Player Features and Ideas Discussion

So many people in this thread not realising this is only really relevant in PvP and is a great shame that BS are basically left alone to die in that area (minus epic fleet warfare).

People could potentially live with the speed, if that speed brought worthy trade offs, but it just doensn't.

I can almost picture an image where it looks and feels kinda cool: that the battleships are slower and their arrival on grid represents some serious pain about to come in, with small ships darting about trying to finish a target and disengage before the big guns can respond.

However the reality is people just leave them at home because it's just not worth it. They are as ponderous as a woken giant, but about as threatening as a puffer fish. All show and no go.

bigger engines means bigger thrust which means higher speed.

In space, a vacuum, zero gravity.. any object subjected to a constant thrust of 'x' will accelerate at 'y' speed. any object with 1n of thrust would reach a speed factor of 1 after a period of time and continue accelerating at a factor of 1 at the same rate. It will keep accelerating at a speed factor of 1 until an opposite force slows it or stops it.

A small vehicle, say car size, frigate size (whatever) would have a propulsion size unit limitation. it is reasonable to assume size to output, so something small would have a power plant limiting it to x thrust. In an example something the size of a frigate would have a relatively small power drive.

Something the size of a Fenrir would have a power drive considerably larger, so you can assume the engine capability of a Fenrir would output 100n, so therefore would be able to reach a speed factor of 100 the same time a small ship with 1n of thrust would reach a speed factor of 1.

In eve terms, a speed factor of 1 may be equivalent of 1 AU/s, and a speed factor of 100 is 100 AU/s.

In space, an object regardless of it's size will reach x speed if y force is applied to it with acceleration factors with mass and momentum, but it will absolutely reach x speed after a given time. Put 1n of thrust on a fenrir, or a magnate, they will traverse space at the same rate. A fenrir would be able to field much bigger, more powerful engines, therefore instead of 1n of thrust would have an output of 100n of thrust, obviously meaning it's capable of a speed factor of 100 in the same given time. 100x greater that of the frigate.

One thing to remember in space is that there is no drag, so in theory you'd need to exert thrust for half the journey and reverse thrust for the last half.. otherwise you'll find yourself over shooting your destination horribly. This 50 / 50 acceleration / deceleration applies to everything. It's probably possible to reach crazy speeds with continuous thrust, as you would be accelerating all the while your engines are engaged at whatever thrust is being output. It's counter-productive unless you just want to throw your ass into unknown space an an almost unfathomable velocity.

So how in EVE an object with a gigantic power plant with massive amounts of thrust is slower than a tiny object with a seriously smaller power plant is unknown. I have no explanation unless someone turns around and says, EVE space is actually water, and we're all flying submarines; in which case it all the physics start to become more understandable, and mass starts to influence drag, and therefore smaller pointy ships should go in theory go faster than pianos with engines.



.. and comparing a hippo to a rabbit isn't a valid comparison, it's not like for like, unless folks want to believe rabbits and hippo's are similar. In real life big things have bigger muscles, bigger bone structures that allow them to cover ground more quickly than their smaller counterparts. It's why someone who's 4ft'8 would never win a running race against Usain Bolt, there's lots of reasons why. Exception being birds, as they're all build differently and different species wrapped into the same 'family'. Huge birds grip currents much differently than smaller birds, and are designed to negotiate various factors generated by the earth. Although noted that one of the falcon species is the fastest known animal on the planet as it's learned to use earths gravity to reach almost terminal velocity. Alas doesn't apply to space faring antics.

But digression aside, either we're all 'flying' submarines, or simply "wizards did it and don't question it" rules apply.

or, the far more likely alternative is that for the purposes of game balance and fun they decided to make the game not make sense from a physics standpoint.

The math works out so that if a battleship and the acceleration to reach any reasonable speed, it would be able to reach insane top speeds.

With physics aside and taking second-seat to 'fun' and 'compelling gameplay' in the gaming world, I would hazard that the existing paradigms of bigger ships taking longer to align & warp *are* actually good for two general reasons...

