I’ve always loved carriers, especially after the changes that were made a while back. The only thing I don’t miss is their ability to fly with subcaps effectively. Jumping into a fight is fine, but keeping up with the higher pace tempo of subcaps can leave carriers with nothing to do but cap up and jump out (LOVE the jump fatigue changes by the way) or warp off slowly. There is also the fact that subcaps get more action in most cases than carriers.
With that said, I offer a possible solution, the Escort Carrier.
I know, I know. Cap pilots want to have the glory of being the big hitters on the field and subcap pilots like to be the quicker engagement types. I just think there could be a hybrid of the two in a way. My thought was that there could be a T1 battleship hull reworked, a new hull altogether, or maybe make it a T3 hull. They would carry a single flight of fighters but instead of 9 light fighters in a squadron, there would be 12 and space superiority would be 16 instead of 12. OR, there could maybe be 2 squadrons with the same number of fighters as a carrier. The ship’s bonuses would reflect the racial of their larger counterparts, adjusted of course to not be overpowered. I was originally thinking that ship-based tackle could be used, but that might be too overpowered. Then again, if we only allowed squadrons of support fighters, the escort carrier would be nothing more than an over sized tackler, not exactly a selling point.
As with all battleship-class vessels, it would be allowed in hisec. I know that might strike a nerve with some, but if the bonuses were done properly, it would have about the same DPS than any other battleship hull. Well, it MIGHT be a little harder hitting with alpha. Network Sensor Arrays might be an option, as long as they penalize the same way as carriers.
This might not be one of the best of ideas in general, but it’s something I kind of thought might be a fun thing to have and allow more people to fly together.
I like the escort carrier idea personally, Something to bridge the BS/Cap gap. But you are right that it has been beaten to death.
As much as I’d like to see a 2 fighter squadron hi-sec capable pocket-carrier, (and no I don’t think the Domi counts), I just don’t see CCP implementing it.
Just like BS Shield logi on par with the Nestor. Or a “marauder logi” (mini-FAX).
It just ain’t gonna happen unless the Devs pull a 180. They have way too much stuff they’re already working on to suddenly add in a whole new line/class of ships after they’ve already been tweaking T3Cs and FAX and Carriers and everything already in the game.
I think it is a good idea and would like to see it happen, but I do not think it will happen - at least for the foreseeable future. I agree with Random User83 that it will probably take too much resources for CCP to introduce a new line of ships.
In terms of balance of an escort carrier ship line I think that a balanced solution can be found, but a lot of arguments both for and against the escort carrier idea have already been presented in the threads that Old Pervert refer to so I am not going to repeat these arguments here. I can only suggest to review the arguments already presented there.
The intent to make further use of the precursor skill tree to introduce more ships. Might be some faction with have something that uses the fighter interface. Then it could be balanced by itself since it would not have to fit with anything already established. This might be our best shot at seeing a pocket/escort carrier.
Yeah, I don’t live on the forums, so I only post when I think of something that might be an interesting thought. But thank you for your stellar and intelligent input. I’m sure the rest of the forums would love your epic incite.
Maybe not an escort carrier but Polarized Drones that represent the role of the escort carrier in drone format that could be used in High Sec. A carrier will never be allowed in High Sec, but drones are.
You still seem to think that I care about your incite. This is interesting. I figured you to be an intelligent individual as you have read my reply prior to this one and quoted it. Sadly, I think you missed my point but I will give you the benefit of the doubt that you may have read it again and now know how much I do not really care about your incite. If you don’t understand now, then alas, there is no hope for you. Oh, and as I ALSO stated that I do not live on the forums, and you replied with an attempt to be charismatic in your sarcasm, I will help you with an ever-so-subtle hint: I don’t go through old threads. If I made it my life’s point to care about old threads as much as you, then maybe I would. But that just isn’t the case as I don’t care about my forums post count and related scoring, hence the meaning of “I don’t live on the forums”,
I do hope this has served to give you better understanding that I do not idolize the forums and only wanted to present an opinion in a mature manner. Seeing as you do not enjoy being as such, I will simply say this: I hope the rest of your day is as pleasant as you are.
Strange, as most mature people don’t just leave ■■■■ laying around. They put things in proper places… organization, if you will. You were so mature in your post that you didn’t even bother to see if the idea had come up before, you just posted it again. Mature? No… the term for that is “Lazy”.
To try and excuse yourself by saying you don’t care does not show maturity, it again shows “lazy”. It shows a propensity to ■■■■ where you eat. Again, not maturity.
You may not idolize the forums, and that’s understandable… it’s a cesspool. But it is only such because people like you insist on re-posting ideas, time and again, as though you’re the only one out there to come up with the half-baked (if you’re lucky) idea. Then people like me get grumpy because sigh, yet another post of the same. I could ignore it. I should ignore it. But inevitably, if not me, someone will point out that redundant threads are redundant.
I don’t care about the old threads. They were successfully dying in obscurity. I care about new threads that will inevitably end up dying in that same obscurity. Repetition is a horrible pet peeve of mine.
With any luck, you’ll hit the search button first next time and a productive use will have come from all this.
Your replying, and derogatory manner, is the indicator of your lack of maturity. I figured that was pretty clear before, but I guess I needed to bring it down to simply you are immature.
As far as being lazy? That would be a no. You’re caring so much about me posting about something that may have been discussed in the past (yes, that means I still haven’t wasted my time looking at any links to older posts that I don’t care about) only indicates that you are pretty much on the obsessive side of forums following. It’s slightly depressing, really, to think that there are still people such as this still around. I do believe that is what Reddit is for. You should try it.
I understand that there are people, such as yourself, that only get a thrill out of, I believe the term is “■■■■ posting”, and that’s fine. However, please understand that I simply don’t care about your opinion while doing so.
With any luck, you will move on with your life and get over your forums obsession. And as I said before, I hope the rest of your day is as pleasant as you are.
No to the idea and no to poster’s attitude about basic forum etiquette.
If you want fighters with your subcaps, bring a hyperspatial rigged nid. Capitals are a scourge on this game’s health and balance, SS fighters tracking inties and other subcaps is dumb and completely against EVE’s philosophy of “bigger isnt necessarily better”.
The last thing EVE needs is a subcap that can launch fighters, unless SS fighters get hit with a huge nerf and these escort carrier bonuses compensate. Then of course, we would remove SS fighters from regular carriers. So carriers would need escort carriers for SS support.
Its only fair that carriers need support ships, when battleships need support ships to work properly as well, instead of being solopwn mobiles.
First off, thank you for a proper reply and not a shitpost. That Old Pervert guy was getting rather annoying.
My thought was it would have only a single flight. The bonuses would be set up to where it would have about the same dps as or above a battleship. Perhaps there would be more fighters in the flight and no damage bonus, or vice versa. I do like the idea of SS fighters on the escort only. This would mean less carriers on field and a possibly reduced tidi. Same with having less flights. To be honest, the was my unspoken goal. I just wanted to see if anyone would share the idea. I mean, really, who enjoys tidi? Anything under 10% is absolutely terrible.
With carrier mechanics now, they will always need support. There is no more solopwn for them. No more sky-net. Only the supers have a chance at that and it isn’t a good one.
We already SORT of have this with the Ishtar as a Flight Deck Cruiser…
I agree it’s a nice idea, but the effort makes it unlikely, and if they were adding a new class to the game a new Drone boat class is far from what we need the most given how over-represented drones are in PvE already. I could see using some parts of the idea and giving drone-using races a marauder hull with heavy drone bonuses (similar to those of the Ishtar, only geared for marauder-level DPS).