Assembly Hall

They need to nerf the range of rockets and HAMS then torp range looks good ... and in line with battleship weapons
I suspect the TD change is the main thought of CCP on buffing missile tracking but they will have to nerf their range to implement them anyway

You see each size of weapons is doubled so rough figures
-rockets 8km
-HAMS 16km
-Torps 16km
so therefore its unbalanced and out of sequence so in order to address torps range you have to address the sequence.
blasters have 6km optimal with void/T1 antimatter infact all guns short range ammo is under 20km... lasers are supposed to be the longest range weapon and its optimal is 15km granted it has 10km falloff but thats guns advantage and you don't really use falloff on most turrets besides projectiles.

I would also suggest that missiles should trade places with arties in terms of alpha to ROF ratio.

Explosion radius should stay...velocity on the other hand is kind of ******** if you ask me. What irritates me about missiles in general is that the damage from them is too inconsistent for what they are. Done purely for balance of course but according to the lore, missiles don't ever actually impact their target. They explode just short of impact. This is why velocity matters for the explosion itself. The faster the target is moving away from the explosion, the less damage it takes. The mechanic itself makes sense. What doesn't make sense is why someone would make a missile that explodes just prior to impact instead of impacting and going as far into the object as possible before exploding. This is the future!

If anything, I would say Torp range needs to go up a bit, as opposed to dropping the range of HM and HAM. Missiles have enough inherent disadvantages already. For example, turrets can't be firewalled, and turrets can't be warped away from after being fired before they deal their damage, just to name a couple. Combine those with the fact that torps can't hit **** for full damage without a TP, and you can see where I am going with this.

BS missiles need work in general, and the coming cruise changes are a good start. The only reason torps look so good on bombers is because of the ridiculous bonuses they get from the hull itself. On most any BS though, they are barely short of laughable.

It tells me that you ignored all of the disadvantages that I pointed out.

Yes, missiles always hit...if they aren't destroyed en route by a firewall. They also do total almost no damage to any form of sig/speed tanker with anything more than a paper tank. As for the cap: projectiles don't have to deal with cap usage, and their range is pretty damned impressive with a proper setup. I have seen AC setups that can hit from MUCH farther away than just about any torp ship. One could make the tracking argument, but look at it this way: anything small and fast enough to get under the guns of ACs before they are dead is small and fast enough that torps aren't going to do **** to them anyway, even though they always hit.

What you are overlooking is that the longer a missile has to travel, the more likely it is to be destroyed on the way, or to be avoided altogether, since the damage isn't immediate.

BS missiles look sexy on paper, but that doesn't always translate to sexy in space.

Keep in mind that most of my arguments are geared toward the larger weapons, because well..."Roflkets". They just recently became even remotely viable for anything short of the Hookbill. Light missiles tend to have decent alpha, for a frigate, but their dps output is trash, except when fired from RLMLs, which don't exactly fit well on frigs.

As for Jav vs. Scorch point: see what I said above about missile travel time, firewalls, and warp-off.

For the T2 rockets, I could see your point, if not for the fact that their damage is pretty laughable when compared to ACs or Blasters. Now, of course, you can say that the damage of those turrets doesn't matter when a ship is out of their range, and you would be correct. However, there's a reason that Merlins and Incursus are currently FAR more popular than say, the Breacher or the Kestrel. Hell, the only thing that even makes the Breacher worth mentioning in the same breath as the Merlin is it's drone bay, and what they can do with ASBs.

You can't just isolate the weapon groups, however. There are many mods that can increase the optimal, falloff, and tracking of any and all turrets. All missiles get is rigs that makes their launchers tear even bigger chunks out of their CPU. It's actually very possible to make an AC Cane that can outrange a HAM Drake. Is it ideal? Not so much, but most HAM Drakes aren't exactly running an ideal tank either. Give and take, and all of that.

Try to compare things on a more reasonable basis, by looking at the entire picture. As you said, there's the incoming TD changes to missiles at some point. So why not wait for all of that to play out before you open up a whole new can of worms with a nerf cycle that may need to be undone (or even turned into a buff cycle) to compensate?

