Ships & Modules

Yes.

Tier 2 BCs are too good, and obsolete cruisers, field command ships, and short range HACs. Tier 1s are fine-ish. Tier 3s almost completely obsolete sniper HACs.

It comes down to battlecruisers being way too light and agile for how much punch they pack. How a battlecruiser "should" be is represented by the Ferox or Prophecy -- perhaps with a bit more firepower tacked on. The Hurricane and Drake, plus the Myrmidon and Harbinger to some extent, are just way too powerful for their price.

The CSM minutes hinted at BCs getting the nerfbat soon. Let's hope those changes will be appropriate.

Bullshnitzel the BC's will be getting a nerfbat. Tiercide, however, will normalise the power of the ships and redirect their strengths toward completing a role.

This will be more felt in frigates and cruisers, which will gain (on balance) more PG and CPU to achieve much better fittings, and hence, better combat perfrmance. Eg, the Augoror and Scythe might get useful slot layouts and ability to fill them with medium sized guns. Others may get improved or different ship class bonuses or role bonuses.

I do, however, agree the sniper BC's are too agile. Hell, you can outrun almost all cruisers in a nano'd Tornado (2800m/s), which basically means there's no way of using the cruiser's supposed edge in maneuverability to redress the advantages of the sniper BC's.

I dunno, i think Tier 1 BSs are way better than any BCs... great DPS, versatility, and a good tank too.

Tier 3 BCs DPS with field commandships tank (nearly) for 40-50 mil.

on the one side you could say 'it's a BATTLEcruiser, why would it suck at BATTLE?'. on the other side, most ships in eve are meant for combat, so the battlecruisers' overall effciency is somewhat overpowered.
still, with regard to their intended role as straight up combat vessel, i'd probably nerf their speed and agility rather than firepower, tank or cost efficiency.

They are. I've been saying that for ages.

Which one obsoletes the Sleipnir, or Absolution? The Astarte is definately worth the upgrade (1500dps shield gank edition) and the nighthawk should see more use when the Drake gets changed.

The real issue is they do, absolutely, obsolete cruisers. There is no gain ever to using a cruiser over a BC.

IMO the easiest fix is to change the rig slots on cruisers to small, so they can be inexpencive. It's silly the rigs on a typical fit are equal to the hull cost each. Perhaps also halve the weapon hard points and give them a 100% damage bonus. Get the typical fit down from 35mil to 10mil and suddenly cruisers are awesome again.

If I remember correctly battlecruisers in this game were originally created to be a counter to cruisers as destroyers were created to be a counter to frigates. This is still true, but battlecruisers may have been taken a bit too far with tier 2 and 3, now. For Amarr and Minmatar, tier 2 was a pure upgrade from tier 1 in terms of damage and slot layout. For Gallente and Caldari, tier 2 offers a battlecruiser with a different weapon platform with a better tank and better versatility.

I don't even know what role the tier 3 battlecruisers are supposed to fill. It looks like it's a ship with more firepower than a battleship or field command ship in the hull of a tech 1 cruiser. To me it represents a fast attack and hard hitting ship. However, HACs were supposed to fill that role. Tech 3 also fills that role along with other roles, but with substantially more tank and a little less DPS depending on the fit. IMO, tier 3 battlecruisers weren't necessary and are odd. Amarr and Minmatar already had a gank battlecruiser.

I'll add my retort, but keep it brief this time ...

• BC are not too good, they are too cheap to fly.
• For most intents and purposes they are fairly equal to tech II Cruisers while II maintain some sort of speciality.
• That means that when you draw on that speciality, a group of HAC, will almost always beat a group of BC.
• Tier 3 BC are another kind of beast - but they are recent and that's another discussion in my opinion.
• The problem is that a BC cost it's fitting to replace whereas a HAC cost it's fitting + upward 150m.
• Without insurance the differences are mostly tolerable (assuming the BC cost 50% of the HAC or more).

Direct effects of price-balance:

That problem stem from a general profileration in the game of maximizing cost-efficiency, numerical efficiency in (and streamlining of) PvP through utilizing insurance. Basicly, tech II ships are too expensive in general and too expensive in relation to tech II fitting in particular. That is what has standardized the size-up and tech II fit approach over the years.

Dealing with that involve revisiting insurance and look at other things such as the balance between hull-cost and module-cost.

The latter is extra appealing since it encourages PvP by taking ISK from sink (deflation) and insurance (the victim), while providing for the attacker (drops). This encourages PvP as a source of income (with risk of asset loss).

In the larger picture:

Why CCP are reluctant in the matter stem from it's effects on the NPE (New Player Experience) - and the general design philosophy over the past few years that promotes numbers in cost-efficiency, over high-risk - high-potential resource management. Risk-adverse, high-volume, cost-efficient groups thrive while small-volume, high-resource and high-stake groups are being relegated to peripheral (NPC-null, Low) and instanced (WH, FW) gameplay. This relates back to the inability to balance the two to make the game inclusive and interactive since the general profileration of efficiency in 2007.

Essentially, CCP aim to encourage participation in PvP - by minimizing the risk of PvP.

As a result, the game today has become increasingly low-risk, but also increasingly risk-adverse (throw-away ships are no longer thrown away, and lack of meaning in PvP tend to be more of a discouragement than an encouragement). Before, hurting another through destruction of ships had a purpose. Today, regardless of scale, they are only instrumental and purpose lie solely in infrastructure and income-sources, not efficiency and wastage.

No the problem is BC's aren't out matched well enough by BS's. Battleships need support to be effective against anything smaller than themselves...BC's dont need that against cruisers or against Battleships.

Squeezing one of those on a Damnation for maximum win in 3... 2...