These forums have been archived and are now read-only.

The new forums are live and can be found at https://forums.eveonline.com/

Player Features and Ideas Discussion

 
  • Topic is locked indefinitely.
Previous page123
 

What happened to point defenses?
Author
Previous Topic Next Topic
Reaver Lupus
Grey Reavers
#41 - 2015-05-20 07:20:21 UTC
Kashadin wrote:
Reaver Lupus wrote:
Corraidhin Farsaidh wrote:
13kr1d1 wrote:
Speaking of point defense and battleships, ships today generally have only the big guns, and destroyers only have missiles and tanks only have a large main gun, rather than 4-5 different sizes of guns for different threats. This isn't world war 2 anymore, and they've designed their fleet to do the same thing we do in EvE: specialize the biggest gun the hull can carry for a certain job, defend with either "drones" a.k.a. aircraft, or smaller support ships.


Ships today don't have big guns at all, there are no battleships in service at the moment I think? And it was back in HMS Dreadnaught days when the shift was made to 'All big guns' with a standardized (eventually Dual Purpose) secondary armament. Carriers made all such ships obsolete (much as in Eve!) and modern fleets are centred around the carrier and the layered defence (above and below the water) thereof. Aircraft and missiles are the weapon of choice for modern fleets.

Something interesting I saw the other day that surprised me was that the original 'battleships' were actually heavily armoured frigates. It took a while for them to grow and that was only because the weapon mounts for the turrets grew.

yeah, that's the entire reason that the Iowa class battleships are kept mothballed but ready to sail at a moments notice, because they're the only American battleships with big guns and heavy armor. The rest are mainly missile launchers, torpedoes, maybe a medium gun or two, and point defense meant to protect against small craft or incoming missiles. For a somewhat hilarious example of how this point defense works in real life, there's a video somewhere of Somali pirates somehow mistaking a Russian warship for a merchant vessel. They opened fire on it with small arms, and the warship literally ripped them apart with a burst from a minigun in response (which they have for exactly such purposes).



Just to point out, the 4 American battleships that are left are only museum pieces now, they haven't been used since the early 90s and rarely before that. The ships would take years of work and millions of dollars to get back out to sea at this point, and that isn't counting the fact that they aren't very effective in today's sea conflicts, a modern cruiser would destroy them with very little issue.

On top of that the battleship wasn't very good at it's job when they were in their hayday (WW1 and WW2 for the dreadnaught style, the most commonly thought of battleships) because of the arms race at the time quickly making the advances that were applied to the ships obsolete by the time they were deployed, not to mention the number of time the things sank themselves without ever seeing combat.


As far as EVE goes, a well flown battleship can solo a large number of smaller ships if the pilot can set themselves up to fight that kind of fight. It works best with the missile ships because of the rapid launchers, but a blaster or auto cannon fit ship can be deadly if they have a tracking bonus and they can get webs on target.

Here's a video of a guy taking a Golem out to FW space, and doing very well against a large number of targets. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYHdM0sqLDk

Actually they're maintained as almost operational. Literally all they need to be pressed back into service is for ammunition and a crew to be moved on board. Though mostly considered obsolete at this point, its been noted that they still have some of the biggest main guns in the entire Navy and can provide valuable indirect fire support to any forces operating within 20 miles or so of a coastline. The fact that they're so heavily armored also makes them potentially very valuable for any unforseen circumstances that arise on the battlefield that turn into a slugfest rather than a game of rocket tag.

and I'm not saying that these point defenses should necessarily be added onto battleships in eve with no consideration for balance. Was just thinking they might make an interesting alternative option to established forms of defense against smaller vessels if done correctly, while also providing an element of realism. potentially make a specific point defense series of modules that take the place of something that normally assists in that role to provide a more direct approach.
Previous page123