Before we start, please read these threads before posting, so you can make an informed contribution to the thread:
Finally, before I begin the actual thread: I believe the frigate bay is a considerable buff, especially for an ewar or brawl focused Battleship. Also a brick tanked frigate (vengeance for instance) could permit pilot to use their battleship with combat implants. My vengeance has easily survived multiple bombs.
If I was in a neutageddon, being able to rejoin the fight in a sentinel would be ideal (or a kitsune from a scorpion). With a nice dual prop fit, the enemy would have to find a different method to kill you. Popping out in a Keres or Hyena would be nice too. The BB frigate bay is a buff to EWAR frigs OR combat implants in a brick frig; likewise, it’s therefore a BUFF to BB’s.
First Fix:
Give some tier 1 battleships their respective faction EWAR bonuses.
Disclaimer: This is not specifically about Muninn’s and Megathrons, the follow paragraphs are just a specific example of giving a battleship its faction EWAR bonus and how the idea of this thread occurred to me. This thread does, however, concern the balance between HACS and BB’s in general.
My friend and I were trying to develop a tier 1 cruiser fleet that could trade ISK positive with Muninns.
We decided upon Arbitrators and Celestis in a 7:3 ratio, with a secondary smaller fleet of 20 brutixs + boosher and 20 dragoons + boosher.
The idea was to use Arbitrator tracking disruptors and Celest Sensor damps. The effective dps (tracking speed script) of arty fit Muninns is virtually reduced to 0 while their targeting range is brought under 15km.
Of course, we still need real DPS to get those ADCUs going, so we needed a secondary fleet of blaster brutixes to actually do the killing and a whelp alpha fleet of dragoons to neut the logi.
Then I started to think:
WHY DONT SOME T1 BATTLESHIPS HAVE THEIR FACTION EWAR BONUSES BY DEFAULT.
Battleships are already:
1: Slow (both on field and in warp)
2: Large Sig (take full damage)
3: Vulnerable to Caps (in the age of caps).
Why would I bring 70 Rail Megathrons to fight 70 Muninns?
They have the same dps (although the advantage of range). They have twice the EHP, but that’s not including the ADCU of the muninn.
They are vulnerable to dread drops (unlike Muninns).
But now, let’s see what happens when we give Megas a bonus to sensor damps (in this case we’ll fit two target range scripts and use the celestis as the model for the bonus).
The Muninn’s are reduced to sub 20km targeting range . And the Megas can switch to Faction Antimatter. Enemy logi would also have to come in close.
Although it would still be painful to use Battleships offensively (especially without blue Ani gates in the region), they could still be a powerful defensive asset if they had their EWAR bonuses.
The T1 battleships that do have bonuses are:
Arm (neut bonus, it’s a fine ship).
Scorp (ECM bonus, good ship)
The T1 battleships that SHOULD have a bonus.
Abaddon with Tracking disruptor bonus
Megathron with a Sensor Damp Bonus.
The Hyperion with a scram range bonus.
The Maelstrom with a web range bonus (would not apply to grapple).
The Typhoon with a TP bonus.
Back to my personal example vs Muninns.
*Having Abaddons in place of Arbitrators (in my personal example) would be preferable for the mainline. Having some Megathrons would also be welcome in place of the celestis. These ships could at least take a few direct vollies from the EWAR crippled Muninns before logi landed. With EWAR and range control, the battleships could switch to AB’s to reduce their sig, making the tracking disruptors very good vs the muninns.
*Oh they could also win the fight and not require a brutix boosh fleet to do the real dps. *
The Arbitrator/Celestis +Brutix/Dragoon fleet WILL WIPE (although ISK positive) and would overall be bad for fleet morale. Most players don’t understand that a massive ISK positive trade (arbs and celestis for Muninns) is a win, even if you wipe!
Second Fix:
A separate thing I’ve also considered for battleships would be a module (with a script) that they can use once every 60 seconds with a small 5 second duration that mimics the modes of tactical destroyers but on a 5 second timer like an shortened ADCU.
Propulsion script:+33% speed and 33% agility for 5 seconds,
Defensive Script:+25% resists and -50% sig for 5 seconds,
Offensive: +10% tracking, -10% target res and +10% RoF.
Electronic : +100% scan res and +50% EWAR resistance for 5 seconds.
The battleships without an EWAR bonus would get a bonus extending the duration of the module from 5 to 10 seconds and a reactivation delay down from 60 to 45 seconds. These ships would be:
Apoc
Rokh
Domi
Tempest
The combination of these fixes keeps the Battleship a slow and COMMITTAL weapon (unlike HACS), but gives them more presence on grid. They would still require destroyers to defend against bombs.
THIRD FIX:
Also so long as MJD exists, it must exist on a hull, so +1 mid slot for all BB’s (and +1 low slot for the scorpion, since it already has 8 mid).
The HAC still retains their ADCU, mobility and disengage benefits (and strength vs caps), but the Battleship is now a platform that can offensively (committal) threaten HACS.
This would also increase escalation from HACS --> BB’s --> caps. More things would blow up.
The longer ADCU reactivation timer would also be a soft counter to the HACS own mobility, where the Battleships could use their shorter (and weaker) defensive script every 45-60 seconds.
The only tier 1 battleship left out in this proposal is the Raven. It certainly cannot be an ECM platform and the Rokh already has the combat bonus. Perhaps both the Typhoon and Raven could be missile BB’s with the combat bonus (FIX 2 proposal), with the tempest being armor focused and the Raven being shield focused, yet giving the Typhoon a target painter bonus over the Raven also seems unfair. I would suggest to give them both a TP bonus. TP’s have stacking penalties anyway.
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