Ships & Modules

Fixing missile damage against stationary targets would be as easy as removing one of the MIN function arguments. Currently, missile damage is the minimum of three values: 1.0, SigRad/ExpRad, or [(ExpVel*SigRad)/(TarVel*ExpRad)] ^ (ln(DRFac)/ln(5.5))

Remove the second of those two, and damage against a stationary target (or a sufficiently slow, sufficiently large target) ceilings at 100% damage rather than (SigRad/ExpRad)% damage. That would put it in line with turrets, and is a very simple change to make, with seemly few balance concerns.

The difference between traversal for turrets and linear velocity for missiles makes sense, and is also a valid distinction without really favoring either side heavily. It also introduces valid tactical options. Same with the travel time. The only really severe design issues with missiles currently are the kinetic-only damage bonuses on Caldari ships (which nullify arguably the largest selling point of missiles, namely selectable single-typed damage) and the abnormal ceiling against slow/unmoving but small targets.

I still maintain that HAMs are seriously underrated as a weapon system. Their T2 variants really do make the weapon system. Javelins destroy frigates and destroyers, while Rages melt battleships (a HAM Tengu is among a limited number of cruisers capable of hitting nearly 1k DPS using only T2 and faction equipment, and all the rest are Blaster boats as far as I can recall), and cruisers die to either pretty equally well.

That's probably because stationary targets are vanishingly rare in EVE, particularly in PvE (where missiles are most often used). Still, it's a problem, if only on a design level.



I tend to agree, but you also have to keep in mind that webs and TPs tend to have a much larger effect on missiles than turrets due to the double natural log exponentiation as well (making the equation extremely non-linear). I've seen arguments both ways on it. Missiles are also quite a bit less vulnerable to EWAR. TDs don't work on them. Neuts don't work on them. Technically, even damps and ECM don't, if you include the concept of FOF missiles (which, to be fair, basically no one uses). That's pretty much the entire enchilada as far as active offense-disrupting EWAR goes. More dependency on friendly EWAR being present on the target is probably a valid balance for that.

I'll have to play with the numbers a bit to see, though. I've not really checked on the actual scaling, I'm just going with my intuition based on my (admittedly rather excessive) experience with missiles.

Haven't't read the entire thread but the OP.

You should keep in mind that T2 ships seem to have resists against their "rival faction's" damage type. So gallente T2/T3 resists are high in Kinetic. Caldari are high in Thermal and a respectable boost in Kinetic to offset blasters.

Secondly the trade off in using missiles is that as long as the enemy is in range, you don't miss. It's consistency that guns lack. Buff missiles up to what you want and there'd be no point in using gunnery ships.

Afaik the reason for missiles to be unpopular in comparison to rails/artillery is mainly the delayed damage. Missiles fly for a good 10secs. over a 80km engagement. Now put that into 10% TiDi, and tell me you couldn't project reps in time.

To the proposal above, elimination of the sigrad/expl.rad component: Good idea. A Vindicator to stop a well-tanked mega/baddon/rokh in it's track, then oneshot it with a phoenix. Tracking doesn't matter, nor does distance. :>

To the 3 posters above. Seriously?? Ignore the points in this thread and throw around cliches about perceived missile skill functionality that isn't even relevant to what has been mentioned before.

If you have a a discussion about 7 points that are wrong with gunnery, would I come in there and say "The point of gunnery is position yourself to your range advantage while denying it to your opponent". And then run off while pulling my pants off like I got caught taking a dump on the neighbors lawn??

What does that add? I mean join in, but don't stipulate 1 point of the issue. Even ones I can agree with like missile flight time being 'a major issue' but really just a piece to a larger puzzle of fitting issues, SP inequality, broken missile launchers, poor synergy to 0 synergy with point range,firewaling, borderline ******** F.O.F. missiles, a lack of ammo choice, Kinetic bonuses, range bonuses that do nothing,poor scaling with rate of fire due to reload times etc. etc. etc. I like to keep it simple, but not simpler then it actually is.

Doesn't help. Missile damage is governed by the ratio of the missiles explosion velocity to the target's velocity multiplied against the ratio of the target's signature radius to the missile's explosion radius. If you increase both the explosion radius and the explosion velocity by the same factor, damage stays the same.

Example, if I'm shooting a missile at a target with a 100m sig moving at 100 m/s, I'll do the exact same damage if my missile has an explosion radius of 100m and an explosion velocity of 100 m/s as I will if my missile has an explosion radius of 500m and an explosion velocity of 500 m/s.

The reason webs are so much superior to TPs is because they are a decrease rather than an increase, and a much larger one at that. Decreasing the target's velocity by 60% (T2 or meta4 web) is the same as increase it's signature radius by 150%. A T2/meta4 TP will provide 30-37.5% sig increase, depending on skillpoints in Signature Focusing (multiplicative 5% bonus per level to TP sig bonus). It would require 5 TPs at Signature Focusing V (or 2-4 ones from bonused hulls) to equal a single meta4 or T2 web.

Guys, really. Missiles are fine as they are, and the recent change by CCP to Rapid missiles was really needed. Especially Rapit Small Missileswhere completely overpowered.

Missiles are intended to be a complete different weapon than turrets, and this is fine. Therefore, they also have completely different pros and cons to turrets which is an intended behavior.

Missiles have many and BIG pros if compared to turrets... they are:
1. They always hit if enemy is in range after taking flight time into account. Have you every noticed how easy it is to completely avoid damage from turrets by speed / sig tanking?
2. They have much greater ranges.
3. They can't be tracking disrupted, neutralized, or ECMed (F.O.F Missiles)
4. Free choice of damage... yes some ships have kinetic bonuses... but many others have bonuses for all missiles damage types.

