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It's definitely not true for the set of Avatars likely to show up on zkillboard. Out of 25 Avatars killed going back thru 2015, 20 had DCU's. Of the 5 without, one wasn't fit at all, and two were full cap recharger/flux coil travel fits.

So yeah, I dunno. Your claim could be absolutely true, I don't do cap combat. Perhaps, like pirates and global warming, DCU's are actually the leading cause of Avatars showing up on zKillboard? :)

Split the DCU into three consisting of structure, armour and shield. Continue with making it passive and have its stats land between the tow tanking options currently available.

Taking armour as the example we would haave resists that are easy to fit and capless but off the lowest bonus, EAMNs that offer better resists at higher fitting costs, armour DCU that offers better omni resists and capless but higher fitting costs and finally armour hardeners that give the best resists but are an active module.

Option two is more radical and would be to expand damage controls and turn them into dedicated hull resistance module family like the energised plating for armour which would help make hull tanking a more viable thing.

We already have ANP's for low CPU passive resistance on armour. While it might be nice to have a low omni resist module for shields separate from the DCU, if we were going to split them off then the armour & shield bonus should just be deleted, and we then we can decide if there is enough justification for shield to get a passive omni resist module similar to ANP's in some way.
Armour however certainly does not need it.

Agreed with the armour.

A low slot shield option would be handy on shield ships that struggle to fit mwd, tackle, booster and tank by allowing then to sacrifice firepower/speed.

I however edge more towards the dedicated hull tank resist mod approach. Its something we do not currently have and more options is a good thing.

I wouldn't want to see sustainable hull tanking become a thing. The whole point of hull is that it is meant to be your ships real systems, and personally I'd like to see a lot more module damage taken when you are in hull, as the current amount that can happen is pitiful.
But DCU's being hull tanking only I'd have no issues with.

Wait when did hull become your ships systems is just the superstructure isn't it?

Not just silly empty autopilot freighters, but all freighters will be targeted less, full afk freighters included.

Freighter pilots who evaded ganking through webs, alternate routes, scouting etc have little or nothing to gain from freighters becoming tougher because they were rarely targeted in the first place (i have 3 freighter pilots and a bowhead and after playing the game for over half a decade, no one has taken so much as a pot shot at them). The main beneficiaries of the change are the lazy and dumb, and that will push down the prices that would normally be enjoyed by smarter haulers who used the available tools.

How on earth you could be for that kind of change at this stage i just don't know.

I normally stay away from these forums because of the signal-to-noise ratio, but there's some interesting discussion here. I wont really contribute much, but I'll say a few things.

First, a lot of people have some misconceptions about ganking. One person compared it to ratting. Other people talk about it like its free money. The truth is there is so much more happening behind the scenes that occurs to make everything possible. Recruitment, Authorization, Supply and Procurement, Logistics (Ever tried moving a few thousand catalysts, 200 at a time?), Fitting ships on a weekly if not daily basis, Selling loot and investment. Scouting and Recon. Training. Veteran bumpers spend days of playtime bumping to get to their skill level. Freighter FCs spend months leading smaller fleets before they step up. And, of course, FCing.

Ganking will continue to happen, but the work required to make ganking happen has increased many-fold compared to additional gank costs and throwing more talos or catalysts at a freighter. The increase in cost is negligible; we don't make our money from killing 1b-3b freighters, we make it for killing 10b-20b freighters. All this really does is make our lives harder, not reduce the profitability of ganking. And as so many people pointed out, often profitability doesn't really enter the equation.

So I think that's the problem I have with this change. This change doesn't make for more interesting gameplay; it's N+1 gameplay. The only thing that's getting harder is everything but ganking. And I think this is a symptom of a larger problem with highsec and gank-oriented gameplay. It's very asymmetric. Gankers go after the whale; anti-gankers go after the gankers. The gankers can try to respond, but under very different engagement rules. The whale tries to get away any way it can (and it often does). All this change does is say, "Bring more gankers." Don't gank smarter, don't gank cleverer, just gank harder.

I think a few people (Hi Rham) keep decrying bumping. But I think CCP has shown they're interested in keeping bumping, as it's an interesting game mechanic in every area of gameplay. As I said above, people don't realize how long bumpers train and practice. We don't let inexperienced bumpers bump for fleets, and experienced, seasoned bumpers are hard to come by. I think everyone hears about the dead freighters, but not the ones that got away through a myriad of ways, not even including bumper error. But even without bumping, on-gate suicide point freighter ganks would still be possible (see Russian ganking). But that's far less interesting gameplay for all sides involved, with virtually no counter on the freighter's part in exchange for a significantly more tedious, but easier, ganker play.

I am not unilaterally opposed to changes to ganking and highsec mechanics that make for more interesting gameplay, particularly with respect to freighters. However, if the motivation for this change is to curb freighter ganking, it's boring and uninspired and leads to no actually gameplay change. And I think whatever uptick in ganking may exist is due not to the difficulty of freighter ganking, but to the fact that there are several insanely dedicated individuals that make this all possible.

We have hull reppers, bulkheads and at the moment the DCU that allow hull tanking to be done but its not a very viable thing outside of a few hulls and mostly employed as bait. The area lacks a dedicated structure resist line of mods so if DCU are to be nerfed it would be better making them into a line of mods for helping make structure tanking a thing.

As the current changes stand CCP are going to blanket buff a lot of ships that don't need it, some of them massively and without justification while at the same time the DCU is still going to be mandatory on the bulk of fits because it still adds shields and armour.

I like that idea. The main flaw of the current proposal I see now is (after checking my fits), that it makes the DCU only a little less mandatory but not really because its shield and armor bonus remains the same. Hence this is a nerf to shield and armor fits (due to much less choice of affordable fittings) and a boost to hull tank only. Actually I have fits using all of the low meta modules purely for fitting reasons. This change again reduces the number of cost effective fits.

CCP, this game needs more fitting options not less, or we end up in even more situations where only one or few fits actually work and are affordable.