EVE General Discussion

This may eventually work it's way into the features and idea's section, but I wanted to test the waters first.

We have all seen CCP's reference to missile ships as "Bombardment Vessels" under the new balancing system. We have also seen (for years) all the reasons listed why missiles are inappropriate for this use in PVP conditions... primarily it boils down to the ability for a ship to warp out or be destroyed before the missiles hit if done at any sort of long range.

To rectify this many options have been discussed, including reduced flight time and increasing speed of missiles or perhaps increasing their damage potential, but these options have obvious drawbacks.

I'd like to propose and alternative that would not have a drastic impact on their current use in PVE activities.

The concept is actually fairly simple in theory, although it may be complicated from a technical perspective.

The concept is simple, allow missile to actually act as something slightly more advanced than we have today... namely allow them to aquire another target if their primary target is destroyed or warps out.

Everything about missile would work precisely as they do now in respect to damage, flight time, speed, etc. However instead of only looking at their primary target and then flying off into space until they run out of flight time if the primary targeet dissappears, they would instead lock onto the next target on the list they were programmed with just prior to launch... that being the other ships you currently have locked up.

To do this your currently locked ships would need to be ordered in priority, say from right to left, and you could drag and drop targetted ship icons to rearrange the priority. Once the missile is launched, that priority is set. It will relentlessly pursue it's primary target within the limits of its range, but if that target dissappears (destroyed, warped) it would aquire the secondary target (if still present) and pursue that one. If the secondary target dissappears, it would attempt to home in on the next on the list, etc.

This would allow true missile bombardment, as you would have a pretty good idea that once you fire that grouping of missiles, they ARE going to hit and do damage... and if you have your targets ordered per your FC's target calling your missile could have a huge impact on the battle.

Say the gunships take out the primary while your missiles are in route, well, your missiles (and everybody elses) could easily end up being the majority of the damage done to the secondary target.

Missiles would become a very, very reliable source of variable, steady, high alpha damage... and this to me would make them a viable PVP platform that fits the description of a "Bombardment" ship type.

I'm sure there would be issues to be looked at, but that's why I'm posting this thread. I'm more interested in if hte community is even interested in this type of behaviour for missiles... or if we just need to write them off permanently as being unviable for long range PVP.

UPDATE:

1: This should apply to the longer range "Guided Missiles" only. Shorter range "Unguided Missiles" would be overpowered and do not suffer as sharply from target warp out or destruction as longer range "Guided Missiles" do.

2: This would also entail putting targets locked from your watch list not being classified the same way as hostile targets are, which is a change that would be welcomed by all logistics pilots.

3: Now that I have considered some of the feed back in the thread (thank you all by the way), I've realized that the issue of how to let your missiles know what your secondary targets are could be greatly simplified.

Instead of putting your targeted ship icons in a certain order why not simply have all missiles in flight attempt to hit whatever (hostile) ship you have highlighted. Actually, this could apply equally to drones as well.

Drakes and Tengu's are currently King **** in PvP.

Delayed damage or not, they are still killing things all to well, and certainly viable.

A very valid point. I have always thought that ships targetted from your watch list should show up and be classified differently than hostile targets... listed on their own line (as far as targetted ships icons go), while still counting towards your maximum number of targeted ships.

That might very well need to be done first.

Both of which are slated to be balanced, as they are both over powered for thier class. Drakes will lose a great deal of their tank (which is their value in fleet PVP, along with the fact that most everyone can fly one) and Tengu's are simply overpowered period for a Tech 3 vessel.

Wouldn't it be nice to see Ravens, Cerbs, etc. in large PVP fleets again.

Actually, I could see this change be restricted to missiles that fall into the "Guided Missile" category, and leave "Unguided Missiles" as they are.

Jump Missiles are the answer to travel time, but it kind of screws with the flavor of the missile boats. May make Cruise Missiles usable though.

Well this depends on how the new defenders work.

They are king because people pump billions into them.

That becomes a game balance issue. Especially with Stealth bombers such a tactic would likely be overpowered as the target would have too small a window to respond (consider that 100km range with SB launched torps is entirely possible).

Torpedos fall under the category of "Unguided Missiles", along with HAM's and rockets I believe. Those could logically be left as they are, otherwise they would become overpowered.

In the typical (non-stealth bomber) scenario these missiles ae used at close range and don't have as much issue with their target warping off (or the rest of the fleet killing the target) as the longer range guided missiles do.

I have updated the original post with a couple of good points raised in this thread.

I like this, especially as it clearly maintains the division between targetted missiles and FoF's. Not sure how feasible it would be, but to transfer the target list at launch-time rather than pick the "new top" target as ships pop would add in a bit more forethought and better maintain that division. If all the ships you had targetted when the missile was fired go away, the missiles self-destruct even if you've locked a bunch of new targets.

For rockets/torps (and I guess HAMs...) it'd be nice to see them *not* vanish if the launcher leaves (assuming they do... haven't actually noticed), they're "unguided" so they shouldn't need to be looked after and might allow some extra hit-and-run tactics. Or not, since the main beneficiaries would be torp-fit battleships so it'd be more like hit-and-walk-away-slowly.