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Show me any fit that has over 1 mil EHP on new carriers please - My fitting skills must be pretty bad because I can't get anything close to that.

Oops, my bad - You can fit a 1.5 mil buffer tank on a niddy - 3 X T2 Shield Extenders, 2 X T2 invul, DCU and 3 T1 extender rigs. Only problem with it is, you need to have a fax close to you field or die really fast - 3 Squads of Heavy Fighters (not even maximum flights) will volley you off the field with their torp ability.
Reality is, using a buffer fit on any carrier requires a FAX, limitations with FAX should see 1 Fax per 2 carriers and hope the FAX doesn't get called primary.
Sekeris; Do you have an alt that can fly a FAX so you can field a Buffer Fit carrier?

And honestly - Isn't everyone over being pussies hiding in a blob. Carriers are meant to be anti subcap platforms - How much use do you think they will be if everyone has to sit on top of each other to get reps.

Everyone fitting buffer - doesn't that pretty much defeat the whole purpose of these changes. Has CCP failed before they are released? If the best option is to fit buffer and sit on logi, that is what everyone will do which is real shame as carriers (all carriers) need a role and that role shouldn't be as fodder for dreads and supers.

You more than anyone else in this thread have proven CCP need to take a long hard look at carriers before this release goes live.
Many thanks..


Buffer is for pussies too afraid to actually risk anything in a fight. And that is exactly what everyone will use.

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Probably intended although I don't know why - If you abandon fighters, you can't reconnect to them. Your only options are to scoop them (reconnect to lost drones doesn't work, it just says no drones matching frequency).
So my thinking on these new mechanics was, you would be able to position fighters on a grid but not leave yourself defenseless by being able to abandon and reconnect as required. If your only option to get fighters back is to scoop them - Placing them around a grid is somewhat pointless.
*Carriers need a dedicated launch tube for support fighters and a much larger hangar if they are to be able to deal any dps for more than a few minutes.

NB; Sekeris - You might want to look at the limitations of the new Fax's before going head long into how good buffer fits could be. With a maximum of 2 remote reps per (3 if logi doesn't mind capping out fast) - Plus the fact logi is always in short supply (who constantly wants to go into fights and not get on killmails) - There will be a lot of buffer fit carriers not getting reps.
With a basic active tanked Niddy (half the fit being Meta to avoid using more than 2 CPU upgrades) I was able to kill 2 flights of Mantis Heavy Fighters before losing all my anti drone fighters and eventually getting popped. Whole fight took less than 3 minutes.

These changes were meant to bring versatility to carriers and create something new - If nothing changes because sitting in a blob still works best - Why is this being done at all.

Quick questions for CCP Larrikin - In an upside down world, where a friendly Hic pilot has caught a NYX out alone.

1; How many carriers would be needed to kill it? Presuming you can field nothing but buffer Carriers and the Nyx can't get help in less than 20 minutes (being the time you have to kill it).

2; How many carriers, presuming no FAX available, would the NYX kill before going down?

PS; I know it is more than 3 - We have tried.

Well that's not the brightest thing to try. That's like using T1 frigates with no logi to take on a RLML Caracal. Not only are the ships you're using not designed to engage the target you're engaging, it is designed to kill the ships you're using. In addition, carriers are supposed to be fleet ships now, so not having logi is just crippling your side. If you want to kill capitals, use dreads, titans, or supers.


Fighters do not warp with the one exception of following you off grid. While I wish there would be a faster way to recall them from long distances on grid, there isn't.

There is no pretext of carriers being balanced. They've spend most of this time getting the mechanics working. While it's important to have some amount of balance to test the mechanics, a lot of the balancing has to come after everything is working.

Problem with that is; When the new capitals are released there will only be one really viable option so that is what doctrines will be built on.
From there on out it won't matter what Devs do, it will be too late, unless we can go in with something to make other carriers stand out as being new and different.


