Player Features and Ideas Discussion

As the title says above, i've lost count of how long there has been talk about missile tracking computer/enhancers in development. Are they in development? Is there any chance of seeing them in rubicon 1.1.

:D :D

Anyway, a somehow serious response on them would be cool. Even if it's just a "there are balancing problems, so we scrapped them as a whole".

They gave that answer already after all the whining in the discussion threads when they proposed them.
It's not in development at all. It's in the 'we could possibly do this at some time in the future as an option'

because what u talk is only theoretical.live,all missiles suck in various situation compared to guns.yet they still are a primary for of weapon for many ships.

Adding precision enhancing modules for missiles is still something we are interested in pursuing and putting thought into, but it's not at the "all we need to push the button" point. There are some balance and implementation issues that make the process a bit complicated.

So I can't promise anything except that we like the idea and are continuing to put thought into how we could make it a reality.

Heavy missile launchers and the new rapid light missile launchers have all but disappeared from the PvP landscape. I'm just curious at what point a weapon system becomes so marginalized that it necessitates a serious review? Damage application for heavy missiles, torpedoes and the new rapid launchers need serious re-examination.

This doesn't necessarily have to involve the introduction of a ballistic enhancer or ballistic computer, but the reality is that target painters are largely ineffective, utilizing rigs places Caldari ships at an extreme disadvantage with respect to tank and resorting to stasis webs completely defeats any advantage of light or heavy missiles.

Many of us have been repeatedly been asking for an update (any update!) on where things are at. We're not exactly thrilled at the prospect of being forced to reluctantly retrain for another race and weapon system.

What will it take to get a meaningful dialog going about this? I think after suffering almost a year of the heavy missile nerf (while rails, drones and everything else have been buffed) and the unexpected rapid light missile changes - we're owed at least that.

The lack of such modules also means that the Phoenix is completely unusable in either PvE roles or as a blap-dread in PvP, functions which the other three can all fulfill to an extent. Even the Rev is usable for blasting red crosses, but the Phoenix simply can't manage, and you'll never get decent DPS against hostile T3s with Citadel weapons despite using bonused painters & webs.

That lands in the same range as our usage metrics. Obviously we're taking all of this into account when we plan the next steps, but I'm not going to go into more detail until Rise is back from vacation and the whole balance team can sync up in person.

I'd also like to put in a reminder that Rise did promise a look at heavy/HAM's in the near future. Also, can something be done about the pitiful range on precisions?

There are really just two fundamental problems with missiles. First off, long-range missiles are invariably at a disadvantage compared to turrets simply because damage mitigation for missiles is invariant of distance. For turrets, it's a curve, really close targets having higher angular for the same traversal speed, and really far targets being outside optimal. For missiles, it's identical at all distances, so sniper fit turrets tend to be overwhelmingly superior for long-range encounters because tracking loses it's drawback and optimal is too far to matter. There's no equivalent for missiles.

The other major issue, and the issue that still to this day make zero sense, is the hard cap on the missile equation of the target's sig over the missile's explosion radius. Turrets will hit a small but stationary target for full damage. Missiles will hit a small but stationary target for a miniscule percentage of their maximum damage. That portion of the missile equation should simply be removed, as it serves little purpose. If turrets can be brought near 100% DPS by super-webbing the target, missiles should to, particularly given the extreme disparity between the benefits of a web and a TP on the damage equations of both (a -60% web is equivalent to a +150% TP).

Overall, probably the best thing possible for missiles is to universally make all missiles like large and capital missiles in terms of damage application. Short-range missiles do more damage, but also apply it more poorly to smaller, faster targets. Combine that with the removal of the absurd damage cap against small (but stationary) targets, and the introduction of modules benefiting damage application, and you've got a balanced system. For short-range missiles, you can either favor damage application modules for doing better damage against same-size or smaller targets, or damage modules for larger targets. For long-range missiles, you can favor damage modules to offset the lower base DPS of the long-range missiles, or damage application modules to hit smaller targets better. This also, incidentally, covers the gap the RLML and RHML were originally intended to cover (namely, shooting down a size).