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A balanced, role orientated, approach to hybrid weapons
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Shival Tornet
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#1 - 2011-09-11 09:33:49 UTC
I was considering ways that hybrids could be improved without just a straightforward damage boost.

To me hybrid weapons have always been suggestive either of fleet ships, or of small ships taking on larger ones, orbiting under the guns of their target and pouring on the blaster fire.

On a practical basis, hybrid weapons use very high speed projectiles that contain a lot of energy, but might not efficiently expend all of it against a smaller ship, punching straight through, glancing off or exploding small components instead.

The suggestions

1) Hybrid weapons would get damage bonuses which scale slightly with target mass. This could be done by incorporating mass in the damage calculations or, if this wasn't practical to code, just using a fixed modifier for each ship class. This would make hybrids more effective when used against larger ships such as other fleet bs, and helps increase their utility vs supercaps. It also helps blaster boats take on larger targets and provide a small group or solo pvp niche for hybrid ships. If need be this could be balanced by increasing their vulnerability to smaller ships.

2) Allow hybrid weapons to "bleed" through a very small amount of damage into the target hull. This should be too low to destroy even an extremely well tanked ship before it's tank failed, but it would allow hybrid ships to add a new factor to fleet combat where RR is widespread, and it would reinforce the "David and Goliath" model in small pvp, allowing hybrid ships to eventually circumvent the tank of any larger ship providing that they can keep it locked down.

These changes would seem to support the hybrid ships in roles that they have often been associated with, while retaining, or even increasing their vulnerabilities in others.

Any Comment?
Acac Sunflyier
The Ascended Academy
#2 - 2011-09-11 10:21:47 UTC
Shival Tornet wrote:

1) Hybrid weapons would get damage bonuses which scale slightly with target mass. This could be done by incorporating mass in the damage calculations or, if this wasn't practical to code, just using a fixed modifier for each ship class. This would make hybrids more effective when used against larger ships such as other fleet bs, and helps increase their utility vs supercaps. It also helps blaster boats take on larger targets and provide a small group or solo pvp niche for hybrid ships. If need be this could be balanced by increasing their vulnerability to smaller ships.


Honestly, this just ruins cruiser v frig or bs v cruiser. Its a bad idea.

Hybrids should get a massive damage boost. They should be the hardest hitting guns in the game. I think Minmitar and Gallente got their roles reversed. After all, the Gallente have to expend both capacitor and a projectile ammo. We should therefore give Gallente the minmitar role! If it takes more to do it, it should do more.
Shival Tornet
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#3 - 2011-09-11 11:29:19 UTC

Quote:
Honestly, this just ruins cruiser v frig or bs v cruiser. Its a bad idea.


I don't think hybrids would necessarily need to be weakened against smaller ships to balance this, just that as a Gallente pilot I am open to the possibility if it was needed to balance this.

Quote:
Hybrids should get a massive damage boost. They should be the hardest hitting guns in the game. I think Minmitar and Gallente got their roles reversed. After all, the Gallente have to expend both capacitor and a projectile ammo. We should therefore give Gallente the minmitar role! If it takes more to do it, it should do more.


We seem to be stuck in a cycle of damage types being buffed over each other. EVE is a game about niches and situational advantages. I'd much rather see hybrids buffed in an interesting way and unique way that sticks than have them become "overpowered" for a few patch cycles until the next set of people start complaining.
Ineka
Doomheim
#4 - 2011-09-11 12:02:43 UTC
Well if instead of kinetic+thermal hybrids do thermal/explosive dmg application on the average hull would be slightly better imho but wouldn't change the simple fact that you're already in the hull if you manage to get in to the op range of your blasters.

Doesn't change either the horrible capacitors natural recharge or pg/cpu, the fitting requirements of weapons +local tank for huls designed to hit stuff at extreme close range.

There's so much to say about mods and other weapons system/dmg type before touching a single pixel of hybrids and gallente hulls...like auto canons being far best at gellente blaster role than blasters themselves.

When your buffed neutrons proteus caps out just by shooting it's ammo ... makes it a good hangar queen or cloaky fleet protection with evergy and remote rep, other than this is tricky. Solo? -yes you can! -But I'll be better overall in my tengu for sure.
Havak Kouvo
Doomheim
#5 - 2011-09-12 00:48:20 UTC  |  Edited by: Havak Kouvo
Well. The way weapons are designed now

Amarr:
EM/Therm, high cap, medium range, medium tracking/falloff, medium alpha, medium rof, no reload delay,

Minmatar:
Autocannons
Variable damage, no cap, short range, high tracking/falloff, low alpha, high rof, standard reload
Artillery
Variable damage, no cap, long range, low tracking, high fall off, high alpha, low rof, standard reload

