One alternative to making Destroyer and Battlecruiser skills racial is to make the ships dual-skill. Put half the bonuses on racial frig / cruiser and half on the core skill. It still leaves some oddities, but helps mitigate the current issues with Battlecruiser skill. Essentially, BC becomes a "role" skill.

(I assume this is coupled with other ship rebalance stuff like removing tiers)

Currently I can fly all the (sub capital) tech 1 ships with max skill, minus Gal battle ship, which is at level 4. I can fly most tech 2 ships with max skill. I have all the tech 2 weapons systems maxed or near maxed for these ships. I can fly just about whatever I want whenever I want. Took me a while to get here.

I understand that you want to balance and move forward with the game and improve the ships. Getting rid of tiers is awesome, been saying it for years. BUT I'd rather not have to train more skills to do what I can do right now. Been plenty of that all ready. Keep that in mind when you go about adding, splitting, and refunding skills and skill points.

Re-balancing is on our minds as many of you know and CCP Ytterbium is here to tell you all about some major changes we'll be seeing the start of soon.

Please go here to read the blog and as always, we're eager to hear your feedback.

Edit:
Notice also CCP Soundwave's remark about skill reimbursement,
CCP Soundwave's statement that "if you could fly it yesterday, you will be able to fly it tomorrow" and
CCP Ytterbium's confirmation about racial skill preservation.
CCP Ytterbium provides a bunch of answers to common questions and concerns in the thread (March 8th 12:06 EVE time)

Isn't it our job to define roles for particular ships, not yours?

If this is the case would you please tell me why more caldari ships are flown in the Alliance tournament than any other race? This is the tournament with the wealthiest most skilled pilots in the game so race and isk are not issues. If you can only fly Minmatar ships in PvP then explain the ATs. If you want a brawl then yes minmatar ships are the ships to fly. But that's not the only way to PvP. Minmatar ship put delivering damage to the target above all else. It's flat out stated in the ship descriptions, but they most certainly are not the only race capable of PvPing. People need to stop implying that when it has proven to not be the case.

I could support this.

While you guys are addressing this issue, i'd also like to highlight one particular category of pirate faction ships that's noteably missing from current availability: Caldari/Minmatar.

I find it insulting that there are two pirate faction available for Gallente/Minmater, for every ship class category:
Frigates: Daredevil, Dramiel
Cruisers: Cynabal, Vigilant
Battleships: Machariel, Vindicator

.....but none for the Caldari/Minmatar version?
Don't pilots also deserve the ability to harness skills acquired from both these racials and be able to fly ship/s that reflect this calling?
Mayhap, it's got something to do with Eve-fiction? Can't you introduce a new pirate faction that provides this service?

While we're on the same line of thought, and in par with your new ship-skill restructuring....how about introducing MOAR pirate ships, namely, destroyer and battlecruiser class versions?

But wait, there's more!
Following -that- line of thought......
PIRATE FACTION CAP SHIPS! wru?

Hate me all you want, if there's one cross-training that's too over powered in this game, it's Gallente/Minmatar.
FIX THIS PLEASE.

Thank you.

Incorrect.

If this is the case would you please tell me why more caldari ships are flown in the Alliance tournament than any other race? This is the tournament with the wealthiest most skilled pilots in the game so race and isk are not issues. If you can only fly Minmatar ships in PvP then explain the ATs. If you want a brawl then yes minmatar ships are the ships to fly. But that's not the only way to PvP. Minmatar ship put delivering damage to the target above all else. It's flat out stated in the ship descriptions, but they most certainly are not the only race capable of PvPing. People need to stop implying that when it has proven to not be the case.

Finally - some sanity to the ship and race chaos !!

After all - this is a ROLE playing game - anything to make both ships and races ROLE SPECIFIC, instead everyone can fly everything, is a move in the right direction as far as I'm concerned.

