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Carrier Rebalance
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Trobax
Doomheim
#1 - 2015-09-20 23:59:54 UTC
The current bonuses of carriers are a bit unfair.

You got the Archon. Best Carrier in the game. Whether triage or SlowCat fit, its a brick. Probably most used Carrier in new Eden. Alliances always ask their pilots to train for archon.
Chimera. Probably second best. Has a monster tank too, but being a shield cap, it can run into capacitor problem due to capital shield modules affinity to devour cap. Also it has serious cpu fitting issues.
Thanatos. Probably only good for lvl5s and ratting. Used to be the carrier of choice back in the day. The only carrier with a useless bonus while in triage mode. Biggest damage dealer.
Nidhoggur. A true minmatar cap. Sports the weakest tank of all, is the most agile, its current use is repairing RF'ed POS's.

Some people proposed racial bonuses to be applied only while in Triage and the ability to launch drones as well. If you have ever dual triple boxed in a fight with a carrier, the last thing you want is to keep an eye on them drones, while serving your fleet with reps.

Since Carriers are logistics ships, they must have a rigid tank.All carriers should get a bonus to resistances, adding to their resilience( not just Archon and Chimmy).
Secondly, all carriers must be allowed to have increased drone damage specifically applied to racial fighter drones. Use any other fighters and you don't get a bonus to damage (think non scourge on caldari ships). (takes care of Thanatos's monopoly and adds differentiation).
Last, when in triage, all carriers should receive a bonus to capital Remote module's repairing capacity( not necessarily 7.5%, might prove too much - there goes the niddy too)

Essentially, all Carriers need to fulfill their role on the battlefield. There is some existing differentiation already, like high slot modules ( Archon throws armor and cap, Chimmy shields and cap, thanny and niddy armor and shields).
Rawketsled
Generic Corp Name
#2 - 2015-09-21 01:16:40 UTC
Racial drone bonus is interesting.

But I disagree on all carriers needing resistance buffs. The Thanny damage bonus is its differentiation: it's a gank carrier, not a logi carrier.
Serendipity Lost
Repo Industries
#3 - 2015-09-21 05:14:14 UTC
The last thing eve needs right now is a carrier buff. They deffo do not need any form of a damage buff (racial or not). They don't really have a combat role in fleet battles - that function is held by supers and dreads. All a damage buff would do is make ratting carriers better at ratting. NO to that.

If you want to balance them - remove sentry drones from their drone bays - eve gets exponentially better. I'm kind of a fan of mother ships getting fighter bombers and carriers getting fighters and leaving it right there.
Trobax
Doomheim
#4 - 2015-09-21 07:47:10 UTC  |  Edited by: Trobax
Serendipity Lost wrote:
The last thing eve needs right now is a carrier buff. They deffo do not need any form of a damage buff (racial or not). They don't really have a combat role in fleet battles - that function is held by supers and dreads. All a damage buff would do is make ratting carriers better at ratting. NO to that.

If you want to balance them - remove sentry drones from their drone bays - eve gets exponentially better. I'm kind of a fan of mother ships getting fighter bombers and carriers getting fighters and leaving it right there.


The idea was to make all carriers useful, else you have the Archon. Great!!

The racial Fighter damage was just an example that could be followed to differentiate, as well as break the dps monopoly of Thanatos / Nyx. Plus all supers would benefit.

All carriers would benefit from increased resists in triage mode. They are a power multiplier.

Dps buff could be tamed. A 2-3% per racial Fighter increase wouldn't be catastrophic. RR bonus could be brought down to 4%.
Dont get stuck on the Fighter bonus thing. Its just an incentive to use / train multiple carriers.

The idea of Carriers launching only Fighters and maybe Logistics drones is also interesting, Capital Drones only for Capitals ships.
Trobax
Doomheim
#5 - 2015-09-21 07:53:10 UTC
Rawketsled wrote:
Racial drone bonus is interesting.

But I disagree on all carriers needing resistance buffs. The Thanny damage bonus is its differentiation: it's a gank carrier, not a logi carrier.


