Rokh, and Maelstrom), that has extreme damage bonuses to its weapons (400% or more) but with important nerfs to their Turret Signature Resolution (or Missile Explosion Radius [400%]). Each ship will have 5 bonused weapons (turrets or launchers), bonuses to MWD cap use, T2 resists, about 90% of the HP of a Marauder, 50% greater speed than a Marauder, and a range nerf to its bonused weapons.

The way turret damage works* is that you have both tracking and turret signature resolution as important factors when computing whether the weapon hits or not. Carriers have a signature resolution close to 1600, or about 400% of a battleship (around 400). If a target's signature resolution is less than the turret's signature resolution, that turret will miss more often. By expanding the Berzerker's Turret Signature Resolution to the size of capital ships, we've nerfed the ship against all other sub capitals while allowing the Berzerker to kite capital ships.

We have not touched tracking at all. This ship will hit capitals very hard even while a Berzerker is orbiting, but it will cause battlecruiser DPS (at best) to Battleships, cruiser DPS to Battlecruisers, and will probably be completely incompetent at anything cruiser size or smaller.

Berzerkers are the anti-Marauder. If both ships are still (i.e. during a siege or against a Bastioned Marauder), the Berzerker will hit for full damage. Whereas the Marauder is the epitome of tank, the Berzerker is the epitome of DPS for sub caps--by my calculations, you can reach 2800 to 3500 dps, probably more with creative fittings, with these ships. A Berzerker can break the tank of a Marauder in bastion. The Marauder can outrange the Berzerker, however. And Berzerkers, as reliant on their MWDs as they are, will be able to hit other Berzerkers at full damage (MWDs blow up the signature radius 500% so Berzerkers on the move will have signatures around 2000 m, well over the 1600 m turret resolution of their main guns) when they are maneuvering.

Most importantly, Berzerkers can break the tank of carriers cycling through triage. Just causing a carrier to focus on sustaining itself can break a logistics chain and damage an entire fleet's operation.

The most powerful strategic reason for the Berzerker is that its production time would be similar to the Marauders, about 2.5 days. It would be hunting carriers with a production time of almost 15 days, six times as long, which take special, limited capital ship construction bays. In the event of another disaster like B-R5RB, the losing side could quickly flood production of Berzerkers to shore up anti-capital ship defenses and the winning side could quickly flood production of Berzerkers to hunt down the losing side's remaining capital ships. They would still be quite vulnerable to sub caps, but could give the game a fluidity like never before seen in EVE.


* ChanceToHit = 0.5 ^ ((((Transversal speed/(Range to target * Turret Tracking))*(Turret Signature Resolution/Target Signature Radius))^2) + ((max(0, Range To Target - Turret Optimal Range))/Turret Falloff)^2)

Minmatar "Sigurd" Berzerker


As in many Minmatar ships, the Sigurd is a kiting specialist. Its signature radius is a bit over half the radius of other Berzerkers (just 1300m with MWD on, versus 2000 m) , and it is capable of a dual propulsion mod, MWD and AB. This gives the Sigurd a significant advantage over other Berzerkers if it is scrammed or under heavy cap warfare. With two rig slots and very high calibration points, the Sigurd can fit a T2 Collision Accelerator and and a T1 Burst Aerator for added damage, or vice versa. A sample fitting would be a three-mid-slot shield tank, a point, a MWD, an AB, a damage control unit, 3 gyrostabs, and a tracking enhancer, two damage rigs for the large projectile turrets, 5 1400 mm arty turrets, and three RLMs.

Battleship bonuses (per skill level):
75% damage bonus to Large Projectile Turrets
-5% to signature radius amount

Berzerker bonuses (per skill level):
7.5% rate of fire bonus to Large Projectile Turrets
5% bonus to Afterburner speed

Role Bonus:
400% to Turret Signature Resolution
-25% optimal and falloff range of Large Projectile Turrets
-70% to Microwarpdrive activation cost


8 High slots, 5 turrets, 3 launchers
6 Med slots
5 Low slots

Drone Bay: 75
Drone Bandwidth: 25

Cargo: 550 m3
Ammunition Bay: 1025 m3

Shield HP: 11,700
Shield Resistances: EM: 75.0%/Therm: 60.0%/Kinetic: 40.0%/Expl: 50.0%
Armor HP: 10,500
Armor Resistances: EM: 90.0%/Therm: 67.5%/Kinetic: 25%/Expl: 10.0%
Structure HP: 6,300

