Player Features and Ideas Discussion

What players don't seem to realize is that you get more armor resistances and passive tank through armor setups than you do with shield setups, often requiring more slots for comparably less tank. So it's easy to say "dual-web" except more often than not you've only got one slot to point or web - let alone dual webs and a point. And then there's the whole damage application aspect, which sees armor setups using their rigs and slave implants to improve tank while shield ships are relegated to running rigors and flares because they don't even have a spare slot for a target painter.

A passive low-slot Ballistic Enhancer that offered 20% explosion velocity, 10% explosion radius and 10% missile velocity (or some combination thereof) would probably balance things out nicely - maybe even offsetting the original heavy missile and Drake nerfs. It's not like missile-based hulls have a wealth of low slots to really make this offensive, and stacking penalties would be in effect just as they are for Tracking Enhancers. I could see many Caldari ships running a Ballistic Enhancer in place of a third or fourth Ballistic Control instead - so it's not like this won't come with a tradeoff, either.

The main issue is that instead of slowly making improvements to missiles it's been a steady series of nerfs while continuing to ignore the fundamental problems. As I've previously stated, it's not hard to fix missiles: you just need to have the actual desire to do so.

Exactly the problem, turret pilots have 3-4 luxury medium slots they can put what they want in, we have one before it becomes necessary to start stripping tank. Missile boats were not designed to operate in scram range, we don't have the tank and we certainly don't have the dps even with our lows filled with damage mod's. Telling us to fill our medium slots with scrams, webs and target painters to apply that dps shows how little some people understand missile tactics.

1 post from someone enjoying them and the thousands of others who no longer use them don't count. Nice balancing. (NB; I think if you read on, the guy who stated he was enjoying them has modified / retracted this statement, to state they are a niche weapon with little to no solo application)

Would it be possible to have some of the positive feedback from your friends passed on to us?? I would like to know how they are using them, I am unable as a solo player to find a role for them.

Again, how about some links. I'd really be interested to hear from CSM. Even a killboard link showing their success would be nice, 50 most recent solo kills on Zkill, 1 using rockets, 2 with light missiles, 2 using HML precisions, 1 using Hams with faction ammo. None using RHML or RLML.

Not sure which ships you are referring to here.
Caracal, no kinetic bonus
Cerberus, no kinetic bonus
Bellicose, no kinetic bonus
Navy Caracal, no kinetic bonus
Navy Osprey, NO bonus to light missiles,10% kinetic, 5% EM EXP Therm (and actually 1 of 2 to have a damage bonus)
Navy Sythe, no kinetic bonus (10% damage bonus)
Gila, no kinetic bonus

NB; I do understand as a primarily solo player i don't count for much in the scheme of things. How many more like me are out there?

The point was a lot more ships are still relegated to a kinetic bonus, regardless of weapon type. As for the Drake, heavy missiles are useless and it doesn't get any light missile bonuses - so it's effectively worthless outside of PvE.

Be fair to the poor Drake guys.. 15 or 20 Ham fit drakes can reinforce a poco in about an hour. As long as they are left alone.


You would not use drakes as there are far better options BUT they could do it

Tengu or Drake?

Hi!

As you guys know, we're introducing Rapid Heavy Missile Launchers in Rubicon for battleships that will echo the Rapid Light Launchers in design. Well, now that the current design has been out and available for discussion for awhile, we've taken on a lot of feedback and we don't feel completely satisfied with them.

The problem we're facing is that it's very hard to create a good balance between rapid launchers and their on-size counterparts(torpedo launchers, cruise launchers, heavy missile launchers and heavy assault missile launchers). Currently I feel we have the numbers high enough that they are almost always the right choice, but if we tune them down at all they will almost never be the right choice. We would much rather that the decision to use rapid launchers depended heavily on context and that you would choose them not because they were generally better than their competition but because your specific situation called for them.

Here's the plan to improve the situation:

Rapid Launchers (both Light and Heavy) will be changed to have a much higher damage per second number, roughly on par with Heavy Assault Launchers and Torpedo Launchers respectively, but their ammo capacity will be reduced and their reload time will be increased increased (think Ancilliary Shield Boosters). Some specifics:

Rapid Light Missile Launcher rate of fire set to:
Rapid Light Missile Launcher I ------------------------- 7.8s
Rapid Light Missile Launcher II ------------------------- 6.24s
Prototype 'Arbalest' Rapid Light Missile Launcher --- 6.24s
Other meta types not shown

Rapid Heavy Missile Launcher rate of fire set to:
Rapid Heavy Missile Launcher I ------------------------ 6.48s
Rapid Heavy Missile launcher II ------------------------- 5.185s
'Arbalest' Rapid Heavy Missile Launcher I ------------ 5.185s
Other meta types not shown

Reload time for both groups set to 40 seconds.

T2 Rapid Light Launchers can carry roughly 18 charges
T2 Rapid Heavy Launchers can carry roughly 23 charges

This translates to a Raven with 3x BCU, T2 Rapid Heavy Launchers and Scourge Fury missiles doing 926 dps
This translates to a Caracal with 3x BCU, T2 Rapid Light Launchers and Scourge Fury missiles doing 409 dps

Both ships would have around 50 seconds of up time followed by 40 seconds of reload meaning that over extended engagements their true dps would be a bit more than half of the dps number above.

This would provide new strategic gameplay for Rapid Missile users as well as their opponents. It would make these systems stronger against ships that can be killed inside the active window(smaller ships) but worse over longer fights, which would usually mean fights against ships in the same class or larger. It would generally be more interesting but would also leave more space for the main missile systems to thrive as well.

Let me know what you think and keep in mind that numbers may be adjusted slightly as we continue to test.
Thanks

673 DPS is what I get in EFT with HAMs and pure DPS lows and rigs (nothing above T2 and no drones). Good luck getting your target within their 16.9km range and keeping them there while also having any kind of tank, and good luck applying more than 25% of that DPS number under most circumstances (you will do 146 DPS to a stationary Rifter lol).

What players don't seem to realize is that you get more armor resistances and passive tank through armor setups than you do with shield setups, often requiring more slots for comparably less tank. So it's easy to say "dual-web" except more often than not you've only got one slot to point or web - let alone dual webs and a point. And then there's the whole damage application aspect, which sees armor setups using their rigs and slave implants to improve tank while shield ships are relegated to running rigors and flares because they don't even have a spare slot for a target painter.

A passive low-slot Ballistic Enhancer that offered 20% explosion velocity, 10% explosion radius and 10% missile velocity (or some combination thereof) would probably balance things out nicely - maybe even offsetting the original heavy missile and Drake nerfs. It's not like missile-based hulls have a wealth of low slots to really make this offensive, and stacking penalties would be in effect just as they are for Tracking Enhancers. I could see many Caldari ships running a Ballistic Enhancer in place of a third or fourth Ballistic Control instead - so it's not like this won't come with a tradeoff, either.

The main issue is that instead of slowly making improvements to missiles it's been a steady series of nerfs while continuing to ignore the fundamental problems. As I've previously stated, it's not hard to fix missiles: you just need to have the actual desire to do so.