As much a start as increasing Imicus cargo bay would be. People stopped flying BCs long before warp speed changes, mostly because they are space garbage with no role or purpose or advantages over any other ship class, only weaknesses.

Here's a suggestion, especially in conjunction with the posted Entosis Link stats from your other thread:

Give Combat Battlecruisers a role bonus to Medium MJD activation times. Something on the lines of 50-70% or so, like Marauders. Do not include this bonus for Command Ships.

This would give the CBCs some very, very unique abilities and open up a whole lot of new gameplay options for them. While their on-grid speed would be a lot slower than existing doctrines, and their ability to avoid instalock gatecamps would similarly be poor, they'd have some AMAZING ability to reposition on grid and counter sniping / kiting doctrines. They'd retain some vulnerability to bombing runs, but would retain the ability to GTFO to another spot on grid. Combined with their large existing powergrid, they'd become ideal platforms for using the larger T2 Entosis Links with their 250km lock range, while the heavy cap use of the T2EL and the MMJD would require careful management.

Add this to the warp speed tweaks, and CBCs become rather interesting again I'd think. Someone might even let you bring your Drake.

Thoughts?

Actually this is one of the problems with F&I - when an idea is generally well received, few people comment on it, so it looks like no one cares. Looking at the 1300 views the thread has garnered, however, leads me to believe that more people care than are posting.

So most eve players are less than a year old?

As for the isk, you can make 80mil/hr on level 3 missions in highsec at just 4 months old.

More News at 11.

The benefits BC give over cruiser equivalents, or BS over BC/cruisers is linear and negligible, while the price is isn't.

Battleships at 200m is a joke. Awhile back, tier 1 and 2 at 60-110 mil was bearable by the market.

Nowadays? Cruisers Online.

So that would be 250m for the naked hull and the insurance, you do know you may want to fit something there first?

Thing is you do not get 350m worth of isk, you get 65m isk worth if that. But you will get kited in a 70m isk hull instead, which you cannot hit.

i thought he didn't blitz, but I can't seem to find the thread for it.

So, throwing together a couple of skeleton fits for testing purposes...

Drake with a single Explosion Velocity rig vs a Caracal with a 10MN Afterburner. Both use the EFT all-5s profile, and both have 3 BC IIs and a full loadout of HMLs.

The Drake applies 142 DPS to the Caracal and the Caracal applies 284 DPS to the Drake. Exactly double the applied DPS, but the Drake has almost four times the raw EHP of the Caracal and, when you look at some of the other available fittings can be passively fit to tank the Caracal all day, while the Caracal can not perma-tank the Drake, though it can probably escape easily. In a straight up fight of raw EHP between gangs of 10 the Caracals are going to lose at least two ships for every Drake that dies.

It's also worth noting that the Caracal gains no benefit from a Target Painter in this situation, but the Drake sees an increase to 176 applies DPS from just a single Tech 2 TP.

Running a similar setup between the Hurricane and the Rupture with ACs but with a single Tracking Enhancer on each ship we see a similar relationship, except the Hurricane is only losing on DPS by about a 1/3rd (389DPS to 283DPS at 5km, optimal DPS range for the Rupture) and still maintains a convincing tank advantage over the Rupture.

In short, a Battlecruiser with a similar basic fit has distinct advantages over a Cruiser. Of course the details of these fits are going to make or break them, but the BC has more fitting space, more slots, and more EHP to play with and uses the same weapons, so while it may not be able to catch every Cruiser out there it is very likely able to deal damage to it and in significant enough amounts to make up for the application difference between the two ships. Go figure the guy from Goons with a fleet concept named after him knows something about ship strengths and weaknesses...

As CCP have stated repeatedly, increased cost is not supposed to translate linearly to increased effectiveness. The only reason this used to be the case for some BCs was because they were hilariously OP for their hull cost. They still have their uses though, and I don't think there's anything wrong with Cruisers being the sweet spot between price and performance.

Interesting idea, but out of curiosity which other rigs don't have any sort of drawback? I can't recall any right off the top of my head despite also recalling that they exist. Would be useful for comparison in power level.

It's clear from this thread and the amount of debate over Battleship warp speed that warp speed is very much a powerful thing to have so many it is appropriate for these rigs to have a drawback?

The last time I flew a CBC in anger was a little while ago (when I was still able to play a lot more than now..... RL is far more important). In that situation I flew (the only BC in the fleet) a Prophecy with HAMs and an armour link. It was very beneficial to the fleet and because I had a 15% warp speed implant fitted I kept up with the T1 gang easily.

Eve is heading in a direction where getting assets on grid and doing their job very quickly will be key. Trying to setup an offgrid booster on the fly will be time consuming and will probably lose you the capture point. Also, if OGB's got deleted then people wouldn't simply just switch to command ships. They're an absolute SP sink and very expensive. They would use CBC's most of the time and switch to command ships when the need was required.
I see the future of EvE combat being very bloody with Entosis Sov so people won't be that willing to throw very expensive ships into the furnace constantly but, hey, a CBC, sure why not.

I just feel that making gang links simply have a 250-500km bubble of effectiveness would solve a hell of a lot of issues in the game and give CBC's an actual purpose.

At this point, they almost require a MMJD to survive.

CCp clearly disagrees, because PVP balance is over the PVE balance. One way or the other CCP will nerf t3 a lot, and WH peopel will have to adapt into other ships. Command ships could very well fit that role with the proposed changes. They will increase substantially their EHP pool.

Maybe you shouldnt be both almost uncatchable and extremely fast while in warp unless you are in an inty? Frigs dont need any help at warping

Yeah, BC's will only be 5 or 6 seconds behind support ships instead of the current 8 or 9 seconds.
That should certainly make them more appealing for roaming. Or not..

Oh BCs have always been viable. Its just cruisers offer better bang for the buck, and no this change will not impact that.