Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Because developing solutions off numbers derived from scenarios that don't even remotely resemble combat is useful?

Webs, TPs, MWDs, ABs, Shield Tanks are all part of the package and their effects need to be considered. (Ie. when was the last time you saw a BC doing 500m/s w/out a prop mod?)

Cruise Missiles.

I can kind of agree with you, but one thing this change does do, is make missile rigs more important. As well as the painter modules.

And who knows, maybe they remove the drakes 5% shield resist bonus and change it in favor of a explosion radius, explosion vel bonus.

AB BC's don't receive sig penalties and easily go faster then 500m/s
MWD BS's don't get drawbacks of there sig increase in the values.




Yes an this is exactly where YOU are considering it wrong. These stats are the basic missile balance, without skills - ship bonuses - mods - ewar considered in the calculation. The stats that you need to look at when redesigning ship weapons / and ships.

The balance begins at its weapon system. Then you check if the current skills are still correct, then you add the Ship modules, and ewar, and finally you take in ship hulls in consideration. If any of the previous (weaponsystem, skills, ship modules, ewar) are out of sync, you can NEVER get a balanced ship.

With these changes, the end result might look ok on paper when you take in skills mods and shipbonuses in consideration on eg the drake. That doesn't mean that the weapon system itself didn't become more broken.

The idea that one single weapon system of a certain size class won't be able to do full damage against a target of the same size while the other 7 (short and long range guns, short range missiles) do is not a balance.
The idea that a medium sized ship long range missile travels faster then a small sized ship long range missile is not a balance
The idea that one TII ammo type out performs another TII ammo in every aspect, unless some verry strange scenarios happen is not a balance.

The idea is to design a weapon system thats balanced and then redesign the ships around it. Not to rebalance a weapon system around one ship, and then have to pull out magical rabbits out of a hat to fix other ships.

How Caracals will be, we will all see then.
Nighthawks (which is what you meant) havent been used, true. Which is a clear indication for HML not being OP at all, and the NH being broken. It should be fixed asap ..
Tengus will be less viable than now, so in PvE they will be maybe even behind Golems and CNRs, which leaves Minmatar to be the even more uncontested overall PvE FOTM than they are already now ..

Ravens will only return, if they work as a complete system of CM/Raven in PvP. I dont see this will really be happening with the next patch.
Cerb, we will see.

I still believe the solution of this all should be something completely different, give HML a true range ammo (t2) with small DPS like turrets long range ammo but similar range (maybe Optimal + 1.5 falloff of the turrets, can be balanced around that so its really working) and extremely fast missiles and extremely short flight times, so shooting on those ranges actually contributes to the battle. Then, and only then missiles can have a role in long range, if they are not OP by paper stats like HML are now.

To ad one thing: the Drake will not be "fixed" after this patch, it will be fixed just as a null sec blob tool, and fixed means here - killed. In other aspects it will be broken: sub par. So, no - this is not the right direction. Much work to do for you CCP!

@Sigras, I still wait for your answer on this:

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=1998084#post1998084

I assume I wont get any? :)

Obviously. And that is, in fact, what CCP offered as justification last year when they proposed nerfing the Drake.

Now however, in this very thread, we have been assured that missile lag is no longer the issue. Apparently it's the Drake's total wtfpwnage of everything in space with it's crazy range and ungodly DPS. The Drake is the freaking serial killer of Eve or something. And CCP does have a point...

Setting aside the Tornado, Naga, Talos, and Oracle, what BC can hit so far?!

And what BC, other than the Tornado, Naga, Talos, Oracle, Cane, Brutix, Ferox, Myrmidon, Prophesy, Harbinger, or Cyclone can do sooo much DPS?!

And speed, oh my god, what BC other than Tornado, Naga, Talos, Oracle, Cane, Brutix, Ferox, Myrmidon, Prophesy, Harbinger, or Cyclone can be fitted to go so fast?!

And let's not get started about the Drake's insane tank. What other BC, besides the Cane, Brutix, Ferox, Myrmidon, Prophesy, Harbinger, or Cyclone, can even begin to fit an 80K ehp tank?!

Clearly the Drake stands in a league all it's own. It has advantages no other BC can even begin to compete against. It's no wonder that 99% of the ships seen in low sec are Drakes. I, for one, welcome this new Drake nerf.

Does this include launcher fire rate for dps? It looks like volley only to me. Tech 2 cruise launchers have a rate of fire of 17 sec before skills / mods. HML's have a rate of fire of 12 sec before skills / mods. This means that the Cruise precision have roughly the same volley damage as faction heavy on frigates vs a lower dps value. Everything looks pretty balanced to me except that there doesn't seem to be a reason to use precision over faction for heavies. This needs to be addressed I believe, otherwise the Fury selection seems spot on. A Raven using Precision cruise should still kill a frigate a tad slower than the heavy faction.

Applied damage with precision on smaller targets should be looked at, seems low. My thought process is precision for frigs, faction for cruisers, fury for anything bigger than a cruiser. Looks pretty close outside of the precision numbers.

This does make the missile mission runners more attractive as well, I use a SNI on my missioner and it does work well, this should just speed up the process and lower the need for as many cap boosters as I use. Thinking about swapping ammo types to what an when will be great as well. Hopefully the new AI will make mission running a more robust experience as well instead of a scripted action to grind isk.

The other factor to put into this I believe is how attractive they have made the Bellicose as a support ship for missile users. Bring a few in your fleet and watch all your missile boats perform better. They also look as if they will do pretty decent dps to boot.

CCP does look to be really thinking about the synergy of how these ships will work along side one another. Is a torp Raven going to be great at everything solo? Not at all, but with allowing guided missile precision to effect unguided missiles, it opens up the ability to use rigs for tank, and if you bring a couple bellicose friends along with a few tacklers, you have one hell of a dps machine that will actually be able to apply it's dps. Maybe even a logi cruiser or 2....

I don't know if i made a calculation error, in my case the difference was only 1.4 dam, in your case the difference is nearly 3 times the damage. Wich makes my point even clearer. With these changes why would you use a Fury missile vs a Precision missile except on caps?

Ah I think these numbers are wrong. May I ask what damage formula you used?
The reason being that you can achieve perfect damage through sig radius alone. I am fairly sure that precision heavies will do full damage to a AB BS even before skills. See my earlier post on furies before and after changes.
Damage = D * MIN(1, Sr/Er, (Ev/V * Sr/Er)^(log(DRF) / log(5.5)) )