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This is some ideas I had with regards to reworking hybrids. They're centered around the idea that hybrids are used by both Gallente and Caldari in (theoretically) both short and long range capacity. As such I tried to move away from the concept of 'Gallente Blaster, Caldari Rail' and focus on associated issues with the weapons themselves and deliver a set of weapons that both races can use in their intended role.

I don't claim this is an omnibus fix, I actually stayed away from specific 'power performance' analysis because there's a pile of it done already and I doubt I'd bring anything new to the table. I'm also not aiming to try to fix the specific 'blasters have ****** range' issue per se - that's a related but seperate problem.

That said, this is what I'd recommend for consideration.

First,for S/M/L blasters I'd reduce rate of fire by 50-70%, giving them a slow cycle speed like artillery. Damage (and cap use) would be increased to compensate. This would help deal with the 'slingshot' issue; Gallente ships now fire slower, more deliberately, but with tremendous alpha. In small-gang situation where lag isn't an issue, can essentially 'pick their shots' for best timing and thus transversal/range. From what I've heard they could use more transversal in general, but I leave that to the wiser.

Option B is to fix your tracking formula so that a kilometer long battleship five hundred meters away actually is impossible to miss because it is an enormous target. But that's not gonna happen. :p


Now we're getting into the real concept rebuilt. The following are specifically intended for M and L blasters, since as I understand S guns in general already function reasonably well and only need a bit of tweaking.

Under what I envision, M and L blaster turrets will include a capacitor bonus. This will help deal with the fact that blaster ships 100% engage within scram and neut range, MWDs having already consumed substantial cap. For some starting numbers, M blasters would provide +100 cap and L would provide +300 (going by the Thorax/Megathron the ration should be 1:4 but battleships have more guns). This would give both Gallente AND Caldari the option to engage effectively up close without suffering catastrophic cap failure before accomplishing anything; as an associated effect it'd also help with capacitor recharge rate to further stave off neuts, MWD consumption - even active rep, if that's deemed to stay as Gallente style.
The fluff for this would be that the particle accelerator rings in blasters allow for auxilary power storage which due to modern advances can be properly plumbed into the ship's power grid.

Meanwhile, Rails would get an electronics bonus; Smallest caliber (twins) would get a +signature resolution, midcaliber would get a smaller amount of signature resolution and a boost to targeting range and largest caliber would get a more substantial boost to targeting range. I have not run any major numbers here, but I envision that 425mm rails would add ~4 km targeting range each. Giving a baseline Rokh a targeting range of 152.5 km, with perfect skills. Coincidentally enough that's the limit of effective sniping (funny, eh). A Megathron would go to 116, with a Hyperion about 115. Still needing a sebo to hit 'max snipe range', but giving Railgun platforms the ability to be effective snipers in their own way - by freeing up more slots for useful things, like additional buffer tank. For smaller-caliber weapons instead railgun ships would have vastly superior locking times. Basically in collective, railgun platforms would be flown with the attitude of 'there is no place to hide' - they do not have the DPS of lasers nor the alpha of artillery, but they will be extremely hard to avoid, on the ship level. Likely in practice this would make rails more suited for skirmish and small gang warfare as opposed to the DPSfests of large fleets, but I can't make any real prediction.
The fluff here is that properly-integrated sensors on railguns allow for dispersed, additional recievers, improving the tactical sensing abilities of ships.

You might be asking 'But we have Sebos and cap boosters/batteries. All this is unnecessary'. To which the answer is that's the point. To (partially) obselete the use of some modules on Hybrid ships to make up for deficiencies elsewhere - be it in performance or in situation - and to give them their own distinct flavor. And to pre-empt the cap battery issue in specific, NOBODY uses cap batteries. So 'Blasters are better cap batteries than cap batteries' is a null issue, becaus we're looking to make them useful, not useless.
The best part is, these would carry over to whatever platform fits them, so cross-racial fitting would bring their system bonuses with them.


And finally, ammunition. There's been a lot of talk on hybrid ammo fixes (which I also think are necessary - the general paradigm set by projectiles is better, IMO)

So I'd suggest the following:

High Damage, Short Range (-30% optimal)
Plutonium (80% Therm, 20% Kin)
Iridium (20% Them, 80% Kin)

Mid Damage, Mid Range
Uranium (80% Therm, 20% Kin)
Lead (20% Them, 80% Kin)

Low Damage, Long Range (+40% optimal)
Thorium (80% Therm, 20% Kin)
Tungsten (20% Them, 80% Kin)

Then we have our two 'specialized' T1 ammo types
Antimatter (50% therm, 25% EM, 25% explosive) -50% optimal, -50% cap use, +100% Falloff
Iron (100% kin) +60% Optimal, +60% falloff

I'd also boost optimal a bit and reduce falloff to compensate with these suggestions - projectiles fight in fallow, hybrids fight in optimal.

I'm not going to get in to T2 ammo types, though I'd suggest Null be 25% all damage types - it's a tech 2 antimatter particle bolt.

Quoting this cause it's a seriously friggin awesome idea and deserves more visibility.

You have to get into range for tracking to matter.

yes, you allready suffered by getting in to range and stuff, and now suffer tracking because enemy does too ?:D

Very few people I have met are as qualified as Julius to comment on the current state of Hybrids and Gallente boats.

If you want to listen to someone from the community, look nowhere else.

Pimping hull rig proposal. Hull Rigs!

There are a number of reasons why this is a good thing.

1. Brings back some balance between "hull tankers", shield tankers, and armor tankers by providing a hull tanking rig that is on par with CDFEs and trimarks
2. Helps Gallente increase speed - not to the level of Minmatar - without boosting Amarr ships too much.
3. Gallente ships can now have a moderately low tanks, use mid slots for tackle at close range, AND keep up speed.
4. Reinforced bulkheads help out the larger Gallente hulls more than the smaller ones (which are mostly fine).

I read the post. No offense intended when I say that it rehashes everything we have been saying. It does put it all together nicely though.

Aye, most everything has already been said, but I figure this is the case of the squeaky wheel getting the oil. It took years and huge threadnaughts to get CCP to this point, so why stop now when the consensus is the changes aren't adequate. We have to drive it into the devs' brains til they accept it.

Yes, that's why they need to remove or change the penalty of reinforced bulkheads to something else like reduced cargo space. Now you have something to work with that makes sense.

No doubt.