Escort carriers/battleship sized fighter platforms

EVE Technology and Research Center Player Features & Ideas
121

So after doing some digging I can’t actually determine for sure which came first, Navy Cruisers or Logistics Cruisers. I’ve found reference to T2 Logi as far back as 2006 but I can’t find anything definitive in the patch notes and a list I remember finding previously has disappeared. I’m inclined to say that it’s far enough back that it doesn’t matter which was introduced first, CCP made a fairly arbitrary at the time decision about which hull to use and that’s carried forward because it would annoy more people than it would satisfy to change the look of the ship.

As to the actual issue at hand here though it’s simply one of lore not gameplay. This all boils down to decisions that were made years ago. The Navy/Logi cruisers both coming off of what used to be the Mining Cruisers was one decision. The transformation of the old Iteron 3 into the Epithal and a PI focused hull is one of those decisions.

Changing the base hull used on these T2 and Faction ships would needlessly piss people off and since there are no mechanical things tied to the model used it’s not an issue for gameplay, just for lore, and lore-wise you can simply say that the bits fit inside the hull and they had spare hulls when the design was being developed so that’s what was used.

Changing the stats on the T1 variant isn’t needed, it’s a lore-related problem enforcing a gameplay related change which is almost always a bad idea.

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@Cade_Windstalker

Thank you for your reply, your comments are appreciated.

However, while I certainly agree with you on the time/efforts/resources argument, I think the closest thing we can agree on concerning the role/niche argument is that we can agree to disagree, because no matter what I do not think we can reach an agreement on this matter.

And no, while I would certainly like to see a sub-capital carrier in the game, I do not expect to see such a ship in the game any time soon, so in the mean time the other drone ships will have to do :grinning:.

Fly safe out there :grinning:.

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Fair enough, thank you for being reasonable and respectful in your disagreement. :slight_smile:

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You are welcome :grinning:

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The US Navy actually kind of has three classes of “carrier”, if you will. It has the Supercarriers (Nimitiz and Ford classes), and it has the Amphibs (like the America class), but there are also these guys: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landing_helicopter_dock

The “drone boat” is more akin to the Ticonderoga/Arleigh-Burke/Oliver Hazzard Perry classes (Cruiser, Destroyer, and Frigate, respectively) that have helo capabilities, but only for one or two helicopters or - real world - light drones. Indeed, the Litoral Combat Ship (LCS), both variants, have the capacity for a two helos or a helo and a couple drones.

Eve is currently missing that step between IRL Cruisers and IRL Carriers (Amphibs), even though this spot has been used both historically and is still used by many nations.

Indeed, many nations’ navies, this missing class is the pride and flagships of their fleets.

…of course, you have to think that Eve also gets some things wrong: Destroyers are the least used class in Eve in the sense of variety, while Destroyers are one of the most common ship types in the real world for flotila command ships for the non-superpower nations, and the Destroyer class is the backbone of the US Navy’s surface fleet. Frigates are also very common in most smaller navies.

One could write this off in a way by suggesting the four Empires are basically super-super powers, so imagine if the US (and, back in the day, USSR) were a tier above where the US is today. In that case, one could see Cruisers becoming the mainline ship with Battleships becoming what Cruisers are today, and Dreadnaughts/Carriers being the high value unit of moderate sized task forces, with Supercarriers/Titans being the pride of the fleet with only a dozen or so in any given sector of space.

…though I still wish CCP would flesh out the Corvette class more and make Frigates and Destroyers more useful in terms of PvE (try to kill a NPC Battlecruiser/Battleship rat with even a T3 Destroyer and you’ll see what I mean…)

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CCP would probably need to justify their ability to go through highsec space by making them function in full in highsec space, generally if something can entire a certain part of EVE space it can operate fully there. Hence no rorquals moving through highsec to get to a different area of nullsec, etc, etc.

This idea or similar ones have been beaten to death already, I’d personally like to see a highsec fighter based ship so people could train the concept before heading out to nullsec but that idea is a dead horse at this point also unless CCP is considering it internally and hasnt decided yet.

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Even if this thing has an extremely low (borderline negative) chance of happening, I still enjoy trying to figure out how it could work.
Too bad I’m running out of ideas :frowning:

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I let CCP figure ship balancing… I just play the game. There’s lots of ships, and they all function in their roles well. If they come out with new ships will tend to be pirate or navy faction if they want to plug a hole in someones gameplay. All of this is imagination, talking alot about something doesn’t always mean something has to be done.

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Why would you necro a month old thread with such an utterly pointless comment?

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Maybe a TIII Battleship is order that would have subsystems geared around primary drone stats with secondary ship based weapon bonuses based on the original hull design.

Derecho TIII Escort Carrier - would be based off of the Typhoon hull

Escort Carrier bonuses (per skill level):
5% bonus to drone control range
5% bonus to drone velocity
5% bonus to drone carrier flight deck volume (volume of fighters allowed on the flight deck compared to being stored in the bay cargo bay)
2% bonus to repair time of drones moved from the flight deck to the drone cargo bay

Minmatar Battleship bonus (per skill level):
5% bonus to Rapid Heavy Missile Launcher rate of fire
5% bonus to Heavy Missile explosion velocity.

Role Bonus :
-can fit Covert Cynosural Field Generator and Covert Jump Portal Generator
-No targeting delay after Cloaking Device deactivation
-Cloak reactivation delay reduced to 10 seconds

75% reduction to effective distance traveled for jump fatigue

Base Slot layouts

High Slots - 4
Medium Slots - 4
Low Slots - 4

Rig Slots - 4

Cargo Bay - 500 m3
Drone Capacity - 175 m3
Drone Bandwidth - 125 Mbit/sec

Most of the same sub-system modules for the Derecho would be based off of the Loki subs except for the Offensive systems.

