There are a number of things about which I had considered posting prior to the supercapital slaughter in uemon but will sound totally whiny now. I'm going to get them all out of the way in one post.
1. Because of supers, the NC is not invincible.
This sure would this have been prescient. It's something I had thought about after hearing that AAA+atlas can field 100 supers. The NC is extremely light on supercapitals for its' size, being able to field only around 100. DRF+pets, at half our size (if you count DC), can also field 100. Atlas+AAA, together less than one-tenth our size, can field 100. Pandemic legion, less than 1/30th our size, has about 100 though not all in the same time zone. If only one or two of these entities allied against us we could accurately complain about being blobbed, because supers are all that matter these days.
2. Coalition supercarrier initiative.
The NC makes somewhere in excess of eight hundred
billion isk per month from tech moons. If we don't want to die, we should take that isk and turn it into free supercarriers for everybody who can fly one.
3. One nyx per account
One often hears about DRF super pilots bringing multiple supercarriers to a fight, and by "multiple" I mean 5-ish. Cough botmasters cough. Instead of going for a titan, which tend to be primary, I should replicate their method and try to get a nyx on each of my accounts, ending up with 3 times the DPS and EHP for about the same price.
FAKE EDIT: This is now my medium-long term plan, assuming the coalition doesn't die in the meantime.
4. Supercarriers are overpowered.
This isn't news to anybody. I don't know if I've actually brought it up here, but on forums and EN24 I have been one of the "as a supercarrier pilot, I think they need a nerf" crew. Supercarriers are incredibly overpowered, having as much EHP and DPS as titans for one third the price.
Some people have been complaining about capitals being overpowered since forever. Pre-dominion I didn't think it was much of an issue (except for AOE DD) but today there's no role for anything but supercarriers and hictors. I'm going to to is make some suggestions that I'm confident
almost everybody will agree with:
1. Subcapitals should be effective against capitals and supercapitals, but not more effective than capitals and supercapitals are against each other.
2. Supercarriers need a serious nerf.
3. Dreadnaughts should be useful in a capital fight.
I hate when people present ideas for fixing something they think is broken. For one thing it's pointless because CCP won't use their suggestions. For another their ideas are always stupid. I'm going to do it anyway though, just to get it off my mind.
Overhaul part 1: capitals
1. Titans need... a buff? This will make sense later. They should have 40-60 million EHP instead of 30-50. The doomsday bonus will be increased to 20% damage per level for a maximum of 4 million damage.
2. Supercarriers are ridiculously overpowered and need to be nerfed a lot. We will turn them into tier 3 capitals.
a. Damage should be reduced significantly. I propose 4000 DPS (5000 with nyx bonus), slightly more than a standard dread fit.
b. EHP should be reduced significantly. I propose 20-30m EHP, half as much as titans.
c. They should be made vulnerable to standard warp disruptors but not other forms of ECM. Maybe webbers.
d. Capital RR modules should be restricted to carriers in order to prevent invincible supercarrier RR blobs. Supercarrier high slots will be reduced by 2.
e. Supercarriers should be allowed to dock because of all the nerfs. Maybe it should be possible to build them in stations as well.
3. Dreads need an EHP buff to make them useful. Increasing their EHP by 150% gives them 5 million, a
meaningful fraction of supercarrier EHP and enough to tank a level 5 doomsday.
4. Let's go ahead and increase carriers' EHP by 150% as well so they don't get left behind. This will give them 2.5 million EHP, still vulnerable to doomsdays.
I think that would balance capitals and supers a bit. Dreads that can tank for a few seconds, weaker supercarriers, carriers with a little more EHP to keep up with dreads. Now we need to make subcapitals useful.
There has been a lot of discussion about how to do this. The simplest way would be to just have capitals take increased damage from subcapitals. Subcapitals should do less damage to capitals and supers than dreadnaughts, the lowest-damage capital damage dealers. For the sake of this discussion dreadnaughts do 3500 DPS.
Let us say that in order to be a 0.0 entity you should be able to field 100 alpha maelstroms. And let us say that alpha maelstroms do 600 DPS (10,000 volley) with a cycle time of 18 seconds.
Overhaul part 2: subcapitals
1. Today a small battleship fleet can kill a carrier in just a few seconds, which I think is okay in terms of balance. Let's have carriers and dreadnaughts take increased damage equivalent to their EHP buff, giving them 1 and 2 million EHP against subcapitals and taking 18 and 36 seconds respectively to kill.
2. Supercarriers should have the largest damage increase from subcapitals. Let's have them take 300% increased damage, meaning the maelstroms will be doing 2400 DPS each, 2/3 as much as a sieged dreadnaught. Supercarriers will have 5 to 7.5 million EHP against subcapitals, taking 90 to 135 seconds for the maelstroms to kill compared to 540 to 1080 seconds today.
3. As the only supercapitals, titans should still be challenging to kill with subcapitals. 100% damage increase, taking 360 to 540 seconds to kill (unless somebody brought neuts).
