I noticed that there is no ship in the game that has all three of the following attributes:
-Ship Maintenance Bay to store fitted ships
-Jump Drive
-Be able to dock in a Medium Upwell Structure
I was thinking of a T1 Carrier or T1 Freighter that could have all three of these attributes. They would not be able to defend themselves ll(no fighter bays, drone bays, or high slots) but have significant reduction in Jump Fatigue and fuel consumption along with a ship maintenance bay significantly smaller than the Bowhead or any carrier.
This would most definitely fit the criteria of a T2 vessel. Very specialized, advanced features (jump drive).
I would totally be on board with a jump-capable bowhead, which is effectively exactly what this idea is… but it would most certainly need to be a T2 vessel.
Realistically, running 10/10s and similar in null would become far FAR safer. Fly your cloaky cyno over to the system in question, jump your “bowhead” in and dock at the nearest station, hop into your non-jump capable battleships, run the site, then jump home.
I guess it depends on how significantly smaller the SMB would be… but realistically there’s very little use for this if it doesn’t carry at least one big ship.
Moving fitted ships isn’t something most people in Null have any need to do on a regular basis, especially not in large quantities, since unfitting the ships and repackaging them is vastly more effective and efficient than even a Bowhead.
The ship I am suggesting would allow Corps/Alliances to jump a group of fitted ships from one medium upwell structure to another. This would allow smaller size groups to deploy fitted ships to an Astrahaus, Raitaru, and Athanor for invading or defemnding system without having to deploy a large upwell structure.
I like the idea of being able to support my conquest or defense fleet with a ship in space that can hold several dozen or more ships ready for deployment. That can also cloak. So when we are out in a fight and we get whelped we can fly back to the supply ship and get more boats. A cheaper alternative to a carrier and with way more usefulness. Fleet hanger for mods and ship hanger for ships.
[quote=“Cade_Windstalker, post:8, topic:28290”]
since unfitting the ships and repackaging them is vastly more effective and efficient than even a Bowhead.
[/quote]So breaking say 20 tech 2 armor rigs is more efficient than being able to move the fitted ships to a medium citadel?
Generally speaking you either transport new ships that haven’t been fitted or you contract wrap the things and stuff them in a jump freighter, which every Alliance of any size has a couple dozen of. Absolute worst case you can poke around with wormholes for a few days and jump a full freighter of stuff that way.
The only case where a ship like this is remotely worth using is where you somehow have a lot of unexploded hulls sitting somewhere fitted and you need to move them, the rigs are worth enough to justify a special purpose 4-5 bil hull just to move the things, and for whatever reason you can’t use a Titan to bridge stuff.
The two cases I can think of where that’s remotely sane are an aborted deploy by an alliance where for whatever reason your Titans are unavailable or at huge risk but somehow a jump freighter full of ships isn’t, or an alliance so small they can’t afford to lose the rigs but somehow can afford to risk a 4-5b hull.
Those are so niche it’s unreal.
Oh lets not forget that the base Bowhead can only fit 3 Battleships, so what you’re probably looking at here is BC or smaller hulls, and a Jump Freighter can still fit like 10+ Cruiser hulls unpackaged, so you’re talking about investing in a 4-5b ship for a niche use and basically a savings on jump fuel…
Your reply has assumptions that all alliances have several jump freighters and a Titan.
I can see that this ship would need to be able to jump furather than the other jump freighters and have a larger ship maintenance bay than the bowhead.
No, I’m assuming that anyone who is going to spend whatever a Jump-Freighter-Bowhead costs (above I estimated 4-5b) on a very niche use has several Jump Freighters and probably several Titans. Overall I feel this isn’t an unreasonable assumption considering how niche the use-case for this ship is.
Also a jump-capable ship generally gets a decrease in cargo space, not an increase, so I highly doubt that you’d get that out of CCP. The tradeoff is generally a drop in cargo in exchange for the extreme ease of moving cargo with a jump-capable hull. Similarly I don’t see CCP making it jump further than other Freighters, especially since it can carry ammo indirectly and that’s one of the things that sells best at the greatest markup out in Null.