Player Features and Ideas Discussion

This was proposed for some other threads of other missiles also, including cruise.
Actually, this proposal should be the mechanic of all missiles, where each missile starts with the velocity of the host ship, accelerating through target. The more speed it has, the more explosion velocity it should have, thus increasing its application. This would also encourage people who use missiles to bring some piloting skills to the ship they use, encouraging them to fire from somewhere around max flight time distance their missiles has.

They used to be interesting until CCP made them less so.

I note that we still don't see any kind of statistical evidence like we see in the HML nerf thread.



No insight in to the performance since that day. Do any websites track usage? I think eve-kill used to?

I still think long range missiles should be good at hitting "Fast" moving targets and struggle to apply damage to "Small" targets. This would give synergy to long range missiles being paired with Target Painters (makes sense).

Then short range missiles should be good at hitting "Small" targets and struggle to apply damage to "Fast" targets. Then we get synergy with webs and short range.

Then Flare rigs would be useful for long range missiles and Rigor rigs would be useful with short ranged missiles.


I also feel that missile launchers really now need to be "fleshed out" a lot more. We currently have only one choice per weapon system.

You're either:
rockets or lights

HAM's or HML's (with RLML's)

Cruise or Torps (with RHML's)

Turrets get good choices (eg Dual 150mm, 220mm or 425mm) which allow for choices between tracking, fitting and projection within each class (long range or short)

Why can't launchers get similar options. I don't believe the choice between RLML, HML and HAM is a choice as they all serve different roles and are technically different classes of weapons.

What I'd like to see is something like this:

Heavy Missile Launcher II (Low fittings. Standard operation)
Dual Heavy Missile Launcher II (V. High Fittings, 1/2 RoF, Fires two missiles per shot)

This is before my time. But I believe that missiles actually used to use this mechanic as a way for frigates to "get under the guns". Then CCP switched to the current formula as a way of distinguishing missiles from turrets. If you check missile stats, they still have an agility stat.

TBH, heavies have sucked since the medium weapon rebalance of 2013. They were far far over-nerfed instead of fixing the ships that were abusing them. Now compared to medium long range turrets, they are absolutely worthless.

Don't get me wrong. Rails are actually viable now. But there really was no reason to nerf heavies so much. I think they just need some damage restored to put them back into a viable place.

1. It actually makes a lot of sense for missiles to do more damage based on how long they have been flying, but only if they continue to accelerate. Not that I am for such a change, but it makes perfect sense technically....this is Eve however, where space is filled with space fluid and clearly not a vacuum so it's a moot point.
2. Anyone who says that missiles, specifically heavies, apply just fine probably hasn't used them outside of blob or semi-blob where the volley makes up for the poor application.
3. The same goes for the "lol rigors/flares/paints/webs noob" argument. For a missiles ship to meaningfully increase it's application, the pilot must sacrifice their rig slots and this is not balanced. For the sake of argument let us set aside paints and webs since they apply to all ships. This leaves missile pilots with rigors and flares. That's it. Turret and drone pilots still have TEs, scripted TCs, and scripted remote TCs that allow for numerous combinations of stat increases. Need to trade optimal for tracking? Just change a script or 2 and voila. Paints, webs, and rigs are all common factors that, when subtracted, clearly shows the inequalities between missiles and turrets in regards to application.
4. Just an example, I worked through the math of the application formula on TS using Heavies shot from my drake against my drake. The math showed that, by simply turning on it's engines and flying at approximately 187m/s, a drake can negate roughly 25-30% of incoming heavy missile damage by speed alone. That is before resists, before an AB, and with no application mods. So he anemic dps of heavies is further reduced by the movement of a terribly slow BC under engines alone, at any range. To clarify, I am not making the argument that heavies should apply perfectly, that would be ridiculous, but they should apply better against something as big and slow as a drake. Also, note that IIRC velocity was the limiting factor in my example and webs are not commonly used by a ship at long range. (Obviously a different matter with tackle)

In conclusion, there are most definitely problems with missiles and with heavies specifically that should not continue to be swept under the rug with the "lol rigors" arguments. Application, for heavies and torps, as well as flight time vs engagement range are both issues that I would like to see seriously addressed by someone other than Rise. There are multiple approaches to a solution, whether it be a stat change, a role shift, or something different entirely, and I find it a little discouraging that nothing has been done or said officially.

