The Dreadnought Dilemma - the ideal role of heavy caps in disco

[monmarfori]

The current meta seems to favor heavy battleships somewhat due to several factors.

With the blindfire rework, heavy battleships now have more room for sniping smaller capital ships. This means long-range heavies like the Heavy Mortar are more viable than ever before.

Furthermore, they also carry a great deal of utility should they equip a docking module, as snubs can restock without the need to fly to a faraway station, which can decide fights like what happened in Dublin several days ago.

The general halving of capital stats and the addition of destructible components to cruisers also favors heavy battleships, despite the addition of shield toggling to give cruisers more powercore regen. Cruiser swarms have historically countered battleship swarms thanks to their agility and long-range weapons. Though in general, snub swarms are now more deadly to caps in general, as fighters and freighters can mount bomber weapons like SNACs.

So I'd support some rebalancing to give lighter battleships a chance. Their primary advantages were strafing and maneuverability, of which strafing was nerfed back in 5.0 by consuming thruster energy, and the fact that some heavy battleships can strafe at a higher velocity for some reason.

For factions that do not have access to battleships, they can use the Bustard, which is very expensive. It functions as a battlecruiser in many aspects, but has more bulk and a slower turnrate.