Player Features and Ideas Discussion

No T2 resists and with EHP and DPS you have to be careful not to make them just smaller looking and faster Battleships.

BCs have their place in the tiericide but the problem lies in fleet composition, usually you go all BS or cruisers (T1-T2-T3), BC fleets are very rare, except for the 'fun' fleets. And it's not the fault of the model, rather the issue with pilots and FCs finding a good role for them. In the end they are mostly in-between ships and that's why they only appear in-between.
Certain roles have been created to give them, like CS´ and Assaults, a job to do. But most roles are filled by other hulls so it is difficult to imagine a sensible new role.

Personally I would let them be for a while until something pops up that really could fit a BC hull - so far, nothing has.

In the end the gap is just perceived - cause if nothing seems to fit in it, maybe it just isn't there or big enough to be a problem.

PS: Reading up a bit on certain subjects there is one thing that pops to mind a bit. The 'cheap' links. What if the BC would all get an extra support high and/or the ability to use 2 WF links ? This would make BC gangs much stronger without becoming more expensive by transferring to CS. And with the on/off grid debate going on, this could not only be a temporary fix making a transition much easier.

Can you take off your glasses, that I shat all over your suggestion ? I didn't, don´t get defensive and argue against something I didn't say . Nothing I said goes angainst an OH concept, it's just a bit 'meh' to introduce a new type or reinvent an old role - and I didn't even say that.

And where is it easier to train into HACs ? And who said support highs (2 then) can only be used for links ???? 2 High neuts/vamps go a long way in small gang or solo PvP and there are more options. And all ships are not similar and play different, no same size - same dps rule.
And what is it with this moar HP, moard dps whining all the time ? A ship has more stats/traits to tinker with. The OH is a nice addition, but doesn't change the game, it's like a fancy bow-tie to an old suit.

And I take the on-grid boost as a given for the near (soon tm) future, it's worth considering.

Crew effects/bonuses have had many threads in the past, what if Crew Effect/bonus could only be added to BC and BS classes and upward in size? Maybe 1 or 2 crew slot for a BC, + 1 slot for a BS and so forth. Could work like T3 Subsystems.

'Ships of the Line', bigger ships with more crew, adds a new thing that can only be used by these ship classes, makes them relevant once more.

yea but that jams your allies too which is semi counter productive, especially for ships with a longer lock time or cap chaining logis

Kind of what I was thinking, so Cheers

This is probably the best suggestion I've heard to bring Combat BC's back to the field.

Increased temporary damage and tank, couldn't get more 'battle' that than.

Love it.

Will never happen

That is true of the range. However, with best sized guns and 2 TE, dps at 10km is 500ish, and without 2 TE you drop down to 400ish. 300 dps with hail at 10km w/o TE. So that 600 dps looks nice, but only applies up close.

Its just a very uninspiring ship. It just seems like a ship to welp, it does dps, but kind of forgets the rest. Thats why, everytime i see a cane, its setup for insta-lock gate camping with artillery.

I agree with the OP here that CBCs are in kind of a hard spot.

I saw a few people mention that the low popularity of CBCs is due to fleet composition considerations but I don't know if I really buy that as the reason for their waning popularity right now. I've been in a number of mixed fleet compositions recently with the DPS wings being made up of either eagles and feroxs or cerbs and drakes. In my experience the problem with CBCs in relation to HACs is that their sig radius and speed tend to make them relatively easy to take off the field compared to their HAC counterparts. As a result they get primaried early. Feroxes and drakes do have an EHP advantage over cruisers but it's outpaced by their signature inflation and slow speed- applied DPS against them is just too high for their EHP to compensate.

It's not really that different from what battleships face in fleet battles. Every time I've gone up against a battleship fleet lately with HACs or T3s, the battleship's DPS and EHP advantage just can't compete with sig and speed tank. It's similar on the small scale in PVP too, CBCs are very vulnerable to being blobbed and are too slow to get into position in fast paced fights.

I like what the recent balance changes have done for cruiser sized and smaller ships. They're fun and combat with them is fast paced and exciting. They're also cheap and easy for new players to skill in to. Most frigates, destroyers, and cruisers seem to have a role that they fill well and are, for the most part, well represented in the areas they excel. That's perfect- it's how it should be, but CBCs and battleships should be represented too. They're still used in small numbers, but all but a few aren't the optimal choice and as players train new skills to move towards optimal ships they're just going to get less and less popular.

The Naval Battle Cruisers you're referring to (Out run what it can't out gun, out gun what it can't out run) are essentially the ABC's.

In my mind the ABC's are in a great place right now.

CBC's however do have issues and they are what many have already said in here.

Their small EHP advantage over cruisers does not do anything to compensate for the speed and signature advantage cruisers have.

With CBC's I think we should start with a simple raw HP buff to them and see what that does for them. They are heavy frontline combat ships and should be extremely durable.

I feel that battleships are in virtually the same place as well. If BS's all received a 50% buff in HP they would appear far more appealing.

I agree that having an OH bonus would be a fresh way of improving CBCs without having to straight up buff their base stats. Overheating is a fun mechanic but it isn't something that CCP has developed as thoroughly as I would like. A change of this kind to CBCs might be an interesting way of introducing a few new overheat mechanics and modules as well. We'll see.

I'm still skeptical that CBCs and battleships will be changed soon though. CCP does seem to be aware at least that battleships, while they might be well balanced against each other, aren't particularly well balanced towards other subcaps or capitals. They don't, however, seem to really have a cohesive plan as to what to do about it. The recent nestor changes are a good indication that they don't really have a good plan for what even a niche battleship ought to be. I think they've dug in their heels around the idea of power-creep and probably want to try to balance less linearly, but at least in the case of the nestor, it just doesn't work.