Ships & Modules

"I thought this would be over."
Oh it is over. It really is.

"This whole mess started with the premiss of a false assumption that I did not understand optimal and falloff."
Apparently you do not. Therefore we try to help you out and point out the error you made in your posts.

"It was also assumed because my numbers couldn’t be believed, or found in EFT, I must have made a mistake, or I don’t understand. When really the opposite is true."
You did make a mistake. EFT was right. The range of your guns is 28 optimal plus 19 Falloff.

"Chris, I never said that my “range was 47+28". Don’t put words in my mouth. I knew that 28 was optimal and 47 was falloff."
47 is not your Falloff. It is Your Falloff Range (optimal plus Falloff). Stop saying 47km is your Falloff.

"Those numbers came directly from the in-game fitting tool. Confusion arose when they didn’t match what someone put into EFT. EFT shows 29+19, and that more or less does match the 47 in the game."
Wrong. EFT was always correct and was matching the true in-game numbers. 28 optimal + 19 Falloff.

"The in-game screen shot does not show 28+29, it shows 28+19, and that equals the “falloff range within 47km.” (Shouldn’t be hard to do the math in your head."
Here you quite correctly say Falloff Range is 47 km when earlier on in the same post you say Your Falloff is 47km. (i quoted it above).

"Ok, ok, I got caught up in the moment and yes I did say 47+28. That was a mistake. I should have stayed consistent and said 28 optimal, 47 falloff."
Now you are back to saying 47 is your Falloff. Its not. It is your Falloff Range (optimal + falloff).

"I have never used the word “range” in any of this, you guys threw it in there."
Thats the problem. Have a look at your posted screenshot again. It quite clearly says Falloff Range and Optimal Range. Not Falloff.

"I know antimatter won’t hit out to 75km (47+28)."
Well you gave the impression you did add them to make rails look longer range than they are. See above quotes from just one post. You keep saying 47 is your falloff then you go on about saying it is your falloff range then again back to it is your falloff.

"And I knew damage was less as you get out farther. That is really a given. No one mentioned transversal, but lets not go there."
2 arguments you make right there for the drake and against the rail ferox. The drake hits out farther and is not affected by transversal.

"The screen shots showed everything, and should have ended this tango. It showed the damage that wasn’t believed, and the optimal and the falloff, that also wasn’t believed. Would you guys just stop."
It did show everything. It shows that your 424dps Ferox does in fact 212dps at 47 km. Drake can and does hit farther and harder. Yes, yes yes. depending on the NPC Rats and skill level and ammo it all gets a little shall we say "relative".

"1. EFT does not speak the truth. Why the difference, don’t know, don’t care. .... ...."
Oh yes it does. For example just this morning EFT told me what a handsome pilot I am and how lovely my voice sounds when i sing under the shower.

This.

Small hybrids were already the best tracking ever weapon of the game with a decent dps, after changes they became really good but med rails it's better to use arty and unless some specific ships with appropriated bonus med blasters are not that good but not that bad as they used to, could use some more love thou.
Large rails got better but except for pve in pvp those are simply BAD.

I'm sure those saying those are good clearly never pvp outside station/gate warp range or ever roam or been in fleets with, Artys are so incredibly better, the difference it's just night and day.

Railguns aren't going to have an easier time hitting spider drones orbiting you. In fact, I'd wager that HMLs would do more damage to a spider drone orbiting you than a railgun would--the railgun probably won't hit at all due to tracking issues. Transversal velocity is irrelevant to missiles, all that matters is the absolute velocity.

Can you make a usable ship using medium rails? Well, sure. But the issue is, I think, that HMLs will have better actual damage than medium rails to all but stationary targets all the way out to the HML's max hit range, with a small region where HMLs will fall behind if you're not stopping the cycle early (since you'll have more than one volley in space simultaneously, you can lose the damage for a volley after the target's already dead if you don't stop the missiles at the right time).

