Player Features and Ideas Discussion

fighters aren't that bad anymore though since the drone mods apply too them

Before drone skills and modules applied to fighters, you may have had a point. (I'm pretty sure that CCP has never said what you said they said, but I can't prove it, so I'm letting that go for now.)

But even if that were a role carriers were designed to fulfill, now that fighters can pretty easily be made to apply good DPS down to cruiser-sized targets carriers are less reliant on drones. It makes sense that as fighters get more useful, carriers should rely less on drones.

(This reply is assuming you're referring to the "cap carrier drones at 5" idea.)
An existing blob able to wipe X 'Dictors off the field at once would only be able to wipe X/2 'Dictors off the field at once. Ergo, it would take roughly half as many 'Dictors to successfully hold down a carrier blob as it does now. How does this change nothing?

Let me take a different tack here.

As I said in an earlier post, I did not intend this proposed change specifically to reduce the ability of massed carriers to kill tackle. Let that sink in. I am NOT trying to fix the problem that you keep describing. I proposed it in response to fighters now seeing the benefit of drone skills and modules. Carriers can use fighters now for many of the roles that they had previously used drones for, so it makes sense that they shouldn't get to keep both at full power. Carriers are fighter-based platforms, so I see their continued access to seemingly endless number of drones as an anachronism. I keep replying to the situation of massed carriers because it keeps getting brought up, but I am NOT proposing this as a solution to that problem.

So let me ask you, in light of that statement, would limiting carriers to 5 drones make the situation you and others keep describing any worse? I can't see how it would. I know it's not a solution to that problem, but it's not supposed to be.

It happens. No harm, no foul.


Redundancy. A while back (and I don't know when exactly because it happened while I was AFK for a few years), CCP shook up some of the Amarr and Minmatar lines of ships because they were just too self-similar. As as result, we now have dedicated Amarr drone ships and dedicated Minmatar missile ships instead of just lots of lasers and projectiles. While my carrier proposal isn't strictly analogous with that, CCP does have a track record of disliking redundancy.

Fighters 2.0 (i.e. fighters with full drone bonuses) made drones on carriers at least somewhat redundant. Fighters can now apply good DPS down to the cruiser level in some circumstances, leaving destroyers and frigates as the main "need" for drones. Does anyone really think that carriers need more than 5 drones to handle this threat? I don't. This, coupled with CCP's dislike of redundancy, prompted my idea, which has promptly evolved in the light of overwhelming logic.

I know, it's hardly a pressing issue, and certainly not one that people complain about. But it's an idea, I think it makes sense, it's in-line with CCP's general trends, and I don't think it would do any harm (aside to sentry ratting carriers). It does happen to help, albeit slightly, with the issue of carrier blobbing, but that is a secondary effect.

(Yes, I know. Having my OP this detailed in terms of motivation may have been a good idea. It happens.)

OR get subcaps to support your capitals...

The +1 drone per level bonus applies to all drones fielded for all classes of carriers and supercarriers, regardless of the size of drone or race of carrier. That's not a redundant bonus, it's a central bonus for that entire ship class.

There are ships with very specific bonuses, and ships with bonuses that apply to all their weaponry.

Gila gets heavy bonuses to medium drones only. But Vexor Navy issue gets a lesser bonus to all drones. Both are valid forms of bonuses.

Up until recently, fighters were trash and non fighter drones were the only way to get any usability out of carriers. But fighters suddenly being not trash does not mean that all the other drones and bonuses that applied to those drones that they were using up until now are suddenly "redundant" and that all bonuses related to them should be removed.

Redundancy occurs in this game when one ship or weapon system overlaps and overshadows another similar ship or weapon system. That was what occurred with the Amarrian ships during Tieracide. All three of the Amarr BS's were laser boats with minimal overlap and similar bonuses, so the Abbadon overshadowed both of the other BS's due to the valuable armor resist bonus.

But fighters and non fighter drones do not occupy similar roles in combat, so redundancy there is not an issue. And since all carriers and supercarriers all have the exact same bonus, none of them are redundant with each other in that regard.

