Ships & Modules

Having been looking recently at the ships I and others have been flying I have a question for the Eve community.

Do Medium ACs need some sort of buff?

It feels like they should do well in the area between 5-15k on a non range-bonused hull and 15-25k on a range bonused hull, but this simply isn't the case, they have awful projection even with a falloff bonus a-la Vaga/Cyna/Stabber while lacking the raw damage and tracking of Blasters. They feel like the weapon system that tries to do everything and ends up being good at nothing. Even null performs better than barrage in a lot of circumstances these days.

So, is it a problem, and if so how do we fix it, a raw damage increase would probably be in-appropriate, falloff boost maybe or a buff to Barrage, I'm not sure, but they do feel like they lack something compared to the other weapons in the class (Blasters, loldeeps/null, Lasers, lolscorch).

I'd really deny that.

ACs are the bread&butter on nearly all minmatar-vessels and for their very low fittings, they are even a top choice to mount onto unbonused turret-slots. While their raw damage is pisspoor, their application questionable and the ammoconsumption makes for some grey hairs,
→ they also are one of a few weapon systems with 'selectable' damage, and medium ACs cover the full web-scram-range quite smoothly while having one of the better tracking values :)

One could argue that blasters loaded with null are just better autocannons though...


I think autocannons are perfectly fine. The 10-15% raw damage you are loosing compared to blasters with null when shooting PP/EMP/Fusion is acceptable I guess. (ions vs 220s)

It's funny, I feel like we've come full circle on the nerf/buff cycle. When I first started the game it was 'Go Minmatar or go home' or 'AC kiters are OP' and all that stuff, because ACs had just been buffed and were top of their game, people were crying for buffs for blasters and gallente everywhere and nerfs for ACs.

Now that CCP has finally answered their calls, Minmatar has been left in the dust and now this thread marks the start of players calling for buffs on what was previously known as Winmatar.

And the cycle restarts.....

On the other hand they're very easy to fit, don't use any cap, have large ammo capacity and you have a decent choice of damage types.

I use 'em on my Loki and they seem to work fine. I will allow a buff though.

Null gives blasters too much range taking away the only real advantage AC's had.

Fitting are mostly offset by ship fitting (Ac's do have silly low fittings though) Variable damage mostly helps with t2 stuff and the cap thing is highly situational.

I don't think AC's need a big buff however.. Maybe a tiny one, id rather see a proper t2 ammo rebalance though.

Ac's aren't great at range either

they never were and they are worse now with the TE nerf.

Here we go again

With the buff to all the medium long range guns of course the medium short range guns are gonna feel slightly weak. But that is as it should be. Medium autos still have all the plus points of auto (damage selectability, no cap etc) and they can still hit out to point range (24km) fairly consistantly.

A lot of people seem to think that the autos are some kind of god gun being able to hit anywhere and kill anything.

Here's a hint....they never were! If you are kiting anything with auto's you'll be lucky to be actually applying anything near to 50% of your 'paper' dps to your target.

Auto's are still a very forgiving and flexible weapon system stop whining that long range weapons systems now out perfrom them at long range.

Matar are not nerf, they're just not the "only good choice" any more. When autocanons were better than blasters at blasters job did you guys complain about it? -nope

Just because you guys were not used to doesn't means blasters are OP or over buff, blasters got their right spot despite at large size autocanons and pulses shooting at twice the distance of blasters which means further than rails optimal.

Stop complaining about everything and think a bit plz.