Ships & Modules

so here goes.

An Archon can easily fit a full TII fit plus 7 capital modules for triage mode, and have better local tank and a better rep setup in the highs (3rr/1capxfer) than the other carriers. the local tank is a whopping 11.5kdps stable. and it can near enough run 2 rr stable with some light factioning of the 3 cap power relays (from 9 mins to 12 mins.)


so with the same basic layout on a chimera, i was expecting to see similar stats to this. but it is not the case. in fact it is almost impossible to fit the same highs along with a cap shield booster.

the local tank on the chimera is heavily dependant on what you do with the lows, go for cap power relays and it can easily run 2 remote shield transfers stable, or the single local rep. but the penaltys for the CPR's mean that your local tank sinks to a lowly 7.8kdps. pathetic when compared to the archon which receives the same bonus to resistance as the chimera

fit cap flux coils, and the local tank improves dramatically to a comparable 10.3kdps. which is fine IMO.
HOWEVER, the poor cap recharge from the CFC means you can only run 2 shield transfers for less than two minutes. which is just not good enough for a viable triage ship.

and Finally. the fitting.

The only way i have found to fit a chimera with the 3/1 reppers/xfer fit that the archon is easily capable of, is by replacing all the capital class modules with named ones, and a 5% cpu implant.

it kind of shows how silly the fitting requirements of capital shield modules are, when the carrier that has the most cpu of the 4, can only fit three of them to the ship.

I propose to simply lower the fitting requirements of capital shield modules to bring the two carriers more into line.

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as an after note, the Nidhoggur is probably even more lacking in the fitting department, as by the slot layout it cant decide if it is a shield or armour tanked ship. by all accounts the damage bonused thanny has a better triage fit than the nidhog. I personally have no experience of fitting or flying either of those ships, but if that is true. then lol.

dmg bonused ship > rep bonused ship at triage ???

CCP? healp us!!

There's really two factors at play here.
1) Shield booster CPU consumption is grossly out of proportion. This should be fixed. I say this as a pilot with an alt training for an Archon.
2) CPRs penalize shield boosting. This is important, since armor tankers have to spend two slots on reppers where a shield capital needs to fit only one booster. This penalty should probably be somewhat reduced, but not eliminated. It exists for a reason.

The problem is actually a lot deeper than you understand. Here's some additional issues (off the top of my head):
- The Archon has a resist bonus. This gives it more EHP for fleet work and a tanking bonus for triage work. This is really, really important.
- The Archon has an energy transfer bonus. This gives it an advantage in fleets where you've got counter-neut ships (Bhaalgorns, neut phoons, etc).
- The Archon has the best natural capacitor. CPRs on shield tanking ships can swing this the other way simply because of how incredibly powerful they are.
- The Archon is the only ship with appropriate fittings for triage work. The other ships feel outright gimped in relation - specifically, the Nidhoggur needs some more grid and the Chimera needs more CPU. I don't carrier PVE so I don't care overly much about the Thanny, but I hear its in the same boat as the Niddy.

I think fixing the fittings on other carriers is a better solution than nerfing the Archon, despite it being the obvious stand out winner in the carrier class. I admit I say this as a triage Niddy pilot. I need to train up the Archon on Liang. :P

-Liang

Ed: For the record, I think every carrier should have the fittings for dual rep/cap rep + 4 cap RR/Energy + Triage. Nudging the cap natural cap recharge up on the Niddy and Thanny is probably a good idea because they are frequently armor tanked.

It will be nice to see more shield capitals and supercaps in fleet as armor totally dominates this realm atm.

actualy, all your points about me not understanding the problem, are irrelevant.

chim and arch have same bonuses just for different tanking types

they both have the SAME NATURAL CAP. both with a blank fitting and all lvl 5 char give 60.1+ cap a second.

chim gets 10k less base cap. but has the same effective recharge rate

the only difference between the two is that one can put out a decent fit for triage and one can not.

and archon has more ehp.

but to clarify i agree that either the chim and nid need to get more cpu/powergrid, or the cpu needs of cap shield mods needs to be reduced. (altho nid prob still needs more grid)

leave thanny as it is, dps bonus is already enough, and it can still do good triage work.

the shield thing of getting damage when bonuses are applied instead of hp is something that i am confident will be fixed in due course. i see it as a bug that no one has ever made enough fuss about to get it changed. now with the more caring and sharing ccp i have high hopes.

as for dg invulns being expensive, they will also be something that should be cheaper in time when ccp gets round to putting out deadspace invulns.

these are all just things i have seen on these forums that devs have replied too. not just speculation.

as for a shield gang being "too fast" for a shield triage. i think that is just narrow mindedness. the speed difference between an armour hurricane and a shield hurricane is not enough for you to not notice moving out of rep range.

but still none of the reasons you have put forward are enough to make the fix of this issue unnecessary. it is not for players to say, it wont work so dont fix it.

fix it, then if it doesn't work as you wanted, use it differently

so a ship that can already do good triage work, and has a damage bonus, needs a buff when there are ships like chim and nid to fix?

ok so what would you do with the thanny then? it is the only carrier that has a damage bonus, and can already fit 2 local reps and 3 rr's. could possibly use some more cap, but this would imbal it as all the carriers have a base recharge rate of 60.1 (lvl5 skills)

stop being a doooosh and be constructive

The point is that the Thanatos doesn't do good triage work. The damage bonus is a total waste in this role and most of the time a triage carrier doesn't even have fighters in the drone bay. Frankly, if you're saying the Thanny is fine then so is the Nidhoggur and even the Chimera.

Also, its not about being a douche*, its more about simply putting thought into what I'm saying and expecting others to do the same.

-Liang

yes it is a noticeable speed diff, just not enough to fail outside of your carriers rep range.

I have been in several shield gangs that primarily run with slower setups and heavier tackle. dropping a triage shield carrier on this kind of gang would be hugely useful, we just have not thought too seriously about baiting people and dropping on them because chims and nids suck so bad at triage atm.

if you need the shield bar to show someone is taking damage you are doing it wrong, as after the first switch, you will have no warning of the first primary taking more damage. not using broadcasts or even not using coms "they are yellowboxing me" is pretty fail tbh.

saying that needing a shield triage is rare is not a valid argument, as i have stated before. just because you dont think it would be useful does not mean other, brighter, people have not theorised a use for it.

i wanted this to be a really constructive thread to get some dev interest. not just another liang ego booster.
its a shame as you have actually stated that you believe carriers are imbalanced, but now seem to be throwing useless arguments at this thread.

here is a thanny being typically crap at triage

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20F3n6wHsbA

enjoy