Please don’t bring those things to HS. It’d be like herding elephants throughout a Universal theme park: lots of
but no one wants to clean up the mess.
I certainly don’t want to be the cause of a highsec stampede! The release of capitals into highsec needs to be done well, and if it is done well, will be a massive benefit to the game.
What a moot conversation.
The devs understand the key balance issues that cannot be moved, like bubbles. To make this work you would have to move all that banned in empire stuff to high sec. Bombs, warp bubbles.
Not going to happen.
Thing is the bears don’t even know this stuff exists so they are naïve to how impossible this is.
As it is caps are a problem in low without those extra counters.
There is no imbalance right now, the imbalance would be bringing Caps to HS which you dont seem to understand cause your brain Rektd or something idk.
And HS is not inferior, its just different…if you want to use Caps quit being dumb and go where they are used.
@ISD_Buldath again im going to request closing of this thread, it has run its course.
@Sabus_Nariankeep responding to me and ill just start flagging your posts from here on out and request a thread closure with each one.
Bad idea.
A). You are mistaken that costs of ships mean anything towards their strength. Marshalls, cost 5-7 billion isk right now, doesnt mean they should be stronger than a carrier. Even marauders are more expensive, doesnt mean they should be on par with, or stronger than carriers. The market is player-run. Ships cost what we deem them to cost, and are not distributed by NPCs based on strength. Why do you think they should be based on cost, if cost is determined by players?
B). What about capital modules? Capital sheild extender? Capital armor plates? These increase the EHP of capitals well beyond battleships.
C). What do you mean “High jump from battleship to capital ship”? Marauders cost 1.5 billion, more expensive than Carriers. The Marshall is a battleship, 7 billion isk, more than 3 times more expensive than even fully fit carriers.
D). Im confused by your wording, are you saying that Supers should cost less minerals to build?
E). Doesnt make sense, lore-wise to have carriers, which cost 6 times the minerals to build, to have the same EHP as battleships.
Balanced for who?
What a moot conversation.
The devs understand the key balance issues that cannot be moved, like bubbles. To make this work you would have to move all that banned in empire stuff to high sec. Bombs, warp bubbles.
Not going to happen.
Thing is the bears don’t even know this stuff exists so they are naïve to how impossible this is.
As it is caps are a problem in low without those extra counters.
Much better ways to counter capitals through nerfs than having to release bombs and bubbles etc. Carriers can have their fighters destroyed, and titans can be prevented from using superweapons, only having their XL guns.
There is no imbalance right now, the imbalance would be bringing Caps to HS which you dont seem to understand cause your brain Rektd or something idk.
And HS is not inferior, its just different…if you want to use Caps quit being dumb and go where they are used.
again im going to request closing of this thread, it has run its course.
@Sabus_Nariankeep responding to me and ill just start flagging your posts from here on out and request a thread closure with each one.
You have anything to add to the conversation? Trying to bully people by threatening thread closures is not going to work, your just making the life of moderators more difficult.
Bad idea.
A). You are mistaken that costs of ships mean anything towards their strength. Marshalls, cost 5-7 billion isk right now, doesnt mean they should be stronger than a carrier. Even marauders are more expensive, doesnt mean they should be on par with, or stronger than carriers. The market is player-run. Ships cost what we deem them to cost, and are not distributed by NPCs based on strength. Why do you think they should be based on cost, if cost is determined by players?
Marshal is a faction ship, you pay for black ops ability, variability, increased shield power, and nostalgia. For t1 ships, the cost should be proportional to power, its why a frigate costs 3m and a battleship 100-200m.
What about capital modules? Capital sheild extender? Capital armor plates? These increase the EHP of capitals well beyond battleships.
Could be nerfed if needed, lots of choices to balance it.
What do you mean “High jump from battleship to capital ship”? Marauders cost 1.5 billion, more expensive than Carriers. The Marshall is a battleship, 7 billion isk, more than 3 times more expensive than even fully fit carriers.
And the golem is a t2 ship, but the carrier is better in every way. That imbalance is the problem, low and null/wh being the only ones with these overpowered ships even moreso a problem.
Im confused by your wording, are you saying that Supers should cost less minerals to build?
Negative, they should stay the way they are or cost more depending on changes.
Doesnt make sense, lore-wise to have carriers, which cost 6 times the minerals to build, to have the same EHP as battleships.
That is true, but the cost should be more then. And having these powerful ships limited only to a rare few is simply unbalanced. If only 20% of the population was allowed to have jobs earning 50 million usd, and the other 80% are capped at 1 million usd, then you will have an imbalance in the economy.
Balanced for who?
