Server overload schmerver schmoverload, I always say. yolo ccp, yo-lo… The TiDi shall be magnificent!
Pretty sure Smartbombs and Drones were supposed to fill this niche.
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Sure, smartbombs and drones are great, too. Not every battleship or battlecruiser has a spare utility high or a large drone capacity, though. And as I pointed out, smartbombs are not really useful in high-sec.
There’s a fair bit of hate against frigates and frigate gangs in here, and I’m not sure why. In every other area of the game, the consensus is that in a “1 vs many” fight, the many should have a severe advantage. Why not here?
Also, even with the current balance, battleships can be just fine at fighting a pile of frigates – even without smartbombs. MJD can force the frigates to come within scram range, where web+grappler can make them vulnerable to heavy damage from drones (see: Dominix, and the 25+ bandwidth of literally every battleship) or rapid heavy missiles (see: Typhoon). There are more options if you opt for sub-battleship guns, like the meme Rokh with small lasers.
Giving battleships a mechanic to make them immune to a whole class of ships is ridiculous, when they already have the tools to deal with it.
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The hate is earned. Basically it boils down to a group of players running the cheapest ships and fits to simply pile onto any target of opportunity. Due to the difference in skill requirement and ISK investment in a battleship over a frigate, yes - the battleship should have a severe advantage.
Battleships are not fine at fighting a pile of frigates. I cite your own example as proof.
MJD, Stasis Web, Scram, Grappler … 4 mids
Where do you propose to fit a propulsion module, cap battery or booster? As for drones, they are quite easy to target and obliterate with frigates.
Yes, some ships have rapid heavy missile launchers which can apply some damage. Most battleship sized weapons can’t hit anything (even with a web, scram and grappler). And not every battleship has a utility high or the powergrid and CPU to utilize a smartbomb.
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Thats the key phrase right there. “Were supposed to…” But they don’t.
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Yes, but don’t try to convince a small gang player that he’s wrong…
Related to both posts immediately above this one -
I have an honest question. In that I mean it’s not rhetorical or anything like that. I don’t field battleships to fly in PvP so this is not something I know.
Are smartbombs genuinely effective at engaging frigates in the first place? I ask because I look at the stats and I try to imagine scenarios where frigates are swarming a battleship…it’s scram range, webs are assumed…I don’t foresee the battleship being able to slingshot anybody into that rather pitiful smartbomb range. Even if he did, he’s likely only carrying one smartbomb and there’s very little real damage to be dealt with that. Clearing drones, yeah, but frigates? Not so much.
Besides the fact that you really ought not to use smartbombs in highsec, can someone point out how smartbombs really do anything against frigates? It feels like you’re better off with a heavy neut.
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Smartbombs are really only useful against enemy drones. As you point out, most frigates will try to remain outside the effective range for smartbombs.
The smartbomb effectiveness myth is one perpetuated by the small gang community and continually recycled against any and every suggestion to buff battleships.
Never mind the fact that low-sec is completely dead - and one of the main reasons for this is low-sec players and their particular play style (gank and kill everything en masse) have turned it into a veritable wasteland.
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No. I’m actually ex cap and current small gang player on the rare occasions I do PvP. Smartbombs migth as well not exist vs frigates. As stated above, they are effective vs drones, and even that is limited. If you go up against drone boats with good HP bonusses they take too long. You would have to have a smartbomb dedicated fit and not use other weapons. Then you can generate the DPS to knock out drones and frigs fast, assuming you can hold them in place in the damage radius somehow.
Overall they are very ineffective.
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Smartbombs are great for smartbombing shuttles in the Federation Grand Prix. Of course, that’s in a group of battleships all running 7-8 large smartbombs and lurking at a gate within range of where weak ships will suddenly appear.
It should not when the number of small ships is overwhelming.
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If we say EVE frigates are (Earth historical) torpedo boats, this sounds about right.
We’ll just have to agree to disagree on those points.
And yet, the opposite should also be true. Presently, it well and truly is not. Smaller ships absolutely WRECK bigger ships.
Particularly when you get to the case of battleships.
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Both these ideas deserve more exploration IMHO. Arthur’s idea would, I believe, allow all battleships to be able to fight small ships, while Khan’s may allow only the ships with utility highs to be able to fill this role, such as nightmare, bhaalghorn, and all marauders. Khan’s idea would also depend on how powerful each module is. Whether if one module would suffice, or if each module is say only as powerful as a small turret.
Either idea, or both, could maybe nerf drone bays when fitted, for some balance, as you wouldn’t need to rely on drones as much anyways for certain roles.
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I’m thinking something along the lines of a Triglavian type of CIDS (Close In Defense System) Each module would be a utility module and would have two light weapon mounts in the CIDS mount. The CIDS would feed off of the capacitor of the ship so it would have to be laser based.
The more the CIDS mount fired the more damage it would cause but at shorter ranges compared to normal damage at its initial long range of 15km. Each cycle of firing would ramp the damage up by 10% while reducing the overall range by 5,000 km. Within three cycles the CIDS would have an effective range of 1,000 meters with a damage value that would continue to increase up to 100%
The CIDS would similar to Defender Missiles in that they would automatically lock and fire at targets attacking the ship or were -5.01 in security that were within 20 km of the pilots ship.
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If the “skill requirement and ISK investment” prevented the battleship pilot from having friends of his/her own, you would be right. However, it does not.
You are demanding a break in another of Eve’s patterns: that group play always trumps solo play. That is why Eve has the reputation it has in the greater gaming community – a game where epic battles and huge plots occur between conflicting factions. If a nullsec ratter did not need an alliance to secure your space while they ran anomalies, do you think they would form up huge fleets to defend that space? If miners did not require group-maintained structures, fleet boosts, and intel channels do do their jobs safely, do you think they would band together under great numbers? If banding together for centralized contract sourcing and ganking insurance weren’t helpful, do you think innovative corps like Red Frog Logistics would exist? No.
So, if ratting, mining, and hauling – some of the most “solo” activities of Eve – benefit from working as a group, why shouldn’t PvP? If “investment” and training time determined strength, should a jump freighter require a large fleet to take down? Should a single player in a 80 billion ISK titan require two hundred players in 400 mil ISK battleships to take them down?
ISK and skill points are fine for getting a strong ship, but they bend over hard for the strength of force multiplication via player cooperation. That is how things are now and have forever been in Eve. Should battleships be better than they currently are against frigates? Perhaps, but I don’t think so. Should they be able to run roughshod over large groups of small ships? No, because that is not Eve.
Sorry, I couldn’t hear you over the small gang tears you were wailing. When you get off your soapbox you might realize that these changes would actually encourage more interaction. Unless you’re merely content seeing battleships relegated to high-sec or null-sec blobs?
What? One of us is crying for change and it’s not me.
How? By providing more content-killing hard counters like RLMLs were?
I fly solo battleship or 3-4 man battleship gangs and have fun with them, especially fighting outnumbered (assuming I don’t get capitals dropped on my head). If others cannot, I suggest they harden the ■■■■ up.
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