Well it's certainly an improvement over the current proposed non-place for them in 5.0.

Would supercarriers be the same except bigger or do you envision a separate role for them?

You're presenting the modes from the point of view of one capital ship being fielded, but with a blob of them all "modes" will be covered to saturation, making mode selection per each ship just a statistical exercise.

In addition to color-coding, I'd like to suggest shape-changing (like T3 destroyers), because the bright nebula backgrounds will render the colors difficult to see. Or, color-coding in the overview.

CCP seems to want very few capital ships to be fielded per fight. The null alliances have many capital pilots (with ships), who are going to suddenly feel unwelcome when it comes time to x up. I wonder how CCP will handle that. How would you?

Every addition to the "versatility" or cap/super will also add to how much large group can "abuse" them. Remember that nobody really cared about sentry carrier until some people decided to try to put 100+ on the same grid. The stupidity of tracking titans also only really became obvious when people put too many on the same grid.

Whatever feels balanced in a vacuum when you pipe up ideas really need to be evaluated withing the "EVE online" framework where any perceived advantage will be capitalized on the the very limit.

For any capital rework idea to ever be done, the questions "How will PL/GSF/NC./whoever push this to the very limit and will be the result then" really needs to be answered. The first "iteration" of caps/supers was obviously though with too short a term for it's scope of potential effect on the game since they didn't take into account the amount that would get built. Don't make the same mistake.

Nice idea

But I don-¦t think that currently Capitals needs what you are proposing. I see what has been done with Caps in general and what you are proposing and I become very sad Panda. You and PL are in unique position to point out how ludicrous the current Super-Cap and Cap ownership and deployment is in the current game meta.

I think we need Titans, Super-Carriers and other Caps. But there needs to be limit on how many can be deployed each time, perhaps then - what you are proposing is an excellent idea.

Take for example PL current incursion into Catch, the current victories have not been won on numbers or clever use of sub-caps - But on-mass use of Super-Capitals.

EVE is an superb sandbox game, we are allowed to do nearly anything we can think up.. but the sandbox is only "so" big, Phoebe made that sandbox little bigger but now we need to limit how deep you can dig before you hit dirt.

-1 due to current game meta.

First, let me say that I think its great you're already active in communicating. You communicated before but I honestly believe you'll step that up as a rep.

I think the idea of modes is not a bad idea for capitals. It's probably not a bad idea for a whole number of ships, but I see how it could be useful for trying to fix capitals. Hell, even the dread could get in on the game, but obviously carriers will garner the most immediate attention. On the other hand, just be done with supers. Or, in case you're going there, Super supers.

As you've said, EVE may need more ships. I'm not convinced they need ships larger than capitals. Supers were a grand idea back when the game was younger. However, as ISK and skillpoints accumulate in the game over time, especially a game this old, they eventually just chase the big ticket items. That eventually just leads to the arms race we've witnessed in recent years. It wasn't just the sov system that led to this arms race. It was the age of the game, the wealth and skillpoints acquired over time, and the easy access to PLEX-based pay-to-play alts. Tack on the endless ISK and resource faucets in the game and its just a constant spiral.

I fully recognize that players will want something to do with their wealth and something new to train for. In other words, end-game "stuff". But that doesn't have to be ships that play into the old n+100 meta. Then again, without players being able to push farther, they may just get bored. But larger and larger ship classes aren't the answer to that dilemma. Real content is.

In the end, I think you're going down an interesting path with the modes. But let's not look back 2 years from now and see that we've just continued to kick the can down the road with the fact that we and CCP can't figure out that bigger and more expensive isn't a better path for the game. Getting rid of supers will be a difficult choice, and one I am quite certain will result in unsubs from all those alt accounts that were built around them or from people who only play Supers Online. Thus I don't ever see that decision being made.

I don't see how we ever put the genie back into the bottle with supers. For their cost, they need to have value and that's the issue we continue to battle: nobody wants them to have a commensurate value because that makes them OP when used on the scale that EVE is capable of producing. It might be better to simply kill the genie and take the entire game down a different path altogether.

