Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Do missiles need to be revamped? Obviously, that answer is 'yes.'

That said, do they need a rebalance, or do they need modular enhancement, along the lines of a Tracking Computer?

In my opinion, a rebalance is all that is needed.

I've read the arguments, and been using missiles myself for a very long time. The consistency of missile damage relative to turrets has to be offset in some manner.

You can't have the ability to know how many salvoes it will take to kill a particular set of targets in a mission AND expect to match turrets in PVP.

"Missile damage mitigation to the point of uselessness..." I like this one, particularly since it completely ignores the fact that what mitigates missile damage will also mitigate turret damage, and possibly even drone damage, too.

"Turrets hit small, stationary targets for full damage." Not true. Even with a stationary target, TURRETS MISS. They also have something that goes by the rubric of 'Hit Quality', which determines what percentage of a successful hit it actually applied.

Do missiles have a problem with undersized targets? Yes. But they also have amazing consistency. At almost any range. Unlike turrets.

Yes, HML's were nerfed a bit too hard, but that hasn't stopped the Drake from still being nearly ubiquitous throughout the universe, even with the loss of a high slot. Cruise launchers need some love, but Ravens are still everywhere, and Typhoons are becoming a common sight in hisec mission hubs, so, obviously they still work. That neither of these weapon systems are popular in PVP is not the fault of the weapon systems themselves, but, rather the presence of new modules (the MJD, for instance, is definitely NOT kind to missile launchers) and new fleet doctrines. (That said, has anyone actually TRIED using a fleet of Ravens to alpha capitals off of the field? Maybe it would work, maybe it won't.). Unfortunately, missiles don't work well in armor kiting fleets. Get over it.

No they don't. Your average hit quality is a direct derivation of your hit chance. It will always be between 51% and (150% - miss chance), with a 1% chance of a wrecking blow.

The chance to hit equation limits to 100% on a stationary target (assuming you are also stationary). In fact, unlike missiles, it's actually impossible to have a 100% hit chance (and therefore 100% of theoretical max DPS) if there's any traversal involved (you or the target moving laterally). However, you're guaranteed to hit the target, regardless of size, if you and the target are both stationary, and your damage will average to ~103% of your paper DPS (damage / refire). Missiles, on the other hand, will never do more than 100% DPS or (TargetSig/ExplosionRadius)% DPS, whichever is lower.

So yes, turrets are a variable damage, but that variable damage goes just as often over 100% as it does under 100% against a stationary target (actually, technically, more often over 100% than under).

Also, I fail to see how knowing precisely the number of volleys it will take to kill a target in PvE (assuming their speed doesn't change for some reason) is somehow an asset. Mission runners don't exactly count missiles like they are gold coins. It takes as many as it takes, just like with turrets, but unlike with turrets, if you've got a refire faster than that travel time of the missile, it's quite easy to completely waste 1-2 extra volleys of missiles on targets near death.

We will get it with walking in stations and proper DUST 415 migration I guess.
Oh Wuaw. Maybe even with fixed POS and SOV mechanics.

CCP never tends to dissapoint.
Clearing the station atmosphere and selling right to Sony is harsh business.
As well as making this game ******** to migrate WoW players.

Missile rebalance - soon tm.

Are we once again being told by silence to get back into the dark corner that we escaped from?

After the missile where nerfed, and the missile ships i trained guns .
Try this ?

There were a couple incorrect or misleading statements listed above that I would like to address. But first for reference:

applied damage = raw damage * MIN(1;Sr/Er;(Sr/Er*Ev/Vel)^(Log(drf)/Log(5.5)))

• Sr = target Signature Radius
• Er = missile Explosion Radius
• Ev = missile Explosion Velocity
• Vel = target Velocity
• drf = missile Damage Reduction Factor

Formula does 3 things:

1. It limits applied missile damage to the theoretical paper damage.
2. It ensures that a ship having signature radius < missile explosion radius will always take reduced damage no matter what speed it has.
3. Calculates an exponentially decaying reduction coefficient based on the ratio of Sr/Er to Ev/Vel.

This means that a target painter will always increase applied damage up to the theoretical maximum, while a webber can only compensate for the velocity portion of the formula. TP has much longer range than a webber. But it is stacking penalized and percentage based. So they don't work well vs small ships to begin with, and the more you use the worse they get. However, unlike TCs, a TP will help everyone shooting at that target. TC/TE only helps the ship on which they are fitted.

