EVE General Discussion

I don't think altering the weapons systems this way is a good idea. I mean, basically there's 2 variants of each weapon type that is focused on range at the expense of damage and vice versa. If you add alpha as a third consideration it's going to make balancing things a lot tougher. I think the idea has merit though... but I think it would be better to have high damage (alpha) ammo that gives a cycle penalty to your weapon modules when loaded. It would just be easier to make a reality in that way, I think. I definitely see some fun uses for something like that though!

Edit: Highest volley damage ammo at the expense of weapon module cycle time with net DPS lower than standard types of ammo

I get where you're coming from, alpha damage should be considered as part of the whole balancing package, that makes sense. But it should be considered as part of the whole package. I think artillery works because almost always you will be doing damage in falloff, whereas tachs, for instance, will be doing almost all their damage in optimal. This means that tachs will tend towards more "quality" hits (if I remember my mechanics right), even though they have less overall damage, whereas the arty needs more damage to compensate for the variance from falloff. Railguns should then fall in the middle, but the medium guns kind of suck.

I also think that long-range weapons should be more concerned with alpha than short-range weapons, mainly because in a swirling mêlée you need to have more chances to hit because those are at a premium, as opposed to long-range combat where the combatants aren't moving nearly as much (or if they are you can pick your battles easier). That brings up tracking...

Weapon balancing considerations are pretty damn complex!

I do like Gogela's idea of higher-alpha ammo, though, but it might end up being far more powerful than it should be.

Currently, choosing between mega beams and tachyons is the difference between going dps and going alpha. And don't do that to blasters, just don't.

Didn't have time to read everything my peers wrote, but for the record:

- slow rate of fire weapon systems are long range weapons generally (exception of torps)
- high rate of fire weapon systems are shorter ranged

You have some of these backwards in original post.

/constructive critique, carry on and do read what your peers write. Some very clever people to be found dodging between the trolls

Why are you selecting rockets (short range high rof) as the small missile dps variant and light missiles as the lower dps high alpha variant, and then switching it the other way around for heavy/ham and cruise/torp?

I don't like high inital damage projection. It reduces fights to a Warp-Jammer, a MWD/AB, a buffer and the rest is packed with damage mods and guns.

No nieches for ECM, Damp, Cap-Warfare, Webbing, etc.
Reducing the damage output of any sub-cap weapon system by 25-50% would improve PvP so much. There would be room for tactics.

I could get behind that idea as well.

Actually I considered it but to be honest I thought that many people would be less comfortable with the idea... and I'm not sure how technically difficult it would be to affect those variables through a simple ammunition change.

This is true only to a very small degree. When discussing alpha weapons in this thread I'm tending toward those that have a distinct design focus toward alpha strikes such as artillery. The somewhat higher alpha of Tach's (and Torps as well although they do come closer) aren't really balanced heavily enough in that direction.

That would be a consideration as well that would have a strong influence on just how far you go with the alpha concept. Nothing against suicide gankers (and in fact this would give them a wider variety of tools to choose from), but care would have to be taken to not go to far simply for game balance sake.

Leave my blasters alone they are perfect as they are k thx.