Broaden Black Ops Battleships' potential with directional scan immunity

[Mikkhi_Kisht]

I can get onboard for this change to black ops BS’s bonuses. Maybe then I’d finally have more use of the biggest ship type I can currently fly (other than mission grinding).

[Jeremiah_Saken]

@Chance_Ravinne

People like to say d-scan immunity would be OP but can’t explain why. People thought recons would be OP with it and we see after 2 years it isn’t.

Same with covert cloak, everybody thought it would be OP but nobody explain why. Battleships already align with more or less withing 10 sec, we are not talking about nullifing them.

[Ersio_Heleneto]

Id settle for a bigger fuel bay tbh.

[Rek_Seven]

Reading what people have said, i think the covert ops cloak would be more balanced than D-scan immunity.

With a covert cloak you would be able to move around unseen but to do things like site running or attacking players/structures, you would need to decloak and make yourself visible on D-scan.

[Rek_Seven]

Seriously though… Does no one like the idea of a blackops battleship being able to jump (to a sun) without a cyno?

[Scipio_Artelius]

@Rek_Seven

Seriously though… Does no one like the idea of a blackops battleship being able to jump (to a sun) without a cyno?

No from me.

BLOPs gain a lot of their ability to attack, by being able to drop straight on a target. The ability to jump to any sun, couldn’t really be an effective attack tactic, because then you have to find your target, align and warp. By then, the target is gone.

So attacking targets would seem to still be totally reliant on the use of a cyno. That leaves jumping to suns only as a means to travel and or escape.

We don’t need more ways for a BLOPs to do either of those things.

[Raudur_Froskur]

-1 from me too.

[Rek_Seven]

Ok… I just thought it would be cool to be able to use this ship as a solo player, while creating a potential new battlefield, as people would need to set up a blockade around the sun.

A sun jump without a scout would be a hell of a lot riskier than jumping to a friendly cyno and could open up a way to jump without (or with reduced) jump fatigue. I guess eve player are not ready for stuff like this yet.

[Scipio_Artelius]

@Rek_Seven

while creating a potential new battlefield, as people would need to set up a blockade around the sun.

I don’t think it would have that effect.

If the idea of setting up a blockade on the sun means the BLOPs would jump to 0, then all anyone needs to do, whether ratter or pvper is to put a bubble at 0 on the sun.

The BLOPs would be screwed. Not able to catch anything because of the added time to fly out of the bubble, and totally at the mercy of other ships.

On the issue of reduced jump fatigue, we already have that in BLOPs. Both reduced fatigue and increased range compared to most jump capable ships.

[Rek_Seven]

Sure people could put up a bubble just as they do on gates but a BS with a MJD can get out of it pretty easy. In this case it would be just a means of travel and not hunting.

Really i’m just looking for a more interesting use for Blackops as right now, the only movements they seem to make are for from safety, to target/danger and back to safety.

My suggestion for the star jump was a result of some people being adverse to a covert cloak but personally, i see no problem as the cloak would dramatically increase the use and thus destruction of these ships.

[Lugia3]

@Rek_Seven

This is an acceptable but personally, i feel it is an underwhelming proposal and i would want more from the class. I think that the blackops class of battleships need both of the following features to make them more useful and combat capable.

Star drive: the ability to jump to a star within jump range without the need for a cyno
Cloak speed boost: increase the cloaked velocity bonus while cloaked to 300%

If CCP is unwilling to do something like this then they really should just give battleships a covert ops cloak. After all, now that we can bridge in 1000+ dps covert ops T3C’s into a system, all arguments that a covert BS would be overpowered are now defunct.

I agree with all of this tbh. Especially the bit about covops cloaks.

Also, give each race an additional blops with active tank bonuses that make it stronger at solo dropping while making the current blops we have stronger at building buffer and catching reps. Gib T2 Hyperion.

[Alundil]

I do like that idea as an optional mode of in/exfiltration. But, there are some balance issues that I could see people raising.

Namely, how do you actually interdict them if there’s no need to get a cyno ship in there? Also, that ability plus the proposal of making them d-scan immunity would possibly be a step too far.

[Dior_Ambraelle]

@Scipio_Artelius

If the idea of setting up a blockade on the sun means the BLOPs would jump to 0, then all anyone needs to do, whether ratter or pvper is to put a bubble at 0 on the sun.

