TL;DR:
-Too many damn capital ships, threat of hotdrop is always present
-Capital ships should be used for large scale engagements, not wiping away a cruiser or two.
-Battleships cant roam, they will always get hotdropped into oblivion.
-Make T2 battleships that can a) be mobile cyno inhibs (with appropriate debuffs) or b) have the ability to fight off a carrier/dread with enough backup (like 3 of these doomsday T2 battleships can take on 1 carrier/dread)
-Alternatively, make lighting cynos harder by increasing cargo space required for fuel to 1000+ m3. Nereus is perfect example.
-Or something else. You get the idea.
-MAKE BATTLESHIP ROAMING A THING. PLEASE.
With the game getting older and older, and with ships and items getting cheaper and cheaper, the proliferation of carriers and dreads is astronomical. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, but it has certainly put a damper on small gang fleets, and totally killed off any concept of roaming in Battleships. You get spotted in a battleship, or a 10> man battleship fleet, you are going to get dropped, no questions asked. The moment you escalate, some larger alliance drops 30 super carriers and then boom, no fun for anyone. I understand that having that threat loom over you is part of the game, that you could get dropped the moment you head out. But its seriously stopping some fun content from happening. There are only 2 things really that battleships are useful for, with some rare exceptions: Assaults, either attacking or defending (like citadel bashes) but even these are 100+ man machariel gangs, and L4 missions. I would never, in a million years, bring out my mains marauder for PVP. Never. the moment its spotted on field, 4 carriers and 7 dreads are hotdropped right on top of you. This pretty much goes for any solo battleship roaming or small gang roaming. You are gonna get dropped, you arent going to kill anything, and you are going to get welped hard.
It would be awesome if there was a more immediate counter to capital hotdrops, cyno inhibs take far too long to be used on roams. This could be T2 tier 3 battleships (abaddon, hyperion, maelstrom, rokh) that either have some form of super weapon (obviously cant one shot any capital) that is heavily limited by tracking to encourage use solely on capitals, with the same debuffs that titans get when they doomsday. Or T2 tier 3 battleships that can light an immediate cyno inhib that works immediately, for, lets say 1 min? Just some ideas for new ships really.
There could also be some rework to how cynos are lit. The fuel to light a cyno could be increased so that you would need a ship with a LARGE cargo hold (like 1000m3 or more) to be able to light a cyno. So you would need some form of industrial or a Battleship with cargo expanders. Note: this is for regular cynos, not black ops. Black ops is perfect as is. Nereus screams at me for this, their tank is ridiculous and would be perfect for this. If you intend to drop a cyno, you’re going to need a fleet to protect you or enough tank to survive the punishment. To be honest i think frigates, with their extremely high chance of escape shouldnt be even close to lighting a cyno, defeats the whole idea of protecting your space. You know that an enemy is around? need to protect your home? set up a fleet around your entry gate, so you can stop them from gaining access to your system JUST KIDDING ITS A CEPTOR and cyno is lit and there are now 40 capitals running amok in your home system. Nah, its dumb. I guess you could implement sized cynos, so like a small cyno on a frig can only get 1 capital through per cycle (reduced cycles too) cruisers could do medium cynos, which could get 3 through, and large cynos could be fit on battleships and there wouldnt be a limit to how many could get through.
In my opinion, capital ships should be used for sieges, on both sides, or just generally for fighting other capitals. I know that carriers can be very effective against sub caps, and dreads with high angle weapons are similarily effective, but again, i believe these should be geared towards countering an enemy sub cap siege fleet that are always present when structures or other large fights are happening. Not for throwing them around willy nilly.
If any of these, or any other changes in regards of limiting capital deployment, are implemented, i feel like there will be a resurgence in small gang roams, who arent limiting themselves to cruisers, and on the rare chance, battlecruisers. roaming in battleship gangs would be SOOO much fun, but it never happens because no matter what, you are going to get dropped. I would also seriously consider roaming with marauders. Also, with alpha pilots being able to field battleships, it would be the perfect way to keep them playing the game.
