Cardice Makar
Caldari
Dark Knights of Deneb
Against ALL Authorities
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Posted - 2007.10.23 04:09:00 -
[1]
The problem with this carrier... "nerf" is that it is two fold:
The first relies on the premise of the change, that is, the fact that it will 'reduce the fighter bombing technique'. Which, I suppose is true. The issue at hand really questions the logic of CCP, though.
What they have essentially done, is said to Fleet Commanders:
You have two choices now, "Bring lots of carriers and a metric *load* of interceptors [ to major battles and fight them in close. [with the carriers at a friendly POD" OR "Don't bother bringing Carriers to the fleet engagement at all"
Which leads to the second part of the issue: Premise of change.
Basically, there will be two styles of combat [as I see it, I may be horribly wrong here]. The first will be the traditional BS attack force, with a great deal of BS and no real support, so to speak. There will be no point at all in bringing carriers to this sort of engagement as they normally strike out at the 150-170km range and the fighters are pointless there anyway. Really, all in all, a carrier as a logistics ship is fairly pointless in such an engagement as well, as the locking time is brutal enough that it isn't feasible, and the logistical value simply isn't there. Anyone capable of flying a Carrier has BS to lvl5 and should thus be flying a Fleet-fitted Battleship.
The other side of things is the force that fields a vast number of Carriers combined with *ALOT* of interceptors. This sort of fleet will rely heavily on hit and run tactics to slice up the opposing force. The Carriers will sit at a friendly POS and delegate fighters in large numbers. The interceptors will warp in, target a BS, kill it, and leave, before the opposing force can do anything. This highly favours an agressive role and uses lag to your advantage along with screen clutter and general heat-of-battle style distraction.
There's no problem with either tactic, I don't think. Either one will be fine. The issue I suppose, is that no one in their right mind would want to fight a fleet battle while sitting at a POS; and the alternative of not flying a carrier at all seems like a waste of skill training. I suspect that, on some level, this is why people are people are upset.
The issue though, is that carriers are not *that* overpowered.
If you raise the issue of "pure dps" [I speak SPECIFICALLY about carriers, not moms]. They do close-range-gank-style DPS at close-range-gank-style ranges. With max skills, a Fighter does 100dps, and with 5dcu [who would fit 5, I do not know] that leaves 1500 dps. Quite a bit, yes... but for the cost of well over 10x that of a gank-bs, I don't see this as being that far out of line.
If the issue is lag, well, I don't suspect this will fix that much. If you have a numerically superior fighting force, you will likely default to the more aggressive [and less skill-intensive] hit-and-run style play; while if you have a medium sized force, you will likely use the BS group. The issue, however, stays. There will be groups of 300 interceptors each with 5 fighters, fighter blobbing your BS fleet. In counter, you will bring your own carrier/ceptor fleet and that will be the end of BS gangs.
I feel as if I'm cutting this short, and I am, but I have work to finish and it's 1am here now. I hope you can sort out what I was trying to say from all this, as I certainly can't anymore.
-Card.
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