Faction Battlecruisers?

[ihaveahelmet]

The paladin's only use is PVE, and currently it's totally outclassed by the Nightmare for that.

Rooks and Kings frequently use Paladins in pvp for their mixture of range, dps and webs but I can't comment on the ship's worth in that role.

Also yes outside of special snowflake tachyon fits the oracle just kind of sucks. The thing is, the new battlecruisers are natural kiting ships: they're fast, long range, and maneuverable, but they have poor tanks and can't deal with speedtanks. The oracle is the odd one out being the only one that can't really fit a shield tank.

When you kite you don't need a tank, a simple buffer is more than enough (eg LRHAC zealot) and with a proper fit you can do 500-600dps at 100km+ with megapulses, not even using scorch. The oracle and naga are arguably the best tier3 BCs for long range stuff, with the oracle and tornado tied for midrange.

[Wildside]

paladin is totaly validable when you need a "nightmare" ship with armor tank...not sure whats your on about.
Aye...nightmare is bether ...unless u need armor tank.

also a lot of the ships you listed are totaly "fine", and works in certain fleets. You cant make all ships FOTM powerhouses either...tho sooner or later most of them will shine as the metagame changes over the years.
I have to close to 0 experince with the EW t2 frigs so I leave those out.
Black ops need more jump range /fuel bay but thats it.
mauraders is totaly fine to its use(PVE) and most of them arent totaly terrible to pvp either.


ships I listed is the only ones I agree on that need tweaks...

Worm, Succubus, Cruor, Raptor,Scythe Fleet Issue, Exequror Navy Issue, Osprey Navy Issue,Eagle, Cerberus(just some minor tweaks like little more pg), Ferox,Nighthawk(just need more dps), Eos, Astarte.

[ihaveahelmet]

Nighthawk(just need more dps

and grid, last i checked.

[Vonqueesha Shenaynay]

and grid, last i checked.

Yeah for a shield damage sponge, its awfully light on grid

[Viribus]

Rooks and Kings frequently use Paladins in pvp for their mixture of range, dps and webs but I can't comment on the ship's worth in that role.

Doing some napkin math it looks like the paladin is basically an abaddon that's easier on cap and has bonused webs. On the other hand, it has awful sensor strength (with ECCM, only 1 point better than an abaddon) and actually has worse resists. I haven't really seen RNK use them and I'm not surprised I don't; a 90% web on a battleship that goes 800m/s and has a 100mm scan res hardly seems worth it to me, when you can just stick a pair of range-bonused Fed navy webs on a loki and be a lot more useful (not to mention have a better tank).

When you kite you don't need a tank, a simple buffer is more than enough (eg LRHAC zealot) and with a proper fit you can do 500-600dps at 100km+ with megapulses, not even using scorch. The oracle and naga are arguably the best tier3 BCs for long range stuff, with the oracle and tornado tied for midrange.

I don't really know where you're getting those 100km numbers from... even with three (lol) range-scripted tracking computers an oracle has 63km optimal with megapulses using radio, and 59km with scorch.

It's probably true about them being the best sniper battlecruisers, however I don't think it would throw off balance that much to, say, exchange a low for a mid on the oracle. Armour tanking tier 3s is awful and having one of them designed for it isn't a great idea. It'd be nice to be able to fly a megapulse oracle without getting insta-owned by drakes.

paladin is totaly validable when you need a "nightmare" ship with armor tank...not sure whats your on about.
Aye...nightmare is bether ...unless u need armor tank.

mauraders is totaly fine to its use(PVE) and most of them arent totaly terrible to pvp either.

The paladin is probably the least-bad marauder by virtue of having some decent bonuses but still lives in the shadow of the nightmare for PVE. The nightmare can fit a shield tank and stuff its lows with damage mods, and the tracking bonus is generally more useful than a web bonus for ratting anyway since half the time you don't have anything in web range except frigs (which you kill with drones in any case). The nightmare also has enough grid to fit tachyons and a tank without fitting mods, which can't be said of any amarr battleship.

For PVP neither are that useful in the current ~metagame~ but the nightmare has a leg up in not having the sensor strength of a destroyer.

Of course pirate ships are supposed to be better than T2 however, the price difference doesn't really matter with ratting ships and it wouldn't be too hard to change around the fitting and bonuses of the paladin to give it more usability without making it straight-up "better" than the nightmare. The paladin is extremely specialized so to have the nightmare better than it at what it does as well as being useful in a lot of other roles is a bad for balance; the whole point of marauders is PVE so it's kind of dumb when machariels and nightmares are better at it. Actually, it's pretty dumb to begin with that a whole class of ships is made just for PVE by neutering their PVP ability, come to think of it.

