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I originally posted this on Reddit but it's appropriate here:

First of all, I want to frame this conversation by saying that I am aware of how balance issues affect gameplay differently depending on gameplay style and area of space. With this in mind, I am writing this piece from the perspective of a member of an active small high SP alliance which holds sov that is being utilized in all its aspects to a reasonably high degree.

I'm not going to speculate on the future iterations or structure releases except to say the general trend and trajectory seems to indicate that CCP wants to give sov holders more control over the utilization and defense of their space. I think the community generally agrees that buffing if not the benefits of sov but the quality of life for sov holders who live in and utilize their space is a universal good for the game. Aegis sov took away the benefits and necessity for huge coalitions to own vast swaths of fallow space; the new mechanics enable small alliances to make some temporary friends and actually take space. Future releases seem to be aimed at helping those alliances keep that space and capitalize on the promise of their new homes.

These are all very positive directions! But all is not well.

The Fall release is going to see major changes to the way industry is done in nullsec. It's no secret that the miners of nullsec, mining the best ores with the best boosts offered by Rorquals, fuel the economy of New Eden. Unless you've lived out in nullsec either as a member of a militarized sov holding alliance or an industrialist, it can be difficult to understand the flow of life when nothing else is going on: log in, mine or rat, keep eyes on intel and reap the rewards of owning space you live in. When neutrals come in, assess the threats and usually get safe. When roaming gangs come in, usually they are on their prime time and in well comped doctrines. The locals on the other hand, may be just a handful of people in their off time, or simply without enough available to form a reasonable response.

The roamers find a few stragglers or not, and move on, the locals undock and go about their business again. All's fair. Right? Not for long!

Well, the teams responsible for capital balance and industry are going to be making a just massive change to this formula by forcing the Rorqual boosts to be on grid. Not a big deal you say if you don't want to risk it? Well you've never gotten Rorqual boosts! Mining in nullsec without boosts is a non-starter for a serious industrial operation. Full Stop.

This change will be balanced by the increased yield from "mining fighters" deployed from the Rorqual and the invulnerability shield the Rorqual can put up to defend industrial ships on grid in its fleet. The purpose of this mechanic is to give a response fleet a chance to get to the Rorqual.

Team Five-O, what response fleet do you envision coming to the aid of this mining fleet in a typical sov holding alliance pocket? Usually, the people on hand who have useful ships will be carrier ratting. The easiest answer to having a mining fleet locked down by a roaming gang would be to cyno available carriers to the Rorqual, the same answer a well prepared alliance has to having a ratting carrier locked down.

This is precisely why carriers have to be good against the things that are likely to conduct strikes into sov. Weakening carriers nerfs Sov and industry. Strengthening carriers buffs Sov and industry.

TL;DR Before releasing sweeping changes to industry, please consider the roles that carriers play to a sov holding alliance in defending its space. Carriers are the balancing tool that allow sov holding alliances to reasonably defend their space against incursions aimed at disrupting sov utilization.

A nerf or buff to carriers is a nerf or buff to Sov.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Eve/comments/4rde59/open_letter_to_team_fiveo_regarding_carrier/

The point is it is just one more thing to have to micromanage now. It is extremely difficult to try and manage 3 fighter squads, have to account for their new attack range, and have to move them manually now. no other ship in the game has that much it needs to to to apply dps and with the latest nerf they have even taken the damage application from we carrier pilots. its ridiculous. CCP just doesnt know how to quit while they are ahead sometimes and it is the player base that suffers. All because people cried about not being able to kill something easy enough anymore....

In PVE fit (aka 5 DDA) you dont have millions of EHP (not even 500thousand). You have 350 thousand of EHP.
Dont overdo it.
Yes you can fit carrier "with millions of EHP" but then dps and damage is so low that you cant one shot frigates!

Here is quote from another thread

sure about the 70km? im too lazy to check tranq, but on sisi I could attack much further without any problem.

Control range of 70km for a carrier would be beyond stupid, maybe you have a bug?

It's funny, I specifically remember people telling me that the extra control range would be useless and no one would ever use it. Similar things about damage too.

Geuss it depends on who's upset that round vOv

So.... Because everyone this has happened to didn't post on the forums, it isn't happening?

One hour on Mumble last night from just after DT. Topic (after a capital hotdrop) Why the Fuk won't my fighters go out to attack, bloody thing was 85K from me and my fighters wouldn't engage. This in turn led to a debate about submitting support tickets, posting on the forums or trying to submit a bug report in game.

Outcome, you can use any and all of these options but it generally won't lead to much. Bug reports get ignored if you can't show precisely how to reproduce it (intermittent bugs are still bugs, only if you can reproduce them on demand).
My fav, was support insinuating I was telling lies and refusing my ticket request. Then asking me to send them logs and explain ways to reproduce what happened - In case there was actually something to my request.

NB; As I was looking at the "Rocket Salvo" I thought it ok to respond with how it was effected. The "primary" ability of Light Fighters has been stealth nerfed, because Devs altered the standard orbit range so your Light Fighters are always applying their normal attack (blasters or whatever) in falloff. Firbolg Blaster Cannon Optimal range 4,000m, orbit 4,500m, you need to fit an Omni (unscripted) just to get fighters to hit at close to optimal. Poor old Einherji is even worse off, Optimal range 4,000m, orbit 7,000m. So any added damage to that ability is negated by orbit range.
An Omni is a must have if you want to apply damage at optimal ranges. I don't know of any other weapon type that forces a pilot to fit a module just to apply damage at its optimal range.
Devs made it so ALL carriers have either one less mid slot or lowslot, that's balance CCP style.

