EVE Information Portal

You obviously missed the bit where there's now anti-capital Void Bombs. And, you know, actual normal Void Bombs.

So the time that BRAVE knackered BL's legion and Archon fleet in Fountain with non-focused Void Bombs was just some magic hocus-pocus? The various times Hard knocks / Lazerhawks et al. have broken carriers in and out of wormholes using Void Bombs en masse didn't happen, clearly.

I mean, yeah, if your whole strategy for dunking a cap fleet is "Jose, you are our lone bomber pilot with a Focus Void Bomb. Go forth little man and wreak havoc" then, yeah, sucks to be you. But last time I checked slows tend to cyno in at zero on a cyno and don't spread out very much from there. I also seem to recall that bombers work in teams, Void bombs have a 15km radius, and affect everything in that radius. ipso facto, 10 void bombs is 60k cap neuting in the AOE, so if you bomb 10 slows you neut 600K cap. So maybe do the maths on that in under 10 paragraphs and figure out if your bomber wing can reload before the slows cap themselves up.

You also, earlier on page 33 of this threadnaught, made some hilarious statements, viz.;


Right. So your logic is because you have slows, and a supercap wing capable of waltzing onto field and DD'ing their way through the NC. capital fleet, NC. are cowards for not fruitlessly throwing away cap fleets against an organisation that just happens to overpower them (and is also buddy-buddy with PL, their only real supercap threat)? So when NC. fields subs and can't break your slows, they are stupid for not fielding caps they'd just lose.

End of the day, you're right: you guys have the superior numbers, and likely the superior organisational and financial capabilities, so that makes everyone else's problems not your problem. You dominate (viz., fielding massed slows to force cap ships onto the field that can then be hotdropped by supers), therefore you deserve to dominate, and anything that breaks your dominance (eg; breaking slows) you'll be better at than anyone else because...you have more guys.

That's a stupid way to balance the game. It is even more dumb when you are basically arguing that the problem with slows is merely the lack of appropriate AOE neut weapons.

maybe....just maybe...if FAX become a thing, the current focused void bombs (and you know, more than one bomber), will be sufficient. Likewise, carriers with capital sized neuts will also be a thing. Even the introduction of capital sized EWAR / capacitor warfare, will break the dominance of slows.

Mega RRdomi (aka slows) will fall apart regardless of splitting carriers into carriers / FAX the moment decent capital neuts turn up. CCP Larrikin could toss the new capital modules out inside of a few weeks into the current meta and see how it all goes.

In fact, i'm in favour of this iterative approach vs anything else.

Like, capital neuts that have a 20s cycle time, 55km range, and knock out 30k capacitor per cycle. That will break a slowcat cap chain inside a minute. Capital cap boosters, cap batteries.

Sorry, not feeling it.

The "rework" is more nerf than anything else. The only real good news (especially for super-cap pilots) is that caps will be useful for something again (shooting structures). The new "angle guns" won't be relevant unless the current meta changes and BS become more relevant again, the way that you are proposing that they work. Splitting carrier roles just means it'll be even more of a PITA to move around than it is now.

Do what you're proposing, and then decrease the build cost of supers DRAMATICALLY. Something on the order of 8 billion for a super-carrier, and 20 billion for a Titan. Refund the difference in materials. Then you're balanced. The capabilities of the ships will be in line with their costs. They'll be in no way cost justified the way you have it proposed, and they'll just sit, the way moms did between the introduction of hics, and dominion.

Thanks for giving us more skills to train. Better make it worth it if you want to get those subscription dollars you're hoping for out of this.

This sounds quite reasonable, until you bring Titans and Supers into the equation. A carrier with 500k EHP, even with Fax support is going to die pretty quick.
And with no real counter to Titans and supers other than having more than your enemy - Not having EHP hands the win to the current groups who are already so risk averse they won't drop if there is the slightest risk of real opposition.

Eve warfare is not something that can be balanced or changed by adding a new ship and WoW effects to Titans and Supers or multiple flights of disposable fighters to Carriers and the availability of Battleship sized guns for a dread is simply a waste, because the dominating groups will still dominate. This means there will always be limited capital content which means CCP is wasting their time and money on changes that can not bring about change.

To make capital ships viable, large capital groups need to rethink how they play the game (they won't) - As long as the dominating groups are friends (read, too afraid to fight each other), no capital balancing is going to make a difference - CCP is designing complete classes of ship for a few elite groups who don't really "play Eve".

Eve is supposed to be about "Risk vs Reward" remove the risk - There is no valid reward, just childish egos.

Been reading through the forums and the capital rework.

Question on the Force Auxiliary Capitals and please come up with a better name.
While in triage will it be able to use it drones as logi tend to miss out on the fight as they usually have nothing to get on km with?
With a reduction in EHP of all capitals will this one have the most potential ehp as this ship will hold the fleet together?

