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It could work. Let me explain:

First off, I would call them 'Tactical Modules' as that is their usage and benefit.

Basically the tactical modules would be designed for everyone to use, while giving relevant bonuses for a specific race. Tactical Modules are entirely optional, they don't have to be fitted, but can offer a tactical edge if they are. By being pilot controlled and not a permanent effect, it makes timing their activation entirely relevant; this makes combat more diverse and interesting.

Tactical modules could be limited so that only one of them can be installed on a ship, thus avoiding stacking issues and ships with lots of mid slots abusing them.

In addition, by giving extra bonuses to the relevant races, you increase the chances of them being used by the race they were intended for, and instead help balance that race, while not unbalancing the game.

But in a stroke, you give Gallente pilots a fix for getting in range for blasters, while not unbalacing the game and turning them into Minmitar ships with blasters basically, and not having to give larger damage increases that could make Blasters insta-ship-pod-death when in range.

Here is a rough list to get the idea across about what these modules could be / do:

• Speed Burst: Tactical Module: Improved engine interfaces allow for engines to be briefly stressed, increasing ship speed by 25% for 10 seconds. Gallente get 200% bonus to burst duration. 5 minute cool down.


• Armor Resistance Boost: Tactical Module: Through advances in repair nano technology, briefly increases armor resistance by 25% for 10 seconds. Amarr get 200% bonus to boost duration. 5 minute cool down.


• Signature Reduction: Tactical Module: Helps to mask the ships signature to briefly reduce ship signature by 10% for 10 seconds. Minmitar get 200% bonus to boost duration. 5 minute cool down.


• Shield Resistance Boost: Tactical Module: Advances in shield matrix technology, briefly increases shield resistances by 25% for 10 seconds. Caldari get 200% bonus to boost duration. 5 minute cool down.

You could offer tactical modules that do other things briefly, for say e-war, but still have race bonuses in the same way. But, hey, I think this would be cool and 'could' add something fun to combat. It would give everyone a new way of thinking about combat in EvE, from FC's of 100 man gangs, to Skirmish Gangs or one-vs-one engagements, and even be of use to PvE pilots who want to get past difficult parts of a mission if it is used correctly.

It needs thinking through for sure, but my overall point is that to help solve the 'Gallente Blaster' issue while keeping the game balanced and races unique, while giving everyone something to get their teeth into.

Feedback welcome, thanks chaps and chappesses.

Yep there still sucking high wind compared to other Gunnery systems.

But they are better off then they were before.

Edit: What I mean is there will be no massive huge move to Hybirds but the people that are already using them will feel a little better off as now some better fits become avalible. Bigger guns and what ever alse you can come up with on EFT waring.

made a post sporting stuff about "win"matar, who by the way have to earn that "win" through experience and time consuming skilling in 10 directions at once. up until then they are mostly loosematars as frustrated as blaster user seem to be.
i deleted it because it just will get flamed anyway, because winmatar are obviously faceroll winmatar no matter what.....

my opinion to the hybrid changes: (hybrid includes rails, blaster obviously not ... "thx cpt. obvious" ^^ )

- changes on sisi are a step in the right direction.

- tracking needs to be adressed again. hybrids should have no difficulties hitting targets of same size in their optimal, even when using a propulsion mod. remove falloff.

- revisit med slots and cpu/pg of gallente ships. making it possible of sporting prop mods and nasty stuff like points, webs, dampers. blaster boats should use dampers more often, since they force opponents towards the blaster range or making locks on the blaster boat more difficult (in a manner of time and range). leaves the opponent with the possibilities of enganging at smaller range or be on his way. maybe look at dampers without making them uber.
gallente ships should be able to sport more mid slot gadgeds than other races.

- give a bonus on cap usage on blaster (maybe hybrid) skills, making sensible cap usage a thing of unskilled blaster users and amarrians, like using cap for warp can be made insensible with the according skill. gallente fight in the range of every obstacle possible and should use that cap for the other stuff like propulsion and ewar.
reduce cap of hybrid using ships (magnitude open for discusion)

- when buffing the dmg of hybrids, don't buff them directly. look at the dmg mods for the low slots and buff them (rof/dmg multiplier).
maybe separate blaster and rails dmg mods to adress certain problems (dmg/rof) seperately. throw in ammonition which is sporting some explo dmg.

- move web bonus from minmatar ships to according gallente ships (but leave sensor dampening) and give minmatar something more suiting to their slipery nature. like neut range bonus (the arch nemesis are the cap hungry amarrians after all...) and remote sensor boosting. how about remote sig reduction for bigger minmatar ships. would give gallente gangs more possibility to slow down and catch opponents and minmatar sporting their hit and run strategy.

- add more rof to rails ( in addition to changes above), making them good tracking, weak hitting, fast firing longe range weapons.

- gallente should be the second fastest race in eve.

