been done to death.

racial orcas.


moving on.

Jeez. Fighters, from my understanding, at a Roaming fleet, are useless. People want fighter, while the variety of drones ALONE should be the strong point of the Escort Carrier. Imagine, 10 Neut drones launched at a single target, or 10 ECM drones roaming around, causing havoc during a small fleet engagement. Its an Advantage that, most certainly, I wouldn't pass up.

The fact that it can use ten drones out is reason enough to have one. Be it rep, ECM, Neut, damage drones in whatever order. Fighters are useless in that regard, cause carriers aren't considered a solo ship. Well, at least in this case. There is no point in going solo with an escort carrier. There is no need for such amount of firepower the fighters provide. Considering they are giving drones an extra module + the modules we already have (which, I think, are quite underused), the Escort Carrier (Drone Boat) would make those modules usable in a way, add some firepower, add some extra utility and not being overpowered.

There is no need for fighters, but a big drone bay is needed for a Drone Boat to actually function.

Instead of Carriers, call em Swarmer Class Drone Boats or something. Just Call em Drone ships. Thats one class of ships that aren't implemented in the game to its fullest. Calling a Dominix a Drone Boat is as much truth as saying that Minmatar are exclusive Shield Tankers, like Caldari.

love the general idea. all the quibbles are valid points, i personally am on the fence about fighters. also, perhaps instead of +1 drone per level, perhaps instead you could consider 20% damage and hitpoints per level? also, you could keep the fighter and drone bays as a single bay, assuming you keep the drone space under 5000m3 (which you plan to based on what i've read).

expanding on that blurb a bit.

my general understanding of this, having read the thread, is basically an orca-sized ship (midway between capitals and battleships - an orca is neither, yet shares good qualities of both) that is a dedicated drone command/control platform. i find i fall on the mildly buffed large remote reps side of things, but i am far from convinced either way. i find the burst rep amount from capital reppers to be too much for such a ship; a boosted large would be far more appropriate. i also agree with a small range increase, but not one comperable to logi cruisers - about 26km sounds just perfect. enough to be used as a center pin in PvP (or PvE), but not enough to give full mobility to a gang, especially if the ship itself is roughly as slow as an orca.

while i dont believe that carriers would be pushed out of use by these at all (or removed from their niche or whatever the PC codeword is these days), i also am not convinced that fighters would be anything more than redundance. my vote, as of now, is to strip fighters from them, simply because drones would do it better in my eyes. i dont believe that having them assignable is really worthwhile, either from a PvP perspective (because, lol fighters) or a PvE one (because sentries would just be more effective, at least in anoms and the like.

beyond that, you guys seem to me to be running in circles, explaining the same things to one another time and again. agree to disagree, and then go quibble over something else imo.

thing's i'm curious about:

would these be allowed into gated deadspace? (i vote yes, based on orcas/freighters being allowed to do so)

can, in OP's eyes, they use capital local reps? (i vote yes regardless of which way the remote repairs discussion goes, but perhaps with some negs.)

would love to see some dev interest in this. i think it's a valuable way to expand the capital roster without making new LOLHOTDROP ships.

Actually all of the contention as far as I could see was with fighters or with questions regarding the right mix of logistics. Not anything about capitals.... unless you count capital reps, but that was more about the REPS than the CAPITAL part.

I understand you dont want bigger ships and that is fine, this is a bigger ship so it probably isnt what you are looking for and that is fine too.

Thanks for your input.

I don't even know what this means.

What does this mean?

the "instead of +1" with 20% damage per lvl will still only put this ships dps at the same lvl as a domi ( not counting guns ) which we wanna try and top... 10x heavy drones + the 100% drone damage gives you roughly 900-950 dps which is not over the top ( this does not have the new module considered )

Well it used to be that one could field 15 drones in certain ships. Then lag happened.

Bumping for the pure greatness of the idea.

I would love to see a ship which is to the Orca, what a Carrier is to a Rorqual.

Thanks!

And I assume you mean a ship that is to the CARRIER what the Orca is to the Rorq.

Agreed, and that was part of the impetus for this idea in the first place.

Thanks for your support.

I thought of a possible addition to this idea and posted it here: Interceptors

With this idea (still has a lot of work to be able to be fully included) escort carriers would be a good addition to capital fleets and a great way for BS gangs to mitigate the LOLHOTDROP Supercarrier.

Thoughts?

ok' this actully does make the escort carrier idea intresting. They trully would be escorts' but they wouldn't be truly OP in highsec. I like.

Bump for one of the greatest ideas to be posted in a long time

Thank you.

What do you think of the Fighter Interceptor idea?

the "instead of +1" with 20% damage per lvl will still only put this ships dps at the same lvl as a domi ( not counting guns ) which we wanna try and top... 10x heavy drones + the 100% drone damage gives you roughly 900-950 dps which is not over the top ( this does not have the new module considered )

i really like the idea of have a ship for in between battleships and capitol ships, as it is the moment you get advanced spaceship command to only way to really get anything from it is to train it up to 5 immediately (unless you are going for the orca/rorqual) so this will allow to make that gap smaller perhaps requiring advanced spaceship command at lvl 3