Originally by: A'ruhn

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Personally, I'd figured this is how carriers should have been from the start. You could customize it to exactly what role you wanted to use it for. All its missing now is some point defense weapons (very light mind you, frigate guns at the most) and it could be a reasonable facsimile of a modern combat carrier.

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Originally by: CCP Nozh

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Good post, we'll definitely keep it was reference. It's actually not very far off what we've been discussing at our meetings.

More posts like this one please.

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Originally by: Princess Jodi

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While the OP's suggestions address the 'Swiss Army Knife' problem that the Dev's wanted solved, I don't think they address the root problem: Carriers being too versitale.

The comming hauling nerfs will end Carrier hauling. That's fine with me: I don't like playing Eve as a Delivery Truck driver anyway. As said before, Carriers are used to haul simply because there is not much other choice. Logistics people have been asking for a Jump Freighter for a year. Instead of getting it, Dreads, Carriers and now Rorquals are being used to haul. So I don't thing that the hauling concept is of much importance at all: the Carrier simply accomplished the job better than the available alternatives. Take away the ability to haul with a Carrier and you've got little need for the Ship Maint bay. Thus you could leave it alone secure in the knowledge that any ships it carries is for PVP gang members as replacements, and for refitting. No need for a new module for that.

The same is true of Corp Hangar modules. Honestly, the only reason to want them bigger is to Haul. Since the Carrier should not be a Delivery Truck, there is no need to enhance this feature. Besides, with the Cargo-in-Ships nerf, there are better alternatives. Again, no need for that module.

That leaves discussion on the number of Fighters it can launch. I'm all for modules that increase the number of Drones/Fighters. But we have that: Drone Control Units. Bandwith should NOT be an issue on a Carrier - of all the ships in Eve Carriers and Moms should be able to launch the most.

In short, CCP is welcome to take away the Ship Maint and Corp Hangar as their 'abuse' comes from the need to haul. In return, give us the ability to deploy MORE fighters, and not thru some lame gangmate tactic.

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Originally by: Princess Jodi

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No, I got your point. What you're seeming to suggest is that the versatility of the Carriers should be accomplished via modules instead of being 'built in'. I was challenging the idea that they should be as versatile in the first place.

CCP has stated that the Carrier is not being used 'as intended'. I'm merely stating that one 'non-intended' use is hauling, which can/will be solved without gimping the Carriers.

CCP implied by the design that a Carrier is supposed to carry ships into battle for gangmates, and to refit/repair ships. With the 'no-cargo' option, the existing configuration will allow that to occur without needing to nerf those abilities via modules. It makes it harder to grab a ship, however, so 'no-cargo' is bad. I'm saying that the 'abuse' of Ship Maint Bays is only when filling haulers with cargo, and when that goes away so does the 'abuse'.

Repairing ships in Combat has caused problems with Spider-Tanking and is prohibited by Lag in Fleet battles. That role is one I'd like to see revised, as it is either abusive or impossible to do. I can't see how stripping abilities of the Carrier would help in that revision.

The remaining issue is using Fighters in direct combat, which I think is the primary role of Carriers anyway. The uproar over ZuluPark's misguided blog showed that removing the number of Drones/Fighters was a unwelcome idea, to say the least. (I've still got a Raggedy Andy costume, some Rhopinal, and Michael Jackson's phone number ready for him. Grandma's internet connection should be installed next week.)

Therefore I'm saying that the only module-based specialization that is required is the ability to fight solo better. Give us things like more fighters and the ability to withstand Jamming and Damps - then you'll see them used for only one role: Battle.

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Originally by: Princess Jodi

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Understood and appreciated. The issue I have is that with modules to effect basic ship abilities, you don't have a 'ship' at all - you've got a platform to mount modules on.

However, I can see people wanting to specalize their ships. For example, I'd gladly trade my Ship Maint Array, Refitting and Corp Hangar for some immunity to being Jammed/Damped.

Perhaps these proposed modules should not be normal modules, but something akin to Rigs: You fit your ship with them and they cannot be removed. Because otherwise, what is to stop 2 Carriers from refitting each other, thereby bypassing any proposed change to their Swiss Army Knife abilities?

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Originally by: Jurgen Cartis

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You may want to introduce a specific new slot type for these. Why? The Caldari and Amarrian motherships already have 8 midslots and lowslots, respectively.

