No one is disagreeing that group play should overpower solo play. All that is being asked, is for some way for battleships to have a fighting chance against small gangs. Looking at the suggestions thus far, a solo battleship equipped with such point defense mods could maybe take out a frig every couple minutes. Maybe. So this may scare off a gang of 5 frigates, which seems fair. But a gang of 10-20 frigs should be able to stomp such a setup, if not hold down the ship at least until they can drop a capital on it, which is what seems to usually happen anyways.
It would be understandable if the requested mod(s) were over the top, but I am not seeing that here, they seem very modest in power. And I would think that frigate gangs would want to see such a change as maybe it would bring back the solo roaming battleship meta back. The solo battleship play style shouldnât just be dismissed even though itâs a multiplayer game. There are a lot of pilots in high sec with deep pockets that would probably love to throw away some battleships on a low sec roam if they thought it would be more fun. They know theyâll get killed, but if they can at least take a few ships with them, if even some frigs, it might be worth it to them. Unlike now, where a battleship would be lucky to take out even one frig.
But with the suggested point defense, even if the battleship pilot were to take out 20mil isk worth of frigs, vs a 300-400mil(or more) isk battleship, the frigate gang still wins, by far. Itâs not too much to ask, and may bring more content for all involved.
A triglavian type point defense does sound intriguing. But the range mechanic seems like too much of a disadvantage for battleships as theyâre much too slow to compensate to get into range. The graphical effects would probably be real cool too tho.
The solo / small gang battleship meta is better now than it has been in years and years, thanks to MJD and stasis grapplers. For that reason, the sense of urgency is kind of dulled for me.
And, as someone who regularly flies roaming battleships through lowsec, and encounters othersâ battleships, my observations are that frigate gangs are not the reason battleships are still fairly uncommon. Thatâs because the battleships that are used for roaming all have some strong way to deal with swarms of small ships: RHML for the Typhoon and Praxis, strong drones and neuts for the Armageddon and Dominix, etc. Some even roam in meme Rokhs with heavy tanks and small guns. These are all effective against T1 frigate gangs. The trouble comes in with other groups of players.
A solo battleship lacks the mobility (due to speed, agility, and warp speed) to evade a dedicated gang. The same risks that any solo roamer takes, it encounters at an extreme. Thereâs an ECM ship? Youâre dead. They have one logi ship? Lost the fight. Gate camp? GG. Run into a group with deep pockets? Be prepared for multiple faction battleships, carriers, or worse.
The only reason (in my experience) to even consider flying a solo battleship is specifically to fight less well equipped small gangs â the frigate blobs that Arthur is complaining about. And while a generic Abaddon with mega pulse lasers is terrible at that, plenty of other battleships are already good or great at it. If they receive further buffs against frigates, I believe it will push them into OP territory. Hence: my disapproval.
All this talk of roaming battleships has made me want to go do that again. I will report back here with what killed me, but â spoiler alert â it will probably not be a frigate gang.
Fair enough. It sounds like you have great experience and know what you are talking about.
But what if the suggested mod doesnât push the solo battleship into OP territory, but could be balanced enough to make gameplay more fun for all? Maybe this could address the âconcerns/fear?â of less experienced pilots or theory crafters who would like to try the solo roam, but hear all the negative stories of being locked down by a solo or handful of frigs.
More options would be good, but I am uncertain that this particular kind of option is necessary. Then again, I would have probably said the same about MJDs, and now I think theyâre a great addition. Depends on the specific implementation, I suppose.
If you want something that truly shakes up the meta, try this on for size: triple the damage of all smartbombs, but give all ships a hard cap of 3 smartbombs fit. This reduces the opportunity cost of fitting a smartbomb in a utility high slot (or even a weapon high slot) and gives all ships more of recourse against drones, in addition to making smartbombs far more accessible to battleships as a defense mechanism. That means that something like an Armageddon would be death incarnate for frigates, between its smartbombs, drones, and neuts.
Did you kill the Griffin NI, and a few other ships that was on your killboard in the same roam? If so, that looked fun. That was a good cost effective fit on the tempest as well, Iâll have to remember that one.
This is a good compromise idea. It always seemed to me large smartbombs were kinda underpowered. But in the end it falls on the devs to try one of these suggestions, if at all. At least there is the test server to iron out the wrinkles if they were to implement any of them.
It wasnât all the same fight, but yes, one roam. I got unlucky with some incomplete intel on the gang that killed me.
It does, and Iâd wager they donât see 90%+ of the player deliberations on possible changes on the forums. Sometimes Iâm not sure why all of us bother.
Bummer that the intel didnât cut it, but at least you drew some blood along the way.
Indeed, but I guess the devs canât implement too many ideas at once, and I think I can understand why they donât really give feedback on said ideas. And we probably keep trying though, cause itâs still some sort of entertainment while away from the gameâŚ
From what I have seen in PvP is that most of the time Drones have been used to swarm a BS when a small fleet of Vexors or other small drone carriers jump a small group of battleships while frigates provide long range tackle while being speed tanked.
The CIDS would be geared more towards defending against drones and fighters than anything else.
Low Sec is dead because the ganking mechanic in High Sec is too easy to exploit for Low Sec pirates. Pirates are moving to High Sec creating ganking alts and then gank the snot out of everything that they can. They then funnel the ISK to their Low Sec main who then does what ever. The same is true for Null Sec Alt Gankers.
Thinking about going into Null in the old days of Eve conjured up images of R&K surprising you at a gate or the sudden attack from out of nowhere. Nowadays you can take cloak fit and Warp Nullified Proteus into Null and never get caught.
Back then Null was eerie to go into. Going into lawless space is more safe than being in Niarja.
The pirates are moving into High Sec because the fish have become to intelligent for them in Low and Null, for the most part.
PDCs are fine, as long as theyâre active, require the same cap as smartbombs, they are completely automated after activation (ie you cannot target anything, like FOF missiles), and donât target anything other than the missiles, drones, and fighters of ships that are actively engaged (ie any reds in PVE or ships with limited engagement). After all, they are âpoint defenceâ weapons, not offensive weapons. I could get behind that.