Your assumption of redundancy seems to focus on the fact that carriers fit with many omnidirectional links are capable of dealing damage to cruisers with fighters and that somehow this means that the ability of carriers to use drones to deal with targets even smaller than cruisers needs to be halved.

Am I missing something here? Fighters can hit cruiser -> ????? -> Nerf carrier ability to engage frigs and destroyers that you wouldn't use fighters on anyway.

I'm having a very difficult idea trying to figure out what in the ???? portion could manage to connect those ideas, other than a desire to reduce the ability of carriers to engage small targets, forcing them to bring support. But that's not the reason you are proposing for the change. You are arguing redundancy, then proposing a nerf that primarily hits the part which has no overlap whatsoever with fighters, not even the tiny overlap between fighters and Heavies/Geckos/Sentries used to engage BS's and cruisers.

The more I think about it, the more I think that this statement of yours is a far better motivation than mine. Ignore carriers, their roles, fighters 2.0, redundancy, etc. for a moment.

Fighters and Drones are very dissimilar weapons. Like, say, large and capital railguns, they're the same type of weapon, but in very different classes. What other class of ship in EvE gets bonuses to such dissimilar weapons in that manner? (Note: Saying that Domis get bonuses to a frigate-class weapon doesn't count. CCP clearly stated during the Ishtar debate that drones don't have "classes" like module-based weapons.)

EDIT:

Also, this. Since when are carriers supposed to be able to blap every class of ship smaller than them?

Every other drone bonused ship in the game with the exception of the Gila, the Rattlesnake, and the Worm, as most drone ships in the game can use both sentries and light drones with equal bonuses.

Every missile ship with bonuses to both the weapon class native to their hull and rapid fire version of smaller weapons, (RLML/RHML), so Raven, Caracal, Cerberus, Golem, Barghest, Orthrus, Typhoon, Typhoon Fleet Issue, Sacrilege, Rook, maybe a few others I can't think of off the top of my head.

Every ship that with bonuses that apply to multiple offensive modules (Rattlesnake, Gila, Worm, Armageddon, Widow, Nestor, Stratios, Algos, Tristan, Proteus) And I'm sure I'm missing some somewhere

All of those are capable of using multiple kinds of weaponry oriented towards larger or smaller combatants or entirely different types of weaponry, or both at once, and have bonuses directed towards fitting both kinds.

That enough for you?

No I'm opposing you because you have so far proposed three different proposed changes due to three different proposed problems, and you abandon each one when someone pokes holes in your previous ill thought out proposal. You then generate a new proposal with has no relation to he previous problem or solution, and then attempt to find a problem which you think that the newfound "solution" might apply to.

Your current proposal appears to me limiting carriers to fighters only, or removing the per level bonus that is a part of every carrier and supercarrier hull from applying to them, you are not being terribly clear about that these last few posts.

You first proposed an idea to limit the replacability of drones by limiting the amount of non fighters that could fit in the drone bays. It got shot down due to game mechanics you didn't bother to think about before posting.

You then invented a proposal about limiting carriers to 5 non fighters. You said this was because fighters were "redundant" with non fighters. That got shot down due to it being just plain silly and illogical.

So you changed the reason behind your new proposal to "drones and fighters are too different, what other ship has bonuses to both small and large weapons" and when that is criticized by someone pointing out that tons of ships have the ability to field multiple sizes or function of weapons, or have split bonuses between different weapon classes, you changed to nitpicking over the definition of weapon class size by saying that all non fighter drones from Warriors to Gardes were the same class size, and all rapid fire version of smaller weapons were just an acceptable downgrade, but that the differences between fighters and Ogres was insurmountable.



Orthrus and Barghest get bonuses to all sizes of missiles, regardless of size. Cerberus and Caracal get bonuses to light missiles as well as rapid lights. Golem gets a flat heavy missile bonus.

And if a ship can use below class ammunition on a ship larger than the standard, and drone ships can use small drones on a BS hull, why is using below class drones an issue on a carrier anyway?

P.S: Fighters are losing their ability to be assigned and their ability to warp after targets or warp with the carrier, so they are now basically identical to heavies in every respect but their size.