Light Carrier

EVE Technology and Research Center Player Features & Ideas
101

8 pvp leshaks get 16k dps , 8 bashing leshaks can scale up to 24k. It is really doubtful that light carrier should be allowed such high DPS numbers without heavy drawbacks , like the ones from siege module of a dreadnought

102

So IOW the Light Carrier gets special snowflake drone/auxiliary craft. Gotcha.

BTW this is dumb idea and seems like you’re just trying to make this thing the godbote instead of something actually interesting.

So basically you want… a T3C with extra superduperstronk drones? I mean honestly if you want that then just rail about how terrible the Proteus is (and its drone sub in particular), and try and get people to be onboard with an idea that lets T3Cs have a special bay just for modules (much like their existing subsystem bay, though combining the purpose of the two would also be an elegant solution). Then you can keep your main cargo for ammo/loot while swapping fits/subsystems with the “module bay” and a mobile depot.

Also you massively fail naval tactics and strategy because actual amphibious assault ships aren’t really used the way you describe. At all. Ever.

First off, please learn how to multiquote. Secondly…

Okay, let’s say that the Light Carriers are ~2 billion fully fit. Let’s also assume we’re using some fairly blinged out Leshak fits as well- in fact the one that’s sitting in my hangar right now is ~2 billion ISK fully fit, so we’ll use that.

Here’s the rub: the Leshak with two damage mods can already spool to 2k DPS (before accounting for drones, which might as well be useless against anything above an Astra due to the to PD system(s)), so it can be really well tanked and/or quite fast, while also bringing multiple neuts to the party.

Your Light Carrier is probably only ~1500 DPS (assuming that your intent is ~50% of ‘real’ carrier DPS) if you load up on DDAs and FSUs, so if you need to tank up it’s probably less. So basically for the actual investment in ISK for just the battleline hulls you’re actually getting a lot less DPS/ISK value- to say nothing of crossing wormholes where the DPS/kg is massively in favor of the Leshaks (to the point that as was pointed out this notional light carrier at the proposed mass value is incapable of crossing anything but capital-class wormholes).

If your limitation is ISK, then for the given DPS goal you can basically get Leshaks+support instead of just all Light Carriers. If your limitation is transit mass due to using wormholes, then it’s even more lopsided in favor of the Leshaks.

So it doesn’t even matter at this point that the Light Carrier has more theoretical endurance, because the Leshak fleet has either more quantity or quality of support, or else just has support period, or even just has more DPS and can thus burn down the Light Carriers faster than the latter can do so to the Leshaks.

Unless all those pilots are tagging along in pods (or you’re going for some derpy “bring your spare ships with you” strategy) then that’s really not going to be useful at all. Particularly given that properly supported Leshaks are… not really possible for most cruisers to fight against very effectively. Like maybe AB Zealots/Sacrileges could do it? But I’m not really certain because the Leshaks can bring a ton of neut pressure on their own and DPS spool means that even taking grazing shots is going to quickly be very painful (and if all the 'Shaks have grapplers that’s going to become really really dangerous to try and “get under the guns” and turn into super-heavy attrition).

So let’s consider a situation where for whatever reason we have a magical wormhole that will allow any ships up to ~600 million kg to pass through and has a total transit mass of we’ll say 1.5 million kg.

You can thusly get a pair of Light Carriers plus a support fleet, with the latter to the tune of ~300 million kg, giving you ~3k DPS from the Light Carriers and figure that most of the support fleet is cruiserweight you’re probably getting maybe 3-5k DPS from those when you account that some of it is going to be logi/ewar/scouts/dictors/hictors. I’ll be generous and say 5k DPS from the support fleet.

Which also kind of points out “why even Light Carriers as DPS” when the support fleet is already more DPS but that’s beside the point.

So we consider as our Leshak alternative 15 Leshaks, which totals up to ~945 million kg and about 30,000 DPS at full spool (assuming each one is fit with 2x T2 radsinks and loads Occult), plus you have about 550 million kg of transit mass to fill out a support fleet- logi, ewar, scouts, dictors/hictors, and ammo “trucks” to feed the Leshaks (because apparently this is a huge problem or something). Even if the Leshaks aren’t at full spool they still start at ~800 DPS with Occult and no drones, which is still 12,000 DPS.

So basically it doesn’t actually matter that these Light Carriers can “stay on station far longer”, because the Leshaks will just have outright accomplished all their objectives and then slaughtered their opposition*.

This just gets worse, of course, the smaller the total transit mass goes- and this is assuming you can consistently get capital-grade wormholes to wherever you’re trying to go! Because if you can’t, then your Light Carrier is literally incapable of getting somewhere unless you can gate in normally.

