Player Features and Ideas Discussion

1: Gunboat Carrier Equivalent

PUBBIE "HATE 2 READ" AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM MEMORIAL EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

What I want: a carrier with guns instead of fighters / rep bonuses.

For Those Who Can Read:

I asked you guys at the game design panel if you would consider adding some new caps to the game to give players new things to train for and you seemed pretty open to the idea provided the new ships filled some sort of gap in the existing ship lineup. Here's something I've been wanting for a while!

There are currently very limited capital options for high-sp players. Specifically, the carrier is the only capital ship that represents a practical, all-around useful ship for wealthier players. Carriers are quite excellent-- they are fantastic ships for PvE and personal logistics, as well as having decent combat capabilities and a role in fleet warfare (repping / triage setups for repping fleets and structures).

There is no gunboat equivalent of a carrier. Dreads' only uses are for unopposed structure bashing and suicide-dropping. When out of siege they do less dps than a battleship and (post-titan nerf, anyway) have completely awful tracking. They have no CHA or SMA and are useless for personal logistics. They can't PvE, they can't do small-gang PvP, they can't provide useful logistical benefits to their owners. All they can do is bash ihub, nync, and suicidally swarm badly-fit PL titans.

Supercarriers can be used for PvE, though they are not as good at is as they were when they could use drones (and using SCs in sanctums is generally just an awful idea). Titans under current mechanics can be used for PvE (only by sillies) but will be utterly useless post-nerf. Both ships have SMAs and CHAs but their inability to dock and extreme prices make them fairly impractical for personal / group logistics. The carrier stands as the only existing cap that provides useful capabilities to individuals while also having a role in small gang and fleet warfare.

I propose a gunboat-equivalent of the carrier that would provide users with the following capabilities:

• CHA / SMA capacity similar to a carrier
• The ability to provide ~2000-2500 DPS using XL weapon turrets (with a tracking bonus to make them useful vs NPCs, battleships, and poorly-flown smaller subcaps when packing a tracking fit)
• Same jump range as a carrier
• ~500k-1.5m EHP when fit (Depending on fit-- ganky vs tanky. Again, roughly equivalent to a carrier)
• "Small" drone capability (Perhaps ~250m3 bay / 125mbit bandwidth)
• Price similar to a carrier (somewhere between carrier and dread prices)

The idea is to give pilots a turret-based utility ship designed around a DPS role (rather than "some DPS plus excellent repping abilities" like the carrier) that does less dps than a dread but is useful for smaller-scale applications (PvE, small gang combat). It would provide gun capabilities similar to current titans (IE can hit subcaps with a tracking fit) but with much lower DPS output and a tiny fraction of the tank (meaning they can't be used to decimate subcaps in a fleet warfare context, as they will quickly get blapped while tracking fit).

Personally, I'm bored with carriers being the only mixed role ship on offer. They're the only swiss-army knife cap in the game, and they're the only one that's remotely practical for PvE. I want a new capital that will provide a fair portion of the offensive capabilities of a current titan without the game-breaking EHP and absurd pricetag-- something I can use to blap rats with big guns, cram my things into and take around the universe on blackops deployments, and drop to provide DPS support to a small gang of friends, whether it be to gank someone's ratting carrier or bash POCOs in friendly space. I think that this can be accomplished in a balanced manner by limiting the ships' ability to tank. These ships would be fun to own and fly, provide turret users with a carrier-equivalent that is eminently practical and that employs their skill set. Please consider filling this void in the existing ship lineup!



Rough Thoughts on Bonuses / Stats:

• 15% to racial capital weapon turret damage per level (so that DPS with closerange guns and lvl 5 skills and a couple of damagemods falls somewhere between ~2-2.5k)
• 6 turret slots, 7-8 highslots to allow for some utility (at least one slot for a bomb / neut / cloak / salvager / whatever would be good)
• Class Role Bonus: 125% bonus to capital turret tracking (assuming you go through with the 50% tracking nerf shortly)
• Consider having the Caldari ship use capital hybrids, since missiles (especially capital ones) are pretty awful
• Not really sure what to use for the "second" hull bonus. You could go with resists on the Amarr / Caldari ones and ~*something offensive*~ on the other two. Or you could just not have a second bonus-- I don't think one would be strictly necessary.