For those who want ships in highsec, I have no problem with licensing my capitals, after all I’m paying for concord protection vs low/null/wh
Once again excellent post, thank you for taking the time to make such high quality ones to further the discussion.
Right. So it’ll basically die to dreads as soon as it’s on-grid. That’s… kind of part of the problem, you know? The big issue is just how much the supercapitals can endure, damage-wise. Let’s say you do 4000dps. Drop 100 of them. You need 100 seconds to kill a single titan, assuming you hit it in the weak resist and there’s no faxes.
Agreed it is a problem. However fixing the capital imbalance is problematic, you can release a ship that murders capitals, say does 30,000 dps and costs 200m, and can only hit capital signatures, but that can easily be abused in attacking structures. Really the cleanest way is to delete supercarriers, but that is only feasible if the population of players vastly outnumbers highsec residents, which while slowly becoming the case, is not the case currently.
But that’s not the worst effect of these things. The worst effect of these things is the psychological follow-ons. How important was getting into the biggest, baddest thing in space to that player? How much did that cost them in terms of time and effort? Not just the time to get the titan itself, but the time sunk into the skills for the titan or supercarrier? That question matters, you see, because by introducing this cheap, disposable supercap killer, CCP’s told them ‘your time and effort beyond getting battleships and XL weapons is meaningless to us. You wasted that time.’
Agreed that “wow big ship I wanna get it” feeling is one of the arguments I use for allowing them into highsec, newbies can look at a titan and have a goal that they want, which gives them a greater chance at staying in the game.
And as soon as CCP is sending the message to players that chasing their goals is a waste of their time because the devs will nerf those goals into the ground when they feel it’s necessary… you’ve got angry players, just like happened this summer w/the Blackout. And if they feel like a game company’s just taken a crap all over years of work, all over years of their life , really… why do they keep giving that company money?
I also agree, while the easiest way is to remove them, then all that work and aspiration is destroyed. The best way is to make it so that keeping them helps the game, and allows more players to enjoy it, highsec being the majority of players in the game, deserve to enjoy these ships as much as nullsec residents do.
I’m not saying that reaction is desirable. I’m not saying those players won’t be short-sighted. I’m just saying it will happen if CCP goes the route of ‘disposable supercap killer’. And that’ll happen without the bevy of supercapital kills people want these things to produce. We’ll come back to that , too.
Can’t argue with that, my proposal for hunter kill ships was just an idea.
It’s worse than that. The ‘big 3’… can’t really afford to compete in a full-scale war, either .
We can’t. Not really. Nobody can afford to use their supercapital fleet in a battle they aren’t reasonably confident of either winning, or getting out of with minimal losses. That’s because nobody can afford to lose their supercapital fleet, not even us. Losing the supercapital fleet means not just losing that war, but losing the next 2 years… if you’re lucky .
I’ve seen this as well, the old days of mass battleship swarm null conquest are long dead. Perhaps additional regions can be released on the outskirsts of nullsec, the caveat is supercarriers/capitals cannot enter, a mix of wormhole space effects and nullsec.
Supers are what you need to take space. Supers are what you need to hold space. You need space to build supers. If you don’t have supers, but you do have space, you won’t hold space unless you build a lot of supers, fast . If you don’t have space, but you do have supers, you can get space. If you don’t have space, and you don’t have supers… suck up to someone who does, until you’ve got the supers to go looking for someone who has fewer, and then take their space.
They also make players a lot of wealth, rorquals, supercarrier ratting, and titan ratting albeit completely nerfed now all are ways that they can give wealth, which highsec lacks so long as the sites are not added to highsec. Killing an emerging conduit with a super will not be as efficient as killing nullsec rats, but it can be fun and make decent side money to fund other player interests.
The big groups. Because they can throw away fleets of battleships, and they can have these things on-grid with support in order to provide deterrent against the enemy escalating. So the supercapitals won’t die. And eventually, in 2-3 years, CCP will forget what the conditions were that led to those changes[3], and they’ll convene another capitals focus group[3a], and we’ll be right back here again.
Aye big groups are here to stay. I think small groups deserve abilities to survive and evade larger groups, and slowly through ingenuity gain their power until they may one day become a big group, that is the nullsec that is the most healthy.
But no, introducing them to HS wouldn’t have the effect you think it will. The supercapitals won’t be destroyed there. Remember: you still have to actually declare war. In HS, the big null blocs can see you coming . And they can just destroy your war HQ with bombers.
This is true, but I intend to supercarriers in highsec to be more of a permanent asset that lives in highsec, wars can be waged with them, but using the asset outside of nullsec forfeits your license fee. The idea is you pay concord to have your capital hull enter highsec, then it can be bought and sold normally, even gated/jumped out, but you cannot return to highsec without paying another license fee, which should be expensive, perhaps the cost of the hull itself.