*I am aware that this is a gross oversimplification however considering the object of comparison has a smaller and less capable support fleet and is massively out-DPS’d regardless of spool status on the Leshaks I think it’s not unreasonable to say that the Leshak fleet will be far more successful outside of some exceptional conditions like massive disparity in player skill/leadership, or less exceptional cases like the defenders just smashing the invading/evicting force- in which case the Light Carriers get smashed up just as bad, if not worse.

Literally nobody will do this because with that massive capital-grade mass it’s almost certain to have capital-grade align times and warp speed.

Which means it is literally going to be faster and easier to just drop hacking ships, eject from the LC, board the hacking ship(s), warp to the site, complete the site, and then warp back.

Remind me but what even comes out of Ghost Sites? Because I’m pretty sure that neither officer mods nor mutaplasmids get dropped by these, and one (or both) of those is required to get some of the best mods in the game.

This also assumes that proliferation of top-end deadspace/officer/abyssal modules to more players is desirable; while I’d certainly love to be able to afford a lot of these, I also pretty exclusively fly solo, and I do think it would be detrimental for the game if these modules became so common to the point that the standardized fleet Ferox requires something stupid like officer magstabs in order to be doctrine compliant.

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103

Then you really do not have any input on a Light Carrier that is meant to be flown solo but more so in a fleet.

Its obvious that since you are a solo PvPer your only complaint is that you do not want to have to deal with such a ship or a fleet of Light Carriers for that matter.

104

Doubtful that a Light Carrier should have such High DPS?

I can comfortably store three Navy Osprey’s in my Orca’s Maintenance Bay with room left over for at least three Assault Frigates not to mention two frigates stored in the Fleet Hangar.

The Carrier and Super Carriers have far more capabilities of providing DPS.

105

You did actually read what I’ve actually said besides noting how I primarily fly solo, right? Like did you even notice all the parts where I pointed out how for the two things you pointed out most (at least recently)- which for clarity are:

  • structure bashing, particularly in wormholes; and,
  • apparently pretending to be an exploration frigate

That for the first, a fleet of Leshaks is pretty much not only more efficient, but just straight up more capable. A tanked up Leshak has more DPS and more (useful) utility for structure assaults if you are precluded from the use of capital and supercapital assets, and if you’re assaulting into or through a wormhole the Leshak’s vastly lower mass (compared to even an Orca’s) means you can shove more through a wormhole before the hole collapses and you have to either find a new entrance or rageroll one.

This also does not consider the fact that ejecting an exploration frigate of some kind, boarding it, running the site, and then returning and storing it, is still more time efficient than actually dropping this Light Carrier of yours into an exploration site.

This also doesn’t even answer the questions I posed: namely, what high end valuables come from Ghost Sites, and is it desirable for these valuables to be proliferated to greater degree than they already are.

You basically used an ad hominem attack to dismiss my input and position instead of actually addressing the point.

for posterity, that ad hominem attack

is the “you’re a solo PvPer so you don’t have any input because you’re just saying this because you don’t want to fight Light Carriers”

You should check the rest of his statement [emphasis mine]:

So I think it’s reasonable for me to interpret Niriam_DoT’s statement as being “basically, Light Carriers shouldn’t get this (high DPS) for free.”

Leshaks for example have to wait out a 2 minute spool as DPS builds to the maximum value, on top of which they have other restrictions on their weapon system- with no falloff value they’re very vulnerable to playing range position as well as TDs, since if you’re sitting towards the end of your optimal and then move out of it, DPS stops- it doesn’t lessen or reduce or become worse, it outright stops. This also doesn’t consider the requirement to load T2 damage ammo, which reduces range considerably, and puts it awful close to the big expensive thing it wants to kill.

They’re also pretty vulnerable to neuts (in fairness most things are), and while their DPS is favorable compared to some of the things they’re used to kill, the tank is… less so.

Dreadnoughts and actual Carriers get higher DPS still, but Dreads have to Siege and thus be locked in place for a 5-minute cycle during which they cannot move or jump or take gate. Carriers can theoretically be defanged, but more practically are still limited by the usual restrictions on capital ships (that is they are high-mass and thus restricted from most wormholes and cannot enter highsec, and for the few rare examples still present in highsec, cannot be used in anger* against another player).

You are basically proposing something that appears to have better-than-carrier grade tank (which is quite a lot) with carrier-grade DPS, better-than-carrier grade application (IE even accounting for how it has tons of DPS and can just brute force the application problem it’s using pretend heavy drones so it applies better than a carrier, and probably better than a Leshak or HAW Phoenix as well), that has access to (almost) every area of the game… and apparently is somewhat expensive?

Oh but it’s also a mini Orca too. And it can do exploration for some reason.