CPU: 790 tf
Powergrid: 17,200 MW
2 rig slots
500 calibration points
Capacitor: 6.2k GJ

Signature Radius: 350
Speed: 160

Amarr "Pandemonium" Berzerker Battleship


The Pandemonium is able to fit Tachyons with Reactor modules, and its bonuses make up for the cap loss of the MWD, which is helpful for this extremely cap-hungry ship. Unlike other T2 ships, the Pandemonium has 3 rig slots with a more generous outlay of calibration points, which could allow this ship to fit a better tank fit than the Gallente and the Minmatar ships, with their special focus on doing as much damage as possible. A sample fitting would be 5 Mega Beam IIs, 3 RLMs, 3 Heat sinks and a tracking enhancer, a 4-low-slot armor tank, a point, MWD, a large capacitor booster, a nano pump rig, nano accelerator rig, and an anti-explosive pump rig.

Battleship bonuses (per skill level):
75% damage bonus to Large Laser Turrets
5% bonus to Armor Resistances

Berzerker bonuses (per skill level):
7.5% rate of fire bonus to Large Laser Turrets
+3% capacitor amount

Role Bonus:
400% to Turret Signature Resolution
-25% optimal and falloff range of Large Laser Turrets
-70% to Microwarpdrive activation cost

8 High slots, 5 turrets, 3 launchers
3 Med slots
8 Low slots

Drone Bay: 100
Drone Bandwidth: 25

Cargo: 525 m3
Ammunition Bay: 800 m3

Shield HP: 9100
Shield Resistances: EM: 0.0% /Therm: 20.0%/Kinetic: 70.0%/Expl: 87.5%
Armor HP: 13,200
Armor Resistances: EM: 50.0%/Therm: 35.0%/Kinetic: 62.5%/Expl: 80.0%
Structure HP: 7800

CPU: 625 tf
Powergrid: 17,500 MW
3 rig slots
450 calibration points
Capacitor: 7.5k GJ

Signature Radius: 410
Speed: 150

Friends?

So, for ten times the price of a talos, you can do three times the DPS?

Why not just bring nine friends and do upwards of ten thousand DPS for the same price? Is a highsec POS basher (Which is all this really is, it's too expensive and not good enough to be an actual capital hunter) really worth the effort?

With a dread, you're looking at a very long production time in specialized capital ship bays--you are limited to the number of ships that you can produce. With a ship like this, you have more leeway industrially---you could buy a bunch in high sec, for instance, to combat a capital ship force.

I definitely don't want this idea to compete with Dreadnoughts--those have very important functions, especially against station defenses. Berzerkers are more of a hunter-killer force, a guerrilla solution, to a large influx of capital ships. In a massive fleet action, well, everyone's dead eventually. But you could potentially use ships like this to cut off retreating ships or break down certain weak points in a logistics chain.

Or you could just build them in the same station slots everyone else builds dreads in.

Did you somehow think that all dreads are built in POS's? Nope. They build perfectly fine in station with 50 slots, thank you very much. CSAA's are for Supercaps.

And no, these are not "Hunter Killer" ships. They are "Look at my 100 man fleet firing a total of 3000 effective guns between them" anti capital fleet death machines.

Capitals do not retreat. They certainly don't need to be chased around. Either they die, or you do, or they clear tackle and jumpdrive out. No running around.

Why do so many people think we need subcaps specialized in killing capitals? We're arleady capable of doing it with subcaps. Take a quick look at evekill on some of the ratting or lemming carriers/super carriers that get killed by gangs of less than 50 people. There's plenty of them. Loads of them in fact. Capitals aren't that un-killable by themselves or even in small enough groups. It's when they get huge fleets that it becomes a more difficult task, which is completely reasonable. At that scale of warfare, it really does come down to who has more capitals, which is the same for any engagement where the doctrines are similar. Aside from carriers, capitals have a harder time punching below their class, which makes them vulnerable to a sizable force of smaller ships.

You still have to have the modules to complete a large capital ship build and it still takes a long time to build one. You might have all the slots you need, but do you have the 2-3 weeks before you're evicted from your system?

Not always.

No. Oh hell no. Fighters are definitely not anti capital weapons, much less anti-anything weapons. They suck in their current form.

Also, even with massive MWD bloom a seiged dread is going to have a headache trying to hit a BS of any kind that isn't in the turret range sweet spot. And if the dread is not in seige, then the dps is about as good as a BS and still crappy tracking,but not nearly as bad.