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Titans will be able to use the HA anti-sub-capital guns that dreads can use, without going into siege. This, combined with the new DDs, we think will give a unique place for Titans on the battlefield.
While dreads have an upper level on the amount they can tank, Titans, while they have Force Auxiliary support (which admittedly can be killed) don't.

Can you confirm how the existing capital functions/modules not yet mentioned are being treated? Specifically:

• Use of warfare links on capitals (plus the built-in Titan fleet bonuses)
• Capital local reps
• Drone Control Units
• Clone Vat Bays (at best a niche module for over a decade now)

Are these all being reviewed / removed / revamped alongside all the new toys?

They are :)
Capital Local Reps will be re-balanced based on the new HP and change in capital RR mechanics, along with having Meta, T2 and Faction variations introduced.
Drone Control Units don't make a lot of sense under the new fighter squadron mechanics. We've got some ideas, but nothing we're willing to announce yet.
As for the others, we're looking into them but don't have anything to announce yet.

You have put some interesting changes forward and for the most part I like them all. It is going to be good seeing everyone adapt to the changes.

I presume that we will see all the existing ship and role bonuses alerted on capitals/supercapitals? any idea on when we can see the stats etc of these?

I anxiously await the upcoming dominance of the Mjolnir Rage Citadel Torpedo, CASB Phoenix. The Leviathan can come too, I guess.

The slave set alone on that Guardian is 2b or so. Although the pilots pod is very likely to survive given :lowsec:
That said, the Triage Archon puts out considerbly more reps than the Guardian. Slave up the Triage pilot and I would argue your point about which gets alpha-ed out is probably moot. Especially if there are Vindi webs on the field, that Sig on the guardian won't save it at all.

Again, its going to depend very much on the situation. In some cases, guardians are going to be the better choice (mobility being kinda important for a bunch of fleets), in others Triage. Bring the right tool for the job.


I think this is a good idea.

This is a good point. I'll pass it on to Team Game of Drones who are the ones working on Citadels. I know they are looking at doing some clone work for WH's, but I don't know what the scope is.

Could you clarify? You think ECM/TDs/Damps should be looked at separately rather than lumped together?

Heh :) So your argument is that if we make carrier gameplay too engaging thats bad?
I think you have an interesting point. I don't think making carrier gameplay less engaging is the answer though. Do you have any suggestions?

It comes down to balance.
Currently, any changes we make to XL weapons on dreads, we need to look at the effect it has on sub-cap blapping too.
For example, we can't buff the tracking of XL weapons without buffing sub-cap blapping.
By splitting these weapons up into dedicated Anti-Capital and Anti-Sub-Capital systems, we can separately balance them.


They are being considered, yes.

[quote=Alexander McKeon][*] When coming up with new numbers for capitals, will they be balanced against the current...

Thing is, bringing the most of X will not change under any rebalancing CCP do (current proposed changes encourage "bringing more of X"). That is up to players and as most groups are risk averse little kiddies who won't undock unless they know they will win, either by their own dominating numbers or the size of their batfone network -

The answer to is; Not at all but there are groups who do play solely this way, "healthy for the game", is not their concern. For them it is not about good fights and they would never consider "what is good for Eve",, it is all about winning with as little risk as possible.
No it isn't but that is exactly what you will be handing the rich dominating groups.
We win because we can simply field more than you can - Is the worst type of ship balancing.

Even going so far as to limit RR capabilities only reinforces the need for ever larger forces on the field, so again panders to the blob mentality.

There is so many ways to make capitals viable for any group who chooses to use them (and take the risk of doing so) but CCP seem to want to turn the whole thing into something so over complicated, it will take a masters degree and a bottomless wallet just to fly a carrier .

-- - -- - -- - --
Many groups can field 20 or 30 dreads and as many carriers but most won't without having a group who can field a hundred of each on standby because that is what your enemy is doing. When supers and titans come into play, a group who only has 2 or 3 titans and a few supers is loathe to field them because there is always the very real threat you will get 3rd partied by one of the elite groups (who oddly enough won't fight each other, because they want the guaranteed "We Win" of superior numbers and firepower) and get dunked. So where in this plan is the part where smaller groups can compete, without having to rely on someone else to fight for them?
As long as that is how Eve fights (subcap and capital) are fought - It will never be a place for small (<1000) unaligned groups.

