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Dust Irae
Minmatar Uusasai Corporation
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Posted - 2009.10.12 02:29:00 -
[1]
I am only nearly a month old, so I understand I have a long way to go, but I do have this dream of flying around in a carrier, or even better, a mothership. They fascinate me - huge, incredibly useful, very great ships that can do a lot of stuff, with a bunch of tiny fighters that fly out and rip things apart. I just don't know what I would do with one, exactly, or how I would even acquire one.
Could some older players who have piloted, or even just blown up or fought with/against carriers and motherships tell me all about them? What are all of the roles of a carrier/supercarrier in a big fleet battle, or even a small battle? What do carrier pilots do with their carriers when they are not in the middle of a huge battle? How do you even get a carrier? You can't just buy one in Jita and undock and fly off, right?
Anything interesting about these ships, I would love to hear. I watched some videos featuring carriers (one awesome video about a lone mothership getting blown apart by a huge fleet that ambushed it) and they are just cool ships, but they really are mysterious to me.
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Celeritas 5k
Caldari Destry's Lounge Important Internet Spaceship League
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Posted - 2009.10.12 02:50:00 -
[2]
You probably won't ever fly a supercarrier (aka mothership). They cost more than your average player can realistically earn, they can't dock, and require alliance level logistics to manufacture.
A carrier is a smaller version, will cost in the ballpark of a billion isk with fittings, and will take at least a year of dedicated training time to fly decently. They can't use jumpgates, instead they move by burning fuel (which isn't terribly cheap) to jump straight to a cyno field placed by someone in your gang. Max range is usually somewhere around 12 jumps. They can dock, but they can't go to highsec. Fighters will pretty much own a battleship's face, and it'll take several battleships to even break one's tank. They can't fit any guns or launchers, but they do get pretty good remote rep bonuses. They can carry about 3 battleships (right around a million m3 of hangar space, check the volume on an unpackaged ship to see how much it takes up.) On top of that they have a corp hangar and a cargo bay (I believe they're getting a fuel bay with the new patch, not sure what the sizes on those are.)
That pretty much cover it? - NEVER PVP SOBER. |
Dust Irae
Minmatar Uusasai Corporation
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Posted - 2009.10.12 03:05:00 -
[3]
That's good. So a carrier is actually attainable for an individual, but a mothership would be so prohibitively expensive, that the only people who can expect to pilot one would be people who've been in a big 0.0 corp for a very long time, who are well-connected, and good players, and their corp decides that when they build a mothership, that'll be the guy to pilot it. I am probably not going to be 'that guy' for a very long time.
So, when not participating in a big fleet battle, would a carrier pilot use his carrier for ratting and seeking some small scale PvP, or would he be more likely to dock it, and go out in a smaller ship? Since you need a cyno field to jump to, flying a carrier solo when you could use a BS instead seems impractical?
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Serge Bastana
Gallente GWA Corp
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Posted - 2009.10.12 03:13:00 -
[4]
You shouldn't be flying a carrier solo, and as you've already noted, you need someone to light a cyno for you. Carriers still need support in combat, just as they lend support to bigger ships. Thinking you can substitute a carrier for a battleship will end up with you losing a large amount of money quite quickly.
Battleships can be flown solo, and often are and cost a lot less to lose and take a lot less time to train for. With a carrier you not only have the skill book and the ship to purchase, you should also all the capital module skills to train for and many pilots faction fit their ships, T2 is usually laughed at on capital ships. ------------------------------------------------ You either need a punch up the throat or a good shag.
Nobody round here is offering the second one therefore your choices are limited! |
Celeritas 5k
Caldari Destry's Lounge Important Internet Spaceship League
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Posted - 2009.10.12 03:14:00 -
[5]
Yep, a carrier is attainable for an individual. Many people do get one, as they are awesome for logistics. Being able to move 3 battleships past 0.0 bubblecamps is really handy...
A carrier pilot would probably leave it docked the majority of the time. Ratting in one is just asking to get it ganked... Everyone and their mom wants to be on a carrier killmail, and they aren't even all that good for ratting because they align slowly, warp slowly, and target slowly. If you did anything, you'd leave the carrier at a POS and assign your fighters to a friend while he rats. (Fighters will follow people in warp, when you assign them to someone they act like they are his drones.) Carriers are just too expensive and juicy to bring out if you don't have some kind of support.
