EVE General Discussion

I agree with the other posters saying the boats need fixed, not necessarily the weapon system. Also, I would like to see a nice buff to Caldari boats.

- Make their target range HUGE! Why is it the rokh's guns can out range the tracking computer thingy? (i understand typically bullets go much further than someone's ability to aim IRL, but it's a video game FFS)
- Also, increase the optimal on caldari boats please. Whats the point of trying to kill something when you can barely scratch the paint on it?

These are some ideas off of the top of my head. Ultimately, I'd like to see sniping become a feared tactic. Snipers should make people **** their pants. Missiles don't count. A couple thousand years and our missiles are slow as ****, yeah thanks CCP.

That would take away the Arazu and Keres jobs though. I would prefer a straight up MWD Speed Bonus, the Blaster Range to reach the edge of Scram and enough power to fit Ions or Nuetrons.

Don't make fast enough it to kill Vagabonds, make it so it can run down and OBLITERATE! Hurricanes, Harbinger's non speed bonused HAC's with overwhelming Blaster DPS. That the major problem, not ony can a Hurricane out fight a Deimos, a Nanocane can out run it. If it can not it can keep it at range for a short time while it's cap slowly burns out on the MWD then the second it gets the Deimos in Nuet range there goes it's guns. It's gotta rush in there like a bat out of hell and tear that thing apart fast. Maybe dump the free high slot for a mid that fits Cap Booster or 2nd Web.

Make it a fast little Sledge Hammer that rushes in on top of you and just starts swinging. Not a modified EW Boat.

This, give the ferox a hybrid damage bonus, and make caldari missile ships get damage bonuses for non-kinetic missiles (10% to kinetic, 5% to others is fine with me)



since caldari gunships dont have optimal range ship bonuses

wait...

Not ALL of the things that the OP laid out NEED to be fixed.

Blasters, and to a lesser extent, rails, need to be worth using for something. For blasters, I would see that advantage as raw DPS. Right now though, the extra DPS blasters do just simply isn't enough to offset the weaknesses they bring to the table in their design and the ships designed to use them. Every other "short-range" weapon system our-ranges them significantly. Therefore, in a straight-up fight, the blaster boat has already taken significant damage just simply closing into range. Then when it gets into range, the damage type (kin/therm) is one of the most overall highly resisted types ships are naturally tanked for, and it's worse when the non-blaster ship has a proper omni-tank fit, because invuln fields and EANMs are generally used, and kin/therm usually goes WAY high, or at least one of them does. The end result is, the blaster boat takes such heavy damage on approach, the deficit is insurmountable, even to it's superior DPS. That is if you don't take into account the fact that most blaster ships are easy to kite, or don't have the tracking to actually hit anything in their optimal range. Thus, even if you don't make any mistakes, and fly your ship to the limit of it's abilities, you don't stand much of a chance of anything but going down in a ball of fire in a blaster boat.

Rails are a bit more complicated. Frankly, CCP needs to revisit probing mechanics to allow for the viability of sniper BS once again. Currently, there is no way to engage a hostile fleet with long-range weaponry outside of 150km, because probing is now so near-instant, it takes longer for the BSs to align out than it does for a prober and bubbler to land on the BSs, then they're forced to engage at point-blank range with long-range guns that don't track at close-range, and you die. Changing probing mechanics so that BSs have time to bounce to sniper spots frequently without getting caught is really the only thing that will bring sniper BS back into style. From there, rails would probably only need a slight buff in DPS output and they'd be considered "useful" again.

Another interesting suggestion, if CCP wanted to leave out an actual damage buff, would be to allow hybrids some more choice in ammo and damage types. This would probably provide enough versatility that combined with a tracking buff, and maybe a minor range buff for blasters, would make hybrids competitive again.

tl;dr... blasters need to do a lot more dps, so fights can actually be won by burning into range and 0wning, or they need a significant range boost. Tracking must also be fixed, and the speed+armor tank combo should be looked at. Rails need only a tiny buff, if at all, but probing mechanics need to be changed so sniper BS can be used once again.

simply reduce the MASS of blaster boats only... that would help with their speed issues

Personally, I don't think blaster boats should be faster. I think about them as a heavy armored solider equipped with a big shotgun.
Resistances and armor HP should be the real point on which to focus. Gallente hulls should be the slowest and hardest ships in EVE.

Railguns should have more range and more rate of fire as by definition:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railgun

In simple terms, Gallente ships must be the tanks of Eve.

True, but then your fleet is very limited, because you always have to have a dictor between you and the hostile fleet before you warp to a new snipe point. It's not practically viable, because it's easy for the hostiles to bounce. It works, but the limitations are such that it makes the actual snipe BS fleet impractical.

Blasters also fail "because of neuted". Make a deimos as fast as you want, he'll get capped out once he gets within 12 km of a cane.

When BC's can't fight their higher tiers hybrid weapon system, and have hard work on fitting the lowest...

You look at the ruppy and you ask yourself who was that drunk that made Rupy fit 1600 RT and full 425mm+missiles capable?
Or the gang bang that is the hurricane able to fit full rack of 425mm + med neuts with shield fit or 425mm+missiles AND 16000RT ....with no cap issues, pg issues, speed issues, tracking issues, dmg application issues and can even fit drones just to mock you.

I don't believe that it's possible to fix blasters without nerfs to other races and weapons.

There are two main areas. Firstly, the absurdity of giving the shortest-range weapons to a slow race, and effective ranged weapons to the fastest race. Clearly the wrong way round.

The second problem relates to the power-creep of recent years. During QR, pulse tracking got boosted. This made Pulse more effective close up - supposedly Gallente's realm. Later, projectiles got boosted. Raw damage got increased, TEs allowed for enhanced tracking and selectable damage increased applied damage. All of these made ACs better in blasters' realm.

So now how do we fix blasters? By following the power-creep model, we could increase their optimal or falloff. This continues the model of homogenising the weapons. But people understandably object to this. Now, you can increase blaster tracking and raw DPS, but the problem is that the ability of Pulse and ACs to deliver very impressive damage at blasters' optimal still remains. The problem is that Pulse and ACs are far too flexible. To really fix blasters - to give them a role that they excel in, where you can't just use another weapon system to good effect - the applied damage of AC and Pulse at close range is going to have to be significantly reduced. This means, say, reducing Pulse tracking and reverting all of the projectile changes, then giving blasters a lot more tracking and maybe a bit more DPS, or giving them more selectable damage types (still limited to kinetic/thermal mixtures though).

The only problem with this idea is that there is precisely zero chance that CCP, in its new self-flagellation mode, will dare to propose such wide-ranging nerfs, however justified they may be. So instead all we will get is some half-arsed changes that either turn blasters into an inferior knockoff of ACs or Pulse, or a superior knockoff that obsoletes one of ACs or Pulse, or just increase blasters' raw damage and tracking that, while helpful, still leaves blasters crippled by a complete lack of flexibility compared to ACs and Pulse.