At the same time, CCP has to be extremely careful about trying to increase the demand on PLEX. Demand increases, PLEX price increases, and last year, we saw just how close things still are to PLEX price being high enough to start to have serious follow-on impacts on the economy. CCP actively began to take measures to reduce that price… but that’s not going to last if there’s a new, massive surge in demand[5]. It’ll just make it impossible for smaller guys, especially people trying to make their money in HS, to afford to PLEX their accounts, and ultimately will drive players out of the game.
Also true, we need more players buying plex, and more players in the game to keep prices high enough to encourage buying, but not too high that no one can plex their account.
And again, I’m not saying all of this is good . I’m not saying this is desirable or in any way something we should be looking at and going ‘oh, well, awesome !’ about. It sucks . The supercapital problem may well be un-fixable at this point unless CCP’s willing to seriously sit the players down and say ‘here’s the situation. Here’s how we’re looking at fixing it. We know this will take years to pull off. We know it’s gonna suck until then. So in the meantime, here’s how we want to make it suck less, and here’s how we’ll try to offset the bits we can’t make suck less. Do you guys have any feedback here, before we do this?’
Agreed very tough position, but I’m confident CCP will find the best way, they always do.
And then… and then … they have to do the thing they’re not doing now: they have to engage in the feedback discussions, instead of dropping a feedback thread and utterly ignoring it. 12,000+ posts in the Blackout threads. No CCP responses. Extensive feedback about the HyperNet Relay on these forums. And I don’t mean the ‘no gambling!!’ stuff, I mean serious looks at the UI and implementation. No CCP responses.
If we believe that then we should just never bother to post on the forums. I’m confident ccp reads our threads, they just don’t tell us, which is for the best judging by the toxicity of many of the comment posters.
Well, look at what’s happened with the AT.
I’m with you, AT was great and should make a comeback if at all possible.
All of you are wasting you breath.
The bottom line is, he wants all of Eve Online’s content in high sec, he doesn’t want to take risks to get the big boy stuff. He doesn’t understand why the balance exists the way it is because his brain is trashed by his massive ego.
He doesn’t understand you can’t just bring “capitals” to high sec without bringing eveyrthing capital related with it.
Just stop replying and start linking in @ISD_Buldath
Iv’e reported the post to ISD for now breaking forum TOS and devolving into stupidity on an issue that is never going to happen.
To Sabus - If you don’t want to take Risks to get big boy toys, stop trying to change eve online to suit you
Off-topic here, but since you brought it up I think there is room for a second “class” of dreadnaughts, just like CCP split off carriers into FAXes and carriers. Existing dreads stay as they are (high DPS, high tank, static warfare), while “new” dreads have higher unseiged DPS (not as high as a seiged dread) and lower EHP (and a correspondingly lower mineral cost), but aren’t designed around siege modules and are intended more for mobile combat (as mobile as capital ships get obviously). Everything else about them would be roughly the same.
This wouldn’t address Supers in any meaningful way but it would give more options to folks outside of hisec, especially smaller groups.
I wouldn’t really put them in as dreads, though. I’d put them in as ‘super-battleships’[1] at a new half-step size between L and XL hulls (which is where the Orca should really be, too). Which, of course, carries absolutely all of the problems of the ‘capital killer battleship’ idea, because it’s exactly the same thing. The only question is whether or not it’d have a jump drive. If so, then it’s a pocket dread, sure, but the problems remain.
As for the FAX/carrier split… as a dedicated logistics pilot, omg, do logi at all scales need a fundamental rework. Diminishing returns and falloff just do not change the math, in the end. Why are Muninns top dog in subcaps? Sure, they’ve got all that mobility, but the real issue is alphastrike volley damage. Kill the target with heavy hammerblows, because you have to. If logi have the time to rep, you’re screwed.
It’s basically the same situation as a big supercapital tidi fight where all that really matters is the Doomsdays.
1. This, I know, is what a ‘Dreadnought’ is supposed to be. But since they bollocks’d that up by introducing the half-steps without one between L and XL, we’ll have to think of a new name for them.
I see several things that are somewhat wrong.
First off, the DPS of a megathron is not 528. Even an empty Megathron with all Neutron Blaster Cannon 2s, and all skill level 5, deals around 700 DPS from its guns. This is with a completely empty Megathron. With drones youre looking at around 900 DPS. Completely empty.
Secondly, comparing the Capital version for the Moros to the Megathron, is a bit disingenuous. If youre pitting a moros against a Megathron, you would use HAWs instead. With Tech 2 HAWs and no damage buff modules, Moros deals around 2.3K DPS with seige mode on.
