Ships & Modules

While looking into various battleship fits it occurred to me on how ridiculously under powered the current selection of standard battleships in eve online are.

To anyone that has done any kind of low and null sec pvp they will know that a single battleship coming on to grid against you isn't anything to sweat over. In fact to most it's a chance for an easy kill. Battleships as a combat ship are pretty much last step in subcaps until you step into a carrier or dreadnought.

With that said a current battleship even in a full T2 fit is out classed in every aspect like DPS and defense even unique bonuses. Battleships aren't known for their speed but that is to be expected of ship over 1KM in length. The issue is that most anyone can get cruiser to out DPS a battleship and as for defense well a frigate with enough ammo and a scram can kill a passive tanked battleship. In 40-50+ fleets with logi yes it can be capable but on it's own it's a soon to be dead ship. And no one is going to bring pirate or faction battleships that cost well over 1 bil to a fight unless they have money to burn or hate their own respective killboards. Putting 1 bil of mods into one may have it last longer in a fight maybe even take a few down along with it. In the end it's scrap metal.

What i'm suggesting is massively boosting battleships in both standard defense and DPS. Have it be able to hold it's own in a fight. This could be done by either making a new type of battleship, an expensive assault battleship a ship that can be a fair fight with a T3 cruiser or battlecruiser for example.

Either that of make a new ship type to bridge the gap between Battleships and combat capable capitals. High sec combat capable capitals anyone?

I don't think Battleships are supposed to be able to hold their own in a fight. If you look at how battleships were used in history, they were expensive ships that needed an escort of smaller ships to protect them. They were particularly vulnerable to crappy torpedo boats.

In history, battleships were mostly just a way for a nation to show off how powerful they were. The battleships themselves were actually pretty pointless and crap.

Battleships are EHP bricks with guns attached. They sit statically and shoot. They are for fleet engagements and need support craft or they will be outmanoeuvred. You're not supposed to run around with one unsupported, no matter what lvl4s have taught you. ;)

Actually the greatest weakness of Battleships have always been reluctance to use them for fear of them sinking. Even in WW2 they could be incredibly dangerous and very difficult to sink. Tactical mistakes are mostly responsible for their poor showing.

In the few battles they were pressed into in both World Wars they were a deadly force. The idea that they were weak came from the Japanese who hoarded them expecting an American Battleship offensive against the home island instead of western sea control to focus on Europe and an island hopping campaign. This meant that in the small skirmishes they lost their pilots and ships that would cover BS from air and sub attack.

The result of an American faulty torpedo design kept American Submarines from being a real threat so the Japanese never invested in modern Sonar Technology or dedicated ASW Ships. Technology moved faster then you could believe in the war, blink and you miss it sort of thing. When the Torpedo problem was fixed and the States suddenly had a great 100+ Sub Fleet out of nowhere and the Japanese had to use their Destroyers as dedicated ASW platforms lacking real options. They built a fleet of tiny Escorts but without Frigate sized AA Armament like the American Tacoma's had or proper Sonar combined with their best pilots becoming self inflicted paint stains on the side of US Ships meant those escorts were wholly wrecked by US Air Power and the Subs they were meant to be hunting and unsuitable for fleet protection.

This left the Japanese Navy in a bind. America could launch mass attacks from the Air with hundreds or even thousands of Aircraft and thanks to the failed Kamikaze tactic there was no air cover. Their Cruisers and Anti Sub Force was whittled down to nothing. This all combined to create one thing, the Japanese Battleships were completely vulnerable to US Submarines which was responsible for sinking the majority of them and to a lesser extent air power. Basically they were heavily outnumbered.

The Germans in WW1 benched all their Battleships after Jutland not needing control of the sea as they were not relying on foreign trade the same way Briton was. They were also outnumbered 2-1, so after Jutland they switched to a strategy of commerce raiding with Cruisers and Subs avoiding the British fleet wherever possible. By the time the war was ending and it was all or nothing situation the German crews mutinied and their fleet became unusable. The planned final Navel battle never happened and the war ended soon after. The Germans never rebuilt their Capital Fleet for WW2 and despite the 2 powerful Bismark Ships they were outnumbered 5-1 in Battleships against the British only having 4 of their own. The Italians used their Battleships to good extent in WW2 but they were out of date, under supplied and out numbered as well.

Ironically the most dangerous Battleships the Japanese unleashed on the US was the 4 ships of the Kongo Class which were relatively light in size. They fought in every major battle because they were not priority and therefor were not hoarded by naval command. When the mighty 2 Yamato Battleships finally fought all the Japanese planes and the majority of support ships had been destroyed and they were slaughtered with ease, the primary reason being they were not used early when Japan had a chance and wasn't outnumbered 8 to 1 in everything.

What really killed Battleships? Well besides reluctance, Missiles. Missiles could penetrate the tough Armor, out ranged guns 2-5 times and ended most Armored Warfare at sea. Ships today are not heavily armored relying on missile countermeasures instead, Guns currently are not a big deal most ships are armed with one light Duel Purpose Gun. Anti-Ship Missiles killed Battleships in the modern age, reluctance to use them killed them in the past age.

90% web nerf killed the BS.

Heavy neuts are pretty much the sexiest things ever. All battleships need is a reduction in 100mn MWD cap use and I'd strongly consider flying nothing else.

EVE battleships are too vulnerable to frigate- (and some extent cruiser-) sized weapons.

If you plan on killing battleships with your frigate or cruiser, you should have to bring appropriately-sized weapons (making your ship very vulnerable to attack by ships of the same size class).

Stealth bombers and T3 BCs kind of work by this philosophy. It should be extended to more ships.

Yes, the fact that a raven has an effective EHP of 45-50k while a drake has almost the same EHP and far better damage projection coupled by the fact that the drake costs 1/3 the price of the raven is just plain sad. A 50% role bonus to BS weapons wouldn't even come close to fixing that and with the talked about changes to the drake it will gain an even bigger advantage in real DPS compared to the raven. I said this years ago before the whole drake bandwagon and people just laughed. Now we are seeing an upcoming drake buff and unless CCP does something to fix BS torps and cruise you might as well just delete the raven from the database and start over.

Tbh you guys don't have a clue,

most succesful fleet doctrines in eve since people actually started using doctrine;

Bs orientated - Sniper bs (now defunct) -> RR BS -> Welppests -> Hellcats -> Alpha Maelstroms -> Rokhs ->Napocs.

Succesful doctrines that were not bs orientated -> sniper hacs (now defunct) -> ahacs ->drakes -> Thunderbirds -> armour t3s -> Tier 3 snipers.

Basically the only downsides to bs are the web nerf and the introduction of bombs. Bombs are only an issue in null while the web nerf is countered just by having support. Tier 3s are basically a just a mobile version of the old sniper bs. So really the only non bs doctrines are either hml (getting nerfed) or ahac (created to kill bs) or expensive (t3s).

People who think bs with no support should just wtfpwn smaller ships just don't understand eve and probably thought tracking titans were legit.

If they just nerf the Drake and Tech 3 ships back to where they should be BSs will be fine.