Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I think that missiles deserve a balancing pass. They're able to deliver long range dps without sacrificing dps or tank, something turrets can't.

The problem lies in the skills: missiles are more skill-dependent than turrets. Skilling the Turret skills to maximum gets you 25% extra range, 100% extra dps and 25% extra tracking. Compare this to 125% extra range, 100% extra dps, 50% increased explosion velocity and 25% decreased explosion radius.

This makes it quite clear that while the straight damage bonus is equal, the bonus to damage application is anything but. To match the turret range bonus the skill bonus from Missile Bombardment and Missile Projection should be nerfed from 10% per skill-level to 2.5%. Since they get multiplied together this results in a 26.6% increase in range at maximum level.

Explosion velocity and explosion radius are more difficult. The formula for missile damage is Base Damage * min[1, S/E, (S/E*Ve/Vt)^(ln(drf)/ln(5.5))] where S is the signature radius, E is the explosion radius, Ve is the explosion velocity, Vt is the target velocity and drf is the damage reduction factor.
The most common case of speed-tanking is where the signature radius is bigger than the explosion radius (or S/E > (S/E*Ve/Vt)^(ln(drf)/ln(5.5))), so (S/E*Ve/Vt)^(ln(drf)/ln(5.5)),, is the part of the missile damage equation that applies. The damage reduction factor looks complicated, but delivers exponents ins the range of [0.56 , 1], so it increases the value of the the formula, but most significant when it's close to zero, so I'll ignore it.
That leaves us with (S/E*Ve/Vt). This term becomes 50% greater with 50% increase in explosion velocity as well as 33% greater with a 25% smaller explosion radius for a total increase of 100% with max skills. That is slightly compensated by the drf, but still a lot more significant than the 25% tracking bonus.

Guided Missile Precision still has a job to do in slow targets so I think that lowering it to 4% per skill level is the most it can be nerfed to, as this means 25% damage bonus against slow, small targets (S/E applies).
Target Navigation Prediction still incurs almost a 50% damage bonus against speed-tanked targets, so lowering it to 5% per skill-level seems appropriate.

This means that the damage application against speed-tanked targets is lowered from 100% skill-bonus to 56% skill-bonus. That is still much higher than the 25% tracking the turrets get, but turrets have the option of negating any tracking issues by piloting.


To compensate for these severe nerfs the missiles base stats need to be increased. With less range in damage application it should be possible to better balance missiles against turrets and other missiles.

I also propose new modules that mimic the functionality of tracking computer / enhancers. Missile guidance systems that increase the missile velocity as well as the explosion velocity. They'd come in low slot and med slot varieties, and as usual the med slot can be scripted.

So to sum up:
- Decrease the Missile Bombardment and Missile Projection bonuses to 2.5% each.
- Decrease the Guided Missile Precision bonus to 4%.
- Decrease the Target Navigation Prediction bonus to 5%.
- Increase the missiles base stats.
- Create Missile Guidance System modules that increase Missile Velocity and Explosion velocity

You don't pve do you? Because probably half the mission runners out there snipe with cruise missiles.
Anyway if you don't snipe with missiles you should be happy: you'd be getting ammo types with extra dame at short range and a single scripted Missile Guidance System would get you 30% explosion velocity if we're taking our cue from tracking computers, so you'd already have better damage application than before.

The idea is not to wrecking the weapon system but nerf the skills and take it from there. If that means boosting the base stats go ahead.

Also I have no idea where you get the idea that half the missile systems are useless, they all have their purpose. If your goals don't match those just don't use them.

Yes, let's nerf the worst weapon PVP systems in med/high/capital sizes.

Brilliant.


Also using PvE to show missiles are unbalanced. LOL

Even on the PvE front I'd say most who use missiles do so because it's all they have used and they just can't be bothered to change habit. I've missioned with missiles, rails and lasers and of the three, missiles apply the least real damage. That's not a complaint. The trade off is more tank but it's usually tank you don't need or more specific, I don't need. With rails I can snipe faster than I can lock. I've never had that problem with missiles.

Well ideally PvE would have better rats, that are more similar to PvP fits with stupid pilots. That way the gap between PvP and PvE would not be as big. But still I'm pretty sure the PvE pilots outnumber the PvPers.

Anyway here's what i think about the missile systems you dislike:

- Heavys really don't stand up against the competition, but we'll see how the rebalance of medium turrets goes.

- Rapid heavies seem quite useless because their only job would be killing cruisers, but they can't do it without reloading, and they reload so long that the cruiser has ample opportunity do do something about it.

- Cruises are convenient for shooting BS from a safe distance while the sentries take care of everything else. So purely PvE.

- Torps are useful when combined with the stealth bombers bonuses, but on BS they seem quite pointless.

No idea about citadel either, but they look like their main purpose is bashing structures.

The question of what do do with them remains. I don't think simply dialing up the damage would really fix things.

The PVP-PVE gulf is far, far bigger than you know. But yeah, say it with me here: weapons are not balanced around PVE, never have been, never will be. You really need to grasp that simple fact before suggesting anything that affects an entire weapon system.

Also can I take this as confirmation you have no actual experience using missiles outside of your carebear-mobile?

yeah missiles aren't used widely in pvp and none at all in incursions unless you lack gun skills because of time delay.
Nerfing them into the group won't make more people use them.
I can do the same work in a mission with guns that I can do with missiles assuming the rats don't EW you to death first.

OP: CCP publishes from time to time some very interesting information about the weapons systems in EVE, how often they're used, and how much of all damage done is done by each. They even make this available in a nice neat graph for people who aren't so good at reading. I highly recommend you look for the missile weapons systems on these graphs (Hint: look down towards the bottom, very down).

I fail to see how your proposal adds meaningful gameplay, balances existing gameplay, or in any other way improves our lives as capsuleers. I also second the proposal that you undock regularly in hostile space with the weapons you're proposing nerfing (start with a torpedo fit battleship) until you understand why people disagree with your assessment so vehemently.

Larger size missiles are already the worst pvp weapon system. Rockets are alright, situationally, but hardly op enough to warrant nerf.

"Pve balance" is a laugh. We don't balance based on pve, it ruins the game.

I have thought a bit more and i think i have some solutions:

- Keep the skill nerfs about range. Increase the missile velocity to keep the total range the same. That makes this very much a buff shortening flight time and increasing the range for lower skill pilots.

- Get rid of the damage reduction factor. A big problem for applying missile damage is the quadratic decrease for smaller sized ships as ships that are twice as fast and half as big take roughly 1/4 of the damage. Replace that with a square root instead. To match that the square root would need to be in the signature radius as well to make the formula
Base Damage * min[1, sqrt(S/E), sqrt(S/E*Ve/Vt)]
This simplifies the formula and smooths out the effects of the signature radius and target velocity. A target of half the size and twice the speed would take half the damage. Therefore the skill bonuses of Guided Missile Precision and would be less pronounced, and i could live with them being bigger than I initially proposed, perhaps even unchanged. HAMs, Cruise Missiles and Torpedoes would be the biggest winners of that change because of their high damage reduction factor.

- Missile Guidance Systems should still be part of the plan, but they'd need to also bonus the explosion radius to keep the bonus somewhat linear.

- Heavy missiles still need about 25% damage bonus to rival long range turrets.

- Cruise seem to be on equal footing dps wise, so I'm not sure what to change there.