Yes, but it is a carrier, it goes in Triage and loses its bonus. Gank Carrier, Tank Carrier, Useless Carrier. Thats the current state of affairs today. All Carriers are by nature Logistic Vessels. Arguably you could maintain current bonuses by a small margin to each race. Give them a Role bonus to Drone damage, Res and RR by, say 2-3%, then add the current racial bonuses, normalized to reach the 4-5-7.5% output. Close the gap
Rawketsled
Generic Corp Name
#6 - 2015-09-21 09:49:44 UTC
Trobax wrote:
Rawketsled wrote:
Racial drone bonus is interesting.

But I disagree on all carriers needing resistance buffs. The Thanny damage bonus is its differentiation: it's a gank carrier, not a logi carrier.


Yes, but it is a carrier, it goes in Triage and loses its bonus.

Then don't click on the Triage button.

Duh.
Trobax
Doomheim
#7 - 2015-09-21 10:19:07 UTC
Rawketsled wrote:
Trobax wrote:
Rawketsled wrote:
Racial drone bonus is interesting.

But I disagree on all carriers needing resistance buffs. The Thanny damage bonus is its differentiation: it's a gank carrier, not a logi carrier.


Yes, but it is a carrier, it goes in Triage and loses its bonus.

Then don't click on the Triage button.

Duh.


Ok i see. I think i follow the logic here....Sure, use an archon for triage, yes. What was I thinking...
Caleb Seremshur
Commando Guri
Guristas Pirates
#8 - 2015-09-21 10:28:02 UTC
Serendipity Lost wrote:
The last thing eve needs right now is a carrier buff. They deffo do not need any form of a damage buff (racial or not). They don't really have a combat role in fleet battles - that function is held by supers and dreads. All a damage buff would do is make ratting carriers better at ratting. NO to that.

If you want to balance them - remove sentry drones from their drone bays - eve gets exponentially better. I'm kind of a fan of mother ships getting fighter bombers and carriers getting fighters and leaving it right there.


Carriers

Have a role in smaller fleet stuff. Also nothing stops you from targeting with your own drones. Is it a testament that the death of wrecking ball fleets involved the actual need to use your brain as a line member?
Kenrailae
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#9 - 2015-09-21 12:21:34 UTC
Since we're throwing out crazy ideas let's just give carriers 8 turret hard points, restricted to small turrets, a tracking bonus to small weapons, and a smartbomb bonus too. Then call them anti frigate support.


:/




In seriousness though, the root of the 'carrier' problem is the attitude that they are logistics ships all the time, which current mechanics push. That should be true while they are triage fit, but that shouldn't really be the only use for carriers in fleet. Even the aforementioned wrecking ball, they were logistics ships and drone bandwidth buffers, and anti-super bouncing platforms.

I don't know how to 'fix' this without doing something completely radical like stripping them down to their models and rebuilding the entire class.

IDK if the solution is to add to them a siege function and give them hard points, or change logistics mods so they are cap impossible to use without a bonus to cap usage or bonus them to some form of ewar, but until carriers are more than just really big logistics ships and drone buffers, they are still going to be a problem, to which the typical answer is just going to be a bigger blob of carriers or super carriers.

The Law is a point of View

The NPE IS a big deal
Trobax
Doomheim
#10 - 2015-09-21 13:51:52 UTC  |  Edited by: Trobax
Kenrailae wrote:
Since we're throwing out crazy ideas let's just give carriers 8 turret hard points, restricted to small turrets, a tracking bonus to small weapons, and a smartbomb bonus too. Then call them anti frigate support.


:/




In seriousness though, the root of the 'carrier' problem is the attitude that they are logistics ships all the time, which current mechanics push. That should be true while they are triage fit, but that shouldn't really be the only use for carriers in fleet. Even the aforementioned wrecking ball, they were logistics ships and drone bandwidth buffers, and anti-super bouncing platforms.

I don't know how to 'fix' this without doing something completely radical like stripping them down to their models and rebuilding the entire class.

IDK if the solution is to add to them a siege function and give them hard points, or change logistics mods so they are cap impossible to use without a bonus to cap usage or bonus them to some form of ewar, but until carriers are more than just really big logistics ships and drone buffers, they are still going to be a problem, to which the typical answer is just going to be a bigger blob of carriers or super carriers.