So 700 → 2.3k is a more valid comparison, which is an increase of roughly 150% difference in damage.
Thirdly, where are you getting 40.9M EHP from an Erebus?
Fourthly, why are you using a Moros without any magnetic field stabilizers?
When you compare actual numbers, youre gonna get closer to 12000 DPS for most Moroses with mags, and probably around 20, 25 million max EHP from most Erebuses, even on the killboard.
And that makes sense. Dreads are supposed to be glass cannons of capital ships, designed to be cheap weapons platforms capable of dealing massive damage to other capitals at a good price. Titans are supposed to be both versatile and strong, being good at picking off individual capitals, but really requiring a good fleet in order to use properly.
We see that in the killboard. The number of dreads it takes to take down an Erebus, when dreads appeared on the killboard with no titan help, are around 20-30 dreads. 20 Dreads hold their own against a titan, really really well.
Although I agree with a lot of your points, I feel your analysis here is somewhat wrong.
I actually dont have a problem with this. This is how EVE has always been, and it makes sense.
The thing is, you can use your supercapital, any time you want, and many do. People in the former Panfam coalition, still use theirs, despite being decimated by the Imperium. People have been using them from before Keepstars existed. The only thing you dont get to do, is to use your supers in relative saftey. And even the Imperium isnt exempt from this rule, as there are plenty of supers getting destroyed while ratting. The problem with supers, is the same problem with every other ship. EVE has become a N+1 game, where the side that brings in the more people, wins. Its a hard problem to solve, and may be unsolvable with how the game was designed. But I find that problem as far more problematic.
Im also not against this Idea, either. The only thing this does though, is mean that fleets will simply rely on numbers in order to invade or repel. When supers were few, they provided a good counter to this, but now that supers are plentiful, theyve become no different for forces.
Congratulations, you’re using a blaster Mega. You’re gonna die because you are slow and short ranged, you cannot control your engagement envelope and you cannot hit the guy who does control it.
Dreads don’t have that problem. Their ‘short’ range is long.
I am using actual combat fits employed by the largest single user of these hulls. (Hi, that’s the Imperium.)
Yes, because they are dumb. The supercapital ratters who are not dumb do not die. Dumb should die, it’s how you end up with less dumb. In-game, of course, I’m not advocating RL murder of the stupid, that would be wrong and wipe out the entire species. Cuz we is all dumb. 
You said 500M to 1.5 Bill for high end battleships. The only hull that costs 500 mill is faction battleships. The only hull that costs 1.5 billion are marauders and black ops battleships.
And no, that is not why Marshalls cost 7 billion ISK. They cost 7 billion ISK because there are fewer of them. That is the reason. Basic economics.
Then price has no meaning, and when you bring up the cost of a “High end battleship” as you put it, you are putting out meaningless numbers. Agreed?
For the next part, im breaking down every single sentence, because each one deserves its own response.
Carriers require 6 times the minerals to build, therefore they should have roughly 5-6 times the EHP, should they not?
Anyone can buy them. Weve been over this before.
That is wrong.
A). Youve already admitted incursions bring in just as much as capital ratting/mining does. Anyone can join incursions any time.
B). The other 80% are not capped at 1 million USD. They choose not to earn more. There is no barrier, other than choice, that is preventing anyone from going into low or nullsec and buying a carrier and ratting.
Everything you just said there is wrong.
So its not balanced towards new players or casual players? Is that what youre saying?
I dont even understand what this is supposed to mean.
Congratulations, you are using a Railgun Mega. Youre gonna die because your tracking is sh*t and you cannot control your engagement when a cruiser is 10km away from you scramming you and you cannot hit the guy who is right next to you.
Whats the point of creating scenarios like this. You can always concoct a scenario where the weapon of choice ends up badly for you. But thats hindsight.
Dreads do have a problem. Their “short” range is short, compared to the situations they need to be in longer range.
Guess what type of weapons the Titans had against the keepstar in the battle of X47L-Q? Was it the “short(but not really)” blasters? Of course not.
Im pretty sure the Imperium hasnt used a baltec fleet in a while.
Meanwhile, on the killboards, which are much more recent, what percentage of the last, say, 20 kill/deaths, do you think include a blaster Mega, instead of a Railgun mega?
When a cruiser is 10km away, your recons have him webbed. Attempting to look at capital and supercapital balance through the lens of small gang warfare is ridiculous.
