Player Features and Ideas Discussion

The biggest issue with capital ships, more specifically Carriers, is that even a few vs subcaps is extremely strong. Take a look at lowsec where the engagements are much smaller compared to nullsec. People drop 1-2 triage carriers vs a 30man BS fleet and the BS fleet has a hard time breaking the reps, if they're even able too. Now factor that into slowcat blobs of nullsec fleets and you see where the problems are.

CCP has to make the decision to balance around large scale engagements or small scale ones. The easiest one would be to make carrier reps out of triage significantly weaker in amount. They would still be much stronger than T2 logi, and being a ship that is much harder to cap out, jam, damp, etc. This would allow them to scale into larger fleets where triage doesn't happen, without being completely overpowered in small gangs. However, small gangs could still run patheon fleets in small numbers, especially in lowsec.

On the reverse side, triage would still work well in its current form. Strong, requires sufficient force to break it solo or groups of 1-3 but can be done by subcaps with some effort. It makes triage repping strong while having the 5min window to break them since they can't receive remote effects.

My only complaint is the difference between subcap and capital HP is enormous. A max tanked BS pushes around 250k EHP whereas a carrier gets around 2.5mil EHP. Lowering the over all EHP of carriers, dreads (I'm not sure on this one since dreads are still pretty to pop, even with subcaps), Supers, and Titans just a bit to make the difference not so extreme would go a long way to making capitals not so effective against subcaps and also have the added bonus of capitals dying more often. Yay death and destruction, yay slow process of depleting the thousands of capitals stored up in game, and yay industry buff all at the same time

I agree that Carriers should get a larger benefit to triage mode, with a corresponding nerf when out of triage. With that said, if your opponents bring a couple of Carriers to the fight, that is an invitation to bring your own Dreadnoughts or Supercapitals to the field. That is not a reason to cry that Capitals have too much EHP or are too good. Bring the proper counter and stop whining.

I think right now capital ships that require siege/triage module to operate are fine. Triage carrier as support ships is fine and siege dread as anti cap/structure weapon as well. Problem is when you can deploy RR supported cap blobs that can deal with caps and subcaps without problems.

Easy solution would be to force all caps and supers to use module that disallows remote assistance while it is active. Also greatly reduce their ability to deal with subcaps. I would love to see fights where caps and subcaps support each other and the side which can make this synergy work the best should win.

With this in mind I propose these changes made to caps:
All capital class weapons deals reduced damage to subcap ships (based on signature/speed?, hardcoded?)
Add new module for carriers/supers that works as siege module for their fighters/bombers increasing their hp and damage.
Change carrier bonuses to efectivness of triage/new siege module.
Carriers are able to use fighter and fighter bombers only, reduce max drones to 5.
Add new module for supercarriers that generates wormhole like effects for subcaps in fleet and on the same grid (only one can be active at the time and overwrite other gang links).
Remove/reduce titan weapon damage and make them able to fit siege module to bring their damage back up.
Doomsday device that is cycling will prevent remote assistance and will disable effects from siege module.
As a bonus maybe give fighters bonus when engaging fighter bombers.

This will allows carriers/supercarriers to be either support or dps, dreads will be specialized anti cap boats and titans either dread on steroids or doomsday device ship. Every cap will be forced to use module that increases their effectivness at the expense of RR assistance. Subcap fleet should be able to deal with unsupported caps with ease.

Are caps fine now? I would say no, they need work.
Are caps going to be fine in new sov system? Hell no, they need work.

Don't assume todays numbers, they need to change. Who says carrier in my proposal will be doing 1k DPS? That triage carrier can't rep 50k DPS/s? That titan can't coast out of siege fast enough to receive remote reps but is then pretty much useless unless it goes back to siege?

I want fights where caps can change outcomes but are not mandatory. Where caps are dying. Where groups that drops caps only will be unable to shred subcap fleets of any size and compositions.

i dont know where you play, but i havent seen dread to kill enemy subcap without friendly one helping him ... what more would you like? capitals to be totally useless vs subcaps? because they are not far from that now ...

So carriers are OP because a 30 strong, most likely single ship doctrine, no-variation composition fleet of battleships fail at engaging ships heavier then them, while not bringing their own logi to the party?

Yea sure....

Sounds like capitals may well be a place to bring Dust bunnies in if say we had a PC interface rather than a PS3 one and if say we had One Client for both games where a pilot could be a dustie and vice versa all under one sub fee and subject to similar tactics if in the same environment, merging the worlds so to speak. Maybe something along the lines more of star trek TM rather than the Star Fox universe we see now?

Be aware this is not a suggestion but rather a question. ^^ I would like to see caps as useful warships not relegated to being the solo cap on the field boosting all the sub caps but still being worth the time I have invested in building my caps. I normally see the invested money in them as worthwhile in the current mechanics due to my use of capitals in the state they are in and only recently invested in them since the jump changes happened. This week I pulled another cap off the assembly line. More will surely follow, but in all reality, would it really pay to have them underpowered? I think not. They should be able to lock any ship that are on grid with them if they are willing to take the time to lock it. Support or not, we are talking about significant time and money, they are not just frigates or cruisers, they are crown jewels of any fleet and deserve to be useful.

Remove the range bonus from all carrier/sc and give it to triage. Leave rest of the bonuses they currently have, possibly boost the base range on capital RR modules to make them viable in a small fleet of maybe 5-10 carriers

I don't know if this idea has been suggested before, but I find it solves both the problem of giving Capitals a capability worthy of their price, and also of making you want to field them in battle under certain circumstances.

Give XL-sized weapons AOE damage. It doesn't have to be a huge area (like bombs), but having every shot deal damage in a small area is something both moderately powerful (it is initially very powerful, but it can be countered by spreading the fleet) and unique to capitals. You risk losing said capitals, but they can turn the tide of the battle if used properly and at the right moment.

There are some circumstances when it would be very useful but not overpowered.

First of all, you have to hit your target; remember you can't target a spot on the ground like probably you can in the games you mention (which I don't know at all). Secondly, if the AOE is small enough (thinking about smartbomb range) no ally should be in range, not in an engagement where you would deploy a capital for this pourpose anyways. If this is really a problem, have only certain types of ammo have AOE, but not others (for example: phased plasma, yes; titanium sabot, no).