Im not throwing any crazy ideas, if you want crazy ideas, read reddit, the "Space Harpoon" for example (could be fun) . All im saying is that carrier bonuses are a bit restrictive to use. Archon and Chimmy fulfill their role as logistic power multipliers, due to their increased resilience. Thanny and niddy are somewhat restricted to specific niches, like pos rep and ratting.
If you look at dreads, sure they have differences in resilience, but they are dps machines. It doesnt really matter cause Dreads have 1 role only, and all dreads fulfill that role; hit the pos or the capital. Carriers support fleets, rep Pos's, rat, they re much more versatile. They should all more or less equally be able to perform these tasks .
Kenrailae
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#11 - 2015-09-21 13:57:48 UTC
Crazy is a matter of perception.


See, to me it's crazy wanting to make them even more giant logi boats and drone platforms when they need to go the other way and be something other than giant space priests.

The Law is a point of View

The NPE IS a big deal
Trobax
Doomheim
#12 - 2015-09-21 14:02:16 UTC
Well, how about equally logi boats?

Giant space priest? That's the Revenant, and the rest of supercarriers.
Kenrailae
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#13 - 2015-09-21 15:00:32 UTC
Trobax wrote:
Well, how about equally logi boats?

Giant space priest? That's the Revenant, and the rest of supercarriers.



That's a pretty fine hair to split.

The Law is a point of View

The NPE IS a big deal
Thron Legacy
White Zulu
Scorpion Federation
#14 - 2015-09-21 15:10:41 UTC
Trobax wrote:

If you look at dreads, sure they have differences in resilience, but they are dps machines. It doesnt really matter cause Dreads have 1 role only, and all dreads fulfill that role; hit the pos or the capital.

*agrees*
*cries in a corner due to having skilled amarr dreadnought*

On a more serious note, the only capital that really needs a buff is the revelation
Trobax
Doomheim
#15 - 2015-09-21 16:05:25 UTC
Thron Legacy wrote:
Trobax wrote:

If you look at dreads, sure they have differences in resilience, but they are dps machines. It doesnt really matter cause Dreads have 1 role only, and all dreads fulfill that role; hit the pos or the capital.

*agrees*
*cries in a corner due to having skilled amarr dreadnought*

On a more serious note, the only capital that really needs a buff is the revelation


Look at the bright side, no ammo, more cycles, for its job Revelation is ok
LT Alter
Ryba.
White Squall.
#16 - 2015-09-21 17:15:56 UTC
You see a larger discrepancy between caps than there really is, there is some discrepancy but that is related to pros and cons of each hull. Archons and Chimys are called for in larger engagements because they have more tank, but they do less dps than the Thanatos and repair less than the Niddy. In smaller engagements the Thanatos and the Niddy are far more powerful than the Archon and Chim at their respective roles. The Thanatos can pump out far more dps and the Niddy can pump out far more triage reps (At the loss of some ability to self tank).

Personally I'd rather keep my 3k DPS thanatos the way it is, and my triage niddy on my alt that supports it is just fine too.
SFM Hobb3s
Perkone
Caldari State
#17 - 2015-09-21 19:00:38 UTC
All carriers are WAY too overpowered (all logi is tbh). There's a good reason you will not be able to rep citadels.
Serendipity Lost
Repo Industries
#18 - 2015-09-21 22:21:04 UTC
Any change to carriers that would make them better ratting ships is a bigassfreaking NO. That's not what they were intended for when put in the game, but that's what they are being used for. NO to making them better isk farmer bots.

I'm not dumb laddy buck, this whole idea is not good for the game. Next time say "It's for the children" and a few folks will be confused enough to get behind you.
Rawketsled
Generic Corp Name
#19 - 2015-09-22 01:06:16 UTC
Serendipity Lost wrote:
Any change to carriers that would make them better ratting ships is a bigassfreaking NO. That's not what they were intended for when put in the game, but that's what they are being used for. NO to making them better isk farmer bots.

In regards to k-space, w-space, or both?

Carrier KMs are great and I want to get more of them, but I do agree to an extent.
Trobax
Doomheim
#20 - 2015-09-22 10:10:00 UTC
You will keep your 3k thanny, its just that other carriers will be on par too. Not all people can fly multiple carriers, and its like creating subclasses within the carrier class. All dreads didnt used to be the same. Nag had dual dps system and was weak. That got fixed and still its weak, but very usable. Then phoenix got redundant. Problem taken care of. Rev and Moros were fine for their roles. So you end up with all dreads fulfilling their role, which is PWNAGE.

In carriers you dont see that, and they havent changed at all. Close the gap thats all. All carriers will keep their bonuses, but rest will stay close by.
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