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Aside from Null being underpowered and the OP Hail change, I think the changes to T2 ammo are pretty good.

What other penalty would you give to Armor Rigs? Agility decrease? Blaster boats with terrible agility aren't quite as bad as those with terrible speed, but it's still bad. Armor plates already nerf agility and weight enough.

If you're going to switch the penalties to things which are utterly inconsequential you may as well just remove them altogether.

edit: having said that, rigs, their effects, calibration, and penalties are all over the place and need looking at one way or another anyway.

Sig reduction is inconsequential most of the time, especially in the amounts prescribed by current rigs. Speed apparently isn't. -HP is a half way house between the two, although I wouldn't bat an eye lid if penalties where just removed similar to CCC rigs.

Vagas never normally push past 530 DPS because people don't fit quad gyros and use 425s with Hail. I said it was a stupid use of a Vaga, but if you were fitting up a Vaga for maximum close-range DPS, that's what you'd do. Adding an AML in the last highslot is harder to justify, but it's only 20 DPS. It's 707 DPS without it. I used Hobgoblins instead of Warriors because you don't need the faster Warriors against a scrambled target.

The Deimos fit I used had dual MFS, the triple MFS fit seemed a bit thin. I didn't use Hammerheads on it, Hobgoblins and EC-300s to give it some semblance of frigate defence. Speed 1471 m/s comes from 800 mm plate and a single trimark (ACR other rig) - you only get 1650 m/s if you have no armour at all. Switching the trimark for an Aux Thrusters is an option, it costs 4.5k EHP but takes the speed back up to 1661 DPS. You have less EHP than the Vaga then though.

You mention nanofibres, but you seem to be suggesting a triple-MFS nanofibre Deimos with tank limited to a DC. That's, erm, brave.

this is good, but in all honesty, the only rigs that actually have a reason to decrease speed/increase sig, are the trimarks and core shield extenders. you are, after all, adding plates/increasing shields of a ship

the resist and armour/shield repping rigs however, I don't see a reason why they shouldn't decrease HP on their counterpart.




curiously, besides being quite hard to shield tank a deimos (thus required to fit plates/trimarks/whatever), you're restricted to spit ranges, so while you're trying to catch said vagabond, you'll be dealing ****-poor damage, while he's steadily pounding on you.


also, curiously, a deimos in a neutron triple-magstab with null (sans drones) fit does ~5-10% more damage than a similarly setup zealot.


said zealot however has over 300% range advantage.



of course you could count the drones to boost your dps, but let's be honest here: the 100 and much dps provided by a full set of quite slow T2 hammers doesn't provide much of extra survivability over a full set of med ecm drones.

Without a doubt the Gallente/blaster issue has been around for some time and a lot of very experienced players have provided some great input. Not sure if messing with rigs is the right answer as that has greater impact than on just Gallente boats.

I know that Caldari has issues with hybrids that need addressing but frankly that problem seems easier since no matter what it's a long range weapon system and with the tweaking of number directly to the gun can solve the problem. Gallente is vastly more complicated for all the reasons everyone has mentioned, for years. And years of buffs and improvements to other races/weapons have left the blaster boats, and frankly the drone boats also far behind. Nothing new here.

So I would simply say that CCP needs to just take a step back and try to deal with this holistically and clearly articulate what they want to accomplish with Gallente.

Example:
So CCP if the mission is to create a viable, fun to fly, challenging family of ships that excels in close in combat that also relies on a variety of drones to play havoc upon their enemies then list out the things that are needed to make that happen. And it needs to do it better hands down than any other race because that is going to be their niche. Also use the existing ships and get rid of that horrible armor repair bonus and replace it with what is needed to make them appealing to fly. They will utilize hybrid blasters which should be the marrying of the BEST of lasers and projectiles to do it, but have very short range. Hybrid should not mean the worst of both systems, what engineer does that? Use CAP, and Ammo, and slow reload, and terrible range, damage type all the same and about the same damage in close as other weapons (AC's)? That sucks. How about a bit of CAP, yes ammo, instant ammo changes, high tracking, and absolutely no doubt the highest DPS in close of anything bar none. Still short range.

So what's absolutely needed for a close in fighter: 1) a way to get there, and good tactics with viable mechanics, not just being faster is legit since i know Minmatar is the holy cow of the game and can't possibly be nerfed/out raced. 2) the ability to gain lock in time to tackle target 3) sufficient tank to fight close in and sustain the expected high damage 4) The systems to sustain that range. 5) Doesn't have to exist all on one ship, this is a team sport, for example give the Brutix a 20% range bonus per level to scram and scram only. The Myrm 20% bonus per level to web range. Something like that where a team of Gallente pilots working together can achieve the mission statement. Or scram drones that shut down MWD. Look at the mission statement and come up with a complete plan instead of just a tweak here and a tweak there that will just lead to a thousand other problems down the line. If the design fails to do this, then change the design. If that means making Gallente shield tank, then so be it, if it means changing slot layout, so be it. What's important is that they fill the close in fighting style--- if that is the goal of CCP.

The suggestions to the Brutix and Myrm are just examples, doesn't have to be that. But the problem has to be approached holistically, not just a small change in my opinion. But what I sense, and the Talos changes (loss of the web) sort of confirms it, is that CCP is very unsure of what they want to do with Gallente Ships/Hybrids etc. Which is probably why this has been left unsolved for years.

Increasing mass reduces both agility and top MWD/Afterburner speed. Unless it's a very small mass increase, it is almost certainly a worse penalty for Gallente blaster ships.

Increasing ship survivability is right on the right path to make Gallente ships viable in fleets after changes to hybrids are found satisfactory.

the thing about the deimos....navy vexor with 4 gardes and a rack of ions has about the same EHP but does about 800dps. half of this dps is from the gardes, which can hit 10-36km. it's hands down the best gank cruiser/bc gallente have. navy vex and the brutix are about equal is dps and EHP, but the navy vex has more range with sentries.

deimos needs so much more. i really hope hybrids turn into something decent. the poor proteus needs to be viable with rails.

Blasters are already quite good in blaster range. The problem is that so are ACs and Pulse, and those weapon systems are far more flexible in addition. They have the range and tracking, to engage outside of the dangerzone of web/scramble range, and to engage smaller ships.

Just adding more damage to blasters does not solve the fundamental problem, which is that ACs and Pulse are far too effective in blasters' realm, unless it's a truly absurd, gamebreaking damage increase, pushing 50%. If you can still get away with using Pulse or ACs at close range, if they can still apply "acceptable" DPS there, there is no reason to use inflexible, one-dimensional blasters. This is even before considering the absurdity of fitting the shortest-range weapons to slowarse hulls.

CCP's power creep and the insane projectile boost has forced them into a corner. Blasters are not worth using while the other weapon systems, with all their advantages of range and flexibility, are also able to do blasters' job. Projectiles are supposed to be a weak weapon system, because their hulls have the powerful advantages of speed and agility. CCP has, over the years, repeatedly failed to properly appreciate the importance of mobility - the nano era (when blasters were also useless), the Angel ships, jump mechanics etc - the unnecessary projectile boost was just another example of this, it looked distinctly like a case of balancing weapons -but we don't fly weapons, we fly ships.