Ships & Modules

Hello everyone, just another random post. Though this one is centred on an interesting idea i had revolving around the Tier 2 Destroyers that were released a while back (sadly ive only seen the Algos in wide use).

With the release of Vanguard, many players are hoping that the buffing of battle cruisers will also make battleships viable again, which also inturn brings frigates nicely back into EVE (Balance restored and all that). With these changes and the flux of ships returning to 'normal' I begin to ponder around the idea of a new ship class (to help bring in more interesting tactics against battlecruisers).

Now as we all know from examples of Amarr engineering in "The Maller" we know that alot of tanked cruisers tend to be reserved as bait ships, sometimes anti-support or otherwise relegated to very rare if effective roles.

Taking from the idea of Armor Heavy assault fleets i began investigating the idea of a new middle class of ship that (rather than following recent examples of Long range and fast missile tactics) a class of ships that filled a more tank oriented appoach, with low DPS and speed, But exceptional sensor strength and Scan resoloution.

Which brings me to the role of Heavy Tackle

Currently there exist a number of ships that can tackle at range whilst providing extreme warfare capabilities. With the new battle cruiser changes now live, i think its likely that kitting battle cruiser fleets will once again take to the skies. I think it could be interested to see a new ship that is capable of holding these ships down whilst taking quite a bit of punishment would be rather interesting, my logic for this follows shortly.

Warp disruptors and Scramblers are an everyday part of PVP, essential to force a fight to continue. Where as other forms of electronic warfare tend to frighten people, but noone is scared of actually being caught until they realise its a fight that cant be handled.

So going off the idea of Inferno, with its extreme modules. I'd like to know peoples thoughts on a ship that has a unique module/weapon, that can shut down a targets Propulsion entirely (the negative effect being that it also has to shut its own down to maintain control, and having a long cooldown duration/very short cycle with a long activation time) This effect would also render both ships untargetable, unable to jump/Rep/Eject or use a fitting service until the effect ends. This modules would have to have a short range, but it means one could tie down a ship long enough for fleet members to catch up. Or force a fleet to stay and try to save their now trapped comrade. Whilst putting both the target and the aggressor at risk of hostile forces coming.

I think this would add a very interesting place in doctrines for fighting outnumbered for example (by disabling a key enemy ship in order to force a fleet to either stay and fight, or abandon the colleague) or Adversely, being able to delay death until crucial re-inforcements arrive whilst allowing the opposing fleet to leave (because the ships effected can no longer take action). Due to balancing this module probably would be able to be activated on structures, capitals and would force-abandon drones.

Negative Ghostrider, that pattern is full.

I'm curious to know how you think the BC buff will make Battleships more viable and rebalance frigates.

Frigates were broken by T3Ds.

Battleships are just terrible.

What? Don't mix EVE lore of battlecruiser's place and actual battlecruiser's place. If battlecruisers will get buffs, there'll be just more of them. For people who wants to become sick with babysitting, there are logi ships available.
And T3D is NOT a good prey for cruisers. They are a good prey to dedicated EWAR boats.
And, well, how on earth frigates will counter battleships? Battleships will be alone in your dreams and your dreams only. If they somehow will be "viable" (They won't since they can't really disengage while being easy prey for not-so-expensive caps), they'll be taking dump on frigates with stupidly high RR capabilities and swarms of scout drones, wrecking frigates if one alpha wasn't enough.

I'm going to use a Destroyer size ship to deactivate your triage, and there's absolutely nothing you can do against that. I'm using an alt for this.

Cause skrew you.

Because ECM is not cool enough? I "absolutely don't see a way" how it will be abused by simply using more lockdown ships than the gang size. Even if locked down ship goes invulnerable, it's still a cheap trick. Bring the lockdowns, unlock victims one by one, pwn them with 9000 perfectly applied alpha strikes.

Don't think there was quite a need to be that rude about it.

I wasn't actually saying that battleships will become viable, but it is a possiblity that you will see more of them as the number of battlecruisers rises. As in all aspects of EVE if something is viable or not, depends on the situation. Now if your talking about battleships roaming- then yes i agree they currently remain to exsist only in dreams. But in local warfare, especially in regions like placid, they should see a bit more use.

On the note of the frigate/battleship relationship, Battleships with the new rapid heavy launchers are incredibly effective against cruisers and battlecruisers alike. Now, unless you are saying it would be much wiser to tackle a battleship in a cruiser than it would be in a frigate under this situation, then i suggest that you examine Big Mikers video "Ferocious 6" and click straight to the barghest footage. Because anything of decent size will be hurt badly.

I do however acknowledge that T3 dessies may replace frigates in this role, due to being so small and have significantly higher damage output.

and on the final note of battleships being "easy prey" for capital ships, I've never actually seen a pilot brave enough to warp into a battleship fight with a dread/carrier in lowsec, without the enemy first having a carrier for logistical purposes... Capitals (with exceptions to carriers) Struggle with hitting battleships even in good circumstances, not that anyone actually actively brings them to small gangs as they scare off fights. So i'm afraid that your point (despite being in theory justified) is in reality quite flawed, in my honest opinion.