Player Features and Ideas Discussion

As shown in this picture here the impression I got from it is that the pirate modules should be more of an improvement from the tech 2 modules.

Many of the modules are already a step up from t2, defensive modules and e-war modules have much better stats than the t2.
It's not the same case for turrets however. The pirate modules and ammunition all have the same stats as the modules you can get from the highsec empires, and the increase is only between 0.1-0.3 for damage modifiers and nothing for the RoF, power/cpu usage, or carry capacity, letting t2 modules provide higher dps at a much lower cost. Missiles are different, they have a higher RoF and capacity, and can provide higher dps than their t2 variants. I'm just focusing on turrets.

Also, the meta level is the same for pirates and empire modules (7), and both are higher than tech 2 (5). Yet tech 2 has the same power requirements, higher damage (after skills), can use tech 2 ammo, and can be manufactured/bought at lower prices than the faction weapons.

So my thoughts on it are that the pirate weapons, which are harder to get and have a higher meta than tech 2 weapons, should have better stats than they do now. Please increase the RoF for pirate turrets, so that they can get higher dps than the tech 2

I thought I covered that, but I must not have. Adding the skills lets t2 modules have higher dps than pirate modules. And the base stats are close enough together that the 2% bonus to damage per level for t2 weapons puts it ahead even if it's only trained to 2 or 3.

Pirate versions are better, just not in every way.


Guns are an exception... IMO guns should have better damage modifiers to compensate for not being able to use T2 ammo.

Not sure on launchers because I don't do much missiles.

Some faction (both navy and pirate) are better than t2, others are not and some offer bonuses that are simply irrelevant to the module. Faction turrets are generally inferior to t2. Last I checked, they did have higher base damage modifiers but t2 weapons with spec 4 out damage all but the most expensive officer guns. This is on top of gaining access to t2 ammo, which is pretty damn useful these days. Yes you don't have to have t2 guns trained up to use them, but that's not a balancing factor when the average character age is over a year old. Newer players can't afford them anyways.

The problem is not limited to weapons however, faction plates and shield extenders suffer from a similar problem. The logical thing for them to offer is greatly reduced fittings or more HP than their t2 counterparts. This is not the case. Plates have less mass, allowing a triple plated abaddon to warp 0.1s faster using imperial navy plates than it could with RT for the low low price of about 90M isk extra for the 3 faction plates. Faction shield extenders have a smaller sig radius penalty, but once again the difference is so negligible that it can basically be ignored.

And then we get to miscellaneous items like EW, capacitor mods and so on. These really get the short end of the stick. Most are inferior to t2, have astronomical build requirements and don't even have lower skill requirements than t2. Caldari navy warp disruptors come to mind as a prime example. I believe every single item in the LP stores and that drops from npc's should be useful. Some can be better than others and I'm all for different factions have different flavors of the same basic mod, but they should all be useful and clearly, undeniably superior to t2 in all situations.

Examples of properly balanced faction mods are the damage mods, RF warp disruptor, fed navy web, imperial navy heavy energy neutralizer and so on. They are expensive and thus not used on most ships, but they do offer a clear advantage over t2 for those willing to spend the extra isk.