Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Quite it doesn't help that bc's have such a OP tank the drake and now the prophecy are part of the problem here combined with their mobility and smaller sig and surprisingly good range the drake can out-range many battleships which tells you how out of whack the hull is and HAMS are.

I think the issue there is "5m isk fitted Thrashers killing 100m isk - 2b isk fitted ratting ships." The only that would happen is if the rats provide most of the damage. That doesn't seem unbalanced to you?

Persoanlly, the only fair approach I can see would be for the rats to reset aggro and split it evenly/randomly, then allow the normal aggro mechanic to function on the group as normal.

Oh, and this is a ship balancing thread, posted by a dev on the ship balancing team. You may want to direct this sort of question to someone who actualy works in that area.

CCP Rise, Several people have told me I should post my Battleship idea directly to your thread, so here is what I would like to see out of a faction battleship:

Market Info

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Hull Name: Hydra
Base Hull: Rokh
Price: 1,300,000,000 ISK

Description

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Looking to upgrade their revered hybrid platform to face the unchecked menace of the Shadow Serpentis Vindicators, State R&D has put considerable effort in making a better Rokh. Fortunately, it's recent investment has paid off better than expected. Even though plans for the new model had been a closely guarded secret, Guristas pirate hackers managed to obtain a copy from a careless Caldari State administrator, and had immediately 0-dayed it all over the Caldari corporate net, immediately causing a joyous uproar amongst diehard fans of the Rokh platform.

Even more stable and solid than before, the recent improvements in turret mounting makes this ship able to hit out even farther than it's predecessor. Additionally, progressing miniaturization has increased the amount of space available for its internal bays, making room for more badly needed drone space. The sensor package has also been replaced by a more specialized model, giving a much quicker lock time and much greater sensor strength at the expense of targeting range. Most significant of the changes to the base hull is the new shield and capacitor generators, which is the best the Caldari State has to offer in this ship class.

However, these improvements are not without their drawbacks, as the new internal hardware has increased the mass of the hull considerably. It's a quite a bit heavier and unwieldier than it's predecessor, and requires a great deal more skill to pilot effectively. Much of the armor hardening hardware had to be scrapped to make room for the improved shield generators, but this is considered entirely irrelevant by the overwhelming majority of Caldari pilots. Despite these drawbacks, this new hull is sure to be a hit with it's striking arctic white and blue paint job, unique among Caldari designs.


Base Requirements

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Advanced Spaceship Command 3
Caldari Battleship 4
Caldari Battleship Specialization 1*

Hull Bonuses

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Skill bonus for Caldari Battleship: 10% hybrid optimal range and 5% shield resists per lvl.
Skill bonus for Caldari Battleship Specialization: 10% hybrid falloff range and 2.5% shield resists per lvl.

Structure

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Structure HP: 8,000
Cargo Capacity: 625 m3
Drone Capacity: 100 m3
Drone Bandwidth: 50 Mbit/sec
Mass: 110,000,000 kg
Volume: 486,000 m3 (50,000 m3 packed)
Inertia Modifier: 0.16
Structure Resists: 0/0/0/0

Armor

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Armor HP: 8,000
Armor Resists: 15/10/10/15

Shield

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Shield HP: 10,000
Shield Recharge Time: 2,000s
Shield Resists: 20/50/50/20

Capacitor

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Capacitor Capacity: 7,200 GJ
Capacitor Recharge Time: 1,250s

Targeting

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Maximum Targeting Range: 48km
Maximum Locked Targets: 7
Scan Resolution: 60mm
Gravimetric Sensor Strength: 32 points
Signature Radius: 500m

Propulsion

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Max Velocity: 100m/sec
Warp Speed: 3.00 AU/s

Fitting

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Max CPU: 800
Max Powergrid: 15,000
Max Calibration: 300

Low Slots: 5
Medium Slots: 7
High Slots: 8

Launcher Hardpoints: 0
Turret Hardpoints: 8
Upgrade Hardpoints: 3
Rig Size: Large

Notes

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*Caldari Battleship Specialization is not an actual skill in EvE, it just a placeholder for a skill that unlocks access to advanced Caldari State hulls. The design calls for the specialization skill to be rank 10. Per and Will based, under the Spaceship Command group.

