And while we're on the topic of BCs, you really should know that the skill is being split into racial variants sometime around May. If you want to get all 4 to 5 when it happens, start training BC to 5 and all racial cruisers to 3.

tl;dr: they're doing a big ship rebalance. They just got done with BCs.

What makes you think that DPS is down?

No one in this thread said that DPS was down...

I thought for a second that DPS had gone down because the ship had one fewer launcher. Then it was pointed out that the loss of a launcher came with an increase in per launcher damage, which results in a net gain of DPS.

Slightly annoyed that I'm going to need Information Warfare V and Skirmish Warfare V to fly a Command Ship after the Summer, but pretty happy that I probably won't need Caldari Battleship V anymore. Kind of wish I could get it to turn back to white from yellow, but oh well.

No. You need info/skirm warfare V to INJECT the command ships SKILLBOOK, not fly command ships.
So if you can fly command ships now, you'll be able to after the patch.

Slightly annoyed that I'm going to need Information Warfare V and Skirmish Warfare V to fly a Command Ship after the Summer, but pretty happy that I probably won't need Caldari Battleship V anymore. Kind of wish I could get it to turn back to white from yellow, but oh well.

One additional thing to note: (especially for you pilots who like flying with gang links): the tech 1 battlecruisers can more easily be fit with a single gang link than before, and even still be quite viable for use in combat. For now, that means you can have gang links in small roams. But eventually links will probably have to be on the field to function -- or at least outside of a POS shield. There was a devblog mentioning that too, but I can't remember where it is and don't want to go digging for it.

Here's something you might be interested in, though. It's a devblog which goes over all the changes to skill requirements for ships. If you can fly it now, you will be able to later. But if you're close to being able to fly it now and haven't injected the book, you might wanna browse and see what changes will be made, to decide if you wanna make a push and get it before Odyssey, or wait till afterwards. Either way, you can potentially save yourself a ton of trouble.
http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/74234

Navy Battleships:

Increasing requirement to fly Navy Battleships previously known as Tier 1 (Armageddon Navy Issue, Scorpion Navy Issue, Dominix Navy Issue, Typhoon Fleet Issue) from level1 to level2 to make it consistent with other navy ships. Since the training from level1 to level2 only takes a few hours, we will not adjust your Racial Battleship level. Please make sure you train it before the change if you still wish to be able to fly Navy Battleships

But it does make me wonder why the change for consistency when it defeats your mantra of "if you can fly it now you can fly it after." Especially when they state that the training time difference is only a few hours at most anyway.

/shallow thoughts with Ersahi Kir

everything is worth mentioning.

one of the big problems eve faces is the lack of documentation internal and external of how things work, are supposed to work and do actually work.

this also happens to be true of most things and is not a problem exclusive to CCP. they just have it slightly worse.

All this is fine... I just wish they would update the ship model along with the stats. One empty missile slot looked bad enough, Looks bloody stupid with TWO! They always do half a job.

When did you need BS 5?

It's not the only one. They didn't update any models for several ship changes now, and it really shows in a bad way. You should see the mess that is the Arbitrator now, or even the Myrmidon.

I'm sure they'll fix it SoonGäó

CCP: "Working as intended."

It is worth pointing out...

That if CCP charged 20 USD (or a plex) per expansion, per account.. they'd have, roughly 15ish mil USD a year to hire more people to give us a more polished and finished product.

But they are infact, free expansions.

Personally.. I try not to ***** too much concerning free products handed to me. I don't know.. maybe I'm just weird like that. I wouldn't mind if they went the other route either, and charged us so they had more funds to do more.

It is also worth pointing out.. that hardpoints can still be used on ships (not all now, I know) if you place the turret/launcher in 'utlity slots'. Incase some people unaware that have read this.. try it out. It's kinda cool how you can makes yours a lil different looking than someone elses setup.

You may also wanna know that they are doing the same thing to destroyers as with the BCs. They are splitting it the same way and to get all races you should train Destroyers to 5 and have all racial cruisers frigates to 3 4

fixed... you don't need the cruisers to get the new racial destroyers.

Most are going for the full set (racial frigate 4, racial cruiser 3, destroyers 5 and battlecruisers 5)

Plus it's worth injecting Command Ships and Racial Freighter before the change too if you are near to meeting the current requirements to learn the skill.

Injecting the skill will not do you any favor.

You cannot add skills to the training queue that you do not have the prerequistites for.