They aren't used all that much in small scale PVP, unless you're getting hotdropped on a small gang (Someone waits till they aggress, lights a cyno, and then you and your 15 carrier friends jump to him and instamelt their 5 man t1 cruiser gang before they can make it back to the gate. It's great fun, lemme tell ya...) - NEVER PVP SOBER. |
Dust Irae
Minmatar Uusasai Corporation
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Posted - 2009.10.12 03:22:00 -
[6]
Edited by: Dust Irae on 12/10/2009 03:22:49 Alright, so it is, understandably, a bad idea to fly a carrier solo. It is not a god, and without support, it could be easily ambushed and lost. Really, I guess any solo capital ship would be a big, attractive target for a lot of people, who might not even be interested in going after a solo battleship.
What is the smallest fleet a carrier would have a practical role in? Or, rather, what would be the smallest roaming gang including a carrier, that would be viable? If it isn't wise to solo a carrier, It probably also isn't wise to fly around with just one other guy in a battleship?
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Kahega Amielden
Minmatar Suddenly Ninjas
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Posted - 2009.10.12 03:35:00 -
[7]
Edited by: Kahega Amielden on 12/10/2009 03:36:23 Definitely not one other guy in a battleship. I have little experience with caps myself, but when the fleet numbers at least a few (6+) then you can start thinking about bringing a carrier in. They're really expensive, though...a few hundred mil or so for a carrier. While they can be insured, you still want to be really careful with one. While it will be awhile before you're carrier-ready, when you do want to fly one, consider flying with a corp that will pay for part of it, or will reimburse you part of the loss (or pay for insurance or something).
Carriers also really shine in logistical roles. They can rep POSes, transport ships, and do a bunch of nice stuff that's really difficult without a jump-capable ship.
If you want to be a carrier/MOM pilot, I'd focus on Gallente droneboats. Drone skills and fighter skills are more or less the same.
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Celeritas 5k
Caldari Destry's Lounge Important Internet Spaceship League
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Posted - 2009.10.12 03:44:00 -
[8]
Even a battleship solo in 0.0 is probably a bad idea. The largest ship I'd be comfortable flying alone, assuming I had some form of intel on what's going on in the systems around me, is a battlecruiser.
As to your second question, I can't really give you a good answer because I haven't had all that much PVP experience involving a carrier (though I have been in fights both against them and with them on my side.) I'd say it all pretty much depends on the situation... They aren't usually involved in "for the hell of it" fights; most people don't bring out a carrier unless it's a fairly organized offensive or they're defending something important.
Carriers can't use gates, so they don't roam. The closest they get is hot dropping. - NEVER PVP SOBER. |
Dust Irae
Minmatar Uusasai Corporation
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Posted - 2009.10.12 05:00:00 -
[9]
Thanks for all of the replies; I definitely learned a few things here.
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Aisley Tyrion
The Penumbra Initiative Atropos.
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Posted - 2009.10.12 06:02:00 -
[10]
Motherships are getting revised in the coming expansion Dominion. They'll get HP buff and the ability to wield fighter-bombers designed to kill other capitals. However, they are losing the ability to use Triage module (enhances remote repping capabilities but nails the carrier in place) and fit Clone vat bays (which isn't that critical).
And two corrections to the posts above.
1. Carrier can carry two, not three, battleships. Still very handy though.
2. Drone support skills don't affect fighters. Fighters are only affected by Fighters skill itself and the bonuses from carrier.
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Dust Irae
Minmatar Uusasai Corporation
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Posted - 2009.10.12 06:58:00 -
[11]
Edited by: Dust Irae on 12/10/2009 06:58:28 Drone skills don't affect fighters?
Oh, that brings me to another question. Can a carrier use drones and fighters simultaneously?
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Gartel Reiman
Civis Romanus Sum Pax Romana Alliance
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Posted - 2009.10.12 07:20:00 -
[12]
Originally by: Dust Irae Drone skills don't affect fighters?
