Assembly Hall

This thread has changed to addressing possible solutions to the issue- the prevalence of tracking titans in the game- which in itself is only a symptom of several root causes, mainly:

- The proliferation of massive numbers of sub capital fleets (for the most part, sub capitals in this discussion pertain to battleship DPS).

- The unwillingness of alliances to risk supercaps for whatever reason.

- The lack of skilled supercap pilots compared to capital ready pilots.

- The lack of dynamic and diverse ship types and tactics, or ability to add a rock to the rock-paper-scissors philosophy.

The changes in Crucible were a good start, however the changes reinforced the limited use of specific ships for specific reasons.

1. Dreads do not have the tracking/exp velocity in order to hit moving capital ships effectively, and do not have a significant tank to counter supercarriers effectively.

2. Carriers have shifted to a complete logistical role, and are glorified haulers.

3. The futility of capitals against supers has led to the use of subcapital fleets where even a capital fleet would be more effective.


So As a result of supercapital fleets once again taking the stage, supercapital alliances have adapted to engage these with highly effective "tracking titans."

How do we stop this without nerfing that which has already been nerfed? The ship itself is not a problem, nor are the mods. It's not imbalanced. But it still has that sort of effect.

So to fix this, there needs to be a way to make tracking titans unwise to field. Under capital DPS, a tracking titan will fall much faster as a lot of its tank is used to hit smaller targets. How can we use this problem to encourage capital warfare?

For the purpose of discussion, the following classes are represented:
Supcapitals: Battleships, or battleship heavy fleet composition with typical logistic and light support
Capitals: Dreads and battle/triage fitted carriers
Supercapitals: Titans, supercarriers.

Original post:

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So... It should at least be addressed on here, and not in passing comments. The concept of "tracking titans" (for those that don't know, sacrificing tank for tracking mods to the point in which the titan can essentially alpha any subcapital ship).

This became much more common once the DD was nerfed to affect only capitals.

Proposal as such, do not completely prevent the ability to hit subcaps as that only blocks the symptom and not the problem, but to nerf the effectiveness either in the rad/sec value or in its ability to hit objects with a subcap size sig radius.

Examples:

Link 1

Firsthand account- dictor falls to titan.

Oh look a video.

Mael kill

I could point out more and more examples.

Frigates, ceptors, dictors. All able to be blapped by Titans.

There are several issues regarding this.

1) Yaay's analysis (and there are good responses) regarding tracking itself.

2) It is now not uncommon to see 50, 60... even 70+ titans dropped on a fleet. It is no secret that the proliferation of supercapitals has outgrown what CCP projected. It may be time to consider mass limitations for cyno beacons or even mobile cyno beacon jammers. I understand it opens up many other issues but it's worth looking at.


I feel this is an urgent issue. CCP is already discussing destructible stations. What would be the point of owning a station if a fleet of supers can drop it in a matter of minutes?

I used to think this, however it opens all sorts of problems.

With the new aggro mechanics though logging out isnt as great a tactic, but it shouldnt be so easy to log out with no aggression. BUT that brings in issues about DCs etc.. Its a tricksy problem.

How about, make the tracking on XL guns slightly better BUT make them so that tracking enhancers/comuters and remote tracking enhancers just dont work on them? This should potentially mean a titan can shoot a subcap that is stopped, a very slow moving BS or a fast (for caps) moving capital.

Possibly make their scan res worse so it takes a loooong time to lock a subcap too?

No one wants supers nerfed out of use, but no amount of titans on the field should be able to beat a lrag efleet of subcaps unless they have a good support fleet.

[quote=Rico Minali]
How about, make the tracking on XL guns slightly better BUT make them so that tracking enhancers/comuters and remote tracking enhancers just dont work on them? This should potentially mean a titan can shoot a subcap that is stopped, a very slow moving BS or a fast (for caps) moving capital.[quote]

Remote tracking was removed with Crucible.

I have not tested this, but I believe TDs as part of Ewar will not work against Titans either due ti their EW immunity.

The issue isn't the Titan you're orbiting. It can't track you usually. The problem is the other titan 50km away can.

That was CCP's original prediction. That they would be so expensive that there would only be 3-4 of them in the game.

oops.

posting in a hobo driven "nerf the super rich" thread.