I think the current plan is to introduce some sort of "jump fatigue" to limit the ability for folks to "third party" on fights in whose game they have no skin.

That is your opinion, which I disagree with.

And despite inaccurate claims of 'whining', as opposed to providing counter balance feedback, if CCP wants to turn Capital ships into giant Sub-capitals and blow PR smoke about it being a Buff; then I think I've paid my dues to call a 'spade a spade'.

'Escalation' in Null Sec PVP exist for a reason, it has always existed. A 100 man Battleship gang should never EVER be able to take down a 100 man Carrier group. Allowing otherwise, makes the entire existence of Capital ships worthless and redundant. Nothing more than a giant **** waving exercise.

Iterating a 'light touch' toward Capitals that allows a 250 - 500 man Battleship Gang to give a 100 man Carrier group serious pause is absolutely appropriate.

There are ships, and fleet compositions that are simply not counters to an opposing force.

Simply stating the current state of affairs, that Sub-Capital is not a Counter to Capitals, and personally holding that belief as correct does not make it "...just flat out fundamentally wrong:". That with Fleet v. Fleet fighting there is a historic segregation that exists between Sub-Capital and Capitals, and the 'Counter' to Capitals on grid is an escalation of Capitals.

Sorry but your stereo typical 250 man TryHard Alliance of 3 Carriers and 2 Dreads and 245 Sub-Capitals should not be able to control the Grid vs. a 250 man Capital Group.

Just as we have a hierarchy of Skill point capabilities, we have a hierarchy ... a 'pecking order' of things a up and coming group needs to have in order to play in the deep end of the pool.

If you remove this segregation, as seems to be being attempted, then you remove the motivation and incentive to ever develop a organized Capital Group in an Alliance.

I think if we could have simply frigate spammed our adversaries into submission, we wouldn't have the (assumed) largest Capital force in EVE.


But hey, if Developer Socialism is your thing, then by all means - I just happen to fundamentally disagree.

Are high angle guns really enough to change things though? To me, HA guns seem fairly weak from the stats alone. You quote HA guns as being 1-2k DPS on a dread. On a titan I'll be generous and call that 1-1.75k (moros does 35% more damage than a erebus, naglfar 14% than rag, etc). Again, it's about the value that the slots hold. I just can't imagine that basically doing the damage of two battleships or T3s will be more valuable than the utility that 10+ slots give you. Even with 5 titans on the field (more than most if not all alliances will ever field at the same time except under exceptional circumstances), you're looking at a paltry 5-8k DPS with the tracking of battleship guns. In circumstances where an alliance decides to drop their 120 billion isk citadel warmers they are going to have a sizable subcap fleet, and 5-8k DPS is not going to be a significant addition to the DPS of the main body of the fleet.

I want to point something else about the viability of guns on titans too. You straight up lose two thirds of the EHP on an erebus by fitting damage mods in the lowslots instead of armor hardeners, for example. That was a big loss but not the end of the world when combat refitting was a thing because you could refit hardeners and overload if someone dropped a titan blob and tried to go for the one-shot kill. It currently takes ~25-29 other titans to kill an erebus with their doomsdays if the erebus overheats his hardeners. With damage mods fit that number drops to only 7-9, which is still a lot but suddenly attainable for many groups. Frankly, you'd be crazy to risk some very marginal supcap damage over tanking 3x as much with your 115 billion isk ship. HA guns without damage mods are going to be even more underwhelming on titans. The damage gap between a dread and a titan grows to 110-140%. Again going off the 2k damage ceiling from the dev blog, that's in the 750-900 DPS range which is just plainly terrible.


I think that the argument that titans dont have to siege to use guns is fairly weak as well. Doomsdays render you unable to move for 60s and unable to jump for a full 10 minutes. I would say that penalty is at least equal to not being to move for 5 minutes. As for being able to receive reps, I'd venture that if the situation is escalated to the point where dreads are dying through their EHP and local tank in under 5 minutes, the DPS of HA guns will not make a meaningful difference in winning the fight.