Also, I would definitely add a series of modules focused on improving the Carrier's remote repair abilities, things to let them instalock friendlies, lower Triage penalties, etc.

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Originally by: Malachon Draco

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Originally by: Princess Jodi

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Understood and appreciated. The issue I have is that with modules to effect basic ship abilities, you don't have a 'ship' at all - you've got a platform to mount modules on.

However, I can see people wanting to specalize their ships. For example, I'd gladly trade my Ship Maint Array, Refitting and Corp Hangar for some immunity to being Jammed/Damped.

Perhaps these proposed modules should not be normal modules, but something akin to Rigs: You fit your ship with them and they cannot be removed. Because otherwise, what is to stop 2 Carriers from refitting each other, thereby bypassing any proposed change to their Swiss Army Knife abilities?

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Well, the obvious method is to make all the 'versatility' modules 10k m3 in size. That should put a pretty effective stop to it.

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Originally by: CCP Abathur

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Originally by: Zarch AlDain

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Originally by: CCP Nozh

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Good post, we'll definitely keep it was reference. It's actually not very far off what we've been discussing at our meetings.

More posts like this one please.

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Thanks for responding, I wouldn't have liked to type all that for nothing!

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Hey, I pointed it out to him!

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Originally by: CCP Abathur

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Originally by: Princess Jodi

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Perhaps these proposed modules should not be normal modules, but something akin to Rigs: You fit your ship with them and they cannot be removed. Because otherwise, what is to stop 2 Carriers from refitting each other, thereby bypassing any proposed change to their Swiss Army Knife abilities?

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We've been looking at both the module and the 'rig' option as well. Perhaps even a combination of the two. Keep in mind that rigs can be removed but are destroyed when that happens. So long as a player is willing to pay the cost every time he or she wanted to change the basic functionality of the carrier, there would be nothing stopping them. Such a switch would likely be expensive though.

We want the end result of this to be something players still want to fly but that you can specialize toward your specific needs instead of the current 'does it all at once' situation.

In addition we're looking at ways to make motherships a little more than just a big carrier. [hint]Feedback[/hint]

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Originally by: CCP Abathur

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Cloaks and runs from the EST blob...

Originally by: Ange1

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Zarch's idea of new area of effect weapons for the MS's is also intriguing,

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Yes it is. The thought of mom-specific modules has come up before. Suggestions?

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Originally by: Lelulie

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You seem to have proposed changes so a Chimera can still fit a nice tank and control lots of Fighters, but the rest would suffer greatly in their tanks to match the Chimeras damage.

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Originally by: ElDiabloRojo

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ok if im reading this right then by being a carrier lvl 5 person already means all i do is drop some of my tank to gain all the abilities i already have by putting 1 each of these "new" modules onto the carrier. in fact if im reading it right i can also carry more spare fighters and easily bring number of controled fighters over 10 (my current number). That makes this a buff to carriers and nothing more really.

Seccondly i think theres been mixed messages on what the problem with carriers is. Either they can do too many things or they arnt being used in fleets as they should be or rather are as good solo as in fleets (fleets made of other none carrier ships that is, not groups of carriers).

On the test server now i think carriers are perfect, they cant be used as haulers but they can carry in replacement ships, they can carry drones for many situations and fighters for actual dmg dealing. making them ideal in small fleets. prolly 1 carrier per 5/6 gang members would be the optimum.

So really the issue is making them more realistic comapred to actual real life carriers (where ms is a bigger version). Thus i prefer my suggestion :) (of course im a bit biased). which limits the carriers efectivnes to deploy drones for any given situation in large numbers and promotes using fleets with them or against them.

http://oldforums.eveonline.com/?a=topic&threadID=631376

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Originally by: ElDiabloRojo

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Edited by: ElDiabloRojo on 12/11/2007 02:11:50
What i am saying is that this "fix" stops carriers being good at all the things they are now but allows them to focus their efforts and become dramaticly more effective at other things. Also in terms of using carriers as haulers you dont want to be ina fight any way so any versatility is not an issue. You use your system to convert the carrier into a mule, haul your pos fuel or whatever and then convert it back. Takes a few secconds and even if u get attacked your gonna try run away. with this system the carrier used as hauler gets bigger capacity. Then when its fighting it drops all hauler modules in favour of number of fighters and get a higher damage output compared to current fighters. So ultimately your swopping out 1 system where carriers can switch between roles instantly with another where carriers are better at each role but takes 2-3 mins to swop around.

