Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I'm not really seeing a need for additional logistics in this game, and the current state of neutral logi in high-sec is already rampant enough as it is. Also you have the issue of this ship keeping up with a fleet. The nice thing about a triage carrier is that you don't have to lug around a big ship - BS hulls are slow enough as it is, and if it's a HAC/BC gang you get a lot more fleet agility.

If this ship is intended for PvE content, there would need to be a much greater expansion to the content available in EVE, there are very few instances that can use anything larger than a BS in high-sec (or most PvE content).

This sounds like it would be a fun ship to pilot.

As something that would fill a supporting role in many fleets, I would personally fly one if given the opportunity.

Please elaborate.

What would this ship bring to the field that isn't already done (if not better) than a triage carrier, or logistics ship? Without the carrier bonus to capital RR modules and triage locking bonus it would be very difficult for this ship to keep a fleet up, and if you're having a tough time locking BSs before they pop, then there's a good chance that a ship with 150% BS EHP will likely pop in similar order.

On the DPS end. It's slower than a BS but essentially does the same amount of damage. Why not just use a BS then?

In FW if we want some capital-like gameplay we just field capitals. BS gangs are cumbersome enough as it is, and it is more effective to fit a cyno on a ship than to move even slower (while showing your full fleet composition) with a larger-than-BS sized ship. Overall, there's a pretty good balance between capital and sub-cap warfare in FW, I don't think there's much of a desire to see a significant escalation.

The only real benefit I can see is its use as a ship transport that is less cumbersome than an orca, with less mass than an orca and a carrier. Even then, there's a high likelihood that the ship would be caught on gates and would require an escort.

While I agree on meny things in this thread I still say skip all repping and focus on an actual drone carrier

( and no, domi/rattle are not pure drone carriers, they are hybrids. there is no actual offensive drone carrier in the game )

Well maybe a step back and a hard look at the ship's role and the comments made should be done.

1. Fighter mechanics at present allow safe-spotted fighter support on the field. In Hi-sec this has tons of inherent problems among them being that Concord has to be able to kill you when your drones give you a GCC. Being in a POS gives you protection from that. Therefore current fighters as we know them would be unsuitable.

2. There are worries that remote repairs from this ship would make Logistics Ships less useful in fleet warfare because the ship could fill that role. Admittedly a spider-tanking battleship fleet does that just as well.

3. Worries about cost/benefit and mobility to keep up with battleships.

Now my thoughts on this...

When I first heard the idea for an 'escort carrier' I immediately thought of a Charon-class Freighter with it's cargo-bays converted to a flight deck... I just did. Now, historically the role of Escort Carriers is to protect stuff like freighters, merchant ships, amphibious assault ships and so forth. They have 1/4 the capacity of aircraft of a fleet carrier and are meant simply to be a cheap alternative to fleet carriers.

To get something with a similar niche in EVE requires some hard thinking, and will unfortunately require a new type of fighter craft as the ability to field fighters is actually the definitive ability to the Carrier Skill in EVE. As we already have frigates named interceptors, my first choice of name is off the books as Interceptors as short range fighters that lack a warp drive would have been ideal.

Oh what the heck... Fighter Interceptors, there we go. Fighters that can't go to warp, Interceptors... which considering the ship's role is an Escort. Makes sense.

So what are Fighter Interceptors? Well... looking at the stats for Fighters and Fighter Bombers show a clear trend... Fighters have a sig radius of 100 or so... which is much closer to cruisers than frigates. Their weapons also have a signature of 125 meters, the same as a cruiser size turret. Fighter Bombers... or just Bombers as they've removed the second attack from them due to load issues are meant specifically to kill Dreadnoughts with their damage radius of 2.25 kilometers or so. Nothing but a Super Capital really takes full damage from them.

Interceptors are therefore the little brothers of Fighters with weapons with a signature and tracking comparable to frigate size turret and slightly less dps then a fighter. They should be fast with a speed of around 3 km/sec (compared to the 2km/sec of fighters or the 1.5 km/sec of Fighter Bombers). They also have less HP's and a smaller signature radius of around 40-50 meters. Their lack of warp drive will keep them from being abused and at 3km/sec with a viable reach they might be a decent weapon to use against Interceptors.

As for the Escort Carrier itself... I still really like the idea of a ship with the HPs and size roughly like a freighter, but shrinking it to be viable to keep pace with current Battleships would definitely need to be done... though the Freighter does probably give a good reference for how much EHP should be in an Escort Carrier.

Have to correct you on this, if you don't believe me, do test it on SISI:

Faction Police and CONCORD use nasty devhaxx and gleefully shoot through POS forcefield

You really thought this through. Thank you. If you can get more statistics then there is a good chance CCP might add it.

I really like your rendition of Interceptor Fighters. Would need some balancing to make them nasty against smaller ships and larger ships when used in force. But overall I like the idea.

I like the general idea of the Escort Carrier, and giving it the ability to ten or so drones at a time would undoubtedly be quite nice and very powerful to wield and use. Fighter Interceptors might be nice and all, but I can't really voice an opinion on them, but I will say that fighters on a Escort carrier would be rather bad (instead, if you want a smaller carrier with fighters on them, why not have something like an Assault carrier made for attacking). Give the ship a battleship sized tank/buffer, and it looks like it would do quite well.

I really do like the idea that you have Loius Who. If I may ask though, how many high slots would these vessels have? It would make sense to have more than just five or so, if you wanted to put high slot drone control modules up there.

Really good idea though.

Furthermore, you can't have drones out and being inside the pos forcefield, the fighters will just return. And then up until recently you couldn't even assign fighters in .4 security space (this, however, might be fixed already, i haven't tried that in a while now), but the point being - don't allow assigning of fighters in hisec, problem solved!