But go the rest of the way and make training a specific skill of a different race more difficult than training the skills of your race - in addition to a racial bonus for the skills of your race - - caldari trains caldari BC in normal time and gets a % bonus for missiles, but if they train minmatar BC it takes longer to train and bonus does not apply - - projectile arty on an amarr ship so you can divert the power/cap to your tank? What kind of nonsense is that!

Sure it 'reduces' the 'diversity/unpredictability' - so what! back to the original point - this is a ROLE playing game.

Re-balancing is on our minds as many of you know and CCP Ytterbium is here to tell you all about some major changes we'll be seeing the start of soon.

Please go here to read the blog and as always, we're eager to hear your feedback.

Oddly, as a low SP player annoyed by how long it takes to be able to upgrade to the next set of ships, my ***** is the exact opposite of most the ones here. Why can't we just remove all the racials and go Frigate-->Destroyer-->Cruiser-->Battlecruiser-->Battleship? I just find the idea of EXPANDING the ship command tree to be pretty silly, because it's completely filled with redundant skills as is. So sayeth the noob less concerned about waving an epeen in the form of SP and more concerned about being able to fly ships. No, I don't expect anyone to really agree with me, I just wanted to say it :)

Also:
"Or the Gallente drone and dampening abilities stop with the Exequror?"

The exequror has a bonus to neither of those...?

That is why we want to remove ship tiers altogether, then refocus our balancing philosophy to be based on role. That means finding common themes, or lines that fit ships with the same purpose, then adjusting slot layout, HP and fittings within each class to support this goal.

GGsCombat ships: designed for direct fights, such vessels are usually found spear heading an attack force, or sniping from long range. Have great damage and defense, but poor mobility. A good representation would be 18th century "ships of the line". EVE examples: Abaddon, Rokh, Hyperion, Maelstrom, Ferox, Maller.

GGsAttack vessels: Made for hit and run assault, or flanking opportunities. Have great damage and mobility, but average defense. Similar in role with cavalry. EVE examples: Armageddon, Megathron, Tempest, Oracle, Thorax, Hurricane, Dominix, Myrmidon.

GGsBombardment ships: provide heavy fire support to pin the enemy down with constant barrage of ordnance. Have great damage and range, average defense and mobility. Can be compared to artillery. EVE examples: Raven, Drake, caracal.

GGsSupport vessels: mainly focused on assisting a friendly force, or disrupting an enemy fleet. Have average damage, poor defense, average mobility. Electronic warfare is the prime illustration of this line. EVE examples: Scorpion, Blackbird, Celestis, Arbitrator.

GGsIndustrial ships: provide the mining and logistic backbone to replace military losses and cover operating costs. Poor offense, average defense and poor mobility. An Oil platform is a fairly accurate depiction of industrial ships . EVE examples: Covetor, Orca, Rorqual, Iteron V.

Combat ships: designed for direct fights, such vessels are usually found spear heading an attack force, or sniping from long range. Have great damage and defense, but poor mobility. A good representation would be 18th century "ships of the line". EVE examples: Abaddon, Rokh, Hyperion, Maelstrom, Ferox, Maller.

Attack vessels: Made for hit and run assault, or flanking opportunities. Have great damage and mobility, but average defense. Similar in role with cavalry. EVE examples: Armageddon, Megathron, Tempest, Oracle, Thorax, Hurricane, Dominix, Myrmidon.

Bombardment ships: provide heavy fire support to pin the enemy down with constant barrage of ordnance. Have great damage and range, average defense and mobility. Can be compared to artillery. EVE examples: Raven, Drake, caracal.

Support vessels: mainly focused on assisting a friendly force, or disrupting an enemy fleet. Have average damage, poor defense, average mobility. Electronic warfare is the prime illustration of this line. EVE examples: Scorpion, Blackbird, Celestis, Arbitrator.

[..]

ps. To really be able to balance out EW, CCP needs to move EW modules to the high slots. So that all races have to choose between weapons or EW.