This is a suggestion to buff Frontline Battleships to make them looked more “Frontline”
and which is simply give them a little role bonus,so that wouldn’t spoil the balance too much.
[Abbadon]
Role Bonus:
25% reduction in Large Energy Turret activation cost
50% reduction in Lazer Crystal Volatility rate
Abbadon is a typical frontline , heavy and well armoured, but it more likely to be a projectile turret platform than a lazer tank. Because it have another nickname as “fire and power off”
[Hyperion]:
Role Bonus:
50% reduction in Large Hybrid Turret activation cost
50% reduction in Hybrid Turret reload time
to make it more flexible and stable
[Maelstrom]:
Role Bonus:
400% to Projectile Turret magazine capacity
50% reduction in Projectile Turret reload time
Maelstrom is a good looking ship , but as a frontline roading in every minute is not a cool thing for it
[Rokh]
Role Bonus:
50% reduction in Large Hybrid Turret activation cost
400% to Hybrid Turret magazine capacity
Plain T1 ships generally don’t get role bonuses. And the tier 3 battleships like Hyperion are solid tanky ships. Your best bet is to request new variants of them, such as faction or pirate versions, since none exist currently. It may be long overdue anyways.
Battleships in general need major rebalancing. These proposed role bonuses are not going to help however.
Problems (not all of which need to be fixed, just some of them):
They lack the tank to take the pounding from cruiser gangs that get under their guns
– Smaller is always better. Getting under the guns of a battleship (or staying out of range if they’re brawling fit) is utterly trivial. Meanwhile, cruisers apply damage perfectly to them.
– I’ve always felt that battleships should have an average EHP of at least 500k, approaching 1m EHP for the ultra-tanky fits (triple plate abaddons for example). Yes I know that’s roughly the EHP of a carrier… that’s the point. Battleship.
They lack sublight speed to they’re able to utilize their long range guns
– while it would be counter-intutive to make them faster, grid mobility can be tweaked via MJD and similar. Their poor tracking and long range means they excel at longer ranges, yet lack the ability to maintain those longer ranges.
They lack the warp speed to be even remotely feasible for roaming hostile space
– too ■■■■■■■ slow. They get boxed in too easily. Their large size makes them ideal for capital response fleets to obliterate.
If I had to pick ONE thing to fix about them, it would be their tanks. At least double what they are should put them in the 0.5-1m ehp range. I’d also see their base costs increased to match.
Battleships in general are frontline ships. To pick one from each race and arbitrarily call it “the” frontline battleship is simply a falsehood.
The Fast Attack Battle Cruisers are the hulls that you want to concentrate on to provide the Front Line aspect that you are looking for.
In a close range duel a Talos that is properly fit will demolish a Tier I battleship.
What I think you are looking for are modules and ammo that provide extreme damage at very close range, less that 1,000 meters but greater than 500 meters, that if the Fast Attack Battle Cruiser gets close to the Battleship the broadside delivered to the Battleship would be tremendous.
We still don’t have a Fast Attack Battle Cruiser that can fire torpedoes.
@Old_Pervert In addition to your suggestions, Battleships (and to a lesser extent, Battlecruisers) need the ability to field up to four (4) light or medium weapons for point defense. These are in addition to their primary weapons. No buff to CPU or power grid - they’ll have to fit with the existing ship specs.
I had a thread on that in general, it was intended mostly as a discussion. Started with dreads, snowballed out from there. I do agree that some PDS/CIWS style undersized weapons to handle smaller ships would make them immediately viable for most fights.
Honestly though, just removing the “large” from their weapon bonuses alone would be enough to increase their flexibility dramatically.
That’s definitely a +1. Anything that makes Battleships (and Battlecruisers) great again gets my vote. Frigate players hate the idea because it means they’ll need to bring twice as many ships or actually fly better fits. I’m not saying they’re cheap, but well…
I should add that small gang tears and the richest tears. Especially when they result from a buff to battleships.
My main attraction to automated PD at L/XL sizes is the light-show, they don’t even have to be optimal lock-fire sequences (I’m thinking optimisation charge-sets like tracking modules, etc, to tweak lock range and class-favoritism), I just want a pretty light-show with tracers, beams, and thrust plumes flying out in all directions.
Stuff the shuttles will want to fly into the middle of a fight for.
I’m fine with manually targeting and firing point defense weapons (which in my version is simply another 1-4 light or medium weapons). Since we’re talking about buffs to FRONTLINE battleships, would a 50% bump in sensor strength and scan resolution be out of line?
Ironic that in the far future the one thing that lacks in abundance is any sort of combat automation. I’d be happy with an auto-targeting module that could be tuned for ranked-choice hull-sizes.
Yes in reality automation is a thing. But in truth, do you REALLY want a weapon system firing on ships outside of your control?
When do they fire… is it when they aggress you? Too slow for my taste. Who do they fire on? Your webbing alt?
Sure you could have aggressive/passive modes like drones. But just the same, in a video game (especially one where player skill is a thing that should give you an edge), you should have as much manual input as possible without going full retard.
Hence the retreat to a variant auto-targeting module, it still takes up slots, grid, and cpu and accomplishes much the same function as a fully automated system while changing the existing structure of player-controls as little as possible.
This is the one thing that has always made me laugh.
Frigate Pilot: Haha my scan res is better than yours!
Lead designer for new battleship hull: Hey I just had a fantastic idea folks, I just grabbed the sensor array off dude’s frigate. Now our battleships don’t take an hour to lock things.
As said… why should a video game which bases itself on skill have auto-targeting modules? The argument for FOF and drones is ECM.