Player Features and Ideas Discussion

When you get 6k alpha out of a T2 arty fit you get about 2.5 from a dps fit with other guns and alpha > to DPS everyday, if you can't kill it with a single volley bring more arties. Those are already the reason why beams and rails are total crap atm.

You realize that dps on paper isn't necessarily what you actually get? Things like tracking, sig radius, ship speed, etc. all come into play. HMLs hit with their full damage regardless if you're close or far, if your Drake is flying around, etc.

This is true. However, the general consense is 'Turret DPS > Missile DPS' already. You can see it on frigates for example, even damage heavy rocket ships have laughable dps compared to turret ships. This is because of the damage application. A Missile will always hit, unless the target is out of max range, or too fast for the missile to catch up. Then it's damage applied is calculated based on stats like sig, speed, explosion radius, explosion velocity and damage reduction factor.

It is true that medium long range turret platforms will deal significantly more damage than heavy missiles are doing, but only if they actually track the target. which usually is 15-20km and above. Everytime something comes in close, their applied dps drops incredibly fast to... zero.

It's a tradeoff. And it has to be attractive so people make the choice. Heavy Missiles aren't as good as they were before. But they're ... not bad right now. However, Medium Rails and Medium Beams are just incredibly useless. Medium rails have so anemic damage that it's just sad. Medium Beams have the same issue. Medium Arties are the only kinda okayish medium lr-weapon system, and they definately can use the RoF bonus. Keep in mind, all these weapon systems will lose significantly on damage application because of the reduced tracking.

You are wrong.*Snip* Please refrain from personal attacks. ISD Ezwal

For a start, good luck fitting 4 BCSs on a navy drake and still fitting a tank. But even if you did, you are looking at 362 dps at 94km with faction, 424 dps at 71km with fury. For a navy harbinger, you are looking at 522dps at 23km with scorch, 239 dps at 48km with faction radio and beams, 332 dps at 54km with aurora. Either way, both your dps and your max range is superior with hml, and you don't have to account for tracking.

*Snip* Please refrain from personal attacks. ISD Ezwal

Edit: You were talking about normal drake not navy drake. For the standard drake, you are looking at 407 dps at 63km with faction, and 478 dps at 47km with fury. This of course locks you into kinetic damage, other damage types are worse. Faction still does more dps at a longer range than the longest ranged beam ammo, and fury does twice the dps of the ammo type that operates at the same max range.

tl:dr heavy missiles are fine, *Snip* Please refrain from personal attacks. ISD Ezwal

You are comparing the dps you can apply at <23km with that you can apply at 2-3 times the range. Comparing apples and oranges here. Thats like me complaining that rail dps is too low because blasters do more dps - it's ********.

Had you not purposefully forgotten hi damage ammo for beams, your post might have made sense...

You obviously don't fly missiles, or you'd know how bad they are. That's all. Or maybe you only use Tengu, the single ship making hml worth it?

I fit the 4 BCS/heat sinks for the sake of example to keep them equal.

HML's range is supposedly already balanced because of the explosion radius/velocity difference (scourge furies have very low exp velocities so they're almost never hitting for full damage), whereas guns can pop frig's quite easily for full damage at long ranges/low traversals. Also, HML's don't have any mods to modify their range or exp sigs/vels, only rigs.

I don't have a problem with current TQ damage numbers, but signficantly buffing other long range weapons by 20% creates an imbalance in my opinion.

Mind you, I'd take a beam zealot any day over a hml Cerberus, and that's because of the weapon system.
I admit med rails need the buff, but if hml do not get one too, I will never even consider hml drake and will take beam harbinger or rail Brutix instead. Nighthawk? No thanks, I'll take a rail Astarte... The list goes on. Caracal? With rapid light why not, with hml never.

I used to fly hml a lot before the nerf. They were indeed much better than medium long range guns at that time, but the nerf was much too strong: damage AND explosion radius/velocity AND range. Really?
They went from best (for damage at 25+km on destroyer and bigger) to plain worse in almost any situation.

And now, medium long range turrets get a buff they really deserve (though arties deserve more imo), but hml need to get one too.

the power requirements on the beam weapons need to be looked at. they are steep ALL the way across the ship range.

also, i think we need to "rethink" the dual weapons role to begin with.

think of it this way:

its 2 smaller frig weapons mounted on a cruiser platform.
take the cruiser dual. its a medium weapon in theory...but in actuality, its just 2 smaller, frig sized weapons mounted together.
it should have slightly better tracking than a frig light weapon because it has more power (cruiser power grid) to move the platform they are mounted on.

it should have the same ROF, slightly better tracking, same range/fall off but double frig weapon damage.
they should use more power grid than frig weapons, but not close to normal "medium" weapons.
they should also have the sig radius of the smaller weapons. remember, they are smaller weapons, just 2 of them.

if i want to deck out a cruiser as an anti frig platform, i drop to double frig weapons.

i know, you say "use a destroyer"... but i want cruiser size and durability. bring dual frig weapons AND arties.
destroyers use multiple frig weapons. great, but they cant use multiple cruiser weapons. what if we have a cruiser roam and dont know if we are fighting frigs or something larger? i would bring a muninn with both arties and dual 280mm's. then,
we would get the range and tracking bonus from the muninn with the 280's. but it would still be a cruiser platform.

the bs sized dual medium weapons should be the same way...2x cruiser weapon.
it doesnt matter if we are talking about dual heavy pulse or dual 250 rail. short or long range doesnt matter.

it would bring cruisers back into the lime light. it would make them REALLY useful.
it would make cruisers anti-frig as well as anti-cruiser+ with a small change in guns.

i think they should actually use small ammo as well. they are not cruiser weapons. they are multiple frig weapons mounted up.

we used them alot in WWII and before. ive seen 2 AND 4 .50 cal machines guns mounted together as anti-air craft or anti-small boat. these should be the same.

frig weapons that gain the bonuses of cruiser mounts.

Rough estimate based on previous fittings puts the Deimos at a healthy 500+ dps @ 16+40ish, rail Proteus at > 700dps @ 22+29. All figures depend on tracking/range mods and my memory, of course. I can't be bothered to use beams so I dunno about those.