Originally by: Pallidum Treponema

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Awww man you can't let me run dry. But seriously, the reason we want to implement something like this is that we feel that capital ships are being used way too much as better-than-battleships-at-killing-stuff ships, when we in fact think that they should be used more as the-ships-that-keep-other-ships-alive-and-provide-them-with-additional-firepower ships. Did that make sense? Probably not, but anyway, we hope you get the gist the direction we want to move them in and the way we see that happening.

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Destroyers are bigger and require more skills than frigates. They are better than frigates at killing stuff.
Cruisers are bigger and require more skills than destroyers. They are better than destroyers at killing stuff.
Battlecruisers are bigger and require more skills than cruisers. They are better than cruisers at killing stuff.
Battleships are bigger and require more skills than battlecruisers. They are better than battlecruisers at killing stuff.

Does this make sense? Let's keep going.

Carriers are bigger and require more skills than battleships. They are better than battleships at killing stuff.

Was there anything confusing about this? Carriers are all about force projection. They darn well SHOULD be better at killing stuff than battleships, considering their price and size.


Now, I can see a potential problem if "carriers are being used instead of battleships" on the frontlines. I agree that carriers have been used more agressively in the past few months. This is partially because more people have the ability to fly carriers than ever, but also as a result of new game mechanics. Carriers are needed for more tasks now than ever before. This has led to even more people training for carriers.

Being a member of an alliance that is known for our agressive use of capitals, and also being a pilot of a carrier, I will happily admit that we've used carriers successfully during both offensive and defensive operations. However, each time we've deployed carriers in large numbers, we've had a specific reason for using them. The firepower of the carriers have obviously been welcome but has never been the main reason. In many cases, had we not needed carriers, for instance for boosting shields of a POS, battleships would have been preferable due to their far higher tactical flexibility, not to mention lower cost.

Carriers won't take the role of battleships as the main combatant in fleets, if that's what you're worried about. There have been occasions where I've been in capital gangs that have been bigger than the hostile battleship numbers. During many of those occasions, we have decided NOT to engage, for the simple reason that capitals are far more expensive than battleships. Losing even two or three carriers would have been the equivalent of half the enemy battleship fleet, not to mention the amount of fighters that would be sniped or smartbombed away.

If it's a lag issue, fine, fix the lag. If it's a gameplay issue, don't worry. People will find a way to deal with the "carrier blobs". I've already seen bomber pilots killing dozens of fighters in one go, or smartbomb suicide ships taking out huge chunks of the carrier's firepower. Trust people to find counters on their own. Heck, half the fun of eve is figuring out tactics to counter the enemy's tactics.

Bottom line is, carriers are fine. Don't change them.

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