Welcome to the +25 Campaign headquarters. Here you can see what we are all about and why we want to change the Caldari Tier 3 battleship.
Take a look at this table of Battleship drone bay sizes:
This is not a bell curve with some having lots of drone space and some having a little with most in the middle. This is an exponential progression that looks like this:
While the lack of battleships with 100 m3 drone bay is an outlier, the biggest outlying point is the very first one: the poor Rokh suffering with 50m3 all by itself.
When the Tier three battleships were introduced back in late 2006, well trained pilots with medium drones could be fairly confident that their mechanical assistants could handle anything that got in close under the tracking of their guns. A 50 m3 drone bay on the Rokh was not too debilitating, merely annoying. But several patches and mechanic changes later and we have the situation where light drones are the only ones capable of catching up to and dealing damage to fast moving frigates, either other pilots or NPCs. Most battleships can carry a flight of medium drones and a flight of lights. Only the Rokh is prevented from protecting itself from both classes of smaller targets equally (i.e. frigates and cruisers).
We are not asking for more bandwidth. The current 50 Mb bandwidth is adequate and we do not want to field 2 heavy, 2 medium, and a light drone in a flight for maximum DPS. This is not about DPS, its about flexibility.
There are some arguements against boosting the Rokh, let me address the most common ones.
The Rokh is a sniper thus doesn't require light drones. Every faction has a battleship that is considered a sniper for them: Apocalypse for Amarr, Tempest for Minmatar, Megathron for Gallente. They all have larger drone bays. Plus all battleships have options for using long range or short range weaponry and the Rokh is acknowledged as a compentent blaster boat, definitely short ranged.
Yeah, but Caldari are not big drone users. Well, they are enough of drone users to give the Raven and Scorpion larger drone bays. Also, the Minmatar are not big drone users compared to Amarr and Gallente yet their battleships manage to have decent drone bays.
Ships with 125 m3 drone bay and 125 Mb bandwidth have to make the same sacrifice as the Rokh in terms of taking heavy drones or taking two flights of smaller drones. Well, not quite. From my perspective, Heavy Drones are battleship classed weapons to complement the battleship weapons on the ship itself. If such a ship like a Megathron chooses to take multiple flights of light and medium drones, he is sacrificing some DPS against large targets for protection from both kinds of smaller ships. The Rokh on the other hand has to make a choice: mediums to defend against cruisers? Or lights to defend against frigates?
The Rokh is balanced for a drone bay with 50 m3. First off, as I pointed out above the game has changed since the Rokh was first designed; medium drones can protect against frigates as well anymore. Secondly, what quality does a Rokh have that makes it superior to another ship, say an Abaddon, that requires it to have a smaller drone bay? or an Hyperion? Maelstrom? Face it, the 50m3 was an arbitrary decision based on the fact that it was good enough at that time.
Take a look at this table of Battleship drone bay sizes:
| Drone Bay Size | Ships |
| 400 | Sin |
| 375 | Dominix |
| 175 | Typhoon, Panther |
| 125 | Armageddon, Megathron, Vindicator, Redeemer, Kronos |
| 100 | Hyperion, Maelstrom |
| 75 | Abaddon, Apocalpyse, Raven, Scorpion, Bhaalgorn, Machariel, Nightmare, Rattlesnake, Tempest, Widow, Paladin, Golem, Vargur |
| 50 | Rokh |
This is not a bell curve with some having lots of drone space and some having a little with most in the middle. This is an exponential progression that looks like this:
While the lack of battleships with 100 m3 drone bay is an outlier, the biggest outlying point is the very first one: the poor Rokh suffering with 50m3 all by itself.
When the Tier three battleships were introduced back in late 2006, well trained pilots with medium drones could be fairly confident that their mechanical assistants could handle anything that got in close under the tracking of their guns. A 50 m3 drone bay on the Rokh was not too debilitating, merely annoying. But several patches and mechanic changes later and we have the situation where light drones are the only ones capable of catching up to and dealing damage to fast moving frigates, either other pilots or NPCs. Most battleships can carry a flight of medium drones and a flight of lights. Only the Rokh is prevented from protecting itself from both classes of smaller targets equally (i.e. frigates and cruisers).
We are not asking for more bandwidth. The current 50 Mb bandwidth is adequate and we do not want to field 2 heavy, 2 medium, and a light drone in a flight for maximum DPS. This is not about DPS, its about flexibility.
There are some arguements against boosting the Rokh, let me address the most common ones.
The Rokh is a sniper thus doesn't require light drones. Every faction has a battleship that is considered a sniper for them: Apocalypse for Amarr, Tempest for Minmatar, Megathron for Gallente. They all have larger drone bays. Plus all battleships have options for using long range or short range weaponry and the Rokh is acknowledged as a compentent blaster boat, definitely short ranged.
Yeah, but Caldari are not big drone users. Well, they are enough of drone users to give the Raven and Scorpion larger drone bays. Also, the Minmatar are not big drone users compared to Amarr and Gallente yet their battleships manage to have decent drone bays.
Ships with 125 m3 drone bay and 125 Mb bandwidth have to make the same sacrifice as the Rokh in terms of taking heavy drones or taking two flights of smaller drones. Well, not quite. From my perspective, Heavy Drones are battleship classed weapons to complement the battleship weapons on the ship itself. If such a ship like a Megathron chooses to take multiple flights of light and medium drones, he is sacrificing some DPS against large targets for protection from both kinds of smaller ships. The Rokh on the other hand has to make a choice: mediums to defend against cruisers? Or lights to defend against frigates?
The Rokh is balanced for a drone bay with 50 m3. First off, as I pointed out above the game has changed since the Rokh was first designed; medium drones can protect against frigates as well anymore. Secondly, what quality does a Rokh have that makes it superior to another ship, say an Abaddon, that requires it to have a smaller drone bay? or an Hyperion? Maelstrom? Face it, the 50m3 was an arbitrary decision based on the fact that it was good enough at that time.
What about the
Ok, you convinced me. What can I do to help the campaign? There are several things you can do.
1) Promote the campaign. I commissioned Godlesswanderer to do up a campaign poster for me as sign at the top of this page. There are four sizes, the large above, and the medium, small, and tiny below:
Here are the URLs to them:
http://www.ninveah-enterprises.com/images/rokhcampaign/rokh25l.jpg
http://www.ninveah-enterprises.com/images/rokhcampaign/rokh25m.jpg
http://www.ninveah-enterprises.com/images/rokhcampaign/rokh25s.jpg
http://www.ninveah-enterprises.com/images/rokhcampaign/rokh25t.png
If you want you can display them on your website, forums, blogs, etc to get the word out.
2) Sign the petition if you haven't already. Show CCP we are serious and ready for change!
3) Donate to the campaign fund. Send ISK to Korannon, CEO of Ninveah Enterprises corporation, with a note in the description that it is for the +25 Campaign. The funds will be used for advertising (like the images above) and other forms of promotion.
SUPPORT THE ROKH! BECAUSE YOUR DRONE BAY MIGHT BE NEXT!