The only drawback it has is that it has such enormous mass that it can’t actually do very much in wormholes (or at least, it can’t contribute to wormhole evictions in anywhere near the capacity that a Leshak- or any battleship for that matter- can, due to the mass restrictions wormholes involve)… which ironically cripples one of your supposed design goals for it.

*clarification

just to be clear, that means “in violent manner”, as in, you can’t happen to have a highsec capital of any kind and use it in a PvP confrontation, because that gets said capital deported to lowsec.

Aside from the fact that this has basically nothing to do with Niriam’s point (that is, what’s the drawback of the Light Carrier), and thus doesn’t make any sense whatsoever in reference to said point…

This is not a drawback that would justify having high DPS.

They are also full capital (or supercapital) ships, with all the restrictions that entails- high mass that prevents use of most (or all) wormhole transit, preclusion from access to highsec, and even being prohibited from docking in anything except an XL sized Citadel in the case of supercapital ships.

I will not attempt to argue whether or not carriers/supercarriers are themselves balanced, whether innately or in regard to the current meta, but they are far from a way to support your point considering that they do have at least some restrictions and drawbacks that preclude their use in every area of space in the game.

Even if it’s just that they can’t go to highsec.

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106

Please help me here. Do I get it right? Do you propose supercarrier numbers of dps for a cost of a carrier and also allowed to move into highsec?

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107

Not really. Lets put this into perspective. A Leshak is big and beefy. But a well planned gank fleet of 15 Catalysts will make mince meat out of your precious little Leshak, I’m certain that any High Sec ganker can back me up on such a reality.

Secondly by using the Light Carrier that is able to deploy a fleet of 10 Assault Frigates for example plus the Light Carrier based drone, the Catalyst fleet will have an awfully hard time defeating the Light Carrier.

Only if the Leshak could transport Assault Frigates to a battle where cheap ganking ships would be the sensible choice for defending against your polished up and sweet little Leshaks.

108

No I was talking about a Light Carrier that has Light Carrier based Carrier Drones, not fighters. The Light Carrier based drones would be somewhere between the Gecko and T1 carrier fighters.

109

So, Then PvP fit leshak both has more dps and more dps\mkg. Combining this with inability of LC to fit through all but the biggest wormholes it gets useless in WH space

110

You do know that those assault frigates need pilots to work right?

111

Most alliances such as Goonswarm, NC. PL would have more than enough pilots to board the ships.

Even the multi-account players would be able to take on a Leshak and swiftly defeat it with their man and alt accounts.

If a solo pvper is flying that Light Carrier against the Leshak the Light Carrier still has the advantage of distance over the Leshak.

112

…Okay, I was under the impression that we were looking at solutions to kill structures, potentially defended structures, that cannot be attacked by (actual) capital ships like dreads, carriers, or larger.

Like I’m sure that this is something to keep in mind for highsec structure bashes but the main thing is that Leshaks are preferred for opposed structure bashes in highsec to begin with; if you want to structure bash and nobody is going to show up (or you don’t care if someone shows up because the fleet is already written off as fully expendable), then you can just use a polarized Oracle- you can get ~40 km optimal range, 9k EHP, and ~970 DPS with Scorch while moving at ~1.7 km/s and being cap stable.

Check it out:

polarized bash Oracle

[Oracle, polarized bashbote]

Heat Sink II
Heat Sink II
Heat Sink II
Heat Sink II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II

50MN Quad LiF Restrained Microwarpdrive
Large Shield Extender II
Large Cap Battery II

Polarized Mega Pulse Laser, Scorch L
Polarized Mega Pulse Laser, Scorch L
Polarized Mega Pulse Laser, Scorch L
Polarized Mega Pulse Laser, Scorch L
Polarized Mega Pulse Laser, Scorch L
Polarized Mega Pulse Laser, Scorch L
Polarized Mega Pulse Laser, Scorch L
Polarized Mega Pulse Laser, Scorch L

Medium Capacitor Control Circuit I
Medium Capacitor Control Circuit I
Medium Energy Locus Coordinator II

Keep in mind that this particular fit is basically designed to be a minimal-attention configuration (hence the investment in cap stability so it can keep motoring with guns+MWD running), and it costs maybe 130-150 million ISK.

Which is to say that the ~970 DPS is gained at a pretty minimal SP investment (relative to either Leshaks or these notional Light Carriers), and at a very small ISK investment.

So say you just want to kill highsec structures with minimal investment. We’ll say that these polarized Oracles cost ~150 million and we want about ten of them. So that’s ~1.5 billion ISK invested, and we get 9700 DPS in easily expendable ships that require minimal attention. You can still load Conflag for ~1300 DPS (~13000 DPS as a fleet of ten ships) as well, though it cuts range down to ~15 km optimal and cap endurance is, while quite long, still not perma-stable.

