Slithereen
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Posted - 2005.02.14 02:44:00 -
[31]
Edited by: Slithereen on 14/02/2005 02:50:01
My basic ideas are this.
1. Caldari definitely needs a big railgun ship, something in the tradition of the Moa, the Harpy, and the Ferox. We don't need another Caldari EW ship, so you can afford to sacrifice mid slots to increase the low, at the same time, offer more grid to support railguns.
2. Gallente already has a droneship, the Dominix, but the Megathron strikes me as a generalist. CCP can't decide whether to make the Megathron a blastership or a drone ship, so they stuck themselves in the middle. The result is something that does not truly do good in either any of the two fields.
What I propose is a true blastership. Forget about the drones, leave it at 1500m3. Balance the ship to give more grid instead. If you notice, CCP is realizing its mistake on Gallente concepts---the T2 ships, like Enyo and Ishkur, Deimos and Ishtar, are more differentiated with regards to droneships vs. blasterships, and not trying two at once, drone and blastership, like the Thorax/Megathron.
The Megathron should then be repositioned as a railgunship.
3. The Typhoon and the Tempest are also too generalist. Giving them a missile bonus isn't going to help. The Typhoon is being a missile ship, projectile ship and drone ship all at once, but the result is a jack of all trades and master of none that requires too much skills to get the best out of. The Tempest also wreaks of generalization.
So what I'm proposing a specialist gunship for close range work, able to equip autocannons and do scrambling/web duties. Forget the missiles, and just go for more turrets.
So you have more or less, a dedicated autocannon ship. The Typhoon and the Tempest whould be reworked into an artillery ship (with two more turrets).
4. Amarr does not need another damage dealer or tank. You don't need a duplication of services. Waht they need is an EW and missile support battleship. If you armor tank something like this, it would be too powerful, so this ship does not armor tank like a Geddon or Apoc. The Geddon can be repositioned as pulse gunship, while the Apoc becomes a long range beam gunship.
Ny original post for the Gallente and Minmatar also called for an EW ship, but I'm having second thoughts now. Maybe Gallente and Minmatar may need a fourth battleship intended for EW work.
As for balancing aspect, personally I believe it is easier to have more ships doing specialized tasks, rather than to balance a few ships trying to do too many tasks. I don't think CCP can rebalance the current battleships because that's already legacy baggage. They made conceptual mistakes on the part of Gallente and Minmatar at the creation of the game which they could not foresee in the long runs. What's done is done. You made a conceptual mistake which you can't foresee, and you're paying for it in the long run.
So instead of trying to rebalance existing ships and weapons once again in a never ending cycle, so the best thing now is to introduce new ships without the legacy baggage and with the advantage of hindsight. The Destroyers, the Battlecruisers and the new Sigil transport all enjoyed the benefit of hindsight as well as the new T2 ships.
We need more 'hindsight' ships like the Sigil. But we don't need the costs and skill requirements of them being T2. We don't need a superior ship, just something that fits our requirements and better concieved from the experience of hindsight. The success of the Battlecruiser line in the market is a testimony of this.
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