Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Damage and range are determined by the ordinance. The launcher has no range or damage mod, only capacity and ROF which look as if they are not being altered. Additionally your suggestion would be a big step to fully homogenizing weapons systems. In this case why not save effort and drop the whole skill tree?

A fairly typical nano arty cane:

MWD
Disruptor
LSE x2

DCU
TE x2
Gyro x2
Nano

A fairly typical nano HM drake:

MWD
Disruptor
Web x2
LSE x2

Nano x2
BCU x2

Obviously people mix and match to taste. Comparing these two, and assuming both are rigged for tank, the Drake has about a 5k ehp advantage in tank, about a 30% advantage in dps at range, and loses about 300m/sec. I have NEVER said that the Drake does not do more damage at range. What I have said, repreatedly, is that it probably SHOULD do more damage at range as this is it's job. If the Drake lands at range there is no way an unsupported Cane can close the range and kill it before it dies in a fire. That's okay because the Drake has no way to stop that cane from leaving.

Knowing this, why then do you suppose that you can go into virtually any low sec system in the game and see PvP pilots who can choose to fly anything they like, choosing the Cane over the Drake?

The answer for most is probably SPEED, AGILITY, and instant damage application. In Eve, speed is LIFE. You cannot overestimate it's importance. Speed alone might not save your butt, but the lack of it ensures that your enemy has control over your fate. And when you start adding in things like implants and T3 boosts, the difference between the cane and the drake becomes pretty significant.

I would argue that the BC class is perhaps the most balanced class of ships in the game. It's not perfect, but nothing is. I don't have a problem with CCP deciding that HMs and Drakes do not fit their vision for how the game should be played. That's their call, I don't fly Drakes anyway, so for me personally it doesn't much matter. BUT, when I think about how screwed Caldari Missile pilots have been for years, and now CCP is talking about screwing them some more, I get irritated -- particularly when the reasons they are offering are complete BS.

I am the arty cane pilot that is supposedly getting picked on by those big mean Drake bullies. I am the guy that is supposedly at some mythical disadvantage. Yet I can fly either ship, I have T2 HMs and T2 arties, and I thing the Cane is the better boat most of the time. The Drake has it's uses, it's perfect for some things and sub-optimal for others. And in my opinion that's just how it should be.

we should also remove flight time and add falloff while we're at it.

for the drake i would scrap the kin missile damage and do a 5% per lev to all missile damage... that way peeps wont compain about loosing too much damage from the nerf...

The way i see it the bcs are out of kilter in terms of abilities. Bcs come in two flavours - dual damage bonus (well harby has special snowflake amarr bonus) and 1 damage bonus 1 rep bonus. Currently minmatar and amarr have 1 of each while gallente and caldari have 2 tank bonused ones. For the gallente the brutix is never really fitted defensively in any case so that really leaves the caldari. I would expect the brutix to go pure gank (maybe tracking bonus in place of rep) and one of the caldari bcs to go the same way. To have synergy with the frigs, cruisers and bs that would be the drake, hence the velocity bonus everyone expected. Or a damage bonus that would bring it back to current damage levels but without the resists. Whichever the kin bonus being replaced with an all missile one.

kestrel -> Caracal -> drake -> Raven (Damage + velocity)
Merlin -> Moa -> Ferox -> Rokh (Damage + resist)
tormentor -> Omen -> harbinger -> Geddon (Damage and cap)
punisher -> Maller -> prophecy -> abaddon (Damage and resist - you are giving proph damage bonus right?)
Tristan ->Thorax -> Brutix -> megathron (Damage OR drones for tristan + Tracking)
rifter ->Rupture -> Hurricane -> Tempest (damage and more damage)

Active rep analog is more complicated as the cruisers don't have them atm but

incursus ->Vexor -> Myrm -> Hyperion (drones OR damage + rep )
breacher ->Stabber -> Cyclone -> Maelstrom (damage + booster - stabber takes place of booster cruiser, is cool).

Third BS = quirky racial bs - apoc, scorpion, domi, typhoon. Wouldn't surprise me if you made apoc a drone boat and typhoon more missile orientated.

If Caldari keep 2 tanky bcs they are alwasy going to have less dps. Thus people will always complain thier tanks are op/thier dps is terrible even once you bring it in line. Could be ferox though, damage and optimal.

But hey thats just guessing, youare the one who knows.

Oh and yeah cerb/ nighthawk obv need help. With NH just make its hml bonuses also effect hams (and RLM) and make its kin only bonus all damage type. Cerb idk

You know fine its for killmail whorage

Make the cerb a HAM boat and the Nighthawk too maybe the muninn too :) tornado makes it obsolete so..

It should be obvious to a certain extent how BC will be modified. The tier one with the exception of the Cyclone only have 16 slots. The Cyclone has 17 but it's highs are in a weird 5/3 configuration. The devs have hinted that the tier ones will get an extra slot and some serious focus makeovers. The Tier 2 BC all have 18 slots. Snip snip. The tier 3 BC all have 17 slots. They may get slowed down a bit but are otherwise fine.

In my opinion...

Before you guys charge ahead nerfing HMs and the Drake, you seriously need to have any answer to this question:

Once we nerf the Drake, what are Caldari Missile PvP pilots supposed to fly?

All one need do to see how Drakes REALLY stack up is to head into any low sec system and look at what people are flying. Amazingly, and despite the suggestion that Drakes are uber pwn-mobiles, the answer isn't Drakes. You see some of course, but they are by no means dominating the numbers. And you are proposing making them worse. The same applies to the Caracal. People aren't using it now, what makes you believe that a new lower DPS version, flying against buffed T1 frigates and cruisers (likely fitted with missile and gun wrecking TD's), will suddenly become popular? Why would it?

I mean this respectfully, but it doesn't make sense. The Caldari missile fleet looks like a junk yard filled with broken scrap. Missiles are the Caldari signature weapon, and yet every (sub-billion isk) missile boat in the game except the Drake is currently broken and parked. Fix them, then look at whether or not the Drake needs an adjustment.

First off most drakes are not nano drakes, even solo/small gang and definately not in fleets. They will all have far more tank than that wtf no resist kiting fit. i can think of only two groups that use fits like that (hi TL). Even allowing for that the drake has a massive advantage over the cane in that its own speed has no impact on its own damage projection while the same cannot be said for the cane. To do decent damage on anything sub bc you are either a) hoping he is an idiot who doesn't get transversal or b) going to have to slow down. The faster a cane goes the less its effective damage will be most of the time. Same isn't true for the drake, hence the perma mwd drake doctrine which is basically built around that fact.

Also the thing about gang boosts etc is pretty lol, exactly the same can be said for the drakes ehp advantage.