Player Features and Ideas Discussion

If you gate camping and initiate an illegal battle, you will lose your ship to concord anyways, the difference here is that you will lose about 900 million per ship instead of 10-25 million. And a battleship sized carrier shouldn't have the targeting range of a regular carrier. More like double or maybe triple of a normal battleship.
Also, why is one person camping a gate with a carrier who has to micro-manage the fighters constantly worse than the same person logged in from 10 accounts camping the same gate with frigates and/or cruisers?

These carriers would be penalized in hi-sec because concord won't like them either. I'm thinking about 25-50% HP and damage reduction. I'm too lazy to actually calculate it, but a squad of light fighters should have about the same damage that 5 heavy drones can deal. And you would probably lose them faster than you would lose heavy drones. The ability to operate in hi-sec is an extra that comes with their size, they don't need to efficient there.

How about this one:

Escort carrier skill bonuses:
- 2.5% fighter damage and HP (less damage than a carrier gives)
- 5% racial space superiority fighter effectiveness
- 200% bonus targeting range
Battleship bonuses:
- racial defense (these ships should be upgrades on the Abaddon/Rokh/Hyperion/Maelstrom)
...
Role bonus:
- can use light and support fighters
- can fit NSA, with reduced fitting and activation cost
...
- the escort carrier bonuses don't apply in hi-sec

No nerf needed and heavy drones will be better in hi-sec if they get bonus from their controlling ship. Set the base targeting range to 100km and you actually need to be in "sniper range" in hi-sec, while you can have 1100km everywhere else.

Come on, it'll work just like insta-nyxing, except everywhere and against anything. How could that possibly be a bad thing is beyond me.

Okay, I was careless here.
The 2.5% would be the Gallente version's trait only, Thanathos also gives 2.5% HP and 5% damage. This case the HP is the same, but the damage bonus is the half.
The Minmatar version would get 2.5% damage and velocity, and the Amarr and Caldari nothing... their carriers have bonus resistances, which overlaps with the battleship bonus in my plan. So... weak fighters with a really hard to destroy ship? Interesting.

But I don't boost E-war. E-war fighters are the Cenobite, Scarab, Siren and Dromi. These also get 5% bonus from their faction carriers, so even if I would boost E-war, they would be exactly as strong.
I boost space superiority fighters instead, which are Equite, Locust, Satyr and Gram.
I think the NSA is necessary because battleships normally need a lot of time to lock on fighters and drones, which are the targets of the boosted fighters. This is a big ship designed to counter a carrier, which means a lot of really small targets. The NSA would make it lock about as fast as a destroyer does. We can make a small version of the NSA, specially designed for these ships, if you think it's better.
By the way the Nidhoggur (Minmatar carrier) has the same scan resolution as the Rokh and the Navy Scorpion, so it probably wouldn't be too OP if you balance it well.

I don't want Gallente and Minmatar to be better than the other two, but their current carriers get fighter bonus, while Amarr and Caldari get resistance bonus. Super carriers follow the same pattern: Gallente and Minmatar have offensive bonus, Amarr and Caldari have resistance bonus with minimal extra damage.

Drop the NSA then and ship skill or give role bonus for sensor boosters maybe? This actually sounds much better to be honest. No other ship has sensor booster bonus right?

The tank bonus would come from the ships they are based on. These ships shouldn't have other weapons and I didn't have a better idea.

According to their description, space superiority fighters are good against drones and other fighters, but not against bigger targets. I don't know how effective they actually are against frigates and destroyers, but those are supposed to be targets of the attack fighters.

Who would use them? I don't know. These are cheaper and faster to learn than carriers. These use gates, so you can deploy them in cyno systems. If the incoming enemy fleet is using carriers then you can use these to make them weaker instead of risking your own capitals. I don't think too many people would use 1b+ battleships to gate camp, I think frigates, cruisers and bubbles would be more effective and infinitely cheaper.
These may not be necessary, but definitely won't be useless in my opinion.

Hey, I saw something that looked like a pattern for carriers, and I tried to follow it. If it makes no sense, that's not necessarily my fault. I think this goes back to when fighters were actually capital drones, that's why Gallente gets bonus for them.
Also, I heard that capitals (aside from haulers) can only use region gates. I should read more in this topic.