Looking at Archon - Thanatos, Chimera - Nidhoggur as paired for doctrine uses.
The idea being, having options to sitting in a blob on Logi (in triage) to survive.
Archon and Apostle are in a pretty good place (tank like there is no tomorrow), Thanatos and Lif need a role (idea below)
If the Minmatar carrier and Fax have a defined role (outlined below), it may encourage players to look at the Caldari carrier and Fax in a different light.
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Ideas :-
All carriers get one dedicated support fighter launch tube + 27K dedicated support fighter bay (allowing 3 flights, 1 loaded 2 in reserve)
All fleet hangars increase in size to 30K/m (20K for dreads to allow for carrying spare set of guns/launchers), at least make them able to fit something other than a few capital cap charges.

Nidhoggur / Thanatos role bonus's
200% bonus to AB speed
30% reduction to shield booster, armor repairer CPU and PG needs.
Add lock range to Networked sensor array. 4587.5 lock range as a role bonus is just a bit of overkill and a waste of a role bonus, you want a long range lock ability you pay for it with capacitor. Then the role bonus can be given to something meaningful, as suggested.

Lif, Ninazu role bonuses
200% bonus to AB speed
30% reduction to shield boosters, armor repairers and remote shield booster, remote armor repair CPU and PG requirements.
50% bonus to Minmatar, Gallente Carrier ship bonuses, while not in Siege.

Possibly a new triage module - that gives 50% of triage bonuses without the mobility drawbacks. Uses double the stront of standard triage modules (400 for T2 before skills), has a 5 minute cycle time with a 5 minute cool down before reactivation.

This would allow Minmatar and Gallente Carriers and their respective Fax's to become more mobile on a grid, while still leaving a place for the current triage with its increased repping bonuses. It also has the drawback of only being used for only 5 minutes of every 10 - So leaving those relying on it more vulnerable for 5 minutes at a time.

Ok, i never ment to come across as thinking buffer is the be all, end all of fitting. The point i was trying to make is that carriers at the moment are *only* able to fit a buffer and have a fit that remotely works. Otherwise the fits are not possible. I am in a position to use multiple cap capable alts, but that should not be required (and in PVP multiboxing will not end well for me!).

I also seen that FAX are pretty terrible to fit, and almost impossible to fit to a degree that will also let them survive a doomsday. Heck, even a max buffer carrier will only barely take a hit from those.

In short, a lot of balancing still needs to happen on carriers, supers, fighters, bombers and possibly dreads and titans, and i hope they can manage before the launch deadline (and fanfest).

At the moment the long range lock is a nice gimic, but it wont 'save' carriers, or make them useful for anything other than ratting.

have you actualy tried using these in a fight yet?

Archon and Chimera are trash where the thanny and nid can actually be used

archon cant get any semblance of dps and the chimera runs out of fighters long b4 its tank is threatened


the only point when archon and chimera become more useful than the nid/than is in fights where the DPS is high generally do to other capitals on the field and in these situations using a super or a dread with HAW is far more effective

but carriers are not built for capital engagements if it escalates to that they are mostly useless they have less tank than a dread with HAW (and less dps when in a fleet) and they are just worse than a super. but when it comes to supporting a sub cap fight (what the carriers are now built for) the thanny and the nid are far better



now if there was a reason to use them in larger fights

local e-war bonus

e-war fighter bonus

then there would be a reason to see these in larger fights

The thanatos is great for rapidly killing cruisee sized targets. Just use 2x tp and a drone tracking computer + drone nav. They can be scary good against subcaps amd push 1mil ehp with t2 modules without using ehp rigs.

How about not solo? There are situations where one side will have a decent fleet with logi and be fighting a cruiser fleet. Maybe they need some help and have a cyno ready. You jump into a subcap fleet fight not as an unsupported carrier, but as some extra DPS to turn the tide of battle.

Now in that situation the other fleet would likely just tear up your fighters and/or ignore you till they've killed the logi and/or drop dreads and/or run away. But still, there are uses for a buffer-tanked carrier outside of a fight between capital fleets.