The Kronos is just bad, hybrids pretty much suck for ratting and does essentially the same dps as a megathron when you take drones into account. It can't easily be active tanked for PVP because it has to make do with a single cap booster. Also, again, sensor strength.

also a lot of the ships you listed are totaly "fine", and works in certain fleets. You cant make all ships FOTM powerhouses either...tho sooner or later most of them will shine as the metagame changes over the years.

The metagame only changes when the crunch of the game does. AHACs showed up because probing changes made it possible to get relatively slow ships right on top of sniper BS. Drakes showed up as a response to AHACs. Midrange pulse BS showed up as a response to drakes. Alphafleet showed up as a consequence of the projectile rework, etc. etc. These changes in the metagame didn't happen organically, they're all a response to the actual numbers of the game.

The metagame won't magically change on its own if the ships and mechanics stay the same. No one's gonna take out a torp Golem fleet out of the blue. FOTM is actually kind of a silly term because the FOTM fits/ships stick around until something gets patched, not until they "go out of style" or something. FOTM dualprop dramiels lasted precisely from the dramiel buff to the dramiel nerf, for instance.

I have to close to 0 experince with the EW t2 frigs so I leave those out.

The gist of it is: they're really fucking squishy and slow and their bonuses aren't good enough to justify flying them over an interceptor or AF. For example, an MSE keres is about 1.5km/s slower than a similarly-fit Ares, uses more capacitor to run a point, has a much larger sig, and has less EHP and scan res. In exchange, it gets an extra 6km of point range and bonused damps.

Black ops need more jump range /fuel bay but thats it.

They're also pretty useless for actual combat unless you're just straight-up ganking something completely defenseless (in which case you can pretty much use anything and it'll work). Personally I think black ops are a completely wasted opportunity for a class of battleships with an interesting role in PVP besides being a Hound-cannon or just an inferior version of its T1 counterpart. I thought giving them some extra mobility, range, and racial EWAR bonuses while still keeping their disadvantages of bad tank and DPS would be cool; basically making them into battleship-sized recon ships to get people to actually use them in combat.

[ihaveahelmet]

I don't really know where you're getting those 100km numbers from... even with three (lol) range-scripted tracking computers an oracle has 63km optimal with megapulses using radio, and 59km with scorch.

Whoa, you're right, my mistake there. I had the wrong fit loaded up, but the MP one is 70km optimal with scorch for just under 750deeps.

They're also pretty useless for actual combat unless you're just straight-up ganking something completely defenseless (in which case you can pretty much use anything and it'll work). Personally I think black ops are a completely wasted opportunity for a class of battleships with an interesting role in PVP besides being a Hound-cannon or just an inferior version of its T1 counterpart. I thought giving them some extra mobility, range, and racial EWAR bonuses while still keeping their disadvantages of bad tank and DPS would be cool; basically making them into battleship-sized recon ships to get people to actually use them in combat.

I'd like it if beyond the fixes to jump drive stuff they'd make it into something you can actually use for blackops deployment: SMA, CHA and fitting service, but limited to recons and covops for fitting and SMA; basically a BS sized carrier. I think i'll just rage if theygo easymode and dump the covops cloak on them like a lot of sperglords have been asking for.

[Viribus]

I really don't understand the obsession with the covops cloak thing, do people seriously think that's the problem with blackops? I mean, speed bonused regular cloaks with no targeting delay are almost functionally identical to covops anyway.

[Hilmar Keller]

I really don't understand the obsession with the covops cloak thing, do people seriously think that's the problem with blackops? I mean, speed bonused regular cloaks with no targeting delay are almost functionally identical to covops anyway.

Except for that whole warping issue, since warping onto grid cloaked is pretty fucking neat in my experience.

[ihaveahelmet]

Except that this can be achieved even more efficiently by the jump drive

[Hilmar Keller]

Except that this can be achieved even more efficiently by the jump drive

Right up until your cynos are dead. Then you might as well be in a Dominix with a cloak.