Having these BIG pros brings naturally some cons:
1. Can be outrun... mostly an issue for rockets and non-caldari small missile boats in fast chase scenarios.
2. Less overall damage than turrets especially against fast/small targets at long range. But this is overcompensated by fact that turrets don't hit at all against fast/small targets orbiting at close range.
3. Flight time. Sorry, but missiles are simply not sniping platforms.

You just can't have a weapon system which only has PROS, because then it would be OP and thus completely would obsolete all other weapon systems.

Really the secret here is just to reduce T2 full resists a bit. By doing this you won't totally marginalise entire weapon systems.

A Moros fit with 3 meta Blasters with Uranium (common in WH, as it gives a 30km optimal), with 3 faction MagStabs, 2 Faction TEs, 4 T2 TCs (two scripted for tracking, 2 for optimal/falloff), with all 5 skills, deals 11825 DPS at 30.467 + 60.291 km, with a tracking of 0.01024 and a sig resolution of 2000.

A Phoenix with 3 meta Torpedo launchers using faction Scourge torpedoes, with 5 faction BCSs, deals 11605 DPS up to 59.1 km, with an explosion radius of 1500 and an explosion velocity of 30.

I tend to use a Nightmare with a 10mn AB II and 2 Nanofiber IIs as a target, as it very closely approximates the sleeper battleships seen in C5/C6 wormhole escalations (sig 400, speed 173 m/s).

I'll analyze both this and shooting at an armor-tanked Dominix and a shield-tanked Scorpion (ships I see often on the killboards in nullsec), to analyze both PvE and PvP in both slower speed/smaller sig and faster speed/larger sig situations (armor and shield tanking, respectively).

Against a Nightmare (approximates sleeper battleship), the Moros does 391 DPS (3.23% of max DPS) at 35km, assuming full traversal. Most of the time, these battleships are going to either be burning directly away from the Moros due to aggro (our strategy), be webbed and painted (also our strategy), or both. This Nightmare with 5 meta4 painters (unbonused, so +37.5% each) and 2 60% webs has a sig of 1018 and a velocity of 33 m/s. Shooting against that, the Moros deals 11659 DPS (96.19% of max DPS).

The Phoenix against that same Nightmare deals 531 DPS (4.57% of max DPS) against the unwebbed, unpainted version, but only 7160 DPS (61.70% of max DPS) against the webbed and painted version. In fact, it'd only deal 7876 DPS (67.87% of max DPS) against a stationary version of that Nightmare, whereas the Moros would deal 12120 DPS (100% of max DPS - includes wrecking blows, hence why it's above the paper DPS of 11825).

Now let's look at PvP battleships. For both the Scorpion and the Dominix fit, I'm going to use ones I pulled off zkillboard that seem like good approximations of common fits. The Scorpion fit I'm using is here, and has a velocity of 118 m/s with a sig of 569m at all V's without boosts. The Dominix fit I'm using is here, and has a velocity of 120 m/s with a sig of 465m.

Against the Scorpion, the Moros does 3915 DPS (32.31%) while the Phoenix does 1174 DPS (10.12%). If you apply 3 TPs and 2 90% webs to the Scorpion, sig balloons to 1141m and velocity goes to 3 m/s. The Moros does 12048 (99.41%), Phoenix does 8827 (76.07%).

Against the Dominix, the Moros does 2025 (16.71%), while the Phoenix does 899 (7.75%). With 3 TPs and 2 90% webs, sig goes up to 1029m, velocity down to 3 m/s. Moros does 12048 DPS (99.40%), Phoenix does 7961 DPS (68.60%).

If we did remove the sig/exp radius factor from the missile equation, Phoenix damage would be at 100% (11605 DPS) against both double-90% webbed targets, but that's still less than the Moros would be doing (due to wrecking blows). It would still only be doing 7160 DPS against the webbed and painted Nightmare, and the DPS values for it would also be the same against all of the others above.

Basically, even if we remove that factor, the Phoenix would still usually be doing less damage than the Moros, but it wouldn't have the absurd cap at ~65-70% of it's DPS (since it's nearly impossible to get a Battleship up to a 1500m sig, generally takes 5 max-skill full-hull-bonused TPs to do the trick), whereas it's very easy to get a battleship slow enough and large enough to allow a Moros to hit it for nearly 100% damage.

As a good example of this, there's a type of Sentry gun common in C5 combat sites called an Orthrus. It has a sig of 50m, but is immobile. Both the Moros and the Phoenix take around a minute to target these while in siege. However, the Moros does 100% damage to them (since they and the Moros are both stationary). The Phoenix does 3.33% damage against them.

It's an unreasonable and ridiculous cap, and does nothing for overall balance (except make missiles universally weaker than turrets when shooting down a size). The only way I could manage to make the Phoenix do more DPS than the Moros was when the total DPS output from both was below about 5% of maximum, generally on battleship-sized targets moving relatively slowly but also extremely close to the Dread.

Could do that, though I'd have to play with the formula. Problem is, that'd have a MUCH more far-reaching effect, as it would touch nearly every ship in the game, in a large number of situations.

It would intrinsically decrease the value of webs and increase the value of target-painters. It would decrease the blap potential of dreads, and therefore weaken them as a whole. Would weaken fighters against anything smaller than a battleship. Would also necessarily increase the potency of frigates and to a lesser extent cruisers, especially against larger foes. Would make hauling valuable but small stuff in a frigate more attractive, because it would almost completely remove the threat of Tornado blapping on a hull that small (Catalysts would still be a threat). Might also necessitate implementing a turret version of the Rigor rig, and possible turret versions of the RLML and RHML.

So ya, LOTS more far-reaching effects. Not saying that's necessarily bad, I tend to approve of many of the changes it would imply, but it *would* require a lot more balancing polish and consideration.