The problem is that an unbonused meta 4 TP only gives a 30% increase in Sr, while even a meta 0 stasis webifier grants a 50% reduction in target velocity. So the immediate effect is much greater using webs, even though they do not explicitly allow for maximum damage application.

This also explains why long range webs are so powerful. They grant an immediate and large proportionate velocity decrease (always in the range of 50-60%) at the same range of target painters.

I've been looking at citadel torpedoes lately. So I'm prepared to give an example with specific numbers. A fully skilled Citadel Torpedo has Er=1500 and Ev=30m/s. Take a theoretical target with Sr=3000m and traveling at 90m/s. The result from part 2 of the formula gives us Sr/Er=2. Since 2 > 1, there is no reduction here.

The result from part 3 would give us 3000/1500*30/90=2*1/3=2/3=.67. So this is the reduction coefficient that will be applied. In this case you would be doing about 67% of theoretical maximum damage.

Citadel torpedoes get no help from the DRF, since they have a DRF=5.5. log(5.5)/log(5.5)=1, and anything raised to the first power is itself. So we can safely ignore the DRF exponent in this example.

There are 4 ways to increase your damage. Increase either Ev or Sr, or decrease Vel or Er. Changing Er/Ev requires rigs or crash boosters. Since I'm comparing TP to webs right now, I'll cover velocity and Sr instead.

A 60% web reduces target velocity from 90m/s to 36m/s. The new result would be 3000m/1500m*30mps/36mps=1.67, a complete elimination of all damage reductions.

A 30% TP increases SigRad to 3900. The results in this case is 3900/1500*30/90=.867.

Now put that webber on a Loki, Rapier, Hyena, or Huginn and use it at 50-100km. Which would you rather have?

What about a max skilled meta 4 TP on a Vigil? This would be a 51.56% bonus. So 4546m/1500m*30mps/90mps=1.01, again a complete elimination of all damage mitigation.

The problem comes when you are shooting at something that has a smaller Sr than your missile Er. Even if you web it all to hell and back, the second part of the formula will still significantly cap your damage well below theoretical maximum. A TP will always compensate for a small ship and a fast ship, while a webber can only compensate for a fast ship.

I would like to see a lo-slot passive missile damage application module, and a mid-slot, active, scripted module as well. Why we don't have these I don't know.

There was an attempt at reworking Tracking Disruptors so that they also worked vs missiles. CCP went so far as to deploy it to SiSi for testing. Thing was it flat out didn't work. Literally. Stats were listed but they just didn't get applied. iirc a fix was attempted but did not work either. So the changes were eventually dropped.

I was about to go on about how missiles are different from turrets in that missiles are their own object separate from launchers. But BCS applies damage bonuses to missiles, not just RoF bonuses to launchers. So... yeah. Not sure why it was never done.

On a side note, I feel that webbers are OP for the SP invested compared to target painters.

A single meta 0 webber in the hands of a total noob has the same effect as an all level 5 player using a meta 4 TP on a bonused T1 ship, albeit at a much shorter range. Webs also have the advantage of pinning your enemy in place.

Another comparison is a 60% web at 75km to 60% TP at 75km.: both can be fit on a Huginn using the same ship skills, making our comparison very easy. To get max performance out of a TP, you have to train Signature Focusing, Long Distance Jamming, Frequency Modulation, and Target Painting all to 5.

For a 75km 60% webber, you have to train Propulsion Jamming to 1 and Thermodynamics to 1. That's it. Drop your faction webber into your recon and instant max performance.

How is this balanced? If we were just talking about range vs performance, I wouldn't say anything. But the for the SP spent for a max skilled webber, you get the same performance as the pilot that spent literally months training a bunch of EWAR skills to 5.

Personally, I would like to see Stasis Webifiers base effectiveness cut by 50% and some proper EWAR effectiveness and range skills introduced so you have to train to get that kind of ability. Then cut the range bonused ship bonuses to compensate for the new range skills.

To put it in perspective, how would you feel if a total noob could jump into any ship, fit a single meta 0 multispectral ECM module, and reliably jam your HAC or fleet BS? The forum rage would be epic.

Indeed. Very true. Good comparison.

To be fair these were suggested by CCP when the whole "nerf" missile range came about, but due to "difficulties" was put on hold.. Perhaps they should have waited with the missile changes then if this is going to go into the "getroundtoitsomeday" bucket..