If you want to (or are at least fine with) more actively manage it, then run polarized Talos battlecruisers and get like 1900 DPS cold and costs maybe 200 million ISK at the most I think? So basically for the same cost as a 2 billion ISK full-fit Light Carrier you can get 19000 DPS from ten very expendable polarized Talos, instead of only ~1500 DPS from a brick that can still be suicide ganked by Catalysts.

Unless of course this Light Carrier is actually supposed to have more EHP than an actual capital ship in which case I suspect that there’s very little to actually discuss because what you claim to want and what you put forth would seem to be two very different things.

So first off, is the Catalyst fleet a gank fleet or a defending fleet. Regardless of if they are identically fit you deal with these things in different ways. A defending fleet- particularly one that’s on station already… you just shoot them, since logically they are members (or under wardec mechanics have allied in) of the alliance/corp that you dec’d so you could go bash highsec structures (in WHs this is even simpler; anybody who isn’t blue/purple to you and is on station to defend the structure? just shoot them because CONCORD doesn’t exist in wormholes).

All you have to do is have a scout on a ping- or even just warped in at range and motoring- and then have the rest of the fleet warp in at a preferred optimal (we’ll sacrifice some DPS and use Mystic for much improved range- ~52 km instead of 20- though the sacrifice isn’t that much since you still spool to ~1500 DPS cold), and then just MWD around while shooting the tower.

Gank Catalysts don’t generally include prop mods, and they’d have to bounce out if they want to try and warp on top of the Leshaks. Which will be kind of hard since Leshaks can go ~1350 m/s cold on an MWD.

If they’re “war targets” and members of the corp/alliance that owns the structure you’re attacking, then the Leshak fleet (and any attending support ships) can literally just shoot the Catalysts.

If it’s a gank fleet then mostly your options are counter-ganking them, logi chaining to try and get reps to overcome incoming volley/DPS, or to downship to a similar-DPS but lower cost alternative (like the mentioned polarized Oracle or polarized Talos…). But gank fleets are something that you mostly have to work around Crimewatch mechanics to deal with anyways, rather than having a one-size-fits-all solution coming from a special snowflake ship.

However you still have not remotely taken into account the fact that this isn’t just highsec that you seem to want to use these, but also wormholes. And, well, if it’s in a wormhole then the gank Catalysts probably get caught in a bubble and then die in a fire.

I don’t see why the Leshak can’t have an attending fleet of AFs tagging along with it. It’s not like the Light Carrier pilot is going to eject in live combat to board an AF himself (that would be indescribably stupid), so you still need other players to fly those AFs anyways, and if you have to cross wormholes then it’s still more mass efficient to use Leshaks (or polarized attack BCs) and an attending support fleet.

This is stupid and you should feel stupid for saying it. Literally the ability to haul the ships in is totally irrelevant unless you’re running some kind of massive logistics-intensive operation where you’re outright moving into an area.

You don’t really haul replacement ships that are used in live combat, nor do you do something stupid like haul the ships in an Orca or this Light Carrier thing while the pilots of said ships putter about in their pods.

You don’t understand.

There’s no reason to have the ships hauled as cargo, because the ships need to be piloted in order to be effective. As such, there’s no reason to not just have the ships piloted and in space to begin with, which means that there’s no reason to not say “oh the Light Carriers get a support fleet; the Leshaks also have a support fleet”.

You also continue to ignore the fact that if you’re expecting to bash a structure unopposed, then Leshaks while entertaining aren’t a hugely optimal choice; instead you’d probably want polarized Oracles or polarized Talos. If you do expect opposition, a Leshak is an interesting option, and scales decently well in terms of getting maybe half a dozen of them and going and killing some Astras or something.

More than that a lone Leshak to me is either solo bashing a structure because he wants a fight and is interested to see what the defenders show up with and is trying to look as vulnerable and engageable as possible, or else he’s either so lazy or so wealthy that he doesn’t much care if the Leshak gets exploded while he’s bashing.

I’m going to ignore this “solo true 1v1” argument because this is literally the first time you’ve brought it up (outside of the ad hominem attack on me) and the crux of your argument seems to be that the Light Carrier would be the ideal structure bash platform because reasons.

So let’s consider the wormhole situation, since for highsec if you’re concerned about gankers and opposition the solution will be to either work around/with the Crimewatch mechanics to deal with the gankers or else to just send an expendable fleet that you don’t mind welping into opposition or having it ganked; and if it’s an either/or situation- IE the gank fleet is actually war targets or there are no defenders- then you can either just shoot the gank fleet (because they’re war targets) or you don’t need Leshaks to begin with because you’re unopposed so squishy expendable polarized ABCs will work just fine.