Electronic warfare immunity
Like the idea but at the same time what is the percentage that your looking at for capitals?
Also take note ECM as shouldn't be use on any capitals and dread especially as they currently are used as there scan res is terrible if they get jammed and then re-lock afterwords means a dread could go through a whole siege cycle w/o firing it weapons.
Rest of it I'm alright with as there counters for them.

High Angle Weapon Batteries
Will there be something for the phoenix also
Rapid cruise missile or the like?

Fighters
Over all idea but under tidi how will they respond to commands as currently drones are very delayed if they ever respond to the command.
Also if not being command will they work as current drones as they will agrees what is aggression on the carrier?

The new doomday weapons only one I think that doesn't work well is Doomsday Codename: Sickle
again under tidi how responsive is the game going to be to this type of command.
I would suggest a DD based on the targets you have acquired as it bounces from one to the next in a chain splitting the max amount of damage between all the ships that is targeted. the other 3 are good in there own right. as they are based in the pilot choosing the target in the group to primary rather then an angle which to fire on.

The hell is

?

My concern with FAX is that fights might get to static if the only real remote rep they can provide is when in triage.

CCP should remove the "no movement" component of triage while keeping the "no warp" and "no jump" restrictions in place.

That way a FAX still commits to the field but fights dont turn into a 100% static engagement and we see at least some (slow) movement.

The mass limitation of wormholes made me think - you can only bring a limited amount of capitals at a time, if you want more you have to seed them in a big effort. This counters n+1 very well. So I tried to think of other examples in the game that do things like that, and realized something. You can counter larger numbers with two things:

area of effect weapons (yay RnK pipebombs)

seperation

and Seperation is what I want to talk right now - we all know those pvp viedos where a single player kills ships right under the nose of their fleets, done by seperating the target from their fleet, using fast, long range ships to stay out of the reach of most ships - make them come closer and kill them one by one.

But this obviously doesn't work with capitals as they don't move much.

In other scenarios than eve funnelling the enemy through a chokepoint can also archive such things. But space has no terrain, so you can't really do such things - or can you? As I said, wormholes got me thinking.

So here is my idea:
What if you can only jump a limited number of capitals into a system within a certain amount of time?

Lets talk pseudo science: The jump drives of capitals create space warps - you bent space to create a connection from one point to the other, but bending it, stretches it to its breaking point. If you create too many of those tunnels, they get unstable, in other words: not safe to travel anymore.

Lets say you can only jump 10 capitals every 10 minutes into the system - now you got a chokepoint. You could even seperate them more by limiting the amount of capital jump ins/outs in a certain area of the solar system, if the area of the system is already too stretched you can jump in, in a different area of that system - like at a different planet, safespot, ... This gives the possibility to seperate capitals and creates bigger logistical headaches for bigger groups. Enabling capable small groups to seperate larger groups.

Lets work through an example:
You manage to bait an entity with capitals - they jump 10 caps in - spread across the system, the maximum "space bending" is reached - no reinforcements will arrive for some time. You can now try to nail down 9 of those caps, stop them from warping while you take on the last one with your fleet, then the next one, then the next one - if you are fast enough, you can kill them within the ten minutes before reinforcements arrive. Maybe you can delay the other capitals by bending the space with your own capitals on purpose?

It doesn't stop large fights from happening - you just need more time to deploy all of your chessman, and you will have to gather everytime you jump into a system as you will be spread out (if you don't want that you would have to wait even longer - wait for the area in the system you want to jump to to regenerate). Your subcaptials can try to nail the enemy down at their entry points and stop them from joining the fight.

It enables smaller fights - as batphones won't result in you getting blobbed right away. Reinforcements will arrive in waves - so you might have time to extract. While the jump fatigue still doesn't protect you from getting stomped - they just can't do it as often.

So it would be a better limitation to force projection while it wouldn't punish activity. Because it is tied to the system rather to your ship or your character. And it wears of rather fast. It also punishes the logistic guys less - as it doesn't really affect the lone jump freighter.

So that is the basic concept - maybe some variations/details:

you should probably count jump tunnels or ship mass when calculating the impact on the system, that you don't make bomber operations or bridging in general useless

maybe make gates chokepoints aswell? like make them have a capacitor? that would mean that it can only jump x amount of people through - after that it needs to regain cap. Maybe link you to the gate, like you can link to a citadel while waiting for the jump, making you invulnerable so that people don't use that for *different* purposes ;-)

maybe let people still jump when the space is already bent a lot - just with the risk of exploding?

Thoughts? I just had this idea so it will be far from perfect ;-)

I don't expect an answer here but did think this needed addressing; Particularly the last sentence and what it implies.
You make a very good point - Losing 1 super capital could bankrupt a small group, assessing correctly small groups don't have the resources to replace supers as easily as large groups do.
But then you remove the idea you have any insight into the problem by suggesting one of the options to help with this could be - for example, insurance in Xlarge Citadels.

