Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Return the RLML's to what they were before and remove the ability to put the things on the Cerberus and Tengu or alter the bonus' on the Cerberus and Tengu. The current fitting requirements have already "fixed" the Caracal.

Explore this front end damage thing further with the new RHML module.

Yes, I'm sure that will go over well...

If you are looking for an engineering/science reason why this could be so just imagine that loading a missle is a bigger task than removing a modular warhead from the rocket body and putting a different one on while leaving the nissile body/powerplant/fuel in place. It might or might not be in real practice but if you are that focused on real science I would direct you to rage at the use of fitting services to rebuild ships in battle, remote armor repair as a concept, that we are speed limited rather than focused on ability to change speed and so on. Instant warhead swap would be no harder to imagine than instant module swap.

The important problem to me is that flexibility of damage type is a defining characteristic of missles and this module as it currently stands makes the application of that trait impractical. No other weapon system provides pure damage of all four types as well as the seldom used autotargeting options complimented with options for high damage or damage focused at small targets. This flexibility creates interesting choices and is for me why I am willing to accept delayed damage as well as application problems when shooting at targets that are outside of web range. The rlml would be a much more fun and interesting module for me if it allowed for the practical application of that trait.

Give all missile ships a dedicated Missile Bay like Drones.

Every launcher has a set number of tubes it can fire from. Those tubes are set in a "rack". When you want to reload the rack it moves out of the launcher and a new fresh rack is loaded back into the launcher in five seconds. Swapping to a new flavor of missiles in another preloaded rack also takes five seconds.

The old rack/s go through a reloading process that takes 20 seconds no matter how many missiles were fired from the rack. Racks that have been moved to the missile bay for reloading cannot be moved back to the launchers until the reloading process is completed.

You can have multiple racks preloaded with missiles of any flavor you choose. Limitations being space (m3) in the missile bay for both missiles and racks...empty, partial, or preloaded.

I know the discussion has primarily been on the rapid light launchers, but has anyone found a niche for the rapid heavy launchers? With every configuration I attempt I still come up short when compared to cruise launchers.

The Raven Navy Issue has a -25% explosion radius bonus, which actually put Faction cruise on par with T2 heavy missiles in terms of explosion radius and explosion velocity. Just curious if anyone's found a good use for these either alone or in combination with cruise missiles.

return all rapid launcher to 10 seconds.40 and 35 second reloads plus the almost %70 decrease in ammo capacity was were ******** from the start. It served no combat purpose whatsoever, especially in the case of rapid heavies. They should receive all hull bonuses as well, not just 1 of 2 or 1 of 3. Its stupid. I cant have a bonus to this, but I can somehow have a bonus to that? c'mon. After all, these are still cruiser and battleship launchers.

Also worth nothing: please remove the kinetic only bonus on the Cerberus. if im paying $200 mill for a ship than can apply different types of damage, id like to be able to apply each damage type equally. The vagabond isn't restricted to an explosive only bonus.

Not to pile on but can someone explain to me the vagabond, a shield ship, has the slot layout of an armor boat? that goes for the stabber as well....(SFI not so much, its a armor boat). I mean really, it should have 5 mids and 4 lows, not the other way around.

Rapid Heavy Missile Launchers: Best Option for Solo PvE
Yeah, bet you didn't see that coming... Let's start off with DPS, or lack thereof. More than any other weapon, missile damage is very much "paper DPS". This is especially true once you move out of the short-range weapons into the longer-range ones. Why? Time to impact. And the further out the target - the worse this gets in terms of wasted volleys. This can be minimized (but not completely eliminated) to some extent by staggering smaller groups of launchers, but unlike every other weapon system - missiles lose upwards of 20% in errant volleys. Now it can be argued that damage application against targets at longer ranges tends to be greater due to the stationary nature of targets at those distances (particularly cruisers and frigates), but this requires a lot more micromanagement in terms of watching applied damage - and even with an ideal performance you're still going to lose a volley or two. There's also the necessity of having to run more sensory gear (signal amplifiers and sensor boosters) to achieve these theoretical ranges, and this eats up precious slots. And finally we have damage application. On any hull other than the Raven Navy Issue, cruise missiles have horrible damage application against anything other than battleships. Rigors improve this, but they still don't address the wasted ammunition aspect. Target painters help, but you need a minimum of 2 - and beyond 60km they really start to lose their effectiveness. And they eat up your valuable mid-slots. What to do...