PS - Best part of this thread is it's getting the convo started. Worst part is it will be repeated in its entirety when CCP starts its own similar thread.

We don't have two good feet in the eyes of the developer. We have two feet that keep having their toes clipped off because CCP can't figure out a proper balance. Can they get these ships down to an acceptable level of offense and defense? I'm sure they can. Can it be done while maintaining some semblance of value for the money? I don't think so. What kind of offensive and defensive power should ships that cost 15x and 25x the cost of their capital counterparts be capable of?

I know it would alienate those players who have been lulled down the path of the supercapital only to have it ripped out from under them. But whether it is overtly ripped out from under them or slowly made irrelevant over years, that segment of the playerbase should be equally pissed with having basically lost a big ticket item in terms of cost as well as training time.

Hey, give it another try to make them into something relevant. And not just relevant on a ship by ship basis, but relevant given the proliferation we have witnessed in terms of ships and pilots. Sadly, I think we'll be back talking about this again in a year or two. Any changes coming will not be the final solution for these ships and this will be yet another effort at kicking the can down the road. That sounds defeatist, I know; but sometimes mistakes just need to be owned up to and difficult decisions made.

So remove even MORE utility from capitals than CCP already has? What I'm saying is that he's gone to a lot of trouble to lay down a lot of specific numbers for carriers, where you are saying this isn't about carriers (I didn't see any specific modes suggested for other capitals in the OP....).

If you are suggesting that his point is really about other capitals then I'd like to see the very specific suggestions he has for dreads and supers, which could benefit a lot more from this than carriers (which are currently in a fairly good place and IMO don't need to be touched).

What about just removing capital remote reps altogether? This would require taking supercaps with doomsdays and fighter bombers completely out of the equation. If carriers and dreads were forced to be supported by subcap healer magic, would there really be any need for supercaps as we know them today? Hell, you could find a way of giving fighter bombers to standard carriers to give them some sort of genuine anti-capital/structure punch, albeit not at the level of the supercarrier of today. It just seems like the entire idea surrounding the brick-like nature of massed capitals with remote reps is one of the major stumbling blocks.

I agree with Dirk here, in a sense.

Based on what we've seen so far, there aren't a lot of roles left for capitals in the new sov/structure system. I don't think that what there is will probably lend itself well to these sort of changes you are proposing.

Capitals, in their current form, and in the numbers we're used to seeing them, seem to be on the way out in the new meta. If that is in fact CCP's goal (and I have no idea, I have yet to sign my super sekrut squirrel papers) then I personally would rather they find a way to rip of the bandaid and cushion it with some way to recoup at least part of people's investment in time and skill points and ISK. I don't see how you can have a "slow" death of capitals under this new system, they will just mostly be useless appendages.

I don't think a fleet command ship produces any reason to have more than a few supercaps, under Fozzie's proposal. It also isn't an especially compelling mechanic. Moreover, in a system that literally attempts to do away with and split up large battles, slow moving capital blobs are just not a terribly useful mechanic. I almost don't think there is a way you can pay down this "past design debt" without angering the current owners.

I know they don't want to say this to our face, but at some point it might be better to just accept it on their part, because I don't see how you get from here to there with making supers and capitals useful, and still have the game they are currently outlining as their goal. I don't think this proposal does it either.

They might have to go to something radically different, that has an effect on gameplay but simply has nothing to do with direct combat. Perhaps make supers sort of an anchorable temporary structure similar to the other structures that gives some sort of bonus, or creates an area for repair/refitting or shields similar to the current pos shields. Let them defend themselves while anchored. Something. They'd play a role, it would be good to have them, people wouldn't feel quite as ripped off. That's an off the cuff suggestion and I don't hold it out as a for sure GoodIdea (tm). But I feel like that may have to be the direction they go. That still leaves very limited roles for dreads and regular carriers. I honestly as I sit here have not had enough time to pick my brains for a good direction for them given what we now know however.

That would be a good start, yes.