I don’t think it’s a reasonable thought that anyone would bubble a sun. It’s a quite large object after all.
I doubt that anyone would set up a bubble around a moon either, even though it’s infinitely easier to do.

[Chance_Ravinne]

Presumably they would create some kind of beacon and be immobilized on the other side. In other words, less setup on the pre-jump segment but more room for punishment on the landing end.

[Scipio_Artelius]

@Dior_Ambraelle

I don’t think it’s a reasonable thought that anyone would bubble a sun. It’s a quite large object after all.

I doubt that anyone would set up a bubble around a moon either, even though it’s infinitely easier to do.

Luckily, I never said bubble the sun. Nor a moon. Both of those things would be idiotic.

[Cindy_the_Sewer]

@Olmeca_Gold

Chance, I like some of the discussions you initiate. But this is a bad idea. Blops is about jumping, which makes it a nullsec ship. Also the mass. The only gameplay your proposal would improve is DED running PvE ships.

Here is a better idea to make blops more useful. Nullsec is safer than it should be due to capital umbrellas. Overfarming is slowly killing the Eve economy. There needs to be counters to the capital umbrella. Give BLOPS ships a cyno inhibitor module. Like the mobile cyno inhibitor, it blocks any normal cynoes at 100 range. Instantly activated, hence why a BLOPS would be a better counter than a mobile inhibitor. It uses blops fuel, works in 1 minute cycles, immobilizes the blops for 1 minute, disables remote assistance (can’t receive reps). If you activate it, you better win the grid or you will lose the blops. So its still a fair risk.

This idea could be the single worst idea proposed in the forums…ever! Overcoming the defenses of alliances with strong defenses is YOUR job and not CCPs job to do for you.

Also, you could insta-inhib with one ship, then if it dies, insta-inhib with another and another for as many black ops ships as you brought essentially making the jump drives on capitals pointless for any kind of homeland defense. Additionally a group of BLOPS plus a capital fleet would go directly against what you want since the combined power of this group would make it nearly impossible to defend against if they land in your SOV, since again they could chain insta-inhib over and over till they run out of ships and i can assure you large alliances will have like 50 BLOPS and you’ll never get to their capital fleet before a lot of your ships, citadels, etc are blown into small chunks because they are going to be bombing the crap out of any gate into the system they are attacking thus preventing any reinforcement by litteraly any ship.

If you do manage to get a cyno lit in system you have an even bigger problem because those large alliances can toss a LOT of capitals and titans at a fight and whatever you jump in is going to be killed and the more you jump in the easier their total destruction of your SOV space is going to become because they probably parked a ■■■■ ton of capitals and titans over the course of the last month in your neighborhood and they will be prepared for reshipping should you actually do them some damage. In short small alliances will become so easy to kill that they will either have to form large alliances thus making your suggestion pointless since they will now have the power to justifiably and without a crutch attack a large alliance or just remain small and know that their SOV holdings are all going to die even if that large alliance has zero interest in their space.

[Cindy_the_Sewer]

@Chance_Ravinne

My proposal is simple: Make Black Ops Battleships immune to directional scan. This bonus, which was added to Combat Recons just a year or two ago, has proven to aid in stealth without making the recipient ships overpowered. It creates a dynamic where non covops-cloak capable ships can surprise an opponent, either landing on grid with reduced warning, or being on grid unexpectedly as unaware reinforcements arrive.

I do not believe this implied relationship between Recons and BLOPs ships is substantial enough to support your argument. The Recons that were given scan immunity but no ability to jump past stargates, and this is no small difference.

Also, Recons have to deal with targeting delay and BLOPs do not and again this is no small difference.

[Cindy_the_Sewer]

@Chance_Ravinne

• Transit gates or wormholes, relying less on scouts and cynos

Is there some restriction currently on BLOPs transiting gates now because i couldnt find such a restriction in the ship’s description. I personally wouldnt want to jump a gate without using a scout no matter what ship type i was using in my fleet, so i have to say this point seems largely irrelevant to your suggestion.

[Cindy_the_Sewer]

@Chance_Ravinne

Set up traps on grid by concealing total fleet numbers

Since you said that in their current state BLOPs are useless in wormholes and since in every other part of the game your numbers are instantly posted into local this point doesnt seem to support your argument.

[Cindy_the_Sewer]

@Chance_Ravinne

Become a utility ship for low-profile ratting and structure bashes

Since there are WAY better ships for both these things, BLOPs will not see this usage much, if at all. And as such this statement is in no significant way a support for your argument.