Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I'm surprised you think so. The same root cause is behind most of this, so I don't really see it as a separate problem. Why play whack a mole when you could play....um....er....whack a hippo?

Well try opening a thread about it and see how quick it gets shot down by the shitposters.

Oh, you mean like orthrus, gila, garmur, ishtar? Those totally don't have too much power and battlefield control (although ishtar has gotten a smidge better after nerfs).

The whole "because the sleipnir is fine, all a/c ships are fine" argument is dumb. I'm tired of hearing about the 1 ship, that has a 100% bonus to damage to its weapon system and a fall-off bonus (the two main things a/c's need to function half-way decently) creating the "we can't buff a/c's because the sleip is strong" arguement. Its a CS, and it has absurd bonuses as a way of offsetting how **** autocannons are.

It also has the benefit of being able to squeeze in dual XLASB's (that are shield boost bonused), something most other CS can't. That has nothing to do with autocannons as a weapon system. That is why its a strong ship.

Now, look at any autocannon ship that doesn't have a fall-off bonus, like an a/c kite cane. With 425's you're hitting deep into your fall-off at 24-25km. Thats with 2 TE and an ambit rig. Your dps goes from 546 dps on paper, to 240dps at 23km, with 3 application mods and faction ammo (the whole selectable damage argument). Using barrage, we go up to 300dps, but locked into explosive (gg if you're fighting a shield ship). This is a ship with 2 damage bonuses, the biggest calibre gun and 3 range mods, and its doing cruiser to t3d dps in its intended operating range (medium). The vagabond, even with its fall-off bonus, suffers the same issue, except with the vaga, its difficult to fit 425's and utilize its bonuses. So its normal to use 220's, reducing range/damage application.

The current fall-off for medium a/c's are ****. Ac base fall-off needs a buff. Or, they need to buff T2 long range ammo damage, and create more variants for actual selectable damage type.

being restated

Sabre is an interdictor, it was the best before the balance and is still the preferance. It's job is to bubble things, so it gets on all the killmails.
Svipuls use artillery. The only predator to interceptors, they are ridiculously popular. And almost all use artillery.

Also, those ships use small guns, not medium or large.

Unfortunately the monocle is right, 425s are awful. My roaming Cynabal is fit with 720s in spite of the falloff bonus because autocannons just can't compete. Their range is pitiful and their damage is worse.

425s on a Cynabal, two tracking enhancers, two gyrostabs, and EMP gives me approximately 175 DPS at 30km.
With Barrage I can get ~40km range, where I'm getting 150 DPS
Or I can fit 720s and do almost 250 DPS at 50km, where tracking isn't an issue (same two gyro/two TE low slots).

Better yet, an Orthrus will do 450 DPS to 60km with a 45km point range, or a Cerb can do 440 DSP to 71km, both with RLMLs. If I were feeling brave and fit HMLs to that same Cerb, I'm doing 400 DPS raw past my lock range (missle range is 140km)

Then remove the speed creep. Then there are a few things that will start to look less broken.

I gave up using kiting acs probably a year or so ago. Vagabond was my favorite ship until it took me 3min to kill a single LSE/invuln vexor (may have been linked). I love putting 3 range mods on my ship and still apply frigate level dps at 20km. Theres a reason 100mn brawl vagas are thing, because its the only niche they can fill without being oudone by cheaper or just significantly better ships. The falloff bonus is mostly worthless when you are setup to brawl.

The TE nerf really irks me. Looking at the original thread, it was nerfed not because of winmatar acs, but blaster talos. Large blasters were nerfed by nerfing every weapon system that relies on TEs. And large blasters still project to rediculous ranges. Leaving them virtually unaffected, but crippled acs.

They also have no selectable damage type while kiting. That is unless you enjoy doing **** dps. So then you use barrage, and are then locked in to explosive.

infiltrators dont do well against t2 minmatar resists. Still used up 8 of my XLASB charges. The vagas tank has nothing to do with autocannons though, so whats your point?

And even so, it still died to the ship that had "low damage at kite range". I mean, so what if it took you 3 minutes if you end up killing the other guy? Your ship, it's fit and your piloting still won against the other guy's.