If you want to turn cruisers into BCs, you need to be nerfing their cruiser attributes.

****, not this **** again

See, people whine about Eve being dumbed down when it's just a simple name change, but a change like this one is true "dumbing down". The armor mass vs shield sig radius penalties are essential attributes of each type of tanking, and add flavor and depth to combat.

The brickiness of fleet Drakes is countered by the fact that hitting one is as easy as hitting the broad side of a barn, while the brickiness of Harbingers is countered by the fact that they are slower than some battleships when fit for maximum tank.

On top of that, 1600mm plates should not be changed. 200mm and 400mm plates are frigate plates, and 800mm and 1600mm plates are cruiser plates. Battleships make do with 1600s, but in case you haven't noticed, the 1600mm plate does not take a significant amount of any battleship's fittings, just as LSEs do not. I would be fine with the addition of 3200mm and 6400mm plates for battleships, or of XLSEs, but the current tank progression is not the problem.

The problem is that across the board, at all tasks, battlecruisers are superior to cruisers. That is, there is not a single thing that a cruiser does well (excepting EWAR) that there does not exist a battlecruiser that does the same thing better. That is causing cruisers to fall into disuse. Changes to tank only doesn't do anything to create a niche for cruisers. It just changes mechanics for the sake of changing them.

If a battlecruiser is supposed to be a heavier cruiser, most things are already fine. "Heavier" implies a bigger tank and bigger damage, which are already the case. However, it also implies "slower, clumsier, easier to hit, and more difficulty against smaller targets", which are not the case -- at least, not significantly. Some solutions to this?

• Buff cruiser speed/agility, particularly in egregiously lacking cases like the Moa and Maller.
• Nerf BC speed/agility (increase their mass) to eliminate nano fit abuse.
• Nerf BC tracking (25% tracking penalty across the board, with equivalent explosion velocity/radius penalty on Drake?)
• Nerf BC signature radius (make 'em bigger)
• If mega-tanks are an issue (I'm not convinced they are), increase penalties of doing so (1600mm plate mass, LSE sig radius)

Simply tweaking tanks of ships doesn't balance them, and a base cruiser having many times the EHP of an assault frigate is not balance.

With the usual gang of deliberately obtuse idiots (ohaidere Alara!) who don't understand balancing.

What makes you think that you should be able to face tank 4 BCs with a cruiser?

-Liang

Your theory falls apart when everything that can hit a Drake also hits a Harbinger. The Harbinger is not countered by the fact that is is slow, it is ignored or fit for Shield. and something must be done about that.

Sooooooooo...

Cruisers need more capacitor. Everyone agrees?
Most cruisers need a bigger fitting grid? Everyone agrees?

The rest of the equation is going to be speed vs. EHP. Raise the cruisers in these areas or nerf BC.

approve since the whole conversation is pointless unless one of you guys is a hidden developer.

You have no idea what sweet CCP _______ name my main has. I am the secret CCP developer that never posts on forums or devblogs, or shows up in videos, or comes to Fanfest, but is the one who actually does all of the work behind the scenes. It's a hobby of mine.

Liang, you are being deliberately obtuse .... Saying CCP will turn it into a rupture, you are basically admitting that it needs more EHP ... But the Rupture is not a particularly good example of a broken cruiser, and given CCP wants to balance for role, the Bellicose won't turn into a Rupture anyway.

If signature and MWD sig bloom are not an issue, as you claim, then clearly CCP was mad for giving AF's a sig radius bonus.

My argument is that cruisers who attempt to use their maneuverability to sig tank simply DIAF, from lack of speed (see Celestis), too much sig (see Celestis) or not enough cap (see Bellicose).

What I said was that giving a role bonus to what is effectively an entire class of ship is pretty silly, and a far more direct solution is to alter the module to fit with the role its supposed to fill. Pretty much the only frigate ship class that doesn't sport sig bonuses are T1 and covert ops cloakers.

-Liang

OP- yes.

Hopefully the upcoming tiericide will narrow the gap between t1 BCs and the cruisers. If cruisers come out decent, with better agility and ewar (thanks to the specialized hulls) then the more powerful BC's I'll consider it balanced. Right now, there's two kinds of cruiser sized PVP ships: BC's, and Hurricanes.

Yes.

Tier 2 BCs are too good, and obsolete cruisers, field command ships, and short range HACs. Tier 1s are fine-ish. Tier 3s almost completely obsolete sniper HACs.

It comes down to battlecruisers being way too light and agile for how much punch they pack. How a battlecruiser "should" be is represented by the Ferox or Prophecy -- perhaps with a bit more firepower tacked on. The Hurricane and Drake, plus the Myrmidon and Harbinger to some extent, are just way too powerful for their price.

The CSM minutes hinted at BCs getting the nerfbat soon. Let's hope those changes will be appropriate.

Glass cannons are exactly what battlecruisers should be. You have a specialized ship with an extremely focused role that they are very good at performing, but thin armor that makes them vulnerable. It is essentially the 'promise' of the battlecruiser concept: big guns, high speed and light armor. It has all the dash and bravado of their real-life counterparts, along with the same weaknesses.

I mean, just read this little snippet from Wikipedia about the real-life BCs. It's essentially exactly what we got with the T3s, and it's no small wonder that that's the design of BC that makes the most sense:


The fault lies with the T2 (and, to a lesser extent, T1) BCs, who are more like 'supercruisers' than they are true BCs. And that's where you run into the issue of 'why the **** should I fly cruiser X when I can pilot BC Y?' And the answer, of course, is you shouldn't, because the T2 and T1 BCs basically out-cruiser cruisers, and, in light of that, there is no strong reason to fly a cruiser at all.

Frankly, in the not-too-far-flung future, I wouldn't mind seeing the role of the T1 and T2 BCs changed signficantly. I know that would make the ubiquitous drake owners all short circuit and threaten to cancel, but, as the OP said, the presence of these 'super ships' with all upside and very minor weaknesses has essentially nullified an entire class of vessel; something that really shouldn't be happening in this 'there's a role for every ship' universe. I'd love to see cruisers again, and I'd love to see all BCs become specialized (but powerful in their role) vessels.

I like this idea a lot. It strikes me that all BCs should use large weapons.

What would be the point of the brutix, ferox, prophecy, harbinger, cyclone, and hurricane, then? The tier 3 would obsolete them all if they all became glass cannons with large weapons. The myrmidon would field five ogres again in addition to large hybrids and the drake would fire torpedoes or cruise missiles; since they have different weapon platforms they wouldn't be obsoleted.