Enter the rapid heavy missile launcher. First and foremost, this is a medium-range system - which is ideal for most hulls that have a base 65-75km targeting range. Not having to contemplate extending this simplifies things immensely. But we have a problem with damage application for heavy missiles. Specifically, the things are too damn slow - and we're going to waste a lot of volleys with their high rate of fire. Enter hydraulic bay thrusters, or as I like to call it - a perfect match. Unlike rocket fuel cache partitions (which extend flight time), hydraulic bay thrusters are stacking penalized. However, this is more than an effective tradeoff for what we're receiving in return: missile velocity. Three T1 hydraulic rigs will boost your missile velocity by about 40% or just under 90km with full skills (you can utilize T2 versions, but it's not cost-effective for the marginal gain).

With rapid heavy missile launchers, the closer the target - the more effective. Time to hit decreases along with wasted ammunition, and the higher rate of fire prevents NPC ships fully realizing any repairs. Before I go any further, some random statistics I pulled after running some comparisons:

• Faction heavy missiles outperform T2 precision heavy missiles against all targets, regardless of range.
• Faction heavy missiles outperform T2 fury light missiles against all targets, regardless of range (so basically there's no point in running a pair of smaller rapid light launchers).
• T2 fury heavy missiles perform the same as Faction heavy missile against cruisers, and are only marginally better against battleships.
• Factoring in reload times, rapid heavy launchers have 23% less overall damage than cruise launchers (both using Faction ammunition) - but over twice the damage application. If you switch the rapid heavy launchers to furies, damage application is still 25% better - but only 10% less damage overall.

What's changed...? The additional +2 ammunition capacity to T1 and T3 rapid launchers made them almost as effective as their Faction counterparts (which only received +1), and the 5-second reduction to reload times. This actually made quite a difference in terms of raw numbers (probably 20% ore more). So here's my mission fit. There's some bling, but I've tried to maximize cost vs. potential benefit.

Raven or Raven Navy Issue
6-8 Rapid Heavy Missile Launcher IIs (Faction; cheaper and less m3 than cruise)

Shadow Serpentis 100MN Microwarpdrive
Large Micro Jump Drive
Pith C-Type Large Shield Booster
2x Gistum C-type passive amplifiers (mission-specific)
2x Dark Blood Cap Rechargers

2x Caldari Navy Ballistic Control System
2x Ballistic Control System II
Dark Blood Capacitor Power Relay

3x Hydraulic Bay Thrusters I

Drones are a matter of personal-preference, so your mileage may vary. I've gone with a Faction MWD to cut down on the capacitor loss, as I'm running an active tank. The Shadow Serpentis one ran me $55m, which I thought was a pretty good deal compared to the other Faction and Deadspace versions. I use it for nudging the ship into range and it speeds mission time to the odd gate. It's also great to counter the odd stasis web. The MJD is not only an easy way to jump into (or out of) NPC clusters, but it's your get out of jail free card - I never run a battleship fit without one. It's virtually required equipment on missions like "Worlds Collide". The Pith C-Type large shield booster is cap stable and allows me to run the shield non-stop. A theft at $56m... In a pinch, there's the MJD to get you clear. Gistum C-Types are super cheap - under $1-$3m for everything except the EM, which can usually be picked up for around $27.5m. I went with Dark Blood cap rechargers because I had them, but T2 work just as well. Two Faction ballistic controls give you about 100% of the benefit, but beyond that you start running into the law of diminishing returns - so switching to two T2 versions only costs you about 20 DPS. Last is a Faction capacitor power relay, because it's 1% more power for -1% less shield boost hit. You can also run a power diagnostic, damage control, signal amplifier or nanofiber. I wanted less micromanagement, so I opted for cap stable.

i get your point and you're right. a few posts up someone outlined a cartridge system which would satisfy my need for a logical explanation (everyone got his spleen...).
but what i see as a big problem with two different timers is the possibilty for abuse. what keeps me from just having 2 kinds of missiles making e.g. explo dmg. like caldary navy and dread guristas nova missiles and then just swap instead of reload? are those counted as one kind of missile and the full ammo reload timer applies or are those two different types of missiles and i can "reload" explo faction missiles by swapping between those two for only half the reload timer.

Just return the module and all it's attributes to the previous version, and then change the ammo charge group to support a new class of missile.


Introduce a new missile ammo with attributes that fall somewhere between Light Fury and Assault Javelin, keeping in mind the launchers intended purpose (kill fast small ships).



"Balance" as necessary. You'll be able to adjust Rapid Light DPS/explosion/velocity without foxing up light missiles for frigates/destroyers.