Idea for balance on capitals

EVE Technology and Research Center Player Features & Ideas
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How you balance capitals in terms of roles.

  1. Carriers = Anti subcap / capital, but remove the ability to tackle / web

  2. Dreads = Keep as is anti capital / anti subcap with haw guns

  3. Supers carriers = Anti capital remove the ability to scram / web (heavy fighters nerfed so they apply poorly if at all to subcaps especially to cruiser and below. This change would nerf ratting income by supers which i suspect ccp see as an issue and also solve issues with fleet fights too (sirens / dromis.)

Ideally I’d rather their weapon type be changed from fighters (lag issues in big fleet fights) move them towards something more like energy weapons. Yes I’d be prepared to see their models re-worked entirely if ccp came up with a new weapon system that’s really cool and fits in between dreads and titans etc.

If that happened perhaps the current models could be switched with the carrier models i.e. replace the Thanatos with the nyx .

  1. Titans = Anti capital with normal guns, remove haw guns, nerf tracking of capital guns. Keep current doomsdays (balance later).

How do we solve titans online as a potential future issue? (Some could say it is now) well the palatine keepstar is a great example. Say you didn’t want to make any of the changes I proposed in this thread at all, then a very easy no real heavy dev time change would be to massively increase the mineral cost of all titans why? Well because you can either balance their role (what I suggested) their availability (resources it costs to build one) or you nerf the current resources / ships used to gather resources for their production and that hurts everyone not just the big blocs.

  1. Fax’s = Remove them, don’t try to balance them its a rabbit hole that will take years, Instead give the remote rep ability back to carriers and super carriers to give them additional purpose when supporting titan fleets.
    Re-applying the remote rep bonus to carriers / supers will provide a clear reason for having them with titan fleets and will allow for more fitting choices / game play and interesting fleet fights.

Removing the scram / web from carriers and super carriers will mean that when those ships are deployed subcap fleets / support ships will need to be deployed in order to hold targets down etc. And pilots would be forced to make different fitting choices if they wanted to use points /webs.

So what’s the end goal of the above changes? Well it would be a nice starting point for making subcap fleets relevant again and it provides a clearer chain of escalation, where subcaps support capital and there’s synergy between them instead of the I-WIN button that is the current (super cap umbrella) in nullsec.

Will we see remote repping carrier fleets deployed in a blob? Possibly I’d love to see it because with the current fighter set up it means it won’t be the wrecking ball assign sentrys and chill fleet comp. They would be vulnerable to super caps / dread blobs / superior numbers of sub caps fleets which means both sides would most likely only deploy this blob to support their own subcap fleets in removing other capitals etc.
Possible escalation chain
Subcaps jump in to contest timer –
Remote rep carrier fleet jumps in to support sub caps / apply dps to the structure
Dreads jump in tactically either to either support their sub cap fleet with haw guns or blob to engage the carriers.
Supers jump in with titans to engage the dreads/carriers (They apply poorly to subcaps with the changes). Supers use their heavy fighters on the dreads and provide rep support to the titans etc.

There’s thousands of variables that can be applied to the above chain of events yes I know  it’s only an example.

So how do you overcome the current titan blob meta? = In this Eve titans and supers don’t apply their damage to subcaps and so are vulnerable to subcap fleets. You’ve just got to find the dps to break through the remote reps. Can the fleet stay engaged and survive long enough to get subcap superiority oo the fun that could be had .

I know ccp can find a way to balance each of these ships as the recent titan doomsday balance to nerf titan ratting is a fine example of a positive change.

The above changes are not perfect and I could probably go even further with changes but like I said just a good starting point to shift the game from its current turtled up umbrella mode.

A positive outcome of the above changes might be that response fleets become haw dreads and remote rep carriers instead of titans / supers. Alot easier to engage for roaming fleets through null sec space :slight_smile:

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This sounds like a great way to make super cap online even more of a reality.
I’m not sure if you know the normal meaning of the word balance but your version seems to translate as “Buff capitals incredibly”.

In short, your idea isn’t even salvageable to create a real balanced state.

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Thanks for the response how does this buff super capitals?

1 Like
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The whole point to FAX was to make capital sized remote reps only come from a ship with local reps. Meaning you can always overpower it with DPS and kill the logi as a result.

You need to go and look at why things are the way they are, what problems actually exist, and then what you are trying to solve with the idea.

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Have you taken a look at how big blocks fit their fax’s? Local reps ain’t a thing in fleet fights of that size.