In any case, since the the topic at hand would seem to be that with limited manpower and a desire to maximize DPS both in highsec and in wormholes Light Carriers are supposedly the “best” option to bash structures.

Except of course they aren’t because polarized ABCs can rival or exceed a notional LC’s DPS, and for vastly less cost, while also being extremely expendable (and easily fit to function with minimal attention), and if you expect- or are attempting to bait- a fight then Leshaks are much more optimal due to their high potential DPS and strong potential tank (and the perceived vulnerability of a solo battleship).

If this then involves crossing or sieging into a wormhole, the difference becomes even greater, as the LC has such a ludicrously high mass as to be totally impractical for wormhole operations, while Leshaks have fairly low mass.

Put another way, the wormholes which possess enough single-transit mass limit to allow a 600 million kg Light Carrier to pass tend to have either 3 or 5 billion kg total transit limits. Which means that for every Light Carrier you can shove through you can shove 10 Leshaks. Which each have about as much DPS as the Light Carrier.

But let’s consider a worked example:

Light Carrier fleet workup

Let’s say we want to have a fleet of 4 Light Carriers, and each one (being incredibly generous here) can generate 2000 DPS in a full-bash fit. So that’s 8000 DPS for a total of 2.4 billion kg.

Say we want to be able to use every single wormhole regardless of checking the specific signature code so we can lookup the actual total transit limit; this means we’re limited to ~600 million kg for our support fleet, because we want that support fleet ready to rock’n’roll as soon as we’re in the wormhole, and we’d literally max out the mass limit with 4 LCs, collapsing the hole, and preventing any tagalong pods from coming with if we stupidly have the support fleet stored in the SMAs.

We’ll assume the support fleet is say about 80% cruisers with the remainder being a split of BCs (for command ships so we have links), HICs and smaller support craft like covops scouts, ceptors, dictors, and command destroyers (for booshes, since we are in a wormhole).

So figure we can bring along about 34 cruisers, mixed between logi, recons/ewar, and probably some HACs and T3s for supplement DPS and anti-support/-tackle jobs. Say 2-3 command ships and 2-5 HICs. The remaining mass is divvied up in a mix of dictors, fast/light/heavy tackle, booshes and covops scouts. Figure you’ve probably got another 10-15- ships split between those jobs.

And for kicks we’ll add a pair of DSTs for spare cargo- munitions, paste, and hopefully loot.

So that’s probably around 50-60 support ships coming along with these Light Carrier. In terms of DPS we’ll say that ~half of those cruisers are DPS fit and can provide a “sustained” DPS (factoring in that some of those DPS cruisers are using rapid lights which are very bursty but not so great for sustained firepower) of ~350, since they’re probably a mix of mid-range skirmish fit, anti-tackle fit, and brawlers.

Call it ~15 cruisers that can bring that much, so ~5200 DPS from the support fleet that can be sustained and applied to lots of things that threaten it. So that’s about 14,000 DPS when we add in whatever we’re getting from random drones the logi might carry and the dictors/HICs/tackle if they have guns.

If we consider a similar-tonnage Leshak fleet… well instead to be generous I’ll use an upsized variation on the comp used in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huYEZ6ruYjU where some Leshaks went to go kill a Rorq and ended up bagging another 5 capital ships in addition to said Rorq.

Leshak fleet workup; hint it's going to end up a lot smaller for nearly identical capability

So we’ll say 10 Leshaks, 5 logi ships (split between T3 logi and Triglavian examples), 3 anti-tackle cruisers, 3 link ships, a HIC, and half a dozen light tackle craft. Oh, and a Nestor, a pair of covops frigates, and a pair of DSTs, though the DSTs will need to sit off-scan and with a basic cloak so that they’re safe from attack, rather than potentially having a security detail to protect them.

So that’s about 28 ships. And the Leshaks alone dump 20,000 DPS at full spool with Occult. If they want to sit more at skirmish range with Mystic they still get 15,000 DPS at full spool, and start at 850 DPS each (so 8500 DPS pre-spool for the Leshak fleet alone if they load Mystic for range). Between the support fleet you’re probably looking at around 350 for the anti-tackle ships (much like the LC fleet), but probably closer to 500-600 DPS for the link ships.

I’ll be nice and say 500; so 1500 DPS from the link ships, about 1000 from the anti-tackle wing, and probably 500 from the various light assets and another 500 from the Nestor (which is mostly there to provide a refit service). So ~3500 DPS from the support fleet. And 8500 from the pre-spool Leshaks if they decide to skirmish. So that’s a total of ~12000 DPS from the fleet.