I know you guys don't find it that useful when players spew out lots of detailed ship stats etc, so I'm not going to do it, but something that includes something along the lines of the above setups would rule.

A tracking fit titan has over 10m ehp and can combat refit to ~40+ million EHP when primaried. They also do up to ~10k dps. By comparison, the idea for these ships is to have them tanking ~0.5-0.75m EHP when tracking fit and doing ~2k dps. There's a bit of a difference. These ships would make even a dread look like a tanking monster, much less a titan.

Also, I don't know if you noticed, but the "recent capital nerfs" have been almost entirely limited to supercaps, not regular caps. Ask around and I think you'll find that most people agree that regular caps are well-balanced already.




You mean like a carrier?

Carriers already have the ability to do ~1500 DPS (granted, that's less than these ships, but carriers get mad repping bonuses as well and can use hordes of light drones to fight even the smallest subcaps), can spider tank while out of siege, and can fend of smaller ships. I don't think you'll find many people crying about carriers being OP.

You'd bring a Dread out to do the same things you currently use them for-- to do 2-3x as much DPS whilst fitting twice the tank and owning structures / other caps in a fleet context.

I'm not sure how they'd play out in smaller lowsec fleet fights, but in any sort of nullsec fleet context a ball of these things would either be DDed off the field immediately, wiped out by supercarriers, or straight up alpha'd by battleship fleets. The idea would be for these ships to have slightly less EHP than a carrier, and it's not that rare to see carriers get alpha'd in fleet fights these days, even by subcaps.

Yeah, I'm sure a group of 20 of these plus 10 carriers would make for a tough fight, but so would a group of 30 carriers. These ships can't have their DPS destroyed, but 3/4 of them would use cap for guns and they will have tracking issues at close range (armor HACs, AB battlecruisers, etc would tear them up pretty well) unlike carriers and can't remote rep each other the way a carrier blob can (30 carriers would be much more survivable than 20 of these plus 10 carriers, since none of the gunboats have reps).

Yeah, these ships would be like a couple of battleships duct taped together for the price of a cap. Don't forget though that they'll be vulnerable to things bigger and smaller than them (supercaps and BCs / smaller would really ruin their day). I don't think the ability to do ~2-2.5x the DPS of a battleship to high-sig BCs and up is that imbalanced when it comes with a tiny tank. I'd be fine with going below 500k ehp for an untanked fit if it was necessary for balance. Also, dont forget that these would be far easier to keep on the field than Titans (which is I think what you're likening them to) since anything can point them.

The idea is to make these a bit like the tier 3 BCs in terms of combat (relatively lightly tanked with good dps output) while including an SMA/CHA so that there's a gunboat that can be used for personal logistics the same way carriers are.

They would be solidly in the capital category, having several times the ehp of your average battleship and a jump drive, but their buffer tank would be smaller than usual. They'd keep the active tanking ability of carriers though (roughly) which would allow them to do solo/small gang PvP and PvE effectively. They'd be able to use light drones, but only to the extent that a battleship could (maybe enough room for two flights of heavies, tops).

I'd love to use something like this offensively for hit and run stuff and personal logistics, and I would love to see them in sanctums as well (more ratting cap kills, om nom nom).

CCP are talking about new modules being released with Inferno. Some of these modules are rumored to be drone damage boosting modules. If these effect fighters too you will be getting a monster of a ship in a carrier. One that can field a boat load of dps and then combat refit for triage mode. Super versatility!
The "escort carrier" fit is coming. 

Soooo..... basically old school dread functionality with a new skin?

Looks like an interesting ship concept. A capital ship usable for nullsec ratting/anomaly work, not dependent on having massive drone skills, but still with a reasonable role in fleet operations.

A most serious proposal.

Woah, a dude who owns up to not reading. I like you. Hi5 bro!

Yeah, I know dreads used to be able to haul, but they still lacked an SMA and their damage output vs stuff was still worse than a battleship's (unless they sieged, but honestly, sieging in belts / while trying to gank something doesn't really end real well).

Really, though. Please do consider making these a thing.

I want a carrier with guns and fighters, bot the stupid logistics bonus or role.

Give me a death by drone and ammo killing machine with a dreads ehp tank and a BS ability to deal out punishment to the meek.

+1 to the general idea tho