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(Projectile Ammunition Rebalance) Put the project back into Projectile
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Dalloph Vanorn
Sebiestor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#1 - 2014-12-12 07:26:57 UTC  |  Edited by: Dalloph Vanorn
TLDR:

  • Rebalance Projectile ammunition into 2 distinct classes for standard t1 and faction ammo types.

  • These classes are Short and Medium range.

  • Short range ammo is the same stat wise as current day short range ammo ex: Fusion

  • Medium range ammo has bonuses to falloff, tracking, and optimal. Unique mechanics: In 45-85% falloff gains a damage multiplier, and a 80% flat chance to hit while in that specific falloff range.

  • Tweak t2 long range ammo types to have 80% flat chance to hit in 45-85% falloff but no damage multiplier.

  • Improve damage selection by ensuring there is a Kinetic,Explosive,Em, and Thermal mixed damage type ammo to choose from in both short, and medium range classes.

  • Ultimately what this would come down to is that Short range ammo stays roughly the same, but Medium range ammo would be dealing 80% of the short ranged ammo's dps at 45%-85% falloff. Filling a niche where it can excel at without outperforming the other types of ammo in their ranges.

End of TLDR


Projectiles currently have issues competing with other weapon systems. While not what would be considered weak, they don’t fill a niche that they excel at. This is a matter that I think can be addressed by rebalancing the ammunition of the projectiles instead of buffing the weapon system directly.

Projectile Ammunition is to be quite frank poorly implemented. This is readily apparent when only 3 of the 8 standard types of ammunition are picked for use in pve and pvp. It is a shame that so much of the games assets are unused, when it can be potentially repurposed, and used to fix balance issues.

The Link below is a paper I've written which describes the current state of Projectile ammo and set of changes that could be used for rebalancing it. I apologize in advance for slips in my grammar.

Projectile Ammo Rebalance

I think that ultimately this could be a big step in the right direction for improving projectile weapons. Accentuate their strengths by focusing on balancing what makes Projectiles unique as a weapon system. With these ammo changes we could give the old saying "working in falloff" an entirely new meaning.
Danika Princip
GoonWaffe
Goonswarm Federation
#2 - 2014-12-12 08:20:31 UTC
So is that a damage modifier and a flat 80% hit chance not affected by things like tracking and sig res?
Dalloph Vanorn
Sebiestor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#3 - 2014-12-12 08:52:19 UTC
Danika Princip wrote:
So is that a damage modifier and a flat 80% hit chance not affected by things like tracking and sig res?


The damage modifier, and chance to hit would be affected by tracking, and sig res. The 80% chance to hit only changes how falloff interacts with the ammunition. The tracking of the weapon system and sig radius of the enemy ship would both function as they normally have up to now. This ammo wouldn't be the exception of tracking rules by always insuring an 80% chance to hit. Rather that is its max chance to hit in its bonus'd falloff range, tracking/sig radius would apply lowering it further if an enemy ship met the criteria to out track/ sig-tank.

As for the damage modifier its only role is to amplify the low base damage of the medium range ammo in its given range of 45-85% falloff. So while gaining its bonus in falloff it raises the base damage of the ammo up to the damage stats of a short range ammo type. The interactions with chance to hit in falloff has the quirk of being able to control the max dps of the ammo. So by giving the ammo a damage multiplier we raise its effective damage, but by having an 80% chance to hit effectively lowers the dps of the ammo. Because it is only able to hit 80% of the time under the best tracking conditions it will never reach the same dps numbers as short range ammo.

I hope this is a clarification the tldr is a little ambiguous.
Kagura Nikon
Native Freshfood
Minmatar Republic
#4 - 2014-12-12 08:54:51 UTC  |  Edited by: Kagura Nikon
Dalloph Vanorn wrote:
TLDR:

  • Rebalance Projectile ammunition into 2 distinct classes for standard t1 and faction ammo types.

  • These classes are Short and Medium range.

  • Short range ammo is the same stat wise as current day short range ammo ex: Fusion

  • Medium range ammo has bonuses to falloff, tracking, and optimal. Unique mechanics: In 45-85% falloff gains a damage multiplier, and a 80% flat chance to hit while in that specific falloff range.

