Motherships - now with more teeth and less guts

There are significant changes coming to the Sovereignty mechanics in Eve-Online, and at the same time a lot of changes to capital ships. Dreads will no longer be the be-all, end-all in almost all types of conflict, Titans will no longer be able to wipe out entire fleets at the push of a button and carriers will remain largely unchanged in their logistics role. No doubt the removal of the Titan's AOE (area of effect) weapon is the most important change in fleet warfare since Titans were introduced, however the focus of this article are the changes that are expected to Motherships.

Up until now, Motherships were rarely put in harm's way intentionally.Used more as a personal hangar ornament (ironic, because they can't dock), and in limited logistics roles (clone vat bay etc.), they are to undergo a major re-purposing process, becoming Supercarriers in the process.

Things that are expected to be taken away:

• The ability to fit Triage modules
• The ability to fit Clone Vat bays (leaving the Titan and Rorqual the only two ships who can fill this role)
• The ability to fit Warfare Links

Gallente Fighter-Bomber - close-up

Things given in exchange:

• Hitpoint boost - how much remains to be seen
• Fighter-bombers, special attack craft similar to Fighters that will be used to kill other capital ships
• Specialized Fighter Bay (on both Supercarriers and Carriers) so the pilot can better organize his  strike craft. CCP Abathur: "The server does not like it when Supercarriers have 1500 spare Hobgoblin II's in their drone bays and making the server happy is always a good thing."
• Slightly reduced price tag, since the Supercarriers won't require Capital Clone Vat Bay components.

  What should still remain from the old Motherships' abilities is fitting Remote ECM Burst modules - which can be especially cool when one side has multiple Motherships/Supercarriers on the field and can possibly perma-jam  the enemy support fleet.

One thing I would like to see given to Supercarriers though is the ability to dock. Yes, regular carriers can dock, and now that they had their Cloning Vat removed,. their bigger cousins should be able to do this as well. Not having a character stuck at all times in what seems to be a very expensive coffin with big bad drones would make a big difference towards making the ship class more popular and seen more often on the battlefield - otherwise people are simply going to do what they've been doing until now - BRING MORE DREADS.