Player Features and Ideas Discussion

So, faction, deadspace and officer weapons are widely derided as they cannot use T2 ammo.

Well, why not allow characters with skills for T2 use T2 ammo in those guns, while leaving remaining characters using T1 or faction ammo? That way they're useful for everyone.

I see no reason that it would be bad.
Just as you can't load FOF or defender missiles into launchers without the appropriate skill, they could make faction guns able to load T2 crystals, if the pilot has the appropriate T2 spec skills.

Also, it would be easy enough to have the spec skills apply to faction guns too - this would appeal more to the high SP pilots than just a bump to the faction damage multipliers (to be 8% better instead of about 4% better, ie as if spec IV applied to it).

Why can we "bling" (almost) everything else better than T2, except the guns?

Right now the only things where T2 is not the best, do not have faction/deadspace/officer variants (Gallente Navy Damage control Please! : ), except the guns.

Also, all faction guns are the same, perhaps we can split the pirate and navy faction guns.
Pirate faction guns need T2 skills, use T2 ammo, and get T2 spec bonuses...
Hows about that (if this idea starts to catch on, I'm going to need to switch my imperial/ammatar navy Mega pulse/Tachyons for sansha and DB guns, as I nearly have large T2 skills now)

faction guns are not T2 guns, so no T2 munition for them.
Dont see any reason why T1 guns should fire T2 munition.
Its not CCP who makes them that horrible expensive, its players.
They will have reasons to btw, so those guns arent that bad very obviously even without T2 munition.

I haven't found faction guns any easier to fit.
At least with the lasers, they both use the same PG, the faction uses less CPU, but that hasn't been the limiting factor for me anyway on my Turret-BS hulls.

In many cases, faction guns are worse in more than 1 area than meta 4 guns - they are only consistently better than meta 4 in terms of damage multipliers, and cap use (if the guns use cap at all)

Thats what I'm doing, I've got large energy turret to lvl 5, and motion prediction to lvl 5, and have been using 4x faction pulse on my nightmare in the meantime (I've got rapid firing to lvl 5 and surgical strike to lvl 4 as well, just as an interim DPS increase).

Already got small pulse spec to lvl 4, a week left on Medium energy 5, about 2 weeks total until I have large T2 lasers (Then I suppose its time to start on projectiles, for my backup Mach, but with the incoming incursion nerfs, perhaps I should go for the projectiles ASAP, since the mach is way more useful outside of incursions, and about equally so inside of them).


I'm a bit worried about what it will do to my cap, and it would be nice if these skills enhanced what I already have, rather than obsoleting them.

I don't see why T2 ammo can't be shot out of any gun if one has the skill. The T2 gun stats (particularly for projectile turrets where cap isn't an issue) are just better if you can fit them, they would still be used.

Only with lasers and hybrids might people opt for faction or meta4, due to cap concerns (lower DPS, but more DPS per cap use)

faction weapons shouldnt be better than T2, just look at the skill requirements. It wouldnt make any sense.

100 mil arent because CCP said it so.
Its because people paying that money for a worse than meta 4 gun as you say - or you are simply wrong.

maybe CCP could make them slightly better (higher damage modifier) but I think giving T2 munition for T1 guns is still wrong.

Perhaps, I figure letting them use T2 ammo with T2 skills would be the simplest solution to actually getting people to use them in any significant volume.

Otherwise, you have to look at boosting base stats, and that gets a lot more complicated.
Currently the lack of T2 range extending ammo for faction guns makes them too short ranged. (haven't they changed some of the short range T2 ammo to give tracking bonuses as well, instead of penalties?)

If faction gun damage is 4% higher than base T2/meta 4... then how about:
Faction gun optimal and falloff is also 4% higher than base meta4/T2
Faction gun tracking is 4% higher
Faction gun cap use is already significantly less (25% less or more than T2?), so maybe for projectile turrets (and Hybrid, I suppose), we boost the ammo capacity of faction turrets by 25% *

*of course, this relates to my dissatisfaction that going from meta 4 -> T2 results in significantly higher cap usage for hybrids and lasers, but there is no comparable disadvantage for projectiles (fitting issues are the same for all types), perhaps T2 projectile guns should have smaller magazine sizes relative to meta 4 guns (of course, this could be acheived by boosting meta 4 ammo capacity just like I suggest for the faction guns).


Still, all other faction items equal or exceed T2 stats (except domination hardeners, for some reason), why don't the faction guns?
We can still have the T1 ammo limitation, but lets make the base stats equal the T2 skill stats, ie have faction guns do 10% more damage than base meta4/T2 (instead of 4%), so that at spec 5, both guns do equal DPS using T1 ammo.

and then since these things are still so darn expensive - boost: tracking, optimal, and falloff by 10% as well.
Faction Neutron blasters firing faction Iron will still do far less damage at range than T2 neutrons firing null,
It just won't be so bad because the faction got an effective range boost of 10%, and slightly better hit quality due to the buffed tracking.

do these guns not shoot? do they need less skills? they work exactly as they are intended to.

Its the tag requirements that are creating the price point, a price point set by players who get the tags. you are trying to fix something that isnt broken. adding t2 ammo use to these guns isn't going to bring the price on them down,

they will be just as expensive due to tag requirements shared with items more useful to a broader base of players

i bolded that for you as you seem to consistently be missing the point. the fact that they are vanity items doesn't stem from an issue with the module itself, but how the module is obtained, namely LP stores or in the case of rat faction guns, fairly rare drops from rats.

Because i can get 140 million for that tracking computer which is useful to every turret ship in the game, any other module that requires the same items as the tracking computer must compete at that price point. if it cant, it wont get bought and i'll keep selling tracking computers. again, This is not because the other modules are broken, or lack use, its because i can use the same materials and sell something else at a better price.