What's the best tank you can achieve on a Orca though? I searched around, probably badly, and got no fitting tool on hand at present, but i can't find an orca fit with more than 500 dps tank.
On the other hand => http://eve.battleclinic.com/loadout/35183-Badger-Mark-II-New-battlebadger-l4-edition.html

That's because you don't DPS-tank the Orca GÇö you buffer it. At no point should it be in a situation where it needs to DPS tank.

TL;DR: seriously, what's wrong with this idea of T3 Mini-carrier BS?

Anyway - this had nothing to do with the orca in the beginning - as you guys all outlined, the orca is not a combat vessel. Now, this means, since there is truely nothing between an Orca and a Carrier, that there's no real combat/exploration/whatever vessel below capital size.

Its called an Orca, and its built to be exactly what you are looking for.

...You're kidding right? What about it actually makes it a good command ship? It's lack of combat bonuses or it's fewer slots than you a cruiser?

No, you got that the wrong way around: their overwhelming defenses is what makes it impossible to let them inside highsec space GÇö they would make things far too safe. Having a lot of firepower is not a problem; not being easily suicide-ganked is.

Actually the real question is: what's right with it? Why does the game need this? Why does every area of space have to be spammed with capital ships?

It gives fleets an advantage over traditional fleets. While regular fleets consist of bulks of similar ships or ships of the same class, a capital of some sort would add substantially to that sides survival. While the capital doesn't need to be overwhelming in firepower, or even go much greater than a BS, it should be able to go toe to toe with almost any three - four battleships at once and have at least one bonus that affects every ship in the fleet.

Going to jump on the 'new ship' thread, and ignore the carrier debate by posting some ship ideas I've been tossing around in my head, which I wouldn't mind seeing:

Dedicated profession ships. ie: ships which grant bonuses to Archeology or Hacking. Limited use? Sure. But it still might be kind of fun (and a hacking ship might be useful during Incursions, or other hacking-related content). Perhaps these are frigates or cruisers of some kind. The bonuses could increase the range and/or the chance of a module successfully working.

Maybe a Sisters of Eve faction ship? Something like the Noctis: grants 5% cycle time of analyzer and codebreaker modules per level, and 100% increase in the range of analyzer/codebreaker modules per level. (Maybe like a pirate faction, it splits Gallente/Minmatar cruiser levels).

Right, so now you have bulks of those new ships and highsec becomes "mini-carriers Online"

It gives fleets an advantage over traditional fleets. While regular fleets consist of bulks of similar ships or ships of the same class, a capital of some sort would add substantially to that sides survival.

it should be able to go toe to toe with almost any three - four battleships at once and have at least one bonus that affects every ship in the fleet.

No. These ships can DEFEND against several ships

No. These ships can DEFEND against several ships, but do not have firepower to take them out. That is the purpose of them having a fleet that provides the guns.

Ships in highsec need to be fragile. Otherwise, they provide far too much safety under the umbrella of CONCORD. What you're asking for has no place in that kind of environment.

But sure, if you want that kind of survivability it must come at a cost. How about: they cannot be undocked unless you're under a wardec? Or how about: they are completely exempt from CONCORD protection GÇö attacking one does not trigger a response and does not cause a sec status hit. That's the paradox you need to address if you want it in highsec: a ship that strong needs to still be easy to kill.

GǪand that would be bad. It would significantly reduce the variety of ship compositions and would, indeed, make it into mini-carriers online since you'd pretty much have to field one to have a sporting chance.
Why is that needed? More importantly: if it can stand up to that kind of abuse, how do you gank it?
GǪwhich, again, would be bad.

Ships in highsec need to be fragile. Otherwise, they provide far too much safety under the umbrella of CONCORD. What you're asking for has no place in that kind of environment.

But sure, if you want that kind of survivability it must come at a cost. How about: they cannot be undocked unless you're under a wardec? Or how about: they are completely exempt from CONCORD protection GÇö attacking one does not trigger a response and does not cause a sec status hit. That's the paradox you need to address if you want it in highsec: a ship that strong needs to still be easy to kill.

Perhaps for best balance individual players may not construct one, but corps may however are limited to only one. Once one is in their possession it can not be given to anyone else and can only either be destroyed or will be placed in market for corps who don't have one yet should the corp disband.

Here I was thinking I get new ideas from the community, le sigh....