  • Tweak t2 long range ammo types to have 80% flat chance to hit in 45-85% falloff but no damage multiplier.

  • Improve damage selection by ensuring there is a Kinetic,Explosive,Em, and Thermal mixed damage type ammo to choose from in both short, and medium range classes.

  • Ultimately what this would come down to is that Short range ammo stays roughly the same, but Medium range ammo would be dealing 80% of the short ranged ammo's dps at 45%-85% falloff. Filling a niche where it can excel at without outperforming the other types of ammo in their ranges.

End of TLDR


Projectiles currently have issues competing with other weapon systems. While not what would be considered weak, they don’t fill a niche that they excel at. This is a matter that I think can be addressed by rebalancing the ammunition of the projectiles instead of buffing the weapon system directly.

Projectile Ammunition is to be quite frank poorly implemented. This is readily apparent when only 3 of the 8 standard types of ammunition are picked for use in pve and pvp. It is a shame that so much of the games assets are unused, when it can be potentially repurposed, and used to fix balance issues.

The Link below is a paper I've written which describes the current state of Projectile ammo and set of changes that could be used for rebalancing it. I apologize in advance for slips in my grammar.

Projectile Ammo Rebalance

I think that ultimately this could be a big step in the right direction for improving projectile weapons. Accentuate their strengths by focusing on balancing what makes Projectiles unique as a weapon system. With these ammo changes we could give the old saying "working in falloff" an entirely new meaning.



Projectile t1 ammo used to have range modifiers as their focus. The community begged and they IMPROVED them massively, now we can choose between high damage and tracking.

You are askign to dumbfy and make worse t1 ammo. When you want to fight in falloff you gonna use barrage already. Now If you wask them to give barrage the 2 other damage profiles that minmatar are supposed to be able to use ( an EMP barrage and a Plasma barrage, then we coudl talk about it)

T1 Projectile ammo is the BEST designed t1 ammo in game. 3 types are used a lot with uranium being used as well for peopel with brains fighting things that are small and fast. Hybrids use only AM and Lasers use Only MF.

"If brute force does not solve your problem....  then you are  surely not using enough!"
Reaver Glitterstim
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#5 - 2014-12-12 08:57:50 UTC  |  Edited by: Reaver Glitterstim
Danika Princip wrote:
So is that a damage modifier and a flat 80% hit chance not affected by things like tracking and sig res?

It's about time we let Naglfars start blapping Dramiels, anyway.


@OP: the values you suggest are far too arbitrary and contrived. I cannot support it.

Lets try to suggest something more basic, like a falloff buff to long range turret ammo to make up for the lack of tracking buff.

FT Diomedes: "Reaver, sometimes I wonder what you are thinking when you sit down to post."

Frostys Virpio: "We have to give it to him that he does put more effort than the vast majority in his idea but damn does it sometime come out of nowhere."
Dalloph Vanorn
Sebiestor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#6 - 2014-12-12 10:34:02 UTC  |  Edited by: Dalloph Vanorn
Kagura Nikon wrote:



Projectile t1 ammo used to have range modifiers as their focus. The community begged and they IMPROVED them massively, now we can choose between high damage and tracking.

You are askign to dumbfy and make worse t1 ammo. When you want to fight in falloff you gonna use barrage already. Now If you wask them to give barrage the 2 other damage profiles that minmatar are supposed to be able to use ( an EMP barrage and a Plasma barrage, then we coudl talk about it)

T1 Projectile ammo is the BEST designed t1 ammo in game. 3 types are used a lot with uranium being used as well for peopel with brains fighting things that are small and fast. Hybrids use only AM and Lasers use Only MF.


I will admit that my proposal is simplifying projectile ammo instead of 3 types of ammunition there would be only 2. However let's be honest with ourselves only 3 of the standard t1/faction ammo are used on a regular basis because they outperform all of the other types in all but the most niche of situations. Short range ammo types are able to project further with less damage loss simply because they do the most damage.

