Tech 3 Battleship: Self-Fitting Siege Battleship

EVE Technology and Research Center Player Features & Ideas
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I’ve got an idea for a tech 3 battleship:

The ship would be able to enter fitting mode in which it anchors itself in space and not only gains the ability to change its own modules and subsystems, but other subcap ships nearby it can use it as a fitting service while it is anchored. It has one large subsystem slot and the choice of subsystem radically defines the ship’s role. There would be five major categories of subsystem, and each one could have multiple variants for each faction which define the exact attributes a bit differently within the same basic role. In any role, it must lock itself in place to perform the role at maximum capacity, and may suffer other drawbacks as well. While immobile, the ship also cannot receive remote support but has drastically boosted self-repair. Perhaps it would fit a bastion module to go into immobile mode, and the subsystems would apply special bonuses to the bastion effect.

Carrier subsystem:
These would enable the battleship to run a small number of light fighter squadrons at a lower range than a carrier. It would have DPS similar to other battleships but with a huge range advantage over battleships. It would be able to launch basic drones (unbonused) instead of fighters if it is mobile.

Dreadnought subsystem:
These would grant the ship substantially higher turret DPS than a battleship can normally get, while giving it a severe tracking penalty. While mobile, the ship has normal battleship DPS and tracking but loses its skill damage bonuses as well.

Force Auxiliary subsystem:
These would grant the ship a high capacity for granting remote logistic support to other ships at greatly reduced capacitor cost. Their immobile rep rate is higher than a T2 logistics cruiser as well as having higher range. While mobile it still carries the range bonus but loses the amount and capacitor bonuses.

Supercarrier Remote EWAR Burst subsystem:
These would take away direct offensive potential and instead give the ship special electronic warfare bonuses which allow it to apply its effect not only to the target but to all other targets near that target as well. While mobile it has no ewar bonus. As it has many mid slots with this subsystem, it is still a potent EWAR disruption platform even when unbonused.

Titan Superweapon subsystem:
These subsystems enable the ship to have basic battleship turret offense with fairly low DPS in terms of battleships, however the ship can also fit a special weapon which has a long spool up time and very long cooldown but it can deliver a lot of damage to a target all at once. The weapon is capable of destroying a moderately-tanked battleship in a single hit. The ship’s turret DPS is the same mobile or immobile and is lower than with Dreadnought subsystem while mobile. The special weapon could not be activated within empire space.

In addition to the one subsystem slot, the ship would have five individual fitting wheels, one for each type of subsystem. It could have a set of modules already in place ready to go for when you swap in a new subsystem, thus simplifying the transformation profess. Or if you prefer, you can strip the modules and create a fresh fit. The ship carries a corporate hangar large enough to hold all of its backup subsystems and multiple fittings worth of modules.

The main advantages to the ship are:
1.) It can perform a role with higher power than other battleships
2.) It can fit for a new role fairly quickly without a fitting service available
3.) It can carry a lot of fittings and options

The main drawbacks to the ship are:
1.) It must go immobile to perform the strong roles
2.) It’s expensive and with a lot of backup fittings it can be a loot piñata
3.) It must go immobile and become vulnerable in order to change roles

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1: Why would a T3 battleship need to be made?

That’s a mobile depo which is considerably simpler to deploy than anchoring a ship. Fleet fitting services are for the remainder already exist.

Congratulations on introducing high sec to mobile fighter swarm groups?

Already exists as a specific form of ship.

Already exists as a ship line also.

No, they will never allow high sec to have supercaps.

Hello Jita, let me introduce you to my little friend.

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I am aware of what a mobile depot is. This would offer a way to gain the feature without lugging the depot around.

I don’t see a problem with that. As long as CONCORD still works, people aren’t going to spend over a billion ISK to suicide gank with something that does battleship DPS just because “it has fighters”. Power counts, and mimicking capital ships with less power doesn’t automatically give you capital strength. The best use I can see for these in highsec might be running anomalies.

Not my fault you didn’t read my post and are taking it out of context on the basis of flashy titles.

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How many war decs exist in high sec again? Someone gates in and meets this behemoth you’re making which is about a capital ship in damage output? Heck they can just camp the undock at Jita and blap all day long.

The benefit of a T3 cruiser is that you can adjust it to be something different every time you undock and with a bit of planning switch it on the fly with a mobile depo. A fleet hangar would be a better choice than a corp hangar because this is supposed to be a ship and not a citadel. Any ship that deploys and gets stronger is severely limited on what it can do. There is zero chance that CCP will make a T3 battleship in these formats.

5

Reading. Try it.

6

Writing. Try not to forget what you typed because it’s inconvenient.

1 Like
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+1 :sunglasses:

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I feel like @MinerArt is being overly harsh on this idea.

Yes, there are already ships that do the jobs Reaver suggested. But that EXACTLY what the T3 Cruisers do. Fit a subsystem, and it turns into a HAC. Fit another subsystem, and it turns into a Force Recon. So this idea is perfectly fitting given how the T3s seem to function. Make a Swiss Army hull, and rearrange the subsystems to make it into whatever you want.