**Typed on my phone, so errors or unclear points can be cleared up later if you're not an ass about it.

Yes, Turrets do get modules that assist in the projection and application of damage.

Yes, Missiles only get two different rigs (where only rigors are important) and target painters to improve application and turrets also benefit from the use of painters.

However.

Missiles =/= Turrets.

They work incredibly differently. For starters, missile users can completely ignore their own transversal velocity to the target as they know it doesn't effect their own application. Speed and size is all that matters to them.

There are only three ways to reduce or mitigate damage. (excluding links and drugs)
Speed
Smart bombs
Defender Missiles

Speed is the only really viable one.

Now lets look at the different weapons fitted to a properly fitted Caracal. That means maximizing tank, DPS and damage application. The Caracal is a kiter. So I haven't gone for any kind of brawler fits as you simply can't get the tank for it.

A HAM Kiter (1x Rigor Rig) using a TP applies very good damage to cruiser and above and (IMO) acceptable damage to a frigate

A HML Caracal (2x Rigor Rig) using a TP and no point fitted as it should be operating at above 75km range to target gets good application vs cruisers and acceptable application vs frigates which can be further boosted by using precision missiles

The RLML Caracal is a special snow flake though. But I think people need to consider the fact that it's burst DPS is much higher than it's sustained DPS. You also should fit a range rig in order to get very good projection.

If you compare actual range and damage of comparable turret ships it all looks pretty good. Including how well you can tank these ships.

All in all, I think missiles are in a generally good place (Including heavies). They currently aren't used very much because of the insanely overpowered Ishtar.

My HML Caracal fit has a targeting range of >93km and approx. 20k eHP. That is plenty sufficient for a ship hanging about at >75km.

I can't find another T1 cruiser that can do that and get similar applied damage to target at ranges between 70-90km. A 250mm Railgun Moa perhaps but that needs to use Spike ammo which is pretty damn awful. Not to mention how terrible railgun tracking is at close range which missiles just ignore.

Stealth Edit: A Sentry Vexor can compare in range and damage and can fit a huge armour buffer still. But, you know. Because of Sentry.

Personally I wish CCP would take more advantage of what a missile launcher *is*. Its a tube that shoots rocket propelled explosives. Take a look at the HML for example it has 24 missiles or so visibly loaded in to it. Being able to fire the whole lot ala LRM would be a great great thing.

I have been musing on the topic for a couple of days now. If you fly another ship with long ranged weaponry you effectively have a cone in front of the nose of your guns wherr you csnnot miss. On the outside of this cone is another cone where you begin to mis and this second cone gets more blurry the further to its edges you go. This vague idea is the only appropriate parallel I could come up with for comparing long ranged performance for turrets vs missiles. In brief, inside a certain set of parameters you are almost certain to hit your target with guns at a given range for a damage as determined by how deep in to falloff (×2) they were. Also unless I am mistaken a target can be beating your tracking by percentages thus resulting in grazing or glancing hits which are still hits but at reduced damage output. Essentially with a long range turret and at a range inside your falloff you will have a hard time missing.

Where am I going with this? Look at the volley damage for 720 arties. It hits what... I think 3700 or so on a gank fit? I'm not personally sure but let's say it does. You can land a practically guaranteed blow of between 3700 & 1850 on a target within the limit of your falloff as long as you hold the appropriate range advantage. Heavy missiles will lose damage if the target is stationary but has a smaller sig radius than the explosion radius of your missiles. As correctly pointed out above the best way to mitigate damage from missiles is by being very fast. The faster you go the less damage you take. Period.