You do ask for player feedback on this so; I have a couple of questions for you..
How many of these small pirate groups (or any other small group) would you imagine will have access to Xlarge Citadels to insure their supers?
For the small group. Is fielding an insured Super, knowing it is going to be killed, really going to encourage fights or is it just handing the dominant groups kill mails at the expense of smaller groups ( for an insurance payout equal to 50%? of the supers replacement value)

Should small groups form coalitions so they are able to afford and defend an Xlarge Citadel - Remembering, if they do, there is likely to be no-one left for them to fight.
-- - -- - -- - -- - --

Until the only real conflict driver in Eve (moon mining) is addressed and completely overhauled, nothing can really change as far as "biggest blob wins".
Large groups have no reason to fight for sov, they have the best sov and have no need for more
Smaller groups can't contest the large groups for the best sov - So live in (often) less desirable places and remain "content" for the large groups as it suits them.

-- - -- - -- - -- - --
The only time the large groups will make an effort to form up is to protect a moon and then they form up in such large numbers (4/11 Ohkunen 217 vs 456) as to ensure their victory.
Interesting ( although it was primarily a subcap fight), the smaller group of 217 fielded 2 carriers and 44 T2 subcap logi.
Where the larger group of 456 fielded 12 T2 and 4 T1 logi but did bring 11 dreads, ensuring the opposing carriers were removed from the fight as early as possible.

Funnily enough, both the groups on the field that night are capable of fielding similar sized Capital / Super fleets, So why didn't they bring them?
The answer is quite obvious if not a little simplistic - Neither side could guarantee a win with Supers.
Both fleets are pretty evenly matched in Capital / Super warfare, so are reluctant to field them on opposing sides - Then, what is possibly the decider, any super engagement is going to attract 3rd parties from every group within jump range (super on grid? Screw fatigue, I'll worry about it later), further adding to the uncertainty of victory for either side - Who can muster the larger 3rd party group to ensure victory?
-- - -- - -- - -- - --

I know none of this has anything to do with capital rebalancing, or does it?
Without balancing the reasons and way capital ships are used, rebalancing them is somewhat a waste of time and money - The blob will always win, is not good game balance.

Shooting Citadels is not reason enough - The biggest blob will always win.
Really, the biggest groups have already won, they can afford it. So why change something that is broken but works to something that is just as broken and will still work the same way?

For game play to be interesting for everyone, it needs to be designed so everyone has the same opportunity (joining goons so I can always win, is not game balance). Sort out the underlying issues with balance - You create a whole new game.
Goons and pets can stay the biggest most risk averse blob in the game but their domination of the game is taken away with the right balance in mechanics.

Goons (and other large groups) are the biggest complainers when it comes to lack of conflict - They want fights.
So give them a reason to fight - Sov is not worth fighting over - Moons are the conflict driver, they are the backbone of every group in the game.
Fix moon mining = Content for all.

-- - -- - -- - -- - --
Sorry, this turned into a rant - It wasn't meant to but simply changing capital ships and adding Citadels isn't going to change the risk averse nature of PVP on TQ.

I would like the opportunity to talk to devs about my ideas - As would thousands of others. So I can only hope someone at CCP will see the light and begin to balance Eve for the future, not just short term gain with no real change.

Great proposal, at least this would also make sense physics-wise... it's not just a nerf to caps because somebody doesn't understand how to counter them.

There are some interesting ideas in CCP's proposed changes to cap warfare but some are frankly terrible gamewise, plus they are showing how little some devs care about the YEARS of training cap pilots have been investing... incremental changes are much more likely to avoid breaking the game, and as others pointed already, losing players.
Creating a while new cline of caps ships to serve NO new role whatsoever? So we need to train, buy, fit a new cap ship type, then deploy 3 shiptypes to do what we previously did with just 2 shiptypes already? That's a huge nonsense!
The new logi caps will be doing just one thing, and not better than what is done now, so they'll be boring, while carriers will have half their previous role, so they'll prolly be unused because dreads do more DPS and subcaps are more tactical (and cheap).

So many of us have been training level Vs in racial dreadnoughts or carriers because those ships have a very useful role, now by simply turning the tables under them, I think many of us will be severely pissed off.
Judging by the current players' numbers CCP has pissed of a lot of people already, in part by introducing highly controversial new game mechanics which often meant sending down the drain huge players' investments in skilltime, assets and organization, partly by being inconsistent with new promising game contents...
Please learn from mistakes, start listening to players' feedback, and stop thinking that a bold swerve of your nerfbat will fix complex problems, as time and again we have all seen, that isn't the case.