- i think min warp distance should be one grid ore at least 200km, thus opening a market for long range engagement and give interceptors and - dictors someting to do.


if properly done this changes would leave the hybrids in their intended role and bring hybrid users up to a similar lvl of op-ness. gz newborn winlente, pwndari

fly safe,
your "win"matar aka "faceroll"
(insert your flame here)

Look. A solution needs to be KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid!) in order to work very well.

Complicated solutions by adding new modules or giving Gallente built in EW bonuses like Web range (minmatar bonus so no!), Web velocity factor (Serp bonus so no!) or a scram range bonus will not "fix" blaster boats as people will simply put AC's on them and use the EW bonus with AC's. So that rules out EW bonuses.

First lets look at what the traits of Hybrid weapons are or are supposed to be:

Blasters:
Extreme short range very high damage

Railguns:
Extreme range High RoF

Now lets consider the problems with the weapons relating to their traits and current game tactics and strategies:

Blasters:
Gallente hulls are too slow so they are unable to get into range.
Blaster boats are total commitment to engagement hulls
Blasters struggle to track at their optimal range due to web nerfs. (being addressed with tracking boost)
Blasters don't deal significantly more damage compared to their counterparts even at short range.
Caldari hulls get a range bonus and lack competitive damage output.
Higher tier weapons are very difficult to fit (being addressed with fitting boost)

Railguns:
Difficult to fit (being addressed with fitting boost)
Deal very little damage in volley (alpha) and DPS
Extreme range (>150km) tactics are not viable due to current on grid Probe to Warp tactics/mechanics
Very slow tracking (being addressed with tracking boost)

Realistic fixes for the above issues that are not currently being addressed:

Blasters
The first fix is to blaster boats being able to get into range which is addressed simply with speed. Blaster boats, Gallente in particular, should be the fastest straight line speed ships in the game. However the cost of this speed needs to be agility. This is to allow for pilot skill to allow for out manoeuvring. Speed also addresses the engagement commitment issue. With speed you can attempt to break away from the target and outrun your enemy.

If we were to choose agility over speed we will still be in the same situation we are in now. Blaster ships utterly helpless trying to catch ships faster than themselves. It won't matter if they can out accelerate their target because your target will almost certainly have velocity as you land on the grid and will burn away from you as you try to accelerate from zero. It simply won't work and will be a very dull "SPAM APPROACH" and pray you will be able to snag them instead of clever manoeuvres.

If we choose to increase blaster range we begin to leave the blaster trait of extreme close range and start evolving them into lasers or projectiles. Not the ideal route.

Blasters need a little buff to damage output or AC's and Pulses need a little nerf to damage output. Perhaps the best solution is a little of both nerf and buff to prevent the dreaded "power creep".

Caldari hybrid platforms lack, for the most part, the ability to deal competitive damage with blasters. Now changing Caldari hybrid hull range bonuses into damage bonuses will remove a lot of the variation from the game and change the very essence of Caldari battle philosophy. We prefer variation so the optimal range bonus MUST remain. However, inorder to boost damage output of these ships there is a very simple solution. +1 turret hardpoint. Ships like the Ferox and Eagle have a utility hi slot that could be turned into a turret slot. This would boost these ships DPS at the cost of fitting the gun. For example:
A Blaster Buffer Ferox would go from 600dps with void to approx 700dps. With a slight boost to Blaster damage output (10%) on top of the this buff the Ferox would be dealing 750-800dps. Only a little less than an armour buffer Blaster Brutix whilst still retaining 62.5k EHP, MWD and tackle.
I believe the +1 Turret fix for Caldari hulls will fix a lot of the hulls unable to deal competitive damage.

Railguns
Current mechanics allow for ships to on grid warp to targets >150km away. This causes major problems for tactics to use ranges beyond 150km which is the domain of the railgun. If the current minimum warp to range was increased to 250km this would allow for extreme range sniping to occur as it would no longer be as simple to warp on top of these sniper ships without leaving the grid yourself or setting up an inline warp to scout.
Current sniper tactics rely heavily on volley damage (Alpha striking). Both lasers and Railguns lack any kind of competitve alpha strike capability. See AMMO FIXES below to address this.

More to follow.......................................................................

It's quite simple Hybrids have every Negative .... Ammo reload to switch timer, Cap Usage, Ammo usage, limited damage types .....

Blasters are supposed to be king of damage, with limited damage types!!!! So they really need to have the alpha to match atleast if not the arty volley damage, if not more considering the limited damage types....

One idea i had to even things up a bit, was perhaps to make Hybrid ammo truely hybrid and have it deal like the sansha all 4 types of damage?

Blasters need some way to get in closer to be able to engage,

- FIX STACKING ON WEB DRONES!!!!!!!!!!!!
- Slight EHP buff to ships like the brutix that are obvious brawler ships with paper tanks for some reason..
- Boost speed so they can actually get in close
- Boost agility NOT NERF!