A big part of the problem with rails, I suspect, is that T2 ammo for rails blows. You've got Javelin, which has half the optimal range and only a handful more dps than faction with a small tracking bonus (still not enough to hit an orbiting frig), and you've got Spike, which gives you a significant boost to optimal with a significant decrease in damage and a slight decrease in tracking (both compared to faction antimatter). Compare to T2 ammo for other weapon systems and it's not looking too good for the rails.

FWIW, I don't do missions often, so I can't compare them in missions, but I tried out a rail ferox in C1 WH sites on sisi, with roughly comparable skills, and it was fairly miserable compared to my usual Drake.

At any range a Ferox can do significant damage, say around 300 or more, a drake will do much more and has much better damage projection.

Using the Deadspace shield booster that was mentioned earlier on the ferox fit, a drake can make a good level 4 missioning fit with it and do 451 dps out to ~71k without implants or drones. Remember there are such things as missle speed and missle flight time rigs.

A Ferox is still only good at being bait, even after the last BC changes. Its only real role is as a spike sniper, but the DPS is quite low (< 250.)

To relate this somewhat to the original post, Small and Large Railguns are all-right. Medium Railguns really suck. This is partly because there are other weapon systems that will do anything they can do a little better, and partly because the hulls that use Rails really suck.

I think the Ferox versus Drake argument here is actually quite a good example of this, if you can figure out the facts from the rage.
Anything useful you can do with medium rails can be done better with another weapon system.

there's no sense in arguing about medium rails. it has been more than obvious since the hybrid buff that they're totally broken. CCP knows it, admits it, and will fix it soon(tm).

large rails are boss.

Tshukino said “So let's wrap this up”


“Do you agree that a drake can do more damage and at longer ranges compared to a rail ferox?”

Sorry, Tshukino, I do not agree. If you’re using fury, your max is 45km, remember I can do damage in the Ferox out to at least 60 with thorium. (thorium gives optimal range within 50km, and falloff range within 69km. Anything past 45km your Drake dps is . . .zero. (and so is mine with fury).

Let’s pick 28km, I will use my own clone with missile implants against my clone with turret implants:
My Drake will do 416dps, with 3 BCU II (but it does have a higher volley.)
My Ferox will do 424dps, with 3 MFS II

. . . and yes, at about 45km the Drake is still hitting at 416dps, and the Ferox, about 212dps (you said it was about half). So there’s not a definite answer. But as I before, I compared my Ferox to my Drake. In a Sansha mission, I have used Caldari Mjolnir which only gives the Drake 253dps in the same set-up. But then you come in and compare my Ferox to your Drake with fury scourge.
You have to use T2 ammo to my Faction ammo to do comparable damage. I knew Javelin sucked that’s why I didn’t use it.


“Can you hit spider drones that are orbiting you with rails?”

Yes, I can hit them, but of course the damage isn’t good, but that’s what drones are for. So, that’s not a concern of mine. The Tracking computer and enhancer help, but not enough. Same thing in a L4, cruise missiles don’t do very well on some frigates, and again, that’s what drones are for.

“The killmail I posted had 15+ battleships on grid with me at the time and I was breaking VERY slowly. I would estimate my drake can tank around 10 with no problems.’

From you killmail that you posted it shows this:

“Involved parties - one
Name: Imperial Templar Judgment / Amarr Empire (laid the final blow)
Damage Done: 120473"

. . .guess the other 15+ on grid weren’t firing at you. It seems from your set-up that it takes a long time to take down a BS, but that didn’t happen, did it.

OK, I’m good here, how about you?

-Jaz

I was sceptical a first, but looking at the stats and graphs, Jazmin is not wrong.

Taking Jazmin''s Ferox (w/ faction antimat) versus Tsukino's Drake (w/ faction scourge), they do exactly the same damage on a not MWDing cruiser up to 40km. If MWDing or smaller, the Ferox outdps the Drake.

The *only* case where the Drake is better is with fury scourge against BC. Fury are a lot less effective against cruisers and below, even with the TP.

