Player Features and Ideas Discussion

1 Thing keeps popping up which nobody seems to take into account when saying how good or bad missiles are.

In a lot of pvp situations you will need to be in point range (at least) so whatever range advantage missiles may have is pretty much mute, unless your fighting nothing but blaster fits and can keep them at range.
Once within point range (24k) any extra range the missiles have becomes mute. Within scram range any over 10k is useless.

Could someone do a comparison between ships that actually uses a "common" PVP scenario.

EG;
Ham Cerberus vs AB Cruiser - Mwd Cruiser - Another Hac, fighting in point, web range.


As an extra, I'd likee to see the outcome of.
HML Tengu Vs 250MM Rail Proteus - fighting in web and point range. I know a 100Mn AB Tengu is pretty good but how would it fair vs other T3's.

Kesthely- I did mention in the paragraph previous to the one you quoted about the damage application problems of hams and hmls leading to rlm being considered the best launcher for cruisers in solo/small gang because it is the only launcher that is good against both cruisers and frigates without sacrificing too much to apply damage.

Yes the fitting was an issue and that was fixed, the only other reason rlm was used instead of hams and hmls is the latter lack any effective application to be considered worth using without excessive amounts of support. You cant normally sick all that support onto your ship solo or small gang because then you can't stay on field due to lack of tank given you are normally shield tanked and all your application modules are either rig slots or mids. Turret ships don't have this problem when shield or armor tanking because they have application and projection modules for both mid and lowslots so you are rarely in a situation where you feel like you brought the wrong ship or weapon system and instead feel 'I could have manually piloted better/gotten a better warpin/etc'.

I will agree that the problem is the poor state of hmls and hams, rlms were fine with the exception of fitting. Since the fitting issue was fixed ideally we can go back to the previous iteration and pretend this 40 second reload idea was just some bad dream. Really hml need serious application tweaking to be viable for solo small gang compared to the majority of other weapon systems especially vs cruiser sized targets because right now they simply aren't worth using in the majority of cases solo/small gang.

There is no doubt that Rise could turn rlms back into something people would want to use, but he seems to shut down whenever excessive negative criticism is given. The 40 second reload was a terrible idea, everyone in the solo and small gang community has expressed this many times, but there's no other reasonable explanation for Rise refusing to really discuss the system and instead hold to his point about 'internal testing and other forums being full of great response so were doing it' despite a clear lack of development which was brushed off with 'we can iterate later'. Well the time for that promised iteration has finally come and surprise, its not happening, rise still hasn't responded to most of the math and well thought out arguments in the thread and were running into the problem of having said everything multiple times with no visible results.

It's "moot", but I get your point.
Range can definitely have an advantage if you're shooting at a particularly fast ship. I had an Interceptor outrun my light missiles. Not because his ship was faster, but just fast enough to run out the range.

And it isn't even moot. If your fleet contains an Arazu, Lachesis or Keres then "point range" means the following:
T2 disruptor with heat - 57.600km
Republic Fleet with heat - 72km
T2 disruptor with (unimplanted) cyclone fleet boost - 71.4km
republic fleet disruptor with (unimplanted) cyclone fleet boost - 89.2km

in which case the range versatility of heavy missiles is very relevant indeed.

2 ships brawling in a 1v1 is a nice thought experiment, but it only actually happens regularly on SISI.

The vast majority of real fights involve more than 2 ships. If your fleet has 6 or more, you'd be wise to consider a lachesis/Huginn pair as part of the makeup if you're sporting heavy missiles as the means of delivering dps. If you do this, your primary target, who will be burning towards (or away from) you under MWD will take full damage from HMLs. If he's sporting short range weapons, he'll die in a fireball before ever landing a shot.

PVP is not won by thought experiments and hypothetical arguments. It's won through superior tactics that match your available hardware.

Razus and Lachs are not fast ships. Most t1 cruisers can easily outrun them so you would require the huginn or rapier to be there assuming you are operating on the end of bonused pointrange. Although you can also sit at 50k and be able to likely hold point vs another gang, yet you still run into the drag race issue where a group of 6 rail thorax will burn in and kill you. ignoring most of your missile damage.

Additionally you have to remember some people solo and wont have the 2-3 ships you need to make that happen and there are plenty of gangs that don't run with recons. The main reason not to use recons is that it becomes much harder to get a fight out of other people not to mention you require the people in your fleet to have skilled for recons, which isn't something everyone can just pull out at the drop of a hat.

If you need 2-3 ships solely dedicated to be able to apply more than half of your damage to other cruisers using a cruiser based weapon system (and I daresay hml are a cruiser based weapon system) then there's likely a problem there.