I think this is the main gripe with Blackops, actually - for a ship that's so effing expensive (about 574mil for a Sin in Jita atm), it doesn't offer much beyond that covert jump portal generator. Sin has two fewer turret hardpoints, less buffer, less powergrid and one less low slot than a Dominix. So it's a gimped Dominix which costs nine times as much. At least Recons can escape from sticky situations and Hictors can tank like crazy. The next most expensive subcaps are Faction BS and Marauders, and those are better in all the obvious ways (DPS/tank/fitting/extra bonuses) and are useful in highsec/lowsec/nullsec. Sin gets role bonuses at the expense of everything else, and said role bonuses are only useful in lowsec/nullsec. Covert jump bridges aren't comparable to Titan jump bridges because you can only bridge Covops/Bombers/Recons/Blackops and with shorter range.

Maybe if these pieces of shit cost half as much, people would actually be willing to use them/lose them.

[ihaveahelmet]

Covert jump bridges aren't comparable to Titan jump bridges because you can only bridge Covops/Bombers/Recons/Blackops and with shorter range.

And it's not blocked by cynojammers

And the cyno doesn't appear on overview unless it's on your grid and only locks the user for 30seconds.

And you're using the Sin as the basis of your argument. The Sin is globally accepted as being fucking terrible, whereas the things you can pull with a Redeemer or Panther are pretty awesome.

edit: To sound like less of a bitch, the problem is that you're comparing a very specialized ship with a common ship-of-the-line. Black Ops require you to be a lot more creative to use to their full potential. Up until he lost his, Ohh Yeah managed to single-handedly "lock down" 6VDT on a couple occasions. https://www.pandemic-legion.com/kill...lot.php?id=Ohh Yeah&type=kills&start=285

If they were as tanky (or tankier) than their T1 counterparts, with more damage to boot they would way over the top. Titans of subcaps. And yeah the Sin is a literal piece of shit, get another one.

[Hilmar Keller]

The Sin is the only one I've used, that's why it's the basis of my argument.

In that case, replace every instance of 'Blackops' with 'Sin' and my argument is still totally valid. Either buff the fucking thing or cut the price.

[Matos]

Oracles make good snipers and bashers. I think that is enough to make them not terrible

If you mostly fly mid/close range shield Setups it going to be useless for you but not every Ship should be valid in every role. There are more then enough ships worse off which should be changed first.

[ihaveahelmet]

The Sin is the only one I've use

My sympathies

[Zagdul]

I would much rather see a new form of anom introduced that needs to be done with capital ships.

This anom introduces faction dreads/carriers.

The bonuses to the ships would add things like:

Amarr = Neut range (dread + 1 high slot) PG/CPU reduction on capital neutralizer (new mod) *
Caldari = + 1 high slot, can fit remote ECM.
Gallente = Drones back in the dread + more space in the carrier (enough to fit+field 5 fighterbombers but that's pretty much it)
Mini = Can fit warp disruption field generator (+1 high slot)

*capital neutralizer would take up as much cpu/pg as 3 remote reppers so fitting would be tight.

[Hilmar Keller]

Two things:

First, your proposed faction capitals fill niche roles normally held by subcaps, such that a blob of these could function in lieu of support. That's not a good thing.

Second, if subcaps can't enter these anoms, how are the capitals running them supposed to get tackled? Except by your proposed Mini capital?

[The Fireclown]

While faction battlecruisers might turn out to be fun, would they not just be too pricey for large-scale PvP employment in any case? Faction destroyers (or indeed just tier 2 destroyers), however, might see some use.

Or am I just a terrible cheapskate?

[Viribus]

You're a terrible cheapskate. People routinely pvp in multibillion isk faction battleships.

[The Fireclown]

I don't deny being a space-miser, but I'd hardly say that PvP-fit faction battleships are something I see "routinely". Perhaps I don't spend enough time in Lowsec enjoying ~elitePvP/station games~.

[Quesa]

I believe they are seen more in lowsec than in nullsec. There appeared to be a spike in use when they first came out but as the ridiculousness of the current fleet warfare being monopolized by 1 or 2 fleet comps, I can't see them being used for fleets which approach the numbers of 50-60 pilots.

[The Fireclown]

Your point about fleet composition is well-made; having returned after two years' absence, variety has notably lessened.

Thinking about it, I begin to warm to the idea of faction battlecruisers. Faster Drakes (just as an example) which dealt more damage, but still had the same tank would - presuming the hulls' cost was somewhere between a heavy assault ship and a command ship (say 200 million) - might work well for nano-kiting gangs. The problem with that, of course, is that you'd disrupt PvE's balance by giving missioners a passive-tanked battlecruiser which outperformed an active-tanked battleship...