Considering the NPC in lvl3 missions, I'd say they are rather equivalent : the time the Ferox will spend on BC, the Drake will spend it on cruisers or reloads. It's only a matter of preference/playstyle then. Also, Jazmin's Ferox have way more tank and you could earn ~20dps (5%, which matter in this case because the performance difference between the two is less than that) with a more agressive fit on the Ferox.

Tsukino,

This all could have gone down differently. You attacked me, made wrong assumptions, called me a liar, criticized, accused, and called me names. What did you expect me to do? Bow down to a superior intellect? I wasn’t seeing it. Maybe you just don’t know any better, but your initial response made me go on the defense.

So I mislabeled some numbers, you assumed I was making them up. You didn’t know how to add, and say it’s no big deal. Hello, you can make mistakes, but I can’t? There was so much sh**, that I'd admit I couldn't keep things straight

Please, I do know what at “all Level Vs” means, for pete’s sake. You assumed I didn’t.

I never said I had great missile skills, I have good skills. You can even check out Eve board. I have 7.5M in Missiles. Also, I only have 6.3M in turrets. In all, I only have 35+M in total SP. EDIT: I saw you on Eve board, I will make no comments.

How are your turret skills, because you keep relying and comparing me to all Level Vs, instead of what you would do. Are they that bad you don’t want us to know? Not quite all even and fair is it?

I am so glad some one else mentioned missile explosive radius, before I did. There’s a whole new parameter that you conveniently didn’t mention that affects missiles.

Oh, yeah one more thing on your awesome Drake. LOL, “but gee, I was tanking them all until I went boom.”

ta ta, now it is over. I have nothing more to say, but I’m sure you’ll have a snappy come back.

-Jaz

P.S. I love you Bouh.

It would help you two twits arguing over semantics to use the established terminology:

Singular falloff (50%) and Double falloff (0%).

When we talk about Long Range (LR) systems:

They were not designed to shoot in falloff (as they usually have much more optimal than falloff and their short falloff means that their damage-range drop-off is very high over those distances. LR systems lose alot of damage over a proportionally short distance. You can use falloff as an advantage to outrange an opponent who would hit you within your falloff (because if he does 0% of 100 damage and you do 20% of 10 damage you still obviously do more damage), but you do not - and should not - fly your ship in that manner.

LR systems have high optimals, use them in optimal.

If you are using an LR-setup ship in falloff there is probably some other choice you could have made in the long process: from ship, to setup to positioning that would have been vastly superior for whatever strategy you wish to employ. The entire discussion is rather moot.

If you can pull off some trick in falloff, let that be the icing on your cake but it will never be more than that and surely not something worth spending three pages of people's time calling each other bad names over.


Simple breakdown in numbers:

If your optimal is 50km and your falloff is 25km in EFT your ranges would be: 50+25+25 (optimal + singular + double).

Your damage-range is: 50 km (100% damage), 75km (50% damage) and 100km (0% damage).

This also means that in anything between 50+25+25 = 100 your damage will also scale linear.

50km = 100%, 51km = 98%, 52km = 96% and so forth.

So for every 1km above 50km you lose 2% damage. That means that if you lose focus for just a couple of seconds and drift within 10km (which is really easy to do in EVE) you also stand to lose a whopping 20% damage. Skirting falloff-ranges on ships with such high optimals is both unecessary and nothing to recommend in terms of strategy.


To add some complication:

Short range (SR) systems usually have a proportionally longer falloff. That means they are less sensitive in their damage-range. The Autocannon system (AC) is particularily famous for this. They were not designed to fight in optimal like the long range systems (unless "going in for a kill"). Instead, since they have a falloff that is as long as 30km compared to a 1km optimal they will always deal with some drop-off at any range beside being right ontop. However, as their falloff is so long they also lose comparatively less damage (%) than other systems as they drift further away.

