EVE General Discussion

That would mean a lot Gallente and Minmatar ships with lasers.

emphasis mine.

Please, tell me, WHY should I choose to fly a ship because it's capacitor is weak and difficult to handle by design? Most popular boats have exactly 0% concerns over this kind of thing. Is a Punisher sporting auto-cannons not a problem? Why would be a laser Moa a problem?

What I think is giving an Amarr ships bonuses for only cap usage for lasers is dumb. Look at the Maller, Prophecy, and Punisher.

They only have a bonus to cap usage, as a result people don't fit laser on them, but autocannons or blasters.

Not to mention lasers used a lot of powergrid. Small and Medium lasers in my opinion use up way too much grid. For battleships their fittings are mostly fine (except maybe tachyons - but they are oversized weapons).

I remember the days when fitting lasers on your ship meant you would die after a minute without cap.

I like the way Amarr ships are now.

Perfect example of the forum morons I was talking about ;)

I don't even see the point you're making... You're talking about TC's? The same module that can benefit EVERY turret? Regardless of ship bonuses or race? The same module that will help Pulses have better tracking will help Blasters and Autocannons have better tracking, still being better than the Pulses. Or is there some other point up your a** you're trying to force out? Don't give yourself a hernia trying though...

I'd like to also point out that I always carry various crystals around with me for their range/tracking/damage differences as well as changing scripts in my TC's as necessary. I apply this same tactic when using all of the other various turrets, also. So get back under your bridge.

Then don't fit 3x ccc's and 4x cap recharger II's to a damn Apoc... I am assuming this is for missions?



I'm cap stable with this...

A laserboat with Scorch dealing 300 paper dps will do more damage at its optimal range (20 km?) than an autocannon ship dealing 300 paper dps with Barrage. Falloff reduces damage. Optimal does not. Stick to lasers' optimal range, and they also have good tracking. Using an 8 km optimal laser at 500m causes shittastic tracking... and that's to be expected, or lasers would be auto-win-guns.

Autocannon Damage

Because of the range factor and their low base damage, autocannons *do* have ****-poor performance. For example, med-tier small weapons at maximum skills:

• 3x 150mm Light Autocannon II with faction ammo: 80 DPS at optimal range of 675 m and falloff 5.5 km.
• 3x Dual Light Pulse Laser II with faction multifreq: 80.8 DPS at optimal range of 3.38 km and falloff 1.88 km.
• 3x Light Ion Blaster II with faction antimatter: 107 DPS at optimal range of 938 m and falloff 2.5 km.

The autocannons will never do their whole DPS because of their abysmal optimal range. The lasers might if you fly your ship right at around 3-3.5 km, and the blasters will do most of it if you stay at 1km-ish. While yes, the autocannons will do more damage at 6 km than either the lasers or the blasters, they are overall a lower DPS option than either one... unless you put them on a ship that gets bonuses to autocannon damage, which brings them in line with the other weapons (e.g. the Rifter). Please learn about falloff before white-knighting your genius.

Tracking is another matter altogether, and there are techniques to mitigate bad tracking, or people trying to get under your guns. In fact, I have had more success with putting a Tracking Enhancer on a Punisher than I have had with a Heat Sink.

Artillery range/tracking: Alpha strikes aren't always guaranteed to hit, and smart targets dodge shots before they are taken. The range and tracking bonuses are the reason Muninn is better at sniping than Hurricane is, even if Hurricane technically has more alpha.

Blaster range/tracking: I was comparing basic T1 ships with basic equipment (no T2 ammo) as the latter adds too many nuances. Still, fitting blasters on a Rifter gets you killed by another Rifter that can kill you from outside your range -- with regular ammo if you're using antimatter, or with Barrage if you switch to Null. An Incursus with Null has a far better chance of dealing with kiters.


Neutron Blaster Megathron has 4.5 km + 12.5 km range base. Mega Pulse Laser Apoc has 20.6 km + 10 km range base. The Apoc can track just fine at 20 km, just not at 4.5 km. If lasers tracked as well as blasters, there would be no reason to use blasters. If blasters tracked as poorly as lasers, they would never work . Range/tracking is a tradeoff.

Railgun range/tracking: A Ferox without range bonus would be better off fitting beam lasers. At equivalent ranges, lasers do slightly more damage, with 1.5x the tracking (ammo change notwithstanding). Add the range bonus and it becomes clear the Ferox is better off using railguns than beam lasers. That is what a bonus is supposed to do.

Laser cap usage: At (for example) 30 km range and taking other ship bonuses into the equation, beam lasers have: better damage than autocannons or blasters (but worse tracking); similar damage to railguns, with better tracking; more damage than artillery, with better tracking; ability to instantly switch crystals to match target range, for optimal damage application; little to no ammo use. Why not just stick them on any ship? Cap usage.

Changing the cap usage bonus to a cap recharge bonus would give more utility to Amarr ships, but until EFT warriors pull their heads out of their ass, all we're going to see is more autocannon fits "because they do more damage", more neut fits (which already work plenty well), and more whining about how lasers suck and need two bonuses.


Perfect example from another MMO that works very hard on balance. Thank you.

One thing that is slightly awkward is that while you see projectile weapons on all sorts of ships due to not using cap, you very rarely see lasers or hybrids on ships that are not bonused on them. Im ok with the current situation for the most part as when you pair ships with their respective racial weapons they are mostly balanced, but the projectile thing does stick out. Any rework of lasers/amarr ships (because you have to do both at the same time) would have to take into account this.

Sorry, have you read these forums before? Of COURSE we do.

More folks butt hurting over their ships and weaponry. Have you Caldari and Amarr folks forgot that Gallente were superior over you guys when before CCP broke the hybrids? some may not know but it was then that Gallente ships juked the amarr and Caldari PVP guys left an right.

Now that CCP fixed them and brought weapony in line with everyone you still complain. do whine in real life like a 2 year old when your favorite toy gets scuffed? yes you do