Warfare & Tactics

And still the Iowa class was recomissioned later because was the only viable answer to the Kirov Missile Battlecruiser (the prospect by simulations was that a USN task force was to lose between 1 and 2 CVs when engaged by a Kirov), and were decommissioned again only after 2 of the Kirovs were scrapped.

Yeah there's always that one special snowflake in fleet that wants to bring his Raven to a nano ishtar fleet. What'cha gonna do?

I think they could use a damage/ehp buff. It won't really change the dynamic of them needing support ships to actually apply the damage but it will help them compete with T2/T3 cruisers. Hell a Navy Vexor/Poor Man's Ishtar can do 700dps with sentries and those aren't going to get nerfed.

Also to the History buffs, the future of naval warfare will likely once again see big guns. Modern missle defence systems are becoming capable of rendering missles, let alone aircraft obsolete. Navies will have to switch back to projectiles that can't be shot out of the sky. This will become especially true once railguns are properly developed. The USN actually has working prototypes.

A railgun firing a projectile with a high enough ballistic coefficient could potentially hit the nuke before it re-enters the atmosphere. of course if you hit the fissile material with enough energy it will just detonate and that would cause world wide fallout problems.

lol we left the game on a tangent there.

as for your Minnie battleships I know there are good solo Typhoons out there and the others can be fit with some nice high alpha arty for fleet/gang battles treat them like a dread, fit for high damage/tank and have a Huginn buddy pick who is gonna die next. MJD's are also a good idea for such ships.

Sorry about the long post.

Anyway, I have been thinking about ways to make BS better and I think it can be done without improving their stats. One way could be to buff large modules and make more modules that compliment a large ship doctrine. I think the micro-jump drive was an excellent way to improve the hull by adding a new module, rather than a just a boost to stats.

BSs are slow, have a large amount of EHP and have good damage projection. I think the proposed Sov mechanics are going to give a lot of room for maneuver warfare, which favours the smaller ships, but I think there is still room for tanky, slow, high damage fleets, and BSs should be better at this than any subcapital fleet, but they need the tools to do it. One of the problems with BSs is that T3 cruisers have similar tank, less but still decent damage and project, and so much mobility that they really overshadow BSs. While some might argue that the T3 should be nurfed, I think the BS should get a little something something to really make them the nuggety bulwark on the grid.

There are a few ways to do this and perhaps this is madness, but I thought I would suggest it at least. One module that most ships can use, but only seriously used on the BS is the smart bomb. The reason is that the large smart bomb has an area of effect that is actually useful, and I wonder if an area of effect doctrine might be good for BSs. Now, what I mean is area of effect reps and area of effect cap transfer. Perhaps this type of module would be too server intensive, but I think it would definitely make mass BS tactics incredibly tanky with numbers, but not actually buff a lone BS.

The range of the module could be used as a method of balance, and would also mean that it becomes less effective as ships move to pursue an enemy or drift apart from each other due to bad discipline. The way I foresee this working is that you would have to have around 6 ships within reach before you start to break even over local reps and cap transfer, but the more BSs you have in close range of each other, the better it gets.

You could even have the FC in the centre of the rep ball, so they get the most repping, the ships of the outside of the ball get the least repping and would also require repping from logistics when faced with focused fire. Logistics ships would not need to cap chain since they can mooch off the area of effect cap boost. It would mean that light ships that are damaged could fly through the rep ball and get incidental reps (both friendly and hostile) or give bumping ships out of the rep ball if they were feeling brave. This would also provide some defense against bombers, because unless the bombers can bring enough bombs to alpha the BS fleet, the BS fleet would have a chance of recovering enough health before another run could finish them off (maybe, it would need some serious looking at for balance).

Fast fleets can fly away, but the BS fleet would be the perfect fleet to break a choke point or at least clear a choke point of tackle ships, so that your own side could get faster ships through and go zap some objectives.

Another idea would be projected smart bombs (perhaps one per ship so it does not get too out of hand). Projected smart bombs would not really be a problem for the BS AE repping fleets, but it would easily drive off the fast fleets that rely on logistics, and since the objective is to control the grid, these ships would definitely do it. It would also mess up all those dirty drone users. Filthy!

Perhaps this idea could be exploited, but I think with some fine tuning it could give a purpose back to BS fleets without buff the hell out of them. Powerful, but slow, just like it should be.

I kinda like the "projected" smart bomb idea but I think maybe instead just allow battleships to fit normal bomb launchers.
maybe with a bit more range, or an ability to aim it other than aligning the ship.

i never had a problem with battleships. i just dont see a lot of your concerns. my friend and i used to fly 1 hyperion and 1 myrmadon a lottttttt.

the idea was that we can tank the stuff staying at range and when something gets close enough scram web pewpewpew. and if its is not looking good you have options. deagress on a gate, micro jump drive, ecm drones, warp to safe mobile depot into cloak.

the myrm was a real game changer because drones opened up the door of utility. it can chase of frigs real easy. the hype always had warriors btw.

this eventually turned into flying maruaders but ill tell ya it isnt all its cracked up to be. everyone knows how to counter them now. i land that kronos on grid and half of them will leave to come back in Armageddons. then they call their entire alliance.

so maybe your small gang battleship needs some support similarly to how you handle dreads and while it doesnt need the large ammount support that a dread needs maybe it need some, even if thats just a supid triple rep myrm.

i feel ur pain tho. im not terribly interested in the svipul, orthus, nomen cancer meta either. i like active tank.... **** me right?

oh and if u see an ishtar....run there is no answer to that

Maybe if you're stupid enough to be caught on an asteroid belt or something. Like I said, fighting in a BS should rely heavily on where you pick your fights. In lowsec, you should stick to gates and stations. In null, you should stick to gates [and assume that you're going to return home in a pod]. A BS should be able to tank multiple frigates, if it is fit correctly. If you can't shed tackle, you can shut down the dps of 75% of the frigates out there. If the frigates shoot your drones, and maintain a point on you, you should still have a smartbomb or boosters to enhance your ability to damage the frigates. If they break your tank, jump the gate and you'll have time to escape.

The MJD isn't necessarily for GTFOing either. It should be used to control range and/or land right on top of things you want to melt.

Also, if someone actually thinks they're l33t enough to go "solo pvping" in a battleship, they're not going to be like OP. OP wants to undock his mega and be invincible, without having bothered to learn about the importance of neuts/drones/boosters/MJDs/smartbombs/active vs passive tanks/ where and who to pick fights with, when it comes to battleships. What people like OP need to do is fly battleships with a gang, supported by anti-support and ewar, so that they can learn what these things can do [i realize this is difficult, and agree with everyone who thinks that bs's deserve faster warp speeds and align times, but it's possible as illustrated by a variety of youtube videos].



I'm sure you have more experience than I do on BS's [never flown em], but my issue with OP and everyone who is agreeing with him is this: instead of working with the wide variety of tools at they're disposal, they are crying to CCP with ******** requests of making all battleships solo pwnmobiles.

tl;dr if you get blobbed, you get blobbed. It happens to all ship sizes. There shouldn't be a hard counter to getting blobbed. if you don't like it, bring your own blob -BOOM- good fights