Edit: Took off the webifier bonus, peeps have convinced me that it's too off-flavor.

Tier 3 BC should be in a much better balance after the changes to TEs and the sig/align time.

Battleships:
Armageddon- (ATTACK) Fairly well balanced already, just needs its effective hit points brought up to tier 2 levels and a little bit more grid to fit a full rack of guns, heavy injector, and utility (I'd say 1.3k PG should do it). I hate the -10% cap usage bonus and really wish this was incorporated into the hulls of all amarr ships. If the cap bonus was put in may be interesting to maybe do 5% tracking per level or something. (The being able to fit a heavy injector may make it necessary to only improve the capacitor only slightly.)

Apocalypse- (COMBAT) It's kind of lost right now, as long range sniping isn't really viable because of on grid probing and at shorter ranges the abaddon can preform its role better in most cases. As mentioned with the geddon, put the cap bonus in the hull. I see 3 possible bonus combinations that could make it more appealing: optimal/optimal, optimal/damage, or optimal/tank. Or you could get all droney with it and do optimal/drone damage and boost the drone bay (8 guns and 4 sentries would be pretty sweet)

Abaddon- (COMBAT) Really the go to BS right now. Lower EHP and CPU/PG a little to fall in line with tier 2 hulls. The resist/damage bonuses are fine.

Dominix- (COMBAT) Keep this a gun/drone boat. The gallente hulls should be the fastest and most agile of all the races' base hulls seeing as they have the shortest effective weapon range. Buff up its EHP and fittings to tier 2 levels.

Megathron- (ATTACK) This is pretty good where it is. Just improve its agility and speed.

Hyperion- I hate this ship so much. The local rep bonus is just a waste, even with the armor tanking changes. Dropping its EHP to tier 2 will just make it worse. You need to do something to give it some appealing feature aside from PvE or it will never be fielded aside from scrubfleets.

Typhoon- (COMBAT) Give it a full rack of 7 torpedoes, bump its EHP, and move its 8th high to a mid and it's good to go. Not a fan of split weapons systems on this ship. Switch the projectile bonus to something aside from missile range. 5% ship speed maybe interesting.

Tempest - (ATTACK) It needs something to give it appeal over the Tornado. Not a fan of the 75 bandwidth for drones.

Maelstrom - (COMBAT) Still hate the local rep bonus, but ASBs and 8 1400mm arty more than make up for bonus. (Maybe if rails were actually worthwhile in fleet fights the Hyperion wouldn't be so terrible?) Drop some fitting and ehp to tier 2 levels. Still hate the 75 bandwidth. This ship is already pretty good where it is.

Scorpion - (DISRUPTION) Oh the scorpion, the oddball of the Battleship class. What to do with you? I personally hate ECM with a passion, so I can't recommend making it better in that regard. Maybe just add a low slot and give it some more EHP and fitting? Again the 75 drone bandwidth.

Raven - (ATTACK) Again, I hate the 75 bandwidth, drop it down to 50 and give some additional EHP. Personally, I'd love it if the 2nd utility high was moved to a mid. Seems a little sluggish, maybe lower its mass. PLEASE FIX CRUISE.

Rokh - (COMBAT) Wish it was a touch faster. The optimal/resist bonuses are great. We'd see more fleets of them if rails had something over lasers and arty. Because currently, unless you have enough ships in fleet to 1-shot enemy ships with rails, arty is the better option. And at closer ranges lasers can maintain higher dps.

You know.. that is NOT a bad idea. 5% rof to Torpedoes . 6 Launchers. Keep the drones. 15% MWD signature penalty reduction per level....

Coudl be tweaked into a ship that coudl counter the BS blapper dreads.... MAYBE.

While talking about Battleship hulls, I think that Marauders need small tweak in their role - adjustment to obsolete tractor bonus.

Proposing this because it looks like only folks from balancing team can at least consider those changes.

Remove static Marauder role bonus "100% bonus to range and velocity of tractor beams" . Add instead "5% bonus to Tractor Beam and Salvager cycle time and 30% bonus to Tractor Beam range and velocity per level of Marauder skill".