Long range and Moderate range ammunition have archaic bonuses to optimal, and tracking which do nothing to actually make the projectile weapon systems apply its damage at range. Projectile turrets work in falloff not optimal, extra tracking on an ammo type does nothing to mitigate the factor that your chance to hit progressively gets worse the further you go into falloff. Add in the terribly low base damages of Moderate and Long range ammo types you will find that there is no point where they out perform short range ammo at long range or close up unless you are shooting at a spider drone. To even call these ammo types Moderate and Long range is a total sham.

So all we have is short range ammo being used for all practical ship to ship combat, and on very rare occasions Titanium sabot/Depleted Uranium on the off chance you need to hit fast moving Frigates. If anything this system is just as simple as the one I've proposed but even worse off. There is an entire type of ammo being completely unused in the form of Long range standard t1 ammo, and Moderate range ammo isn't in a brilliant state either.

My proposed changes to medium range ammo would not have left it entirely without a tracking bonus. In the linked paper there was a table showing a list of stat changes to rebalanced ammo. Tracking was one of those stat changes. Rebalanced Medium range ammo would have a 1.1x multiplier to tracking not quite the 1.2x multiplier of current Moderate range but there has to be some concessions when it comes to balance.

Projectiles operating in falloff shouldn't be entirely forced into using barrage, when we can have a ammo type that fills the niche in between t1 short range, and t2 long range. Medium range ammo would have a small bonus to falloff but overall put an emphasis on projecting its damage not gaining huge amounts of range. This would mean there would be a clear choice based on your engagement range were one type of ammo outperforms the other. Making new forms of t2 barrage ammo is unreasonable because projectiles would be the only racial weapon system with multiple damage variants of t2 long range ammo.

Other races t1 ammunitions are likewise in equally a bad state, however the purpose of this thread is to discuss specifically projectile ammo, and changes related to it that will make it function better.


Reaver Glitterstim wrote:
Danika Princip wrote:
So is that a damage modifier and a flat 80% hit chance not affected by things like tracking and sig res?

It's about time we let Naglfars start blapping Dramiels, anyway.


@OP: the values you suggest are far too arbitrary and contrived. I cannot support it.

Lets try to suggest something more basic, like a falloff buff to long range turret ammo to make up for the lack of tracking buff.


I hardly think it's contrived, furthermore only buffing the falloff of long range t1 ammo does nothing to fix the matter that its damage is far too low. To actually make an ammo type apply its damage in falloff with the current system you need high base damage, and an exorbitant falloff bonus. Just saying let's crank up the falloff till it works doesn't really address the issue of why the ammo isn't applying its damage in the first place.

If you give the Long range ammo high base damage it will start to outperform Short range ammo in the ranges it is supposed to excel at. You could turn the long range ammo into a pseudo barrage, but that is an inelegant solution that would likewise infringe upon the territory of t2 barrage ammo. My method of improving chance to hit with a damage multiplier in a specified range of falloff takes notes of these issues. Medium range ammo would have the ability to project itself in a range directly in between long range, and short range without having greater dps than short range ammo, or longer range/damage application than t2 barrage ammo.
Harvey James
The Sengoku Legacy
#7 - 2014-12-12 15:05:31 UTC
the OP is awful asking for OP ammo , just look at the scorch and autocannon threads, we want more emphasis on the guns themselves with ammo being a small boost to whatever you want damage,tracking,range .. we don't need crazy bonuses and odd mechanics too make it worse..

T3's need to be versatile so no rigs are necessary ... they should not have OP dps and tank

ABC's should be T2, remove drone assist, separate HAM's and Torps range, -3 HS for droneboats

Nerf web strength, Make the blaster Eagle worth using
Jim Elliot
Divorce Attorneys
#8 - 2014-12-12 16:39:19 UTC
While I agree that projectile weapon systems havent been competitive in the last few years, im pretty sure this isnt the way to fix them.

Looking at the ham drake which as a massive tank and does 850dps and the brutix which can dish out ~1k with an ok tank, leaves the cane looking a bit anemic since its pg/slot nerf. I think we are going to have to look at the base damage modifiers for projectiles or the hull bonuses themselves to make minmatar respected again.