Ships & Modules

Atleast we now have something pretty to stare at while it takes ages and ages to kill an untanked industrial

my main concern with missiles is explosion velocity it seems the only way to counteract this is to web your target .
now with turrets you can do the same if the ship you are trying to hit is too close or too fast . or if your ship is faster you can fly further away to reduce the amout of tracking requiredd to hit the target you cannot with missiles. however if your using long range missiles trying to hit a fast ship you can't really do much in this case to get a better hit. unless you get webber drones where as if your using railguns shooting a long distance speed at such long ranges doesn't really seem to bother me. so basically what i'm tryig to say i guess is we need a module to increase explosion velocity or decrease dmg loss from targets speed due to explosion velocity.

on another note not sure how anyone will react to this short rage weapons such as blasters ad autocannons have high tracking the closest thing to tracking i could figure out with missiles is again explosion velocity so again either increase explosion velocity or perhaps add a module to do the job or find a way to add this bonus to missile ships or make a new ship with this bonus on it instead of 5% to shield resist.

To be perfectly honest Cambarus, i think much of the complaints are compensation-arguments given the amount of flack HML catches. When popular use and general application of HML is brought up (incorrectly in my oppinion) as malbalanced, things like the accuracy of Torpedos are brought up as a counter-point.

Neither side completely correct of course, but it cast some light on the mechanics missiles are balanced around. HML have the same core mechanics as Torpedos, and while they hit above the curve for "general application" something like Torpedos hit below the same curve. It means that some effort must be put into countering HML or applying Torpedo, effort most people are unwilling to factor in and rather complain about.

It does provide an interesting and somewhat understandable overview though:

"HML are good - Missiles are bad".
HML platforms with damage + tank bonuses are good - platforms with range bonuses are generally superfluous.
HML is fairly easy to apply on most ships (using staple modules like MWD) - Torpedos are respectively difficult to apply, while Turrets and their accuracy equation conversely have some advantages "blapping down".

Those are generalisations while all missiles obviously share the same mechanics and should be regarded the same way, balance-wise. They have their advantages and they have their drawbacks. They have their situational application and they have their prerequesites.

On the whole, i'd say all of it is generally balanced well enough not to poke around in it, even if certain lobbyists seem intent on it. The issues people experience with Torpedos give insight into how Missiles on a whole is balanced, and how you should deal with HML (instead of complaining about it).

This whole thread is a fitting example, as it popped up after a full week of multiple poorly concieved anti- Drake and Tengu threads. It's just counter-weight right or wrong, it point out the problem that without Drakes or Tengus there aren't many other missile platforms to take their place. EVE has no plant soil for 200km Cerbs or Ravens to grow popular, and balance is achieved by giving and taking - not just taking. It applies to the TD-proposal as well.

For sake of argument: let's say that minimal warp-distance was increased to 250km, then you'd probably meet less resistance implementing changes to HML or (non-range bonused-) HML platforms. On the other hand, i don't see any point in those changes to begin with - all of it is workload better spent elsewhere, than fiddling around with existing, tolerable, balance. Tolerable wether we speak HML popular use or Torpedo/Cruise situational use.

From my last post:
Look at torps: Blaster damage, better damage type selection than ACs, and on a raven hull they come close to pulse range. If they had all that AND were easy to use, would there be any reason to use anything else?

To illustrate this point:
Raven with torps vs tempest with ACs, megathron with neutrons, geddon with pulses:
At 24km (non overloaded point range):
The raven does 1100 DPS, the pest does ~550. The raven literally does twice the DPS, with 100% damage selection.
A megathron does 1161 with its guns in optimal, which is about 1 tenth the range of what torp ravens get, while having no variable damage, and using cap.
A geddon has an optimal of 15+10km with multi (compared to a torp raven getting 27-30km with rage / faction torps) and 45+10km with scorch, compared to 45km with a raven using javelins.

Torps are basically the best attributes of every other close range weapon combined, with the drawback that their damage is difficult to apply. Adding a missile equivalent of tracking computers would ruin this. Flight time for torps is negligible, so if you make their damage easy to apply you literally remove the only drawback that the weapon has. It'd be like giving blasters 30km base range, or removing the cap use on pulses, or swapping the optimal/falloff values on ACs.

I don't see the point on this discussion.

Missiles have their advantages and their drawbacks (as every other weapon has)

As you have to do with turrets, you need to know where your weapons are strong, and where they aren't.

F.ex I'know i cannot out damage an autocannon rifter with my kestrel at point blank, but i can use MWD to orbit at 6 km while shooting full damage out of autocannon optimal (and at a long fall off range) I got webbed, he got webbed, i got scrammed, he got scrammed. I still have much more range than him, and web allows my rockets to apply full damage.

GG.

You can do full damage from point blank to max range.

You don't have to worry about your tracking (although you should manually pilot because the other guy tracking is important :D)

Sniper ravens apply full damage at maximum range at the trade of damage delay and only being capable of shooting med/big ships.

Golem can outdamage and out range any other BS with close range weaponary, with full damage selection.

My SNI can stay in the middle or almost any L4 mission, just shooting big ships, swapping damages and using drones to kill the small ones, which in the end, if I focus them with painters they fall in three or 4 shoots, even if they are orbiting at 450 m/s at 3000m. Try to do that with any other BS.

Know your weapon, know your advantadges and disadvantadges. Play accordingly.

Missiles are hardly in any danger of becoming underpowered. Trust me on this one... I know a few things about missiles. ;)

I like missiles for most of those reasons. Optimal range crap is annoying as ****, look to Amarr as to why damage typing is annoying as **** (having a race unable to/limited to change damage types in a game where damage types are this important it more than ********).

I agree.. Missiles a shat right now and have been. Caldari in general, suck compared to others.. aside from the tengu and drake which is going to be nerfed and no doubt tengu as well. Which will no doubt complete the full scale ship superiority of minmatar. In which loki and cane will have complete domination.
Caldari has been lacking.. The falcon is not a large number fleet ship..The raven is easily surpassed by most every other BS.
you can make a rohk decent but its not a missile ship.

So when you break it down.. missile ships suck compared to others and go figure, ccp is swinging the nerf bat again, yet have no reason too.. Caldari hacs suck..recons are alright, in general the drake and tengu, and the recent changes to harpy and hawk are really the only thing worth using and 2 on that list will get the bat..

People say obama is doing fine.. Which we all know is bull crap.

I see cane and maelstrom blobs more than drake blobs..When do you ever see a rohk or raven blob?
oh wait... you dont