For example = https://zkillboard.com/kill/81408665/
= https://zkillboard.com/kill/81028384/

Ofc there are exmaples where local reps are used but at scale when supporting titans and supers they don’t exist.

And making supers / carriers fit remote reps again decreases their strength in other areas making them more killable.

Also with the changes to remote reps scaling down in efficiency the more remote reps are applied to a target could mean that supers are more killable. Balancing around fits and amount of rep recieved would be key.

All that aside say you keep faxes in the game as the only remote rep ship for capitals etc. The other suggestions i made could still be implemented.

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I think there’s a pretty wide consensus that the ability of groups of carriers to effectively tackle and kill subcaps from such extended ranges needs to be reigned in. If there was a way to make the tackling mechanics of support fighters less effective against subcaps without impacting their performance on capital ships, and maybe battleships, I think that would go a long way toeards balancing them. Maybe some sort of signature radius penalty to their effectiveness? In other words, make it still possible to tackle subcaps, but have it not always 100% effective, or require a larger number of support fighters to get the same effect.

I too think dreads are in an okay place. HAW dreads still apply awfully well to subcaps for a lot of people’s tastes, but the fact that they’re limited to local tackle only, and have to be in siege mode to apply that damage, balances out the power considerably.

For supers, I feel like the support fighter changes I mentioned for carriers, plus further nerfing of the ability of heavy fighters to apply to subcaps would go a long way towards balancing them.

As the apex predator of EvE, titans are in a weird place. They can’t really be killed with subcaps, and with fleets of titans able to just mow through fleets of capital ships with distributed doomsday fire, it’s hard to kill them with capital ships too. I think ultimately the key to balancing titans is to remove the targeted doomsdays so carriers and dreads are more effective against them. They’d still have roles as AoE damage platforms, mobile jump bridges, effects generators, and/or heavy gun platforms, but they need their biggest gun taken away, or at least nerfed heavily.

Hard no on this. Despite not getting the balance of the change right, separating logistics and combat roles in the capital ship lineup was one of the best changes CCP ever made. What you’re asking for is a super-capital remote rep platform with all of the EHP buffer that a super-capital has. That’s a horrible idea. I don’t have any one firm idea on how to “fix” FAXes, but I think the specific combo of titans with FAX support is the biggest issue. Maybe slap titans with a penalty to remote reps to offset their massive bonus to EHP from plates/extenders?

Cheers.

1 Like
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Instead of nerfing the powers of ships, which I don’t like, maybe approach this issue through creating different regions in Eve by changing how capitals work in lowsec? Proposed changes for lowsec are:

  • capitals cannot jump to cyno’s,
  • dreads and carriers can jump to any planet or belt within jump range on their own power,
  • faxes, supercarriers and titans can only travel through the standard gates in lowsec, so their roles will be much more defensive,
  • titans in lowsec still can bridge, but only subcapital ships, directly to any celestial within their normal cyno bridging range,
  • the navy issue battleships will be able to fit one XL weapon at the cost of losing 25% of their L- size weapons fire power. This XL weapon can only target capital ships, not stations/ structures (for all navy issue battleships throughout all spaces in New Eden).
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Another post about balancing capitals from someone who doesn’t know what they’re talking about.

2 Likes
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Yes full disclosure I have never flown a capital just trying to process different thoughts from different discussions I follow. And basically I don’t want any nerfs, something has to be the biggest.

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One of the great things about jump drives is that they work the same way everywhere in space. If there’s a valid cyno in range and you’re not tackled, you can jump/bridge to it. Nice and simple. Making this less simple seems like a horrible idea.

I’ve seen people propose disallowing cynos in losec to hinder capital movement in losec, but that’s a slightly different idea.

Hard no. Again, simplicity. Also, that kind of capital mobility would be crazy overpowered.

No comment, as this is a result of the prior two changes, which are bad ideas.

Negative. Again, simplicity. Bridges should work like jump drives: the same everywhere.

Hard, hard no on this. Aside from the models requiring a total re-do, individual XL weapons tend to have pitiful DPS unless they’re mounted on a Titan or a seiged dreadnaught, and balancing a subclass ship with a single XL turret would be a nightmare.

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Thanx for the detailed answers! @Bronson_Hughes

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Don’t post if you don’t have any clue what the ■■■■ you are talking about.

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But that’s EXACTLY the PROBLEM, I always think I have​:joy::+1: @Salt_Foambreaker

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