Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I endorse this mans idea.

So we'd be left with artillery tracking issues / lack of damage at close range on top of pitiful damage application due to how explosion radius and velocity function?

I can understand that damage would ramp up in a situation where a HM is chasing a ceptor around you ship for 50km even though it orbits at 20, but it's not going to apply any of that increased damage due to the mechanics anyways.

Heavy missile volley on an appropriately bonused ship goes over 2200 per volley. Increasing explosion velocity for a weapon that is essentially used when kiting (I.e. presenting a scenario where their damage is getting mitigated the most) would be the single most appropriate buff for the ship. Buffing navy missiles of each size catagory to 75% of the base speed of the aggregate average speed of the hull appropriate target is one potential way of rebalancing missiles to be better and more situationally appropriate.

In a little but I'll draw up a quick graph of damages and get back to this thread. I coukd be totally wrong but it is my gut feeling after spending basicly 3 years using missiles in various capacities.

You can't implement something like that for just one weapon type, it's not logical nor worth the time & effort to make it happen and continually balance it.

It would make much more sense to look at what's already in the game (precision ammo) and have a look at that. How about slightly buffing base stats on all precision ammo and then have it "arm" itself after 30-50% of its flight time where it performs less good before arming and then actually as advertised once it did.

That way we won't have to introduce something HML specific and at the same time we make precision ammo actually interesting, while leaving the ammo characteristic choice to the pilot AND not completely lol-buffing stuff like Tengus.

Okay here we go:

In each case I'm taking a hull with no application bonuses loaded with hull appropriate long range ammo. Then I'm going to run a quick diagnostic against shooting the fastest hull for class with no speed or sig altering fittings/implants. In essence this is a missile user shooting someone slowboating straight towards him.

eV = explosion velocity
eS = explosion signature

Kestrel with LML: 30 eS / 255 eV
Caracal with HML: 105 eS / 122 eV
Raven with cruise: 248 eS / 104 eV

Now when shooting their worst likely target with NO fittings OR implants.

slasher: 30/255 vs 30/538 = 70 reduced to 45 (36% reduction)(HML caracal gets 248->43 ie 82% reduction)(cruise raven 688->122 ie 82%)

Stabber: 105/122 vs 100/363 = 248 to ~140 (44% reduction)(kestrel 0%)(raven 64%)

typhoon: 248/104 vs 330/163 = 100% applied damage across the board.

It might only be anecdotal but to me when LML gets 36% reduced applied damage to a ship in its own class with no prop mod, HML gets 44% and cruises get 0% there might be a problem. And that problem is very likely explosion velocity.

For reference an LML corax shooting against that same unpropped slasher gets all 100% of its damage going through. But.. loses 44% of its damage if the slasher puts on an AB. With 2x painters and strong crash you pump that back up to only 9% damage mitigated, provided your missiles even land.

The caracal against this slasher: gets about 23 dps. 91% reduced applied damage due only to speed. For the sake of discussion lets apply two fully bonused painters (40% each) and then use a strong crash on the caracal. 41 dps. 83%. Against the stabber from above with AB: 72% mitigation. With 2x painters and strong crash: 130, 48% mitigated.

Let's go for another anecdotal extreme: the RHML. Since no ship using RHML gets an application bonus to it let's look at an RHML ship shooting a HAC and look only at damage applied before resists. For this purpose I've used a Typhoon FI vs a deimos (since I know the two ships well). The phoon loses 44% of it's damage shooting this target. Leaving 55% of its original amount to go through, in to resists and finally be subtracted from the target. If I instead put say just an AB on the deimos that value becomes 63% damage mitigated.

Against another battleship (TFI) with AB it's 11%. A battleship can literally speed tank a missile designed for 2 size catagories smaller than it just by burning in a straight line anywhere with an AB on.

I think the heavy missile needs some attention. They also need to stop being treated as a solo-viable weapon because it's adequately clear to me they're NOT. They NEED a dedicated tackler with webs to work. Since velocity is the major determining factor in applying dps with heavy missiles either you fly a weapon used for kiting and use webs or you sit 80km off and apply moderate damage against a target tackled by someone else. Target painters are not the one-size fits all solution. Not even crash can help heavy missiles apply anything close to 80% dps to a stabber with only a 10mn AB equipped, let alone snakes and drugs of its own.

Just as soon as my manual piloting can address the shortfalls of missiles you can compare them to turrets like that.

Shooting down sizes, yes. General application generally yes - but heavies are too poor (and lights too good). Like I say it was all fine until the guns got a 15-30% DPS hike barely 6 months after HML were 'brought into line' with them.


Turn on prop mod - missile damage diminished. Kite away, missile range reduced to the point they fail to hit even in long point range if you're fast.

*snip* ~ ISD Decoy

Still waiting on credible evidence that they are fine, perhaps a usable fit or some charts.

But I don't think so, in spite of the fact that almost the entire Eve community doesn't use them, they are virtually extinct in game you're pretty much sticking your fingers in your ears and saying they're fine because you say so and anyone who disagrees is bad.

So post some real usable fits and data. Until then, good day.

Many people use HML, just not in moronic F1 fleet blobs anymore. You can make those graphs yourself. Use your own two fits, swap your lol shield rigs for rigors/flare and start doing some testing with different ammo types and angulars. It takes about a minute.


see the problem is that people are incapable of looking at more than one variable, more than one angle or insight. They just look at one thing and go "THIS IS NOT RIGHT!!!!!". Turrets are capable of doing more dps but they're also capable of doing zero dps, missiles are less erratic in their damage, more versatile if you will, and will always do some sort of damage.

So you can't go "LOOK AT HOW MISSILES DO LESS" while forgetting to mention that on the other side of the spectrum they can out perform turrets. They're quintessentially different weapon systems and as such focussing on a single stat is pretty much moronic.


Also, the reason "no one" uses HML is that for solo or small gang pvp (where missiles do just fine) HAM get enough range to deal with targets around point range. again,; more dps, less range.


If you want HML to do more dps then you will have to agree to less range, how is this so difficult to comprehend.

In the fits he provided the extender rigged Caracal had 50% more EHP as the Thorax, while applying less dps. Replacing those rigs would drop the Caracal's EHP to be within the same ballpark as the thorax while, amazingly, it suddenly also started performing a ton better with its HML. It's the same for the Drake; if you want its stupid EHP then you forego on damage application, if you go for damage application then you bring down its EHP a notch. Still above other comparable ships but not as good as it was.

A HML Caracal has less problems with people getting up close as a rail Thorax, so this whole "but HML ships will have problems" is simply not true, at least not specifically HML ships as it's a basic "kiter vs scram tactic". Rock, paper, scissors. Nothing wrong with that.


This whole discussion is no different from a newbie/lazy bear perma running lvl 4 Raven crap fit and him making a thread about how bad it is, it's going to take a whole lot of explaining and reasoning to convince said clueless bear that if he'd just stop shitfitting his raven it would perform much better making him more isk/h. And just as that lazy bear will kick, scream and put fingers in his ears going "I can't HEAR you!" the same is happening here: people unwilling or incapable of understanding actual mechanics, reluctant to adapt to the changed situation because they simply stick to what they know have been told.

Which, neatly, brings me back to this.