Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I find it sad to see battleships are condemned as Lvl 4 mission runners or 0.0 huge fleet battles.
Or more precisely, that battleships have all but, no use in small gang warfare.

On the other hand I understand the need for all ships to have a use from game perspective.
(Although I think there should be a thing like e-war resistance according to size, like guns only the other way around, bigger ships being stronger in e-war resistance than smaller ships where smaller ships have easier application than bigger ships, but this isn’t about that)

I think I might have a idea to make Battleships more interesting for small warfare and make fleets more diverse, without directly affecting solo PVE and huge fleets battles, in a way becomes unbalanced.

Looking at Naval fleets, battleships where kings of the sea, until the arrival of the modern aircraft carriers, though usually surrounded by a fleet of frigates, cruisers and the like for protection and support.
Unfortunately this doesn’t work in EVE, (you could come an end bringing logies, Recons, t3, command ships ect, but thay will make the battleship obsolete) though I what if we could mimic the effect in game.

What I’m suggesting is a bit like fleet bonuses and or command links, though in this case it should be a bonus, towards your Battleship

I suggest creating a group of modules each for a class of ships, (frigate, destroyer, cruiser, battle cruiser, leaving capitals out for now) that gives a boost to a battleship in the same fleet, within a certain area (on grid would probably be easiest, within a few kilometres better). There should probably a max number of ships that can support a single battleship or a stacking bonus per ship of the same category.

Let’s say a Battleship got a application bonus because of a frigate in it’s group that gives it a bonus, or getting a capacitator bonus from a battles cruiser (both because they sacrifice a slot) to name an example. It would get more interesting to bring a battleship in a small group, make it more interesting to have more diverse fleet lay-outs and don’t effect solo mission running and will be to fragile for Capital fleet battles.

I haven’t worked this through past the initial idea face, but I’m interested to see if it has some backing from the community and or devs, or if someone sees a major flaw and pushes it in the trash can within seconds.

im sorry sir, but i have to disagree with you

the biggest reason we dont see more battleships , is simply cost to build them / cost to buy them

just looking at tritanium alone to build the following ships:
Dominix = 11.5 million tritanium
Vexor = 600k tritanium
Tristan = 23k tritanium

i could build 500 tristan's for every 1 Dominix roughly, or almost 20 vexor's for that same Dominix

as for market in buying them,
Dominix goes for 190 mil give or take a bit depending on were ya go
Vexor goes for 10 mil give or take
Tristan goes for 500k give or take

i could have over 380 tristans for 1 Dominix, or 19 vexor's for 1 dominix

IF they were to cut the mineral cost in manufactureing battleships in half, then yea, might see more battleships
lets also not forget the costs in fitting a battleship vs that of a frigate or cruiser, even the modules require vastly more minerals compared to their smaller counterparts

true to some extent,

my main pvp experience was over with RvB for about a month, i loved it, (IRL military duties prevented me from continueing that for a bit however).. not uncommon for player to burn thru a dozen ships or more in 1 night

i would love to see more battleship brawls in small scale of 10-20 ships per side, but the cost to do it more then once a month for the average casual part time player eh,

the fleet boost idea might cause issues... already enough of the community is ranting and raveing at times about on grid / off grid boosts from commandships (or T3 cruisers)

want more battleships to blow up, gotta find a way to make them more economical to be blown up,

it simply comes down to money and resources for the majority

Well, the first was just a hint against intended purpose and use. Just because you don't see many, or assumed many aren't used in PvP, doesn't mean BS have to be used in all PvP circumstances. If they don't show the right features for the players needs. One other issue might be navigational flexibility and that translates to warp speed, align time etc. I have seen a lot of fleets where a BS would have to fit 2 warp speed rigs to be allowed in (and those were pure cruiser fleets, not even friges beyond tackle), which would screw too much with their fitting.

Its more then just price or power projection, its the style of the fleet, purpose of the roam, location etc... more things to consider then just, 'hey, they are used less - must be weakness'.

And to get to the blob, everything that will support 1-2 BS in a small gang via frigs etc, as suggested, will be multiplied by blobs using just a few frigs for that exact purpose which leads again to the "1 ship boosting 20% of 255 opther ships" fleet boost issue; enhancing that already as unbalanced perceived effect.


Which is the big problem as mentioned.

I'm not trying to be a jerk here, but when was the last time you saw a blob? Battleships are not over used, they're barely used at all. The only battleships that see consistent use are drone boats and blops. I've got a feeling that if you could blops with a cruiser sized hull too you'd never see battleships used. Ishtars, crows, lokis, archons, and harpies are over used.

Back to the OP the BS doesn't need a boost from having other ships on grid. Forcing fleet diversity in this manner is artificial, and people will come to resent having to do it. With the current system there's a clear choice when bringing a limited number of people to a field and what benefits can be had by it already. There are already force multipliers with benefits and drawbacks to their use.

Battleships just need a bit more strength in the category that they should be strong. DPS, tank, and endurance is what they're supposed to bring to the field but they really don't bring enough to justify their slow lock times, speed, warp speed, poor sig tank, and poor tracking.

You take down POSs with dreads and carriers, you do all of the above with ishtars. You Fight wars with ishtars and archons. Battleships don't fill the role they're intended to. Moreover, archons don't need the support of smaller ships.

Battleships are useful in small gang pvp. I use them for small gang stuff all the time. Examples? Geddon is a game changer for a small engagement, hyperion really doesn't work outside of a small gang engagement, scorp is another huge force multiplier for a small gang engagement, typhoon is plenty useful in small gang too.

This idea of yours is not only not needed (and based on a bad assumption) but would create problems on a large scale. Fleet bonuses are already controversial as it is, there is good reason for it too. They are huge force multipliers, and adding them to battleships is just a down right bad idea.

This is more of a problem with Archons and Ishtars than a problem with battleships. Also battleships are perfectly capable of taking down a POS if you don't want to get dropped by large capital fleets looking for dread kills. Not everyone is part of one of the two big coalitions and thus able to (relatively) safely field dreads for every POS bash.

its all about gun signature... 400 sig guns are terrible, they are also terrible on pve, but people will be people and they love playing battleship captain.