Ships & Modules

Am I the only one who thinks this bonus has been outdated for far too long? Perhaps I'm just another frustrated Caldari pilot but I think this is the worst ship bonus in the game to be on so many ships. Is there an actual reason for a type specific damage bonus on the Caldari missile boats? It's not particularly useful for pve and is literally worthless in pvp.

Missiles have the long reload time of projectile/hybrid turrets and the delayed damage of drones. Imagine if Gallente drone boats only got a 5% drone dmg bonus to the dmg type that is almost always the second highest in resistance.

The simplest solution: Take the word 'kinetic' out of the equation.

Secondary solution: Replace the kinetic missile damage bonus on caldari ships with a Rate of Fire bonus. It would give caldari missile ships the ability to actually utilize the versatility of multiple ammo types but would balance that by having additional drawbacks (reloading more often and still having to carry ammo of multiple flavors)

Alternatives:
1 Replace the kinetic dmg bonus with some kind of defensive bonus which would allow caldari ships to free up a mid slot they would otherwise use for shield mods. This would allow for tp or web to be fit without completely sacrificing the tank.
2 Add a low slot to those ships with a kinetic dmg bonus. Although this wouldn't get rid of the useless bonus we currently have it would at least allow for an extra ballistic control.

If you would also like to see this bonus adjusted, tweaked or replaced please speak up!

The kinetic bonus is there because lasers and hybrids, and therefore Gallente gunboats and Amarr gunboats are limited in damage type. Look at it this way, at least you can still change your damage type, unlike those gunboats. Of course Minmatar gunboats can choose their damage type, sorta. They can't get a pure damge type on any of their ammo, and Say for instance they want a long range thermal damage ammo. They don't have any.

The kinetic damage bonus is ther for a reason. Now that is not to say that all missile ships should only have that. But it is not an imbalance to Caldari any more than damage with lasers is an imbalance to Amarr. It just is a part of the game.

Drone boats have other weaknesses. Their damage is destructible. If sentrys then either abandon them in one place and risk losing them or basically you sacrifice mobility and your ship is pinned to one place.

This has been an old whine with Caldari. Tell me you fly another race of ships and understand the damage type limitation with lasers or hybrids. Do you accept that? If so then accept that your ships may only have kinetic missiles bonused. Because if you really think missile boats should all get bonuses that buff all damage types then maybe you want to post about intorducing explosive laser and hybrid ammo etc.

Lasers and hybrids don't get any damage type selection. Just be happy that you can do so if the situation justifies it.

Also, laser capacitor savings bonus says "hi."

As a matter of fact I have more skills for Amarr ships than for Caldari and more than double the sp in in gunnery than in missiles. I fly mostly amarr or shansha ships now with the exception of the Falcon, Onyx, Naga and a Tengu collecting dust in my old mission station. Point being that I fly Amarr ships because Caldari have a much harder time matching other races dps, usually giving up most of their utility or tank to do so.

As was pointed out minmatar gun boats, when they get a dmg bonus are not restricted on damage type and their dmg is immediate and non-destructible. Yes Gallente drones can be destroyed but so can missiles with defender missiles. Just because people dont often use them doesnt mean there isnt a counter. Neuts counter laser boats well, smartbombs decimate drones, defenders blow missiles out of existence. Perhaps if the caldari missile bonus was not type specific defender missiles would see more use. Plus drones dont have a reload time but missiles do while missiles often require some combination of web/tp/rig to actually apply near full dmg to a target. As for Amarr lasers they do both thermal and em which are commonly the 2 weakest resists and they dont often have to reload. Which leaves hybrids, Gallente and caldari both use them, Gallente gets damage bonuses Caldari gets range. The range bonus doesn't make a huge difference for blasters but is awesome for sniping boats. And while hybrid damage might be balanced with the other turrets now, remember rails just got a dmg buff.

I still see this as unbalanced. I think a change to a rate of fire bonus would be the most suitable, as a rate of fire increase also makes you reload more frequently and have to carry more ammo so there is balance to it, and missiles already have to reload more frequently than any turret.

Also consider that those platforms can still do considerable alpha strike damage where missiles have a travel time.

I fly minmatar and this answer still sounds stupid to me. Anyone who has the isk and sp to burn on a t3 fleet doctorine is obviously going to be effective. Hell, i've been on the recieving end of a legion/proteus Rooks and Kings gang and it absolutely rocked our male/scimi fleet 5x their number.

If we said anything an elite corp could pull off was balanced cruise ravens are fine because BE used to lolsnipe with them and hero tacklers.

And missiles hit from max range to 0 every time. Maybe not always full damage but they hit.

Bottom line different does not mean unbalanced. Personally I think it's great having systems that are wildly different. (this coming from a Pure Gallente pilot who has to shove his blasters up your @$$ in order to get into optimal).

Serves them right for not keeping all the bolts tight.

I mean tp/web (and for HAM/Torp fits a MWD) because without at least one of those missles dont do even close to full dmg before resists.



At least there IS a choice for alpha over dps. With missles there isn't although there IS the 10 second reload and the most frequent reloading of any weapon type. Not even taking into account the higher speed of Minmatar ships vs Caldari or the ability to choose between armor, shield and speed tanking.



If it's broken it should be fixed. But its easier for the non-caldari pilots to just leave that broken so no one will complain about how broken missiles are. Talk about a weak argument! Lets look at other counters to missiles: speed, sensor damps, ecm, oh wait those are things we already do anyways and missiles dont do enough damage to have a specific counter. Thanks for strengthening my point.



Drones and missiles both have travel times. And just like heavy drones, high dmg missles are slow (which means they also have a short range) but a missile boat has to dock up to refit for longer range which is not nearly as convenient as pulling in one set of drones and launching a different type. And we still gotta remember that the higher dmg missiles dont apply full dmg without a tp and dont forget that before we can fire a single shot we have to switch to the right dmg type so at 10 seconds. But since we cant always leave a fight to refit for longer range, we gotta be able to get to the target so MWD is also a must. So even without putting a scram or warp disruptor we've lost 2-3 slots out of our tank.




Apparently you missed the part about me having and flying mostly amarr ships. I'd like to see your armor fits where neither EM or Thermal are the weakest resist. On all of my armor fits those are my 2 weakest resists. Not that I can speak with complete certainty about gallente but the ONLY fit i have that's much different is my Vindicator fit with EM/Thermal tied for second lowest resist.

I dont want missiles to be over powered. As i said in the OP i would be ok if the damage bonus were removed and caldari ships were given an additional low or mid slot instead (just the missile boats mind you). I would rather have extra room for a painter or a bcs than a bonus to a specific damage type. Or a smaller bonus to all damage types. There are several ways this could be fixed that would be completely satisfactory. My primary objection is that we have bonus that has no practical use in either pvp or pvp.

With no damage bonus that would probably be balanced although the lore science behind making a laser deal kinetic or explosive damage would be a little tricky. Aside from that I'm not talking about changing MISSILES. I'm talking about half the caldari ships having a useless bonus. Stop changing the subject.