This guys idea is awesome and spot on!

supercaps should be useless vs subcaps.

Totally ok with this on the condition that sub caps are useless against supercaps.

Fair is fair right, my titan can't hit you, but you are no more of a problem to my titan than a dust mote.




This argument is cyclical and stupid, you want your sub caps able to destroy supers yet not be hurt by them, where as the super pilots are totally ok with being able to be killed by you, as long as they can kill you too.


They even sacrafice their whole tank to do so, a tanked titan can't hit ANYTHING at all, sometimes they even miss supercarriers their tracking is so bad.

But the whiney crew wants it all one way, they want to be able to kill a super, and never face any actual danger from it themselves, they want everybody to play the game their way, and field massive support fleets to do anything in the game at all. This is called a one sided argument.

If you want to kill my titan, I don't mind you trying, but every asset you put on the field against it should be able to be killed by it, as that is fair and balanced.




Its also hilariously funny that AAA sat on the undock of 46DP for 2 weeks with Tracking Titans using them to great effect against RA and their vassals, and yet the second the strategy is employed against them, they have threads going up to cry about it.

It occurs to me that a minmaxed tracking Titan fleet would be very vulnerable to a properly tanked super fleet.

I believe that you can however refit your ship off of carriers if things get risky. I understand however there is a limited number of hostiles who can be around to prevent you reship but I understand the number increases depending on the number of friendly carriers. To the point where a properly supported super fleet can dynamically refit in combat no matter how many hostiles are realistically around.

Perhaps if this was tweaked, flying supers would be more risky- as you would risk being caught with your pants down in a blap fit.

I may be wrong or ignorant however. However if they could not refit while aggressed or something similar then exposing them untanked would be more risky. Knowing a enemy fleet is misfit to fight you is going to only increase the supercap deterrent of the enemy.

Older more experience alliances are naturally going to have more of these super weapons. Which kind of sucks for me. However every little helps.

The flipside is how tracking mechanics work with sig radius which can potentially be reworked. Obviously that would be a massive rebalance and would be a major change to mechanics but could be interesting if effort was put into it.

Obviously with how Titans bump each other when going through a cyno is both a blessing and a curse, in that one can be bumped away from their fleet quite easily at random but it also always means that they are sufficiently spread out they can blap things.

We tend to be very cautious to welp things in Eve as it is though and the repeated nerfs aren't exactly going to cause more Titans to be lost because the people who fly them are lead by people who tend to be good at Eve and know exactly their limits when using their Titans. Most of that time that means not using them however as the risk is too high and the rewards are relatively low compared to the relative losses.

Fully tanked titans have died to less than 40 BS.


Its the willingness to engage them that is lacking. A tracking fit titan has less HP than most supercarriers, if another group were to actually commit their supers to a cloud of tracking titans, they'd all be dead, but people are so incredibly risk averse they'd rather see the offending ship nerfed than put their own assets put on the line to help curb the issue.

If you have a problem with tracking fit titans in your area, and you start dropping fully tanked super groups on them, you won't have that problem for long, but therein lies the problem, its on you to fix it, whereas most of you would rather see the game changed so you didn't have to risk your own assets.


The idea that one type of ship should be able to hurt space ships, but another type shouldn't, is just laughably absurd.

If PL's tracking titans, or RA's tracking titans, or RAIDENS trackign titans, or the 60+ CFC tracking titans are bothering you, you can stop them at any time you want, because weather you believe it or not, morale is a huge factor in EVE, and when you start killing off titans, their pilots who are their friends stop logging in for fear of their assets, or they refit to tank fits.



Again, I'm all for Sub caps being immune to supercaps in warfare, but as a trade, supercaps should be totally immune to anything sub caps can do in warfare, including bubbles, guns, bombs, drones, what have you, the only thing that should be able to fight titans under the Utopian ideals presented in this thread are:

1) Dreads
2) Carriers
3) Supercarriers
4) Titans

If you want your Maelstroms, and your Abbadons safe from the titans, then I want your maelstrom to be like a pebble on the road to my 18 wheeler.



MAYBE you should start asking CCP for more weapons to kill titans with instead of asking for another nerf. More things blowing up is better than less.