In X47? Mostly supercarrier fighters. The titans were focusing on using DDs against the hostiles. You’re also shifting from Dreads to Titans there, which, as I’m sure you know, get used in different ways. Capitals also have the advantage of being able to take a minute to de-agress and swap their guns, provided they can survive long enough… which Titans generally can.
Last one we sent out was Dec 14. They’re not common, because obviously, Eagles (rails) and Muninns (Artillery) are more suited to more situations. I mean, if you’d like, I can let you talk to the person in charge of our fitting team, but since that’s me, I’m gonna agree with me, as a general rule[1].
A) Once again, attempting to compare small gang use to capital and supercapital operations is pointless.
B) On the killboards, what percentage of fleet actions are brawler fits compared to long-range/kiting fits?
1. Ok, full disclosure, that’s not 100% true. I disagree with me all the goddamned time because I have this really nasty habit of getting mad at myself over things and spending quite a lot of time yelling at me over stupid ■■■■, but that’s all generally limited to internal dialog or when nobody’s around. When dealing with an external dispute like this one, I’m generally inclined to present more of a unified front, lest people start thinking I’m utterly insane and have me locked up. Then again, I suppose there’s a case to be made that parts of my own mind think I should probably be locked up, if only because if I was medicated into a vegetative state, they wouldn’t have to listen to other parts of my mind anymore and could get some peace and fekking quiet, but that’s really more of a stream of consciousness thing than any organized series of thoughts or consistent impulse, so it’s easy to set that aside as the kind of background self-doubt and nagging feeling of paranoia that’s generally common among people intelligent enough to actually question their own brain-states.
But you really don’t care about any of that, and I admit, I wrote that all out mostly to amuse myself.
Yup, in general agreement here. It feels like there should be…something in between that battleship and dreadnaught gap…but I also don’t think CCP should put something there just because without thinking it through. It needs to have some role other than “pocket dreadnaught”, otherwise it will just further complicate an already annoying balance situation.
As for the current Muninn meta: I don’t have much recent EvE fleet experience* (being over 40 and working full time kind of has that effect), but I do have a professional background in military theory so I do understand the current meta. Either you have enough firepower to break through a target’s armor in one shot (i.e. volley it off the field), or you effectively have no firepower at all. Military history is replete with such examples.
Years ago I typed out a post describing how Alpha and RoF trade off as fleet sizes and target sizes scale up. Once you have a large enough fleet relative to your intended target’s EHP, using high Alpha ships doesn’t matter because even high RoF ships will be able to volley targets. As fleet size continues to increase relative to target size, having a higher RoF actually becomes desirable because you can still volley targets, and you can do it faster than high Alpha ships that fire more slowly.
But I digress…
*Ironically, I ended up fighting both alongside and against Goonswarm in the Great War with BoB. I remember having to fit double-plated Megas designed to withstand the old Titan AoE Doomsdays. Good times. The fleet compositions have changed, but I suspect the basic theory of warfare hasn’t.
Sure. And when recons are 30 KM away, you have other recons on your team sensor dampening them, making them useless.
See what this gets us? Its meaningless to keep piling on imaginary ships on either side to counter the opponent.
You forget, ive been in baltec fleets before, the main course of strategy was to warp in as far away as we could, snipe down unsuspecting opponents/logi, then warp away when they get close. We didnt have webbing recon support for most of our fleets because the way we tried to engage didnt require any. Doesnt mean we didnt fail and lose quite a few baltec megathrons to opponents when they were able to bubble us or catch us, but that was what SRP was for.
So do battleships and Dreads, and yet youre comparing them.
And thats kinda the point, isnt it.
There are situations where using Neutron Blaster Cannons on your megathron makes sense, and people frequently do.
There are situations where using Railguns on your megathron makes sense, and people frequently do, as well.
But to dismiss someone for comparing Blasters(megathron) to blasters(Moros), because your fleet uses railguns?
I was referring to Megathrons, not Capitals or supers. Which was your criticism, of me using DPS comparison from a blaster Megathron, to that of a railgun megathron.
Since you put a distinction between “small gang” fleets, and I guess what you would call, “Large gang” fleets without actually placing a number, I have no idea.
What percentage of fleet actions do you think make up the total usage of Megathrons with respect to things like kills/losses?
Yeah, people have brought up things like Mini-carriers, basically battleships that field fighters. I dont see the point in having ships that are just there to breach the middle ground.
Thing is, dreadnoughts arent that expensive, when you think about it. Tech 2 battleships are about on par with Dreads, and both Blackops/marauders and Dreads fill a specific role. I understand why people would want things like dreads into Hisec, because of how the EHP of a citadel does not change whether it be in hisec or null. The problem is, they are still pretty powerful in their own right, and without a good counter, i dont want to see people fly them through hisec.