If I’m reading this right, none of these effects will come into play unless the ship “anchors” first. I don’t think “anchor” is the term you’re looking for. It’s more like the Marauders changing effects when they “Siege”. So we’ll go with the notion that these are subsystem Siege effects.

I agree that the fitting stuff is pointless though. Mobile Depots are dirt cheap and can easily fit in the corner of anything larger than a Shuttle.

Carrier mode giving access to Fighter sounds interesting.

Dread mode sounds good too. It wouldn’t actually fit Dread guns, but it would increase damage output of the currently fit guns.

… I like all the modes, except maybe the Titan Superweapon. That one is kinda iffy. For one thing, it wouldn’t be allowed in High Sec. That’s the easiest way to prevent Ganks. Just disallow activating the module. But really, what’s the point in having a Dread version and also a Titan version. I think I’d just stick with the Dread.

Another thing I have a problem with, is your expectation that you can adjust these purposes on the fly. That’s not how T3s work. You have to be docked in a station in order to alter your Subsystems. Because you aren’t just rearranging some modules, you are completely refitting the very base components of your ship. So no, I would not allow it to rework itself on the fly. Even if you had to Siege first to do it.

But other than that, I kinda like it ! =)

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That’s not what you were talking about. Also:

Reading. Try it.

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It’s semantics. He was correct in that the volley would be comparable to capital ships. DPS would of course be lower but that doesn’t matter when you can blap anything with two of them. I’ve seen a few of these T3 Battleship idea being thrown about and they’re not bad in essence, rather that I think people seem to want to make them a bit OP.

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It’s not semantics. If I camp I am putting instalock on my ship. If I’m hunting battleships I’m putting ECM on my support craft so they can’t lock me back while the spool up blaping hits.

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An instalock Battleship?

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It’d take a good chunk of support craft but you’d want them orbiting the gate at appropriate distances to decloak someone who isn’t even fully loaded on their pc which with maxed out sensor boosting effects would feel like an instant lock to anyone.

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Yeah that would work too tbh and that’s scary. As i said, if one can instapop a semi-tanked battleship then two will pop anything spool up or otherwise. It seems way overpowered.

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Yeah I’m not totally sold on the titan one either. I kinda just put it in there because I was copying all the other capital ships. You’re definitely right about it not being allowed in empire space. I should add that to the OP.

Tactical destroyers can refit in combat. I wanted this to be different from both the tactical and strategic ship types; to be its own thing. So it cannot easily refit in combat (locks in place without the defensive bonuses) but it can refit out of combat. Perhaps the mobile depots already do this too well, but do they allow subsystem swapping? Maybe this would enable strategic cruisers to refit in space. But also I think the mobile depot is OP and should not have been added. It was a band-aid fix for the lack of fitting options in wormhole space and instead I think there should be micro-citadels for that.

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You didn’t think it thru then… One high slot for an auto targeting system with an overview which ONLY sees things that I am free to blap because wardecs. 5 support craft boosting my targeting remotely. 1 mid slot for using my own targeting boost for ONLY lock times with a script. ECM on the support craft and warp scramblers. You don’t even need a paid for ship for your support craft. 5 to orbit me, 5 to ecm, 5 for warp scrambling. Your cost is now the ECM and scram ship modules. This is how you camp a gate. If this is done in a 0.4 system then you can plant a spy in the high sec to see if they’re coming and not even need to worry about a counter as you can just jump to high.

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Tactical Destroyers don’t have subsystems b/c CCP decided they’re small enough to warrant having multiple purposes built in. Nobody wants to deal with subsystems for something that small. But these are big enough, I’d expect the mechanics to get even more complicated, not less. Also, T3D aren’t “refitting”.

Not to mention, you’re more likely to get this idea to fly with the others, if you keep it from being too overpowered. That’s why I’d drop the Titan mode, and make the other modes into proper subsystems. And the whole thing also hinges on using the Siege module just like a Marauder. That way the balance points are; picking your purpose before you undock, and fitting / activating Siege in order to really gain the benefits. Make it count as a BS until it Sieges. If it’s fitted with RR, then it’s about as useful as any other RR BS. But when you Siege, then it kicks up. Stuff like that.

As for Mobile Depots and “refitting”. The only way this could allow someone to truly refit, especially T3Cs, is if the ship could actually dock inside and come out a completely different looking ship. When you swap subsystems on a T3C, you completely change the hull design. You are literally ripping the nose or tail off the ship and replacing it with another. That’s very different from the turret or missile sockets that are built into the hull of every ship.

And I agree, Citadels make Depots kinda silly. I wouldn’t mind if they either replaced them with a mini-Citadel. Or if they gave them Citadel properties as they are. Like if Depots could use the RR laser on you if you got close enough. I wouldn’t give them Tether immunity stuff, but I’d like to see Depots that can fix you up (provided you have no Flags whatsoever).

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I think that’s the second time i’ve agreed with you and you’ve fought me on it.

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Blah blah blah. Mauraders, Nestors, Praxi, and last but not least Pirate hulls.

Want to know whats wrong with carriers in hisec? Go spend ten min on singularity at CA1. The doomsday type weapon will never be allowed on sub titan hulls.

Now the anchoring and going into siege mode is interesting but two ships already have over lapping roles in that niche.

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Sure, I’ll take three…