Player Features and Ideas Discussion

And yet far and away most pve activity is and always has been run with missile boats. When I first started this game it was Ravens. That shifted over time to Drakes and Tengus, especially when wormholes were introduced. A whole pve environment it seems constructed specially for long range missile use and definitely not drone use or closer range active armor tanking.

I've run missions in missile boats, gun boats, and drone boats. True with gun and drone boats one prefers to blap frigs at range and progress up the ship sizes. WIth missile boats I often worked progressively down in ship size (avoiding triggers). And really for either ship type the eventual solution to any frigs you can't kill with your main weapon is often tech II light drones of the appropriate damage type.

However, I think you missed the following from the OP that does relate directly to your concern:

"-Remove ship penalties from tech two missiles (ship velocity and signature radius)
Precision: Improve bonuses to explosion velocity and explosion radius, increase damage to match T1 missiles, reduce flight time slightly"

Will that not make your precision missiles more useful against npc frigs? You see this is why people need to read the op more carefully and recognize that there are somewhat less obvious buffs in there amid the immediately noticeable nerfs.

Everybody keeps talking about missiles doing their full DPS at max range- the problem is that there is the "X" factor of flight time, which isn't something that is easy to toss into a straight across the board comparison of different DPS platforms.

The whole missile system needs to get scrapped and redone. The idea of small ships getting less damage done to them is both ridiculous and flies in the face of common sense and basic physics from the start.

Sure, it's a game, but it's a game that has quite a base of science and fact, in addition to the science fiction fluff added.

The explosive velocity of TNT on earth, in an atmosphere is 6,900 meters a second. It's about 15,000 miles per hour.

The explosion velocity of a standard Scourge Heavy Missile is 81 meters a second, or about 178 miles per hour.

The fastest pitcher in baseball had a fastball that was clocked at 108 MPH, which is about 48 m/s.

China just made a TRAIN that can travel at 574 miles per hour, which equates to about 258 m/s.

The missile travels at 3750 m/s before skills, which means that the missile itself travels roughly 46 times faster than the explosive charge it is carrying when it explodes.

The math and science don't add up whatsoever, unless explosives in the far, far future (some of which are titled as being nuclear) are like throwing oatmeal against a wall.

I completely understand that the designers were trying to keep Torpedos from one shotting frigates and whatnot, but I think that honestly- that's kind of the point?

If you drop a 2000 pound JDAM on a bicycle it tends to turn very quickly into things you would see on the periodic table.

The whole missile system itself was overhauled to make absolutely zero sense, and is now being considered to be changed to something which makes even less sense.

I really wish somebody would sit down in a group and brainstorm a way to make missiles viable without making them make sense in the realm of physics

Before the tier 3 BCs, medium long range weapons were used regularly. Perhaps CCP should never have released those ships?

Just think out loud here, how about removing explosion velocity from missiles entirely, or halving its effect? It makes sense from a "sense" perspective, when a missile impacts a target, how fast that target is moving is irrelevant in the real world. Consider, if a bomb goes off in a moving train, will the train not take any damage because it's moving relative to the earth? Of course not, because it's not moving relative to the bomb.

Go ahead with the nerf if missiles lose explosion velocity, I think that would make EVE a bit more interesting and diverse.

EDIT: Drakes and Tengus will still need to be looked at, because even if nerfing missiles brings them in-line with their classes, they are not in-line with other missile ships.

Or maybe they shouldn't have been made as powerful. Either less mobility and less damage, or less damage and less range. I don't think the ability to fit 8 large turrets on a battlecruiser hull should have had an added skill bonus that causes them to match or even surpass their battleship counterparts for damage and damage projection.


Whatever makes sense in the real world doesn't help us to balance combat in a video game. We've immersed (lol space) ourselves into a science fiction world where we've agreed to suspend our disbelief on things like warp drive, jump drive, transfer of consciousness upon death, cloaking devices, ships the size of large cities, and infinitely powerful policemen that appear out of nowhere within 30 seconds of a crime being committed. It unfortunately means that we also have to contend with things that otherwise don't make sense for simplification. The planets don't move, turret shots hit the target instantly, and missiles magically do less damage to things just because they're smaller.

We can't do away with explosion velocity because missiles do need some factor whereby the target can minimize damage taken with piloting. Increasing velocity is, apart from tactics that don't work like smartbombs and defender missiles, the only way to do this.

I want to start out by saying that it has long been my position that the Drake as a ship is fine as it is, it was always the weapon system that made it such a common and strong pick not the hull per se. In my early days I was a Drake pilot myself and what I very quickly noticed was that in a Drake my damage with HML was not as spectacular as close range turret ships but was very reliable and substantially better than long ranged turret ships.

So with the ability to deal damage falling somewhere between facemelt and snipe at a range equalling or exceeding the range of the long range variants and thus able to deal good, while not exceptional, damage safe from heavy return fire all while having a solid tank, it was impossible to say no. This has never changed and is still the case. HML damage is simply being brought into line with other systems that hit at a similar range. HMLs are not close range weapons there is little justification I can see for having them deal so much more damage than other long range weapons.

You can smartbomb/defender missiles.

I'm fine with taking away the ability to smartbomb missiles. I've been a small gang pvper my entire EVE career and in the thousands of kills I've seen how many times did I see either gang's missiles being smartbombed...ZERO, it has never happened. Of all the Drake fleet videos I've watched only the one linked early in this thread "firewalled".

Defenders are the same deal, never once were mine or anyone else's missiles shot down. How many Hurricanes have you seen opt for two or even one launcher for the sake of being able to launch defenders in pvp? If you're willing to answer me honestly on that I think you'll be able to see how ridiculous you're bing here.

Travel time.

