An overview of the EVE Online capital ship changes arriving today
The cries of "Free CCP Abathur" have been heard. He's one of the growing number of EVE Online developers recruited from among the ranks of the playerbase, and in Abathur's case -- he's someone very well-versed in the dynamics of nullsec warfare. His dev blog "The All Caps Ship Blog" deals with changes CCP Games is making to EVE that have long been a hot button with the playerbase.
It's not surprising that capital ship balancing is a controversial topic among players of the sci-fi MMO. Capital ship pilots in New Eden have invested significant amounts of training time and in-game wealth into piloting these massive ships, be it carriers and supercarriers, dreadnaughts, or titans. Some of CCP Abathur's ideas on balancing capital ships seemed to be fairly well-received by the playerbase, but later proposed changes from more senior devs at CCP appeared to be taking the game mechanics in a different direction. (Hence the "Free CCP Abathur" meme.) Ultimately, some of the major capital ship changes didn't deploy with the Dominion expansion launch, but are arriving in EVE today.
Supercarriers are "now all about killing things", says Abathur. In fact, a full wing of the new Fighter Bombers that supercarriers can field will crank out a blistering 8000 DPS with max skills (while the Nyx can put out 10,000 DPS with the new drone type), he writes. Supercarriers are losing some of the capabilities that made them appealing though (Triage Modules and Clone Vat Bays), but their new role as anti-capital ship weapons should be interesting.
Also interesting is that Abathur presents some stats showing how titans are being used differently since Dominion launched, given that their massive area of effect attacks have been replaced by 'death ray' style single-target shots. Abathur writes that 6450 ships were killed by titans in November '09, pre-Dominion, while 406 ships were killed by titans in December '09, post-Dominion. He also lists the types of ships that titans have destroyed, with the new Doomsday blasts selectively/predictably unleashed on much larger targets than in the past.
Give CCP Abathur's latest dev blog on capital ship changes a read for more on how EVE's behemoths of the battlefield are evolving.