I have seen people use noobship fleets of velators and ibiss (ibii?) against brave newbies in barlegut to surprisingly good effect but that does not mean that it is anything other than a jokefleet which only works under specific circumstances (skirmish/siege/info linked and snaked). If you need to have 2-3 ships just to make a weapon system viable against something it should be balanced against in the first place then your fleetcomp is not a standard everyday thing that anyone can do at any time.

And most of all it seems it is won if your not playing solo or in a T1 gang.. Funny that, if you have a T2 gang you can use missiles but if you don't - well use something else.

Thanks Mournful.. you just proved the point I was trying to make.

Without the right support ships missiles aren't viable.

The bigger issue is that neither is likely to run webs. The Tengu's best bet however would be to get in as close as possible so as to get under the tracking of the rails.

So here's a real-world situation. This engagement just took place. We ambushed and took down a heavily plated proteus and falcon (in revenge for an earlier loss).

kill mail

My toons were flying the stratios and damnation. The damnation arrived at the fight about 20 seconds after the stratios and I forgot to launch drones. It was fitted with 3 gang links and only four T2 heavy missile launchers. I was firing caldari nova fury heavy missiles for a total theoretical DPS of 250. My damage application skills on this toon are slightly imperfect.

The stratios was dual-rep with 3 small neutron blasters, void and ogres. Its theoretical DPS was 498 (about double). The drone and blaster skills on this toon are 100% perfect.

Note that the damnation did MORE THAN 50% of the damage that the stratios did. It applied exactly as much damage as the proteus.

I am perfectly satisfied with the performance of heavy missiles. Against this cruiser-sized target they perform exactly as well as bonused ogres and small blasters and seemingly better than bonused medium neutron blasters (although let's not get too carried away - the proteus had just popped a falcon so there could have been a targeting and maneuvering delay).

These are real numbers, in a real situation that is common in Eve. Webs are common, the vast majority of cruisers carry MWD. A warp scrambler leaves them extremely vulnerable to anything.

My fits:
[Damnation, goody]

Armored Warfare Link - Passive Defense II
Armored Warfare Link - Damage Control II
Armored Warfare Link - Rapid Repair II
4x Heavy Missile Launcher II (Nova Fury Heavy Missile)

10MN Microwarpdrive II
Faint Epsilon Warp Scrambler I
Fleeting Propulsion Inhibitor I
Small Capacitor Booster II (Cap Booster 150)

Damage Control II
2x Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
1600mm Reinforced Steel Plates II
2x Ballistic Control System II

Medium Processor Overclocking Unit I
Medium Trimark Armor Pump I

5x Vespa EC-600
5x Hammerhead II

[Stratios, covert gank- MC]

Covert Ops Cloaking Device II
3x Light Neutron Blaster II (Void S)
True Sansha Medium Energy Neutralizer

Domination Warp Scrambler
10MN Afterburner II
Federation Navy Stasis Webifier
Medium Capacitor Booster II (Navy Cap Booster 400)
Large Capacitor Battery II

Damage Control II
2x Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Medium Armor Repairer II
Medium Ancillary Armor Repairer (Nanite Repair Paste)

Medium Auxiliary Nano Pump I
Medium Auxiliary Nano Pump II
Medium Anti-Explosive Pump II

4x Ogre II
5x Hammerhead II
5x Warrior II
3x Ogre II
4x Curator II
5x Vespa EC-600

I take your point on the damage type, but that's rather the point of missiles isn't it? To be able to select damage type? That's part of what makes them so good.

Yes, the raven had a painter - of course!! Who would not fit a target painter to a raven? Again, this is just part of good pvp practice - optimising your available force projection.

Note that this particular damnation fit gave me a number of options - not only was I boosting the fleet, I could tackle (at the expense of another painter) or I could choose to keep range (which I would have done when facing a larger force). The stratios did not have this option. That's the price you pay for higher dps.

Yes the proteus had mwd. In most pvp, not taking one means you can't get into blaster range so all short range dps ships will carry one. My stratios has a very specialised fit for covertly tackling T3 wormhole pve tengus and staying alive long enough for help to arrive. In an engagement where it had to maneuver to catch a target, it would be of limited use, being reduced to curator damage only.

I guess if I agreed with you, I'd choose an absolution over the damnation. I also use a (caldari) nighthawk when the fleet is shield tanked. I have no issue with it.

That same toon also uses a covert ham tengu (overpowered!)

I've never been able to make caracals and the like work for me, so maybe this is where your missile discontent comes from? The weapons themselves are fine and quite well balanced. It's possible that some caldari hulls need a look, but I'm no expert there.