EVE General Discussion

ok, i'll just sit in the corner now...

Yes, of course they can.

The difficulty with which this is so, however, is a good bit of what keeps them from seeing solo use. Doing so is the exception, not the rule. And certainly so in a solo situation, which will frequently result in you fighting small gangs capable of getting under a battleship's guns easily.

It *can* be done.

But it's far from the optimal situation. Which is the whole story of battleships for solo work, honestly. Not optimal.

Kaerf, this is correct, battleships aren't optimised for fighting frigates but, that being said, a battleship vs frigate 1v1 is probably going to result in more of a standoff if both pilots know what they're doing. The frigate won't have the dps to crack the battleship's tank, and the battleship won't have the anti-frigate capability with large guns or heavy missiles. Drones are its best bet, but if the frigate pilot knows what he's doing, he'll kill those first. A battleship specifically fit for fighting frigates, on the other hand, has significantly more chance in a 1v1 than a frigate specifically fit for fighting battleships, the latter being incredibly unlikely due to the dps output limitations of frigates.

Most of the time though, both parties would be forced to give up the fight, or call in friends to help - the frigate would call for friends with more dps, maybe a battleship, and the battleship would call in friends for intercept, maybe a frigate. Suddenly, it's a 2v2 with equal ship types on each side. This scenario is hypothetical of course, because it's more likely that one or both of these combatants will call in a blob. This is how escalations occur, especially when battleships are involved. Battleships tend to ATTRACT fleets, which is one very good reason why they should already be in one.

And to clarify, a battleship's best chance against frigates is light combat drones, Warriors being advised in PVP. That doesn't mean they're the only viable option though. If a frigate gets under guns, it doesn't mean it's impossible to hit them, just incredibly hard. Things like webs will help slow it down, target painters increase the sig radius (especially useful against assault frigates), and neuts can completely mess up a frigate's active tank and ability to deal damage or use its prop module. There are many tactics one can use, many ways to fit any given battleship that make it more suitable against frigates. The drawback to fitting one this way, though, is you make it less suitable for fighting the bigger stuff, and vice versa if you fit it specifically for fighting the bigger stuff.

Makes perfect sense, and is entirely reasonable, but there is, indeed, a line between them, and I think it is really very situational and probably reliant on a pilot's personal preference. Personally, I like to try new things. I like to accomplish the things that other players who have been playing for a decade say can't be done. A few months ago, for example, I heard the Worm is useless. I went soloing with it, got a dozen kills, lost about five of them, and decided that it's not useless, but my Ishkur is better.

My Ishkur on the other hand is absolutely incredible. Over 100 kills, nearly 150, most of them solo, with only 8 losses total. Many of those fights were against long odds, and larger ships (cruisers and battlecruisers - it's especially useful against attack battlecruisers, and loves killing Drakes). However, it's only the direct result of that very experimentation that I do when told something can't be done. I got told the Ishkur is for kiting, not for brawling, and way back in September last year, before my killboard was worth looking at, I concocted a fit sitting in Jita with a purpose in mind, not knowing how it would perform. I undocked and went to lowsec, and my first kill was a Manticore. Not that special. My second fight ever, however, in the lowsec pocket I'd travelled to, was against five ships: Tengu, Navy Exequror, Atron, Griffin, and Corax. I fought them solo, killing the Atron and Griffin while tackling the Tengu and using the tracking disruptor I had fit on the Navy Exeq. The Corax got away, and I moved on to the Tengu. One friend finally arrived, and helped me kill it, and we moved onto the Navy Exeq which finally cut me down using dual webs, but it died to my friend as well. I took four kills from that, and one loss, and the loss was more due to me being new to PVP than anything wrong with the boat.

The point for me though is always rising to the challenge, to see if it could be done, and if it can be done, then it becomes useful. How useful is a comparative measure, of course, and each pilot will have a preference based on various factors, cost being perhaps one of the biggest ones. I'm not that worried about cost, personally, because you can virtually print your own ISK in this game.

Yeah, I'm aware. Solo'd a Raven a while back before a friend in a Proteus came to whore on the kill

I really wish he hadn't, but it's the closest to a solo battleship I've had and considering his Proteus did so little on the killmail, and I was there for much more of the fight than he was, I call it a solo Raven kill by principle.

A mate of mine, Praethis Starloe, amazing PVP'er and the guy responsible for my own rise in PVP experience, solo'd a Vindi in an armour-tanked Merlin. It wasn't the best fit Vindi around, but, it wasn't incredibly **** either. The point for us was, he was flying an armour-tanked Merlin and went after a Vindi, without knowing anything about the fit at engagement.

I remember the little exchange we had afterwards.

Praethis: Can you spell balls?

Me: Yep. P-R-A-E-T-H-I-S

EDIT: Can't say I've personally had much luck with the Daredevil yet. Still learning about it. It seems to be the type of boat that if you know what you're doing, it can be incredibly effective, but if you don't, it's incredibly useless, and it takes more skill (skill I don't have quite yet) to fly effectively. I suppose this can apply to anything, but the Daredevil maybe just a little more so, IMO. I've killed a few things with Daredevils now, but nothing spectacular. Lost one to a Catalyst a while back because I misjudged offensive capability comparisons, expecting the dps output of the Daredevil to overwhelm the lack of tank on the Cat before it could kill me. I expected wrong, and won't make that mistake again. I've since developed a new fit, and I'll be putting it through more practical testing soon. I pretty much ignore the cookie cutter fits on BC and elsewhere these day, and prefer to concoct my own based on what I know and learn.

Fighting 1vMany isn't a problem for Solo'ers, that's actually one of our strong suits. We like being able to take on a group of people and win. But fighting in a Battleship just means that they will come to you, and they will come to you in a large enough force so that none of them will die. Either with Falcons or counter-neuting BS's. The BS is just too slow, ungainly, and is unable to defend himself against tacklers.

Why in the world does a thread on this topic have personal attacks? Where do they fit in on a topic like this?


Anyway, battleship PVP in solo or small group used to happen more often back when you can get a typhoon hull for 60 million roughly (around 2010-2011). It was the ugliest of the BS lineup but brutal and rich on lows with a good drone bay. I've seen a few with low racks full of stabs for PVP (for getting out while the going was good apparently).

I can also recall a time a few years ago when you could get a Cyclone for 16 million and that with other BCs a considerable small gang approach but as pointed out it appears that the role of the BC in PVP diminished with the new BCs that could field BS-sized guns. I recall a fit that could one-shot frigates and in the right case cruisers for example, further setting the older models to the wayside but most of all the battleship was even more vulnerable.


Finally, the prices of BS's have gone up considerably but I think the warp speed changes might be the last nail in the coffin.

cos General Discussion?

choosing easy kills and killmail whoring over good fights - this is Eve Online culture he mentioned....

but people like you never look beyond killboard?