Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Your analysis needs to reflect reality - and the reality is that ABing battleships are deeply uncommon. Since you are not arguing that everyone will be using cruise, then you cannot simultaneously argue that BS will suddenly start fitting ABs to mitigate missile damage, it's a logical absurdity.



For guns, yes - although only if you have max transversal. For missiles, no - TNP and GMP, and the formula handles the data differently anyway. Maths, eh?



Do you frequently PVP in unfit ships?

In any case, it's not a problem if missiles have a speed issue in itself - what matters is whether the ships are usable and balanced, and a missile speed issue is only one of the many elements to consider - we don't fly missiles, we fly ships. You haven't even tried to compare the actual applied DPS across various ranges, you've framed the argument purely in terms of applied damage percentages, which is meaningless in itself. Looking back, you did exactly the same thing on page 26. It's not useful.

Indeed, it is readily arguable that, as long as a missile ship* is well balanced overall, a missile speed issue is a good thing, as it means that a pilot can gain access to additional damage via the appropriate support mechanisms. This rewards player knowledge and takes us away from a dull, predictable and homogeneous "you will always deal ~X amount of damage using this missile regardless of what you or your target does".

*The problem with the future cruise Raven isn't cruise, it's the Raven, and its inferiority relative to ABCs as a large-weapon skirmish platform in terms of mobility, cost and MWDing cap consumption. These are problems common to all ABS. Ironically, the new cruise would make a cruise Naga quite attractive now (it should not be changed!).

But, but, but I liked the naga with missiles as it was on sissi.



Don't mind Gypsio he can be a bit harsh, however if it includes missiles and math he is practically always right.

Let me give you a few tips where your scenario and math might have flaws to it:

- You did chose the smallest BS in eve, damage application against every other will be better and I guess it is more sensible to use a average BS size to get more comparable data, this is basically something people always use to make a point(like using blaster dps as reference when people want more dps for her weapon, excluding big differences in the effective combat range and horrible tracking at blaster optimal or when people demanded that minmatar ships with acs should deal just as much dps at range as scorch lasers fitted hulls, excluding the far bigger cap and fitting requires and the lower speed)

- You use a thing that isn't used in eve for your calculations(AB BS in pvp)

- You missing damage types and fittings, what most of the time gives missile ships that are not restricted by the kinetic damage bonus a substantial advantage against projectiles(purity of damage) and even higher against lasers\hybrids since they can't change damage types at all.

-You assume turrets wouldn't have optimal and falloff since you skipped that part of the turret damage formula, missiles keep her dps at any range, on the other hand turrets will lose dps to falloff behind optimal range or by being forced to use weaker long range ammo and a lot of tracking when using T2 long range ammo -> overall the new raven can out damage every other turret BS at around 80km+. Also you calculated hit chance, not dps, since it excludes the wrecking hits and hit chance doesn't scale linear with dps. 50% hit chance give a lot less than 50% dps since htis that give you high damage will get cut off first and count as misses(damage scales between 1,5 and 0,5, basically hit chance + 0,5, so at 50% hit chance you will to get hits between 50% and 100%, so a average about 75%), leaving you with 0.52 x 0,75 = 0,39 = 39% of your dps.

The main reason for the CM damage buff to me seams actually that CCP balancing missiles around not doing full damage in most situations and rewarding gang concepts that can archive full damage with them. That is a very good thing, in my opinion.

I dont read your whole post.
You dont get it either, i wont talk to ppl like you anymore because you dont know anything about a proper argument.

As soon as we're talking torpedoes the Raven's shield tank becomes an issue, because it forces it to rely on support ships to provide tackle, etc., whereas the Typhoon can provide this itself, though it is ture that if you want a really massive tank the Typhoon loses DPS to fit it.

I had a good look at the "attack" BS earlier, using the Failheap EFT files, to get a proper comparison between cruise Raven/Typhoon and the turret ships when fitted for 50-100 km ranges. Honestly, the turret ships look poor. They don't have the tank of the combat BS and most have risible mobility. The Apoc has entertaining cap problems and they're all flimsy. They're caught in a horrible middle ground, not having the brawling abilities of combat BS and not having the mobility of ABCs.

So these are the peers of the cruise Raven/Typhoon, which look quite good in comparison. Both can be shield fit, either ASB for local reps or buffer/resists and they have generally superior damage projection, in exchange for the delay ofc. Shield Typhoon can go 1439 m/s with a 831 DPS overloaded tank; ASB Raven can do 1125 m/s with a 1226 DPS overloaded tank, while keeping room for a painter. Both do 681 DPS out to lock range, with no real damage application problems against BS and really fat Drake-like BCs.

Which is better as a cruise boat? Hard to say, really. Raven is tougher but slower and is better when hostile logi are on the field; Typhoon applies damage better to sub-BS, if you don't have ranged webbing support. The different drone bays don't really come into it much, as the best use of drones for a ship attempting to operate in the 50-100 km window is as anti-tackle defence, and the larger drone bay of the Typhoon gives it no particular advantage there. I think I'd choose shield Typhoon in a smaller gang that needed as much mobility as it could get, and Raven in a larger one, where reduced flight time and additional toughness/ewar was more important. Maybe the Typhoon should be more clearly forced into being an armour boat?