Gallente/Caldari
Blasters
Therm/Kin, medium cap, short range, low tracking/falloff, medium alpha, medium rof, standard reload
Railguns
Therm/Kin, medium cap, long range, low tracking/falloff, low alpha, medium rof, standard reload

Caldari
Guided Missiles
Variable damage, no cap, long range, medium explosive velocity, medium explosion radius, medium alpha, low rof, standard reload, damage delay (dependent on range)
Un-Guide Missiles
Variable damage, no cap, short range, low explosive velocity, low explosion radius, high alpha (torps), high rof, standard reload, damage delay


* Low = Bad, Medium = Okay, High = Good

The way I see it lasers are neither horrible or excellent an anything. Minmatar sacrifice some things but gain huge advantages in other ways.
Gallente and hybrid Caldari ships are just lacking. They sacrifice things but don't get any kind of benefit that rivals the other races. If if they improve the rof of hybrids and lower the rof of autocannons, I think that would bring all the turrets in line.

Now about missiles...
Burseg Sardaukar
Free State Project
#6 - 2011-09-12 08:09:58 UTC  |  Edited by: Burseg Sardaukar
I've heard a lot of ideas about how-to balance blasters (as far as Railguns... I just feel that's a lost cause.)

One idea I was reading involved a theoretical fight between a Drake and Myrm, where the Myrm should have the speed advantage and be able to gain on a Drake, but as soon as tanks are included, the Drake has range, speed (because of no losses with added tank) and consistent damage all the way to its max range.

The idea to fix this was to remove the speed penalties tied to armor tanking, with the drawbacks being limited only to agility. That way, a blaster-wielding plated ship will be a heavy juggernaut that takes a long time to align, but can still hit max speed. This would apply to the armor rigs, as well.

From there, the problem still exists where no matter how much of a Damage boost blasters/hybrids receive, they'll still be having the problem getting that damage into the face of a kiting hurricane, for example, where the hurricane can be laying damage in lengthy falloff distance (tracking enhancers included.) A proposal I read was to nerf the enhancers, of course, but I was tooling around with the thought of this:

Increase the optimal for blasters slightly, approx 20%. Then, increase projectiles to be more than that. Then chop the entire falloff idea from autocannons entirely, giving it to the hybrids, forcing the faster/more agile ships to maintain a specific distance from a slower target.

So, as an example fight, a hurricane will attempt to keep a brutix at 12km optimal, with 1km falloff to keep effective damage on it. Naturally, this will make the pilot focus extremely hard on that distance and open a slip-up window for the brutix. Meanwhile, the Brutix will have 8km optimal, with 6-7km falloff. Their damage is laying on target, but with the tracking in the Hurricane's favor, plus its maneuverability, the Brutix is going to try hard to get a scram/web on that Hurricane to get better DPS on it, praying that the Hurricane's pilot's focus on specific distance will open a window. The thing is, at least BOTH ships are constantly landing damage on each other at that range, one in falloff, one at optimal.

On top of this, making the reload on Hybrids 5 seconds would make it more "hybrid-like" of lasers and projectiles. Since autocannons have a variety of damage, and 0 capacitor use, I feel this would be a fair middle ground.

Can't wait to dual box my Dust toon and EVE toon on the same machine!
Sigras
Conglomo
#7 - 2011-09-12 08:37:30 UTC
I think part of the problem is the lack of utility blasters provide. For instance:

The Absolution does around 850 DPS right in your face with three damage mods.
The Astarte does around 1050 DPS with two damage mods (not enough low slots) but dispite having a tracking computer the Absolution doesnt it still has to be closer (the break even point on range seems to be around 7 km)

This seems pretty well balanced because the Astarte has less EHP and range but almost 25% more damage, but when you switch ammo it doesnt look so fair.

That same Absolution with scorch does 653 DPS at 23 km (554 w/o drones)
The same Astarte with Null does 380 at that range (221 w/o drones)

The absolution retains 76% of its damage at 23 while the astarte only retains 36% at that range. This means that the absolution is far more effective outside of its intended range, has more EHP and is less reliant on drones.
ThisIsntMyMain
Doomheim
#8 - 2011-09-12 09:12:55 UTC
Shival Tornet wrote:
I was considering ways that hybrids could be improved without just a straightforward damage boost.

To me hybrid weapons have always been suggestive either of fleet ships, or of small ships taking on larger ones, orbiting under the guns of their target and pouring on the blaster fire.



Yeah, which is why Blasters basically get completely screwed because
a. They don't have enough tracking to do this (and never really did)
b. The speed nerf changes mean that you cant get close enough to hit any more.

The most disappointing thing about Rails & Blasters is not that the weapons themselves are broken - its the game changes that were implemented to solve other problems that broke blasters to the point of being useless and rendered railgun snipers obsolete. It is basically impossible to get into and stay in the right position for these weapons to work any more. Thats why most proposals suggest making Rails and Blasters more like Lasers or Autocannons