1) It represents the distinction between front-line ships and 'artillery pieces', the ships you tactically advance to battle under their own steam to engage an enemy (sub-caps), and the ones you jump or bridge to bash structures (dreads) or provide MASH-style medical services to others (carriers)...etc

2) The bigger a ship/asset is, the more prone to being pinned down and tackled it should be. i.e. A battleship *should* be easier to 'get ahead of' and get tackle on, than an interceptor or frigate.

The problem with the implementation of current warp speeds however, is that BC's and BS's seem to have been treated more like artillery pieces (capital ships), than the mobile front line ships they should (and used) to be...

I propose this is bad, and CCP should feel bad for doing it. Perhaps just my observation, but doesn't it seem like more people are just 'making do' with frigates and cruisers these days for regular use, because BC's and BS's simply *suck* to fly.

That is not good IMHO, all subcaps should be viable and nimble enough to reach and get around a battlefield. Keep the delta between frigs and BC/BS's sure, but in the name of all that is holy, inspire me to undock my smurf-blue Abbadon again...

please?

F

you could increase there speed without increasing there rate of acceleration or deceleration from warp.

I believe they're mostly alright as it is, I don't see all too much of a reason to change them. Just growing pains.

Don´t like the Idea to speed the big ships up, the warp speed ist just fine the way it is.

-1

The problem is not battleshisp being slow. The problem was battleships being made effectively HALF as mobile as they used to be .. but without ANY compensation.

Battleships should ALL have received GENEROUS DPS, EHP and Capacitor buffs to compensate.

I would love battleships to remain very different from the small ships. Slow.. but with POWER to justify that slowness.

I would for START give 15% more damage 15% more EHP on all layers, about 20% more Capacitor , some 10-15% more lock range and some 30% more cargo hold.


Make battleships WORTH the time you take to move them.

go back to a basic engineering class. Volume and mass increase exponentially with the dimensional increase. That simple reason makes the linear progression of engine power not true.

A Iowa class battleship has a lower drag coefficient/volume than a inflatable boat... ( i know, I implemented naval engineering simulation software in the past) yet it is completely impossible to make it accelerate as fast as the inflate boat. It doe snto matter bigger muscle or engines, the important thing is THRUST to mass ratio and when the speed increases a lot drag starts to become relevant. Thrust is not simply a factor of the larger the engine. Most large ships have a max speed not limited by the drag of the hull or power of the engine, but because it is increasingly difficult to apply thrust with that power (you would need to increase the size of the propeller, but a too large prop causes other inneficiencies at very low speed then).


You bring up a scale that is on the very very small size, where the movign element is very clsoe to the scale of the terrain difficulties and that thrust application capability on the medium is still far from the limit threshold. At taht range yes gettign bigger usually gets you faster because your own system starts to scale better against the narual difficulties around you. That is why a 5 inch boat model will not be as fast as a rowing boat. But when that threshold is surpassed and you get closer to the thrust application threshold.. then things invert.. a Carrier can reach high speeds, because the drag to voluem ratio is very very low, but the thrust application capability is very very bad.. and that makes the carrier accelerate much much slower than smaller war boats with same class of power/mass ratio.

And a rabbit is as like a hyppo as an interceptor it to a dread in this game...

Indeed, as I said, they dont have the trade offs against the slow.


Frankly I'd like to see BS get bonuses right down the weapon sizes (like how the rattlesnake does for its launchers).

So you can fit a point defence frigate murderer than can't fight big stuff, or a midsized anti-cruiser platform or the traditional anti-BS level weapons.

So their "effective" DPS increases yet without real power creep and at a trade of fitting options. Imagine a fully bonused RLML typhoon landing on a frigate gang - that's the battleship we'd all fear It should, however, remain balanced because it wouldn't be able to hurt cruisers very well much less anything bigger. It would be a start to clawback some of the drawbacks vs their slow speed.

Alternately, a flat EHP/DPS boost to compensate for NEEDING to add the warp speed kit might be an option, but I'm less enthused by that as it could have a lot of unintended consequences for when the speed isnt a factor. I prefer the more dynamic option.