Plan:
1. Add to all Marauders eliteBonusViolators3 = -5 and eliteBonusViolators4 = 30 attribute, remove eliteBonusViolatorsRole2 and eliteBonusViolatorsRole3
2. Make copies of shipBonusNoctisSalvageCycle, shipBonusNoctisTractorCycle, shipBonusNoctisTractorRange, shipBonusNoctisTractorVelocity effects.
3. Rename them to shipBonusViolatorSalvageCycle, shipBonusViolatorTractorCycle, shipBonusViolatorTractorRange, shipBonusViolatorTractorVelocity.
4. Edit new effects and make them dependent from appropriate skills. Change "ORE Industrial" to "Marauders", shipBonusOreIndustrial1 and shipBonusOreIndustrial2 to eliteBonusViolators3 and eliteBonusViolators4 respectively.
5. Add newly created and edited effects to Marauders to make things work.

Thanks for reading.

It's a novel idea, but wouldn't that (making the big, slow BCs (aka. BS) even bigger) just add to the power creep and make them the new black?

Here is a counter: Add damage and give them eWar (ECM/TD/Damps only) immunity to set them apart and give them a place on the battlefield.
Nerf their ability to maintain themselves (poor cap, less shield/armour but better resists) thereby adding an extra weakness to bombers (Void!) and prevent them from emerging as solo pwn-mobiles while having to rely on eWar vulnerable logistics for sustained operations.

Rise,

I think ultimately the acid test should be, do the changes you make to Battleships enable each race to have a viable doctrine using that races ships only?

If you look at that criteria then…

Amarr : Are basically there, strong armour doctrine with the core based around Abaddon’s and the superb damage projection of Pulse Apoc’s/Navy Apoc’s. The Oracle works, all the supporting arms (e.g. logi/heavy tackle/EW/fast tackle) work and to round it out everything is working splendidly at the capital ship level. Really, they need very little.

Minmatar: Are not far off, artillery Maelstroms are still working as the core of a shield doctrine, autocannon Tempests as anti-capital and to round it out the Tornado is superb. Of the supporting arms, all the really important supporting stuff works really well. The Typhoon could be an awesome addition to the core as a missile boat, but that really needs large missiles and/or launchers to be looked at. Biggest downside to minmatar is the gaping hole at the capital level, though that is being half fixed shortly and I’m sure you guys won’t leave the Niddy alone for ever, right?...

Caldari: Need some work, the Rohk and to lesser extent the Scorp, oddity though it is, fulfil the core role well, the Raven is hamstrung by the payload. On the support front I think it is the best it’s been for a number of years (in Drake we trust), Naga is superb and ECM still is a massive force multiplier. Obvious downside at the moment is the gash state of the capitals, but again, probably fixable taking a long hard look at missiles.

Gallente: Also need some work, at the top end capitals are performing splendidly, at the bottom end the support works really well (particularly with the recent changes), the Talos is still a bit of an oddity in armour doctrine, but at least it seems to work.

The core doesn’t. The Dominix could be much better if the drone system were overhauled (it’s barely been touched since castor) new drone commands/functionality would help (like, “stop trying to orbit you noobs…”), but that’s no simple task. The Megathron is still sore from the speed changes of 2008 and I don’t think anyone making the changes at the time really grasped what a massive impact the web/scram and speed reduction changes were going to have on blaster battleships, but I’m just a bitter old fart. The Hyperion has just never been ‘there’. That armour repair bonus really does it no favours and should be replaced with something that enables it to work in the core of a fleet. Personally I believe that should be damage projection, a falloff bonus would allow you to reach out from 15-36-50km with Neutron blasters (if, you we’re being manly, fitting a manly armour fit and using mids appropriately…), viable for a closer ranged fleet that's using heavy dampening and support to tear stuff up.

So basically you want to make the Gallente battleships the fastest instead of Minmatar? That coupled with the highest dps weapon blasters would be just plain op.
And also in your opinion all active tanking bonuses are useless and you want to change them all to suppport blobs?

No.

I agree 100% with you, with the recent balancings it feels like the gap between frigs, cruisers and battlecruisers have shortened even more to the battleships. They should be the kings of subcaps that you take to the frontlines but now even tier3 bc's has way too many advantages over them.