Ships & Modules

First off, my apologies if this topic has been discussed before. I couldn't find it, so im posting about it.

I havent been playing all that long, but certainly long enough to learn how much of a dismal failure tech 2 battleships have been compared to tech 2 frigates and cruisers. Anyone caught flying something like a Sin around would get gawped at for being a fool, or for just having too much isk.

My Idea is this. Instead of having tech II battleships, how about they get cut altogether ,and, instead replaced with something along the lines of a tech III battleship. Something as customisable as a tech III cruiser but with the ability to pick and mix from the bonuses of the 3 tech I battleships from its race. For example, Dominix hull with the option of mixing subsystems to make it so that it gets a drone bonus (from the tech I domi) and an armour repairing bonus (From the Hyperion). The drone damage bonus could be for the offensive subsystem slot and the repairing bonus for the defensive subsystem slot. For the electronics sub system slot I think the Tech III should have the option of picking from either: The marauder tractor beam bonus. Or from the black ops bonus that the Sin gets; except this time it becomes a real covert ops ship with the ability to fit a covert ops cloak and still have the ability to throw up cov ops cyno's. The ability to create a jump portal and activate a jump drive would be one of the subsystems for the propulsion slot with other options being things like removing the signature penalty of the MWD and reducing its capacitor usage so that something like a blaster fit Tech III battleship would be more mobile on the battlefield. The engineering slot I haven't given much thought to, but, it could be anything along the lines of 5% bonus to power output per level or 5% Reduction in the amount of heat damage absorbed by modules per level

The over all result would be something along the lines of

Dominix hull (Because I like the domi but it could be anything)

Gallente battleship bonus: 7.5% bonus to armor repair amount of armor repair systems and 10% bonus to drone hitpoints and damage per skill level. [i]From the defensive and offensive subsystem slots[/i

Role bonus: -99.5% reduction in Cloak CPU Use. [i]From the electronics subsystem slot[/i

Note: can fit covert cynosural field generators and covert jump portal generators. [i]From the electronics and propulsion subsystem slots[/i

And in the background the engineering bonus that you cant see. Lets say its fitted with the '5% bonus to power output per level' subsystem.

The skill requirements for this ship would be much higher than that of a tech II battleship, perhaps similar to the training time required for a capital ship. The longer training time would reflect that these could fly in high sec where capital ships of course can not fly and would be much tougher to kill than a Tech I battleship. They would definitely not be able to replace a carrier as they can still only fly 5 drones at once (Fighters/bombers being among those 5? Up for discussion), have low ehp and lack the ability to fit capital sized modules. Nor would they be able to replace the massive siege ability of something like the moros as compared to the dps and ehp of a dread they have little to offer.

[b]I would like to make a point of saying the bonuses I have mentioned are just ones I deemed appropriate to mention, they could be anything. The main point I wanted to get across is the need for a change in battleship level combat, its something I love about eve but its also an area I find to be somewhat lacking. [/b

The aim is not to make some super strong battleship, just a well balanced mix of all the good points from tech I & II battleships that pilot deems appropriate.

I appreciate any reply, critical, constructive or otherwise.

Thanks

Yes just what we need multi-billion isk ships with the damage and tank of a cap ship in the battleship size package

To Maximillian > I would consider this addressing the issue of the current near obsolete tech II battleships. The marauder fell out of favour considerably when the noctis came in, and the whole black ops battleship idea never really worked. I personally would like to see changes as its an area of eve I'm involved with. I understand that there may be more important changes that need to made first, this is however I think is still relevant even if its only looked at in 6 months time. I do kind of agree with you on the tech 3 making other hulls obsolete, tech 3 might not be the way to go about these changes. It may be that the current tech II battleships need a reworking, but in any case changes need to be made, the way I see it.

To Dyniss > I cant help but feel you didn't thoroughly read my post. I quite clearly stated that they would not be anywhere close to as powerful as a capital ship.

To buzzmong > Ah sorry about that. Im new to the forums and this looked like the place to post it.

The point of the T3 ships was to make a ship that could be set up to be used in a variety of situations. The fact that the cruiser is the only ship size that has this option I think is just fine. This makes it a powerful option, but doesn't place it at the top of the food chain. A BS with this capability on the other hand would be incredibly hard to balance. Also the idea of removing the t2 BS for something like that is foolish.

T2s are supposed to be the last step of specialization. If a T3 BS was ever introduced then it would never be as good as either of those at their given roles. Instead it would draw on some of their abilities to make a unique but useful ship. I think though if they ever plan on doing this a t3 BC will probably be seen first.

I would much prefer to see the existing T2 battleships get improvements to make them better at their assigned tasks. T3 battleships would just be another way to pimp rides for highsec incursions right now.

It seems that Marauders could use a slight buff. Right now, the Noctis has taken away the appeal of the tractor beam bonus and the pirate BS outdo them in other ways.

For example, the Kronos would be awesome with 125 bandwidth and 150m3 drone bay. That would make it a bit more competitive vis-a-vis the Vindicator.

The Paladin could use about 5% more powergrid (lets it fit 100mn AB + faction LAR + Tachyons = even sexier than it already is).

The Golem could use a special role bonus to make target painters cycle faster and a slight buff to missile velocity. Or just make cruise missiles not suck ass.

The Vargur could use a bit more powergrid.

I won't touch on the Black Ops battleship piece, as I don't fly them.

I can see that plenty of people have ideas of how higher end battleships should be improved, this was just my idea and I appreciate the feedback that it got. I can see its not a popular idea and it might be best to go about improvements a different way. I really hope its part of the re balancing that I now know CCP is making = ) Plus I now know that this isnt the place to post about new ships ideas/improvements, cheers for the feedback.

The reason T3 cruiser have insane EHP is T2-cruiser resists and a %-based Augmented/Amplification subsystem which nets them BS's armor/shield raw hp.

Now T2-battleship resists aren't that high compared to cruiser class. This means even if we have higher raw hp our EHP remains reasonable. Add here that BS size target takes full damage from near everything, less mobile and so on it negates the massive amounts of EHP it can net.

In fact here's a specualtion fit:

[Paladin, T3 Augmented]

[Empty High slot]
[Empty High slot]
[Empty High slot]
[Empty High slot]
[Empty High slot]
[Empty High slot]
[Empty High slot]

[Empty Med slot]
[Empty Med slot]
[Empty Med slot]
[Empty Med slot]

Imperial Navy Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane
Imperial Navy Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane
Imperial Navy Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane
1600mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I
1600mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I
Damage Control II
1600mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I

Large Trimark Armor Pump II
Large Trimark Armor Pump II
Large Trimark Armor Pump II
Large Trimark Armor Pump II
Large Trimark Armor Pump I
Large Trimark Armor Pump I

The extra trimarks supplement the +50% armor bonus. At "All-5" we have 71.3k raw armor + 80.6/74.8/74.6/76.7 resists = 306k EHP in armor. And that 1B isk and 7 slots were spent on armor only. Nowhere near capitals imo.

Now imagine torp Golem applying its full dps on this...


But in case if it proves to be OP tanked anyway just don't introduce the %based subsystem.

Stealth buff perhaps? Lol