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Been thinking about this some more, and am reposting this from a separate topic:

The bottom line is that if Gallente ships are supposed to be faster than Caldari and Amarr ships (but not as fast as Minmatar) then their weapons should have better range than Minimatar ships. The idea that blasters must be super short range seems to be locked into your heads, and perhaps you should disabuse yourself of that notion and extend their range considerably - make them function in-between AC's and pulse lasers in terms of damage and range.

Don't mess with armour plates and agility/mass penalties when the problem lies with the weapons. The same goes for Gallente ships; they're basically fine, its the blasters themselves that are at issue. Increase their optimal a lot and their falloff a little, reduce tracking and damage a bit and see how the numbers add up. Blaster boats won't need to be as fast as Minmatar if they have better range, and I think that works better for Caldari ships too, if they want to use blasters for a change (blaster ferox is pretty decent) since they're usually slower than Gallente ships, but finally their hybrid range bonus will make up that difference.

Improving tech 2 like Null and Void is fine, but the tech 1 ammo and guns need to be useable as well; you can't decide to play Gallente ships and then have to wait until you've got tech 2 guns to use them properly.

Armor plates and agility and mass penalties are new to the game compare to the stats that the weapons have and were never balanced with them in mind. HENCE it might being a good idea to do so.

Excuse typos its on an Ipad, and I had a drink or 3. So, just to try to summarize many of these ideas into a simple form that wont involve too much tinkering. These arent my ideas, just a summary of other folks. just tring to put them in a simple format. It will go: 1. Most Common Suggestion (Options for that same suggestion)

All of the below assume the current aggregation of changes listed by CCP Tallest in the devblog and this thread will go live (speed, tracking, damage, etc). I am also assuming that there will remain only two 'ship level' bonuses per ship (as opposed to a tweak to a base stat). I think it is agreed that ships should be preferred to change over mods, because everyon can use mods and that can introduce additional balance issues.

So, with that said, here is an attempt at summarizing most of the suggestions.

1. A. Gallente need to be fastest, B. OR fastest in a sprint, but not top speed (fastest accellaration)
2. A. MOAR DAMAGE or B. Make them more like lazors/projectiles
3. A. Give all gal boats a Damp bonus, or B. Unnerf Damp modules at least some, in general.
4. Armor tanking: A. Remove/reduce speed penalties for some armor mods, (rigs and plates mostly) B. Change various Plate stats to give meaningful choices, C. Change underused modules to be more useful to Gallente (e.g. Regenarative Platin and Reinforced Bulkheads)
5. Structure issues: Take advantage of the larger Gallente Structures by increasing them further or giving them a small (20%ish?) base resist. DCU would be more beneficial to Gallente and wouldnt make Amarr OP. This would give more structure buffer to allow for active tanking and/or RRmore time to heal up armor, but would not require a separate 'remote structure repair' component in fleets.
6. Overheat endurance bonus to base stat of Gallente Ships. (Moonaura suggested this. Awesome idea). There is already an existing base stat for this apparantly called 'heatCapacity' https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=32225&find=unread (This is a newish idea by someone, but i love it - it is a base stat change, but indirectly would help damage, speed, and tanking by allowing us to overload those mods for longer: even 20-30% would be beneficial. It would be a defining racial trait of 'blaze of glory' and endurance combat. It shouldnt be unbalancing: It would just allow us to be overheated and REALLY AWESOME for a little bit longer than everone else, until we pop or our mods burn out, or both. In short, its a short-lived, situational advantage. Not something that is in effect 24/7 like projectiles, lasors, or being a Goon. And would not require changes to any 'ship level' bonuses already in place).
7. Various forms of tackle projection. A. Web amount or range bonus, B. scram range bonus C. extra 'utility' drone storage space on gal boats for WORKING and/or FASTER web or scram drones.

So, those are most of the variations of ideas. Discuss.