To me if we were to say hypothetically remove missiles from the dps grinder gameplay of turrets and instead make them high damage (which is easily mitigated) low dps one-shot-per-reload weapons it could provide some very interesting operational situations for missiles to exist in. Consider again the LRM. It is a finesse weapon. Bad lrm users receive little thanks and underperform woefully while very skilled LRM users amongst other things will complement a variety of group outfits and provide long range harassment that can dislodge enemies or force them to bunker down and become entrapped. Long range missiles would become like lrm (which possess relatively poor target tracking and a prone to losing applied damage due to landing off tsrget) while short range missiles become like SRM or MRM a higher rof burst weapon with relatively lower damage per volley but are faster and track much better.

Look up a mechwarrior video sometime and tell me how conclusively thst missile ganeplay isn't incredibly boring in EVE right now and that it wouldn't be improved both from a technical and player skill investment perspective but also from a gameplay perspective where players with a poor sense of timing or incompatible fleet design will see degraded performance as compared to a player with very high skill and proper fleet comp will see better than average performance. And the best part is you don't even have to change the heavy missile or HAM or anything at all to achieve this, you're changing the launcher instead. To do this you would lower the maximum capacity of the HML to what is physically visible and then set the number of charges launched per cycle to say a percentage of the whole rack at a time. Things like the rapid launchers would dump their entire load at once irrespective of the target making them perfect for instantly killing that one frigate tackling you but useless for wiping the rest of the group because you'll spend quite a while waiting to reload.

If there's one thing I've really hated about the new design of the rlml is the reload timer penalising you arbitrarily for having the wrong ammo loaded, taking 35s of damage you can't respond to and then having to wait 90 seconds to expend the clip you just loaded. Waiting is not good gameplay. If I have to wait a long time to reload then I feel like that should be compensated for by a very high rof or a much larger usable ammo count. Like LMGs with belt fed ammunition they have their srawbacks in reload time compensated for by very high rofs and longer uptimes. Rlmls and rhml would follow this pattern if they shot once per tick instead of whatever. Their ammo count isn't high and when they do get to fire again they dont dish out the pain fast enough to get them out of those situations where it literally would have been better to fit lml and not rlml. Talk about sustained damage all you want at the end of the day it's still time spent not defending yourself. Knowing that once you've finished reloading you just pull the trigger and you'll dump 50 missiles on someone is enough to keep the heart racing.

There's very little tactics to missiles particularly long range missiles right now. Just benin range and press shoot and then stand there mystified at why you can't dump your whole cassette instead of playing grab-ass against someone's logi module timer.

Sample ammo cassettes could be like lml 10, rocket 6, rlml 9, hml 12, ham 5, rhml 10 and then balance torps and cruises as loading from an ammo bay only and compensating for their one-shot then reload gamplay by multiplying the damage volley by the rof/reload time lost from original. Making cruises volley kings but still unable to blap a frig in one volley unless that frig has a vegetable for a pilot.

CCP just needs to make missiles apply damage more in line with other weapons. Since they have no way (outside of rigs) to increase explosion velocity or radius guns of equal sizes will always have a higher application rate.

IMO this is what would fix missiles on all levels.

Dropping the Alpha on missiles
- This is a no brainer if you are going to increase applied damage.
Increasing the explosion velocity on missiles
- This is the problem all missiles have
Increasing the velocity on missiles
- So missiles spend less time in space
Decreasing the Flight time of missiles
- So missiles still only go as far as they do now (with velocity changes included)

For the launchers
Increase ROF on the launchers
- To get back DPS lost from reducing Alpha

As it stand missiles on every level bleed too much damage against like sized targets that are moving. This applies to rockets against frigs, all the way up to Capital Launchers against Capitals.

HM shows the largest "bleeding" of damage against like sized targets that are moving.