That is to say, a fleet half the size of the LCs and their support fleet has nearly as much DPS before it spools up and/or really drops the hammer by brawling outrageous.

And it fits through probably 2-3 times as many wormholes. While using vastly less mass (10 Leshaks is only a little more tonnage- 630 million kg- than a single LC- 600 million kg). As in, if I actually went all-in on identical mass in Leshaks for a wormhole siege… well if we have 40 Leshaks that want to stay at Skirmish range (call it up to ~50 km) and fire with Mystic (which caps ~52-53 km optimal) then they start at ~850 DPS and spool to 1500.

Which means that 40 Leshaks with dual radsinks, pre-spool, get 34,000 DPS, and spool to around 60,000 DPS. Hilariously this means that an equal tonnage of Leshaks has a pre-spool DPS that’s nearly twice the cap of the Large structures like Fortizars (it only takes four Leshaks firing Mystic at full spool to hit the DPS cap of a Medium structure like an Astrahaus; 3 if you decide to load Occult and sit at 20 km instead of 50 with Mystic).

For reference the DPS cap of an Astra is ~6k raw DPS, while Fortizars are ~19k raw DPS. So IOW you need to use 75% of your Light Carrier force to hit the DPS cap of an Astra, while the entire LC force and its attending support fleet pretty much can’t hit the DPS cap of a Fortizar. In contrast for equal tonnage in Leshaks you have so much DPS that you can actually split the fleet up to hit three different Fortizars (or ten different Astras) at the same time.

If OTOH you go with the much smaller workup I ran then if you’re willing to sit at 20 km or less so you can use Occult then you can easily hit the DPS cap of a Fortizar (or other Large structure). With ten doods in Leshaks, that use as much mass as a single Light Carrier would.

Similarly, if you’re running a single Leshak vs a single Light Carrier, DPS is broadly comparable and much more importantly the Leshak is vastly more mobile in every way (since the LC doesn’t include a jump drive), allowing it to maneuver much more effectively on grid to at least attempt to avoid third-party gankers and definitely allows it to avoid war targets that attempt to gank it, while also getting into and out of warp faster and having at worst equivalent warp speed (and the improved align time of a battleship compared to something that’s the size of an Orca- or worse, vastly heavier- means that you spend more time actually in warp rather than sitting just off a gate aligning out).

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113

Thank you for actually being sane and making some good points. I also like the idea of one launch tube and I would say it should be limited to 1 squadron of LF. On my Thanatos I am pulling 3300 DPS with dragonfly II’s, and with less low/high slots to work with you are looking at lower DPS.
Eyeballing it I’d say one launch tube of LFs are going to pull 700-850 dps. Since the idea is for the ship to be a light capital that can compete with marauders and such, I am thinking a good solution would be to give it the Nyx’s damage bonus of 10% per level trained. Or a role bonus of 25% and something like 7.5% per level trained. That should bring it’s DPS up without making it too overpowered.

Also thank you for bringing up that carrier management does not need to be complicated further. I have only used mine for ratting so far and it is utterly exhausting. I can only rat with it a couple hours a day before my brain implodes. Constantly changing targets for 3 different units, constantly telling them to orbit something cause if they stop flying they will die. constantly switching on and off your repair and network sensor cause otherwise your cap will disappear. and every 45-90 seconds I check local in order to watch out for neutrals and reds.
Looking at his KB, I don’t believe he has ever actually flown a carrier. If he has he would know that the system does not need to be complicated even further by having some kind of drone and fighter wings+ all the other crap he has mentioned. Like Clone Vats, my Thanatos doesn’t have those so I cannot see the justification for giving them to a ship that is essentially a smaller more simple Thanatos.

114

Ok yeah, this just made it even more evident you don’t fly carriers. Since you would know that the locking speed on them sucks. Even if you have a networked sensor array, it takes 3-6 seconds on a destroyer. and fighters will not kill them as fast as you think they will, due to speed tank on destroyers and frigates. considering your usual ganking fleet, if you have a 15 or so destroyers jump on your freighter friend it will take you 2-5 seconds to start reacting. You need to start locking targets and launch your fighters, you then have to order your fighters to engage targets. The locking process can take 5-20 seconds depending on you having a sensor array (which I don’t even think this light carrier should really have). and it will take you 15-20 seconds to order your fighters to engage and for them to actually kill the targets. You have now killed a total of 2 enemies out of a dozen or more when CONCORD shows up.
Against Hisec suicide ganks there is no legitimate defense other than a really really good tank and maybe some logi support. When I was in Hisec, my Orca had 385k EHP. I had no problems with CODE, even though they attempted a couple times.

