Demian Sky
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Posted - 2005.03.12 18:23:00 -
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I think dreadnaughts could provide a spectacular opportunity to revive the other ship classes of Eve, and I think I've got a way...
Make dreadnaughts everything we truly want them to be. Make pilots recoil in horror as they witness it's mightiness. Make them cut through BS's like tin foil. Have 'em be able to move THEMSELVES for god's sake. Give them jump drives, horrific firepower, and rediculous ammounts of armor... just take away all but an infentesimal ammount of cap recharge and restrict them from using any cap recharge modules, boosts or anything that can repair their shields, armor, or hull. Force them to have a retinue of logistics ships follow them around everywhere they go to replenish their cap and armor/shields.
Let me ellaborate.
The dreadnaught would have firepower that would make any pilot fear flying a battleship ever again (but cruiser and frigates would be completely untouchable by the XL turrets). In my opinnion, there NEEDS to be an element in this game that keeps the battleship from being the end all, be all ship class. They would also have hitpoints that would give them a very long longevity, and allow them to keep afloat for a good period of time while under intense fire. The trick, however, is to:
1. Make sure that everyone isn't flying them by forcing it to have maintenance ships follow it around. Anyone in a maintenance ship is obviously not in a dreadnaught :-)
2. Make it killeable by a small squad (15 or so) of light vessels over a long period of time, if it is left alone without escorts (or the escorts are killed). If it can't replenish it's hitpoints without logistical vessels, then it can easily fall prey to wolf packs of light strike craft if they attack it long enough.
3. Find a way to prevent dreadnaughts from being able to log off in combat. If PVPers are having a hard time killing regular old battleships because they log off in combat, imagine a dreadnaught! Perhaps, when targetted by ANYTHING, a dreadnaught is incapable of logging off. Also, to prevent them from skipping to a safe spot and logging in 25 seconds, require them to activate a special item that places them in a comfortable cubby hole in space that takes 5-10 minutes to activate.
4. Make Dreadnaughts a to-the-death ship. What do I mean by this? In combat, a Dreadnaught and its escorts must drive their foes from the field or be destroyed. Don't allow dreadnaughts to slip away easily from combat. If the dread warps away, it should generate a warp signature so large that any enemy vessels can easily follow it to its precise point of arrival and continue the fight. Make it so that those with dreadnaughts think twice before fielding them clumsily and haphazardly (in other words, no dreadnaughts sitting with a couple of hommies at a jump gate, ganking battleships for an hour or two).
I think, deep down inside, we all want Dreadnaughts to be horrendous death machines that are an awsome sight to behold, we're just all bogged down in the practical and balancing issues. The above, I believe, is a way to keep it balanced (with a good number of refinements, I'm sure!). Let's kick battleships down from their ivory perch!
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