Player Features and Ideas Discussion

People want a T2 BC that puts front-line combat first over links. They'll continue to try to use CBC's to do this until an alternative is presented, and continue to post suggestions like this as long as they find that CBC's are found wanting in this area for their expense and risk.

I agree, CBC's are fantastic as they are as CBC's, that's why I say we need something other than CBC's to fill the role that people are trying to push CBC's into competently filling that they're only half-intended for.

I'd be happy for the ability to do both like before..

I think the op's point was that there was a difference between combat command ships and fleet command ships before a particular patch, I forget which. One of them had all the link bonuses while the other had guns. Also before said patch there was no reason to use a fleet command ship because t3s were better at it.

I would like to see the line between the types of command ships redrawn.

I believe it was cruisers in general were outshone by BC's in general, before all of the big changes to both ship classes were made. However, both T1 and T2 cruisers were given more defined roles and niche placement since then, and there are still some unique playstyles that you can squeeze T2 BC's into.

Just using the basic observation that there is not a single BC hull that has anything to do with E-war, some options immediately present themselves.

Some examples:


Amarr: Neut drone bonuses... Yeah you remember those things? NOBODY uses them, and nobody gets bonuses to them. They are completely off the map and could use something to bring them to people's attention. Amarr's preferred E-war and secondary weapon system being focused as a primary combat theme, while remaining completely unique to any other ships.

Caldari: How about Eve's first smartbomb bonused ships? They hate drones anyways, and already have some of the best frigate buster ships, so why not emphasize that while giving them something just as unique as neut drone bonuses? You could rebalance smartbombs at the same time so that people actually care.

Gallente: General E-war drone effectiveness bonuses would not go amiss here, along with a dip into something that could be dangerously unbalanced like bonuses to ancillary armor repairers (reload time is just about the safest thing you could change without them rocketing between Zeus' legs and beyond the realms of godliness).

Minmatar: The trickiest faction, which kind of requires feeding off of previous ideas to benefit the hulls in different ways. A hull with bonuses to webbing drones would free up mids for some scary fitting options, but that lacks the flavor the rest of the factions have available. Likewise you can do something with ancillary shield boosters. But then the idea that Minmatar is feeding off of the ingenuity of the other factions is simply by dint of them falling last in the alphabetical order of my list. If I had listed Minmatar first, Amarr and Gallente would appear to be the copycats.

So there are enough unique options to play on that you don't have to shove anyone else out of their niche, while giving T2 HABC's enough variety and power to stand out on their own merit and offer new and very interesting options. Keep in mind this was suggested with the simple theme in mind of making some BC hulls with E-war bonuses (because it was the easiest role to put them in without applying any thought to the process), and you can take them in many other directions than this.

Oh, and I still want to see some Combat Engineer BC's from ORE too.

This is what I mean.