If it were me, and If i wanted to keep it simple, without wonking up the already well established ship level bonuses and mods taht everyone can use and perhaps causing other balance issues, I would start slowly. I would implement items #5 and # 6, and see how they go. They are simple, gallente specific changes that can be more easily evaluated and they dont mess with the already existing ship level bonuses. Those two base stat changes would also indirectly influence items #1B, 2A, 4A, 4C, and 7, without having to make lots of other changes. in other words, just doing #5 and 6 kills many birds with two stones, for the least amount of work.


I am certain people will disagree. Discuss.

There's a certain symmetry at the moment with Amarr and Gallente being primarily armour, and Minmatar and Caldari being shield focused (obviously matari ships are much more flexible). I think CCP are reluctant to change this dynamic, but its probably worth talking about at least.

Here's the thing tho: If we're talking big fleet battles? In order to make blasters useful at point-blank range, the ships are going to have to be ridiculously fast, since all three other races can engage at range with ease, and even then it throws fleet formations completely out the window.

I just don't see why blasters have to be so short on range when it clearly isn't working. I suspect that nothing short of a substantial range increase on blasters is going to make Gallente attractive outside of empire space.

Here's an idea, just double the optimal range across the board for blasters, maybe add a 25% falloff increase, lower damage and tracking by 10%-15% and see how it goes. It's a test server; let's test it out.

Many have said it already, but I'll echo it again, reduce the granularity in hybrid range ammo, more like projectiles (which they were modelled after if you believe the item text).

One last thought I had before bed is another passive. What about a skill/ ship bonus where hybrid cap usage is recycled into shield boosting? Or per shot, since cap usage would be counter productive for some skill. Obviously this would benefit caldari more, but maybe they get a speed boost out of it?

Caldari: Recycle energy per shot into shields. Like 1% or thereabout, maybe scale on turret size.
Gallenete: Recycle hybrid shot energy into engines for a short seed boost.

Your first point is not entirely accurate, rather incomplete hence open to misinterpretation. More like 3 options here:
1. A. Make Gallente hulls have the fastest Base speeds (resulting they are the fastest race with & without propulsion modules)
1. B. Make Gallente hulls have the best Agility (hence accelerate, turn, align fastest)
1. C. Give Gallente hulls a MWD/AB speed bonus so that as long as these modules are running, Gallente ships are faster than comparable Minmatar ships. If agility/mass are not touched, Gallente will accelerate slower than Minmatar, but be faster at top propulsion boosted speeds)

I personally favour 1. C here.

Regarding armour modules, since hardeners don't have speed penalties, maybe the speed penalty of Resistance rigs could be removed. Maybe replaced with agility, or shield amount penalties. This will benefit in 2 ways. For those willing to forgo pure buffer tanks, can opt for resistance tanks which also work better with the Gallente Armour Rep bonus. this bonus could also do with a bit of a boost.

& ofc, buff blaster damage further.

Here are the stats I posted the other day and some ship examples with guns and damage mods...

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b180/pinky_81/SisiStatsNovember.jpg

There are a few guns sticking out with weird stats, but the guns look pretty fine if you at the same time look into drone bays, amount of available lowslots and secondary bonuses.

Still waiting for:

• Additional speed/acceleration balance between Gallente/minmatar
• Hybrid ammunition clean-up
• Fall-off nerf on Tracking enhancers / Tracking computers
• Armor rig penalty replacement (with sensor strength?)
• Caldari optimal bonus -> damage bonus *

* To give Gallente an advantage over the caldari dps wise:

• Suggestion 1 : Hyperion damage bonus -> ROF bonus (Hype get 6,4% more dps)
• Suggestion 2 : Remove 1 gun on Rokh (Rokh gets 9,375% more dps total - 12,5% less than Hype)

Also while doing those bonus plz change bonus for Apoc and Prophecy. They will benefit a lot from losing their optimal bonus and their laser bonus.

Also when all above is done it's time to tweak single ships 1 at a time I think :-)

It all comes down to getting the ship into the engagement zone of its weapons. In this instance, Gallente blaster boats either need to:

a) Be the fastest and most agile, because their weapons have the shortest range, or
b) Have the engagement range of blasters extended so they don't need that speed.