So yes your right, on paper Light Fighter main attack received a slight buff lowering the overall effect of the Rocket Salvo nerfs - which is negated (and then some) by the new orbit of Light Fighters.
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I have no "belief" or anything else about what Devs do. All I see is, they care less about balance and more about "look what we did", carriers are now worse than prior to Citadel. Balance isn't something that can be just tossed out after a few weeks of a meta being introduced because this or that group says it is too strong.
Balance is only found in baby steps, look at one piece work on it then see how the outcome effects everything else.

All Devs needed to do was rework / balance the NSA (which was needed), that fixes the insta lock blap of small ships by solo carriers - The primary complaint.
Then in time if carriers are still seen as OP (overall not just in the ratting fit, gate camping meta) you tweak something else.
What Devs did, was roll out a bunch of (all but crippling) nerfs at once, which contrary to your thinking "they will get tweaks later if needed" will only get further nerfs because that is seen as balance.

Also thank you for the detailed and civil response :)

I always try to be civil. Thanks though..

Seriously, you should join a group that either fights capitals or uses them.
Subcaps are far more of a threat to Dreads and carriers than Supers and Titans. Primarily due to the N+1 factor involved whenever Supers get dropped, sadly Titans have an even more limited role in capital combat (since the shield nerf and lack of any realistic shield triage, my Rag is once again relegated to a 110 bil bridge - Thank you Devs).

Drop a Titan or two and expect every group within range to turn up, subcaps through to capitals. It's like they just come out of the woodwork.
My most recent experience of this, group A engaged group B in an 80 odd vs 80 odd fight, both sides ended up dropping supers - within 10 minutes, local went from around 200 to just over 1,000. Ended up 900+ vs what was left of the 80 man fleet fielded by Group A.
NB; My Dread died early in the fight, to 41 Machs (no capitals on the killmail) less than 30 seconds after entering siege.

Put carriers and supers (armor only, shield is not repped) on field together, carriers are unlikely to get reps - Priority is always the supers (rightly so), Carriers have no defense vs Dreads and limited defense vs Supers. Add subcaps to the mix and carriers are the fodder, not as many presume, the subcaps. The FC leading the subcaps will win or lose the fight, not the capitals.

CCP looked at a limited use scenario of carriers and nerfed them accordingly, while not taking into account the resulting damage it did to the whole class.
So carriers were a little OP in one area, fixing that didn't require the extent of nerfs applied. But it is easier to remove any chance of carriers being used the way they were than let the meta find its own balance - Yes carriers killed a lot of stuff in gate camps but many of them also died doing the same thing. But because the frigate / destroyer pilots got heard it was decided a ship that takes the best part of 2 years to train into and costs billions of isk, shouldn't be able to risk that investment by using it in a solo way to kill and or die to small ships.
Before you (or anyone else) can say it - I don't believe a big ship should be able to just stomp small ships but at the same time that big ship should be at least able to try with some expectation of success.
Devs could have balanced Carriers / Light Fighters to enable this play style but for whatever reason (probably lack of knowing how to within the short period the nerfs were rolled out) decided not to.

This has been a pretty heated discussion, respectful discourse has been something of a rarity and I figured I'd call it out

I get that that's how things work now, but if Carriers had been left in a position where a sufficient volume of them just nuked sub-caps off the field then I really do wonder if we wouldn't have seen all, or mostly, Capital fleets start to become the norm. I think you'd always have sub-caps, but more as an afterthought instead of things like the current sub-cap focused doctrines. When it only takes 2-3 Machariels to equal the cost of a fully kitted out Dread or Carrier, and the Carriers are far more effective on a per-ship basis, then why bring the Machs at all unless you absolutely have to?

I have friends out in Null in Alliances that have said "everyone train for Carriers" back when Slowcats were just becoming a thing and it took most of them 6 months or so. Personally I think it's a lot more fun for everyone if fleet fights need a sufficient range of ships that pretty much everyone can fly what they want because it's all needed, and the only thing clamping on people is ratios. So maybe someone has to fly a Dread this time and gets to bring their T2 Logi Cruiser next time.

Overall I just don't think "solo Carrier" is something CCP wants to be viable, for more or less the same reason solo Battleships have gone from king of the roost way back in the pre-Nanonerf days to somewhere between hilarious joke and super niche thing now. It ends up being a choice between giving the ship all of these other advantages, like HP, fittings, DPs, and alpha, or making it balanced for it to be able to operate without support.

There may be a balance there that allows for both, but personally I think it's such a thin window that we'd have a better game if CCP took all of the time and effort it would take to find that balance and put it into easier and more obvious balance paths, both for Capitals and for the game in general.

Am I making something resembling sense?

Devs balanced their carriers to mimmick the CV class as found in WOWS. I also see them having the same problems. If they're dedicated anti battleship ships then that's one thing but it's not what I'm seeing.

As for the support fleet idea yes I guess so they should require a support fleet.. so long as ccp remember that CV tiers 6 and up as CACL speed and sometimes faster than BB and this is one of their saving graces.