Let's look at battleship weapons, shall we? Taking the Odyssey numbers, because they're what will matter in six weeks, and a skill V pilot with no mods or ship bonuses, we see that:

Blasters have terrible range, but with long range T2 ammo can reach a 31km optimal+falloff (and falloff does count - it's the equivalent to missiles being affected by target size). Lasers have much better range, especially when you compare short ranged ammo (because ammo affects optimal but not falloff, aside from T2 AC & blaster ammo) - such good range that with scorch they beat beams in the medium-long range zone, reaching to 55km. Autocannons, well they have really good reach with high DPS ammo, and terrible reach with 'long range ammo', but still get 42km optimal+falloff with Barrage.

Now, let's look at Torps. They cap out at 30.4km with T2 long range ammo. It's 20.3km with standard/faction ammo, and high damage T2 torps reach 16.9km. The only gun that doesn't outrange them is the blaster (which has about the same), assuming T2 ammo. If you look at T1 ammo, they all can. Yes, guns lose damage at range, but they can actually reach rather further than these ranges if you're willing to accept low hit rates, too.

Looking at long range weapons, Rails reach 66km with Antimatter, 102km with Lead, 145km with Iron, and 48/160km with Javelin/Spike (T2). Beam lasers get 50km, 80km, 116km, and 42/128km with T2 (Tachs get 58km, 91km, 131km, and 144km). For artillery these numbers are 74km, 94km, 110km, and 59/152km.

Now, for Cruise Missiles we have T1 missiles giving 148km, and the T2 versions 106km and 74km. So, only artillery is out-ranged when T1 ammo is considered, and none are out-ranged if T2 ammo is also counted. On anything smaller than a battleship, you want to be using Precision, which is the 74km range (while the turrets can use whichever T1 ammo best suits the range).

On top of this, the various 'tracking' mods improve optimal, falloff, and tracking for turrets. There are no similar mods for missiles, only rigs (and they're also available for turrets), and usually if you're using rigs for missiles they'll be to improve explosion radius and/or velocity in a vain attempt to actually land full damage. A pair of Tracking Enhancers will give about a 25% range buff (varies depending on the type of turret), and a pair of scripted Tracking Computers 35%+ (arty gets over 50% extra range). A single Tracking Computer gives a blaster with antimatter the same range as a torpedo. Guess which one has the better applied DPS.

So, if anything torpedos could use a range buff, considering their slow damage application, the lack of range enhancers, and difficultly applying damage to anything short of a sieged dreadnought. You talk about 'following the pattern', well the parttern you see with rockets and HAMs, if applied to Torps would have them moving 50% faster than they do now, with the same duration and thus having 50% more range. I'm all for that.

That's precisely where I was going with that point. I generally tend to lump destroyers in with frigs when discussing weapon systems, as destroyers are basically nothing more than frigates with more of whatever weapon they may be using. Obvious exceptions to that exist in the realm of T2 ships, but that's far outside of the scope of this discussion.

So you're saying torps track better than blasters for having the same range... Thanks for putting that in perspective. Now I see why nobody use torps anymore. I always knew torps, and missiles as a whole were broken, but now I am one with the wisdom which is behind that brokenness - The low range weapon also has worse tracking.

Well there has too be drawbacks on all weapon systems for balance

-lasers-
drawbacks
massive cap usage/neutable/..poor tracking/excessive fitting ... conflag needs buff aswell as T1 ammo
pros
scorch gives great projection

-projectiles-
drawbacks
poor damage
pros
easy fittings.. no cap usage ... good projection.. selectable damage

-blasters-
drawbacks
cap usage/neutable...short ranged
pros
high damage... best tracking

-missiles-
drawbacks
poor damage application on moving targets / lack of misslie mods to buff attributes
pros
great range somewhat OP.... no cap usage/ good damage on tackled ships ... selectable damage

thus if you remove missiles drawback you have to give it another to replace it

Really all they need to do is buff torps range. Considering that they just buffed cruise missiles and have mentioned that they are going to buff torps, I'm sure this is what will happen. Though to be honest, the new cruise missiles are so good I don't see why anyone would even need to use torps anymore.