If the "issue" is ability to switch roles at will then focus the carrier at fighter deployment by keeping its ability to deploy 6-15 fighters. Drop its drone ability to Dominix levels (ie, lots of drones but on 5 ata time). But cos its a carrier it can still carry some of each drone type. And drop its hauling abilities in favour of whats currently on the test server, as this will give it the ability to carry spare ships to a fleet, repair/rearm said fleet and project power like a carrier should but slow down its other "roles" by droping the efectivnes of none fighter drones by at least half. Doing this with a module like in my origonal suggestion slows down its role changing abilities as well. In fact it does so by a guaranteed 5 minutes, as apose to sitting 2 carriers next to each other and swopping "Capital Modules" back and forth like some sort of 3D rubix cube.

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Originally by: ElDiabloRojo

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ok i have caldari carrier lvl 5 so using your model i can fit 2 low slot mods, 2 med slot mods and 3 hi slot mods and get 15 drones (5 more then my current number) and enough drone bay for more then 15 fighters and 15 of each drone in game. Obviously that ruins my tank somewhat. But my hi slots dont add to the tank or dmg, and i have 7 mid slots so loosing 2 is fairly bad but not impossible to live with. i can move 2 shield hardeners for instance and replace it with 2 rigs (dropping res from 55% to 35% on 2 types but not effecting shield boost amount or cap). I wont have the ability to assign drones to people but that was one things listed under stuff the devs didnt like (the lack of people assigning them to gang members). So now instead of a carrier as i have atm with 12 fighters or 12 drones of my choice i have 1 with the same hangar bays, less tank and 3 extra fighters/drones. Thus increasing my "swiss army knife" abilities.

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Originally by: ElDiabloRojo

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So overall all this does it allow ppl to drop the corp hangar and ship hangar (and thus keep most of there tank on shield users) and become better all round ships then before. So the only refit is when u want to haul stuff, where i put 2/3 ship bay modules on and carry 4/5 fully tech 2'd Bustards (think thats about 150Km^3).

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Originally by: ElDiabloRojo

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I dont see how thats a better option to mine in which u max out at 15 fighters but never pass 5 drones. So using the swiss army knife similie you model is taking away a few of the tools and sharpening the rest and mine is dulling all the little ones and leaving the knife part the same. oh and slowing down the guy whos pulling the tools out.

Besides my proposal was 2 changes really, 1 to change the jack of all trades aspect and 1 to encourage fleet warfare with carriers.

Perhaps taking shield/energy/armour/hull transfers from the ships out of triage mode is a mistake tho.

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Originally by: James Draekn

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Reading your ideas on the changes to carriers/MOMs shows the challenge CCP has before it when adjusting these ships. Your proposals have some very good ideas, but the problem you run into is tanking balance. As it currently stands most capital pilots are concerned about sustainable tanks. The recent low-sec MOM kill shows how easy it is to kill capitals when they are NOS/Nueted to hell. Your suggestion will also cause problems when you have a shield vs armor tank fight, when considering if you go gank on an armor tank your tank is shot, hardening wise. Versus you go gank on a shield tank your cap regen is shot, hardening is still entact.

A couple of ways to adjust your ideas:

1. Keep your ideas but instead of modules make them rigs. (increase carrier/mom rig slots to 8). This will make players choose what the want to do with their carrier, rather then change to adjust. This will also prevent tanking balance issues.

2. Make carriers and moms invulerable to NOS/Nuet. Make carriers invulerable to ewar like current moms. Make carriers/moms vulnerable to warp scraming (or the new heavy dictor bubbles) effects. This will allow carrier to better support their gang logistically but make them vulnerable to be held down and killed. The NOS/Nuet change will make carrier tanks a issue that has to be dealt with by bringing enough firepower (bringing some fun back to fights, rather then a NOS/Nuet suckfest).

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Originally by: ElDiabloRojo

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with the current system of carriers you get essentially two types of abilities. Those from the ship and those from drones. The greatest damage power from the carrier comes from fighters; I think we can all agree on that. So when IÆm in a chimera (yes I do have lvl 5) I can use without doing anything other then undocking 10 drones or 10 fighter or some combination of the 2.

