Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I don't think anyone can disagree that the role of a black ops battleship is to jump in, blap something, and gtfo before their target has even gotten a kill mail notification. I know most of the time people are more inclined to just use them as bridgers... but that isn't really what I think CCP intended their primary function to be.

With it in mind that their niche role is surpise buttsecks, they should be optimized for that. And in most ways they are... they generally have lower tank, high dps, and good speed (while cloaked).

That said, it shouldn't take you 15-20 seconds to lock your target. That is the time it takes (should take) for the whole engagement to be over unless you're dropping on capitals. Even against other battleships, it's gonna be a good 10 seconds to get a target lock. If you've got 10-15 bombers with you, there are good odds that the battleship's already dead by the time you get a lock (700 dps * 10 bombers * 10 seconds = 70,000 damage).

The Widow, for example, has a base scan res of 75

With skills, the un-modded scan res goes up to 93. Still quite pathetic.

I'm not opposed to fitting a sebo... but even with a sebo, you're still looking at 6 seconds for a BS and 9 seconds for a cruiser. Which means you might want two sebos... wasting half of the midslots on a redeemer however just so that you can do what the ship was literally designed for seems like a design flaw.

To that effect I propose that BLOPS hulls start with cruiser scan resolutions... somewhere around 300mm.

Barring that, a hull trait tied to blops skill increasing the effectiveness of local sebos, allowing you to get away with only fitting one sebo and getting a usable scan res bonus from it... say... +20% effectiveness per level, meaning that at rank 5 one sebo would be the same as two.

As it stands it's jump, lock... wait... wait....


wait....

wait....


wait...

wait....


Okay FIRE!


It's just not surprise-buttsecksy.

Fair enough, though I would contend that in their present form, if they could lock things faster (much faster) they'd be good to rock and roll.

As I have seen on other threads, generally, people that use them are happy with them (at least the people who use them for their intended role behind enemy lines).

What other flaws would you say they have that they should not?

I'd love to see covops cloaks, but that'd be too OP. Perhaps also a bigger fuel bay.

You know what, you are totally right. I completely forgot that a cloak will mess with scan res. I had pulled up my favourite widow fit in pyfa, set it to an all 0 skill template, and looked at the resulting scan res with the sebo turned off. Totally my bad for the misinformation.

I would disagree that these battleships are meant to be a part of a fleet. A small gang, a bomber fleet at the most.. I know that bombers bar can drop 50+ bombers on a group, but I feel that is a fringe usage not directly intended. You may have bombers with rsebos on them, but that doesn't help if you happen to be running 3-4 blops and no bombers. The moment you say fleet I think of protracted traditional engagements... fleet battles, roams. The exact thing that a blops should lose horribly to.

Requiring logistical support (remote sebo) from your bombers just so that it can jump and rapidly attack, given it being what it is, still feels like it runs against the purpose and design. This is its niche. It shouldn't need support for its niche.

The only support it should need is a cyno. The lack of staying power is a substantial weakness that keeps it from running amok. I do agree that "nothing major" is needed.

Something that is singular (ie. has no pendant) can't be glorified. There are no other ships that can do a covert bridge.

That aside, BLOPS are used in combat just as much as a bridge. In particular Sins are very popular for solo blapping unsuspecting ratters or even suspecting but lacklusterly prepared ratters out of their ships and dreams.

You also cannot tiericide something that has no tiers. Furthermore, considering that "tiericide" has turned out quite terrible for some ships (Abaddon, Arbitrator, Stabber, Navy Drake, Nighthawk for instance) I do not have high hopes that CCP can do anything to make BLOPS better outside of just increasing their stats. Funny ideas from forum users like turning the Redeemer into an Armageddon with a JD only show how limited the fantasies of players and devs surrounding BLOPS are.
In my opinion, more than some stat improvements like better scan res, lower sig, lower mass or better tank are not needed to improve BLOPS. They have a role, they don't need more useless roles that someone thinks is funny or "interesting" when, in fact, they destroy what makes BLOPS a BLOPS.