Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Mike Voidstar, how many missile ships have you flown?

No no, I'm not trying to diss you or anything. Its just that by your responses in the thread, you seem to not understand fully how missile ships are currently balanced against other ships, especially in PvP.

Your idea about damage bonus is flawed, for two reasons imo.

1. You are trying to circumvent a balance limit imposed for very specific reasons.
2. You are trying to circumvent a balance limit imposed for very specific reasons, in the wrong way.

Missiles are pretty much designed as single damage type ammo for multiple damage type weapons. Thats the reason we have 4 different missile types (mjolnir, inferno, scourge, nova) for each missile class. Some ships get bonuses to a single damage type, so as to limit versatility while keeping power high and add character to a hull.

Here is an example of a ship that has damage type bonuses.

Osprey Navy Issue
10% missile velocity bonus
5% damage bonus to EM,Thermal and Explosive missiles.
10% damage bonus to Kinetic missiles.

Can you explain to me what is the damage power and types inflicted under your suggestion when I fire a mjolnir heavy assault missile? Right now, the damage is 172 EM points with the hull bonus applied and perfect skills.

According to the idea you posted in the OP, it should get 172 EM, 69 Kinetic, 34 Thermal and 34 Explosive damage.

Now, lets say that you fire a Scourge heavy assault missile.

According to the idea you posted in the OP, it should get 206 Kinetic, 34 EM, 34 Thermal and 34 Explosive damage.

You misunderstand my intent. According to my OP, you would get a flat 5% bonus to all damage, and an extra amount of Kinetic damage equal to 5% of that base damage amount, assuming that the balance review that would naturally come with any such change didn't change the bonus slightly in some way.

That bonus is really a 5% to everything, which is a pretty standard bonus, and then another 5% focus on Kinetic damage, which is the sort of thing I meant to address. You could, if you wanted to make it a rainbow special do 100+5+5+5+10, but that's not really the intent of that bonus.

i like the thinking

but caldari ships often come with strengths most likely to make up for their strict damage types. they often do more damage than comparable missile boats e.g. hawk vs vengeance, cerb vs sac, crow vs malediction.

the idea that they should have adjustable damage types AND keep the higher missile damage would be imbalanced. It is apparently the caldari way to have high kinetic damage or low adjustable damage, love it or hate it.

There's a small number of ways to improve application because there's a small number of ways to lose application....

He saying that the relative bonuses that caldari ships receive look good on paper, but in real world application where resists come into play, the damage selectability of other missile ships (such as the vengeance) compensates the kinetic bonus of caldari boats; and that and the general nature of missiles, with being difficult to apply full damage when compared to turrets. (eg a large gun shooting a small sig, still possible to do full damage, while a large missile shooting the same target cannot unless aided by E-Warfare)

The issue that the OP and others are raising is the fact that a lot of caldari boats (and a few Minmatar boats) are using a weapon systems that in its very nature, is a flexible, adaptive, consistent damage dealing weapon with selectable damage; and caldari are restricted to using a single damage type to achieve their max effectiveness.

Yes, this change would require a balance pass, there is no getting around that. But what we want to to is use a weapon system to its full potential.

From what I understood its not a damage bonus to all damage types, its the base damage with an added kinetic damage tacked on. A Nova missile does a base 100 EXP damage, then an additional 10%-50% of that as kinetic (depending on the level) with this proposed change, so a Mjolnir does 100 EM + 10 KIN at level 1.

Agreed that this will require some balance (eg 7.5% instead of 10% maybe) so it's isn't more powerful than it is now, but I don't think the OP was asking for or implying more damage, the kinetic damage is still going to be effected by resists, he was asking for the ability to be selective in the damage type, an aspect that missiles allow for.

(And I agree about the stealth bombers, no complaint there)

I'm not saying its awful, and didn't intend to imply that it is. What I want to say is that it seems a waste to have a system that can shoot multiple damage types, but then restrict a faction to one of them for the sake of of effectiveness. I'm all for keeping the caldari kinetic flavor, but I also would like the ability to use one of the base aspects of missiles without having to sacrifice the primary bonus that most caldari missile boats give.

I wouldn't necessarily say a minority... Kestrel, Condor, Hookbill, Crow, Buzzard, Hawk (6/6 frigates) ... Corax, Flycatcher (2/2 destroyers) ... Osprey Navy, Cerberus, Tengu (3/5 cruisers) ... Drake, Nighthawk (2/3 battlecruisers). I'm not saying there aren't exceptions, but other than battleships it's extremely prevalent. And the Phoenix also has a kinetic bonus.