Ships & Modules

No, they shouldn't be. They're made to be versatile, and easily adapted to the task at hand. Not to obsolete entire ship classes.

And even the "under powered" one, the Legion, is still stronger then the HAC's, and the only reason it's considered underpowered is because it doesn't overshadow the entire Amarr cruiser lineup, unlike the other nation's T3s.

But when one "adaptable" ship is beating several specialized ships at their tasks, it is quite obviously time to bring them down to a more reasonable level, and perhaps improve where they are lacking.

I know it's often said that they're not very good Ewar boats, or Logis. Perhaps they could change them to be more effective in those roles, though still inferior to a dedicated ship. And then allow them to quickly change subs out of a carrier, and you have a heavily adaptable ship class that can adjust to the task at hand at a moments notice without running back to the home system to reship. Sure it wouldn't be as good as say, an Arazu, or Falcon, a Basilisk, or Guardian. But when you don't know what you're going up against, you can bring a fleet of these with a supporting Carrier, and hotswap modules and subs to make them workable in a role.

so basically you are proposing that Tech3s should be completely useless whenever you have the logistics to get a few cheap specialized ships into the system you operate in. brilliant.

T2 ships and modules are a method for high-SP characters to improve their performance without spending too much ISK. T3s are exactly not that.

edit: you cannot swap subsystems in w-space.

so because if it did not work with titans, it also doesn't work with faction/pirate ships/T3s?

if you are against cost as a balancing factor, here is a list of games that you should NOT play:
EVE online
World of Tanks
League Of Legends
Defense of the Ancients
Starcraft
Diablo
Counter-Strike
.
.
.

Go away. Cliche guy.

Of course not, but such an un achievable benchmark should not be the defining point of "un balanced".

The truth is that t3s fit like a hac significantly eclipses the hac as well as Field commands. These are two classes ships that do not really have a role anymore outside of specific exceptions. Sleipnir obviously being an XL ASB power house (has 1 more slot than other field commands for some magical bad balance reason) and the zealot which allots for massive fleet level tanks through the use of logi, high resistances, and "Speed tank". Even though the zealot is considered "good" it's no where near as good as a legion fit in a similar manner.

What's needed is an overall change to t3s. They need to have their front line gank/tank capabilities reduced and have some of their utility options increased through improvements to other sub systems. The other change that is 100% imperative is the ability to swap sub systems while in a pos.

Comparing the niche ewar capabilities of recons and t3s does speak highly for your point of view however it's missing a rather significant variable which is tank. Yes the rapier can reach out and web something farther than a loki however the loki brings far more firepower ontop of significantly higher resistances and hp values. This allows the loki to perform the same role, albeit at closer range as the rapier/huggin in far larger fleets facing far more focused fire power.

Now about the vaga vs loki comparison. Sure, the vaga is faster than the loki and in turn performs the 20-30km kite role better against a large fleet however again is at a significant disadvantage in terms of raw fire power end tank. The loki also has the option of 30km+ webs putting the overall range control of the loki far beyond that of a vaga when dealing with 1 or 2 hostile ships. Furthermore I think the loki in "hac mode" is far more comparable to the munnin where it has the potential to outperforms it in almost every imaginable category.

Legion vs curse comparison. Curse does have a very significant range advantage however with it's nuets however the legion wins in drainage amounts, tank, as well as overall dps if you're taking advantage of the turret and high slot improvements the legion provides in this setup. The main difference between the two ships i beleive is the tracking disruptor bonus the curse can take advantage overall making the curse the better option in this particular comparison. So I do agree with you in the legion vs curse point.

The legion vs zealot comparison you've made however is simply incorrect. The legion is the zealot's superior in almost every category other than speed and sig. With the ab prop sub system a dual pop legion will be doing very near the same speed as an abing dual prop zealot or with the overall 5% raw speed sub system values will be just slightly less than the zealot by maybe 100-150 m/s (mwding). The zealot in this fit does have about 20 more dps due to a third damage mod however has well under half the ehp of the legion which also has higher resistances due to not having significant cpu issues which prevent the zealot from using an active hardener unless other sacrifices in terms of dcu/prop are made or the use of an implant. The legion also has the advantage of fitting a 4th mid beyond the small cap booster II with navy 400s or 200s both ships should be fitting.

When looking at solo fit available between the "hac" legion and zealot it's very easy to see that the legion again has significant advantages. Especially in the form of the available 10% per level rep bonus allowing this ship field active tanks in excess of 3k (exile + ogb) while also pushing close to 600 close range dps. This is a role the zealot and abso are both simply out classed at.

The truth is that outside of very specific niche capabilities inside of roles t3s are significantly superior to t2 ships especially when comparing "hac" t3s to actual hacs. While your are correct that when fitted with an ops cloak the performance levels of a force recon and t3 become closer than compared to a t3 w/o cloak the difference in ehp/resistances and dps is still very significant. When looking at hacs to t3s as stated in my previous pot the difference in performance becomes exceedingly large. Outside of very specific setups like max speed or dronage t3s are as a whole far far far more potent than hacs.