Player Features and Ideas Discussion

My point is that performance matters, and that's why split weapons suck. If fitting split weapons was REALLY so important that you'd sacrifice performance in your main weapon system, you'd happy trade turrets for missiles regardless of how many turret spots you've maxed out.

If that sounds silly, then welcome to how I, and I'm sure many others view the "cosmetic value' aspect of your argument.

No, it's not the same logic. Eve game mechanics offers limited, but real, alternative paths, niches, environments or roles, with weapons systems that are behaviourally different enough to provide real choice. Deliberately building inefficiency is only OK if it excels in a given role, otherwise your just pissing people off by making them train more, fit more mods, and waste more slots to accomplish a trivial level of performance.

I personally don't believe projectiles and armour mix (projectiles have deliberately low dps for too many good reasons and thus need spare low slots for dps, and oversized shield mods for tank) - and given that we have at least 4 other t1 turret plus armour, ships, and that amarr and gallente have managed to have two of each, minmatar should have 2 shield based ships, one with alpha, and the other with fall off.

CCP Rise mentioned something about armour artillery. If he were to go down that route, the ship as designed would have to be changed to forfill that role efficiently, in that context, would you rather have an extra tracking computer or damage mod or cruise missile launcher?

If the ship is being pigeon holed into armour then without doubt it needs another low slot or two. The thing is the Tempest doesn't have enough mids or lows to excel at either. But then using your owny words above, that doesn't matter as long as it excels in other areas. The area I would personally like to see it excel is in its ability to deliver sustained damaged.

I can see the inefficiency with the two utility highs, but it doesn't bother me if the ship can still excel by modifying its other attributes. The slot layout really seems to be a bug bear though to you and some others in this thread. For me the bug bear is the damage application, it simply doesn't deliver enough damage in my opinion. I want to see it being able to deliver more damage than the Tornado and Maelstrom and approaching the levels which the Typhoon can currently deliver.

as somebody said the spot where tempest could be as an fats ac ship is to crowded with machs tronados and galente blaster ships..... and i think hes right .

one could maybe find a spot in between there but i think maybe a comletely new approch woul be much better.

keep the two main charakteristics
-keep it fast
-keep the 2 utility highs

screw the rest and think up something new
maybe some smartbomb (bonusrange?/activation cost?) or energy transfer or some other crazy stuff for utility high slots and boost it into a comepletly new role which would make it distinct.

new roles could be found! ....and thats in the spirit of the great eve sandbox.

althogh i fear its way to late for such radical approach

Too niche, leave that **** for t2.

It is nice to read well thought out and written responses. I can see what you are both getting at, changing the slot layout gives extra flexibility in the mids rather than altering base stats which will provide a static buff to either the shields or the falloff/tracking.

Unfortunately I cannot be convinced still as I believe the Tempest's role lies firmly in being able to out damage the Tornado and Maelstrom. For small gang warfare damage application is king, and I dont feel the option to add a shield buffer adds very much compared to a falloff or tracking bonus, and so the extra flexbility in the mid adds very little in my mind.

If you focus on using it with a decent shield buffer then its role will end up half way between a maelstrom and a tornado but not actually excelling at either. I would be interested in your opinion on why you think a shield buffer would be chosen over a tracking/falloff bonus when you can simply go for the maelstrom which will always out compete the Tempest in terms of shield?

Why not just forget the shield and go for tracking/falloff bonus on the hull, and then make the Tempest excel at damage application. To clarify my thinking ill link the original proposal below.

Hmm I still just don't see much reason to use a shield fit Tempest over a Maelstrom or Tornado. There is massive overlap between the 3 ships under your proposal which would really squeeze the Tempest and I don't think it would get used much, and I think if your honest you'd agree with me too that it wont get used much either. The 3 ships would simply become different shades of the same colour with the Tempest being in the middle. Not saying it wouldn't work, but just that it wouldn't offer much incentive to use it over the other two ships.