No - in as much as you won't get damage increased by Drone Interfacing, or speed increased by Drone Navigation, etc. WYSIWYG.
Quote: Oh, that brings me to another question. Can a carrier use drones and fighters simultaneously?
Sure - in this context, fighters are just a different size of drone, so a carrier can do this in the same way that any other ship can use large and/or medium and/or light drones simultaneously.
However, I'm not sure quite why you'd ever want to do this. If you're attacking a target against whom fighters are more effective (i.e. big targets), then use a full flight of fighters. If you're attacking a target against whom combat drones are better, then use a full flight of drones. If you're attacking multiple targets, focus on one at a time using the most effective full flight against each of them. If you're attacking under sentry gun fire and don't want to risk your fighters getting popped (they cost around 25m ISK each), then a mixed flight isn't a good way to do this.
One possible situation I suppose is if you've lost a few of your fighters such that you can't field a full flight anymore - so you launch everything you've got left and supplement them with heavy drones. Yes, you could do this.
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Dust Irae
Minmatar Uusasai Corporation
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Posted - 2009.10.12 07:30:00 -
[13]
Edited by: Dust Irae on 12/10/2009 07:29:53 Oh, by the way, I just found: http://www.hygelac.org/eve/guides/carriersfaq.pdf It's a big .pdf FAQ about carriers. It seems really outdated - but a lot of stuff probably still applies?
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destinationunreachable
Hello Kitty Fanclub
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Posted - 2009.10.12 12:39:00 -
[14]
As it just has been mentioned, but not stressed so far:
Carriers are first and foremost logistics. The main job of a carrier pilot is to rep others (usually dreads). A smaller side role is to sit next to a pos and assign your fighters to fast locking ships (like interceptors) to do some damage. All in all you will almost never get to target anyone yourself or get on any killmail. So if you want to fight - carriers are the wrong choice.
As the role of moms (or now called supercarriers) is being changed, there might be some action there (they will be used as cap killing ships). But as others have mentioned - supercaps (moms & titans) are not eprsonal ships, but alliance ships and to fly one you need to be in a larger alliance. As they cannot dock they are often flown by dedicated alts, which have just been trained to fly supercaps.
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Joe Starbreaker
Octavian Vanguard
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Posted - 2009.10.12 16:12:00 -
[15]
Take everything you know about Motherships and throw it away; they are being completely changed in the next expansion. In theory they are currently large logistics ships (in reality nobody uses them for anything except as status symbols) but in the next expansion they will be turned into capital-killing PVP ships. Titans, too, will be turned into fighting ships. So it's going to be really interesting to see which ships get used and how.
Also the changes to sovereignty may mean that motherships are much easier to manufacture, so the prices may come down a bit. Hard to predict until CCP tells us more.
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Khandara Seraphim
StarHunt Systematic-Chaos
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Posted - 2009.10.12 18:40:00 -
[16]
useful carrier guide
I occasionally use my carrier to do stupid things (carrier ratting ftw!) or use it in a fight, but 99% of the time I only undock it to jump things to and from my 0.0 home.
That said, even with such a boring sounding job it's still the most useful ship I have ___________
Originally by: CCP Whisper Boo hoo. Cry some more. |
Manu Hermanus
FaDoyToy
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Posted - 2009.10.12 18:46:00 -
[17]
eh an aeon just sold for ~16bil http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1191361
easily attainable if you have the drive. You're posting again!? Has it really been 5 mins?
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Dust Irae
Minmatar Uusasai Corporation
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Posted - 2009.10.12 19:55:00 -
[18]
Originally by: destinationunreachable As it just has been mentioned, but not stressed so far:
Carriers are first and foremost logistics. The main job of a carrier pilot is to rep others (usually dreads). A smaller side role is to sit next to a pos and assign your fighters to fast locking ships (like interceptors) to do some damage. All in all you will almost never get to target anyone yourself or get on any killmail. So if you want to fight - carriers are the wrong choice.
Yeah, this seems really true, but it's also an attractive thing to me. A carrier's main role is for support, but it does the job of support in such an incredibly valuable way, that I can't even imagine a skilled carrier player not being useful and valued in a big war scenario, so that's definitely the kind of role that would be gratifying to fill.
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