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has anyone thought that maybe the problem is with arties having too high alpha damage rather than the rest being crap?

They keep hinting to it's coming Soon™. But they're giving no hints at all to when. Before or after fan fest? Little more specifics please.

TL:DR please stop tier 1 and 2 battlecruiser flexibility, such a thing's been imposed by usage trends. Apply narrow roles. Boosts and passive tank (larger gangs) or gank and interception/active tank (solo.

Please be aware that my point might have been championed previously by some other player or dev, but i'm still going to barge in this matter, so give me a break if such a proposal has been already presented.

If I remember correctly, people in CCP have said in interviews and forum posts i can't remember right now (but hey, here's :space reserved: while i look for a quote on that), that as far as sniping platforms go, the current tier 3 battlecruisers are infinitely superior than any other battlecruiser or battleship mostly because of their agility, and this is in regard to the whole Ferox/Naga issue but may very well be applicable to other hulls. Perpaps all of us ought to look for the dog that didn't bark: *Cheap* fleet boosters. Granted, this isn't an issue that is going to get looked at soon, but aren't battlecruisers originally supposed to be mainly support ships via boosts and, to a minor degree, the stepping stone into battleships? I read in some other place that battlecruisers, as far as the combat role goes, are supposed to either sport a massive tank (maybe to complement boosts) or fit better than decent DPS ditching or minimising said role with the obvious consequence of not being able to fit a good tank.

Now, for a ship like these to have so many roles (some intended and seemingly ignored by your customers, and others thoroughly exploited because of previous attribute/feature related developer decisions) it is probably damaging to the ship itself and the welfare of the game, as you have to juggle between so many possible fits that spring from said ingenuous theorycrafters. Take for example the hurricane, a fine armor ship, with a decent shield configuration, that can sport neuts and massive DPS at short range or can alpha people from a decent distace, and a decent boost ship in its armor configuration. Well hell, don't you think this stretches said ships a bit too much? (granted, minmatar is designed to be flexible, but still, this is something we see among other battlecruiser hulls to a relative degree)

With battlecruisers, it seems like limiting tiers 1 and 2 to the either (passive) tanky role with boosts and medium range flimsy damage, or short range brawling with better than average damage (maybe with a role bonus to active reps for solo play), would be the optimal approach. So Drakes could retain their role as passive pve ship or medium range T1 booster with tank and missile sniping, and the ferox would retain and further expand on its role as a blaster or rail damage boat, both able to stand against equally or smaller sized ships but not the larger ones without serious backup.

Inb4 obvious sperg for solo/small gang favoritism: Yes, I'm a lover of small gang casual PVP.

Best of luck with your endeavors.

Agree, the alpha is too damn High!

Upon thinking about the Ferox and the proposed changes, I would be much in favor of turning it into a mid-range kiter. You can't really make it into a sniper without competing with, and losing to the Naga, and you can't really make it a blaster brawler without making it compete with the Brutix. A ship that operates in the ~20km range seems like the best middle ground if it is to stay a turret based ship.

I love the direction going, particularly with command ships, but I have some concerns.

First off, tacling the on-grid issue, I 100% want boosters to be on grid, but call it what you will an optimal/fall off reduction in range etc, its a Nerf.

Not swapping the 3%/5% around between T3's and T2's, don't get me wrong I hate the 5% boost, but ...... Nerf.

I didn't see any mention of how equalising the tanking abilities of the Field/Fleet command ships is going to happen, realistically with the way these ships are treated and the fact they are going to be committed to grid they should all have tanks like the Damnation or better, but the fact this isn't addresssed kinda makes me assume that this will not be the case.... Maybe I'm hopping on the wrong conclusion, but by concern is that the bonus will just be removed and the fleet command ships will have less tank to meet the field command ship, ie a Nerf.

Then theres the bonus to DPS, while this seems like a fantastic idea in principle, the low slots that are currently being used for tanking will now have to compete with (insert damage mod of choice here) reducing the tank... Not a Nerf, but certainly not the bonus expected.

These ships NEED to be survivable, especially in large fleet engagements, these things are going to be primaried by 200+ Drakes or what ever ship is flavour of the month, they are going to be dead, most likely before the end of the first boost cycle, they aren't going to be able to be used off grid and have no means of escape because they are slow and have high sig radii, I would rather they did no DPS but had the tank of a Carrier if they are going to be on grid. Not to mention the automatic market turmoil and 5x increase in price of the warfare mindlinks when all the pods stuck in 0.0 bubbles die.

So basically, individually I totally agree with each and every change, but together collectively, it's going to be too much...... The skill chain to use them effectively is massive, and the cost of the ships+pod individually is significant, because they are such high value targets the risk of losing them in each engagement is high, and you are increasing the exposure of risk by forcing them quite rightly on to the grid into the fight where they belong, but they need to make an impact on the field a worth while one in line with the ISK/Risk ratio committed, and be able to hang around long enough to make that impact before they die.

Are you not trying to encourage people to use these ships??

I still don't understand the people who agree that warfare links are bad for small gangs, but then say the solution is to make warfare links only available to large fleets by forcing them on-grid

Boggles the mind.

Remember who it is we are talking about. Since this was not addressed specifically I have no confidence that I will be able to board my favorite field command ship following the change.

So what will happen with the social based fleet command skills? Will warfare link specialist be required for all t2 command ships? Will command ships skill requirements stay the same even though they all have the same command link capability (numbers wise at least)? Will the skill be removed from as command ships tertiary requirements? Will existing CS pilots be granted this skill in the spirit of "if you could fly it before, you will be able to do so after the change"?

I tend to agree with your last point concerning racial EW battleships.

As to the rest, when they have mentioned that the balancing of a particular ship is in fact and issue with fixing a related game mechanic (heavy missiles, etc.) that is usually a pretty good indication that those issues will be dealt with as part of the balancing effort. In other words, they will be fixing the actual problem as part of the release, not starting a senseless series of balance iterations.

Regarding disruption battleships, can't we have a neuting specialist Amarr BS (poor-man's Bhaal), a web-bonussed Minny BS and a Gallente BS that can fit a HIC bubble?