Thing is, Caldari ships are not really built for hams because close range and slowest of all speeds that all the really, really, stupid Caldari engineers are capable of these day don't mix well.

One the other hand I know some of my Amarr missiles boats really like them and are kinda made for fitting them.

Percentage-based doesn't matter, since it's all factor-based. Multiplying a fraction by 1.3 always yields the same results, regardless of the fraction being used (well, assuming said fraction is real).

The reason webbers are so much superior is because it's a subtractive factor, where a TP is an additive factor. A TP adds 37.5% (at max skills, meta4 module) to the target's sig. A web subtracts 60% of the target's velocity. Since these are inverted terms, subtracting 60% of the target's velocity is equivalent to increasing the target's sig by 150%, which would require 5 fully-skilled TPs (or ~2.5 fully bonused TPs at max skills), and that's from a single unbonused web, which, unlike said TP, has no potency skill, so it only requires Propulsion Jamming 1, a ~25m train, versus the ~38.5 days for Signature Focusing 5 and pre-req Targeting Painting 4.

A single TP at base skills is a +30% sig, which is only equivalent to a 23% web, which could also be accomplished with 4 medium web drones for even less SP (69505 SP versus the 248750 required for TP 1 and pre-reqs), and to superior effect (since the target would also be slower and thus easier to dictate range on).

The only standing benefit to TPs is the range (which is admittedly extensive) and instantaneous nature of them (and the smaller fitting cost). Webs cost less cap, take up the same slot, same PG, have an overwhelmingly superior effect, have a secondary benefit of allowing better range dictation, and require significantly less SP to optimize. In addition, bonused hulls for webs massively increase their potency. A single Ashimmu web is worth a 900% increase in the target's sig, something impossible to duplicate with TPs regardless of the number of TP modules and bonuses employed.

So yes, while a TP will theoretically increase missile damage to up to paper DPS, in practical effect an infinite number of bonused TPs will never really increase the damage beyond what a pair of simple unbonused meta4 webs will do, excluding those rare edge cases of shooting extremely small but extremely slow (or immobile) targets.

This is why TPs are so bloody weak for missiles.



Let's use your example, except let's shoot that citadel torp at a battleship. Let's use as example figures a sig of 500m and a velocity of 150 m/s (roughly the stats of a shield-tanked and rigged Raven). Against this target, your maximum damage due to the sig limit is going to be 500/1500 = 33.3% of base damage.

Your torpedoes will actually be applying (500/1500) * (30/150) = 6.67% of base damage. This is below the sig limit, and thus the amount done.

If you apply a single unbonused unskilled meta4 TP to this battleship, it's sig balloons to 650m. Damage becomes (650/1500) * (30/150) = 8.67% of base damage. The new sig limit becomes 650/1500 = 43.3% of base damage. 8.67%, being lower, is the damage dealt, and is precisely a 30% damage increase, as expected (since Citadel Torp damage is linear, with no effective exponential factor)

If you instead apply a single unbonused meta4 web to that battleship, it's velocity drops to 60 m/s. Damage becomes (500/1500) * (30/60) = 16.67% of base damage. This is a 150% increase to damage, as expected. Sig limit is still 33.3%, and thus is not a factor.

In fact, on a citadel torpedo, it's mathematically impossible for the sig alone to limit the damage unless the velocity of the target drops below the explosion velocity of the missile. For other missile classes, it's a bit more funny, because those equations become non-linear (a non-1.0 exponent), but the pattern stays roughly the same. For most smaller missile classes (since they have smaller DR factors), the velocity of the ship can drop fairly significantly below the explosion velocity and not hit that limit. This is only really a major factor on extremely small and/or extremely well-webbed targets, and unless you're also shooting down a class, those aren't going to be much of an issue for damage application anyway.



No, actually a single noob with a meta0 web has the same effect as an all-V player using two meta4 TPs fit to a bonused Rapier (or similar), for the purposes of damage application, and the web also allows easier range-dictation.

Frankly, I think the issue is that TPs are overwhelmingly underpowered for what they do. They only assist in two things: damage application and targeting speed. Webs assist in damage application and range control, and are far more powerful at the former to boot. TPs need a fairly serious buff, to be honest, and I'd be fine with that requiring a range nerf on them as well. The range is currently already long enough that it basically never matters anyway (at all V's, the target has to be 135km away before you hit 50% miss chance).