To assume that this plays extremely heavily into your actual dps in a fight is silly. Yes your initial damage lands later and thus there is a slight drop from the dps listed but the longer the fight goes on the less of an impact this has as the influx of missiles is fairly constant after the beginning. To assume otherwise would be to assume the ships are ALWAYS moving apart. It seems obvious to me that combat (point) range or even lock range is impossible to maintain if that were true. This means that at some point the ships MUST move closer together or the combat MUST end.

Tracking disruptors affecting missiles is another big stumbling block but I feel it is overstated. It's not as if every ship in the game is going to be fitting a TD in case they run into missile ships and try not to act as if TDs do not affect turrets.

Take this as an extremely plausible scenario.

I'm flying my Condor with a couple friends. My Condor currently fits a TD, not because of this patch but because of what happens to the Harb in the following.

I tackle a Harbinger, orbit it at ~20km and tracking disrupt it for optimal range.
Harb uses Scorch to return fire.
Harb misses as I'm too far out of optimal.
Harb sets self-destruct.

I tackle a Drake, set orbit etc etc.
Drake shoots HML, they are still in range and thus apply damage.
I switch to tracking speed as with optimal range you can still reach me.
Damage drops but you are still dealing damage.

Now the fact that my Condor can outrun the missiles is irrelevant in this instance as that applies with or without the TD. The TD only makes you worse on paper in this case. But even in the event you can hit the target, say shooting a gang mate of mine, even if it is for less damage you are still dealing some damage. If guns can't track or can't reach their damage is not crap, IT'S ZERO.

Using the above Harbinger example again but this time assume it's beam fit. Very surprising to me as I have yet to see one in legit pvp.
Harb shoots and I realize I'm not out of his range when he hits.
I swap scripts to tracking speed and dive under his guns, sub 5km orbit.
Harb now misses completely.
Harb sets self-destruct again.

It is sufficiently unlikely that a Harb fit with beams would also be fit with scram and web as, what is really the point of fitting for range if you need to get to sub 10km anyway, that such an instance does not warrant serious consideration. At this point it needs to be pointed out that I could not ever get under the missiles of a Drake in the same way, TD or no.

I do not forsee everyone fitting TDs after this as some people have posted and one of the most striking reasons I see for that is people have posted that their Drakes do not have enough mids for tank, tackle, E-war and TCs. But who's magical, faction, 8 mid-slot Drake are you fighting that does then? They have exactly the same problem you do, this is simply trying to have it both ways. With ASBs and shield tanking as popular as they are who IS going to have so many mids to spare exactly?

What I forsee is the ships that currently fit TDs will continue to do so. Ships like a Drake will probably go from fitting 3 BCUs to 2 BCUs and a TE. Cry me a river. With the bonus that would give you to range/explosion velocity I just can't see the source of the tears.

EDIT: I chose the Harb deliberately for my Condor scenario as pulse lasers with scorch have the best damage projection of the short ranged guns and therefore would have the best chance of reaching my Condor at ~20km.

So why not buff medium beams?
Again, why is it that HMs need to be nerfed so hard that they come to the level the medium long range weapons are now?


Here's the question I pose to anyone willing to give it serious consideration:
Why can't HMs and the long range medium turrets MEET HALFWAY?

Someone said earlier in this thread that people will start using the turrets once HMs get buffed. No reasoning given for that besides "they look bad because of HMs". Someone else said that it was because they were completely overshadowed by the tier 3 BCs. That's entirely possible, but the turrets were still not all that popular before the tier 3s were introduced.

You seem to have read in something I didn't say and that is that I never said medium beams were crap. They simply do not fit well with how pvp works most of the time, especially on smaller scales.

Point range is only 24km without bonuses at best unless you are crazy rich enough to faction point every BC you fly, not to mention it would also seem to necessitate a faction web and good overheating if you want to maintain your correct range. Heavy Pulses in this instance can reach that with scorch so there is little to no motivation to go to the worse tracking, lower damage weapon, especially given that in that harb it is likely that something on field is faster than you, will get under your guns and you will never be able to shake it off of you without help and in small scale the help available is limited. It is a lot harder to stay under the guns of a Harb with pulses and Multifrequency.

I have used medium beams before on a zealot in order to kite and snipe targets out of a much larger fleet while a super pro Ares pilot with a faction point held them on field and the beams were wonderful. There is nothing wrong with them so much as the situations where they are best rarely arise. In short there is no need for a halfway at which to meet.

I guess what I'm really getting at is heavy pulses with scorch should be more analogous to Javelin HAMs than faction HMs.

Beams are a weapon that's so niche that it can only be used in one specific fleet (and even then pulse is more standard on ahac zealots). It's outclassed in every other scenario by an oracle or pulse harbinger. That sounds pretty bad to me. Saying that, medium beams are still better than medium rails, which have pretty much zero use.

So real quick if the deficiency is so obvious what stat most needs to be buffed to make medium beams good?

I'm not saying I have a solution because I don't and the fact that I don't use beams on my Zealot anymore and I now own Oracles speaks volumes to that. The gun itself has not gotten any worse it's just that since the introduction of the Oracle it's just been superceeded. There's not anything wrong with the weapon per se, so much as there are better options (beam Zealot does still work but the scorch Oracle is still better) and rails are still a mess. It's similar to the blaster buff we got more recently, blasters didn't get worse, it's just that other nerfs and buffs made them obsolete and it's quite similar with beams at least (fitting and tracking are among the biggest offenders on rails and are still horrible).

If CCP decides to look at these weapons in the future and I hope they do, any changes they make should keep HMLs in line with them, but for now we're getting off topic and in any case as things are currently HMLs still vastly outperform all of the above.

EDIT: Massive clairity failure on my part.