Since we 3 are discussion this for 5 pagea lready. They could give us a Pattern issue Tempest, a Puncontis Issue Tempest, and a NIkon Issue tempest

I think the best idea ive seen so far for the temp is a 10% rof bonus, 6 guns, and 7.5% tracking speed bonus per level. Minnis have a sniping ship in the mael. For any minnie pilot who wants to fly a fast battleship with minmatar guns, theres nothing. The tempest should fill that role imo. The phoon uses missiles. IDC about missiles. Even though the phoon kinda makes me wanna train em after al these years.

Really, before we can do anything to save the Tempest, we need to figure out what the hell it's supposed to do. Right now, if you want to do any sort of armor tank, you use the Typhoon for its 7 low slots. If you want to have a strong shield tank, you use the Maelstrom with its 6 mids and shield boost bonus. If you want to do DPS, you choose the typhoon or maelstrom. If you want to have a fast kiting battleship, you also choose the typhoon, because cruises will be hilariously better than trying to kite using Barrage, and because the typhoon is faster and has a better slot layout. If you want to snipe, you use the Maelstrom which has higher DPS and alpha.

After the Typhoon is buffed, there will be no circumstance where the Tempest will be preferred for anything. In fact, the only time you will want to use anything other than the Typhoon will be if you want to either have 1400's for alpha, or if for some reason you want to fit a strong active shield tank. There needs to some circumstance, at least one, where the Tempest is the (minmatar) battleship of choice. Right now there isn't. If CCP really wants it to be an "attack battleship" it needs to have a buff to agility and damage application (either falloff or tracking). Maybe the Pest could have higher top speed while the Phoon has better agility and sig radius, or vice versa. Personally, I agree with the idea to give it 10% ROF and 7.5% Tracking, along with increasing speed and taking a look at the viability of Large Autocannons as a weapon system. In particular, it is sad that large autocannons sacrifice some of their already low DPS once you shoot past a mere 5km.

Now I'd like to switch gears a little bit, and talk about the Maelstrom, the oft-forgotten battleship. It is a very straightforward ship meant to be the slow gank and tank Minmatar battleship, but overall the ship just doesn't make sense. As a solo or pve ship, it can fit a strong active tank and have respectable DPS, but projectiles are ineffective for PVE when we can use a cruise missile phoon instead, and a maelstrom can not effectively solo pvp because it is impossible to simultaneously fit a tank and enough tackle to actually apply its DPS. As a gang or fleet ship, its active tank bonus is useless since fleets rely either on RR or passive buffer. As a sniper, its shield bonus makes no sense, and its ROF bonus fails to take advantage of arty's high alpha.

My proposal for the Maelstrom is to truly make it the Minmatar 'Ship of the Line'. First, replace its ROF bonus with a damage bonus to make it the king of alpha, while the Pest receives its 10% ROF bonus. The second change is a bit more unorthodox, but I think really is needed in order to make the Maelstrom viable for gang PvP. As mentioned above, one of the Maelstrom's biggest problems is that a shield boost bonus is only really useful for solo pvp/pve, but the maelstrom is incapable of soloing due to its low speed and lack of utility or extra tackle slots. My proposal is to make its shield boost bonus also apply to amount of remote shield rep received (maybe at 5% instead of 7.5%). This would give people a reason to use the maelstrom in gangs or fleets as a durable gank/tank platform, which its current bonus is ineffective for.

TL;DR

Give Tempest 10% ROF and 7.5% tracking per level, increase speed, potentially rebalance Large AC's so that the Pest is capable of applying almost full dps at 24km.

Give Maelstrom 5% Damage Bonus instead of ROF Bonus, and make its active shield boost bonus also apply to receiving shield transfers, making the Maelstrom viable for gangs or fleets.

Even if these exact changes arent done, most importantly, figure out what the hell the Pest and Maelstrom are supposed to do, and redesign them so that they actually make sense for those roles.