As for torps, well, I'm still hoping that torps get a bit more range, to greatly help the Raven's damage projection abilities in a world of Barrage and Scorch. Given the magnitude of the cruise damage boost, they may well need a bit more damage too, to clearly differentiate them. With GMP now affecting torps their damage application is generally okay, although a bit more explosion velocity may lessen the need for a web. An ASB torp Raven can fit 3 BCS with a 1057 DPS overloaded tank, with MWD, ASB, point, painter and web. Torp Typhoon is a bit odd - it's restricted to web range really, which means that the explosion velocity bonus doesn't really help it. Active armour torp Typhoon look pretty flimsy, really; buffer Typhoon seems much better, having buffer similar to a Raven while retaining dual BCS, but with additional tackle/ewar slots.

So for torp boats, a choice between buffer Typhoon and ASB Raven? Both seem viable, tbh. I'd still like to see torps get a bit more range though.

You are right I don't get your argument. It is based around wrong calculations, flawed scenarios and has nothing other than your opinion "I'm right, you are wrong." to defend it. If this is a proper argument, the discussion around it is pointless.



CMs are a long range weapon system and should be compared to long range weapon systems. If you compare CM DPS against auto cannon and blaster dps in falloff, add the utility of the massive range, the free damage type selection and the ability to hit smaller ships at close range it is actually pretty awesome for a long range weapon system. Sig is less a problem for turrets, since you only need to reduce one figure(transversal) to a low enough value and can use range as a tracking multiplier. However, missiles also got the advantage of being transversal/range independent, meaning you can still move around quick and at any desirable range without reducing your damage on the target.



Most pests and phoons are shield tanked, will have a sig above 400 and you will probably fit at least one painter on a CM BS. Also with lower ehp, the slightly reduced damage will not be a issue, since it would, under realistic situations, take a similar time to take it down as if you buff it. One advantage of having a sig/speed tank for missile DPS actually is that it can be easy negated by webs and painters, giving you full dps against the lower ehp.



That is not really how eve works, and if it would be the case I doubt CCP would improve CM dps by this much. You can migrate or even completely avoid turret dps at close range, especially with long range turrets and reduce it at range with falloff. Turret based BS also have to web targets to archive reasonable dps on them, if you don't work at high ranges and still within optimal(one reason why lasers got the best effective tracking and damage on the target in gang fights at medium range, even if they have the lowest tracking value). In my opinion CMs are at a very good spot with the damage buff compared to turrets, they are even a bit to good if you purely look at the dps combined with the high range.

I can only support this statement. I expected that the amarr will get the missile focused ships. Why? oh yeah, because of high tech Khanid Kingdom? No? Nothing? I did not expect that the minmatar nation will get missiles and it is interesting that the matari nation mastered the missile platform suddenly...

I mean before the rebalancing the ships, mostly khanid ships were using missile systems. With the exception of phoon and their dreadnough. Khanid ships were plain awsome missile platforms, armor tanked, but there was one thing that was mandatory: they had one less missile launcher slot. I know it was assault focused, but still it was put down plainly.

In competitive PvP on the BS scale?

Never seen an AB fit even in BS's heyday, granted there was a few weeks after the scram changes where people experimented to sidestep the MWD killing effect, but the ability to move a hunk of junk at 1k/s outweighed the 'what if scenario' thus ending the brief period ... and with the BS hulls being all but extinct the number of actual AB users is likely so small that "not being used at all" is a lot closer to reality than "used by some".

Pretty logical progression if you ask me, tribal people throwing rocks at each other -> tribal people invent gunpowder and rudimentary rockets -> tribal people strap rocket to rock.

If CCP were to be completely anal about it they'd make it unguided ordnance (Rockets/HAMS/Torps) to emphasise the rudimentary part .. plays nicely into the idea of cave people finding out that shining a good old flashlight into the enemy's neighboring cave makes the rock(ets) hit better thus giving rise to their TP specialty.

Khanid is separate from Amarr and there should never be a missile bonus on any ship not sporting a black paint job .. if anything the other bloodlines should be revised to be as distinct as Khanid instead of 'more of the same with a slight tilt' that they ended up being.

We've recently made a test server fleet fight using cruise missile setup and all I can say is that in order to make cruise missiles viable fleet weapon you need to buff their HP a lot. I mean 70 structure, same hp as heavy missiles, is not even funny - one large smartbomb activation vanquishes a whole cruise missile volley. Now imagine a few dedicated firewall battleships...
Yes, you might say firewall is countered by the right positioning, webs etc, but 70 hp is still too low in my opinion. Citadels have ~2k hp (btw why such a huge gap between capital and bs sized?) and still have problems with overcoming carrier/mothership smartbomb firewall.

With the increase to explosion radius, and no increase to explosion velocity, this change might as well not happen. At least when talking PvP.

Mission runners will be happy tho