My Catalouge of Designed ships from smallest to biggest

Fighter-Interceptor - Fighters designed to take out other fighters and drones.
Corvette - Pod piloted Fighter Sqadron leader, provides bonuses to assigned fighters normally lost from a carrier.

Minelayer - Frigate with special control for suicide drones and expanded drone bays
Swamer - Tech 2 Minelayer deploys more mines than traditionally, suffers lack of cargo bay and limited employment on field.

Command Frigate - Frigate able to fit a single link and keep pace with desrons

Bomber - Sniping Missile Frigate
Heavy Bomber - Non-stealth bomber, with multiple launchers.

Heavy Destoyer - Less Offense more defense DDs
Gunship - T2

Escort Destoyer - lower offense DD with more utility
Starking - T2 Support ECM platform (IE Remote Sensor Boosters)

Tenders - Tier 2 Logistics for Hull and Module Repairs, able to transfer heat from others to itself, recovers drones and delivers drones and ammos into ships bays remotely.

Voyager Ships - Sisters of Eve Ships designed for exploration and revamped archeaology

Hypernet Ships - Mordus Legion ships designed for Digital Fortress Artisans and revamped hacking.

Reclaimer Ships - Thukker Tribe ships designed for advanced salvaging that recovers entire parts of scraps.

Munitions Ships - A heavy minelaying Tech 2 battlecruiser, has longer endurance than the smaller ships but still is exhaustable supply of mines rather quickly

Flagships - A special Tech 2 battleship that generates a powerful field around itself, field effects vary upon the desire of the pilot scripting, most electronic warfare effects and other non traditional ones such as Forcefields. Some effects consume fuel.

Superbattleship - New Weight Classifcation and Training Regiment, Warships marginally larger than a battleship that bear some capitol ship like capabilities and mission roles without outmassing gate limits, much sacrifices where made into the desing that they are nothing more than slightly tougher and slightly more dangerous battleships overall. IE an Orca would fall into this classification if it had weapons.

Tier 1
Escort Carrier- A small carrier that can only launch a single wing of fighters to support the fleet, has exclusive use of fighter interceptors. Great for escorting assualt forces Cynojammed system where carriers and super carriers are present.

Tier 2
Arsenel Ship - A small tough seige platform able to mount a seige mode module and a XL gun. Great for assailing capitol ships and seiging any cynojammers.

I do have alot more ships but I donnot feel like sharing them at the moment.

hmmm you're going about the entirely the wrong way.

Jarome... answer this for me...

If my enemy has a ship that can tank multiple battleships and still fight back, why would I bring anything else to the field other than that same ship (or staggering amount of people)?

If there is a corp restriction to their use... I have all my guys make their own personal corps, war dec you and/or make an alliance between us all, and then each field our own personal "mini-carrier."


Look... here's the thing. Your idea is not new. CCP tried to introduce the "flagships" concept by bringing in Titans and Supercarriers. They were meant to be so ungodly expensive and so difficult to build that only large groups of players could afford to build them... making them corporate/alliance assets... "flagships."

The reality of the situation was that players found a way to streamline the building process, amass huge amounts of ISK (both corporate/alliance and personal), and begin building/buying/selling them for "personal use."
And given their power, it'd be DUMB not to build/buy them en mass and field them against an enemy who may or may not also be building/buying them as well in the hope to gain the SAME tactical advantage.
It's the goddamn Cold War all over again. Except without the fear of wiping out all life as we know it and no economic/resource/manpower/political restrictions.


Now... you can TRY to install restrictions on the use of "mini-carriers"... however past experience tells us that no matter how obscure a loophole or a workaround is, it WILL be found. In which case you create a nightmare scenario for the programmers on trying to keep one step ahead of the players... and all because one ship seemed "cool" to introduce.

I like your idea about it only being unlocked during war decade, that could be one alternative. As for no aggression, that's not such a good idea because ten battleships might start attacking her, but she can't fight back without Concord retribution.

The ship is no more or less fragile than any other ship. It could be rushed by a fleet of cruisers and or battleships or find itself against another corps carrier.

Additionally, if this thing could carry fighters, what's to stop me just clustering a bunch of these round a POS or station and assigning an enormous blob of fighters to the gang doing the actual fighting?

Mini-Logistics.

So T2 Class Frigates with bonus's to remote repair range and amount. Great for Wolfpacks and Frigate-on-Frigate PVP.