
Foraminifera
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Posted - 2011.08.12 21:55:00 -
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Originally by: Mioelnir
Supercaps: While I am biased as the owner of half a supercarrier (or a full Hel in this case), I do not think supercaps can ever be truly balanced in a rock/paper/scissors/lizard/spock fashion. From the background alone, they will either not live up to them at all and be close to worthless from a game tactics standpoint (leaving players disappointed), or they will pronounce their arrival on the battlefield in confident, bold letters. The last set of changes made supercap use explode, yes. But only because it stagnated for years. As players got older, numbers should have continually increased but did not. The only people that got into them were basically doing it for the looks and the fluff (kind of similar to the reasons behind my Hel). So right now, we are seeing a big rebound to what the numbers should have been all along, meaning we should not overreact.
But, there are certainly tweaks that could and/or need to be made. Personally, I always find it incredible that you put a generic module on a frigate, and *boom* instant wormhole big enough for 250 Titans. Orly?! Often proposed is powering the jump drives up, but I think that is the right idea on the wrong side of the equation. Not the source should need to power up, but the target - the cyno.
So why not introduce a third cyno harmonic for supers, activated not by a feeble module, but a ship (event horizon style)? This ship powers up and creates a cyno that needs cap with mechanics similar to w-space wormholes. Upon activation, and on its own cap, it can't sustain a cyno worth anything but could eventually be enough for one supercarrier if it survives long enough to increase its mass limit sufficiently. Now, if you want to move 40 supercarriers through it, you need to power it up. Feed it cap. Protect it. You need to run it for 7 minutes and constantly pump the output of 8-10 large energy transfer array IIs into it, to swell it to sufficient levels. You need an actual fleet protecting it, defending it, summoning the might of your fleet onto the battlefield. It is hard. It should be hard. And if you succeed, it does have an impact. Your enemies' counter escalation is not instant either but needs to go through the same, and you can disrupt them like they tried to disrupt you. It is also a lot harder to have an escape cyno in place, so if you actually run into a trap, there is only fight and no flight.
Cyno Harmonic 1 (regular cyno): Dread, Carrier, JFreighter, Rorqual, BlackOps, Titan bridge Cyno Harmonic 2 (covert cyno): BlackOps Cyno Harmonic 3 (cyno ship): Supercarrier, Titan itself
Unless of course you are attacking a well populated enemy system, which you eventually have to do, they have 5 titans sitting there and 20 supercarriers. You will never be able to attack them, as no Cyno will ever hold long enough. This would favor an defender way too much. Now if cynos were the only way for caps to travel however, even in systems, it might work.
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