Anyways, here is the new version:

The hull is a T2 battleship, with base targeting stats closer to the higher values of the category. These ships however should have few high slots. They won't have special modules, weapon hardpoints or command burst abilities (I never intended to give them), so 4 high slots should be enough. They get extra mid slots for the sensor boosters instead. 2 fighter squads can be used at a time, support fighters are limited to 1 squad at a time.

Escort carrier bonuses:
5% bonus to faction space superiority fighter effectiveness
150% bonus to sensor booster scan resolution effectiveness
1000% bonus to sensor booster targeting range effectiveness
+1 target
Battleship bonuses:
Faction defense from the base ship
Role bonus:
Can launch light and support fighters
Fighter support unit powergrid need reduced by 95%
Escort carrier bonuses don't apply in hi-sec
Only the highest value of scan resolution and targeting range bonus applies outside of hi-sec

In hi-sec they are T2 battleships with 2 fighter squads. The tank bonus applies so you should be able to have a decent defense.
If I was calculating correctly (using scripted T2 sensor booster), outside hi-sec with max escort carrier skill, they should have about the same scan resolution that carriers get with NSA, and the maximum targeting range would be roughly 3000km which is still shorter than the carriers' base targeting range. You need 2 sensor boosters to have both.
The fighter support units cost a lot of PG, even with reduced need, you can fit 4 T1 versions and have barely any PG left for defense, and probably won't be able to fit 4 T2 units at all.
The last role bonus is there to prevent insta-lock and 100k km targeting range. Logis can help to boost these values in hi-sec, but will be ignored everywhere else. ECCM isn't affected.

okay so an NSA only boosts scan res by 500% with this bonus and is balanced by the carrier being unable to use any form of local E-war. this bonus gives them a total of 510% on a single scripted T2 with no local E-war restriction.

again this is over 2k dps

they will have higher and be able to use non-drone points as well as scrams. something that is a huge balancing factor of the nsa.


that over 2kdps number I gave was using 4 T1 FSU.

if only one module can effect scan res at a time they will not be insta lock on frigs and DD but will be damn near close. ECCM is pointless when you are in a carrier as the FIGHTERS are easily perma jammed having only 7 streangth on the T2 without an nsa. even an ibis can get over that on their ECMs and a griffen can do it with multis.



you only made all the issues with the OP nature of these worse. I don't think you knew the draw backs used to balance the NSA I don't think you know how much DPS fighters put out. I don't think you understand how vulnerable fighters are. I don't think you understand to a deep level how gate camps operate.



now I really like the IDEA of a sub cap carrier. I am some one who is in love with carriers irl and whos first goal in eve was to get a Nid and that was before the mechanic changes. the problem is they are capital ship weapons and they are balanced around being just that. while the mechanics may be fun to get into the hands of more people they are by no means prohibitive in the current game. it's only about a year of training and it should take about that long to afford one anyone (not buy but have the income to afford). If you join a group that uses them regularly you also have plenty of chances to use them once they are trained.



maybe if we try coming at it from a different direction. currently there are no true E-war BBs that line dies at cruisers. (no the scorp and geddon are not true E-war platforms) at the same time support fighters are dramatically under utilized outside of the gallente line. why not build these to be support carriers and build them around support fighters.

give them 3 launch bays

T1 hull bonus to T1 E-war
damps
WD
TP
range (we'll come back to this caldari will be tricky)
t2 bonus to the t2 e-war on the support fighters
cap drain
Point range
webs
strength.

the caldari local bonus will be hard in order to keep it in line with the other three and not step on the scorpions toes. something to do with the ECM burst would probably be best. but I will need to think on it more.

you could use the same reasoning for Dooms days.... it's not a good one.

working towards a goal is a good thing that's how progression works and keeps a game interesting. may seem like a long way off but it's not really. I know instant gratification has become the norm with the younger generation but eve isn't the place for that and time and effort make things that much more worth it.




EDIT:


but uhhh word of warning when it comes to pvp ccp kinda screwed carriers so unless you are looking into using them for pvp don't bother. aside from a few niche cases carriers in pvp are out shined in almost every way by something else