For example the Offensive Systems would designed more towards the role of drone and Gecko use than High Slot Weapons.

Launcher Efficiency Configuration Array

Bonuses to Rapid Heavy Missile launcher, velocity and explosion velocity

Role Bonus:

additional base stats

  • 8 High Slots, + 5Launcher Hard Points, +3 Auxilliar Hard Points (for any other module)
  • 2500 PWg, +200 CPU
  • 100m3 Drone Bay
  • 5% Drone Velocity
  • 5% Drone Optimal Range

One offensive sub-systems would give bonuses to the Derecho’s Gecko’s stats only with the ability to control four Gecko’s at once.

One sub would revolve around increasing the drones hit points, tracking and the ability to be micro warped by the Derecho up to 750 km.

The last sub would involve bonuses to E-war drones that would give bonuses to two race specific E-War drone types.

Cost : 750,000,000 ISK

Safety Asset Wrap

The Derecho would also come with a Safety Asset Wrap Cargo Bay of 500 m3 that would jettison a secure Wrap that could not be flipped but could be destroyed or hacked in station. The Safety Asset Wrap Cargo Bay would have 2,000,000 EHP. If scooped into the cargo hold the Scooper gains a criminal suspect flag for 15 minutes. The volume of the Warp would be 435 m3. Once in a station and if the station permits, the Warp can be hacked using the Mini-Game mechanics for Relic and Data sites. If a successful hack takes place then the new owner retrieves what ever was in the Wrap while incurring a penalty of ten additional minutes of Criminal Suspect. If the hack fails then the hacker would be auto undocked after a minute warning with an additional 15 minute criminal suspect flag gained without the ability to cloak or use any station for five minutes or a warp gate for ten minutes.

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It’s still fun to talk about different solutions of this idea. I’m not trying to fine-tune all of the stats of these ships, I’m just trying to find the concept that could work the best.
The worst thing that can happen: as a result of this thread, nothing in the game will change.

1 Like
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The content of such discussions is what kept Eve Online from crashing in the old days.

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Just play the game

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First a definite no to a tech 3 battleships and whiskey tango foxtrot is wrong with you people and this constant minmatar as master race moon-poo???

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So after having thought about it for some time I thought of a different angle to the escort carrier theme.

Before continuing I must say that I am conflicted about this idea myself since it may overlap with some of the existing drone ships so I am not sure that this ship is actually warranted.

The basic idea is a mobile drone ship with long range drone deployment capabilities with fighter like qualities. Please note that this is just a concept that is not a fully fleshed out yet.

Some considerations about the ship:

  • T1 ship class – the price should be in between a battleship and an Orca.
  • Battleship to Orca sized (also for effective hit points).
  • No weapons hard points.
  • No jump drive.
  • Can use micro jump drive (maybe bonused as marauder?).
  • Cannot use sentry drones (to leave this ability with existing drone ships).
  • Extended lock and drone control range.
  • Drone bonused, e.g. damage/hit points.
  • Secondary drone bonuses?
  • 1000 m3 drone bay.
  • Can use up to full flight of heavy drones.
  • Damage potential – up to high-end battleship.
  • Advanced drone navigation – ship ability (see below).
  • Can use drone deployment module (see below).

Advanced drone navigation: Basically, the ability to move drones like fighters. You will still be able to use regular drone commands, but also be able to move the drones manually like fighters. I would say when using this all drones will move at once.

Drone deployment module: I got the idea from the Gravitational Transportation Field Oscillator used on titans to teleport enemy ships away. What if the same basic idea was used in a more controlled fashion on a much reduced scale, i.e. to create localized wormholes within the ships drone control range to allow a flight of 5 drones to instantly move to selected spot through these wormholes? Of course such a module would have a cooldown after use and maybe some other drawbacks.

So I envisioned this as a mobile ship that could use to move around quickly to get into deployment range (or quickly get away) to deploy combat drones from a long distance. I envisioned combat drones which is why I do not think is should be able to use sentry drones. It can also use the advanced drone navigation to move the drone into the correct position if this is required. I added the large drone bay since I think the ship may lose quite a few drones when using the drone deployment.

If the ship is not warranted it would be quite easy to convert the advanced drone navigation and drone deployment abilities into modules that could be fitted to existing ships. This may not be warranted though.

As I said in the beginning this is just an idea which I am conflicted about myself and it may not be warranted at all - I just would like to present the idea. Anyway, please feel free to share your thoughts.

136

thinking about it if they could only use SS fighters and maybe a support fighter they may actually have a role to fill and not be overpowered.

2 Likes
137

I’m not averse to the idea in that sense, SS fighters and limited to small guns for AA use (instead of the usual small drone complement). It might be a good way to introduce people to carrier operation.

Right now people progress from small drones up, but there no introduction to fighter use in progression terms. It’s just jump into a full carrier.

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to be honest trying to think of them as the same thing is just bad. in all honesty fighters should be removed from the drone market group to pull people out of that mindset. though using this as an introduction to fighters would still be a plus.

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Agreed and that was my point (though not as clear), people treat the progression as light>medium>heavy drones>fighters. However, fighter mechanics is completely different with no ‘introduction’ level hulls.

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well… there are no introduction level hulls to DDs either or burst projectors for that matter. my point was that that logic should not be reinforced and that such a benefit should be at most peripheral and not a part of the intended goal.

fighters have no connection to drones anymore other than they are under the same tab in the market.