115

I am going to reference another fun quote like @Wander_Prian did.
This is a classic case of wanting to eat your cake and have it too. You don’t want a ship that fills a purpose, you want a jack of all trades ship, with several roles in one. I’ll list what ships(multiple) I think you want that fit your descriptions

  1. A Light Carrier of course, Even though you want 3 launch tubes which nearly completely contradicts the definition of the craft. Light Carrier’s, in life and in other Scifi universes have filled a purpose of being a smaller more agile staging platform/fleet support ship for fighter based operations. The things that always differentiate a light carrier, is first the have LESS fighters. Not smaller just less, the purpose of the craft is to be able to deploy a lesser number of aircraft where and when you need less than a full carrier would provide. Generally a light carrier will be able to deploy 1/3 - 1/2 the number of aircraft as a full sized carrier, not the same number.
    Also a definitive feature is for it to be lesser armored than a full-fledged carrier, in EVE I would say it should have less defensive power than a Marauder, but roughly equal to a battleship. The way you have described it, it can apparently survive nearly any gank that would kill an Orca (incredibly tanky already if you fit it right) At max it should have a tank equal to a well fit Orca, but only if it’s offensive power severely drops.

  2. You want a Hauler that can hold its own in combat, to a degree I think this may be a good idea given the situation in Hisec . However this ship should not be a carrier. The express purpose of a carrier is for combat, it really is the core of it’s identity. You can’t have a hauler that just happens to be a carrier too. This Idea isn’t fully developed, but in this role I would suggest an armed blockade runner of sorts. with a limited cargo hold of ehhh 5-25k lets say. It could have a role bonus of some built in warp stabilizers, be decently tanky and have 3-6 SMALL turret slots. I am thinking that it should cost atleast as much as a battleship, in order to keep it from becoming a tankier destroyer. and the turrets should be more tracking speed focused than damage, it is meant to counter pirates in frigates and destroyers. You shouldn’t be able to use it to go toe to toe with a battlecruiser. I would actually also suggest this ship not have any drones at all. and this definitely should not have the carrying capacity of an Orca or freighter, it’s purpose is to move high value goods though possibly dangerous areas. Not as a defensible vehicle that you can transport your entire alliances stock of ore in.

  3. The last ship you want is a mobile PVE staging platform for wormhole/deadspace. This isn’t terrible, it can even be in this same light-carrier shipclass. It should specialise in this though, and should not be able to be converted to pvp easily.

The bullet points in ways I think your three ships can possibly work
LIGHT CARRIER
-1-2 launch tubes, able to launch only light fighters. It is not an all in one weapons platform, it only needs to provide basic fighter support.

  • It’s DPS should be roughly equal to an aggressive battleship and at most 50-60% damage as an actual carrier.
  • It’s tank should be slightly higher than a battleships, via active tank. If a Blasterthron starts the fight within 10 kilometers of the carrier, the carrier should not be able to win. The active should have more hp/s than an active tank battleship but not enough to negate a battle ships DPS within its optimal range(except for maybe Sniper fit battleships) Ideally it should be able to sustain itself through light-moderate fire, but if it comes under heavy fire it should wither away.
    -It’s lock speed should be slightly faster than a fullsized carrier (w/ no NSA). A light carrier is designed to serve a support role on the rear of a fleet, if it is in a situation where it needs instant lockspeed, then it hasn’t been utilized/protected properly
    -if it has one launch tube, then its skill/role bonus should be focused on boosting that fighter squadrons damage to a high enough level to be competitive, otherwise the dps will be like 650. However if it has 2 launch tubes, its bonuses should be more focused on fleet support or supplemental fighter attributes (speed, hp etc), or have less slots with which the player can boos drone damage (so less lows and highs)
    -It should still be able to be ganked, because a full carrier can be ganked in game. It should be a bit harder, but plausible. So 6-8 frigs/destroyers shouldnt be able to take it down. But a dozen or more with cruisers mixed in should
    -small fleet hangar, I think the 100k you mentioned was a decent number, just enough to carry a couple frigates

COMBAT HAULER
-cost atleast as much as a battleship
-small turret focused(completely unable to fit medium and large)
-moderate tank, of battlecruiserish-light battleship level
-built in warp stabilizers, +3 or something idk
-low targeting range, if you need to shoot something 30k away, that means you are able to warp away too. This is not a PVP ship, this is a hauler
-no drones, your entire combat potential should be based around getting away as quickly as possible. Not waiting for your drones to come back
-have a medium-low capacity. Unable to carry as much as an Orca or a capital hauler. Around 20-30k max

WORMHOLE CARRIER
-1 launch tube, lower dps. should be the flagship of a small wormhole fleet, not its dps. Which means it shouldn’t be able to balls to the wall solo the hardest wormholes
-moderate tank, enough to not die. Maybe a teensy bit stronger than an Astero’s tank
-role bonus for analyzing scanning etc
-skill bonus for combat fleet support mods. To assist fleet in fighting sleepers
-larger ship hangar of 250k or so
-fleet hangar of 20k
-lack of skill bonuses that translate to PVP.