If one system has 15+10 (aka. 15+10+10) and another system has 10+20 (aka. 10+20+20) you will see the significance of falloff. Not only because 15+10+10 = 35 and 10+20+20 = 50, which is considerably longer, you will also see that between breakpoint ranges such as 25-30km the 15+10 system stand to lose alot of damage.

Say both systems have 100 dps.

Then the 15+10 system will do 50dps @ 25 but only 25 dps @ 30. It loses a good 50% damage over those measily 5km.

The 10+20 system will do about 66dps @ 25 (32% more) but will retain a full 50 dps (100% more) @ 30km.

That means a 68% relative damage difference over 5km, or the distance your ship will travel if you sneeze.

I just wanted to add that to underline that range is not the only important factor here, it's how the damage scales comparatively over different systems. LR systems, much like the 15+10 SR example, are very sensitive to falloff because in EVE there are very few situations where doing 20 dps to an opponent have any real value, regardless if your opponent do 0 dps to you or not. He's not going to stick around while you plick at him for 20 mins no matter if you hold the field.

What were the two of you arguing about anyway?

LMFAO. Prof. Dr. Dr. Noisrevbus wrote a scientific paper on Falloff Ranges and Damage Projection just to ask this at the end of the post. Come on man. Seriously?

I appreciate your excellent description of how Falloff wroks and the diff. consequens it has on short range vs. long range weapon systems. Some will definately learn something from it.

1) The main issue of the OP is weather railguns really are as bad as many player say.

2) Jazmyn Stone posted: "Are rail guns really that bad? Maybe, but the Ferox is much better since it's upgrade. For L3's my ship to go to use to be the Drake, now it is the Ferox."

3) Tsukino Stareine responded with "My drake tanks more, does better DPS and at longer ranges. It doesn't use expensive mods either. I think you just didn't know how to fly a drake."

This in the context of LVL3 missions.

The issue was mainly about ranges of the rails. Jazmyn wrote about 28-47 range, later about 28+47. She referred to 47 as her falloff then as her faloff range. She was criticising Tsukino for using EFT numbers as they appear to be incorrect since EFT numbers don't match her in game numbers.

The main argument around this being that the Drake can project higher DPS AND much farther than the rail ferox.

then a pic was posted showing Jazmyn was actually referring to the in-game number displayed as Falloff RANGE. This being optimal + one falloff at which point the rails do half damage.

Now we are at the point where fingers are pointed as to what was really meant. Some peeps posted mistakes with 28+29 being 47 others switched their semantics from falloff range to falloff both referring to 47km, which is obviously wrong. One being just faloff the other being optimal + one falloff.

Anyway, personally i had the impression and I think others might agree, that Jazmyn was not aware the the in-game number labeled Faloff Range was actually optimal + one faloff and therefore thought the Ferox had a longer effective range than it actually does and also being the reason why the EFT numbers were different from her in game numbers.

Anyway, Its hard to proove weather Jazmyn really knew what the in-game number labeled Falloff Range means or weather she did not. Hard to tell. Her range reference and alternating use of falloff and Falloff Range make it difficult. (Not blaming, jsut saying.)

About the dispute between ferox and drake. I would agree with Tsukino that the drake is the (much) better LV3 mission runner. On paper they might be comparable BUT in game flying the ships the drake does better dps to longer ranges. Is not affected by transversal. You need less of a tank. Its easier to play lv3s as you don't have to worry much about ranges of your guns (and the loss of dps when are outside 50% of your faloff or tracking issues of rails below 20km) and with a prop mod you should be able to outrun almost everything anyway.

In order to get the real in game performance out of the ferox that is on par or even better to the drake you would have to monitor your ranges very carefully and piolt flawlessly. In actually playing lv3s that means the drake will always be the better ship even though paper performance suggests they are equally matched.

About the OP and med rails, it is hard to say. I think just like the other 2 med long range turret systems they are a little underwhelming on some hulls but are pretty decent on others. A bit of a mixed bag I think. In PVE maybe not as noticable as in PVP.

Now, let the ladies sharpen their claws, get some beer and popcorn and lets watch DA SHOW.