Player Features and Ideas Discussion

To be honest, this feels like a missile buff, not nerf:

the sacrilege might finally be useful because of tracking comps enhancing missile range, glass cannon caracals (are there any other) might become really REALLY long range t1 low skill sniper ships, rocket interceptors of all kinds will benefit from this,

hams will probably see a WHOLE lot of use now as they'll become something like scorch, a high dps short range weapon which when fitted to do it on a bonused ship could hit quite far out indeed with javelin.

Torpedo mission golem just became awesome,

Old school sniping stealth bombers?


Basically, up until these changes, your ship either had the range, or it didn't, the little tweaking power that the rigs provided didn't let you wriggle far out of the hull and mod limitations, this opens up new possibilities,


but two most boring to fly and overused ships in the game get nerfed a little (1 slot tank nerf and some dps or range nerf and dps boost, depending if you keep fitting hml or switch to haml) and crying will be had.. boohooo hoo



Good news,

Brb,

buying lotsa sacrileges

In regards to the hurricane nerf, have you considered removing a utility high? I really think 225 pg loss is a bit much. it shouldn't take more than 1 t2 RC to fit the largest long range weapons to any bc with 1 LSE.

Having TD's affect missiles seems ok, I'll finally be able to kill drakes with my curse, though perhaps general td effectiveness really needs nerfing and bonused ships buffing.

TEs affecting missiles is quite frankly, stupid. It makes absolutely no sense at all. Making everything the same is not a good idea, you just make ship fits and play styles generic.

The day small gang FC's are laughing at people for bringing Canes, Merms, Harbis then you will know that Drakes are objectively significantly overpowered. The only time I have ever seen an FC in any corp ask people to grab a Drake is when it is an actual Drake fleet, and even then half the pirates wont even own one.

This is the reality I have experienced in game, not only in my own corps, but in the ships I see people grabbing for themselves. No one needs to order people to fly overpowered ships -- they do that on their own.

I don't really have an opinion on the HM nerf one way or the other. I don't really use them and have never had any particular problem with what they can do when I am fighting against them. They are deadly and effective when used correctly -- the same can be said for every other BC in the game.

My concern is for Caldari missile pilots. When it comes to cruiser and up combat ships they have only one weapon choice (HMs) and one ship worth fitting it on (Drake). Take this away and they will have nothing. Caldari missile pilots don't have a working Cruiser (nor will they after this), they don't have HACs, they don't have BS's... they have Drakes.

On your first point-

Trajectory Analysis is indeed a gunnery skill. However, so is Weapons Upgrades (needed for TE). Now one could argue that WU and AWU could be moved into Mechanics (which would necessitate a change to intel and mem as attributes for it). Which would make TEs whether split missile and gun modules or remaining a unified module an easy and backstory consistent module to train for. Trajectory Analysis would probably have to stay in the Gunnery skill group.

This might be a good reason for there to be a separate modules for missiles akin to TC II, that could build off of Target Navigation Prediction 4 (which to my mind is the rough analogue of Trajectory Anaysis) and/or Guided Missile Precision. The trouble with keying any new mTC solely on TNP skill is that it is only a 2x skill while for turret users TA skill is a 5x skill. This would create yet another slight sp advantage for missile use (a la missile skill type ease v gunnery tree sp slogs). I suppose one could key the mod off of GMP 4 but then it would seem odd to have the then also boost "unguided" missiles. One could maybe do some hybrid skill requirement between the two missile skills that would roughly equate to having to train TA4, say like (without running the numbers and only for example purposes) TNP3 and GMP2 as a requirement for a mTC.

This of course brings up the sp investment disparity between TCs and TEs whether for missiles or gunnery and the advantage it could present due to racail slot and fitting propensities. But then there are always choices to be made. You fit a TE or mTE you lose a slot for a damage mod (or a tank mod on an armor tank), you fit a TC or mTC you lose a tackle slot (or a tanking slot on a shield tank). My guess is that shield tankers (being used to their drake tank risk aversion) will sacrifice a low slot damage mod before they sacrifice a mid tanking slot. That the damage nerf on HM is as proposed it may be some inducement to rethink it. It would be a no brainer to use a mTE over a mTC if there was no damage nerf on HM as so many are complaining about. And when talking about Drakes one cannot ignore the tanking advantage they have over other BCs.

On your second point -

I'm not sure to what you are referring when you say that CCP balancing is favoring a rof bonus over a damage bonus. Some examples might be needed to discuss that.

Edit - and thanks Rita. This is the kind of discusion that should be occuring itt, by page 128, and not the hyperbolic sky is falling that OT Smithers is still posting.

It wouldn't actually necessatize any such thing, there are plenty of skills in the same branch with different attributes. Wups is allready needed for bcus for missile pilots in any case. It should really be an electronics skill.

No it won't, because hurricane dps is terrible at that range and wont break a drake tank, this in spite of a cane being double bonussed for damage as its supposed to be ganky. Apart from anything else the cane has to use a terrible damage type (for against drakes) at that range as projectile damage choice is not what everyone pretends it is. At close range a buffer ham drake will usually beat an auto-cane as well simply because its so much more tanky and because hams are actually very good vs bcs. The canes only real advantage is the cookie cutter 2 med neuts to shut off the drakes hardeners, and ccps grid nerf is going to make that harder.

Comparing ships in a 1v1 situation is dumb anyway, it is not how ships are balanced.

Much of the trade tree has different attributes, planetary management, possibly social and a few science. It is indeed mostly non ship related stuff though. I say electronics because it is to do with computers/sensors and it reduces cpu need, hard to see how it would be an engineering or mechanic skill...

I checked and none of the social ones are different, some science are though in things like doomsday operation.

You left the 1vs1 and also say that to compare in 1vs1 is dumb......

The drake is also going to lose it's resist bonus, so when you say a cane loses, first, i desagree and after nerfs, i desagree even more.
Otherwise, yes, all scenarios count. And in my point of view, the current proposition makes the drake an obsolete ship.

Make amo for different distances. Then we can compare.

Im happy with the 25% HM range nerf, and Im happy that TDs now affect missiles. But the 20% damage nerf to HMs is stupid and wil wreck the entire medium missile platform range (HAMs are already terrible).

i should have said comparing "only" 1v1 is dumb which is what pretty much every poster in here does, my mistake.

Afaik Ccp has not confirmed drake is losing its resist bonuses at any point, in fact from the number of times they say "the csm minutes are just brainstorming" i think they are back pedalling a bit and certainly wouldn't do anything till after they see what these missile changes do. If no one drops tank mods for tes/tcs then they might still do the velocity bonus for resist bonus thing, idk.

There is pretty much no situation a current arty cane will beat a current hml drake if the pilots are similar sp and the drake pilot understands transversal. A current ham drake has an even chance against an autocane unless the autocane has neuts. Though all this is pointless discussion as what you or I or joe bloggs has fit on them is gonna be different and everyone has different experiences on tq. Certainly if i met a solo autocane in my hamdrake i would feel i had a good chance, especially if i saw launchers in the 7th and 8th highs.