What you have pitched so far is completely and ridiculously overpowered and way too versatile. You want a ship that would become (without question) the strongest ship allowed into Hisec, Able to fight off an entire ganking fleet of 12-15 people and able to pump out insane dps (3 launch tubes and you are looking at 2k at the low end, easily up to 2.7k) Since it can handle a ganking fleet, that means it has a tank equal to or greater than a marauder. Both those would give the ship the highest dps and the best tank in hisec, plus its long range abilities.
In addition to being the best hisec combat ship, you want it to become the best hauler in the game, short of a jump freighter. able to tank lots of damage, kill it’s attackers in return and compete with Orcas in carrying capacity.
Plus you want it to become the premier must have PVE ship for corporations, the ultimate staging/fleet support ship in wormholes. As someone else said, this thing will have a list of bonuses longer than a Titan.

Lastly, the features to the fighters you want to add are ridiculous. Having long range and short range fighters. Fighters with adjustable damage, clone vats. You want all the features(and more) of a Nyx (20bil ship) In a hull that will probably cust around 500mil, that is smaller than a carrier(2bil ship) which doesnt have those features

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116

Wrong again Charles Atlee.

The Light Carrier would have bonuses applied too Sensor Booster strengths based on skill level first then modules second.

When I was in Hisec, my Orca had 385k EHP. I had no problems with CODE, even though they attempted a couple times.

CODE will simply bring in double the number of ships the next time to get your ship. You must have been going up against their third string kindergarten gankers.

You want a Hauler that can hold its own in combat, to a degree I think this may be a good idea given the situation in Hisec . However this ship should not be a carrier. The express purpose of a carrier is for combat, it really is the core of it’s identity. You can’t have a hauler that just happens to be a carrier too.

Wrong again, do your research, that is if you had any idea about what a ship class was to begin with. You should really stick to just playing video games.

Merchant aircraft carrier - Merchant aircraft carrier - Wikipedia

A merchant aircraft carrier (also known as a MAC ) was a limited-purpose aircraft carrier operated under British and Dutch civilian registry during World War II. MACs were adapted by adding a flight deck to a bulk grain ship or oil tanker enabling it to operate anti-submarine aircraft in support of Allied convoys during the Battle of the Atlantic.

Despite their quasi-military function, MACs retained their mercantile status, continued to carry cargo and operated under civilian command. MACs began entering service in May 1943 and although originally intended as an interim measure pending the introduction of escort carriers, they remained operational until the end of the war in Europe.

Read the article and not just what you want to read.

Oh and for those role playing this part “The stumbling block for Slattery’s proposal turned out to be objections from the Ministry of Supply that combining the merchant and aircraft carrier roles would be too complicated.”

Get a life.

Let’s reduce the number of launch tubes down to two, give the light carrier really good target lock and targeting range bonuses (no more than 350 km) fast align times, faster warp speeds, small dedicated personal cargo hold of 5,5000 m/3 with a normal cargo hold of 50,000 m/3 and the ability to carry up too ten fully rigged T2 Assault Frigates in its Ship Maintenance Bay (400,000 m/3, same as the Orca) or a Drekavac, Navy Osprey, Ishkur and Wolf to round its light attack and area control roles. The Fleet Hangar would be 15,000 m/3

117

A combat Orca is a good idea. It’d be cool to have one with pure combat role bonuses, not to mention CPU/PG/Cap improvements as well as some more low slots.

Maybe through the SOE LP store? Requirements: 1 x Orca, LP, Isk. Get a combat Orca with all mining bonuses removed, more cpu/pg/cap, low slots, buffs to drone and RR bonuses. Instead of 10 x drones, maybe boost the bandwidth to 150 Mbps to field 3 x Geckos.

Or no LP store requirements, just reg BPC. Still the idea of a combat Orca is a good one.

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118

Basically an Orca fit for a Light Carrier role. It wouldn’t have any remote rep capability and would therefore require the support of Force Aux to keep it in the fight.

It would still have two fight tubes to launch special combat drones from that wouldn’t be fighters. It would also have a limited normal combat drone back up bay of 75 mbits of bandwidth with a combat drone bay of 100 m/3.

119

Actually a chance to be ganked is a huge balancing factor. Do you think freighter ehp would matter at all if you couldn’t agress in HS cause everyone is non war deccable? Why would anyone fit bulkheads when they cannot be ganked?

120

I think the ship you’re looking for is the VNI :stuck_out_tongue:

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