Wigglytuff
Vale Heavy Industries
Molotov Coalition
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Posted - 2007.10.24 04:15:00 -
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Right now a Carrier launches 15 light drones, kills the 4 frigs in the enemy gang, recalls them, sends 15 to kill the two caracals, then finally sends out the fighters after those two battleships.
With the drone limit, you would only launch up to 5 drones after those frigs and the caracal.
But Wigglytuff, what about my fighters?
There's two options CCP could possibly take here:
Option 1, you have 5 drones out, the end.
Option 2, you have 15 satellite (drone/fighter) hardpoints, 5 can be drones, 15 can be fighters. Mix and match as you'd like, but you cant launch more than 5 drones, or 15 fighters. This means DCU add +1 satellite Hardpoint, and +1 fighter slot, but +0 drone slot.
Bandwidth could also play a role in some fashion, but
Wiggly, how does this save my ship?
This helps address the concern of wtfpwning a sub-BS ship that isn't webbed/painted to hell, since you have drones like any other ship (bar the moros's insane drones), while keeping your 'capital weapon' in a varied level as needed.
All non-carrier/mothership class ships would also have 5 satellite hardpoints, including 5 drone/fighter slots so that they can be properly delegated fighters if chosen to do so, and/or launch their drones, if they have any, as needed. You will still cap at 5 fighters/drones, just as the carrier would cap at 15.
Ok Wiggly, your idea weakens carriers/ms from drone swarming small ships, but new fighters, huh?
Now CCP's followup blog about carriers mentioned new fighters in the future (or I imagined it due to being tired), and this gives way to allowing CCP to truely remodel the carrier in a way that it would be the logistical/support monster they want it to be, while keeping it versatile enough to lessen the other areas such as jump hauling.
But Wiggly, CCP want you to have wingmen to use fighters.
And I understand that, I also believe that if they are dead set on this, then They should look at, at the very least, allowing carriers to have 10 active satellite hardpoints, and then delegate up to 5 more. If they recall those other 5 they go directly to the hangar. Motherships would also have the limit of 10, maybe 15. Personally I know many players don't want the limit at all, but I think a compromise needs to be made on the issue, by both sides.
They say Carriers are logistics ships, but they aren't that good at it
I'm not to experienced in carrier logistics capabilities, however when you look at a dread, you'll notice that (excluding moros drones) they suck outloud when not in siege, whereas a carrier not in triage is still extremely helpful. Sure a pack of guardians or basilisks can rep godly amounts of hp and the time/cost are much smaller, but they're also wet paper compared to a carrier in terms of survivability.
My main belief in this whole situation is this:
Carriers are, in my option, too good for their own good. They are victims of their own power, and they aren't the first ship in that situation, nor will they likely be the last. Their problem is that they were allowed to be as powerful as they are for so long that people poured tons of time into them. They were FOTY instead of FOTM, as a result, the nerf is more painful to these players than other nerfs.
However, I do believe something like the satellite hardpoint idea, combined with bandwidth, could be EXTREMELY helpful for not just carriers, but drone usage in general (you could have ships with 100 bandwidth, 200m3 dronebay, and only 4 drone slots for (a bad)example).
I was going to address the 'new fighters' part of the dev blog in detail, but all I can say is create powerful logistics 'fighters' that the carrier pilots can use on seigemode ship at the very least.
As a final thought to carriers I ask this:
CCP, allow carriers and motherships to remote assist siegemode dreads and you will have helped boost the logistics aspect of said ships in a badly needed way.
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