With only allowing fighters to be deployed in a specific "Fighter mode" (Flight operations module I guess would be a suitable name) you basically stop any and all of the other Swiss army knife tools being used from the drone side of things and can use the module attributes to effect other modes if desired. So the flight ops mode gives u 10 fighters at lvl 5 of carrier or 20 if youÆre in a MS. Outside of this mode u can only use 5 drones and none are fighters. So from my ship with 10 drones IÆm down to 5 drones, i.e. I have halved the size of all the tools on my Swiss knife. That is my basic proposal.

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Originally by: ElDiabloRojo

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Now in terms of what OTHER effects the flight op mode has that is something that obviously needs to be looked at. So taking these ship based abilities off the ship and onto this module you are essentially adding a mechanism within the Swiss army knife that automatically closes and locks off some tools when 1 is being used and others when a different tool is being used.

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Originally by: ElDiabloRojo

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And lastly we have the ability for a carrier to carry a hauler full of stuff from place to place in relative safety. Now this doesnÆt work on the trinity test server as u can only carry in your ship bay assembled ships that have ammo in there cargo or nothing.

So in summary I believe this system slows down the carrierÆs ability to switch roles at a whim and reduces the power of these abilities other then deploying fighters which is the same. It also blocks off the ability to do several things at once.

Oh and donÆt think IÆm having a go at you or anything

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Originally by: Poborca Podatkowy

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Originally by: Yamichi Wiggin

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Brilliant.
Most other ships need to pick a fitting. You can't fit a mega for long range, uber tank, scram/jam, super speed, and in-your-face brawling. You have to pick one or two of those. This puts the same requirements on the carrier. And as you said, it gives them the chance to exceed their current value but by sacrificing some roles.

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Moving DCU from high slot to low should fix it - carrier pilot have to choose between the tank and gang mode.
Additionally making drone modules or dedicated for fighters modules for high could make that fix stronger if that module would be put on high slot (depends on power/cpu consumption). The range for that modules could be from additional bandwidith, or expanding the dronebay to giving additional speed (in warp on subwarp), tracking and others for fighters. All that could attract carriers in combat as a gang machine (remember - pg/cpu issue and DCU on lows).

As for support there could be modules for medium slot dedicated for EW or for support (like a tracking link). In general expanding modules range in dedicated for capitals (as it is with armor repairer) could solve the problems and to prevent from using "normal" - give penalty for capitals for use it (i.e. power consumption or pg/cpu increase to capital module lvl).

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Originally by: Nyphur

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Originally by: Zarch AlDain

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Motherships have been devalued to virtually nothing until people know what is happening;

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I like all of your ideas and was actually going to write up a very similar proposal. When I heard about the fact that they didn't want the carrier to be a jack of all trades, I thought "Then why not extract all of its abilities to modules?" because it seemed to make sense and have no drawbacks.

One thing I am very annoyed at is that since CCP announced that carriers were to be changed and suggested that this change would include a 5-drone limit, the entire motehrship industry has ground to a halt. As a DIRECT result of Zulupark's overenthusiastic and very premature devblog, many real in-game businesses with large asset investments and expected large turnover have been stripped of their profit or forced to close.

Mothership producers are finding it hard to sell for a reasonable price because every single buyer is waiting to see what CCP does to motherships before investing that much isk into one. Let's face it, most mothership buyers on public forum auctions only want to fool around in lowsec with them and be practically invulnerable, they aren't going to pay isk if they're made useless as solo ships in lowsec.


One of my own businesses (PSRS) is feeling a heavy blow to profits as mothership bpc prices and BPO rental demand have dropped dramatically due to the decrease in mothership demand. I've gotten my first copies out of the labs recently and instead of selling for 4b+, they're down to 2b in places and sometimes even lower. What's special about my business is that it's an investment scheme with a monthly dividend, so I'm going to be hemmoraging isk in the billions to investors until CCP announces that motherships aren't going to be nerfed and demand picks back up. It's gotten so bad that I'm probably going to have to enact the no-dividend clause until the patch.

And all this is because CCP let their newbie post a devblog on his own.

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Originally by: Kenn

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Edited by: Kenn on 16/11/2007 14:55:54
I say leave the carriers alone they are not powerful enough. Stop nerfing anything. Carriers are by nature very powerful ships (as are dreads and titans) and the fact that they can carry out this role is not the issue. Game balance is the issue. To limit them for arbitrary reasons is silly especially after large investments in them were made already.