Scram drones would be nice...

In my view the above, and basically making Rails the autocannons of the hybrids, extremely long range though fast rate of fire, but limited volley, Blasters, very very high Volley damage, i'm talking MASSIVE, if you manage to get to blaster range you need to be able to **** as chances are your getting into your optimal at 1/2 tank left

Hybrids are still excessively weak, as are many of the gallentean hulls bonused into them. This list of changes is pretty much the minimum that I could imagine for making hybrids worthwhile, keeping blasters interesting, maintaining ship diversity, and so on without revamping both gallente and hybrids from the ground up which might be what needs to happen:


1. take the deimos and consolidate to have a 10% per level to damage rather than two seperate damage bonuses and give it a web strength bonus of 5% per level as its new 4th bonus OR, seeing as A-Hacs are proved to be effective/popular, give it a 7.5% AB speed bonus as its 4th bonus
2. replace the MWD bonus on the thorax with an AB speed bonus of 7.5% per level and also minorly buff its max cap and cap recharge to compensate for that loss and to keep mwd fits viable
3. give the ishkur a web strength bonus 5% per level as its much asked-for 4th bonus
4. give the enyo an AB speed bonus of 7.5% per level as its much asked-for 4th bonus
5. give the harpy a a web strength bonus of 5% per level OR an AB speed bonus of 7.5% per level as its much asked-for 4th bonus
6. buff the resists, both armor and shield, on all gallente ships currently bonused into active tanking (not by a lot just a little nudge) making the currently-popular buffer fits more viable by a small margine while also buffing the EHP and tanking capacity of those who actually utilize the bonus as intended.
7. make many or all hybrid tracking bonuses into 10% per level, particularly for battleships (mega/kronos/whatevs)
8. give the sin a tracking bonus instead of an align time bonus
9. make armor reppers cycle at the beginning
10. continue with buffage to base movement stats for all hybrid-bonused ships, giving them an extra inch on speed and agility
11. continue with buffage to all blaster and railgun stats including easier fittings for blasters, less cap use for all, buffed tracking for BOTH railguns and blasters and buffed damage for BOTH railguns and blasters
12. buff null and javelin in an attempt to make range-bonused hybrids better. the null bonus would largely be a gift to caldari hybrids platforms for gang warfare. the null-oriented Rokh fitted with a Tracking Enhancer is already cool in concept and some people make it scary in practice on TQ... make it and ships like it better. the javelin bonus would be largely to make the railgun a better mid-range weapon for fleets. both of these would be on top of damage and tracking buffs appropriate to rails and blasters specifically AND the massive increase in javelin tracking already confirmed in a devblog
13. completely revamp information warfare links to be useful


then maybe we will start to see gallente ships getting more heavily used, even if only for gang warfare

We have to remember that changes to be proposed for hybrid re-balancing will have to be limited to existing modules with their current architecture.

If we propose completely a new module or adding a new character to an existing module that will require a new development stream. Which is not going to happen.

All depends on how CCP Tallest replies to this thread. I hope he does since the community had a extensive testing done at the weekend and have presented myraid thoughts. All these thoughts are pointing to the fact that hybrids are still underpowered and need significantly more boost in ...
1) Damage
2) Speed
3) Capacitor
4) Tracking

Also few pointed out other required buffs like
1) Sig radiius
2) Bit more PG + CPU for fitting T2
3) Extended tackle range or Tackle power

But looking at the way Talos was gimped off its 90% web before even coming to test you know what CCP Tallest
is thinking - not to increase gallente tackle power.

But I sincerely hope CCP Tallest will come back to the community with his thoughts sooner than later and not keep us guessing.

The worst will be if the changes done to hybrid will go live.

That would be the end of our struggle for years to get hybrid rebalanced.

good luck all.

Well all proposed changes and sisi changes are nice- every buff to so underpowered weapon system is nice, but i simply don't understand what the hell it is all about.

***************
THIS NEED TO BE DONE, SIMPLE RULE HAVE TO BE IN PLACE:

1. Ship with short range weapons have to catch long range one - so it has to be the fastest.
2. After getting in its range, its dps have to be that much higher, that it compensates for the time spent (and dmg received) while getting in that range.
PERIOD, VERY SIMPLE, THIS BASE PRINCIPLE SHOULD NEVER BE BROKEN and it evidently is in many ways.
***************

The solution is allso pretty evident, and clearly not in lowering cpu req and other cosmetical changes, they don't solve this base problem.

CCP wants to leave their race concepts intact, but they simply gave faster race, longer range weapon system (comparing min and gall) So in theory, gallente will never kill min, even if they start at 0km range, because dmg difference isn't enought even to compensate for time the min ship to run away from gal range :D this should be switched over in some way (either speed or ranges)

Very true.

True. Railguns get an increased damage modifier instead.