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I'd rather like a scram range bonus (+20% per level, so 18km for scram II). That would allow to get close to ships that would normally kite you.

There might be a problem with this being too binary. If your target is faster than you and is outside scram range, then you have the current difficulties in getting to blaster range. But if you are able to apply a long-range scramble, then suddenly you have a massive speed advantage and can easily close to optimal.

In the first case, it's too hard to get to blaster optimal; but in the second case it's too easy. Something more graduated would be better.

This would be bad, because it would remove the valid tactic of kitting blaster ships, has a huge impact on fleet fights(where people would bring them just for the webs w/o ever bringing them into blaster range), would be a unfair advantage with rail fittings and a long range web will always disfavor the weapon system with the smallest range, webbing a blaster ship at 20km makes it complete useless, doing the same with puls or ac ships let them still bite back with scorch or barrage.

A 90% web doesn't do all this stuff, it gives the blaster ship the required control once in range, gives it point blank defense against undersized ships what mostly allowing it to clear tacklers quick and stay mobile(different to a nano ship that uses range to stay free of tackle), improves the applied DPS, gives options to minimize or maximize transversal and adds some utility in 1 vs X situations, since it would take considerable more tackle for the other ships to regain the range control against the blaster ship.

Because they are 2 different ships. Minmatar have no Zealot substitute as well, get over it.
The different ships of a class are different, and not all races need to be good at everything.
Crying that you cancel your sub if CCP doesnt do xyz is just pathetic.

You know.... that actually sounds pretty cool.

ok another brilliant idea....DENERF SENSOR DAMPS and give all gallente cruisers and above an appropriate effectiveness bonus.

5% for BS per level
7.5% for BC per level
10% cruiser per level
none for frigs
***remove Gallente's ability to use railguns
1) solves range problems passively by forcing your target into range of webs
2) no need for speed buff
3) hybrid damage buffs are sufficient now, since the real issue is employing blasters at range
case closed...move along please



******note. only allow sensor damps to be used by gallente ships

I'll give you that I forgot about the Drake, a who's recent (from my point of view of periods of play spliced with long breaks) popularity has been confusing, satisfying, and frustrating; but the other ships you listed are either weak for combat, out-preformed, or fulfill more of a support or niche role that I was referring to.

The Manticore, while a fun ship to fly, is a stealth bomber that has all the problems of fitting for solo combat that all Caldari run into while only really being useful in full stealth bomber fleets and general covert ops fleets. Extremely niche in it's role; it preforms at more or less the exact same effectiveness as all other stealth bombers, if flown correctly and well fit.

The Nighthawk and Creberus are both overpriced ships that are extremely lackluster in combat as they only receive bonuses to heavy missiles and the bonuses are geared to allow heavy missiles to be used from distances where missiles are extremely ineffective against anything other than POSes and sieged dreads. They are hardly worth flying before realizing that they only do about as much (if not distinctly less) damage than a Drake, which because of costs completely removes any reason left to fly these ships.

The Hawk is an assault frigate, and therefore terrible. No, seriously, why would anyone fly an assault frigate when they could be flying a Rifter? The Rifter pretty much out preforms or preforms at any given assault frigate's effectiveness for less than a third the cost and training time involved.

I've never flown a Hookbill for anything other than lol-ing my way through level 1s, but I can assure you that I've never seen one flown into combat and I'd never want to take a frigate that cost that much into combat unless it was amazing at a crucial combat role, like tackling. It could be that the Hookbill is a wonderful little combat boat that fails for not being as good as a Rifter, a ship that makes up the vast majority of frigate sized, small scale combat because it is arguably the best combat frigate.

The Chimera, a ship that is focused on repairing other ships that are fighting, perfectly fits my definition of "support ship not directly used for combat."

The reason ECM pilots like ourselves fit two Caldari racial jammers isn't because Caldari have good combat ships, but because Caldari make up the largest percentage of races represented in the playerbse and many pilots will fly their own race's ships, regardless of how good or bad they are due to the "fun" factor. That and the proliferation of Drakes, seriously how did that happen?



Perhaps I am looking at it the wrong way, but in many cases 30 DPS is an entire launcher's or turret's worth of DPS (or more), so forgive me if it's hard to swallow that an Eagle is effectively a Muninn with less Arties, worse tracking, worse speed, and worse agility. In a game where range beyond 100km means nothing, what's the point of an entire race based around shooting past 150km?

Fine. I'm just gonna lay it out.

All I'm seeing in terms of hybrid-balancing is the juggling of numbers, statistics, and proposed changes to those numbers which may or may not result in a generally-accepted change.

Who cares?

Hybrids are fundamentally broken. This is a fact.

Why?

Projectiles are capfree, provide alpha, focus on falloff to determine effective range, allow the pilot to change damage type, and are fitted on the fastest ships in the game.

Lasers are virtually ammo-free, focus on optimal to provide dominant range, crystals quickly swapped to dictate effective range, and fit on the best-tanked ships in the game.

Hybrids do not give you anything like this! Hybrids do not provide a unique role.

Allow me to repeat myself, for emphasis, or flavor, or annoyance. Take your pick.

Hybrids are fundamentally broken. This is a fact.

Why?

Projectiles are capfree, provide alpha, focus on falloff to determine effective range, allow the pilot to change damage type, and are fitted on the fastest ships in the game.

Lasers are virtually ammo-free, focus on optimal to provide dominant range, crystals quickly swapped to dictate effective range, and fit on the best-tanked ships in the game.

Hybrids do not give you anything like this! Hybrids do not provide a unique role.

The proposed changes on test do not provide hybrids with anything which competes with lasers or projectiles at a fundamental level, thus the proposed changes will not have any worthwhile, lasting, desired effect. This is IN ADDITION TO the lackluster stats and effectiveness of hybrids. You NEED to work on improving the numbers AFTER you've given the turrets some real effective incentive to compete with the likes of other turrets!!! Yes, I said the proposed changes, to date, are worthless. I'm sorry.

As a pilot, I know there are situations where I want my weapons to be cap free. I know there are situations where my first and possibly my ONLY shot, needs to hit HARD; it needs to count. I know there will be times when hundreds of ships will fight at various ranges in long battles, so not only will I want to be able to instantly change my effective range, but if my entire fleet goes balls-deep in the EHP department, chances of overall victory increase dramatically.

The only thing I DON'T know is, when will hybrids be the weapon to compliment situations similar to those mentioned above?

CCP, Please understand I greatly applaud the effort and I think most of the players agree on this. But this makes it all the more frustrating to see it wasted. If you, CCP, are not willing to change hybrids from the ground up so they can compete with projectiles and lasers at a fundamental level, all of these efforts and tweaks are in vain. Please make some effort to show you understand this.

LOL so what... nobody can shoot you until they're in range of blasters. This wouldn't make Gallente overpowered at all. End irony.

The new ranges of scrams and webs using t2 gang links makes adding scram/web range bonuses to blaster boats ineffective.

t2 scrams with a fleet booster now hit at roughly 16km (heated). [DG/SS/RF scrams at about 18.5km]
t2 webs now hit at roughly 19km (heated). [FN webs at about 27km]

At those ranges it will not matter if blaster boats get an additional scram/web bonus. Gallente boats, with increased agility, will be crawling as soon as they get within 14-15km.