Why not balance these ships and others of this class with other ships. If CCP really wants players working together then take an example from a real Navy. How are carriers balanced out internationally? How would a foreign power deal with carriers of another country with out building more of the same?

Subs? Why not? Destroyer class ships with cloak AND LOCK capability so they can fire cloaked. Make it specific to that hull. Give them high launcher slots only and enable them to fire very powerful missiles (like citadels). Since it's a dedicated design they shouldn't be able to do much of anything else.

Equip standard destroyer class ships with the electronics to detect a cloaked ship that locked not just a cloaked ship. Each ship to be protected will have a category tier. Frigates tier 1 cruisers tier 2 bs tier 3 and capital ships tier 4. Each tier is a multiple of how many destroyers are needed to effectively protect that ship or else the odds of detection start to drop (tweak formula as needed factoring related skills etc.). Detection would be for a given radius in terms of missile ranges.

I promise you no one will travel in a mother class ship alone with out these ships for an escort. In fact very few people will travel anywhere in low sec space with out an escort.

Same rules of aggression apply to them regarding low and high sec space as they would any other ship that attacks another. Concord would automatically have the means of detecting and destroying such aggressors in high sec space.

Now you can leave alone the capital class ships (which are now vulnerable) and work VERY carefully on implementing new ships. These enable newbies and MANY corporations the ability to deal with capital class ships for a much lower cost and does not shove the majority of players out of the game due to the imbalance of power.

It still gives the major corporations the ability to deploy these ships as intended while also taking the game to a new level.

CCP shouldn't be dictating how we use our ships. That's for us to decide as long as we don't break rules to do it. We are not robots or actors turning gears in a machine. We are players exploring a galaxy and embarking on an adventure of entertainment. We will decide how to do that.

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Originally by: Kenn

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Edited by: Kenn on 16/11/2007 19:05:08
Edited by: Kenn on 16/11/2007 18:49:46
You are right Zarch about the capital weapons during Cloak. They would have to be very specific about this. Buy they created cloaked frigates that were the only ships that could use the advanced cloak without penalty so they should do the same for Subs (I call them that).

I felt a counter ship to the Sub was necessary otherwise you fall back into the uber class syndrome. Also Subs will be fast enough to clear the 2km limit from their missile trails. It would be almost impossible to reach them before they moved as missiles have plenty of range allowing them to remain cloaked. Make the Uber ships dependent on the smaller ones for protection in this case and make the smaller ships specific for finding Subs. Don't let it fall into a general category. Let it be the Destroyers which are the only ships that would have the detection ability (or the ability to carry the necessary mods without penalty). It would raise their value considerably.

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Originally by: Kenn

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This could lead to a whole level of play as corporations could specialize in this sort of thing. (Wolf packs vs Destroyer Escorts.)Then add in the command linking and stuff and you could get some very sophisticated space battles with perhaps only 12 ships total. All of that with out changing what was already established and saving players the headache of rethinking invested time and ISK.

It needs to be and SHOULD be tweaked. That is what the Test servers are for. These are just ideas thrown around of course but I think it's a good start.

Arrrrgh

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Originally by: Kenn

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Edited by: Kenn on 17/11/2007 01:34:05
Edited by: Kenn on 17/11/2007 01:13:58
Well be careful Zarch. You might throw the balance in favor of the Sub. Picture 5 or 10 of them waiting in a location firing capital class destroying missiles.. With no way to detect them the cloak ganking nightmare begins. The Destroyers or counter ships were meant to prevent that. With a chance at an advance warning the world of Eve won't be ruled by the subs or any one type of ship.

This makes the Capital Class Ship dependent on smaller ships to survive which is why we are doing it and it won't matter if it's an uber hauler or something that can destroy entire solar systems. It now has a major weakness. So long as that goal is achieved with out creating a second nightmare it doesn't matter what form it takes and nerfing the Cap Class ships can be avoided.

The counter element can be specialized ships or ships equiped with modules as long as the capital class ship is unable to use it. Each has a strength and a counter to it. It now becomes necessary to build integrated fleets and use them properly or perish. MUAHAHA.

The Devs will make the ultimate decisions on this as they are clearly reading these posts so they may agree with you in the end anyway. I don't even have a cap class ship yet so it won't affect me in the short term. I just want to avoid nerfing them.

Arrrrgh.

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