Ships & Modules

Falloff is indeed the major problem. If you look at the damage vs range plots, an extended falloff range means that the drop in damage outside of optimal is very gradual, allowing projectiles weapons to do nearly full damage at ridiculous ranges. I think that the optimal + 2 x falloff damage/range equation needs tweaking, as well as the various falloff bonuses on modules & ships.

Nerfing falloff = nerfing projectiles. Which you are agreeing is a good thing.

BTW - nerfing does not mean "reduce falloff bonuses by 50%". Although CCP has indeed tended to err with the overly heavy nerf bat in the past. :P

Also, please note that I'm not arguing to nerf Minmatar back to uselessness. Quite the contrary.

I'm AGAINST proposed speed boosts to Gallente blaster boats because I think that this actually will indeed relegate Minmatar back to the bad old days (as well as seriously kicking the Caldari in the nuts, too). Sure, a Brutix is a cripple outside of blaster range, but make it as fast as the Minmatar BCs and it will simply annihilate any other BC in the game (except maybe the Talos). No skill required - you just zoom up to your opponent and press F1 (you did group all of those blasters on the F1 key, right?).

I'm FOR making some changes to projectile weapons because I just don't see many cases where they actually suck vs. any other weapon system. I have maxed gunnery skills equally in hybrids, lasers and projectiles - and it just doesn't make sense that I often prefer to fit projectiles to my Gallente and Amarr ships, as well as to my Minmatar ships (I don't usually fly Caldari for philosophical reasons... lol).

I like balance. There should be situations where Minmatar ships are better - and worse. There should be situations where projectile weapons are preferred - and not.

On a general note - buffing hybrids and lasers is the wrong direction, 'cause then you'd need to eventually buff missiles and drones, as well as shields and armor. Buffing Gallente ships means that you'll end up needing to buff Caldari and Amarr ships, too - which would take us back to needing to buff Minmatar ships, yet again. As the historical out-of-control series of speed buffs eventually proved in the great speed rebalancing fix, it is better to tweak things down, rather than up.

I spend 90% of my time in a blaster Tristan.
Been fooling around with a rail incursus.

Soon I'll be flying my Blaster catalyst (6 more days till 5 :P)

Then it's gonna be thorax and vexor time.

Then brutix myrm time.

Blasters may not be as good as auto's when fighting like you have auto's. On the other hand landing ontop of people overheating everything and hoping for the best is where they shine. In your face, no thought of running if things go south and ruining your opponent's ****. Most people just don't like flying that way.

This is not reality.

Abbaddon is pretty much the gold standard for large scale fleet engagements, alpha maels reach a point of diminishing returns once you fleet crests a certain number. Alpha isn't that important unless you are over 850 in system, and 250 pulse lasers will ******* wreck things just as well. Maels are so damned slow that they are relatively easy to out maneuver. Drop a Geddon fleet in the middle of a pack of maels and watch what happens.

Oracle, Naga and Tornado are relatively close depending on application. The guys flying them LOVE their Nagas surprisingly. The Oracle is facefucking DPS from a decent range....easily the best anti-support of the three, and the Tornado....well Tornado is as fast as a Fleet Stabber with a Maelstrom's guns.....whats not to like?

In BC's Drake has 85% more kills than Hurricane this month on eve-kill. Hurricane is a better hack and slash platform, but once you have more than 10 or so to a side the Drake is a better because it can actually survive an alpha or two. This becomes more important when you are stuck on a **** caged gate.

Dictors.....yeah all Sabre all day, this is unsurprising, the fastest ship fits the roll best.

Scimi is only situationally the best shield logi, mainly because the Basi is so bloody slow. The logis all have their uses now, Oneiros is no longer reviled.

Frigate...welp Dram is still the king of frigs, but holy hell the entire Gallente line + Dare Devil are just NASTY now, I mean nasty. I mean really they made my Ares faster....yes please.

T3 Tengu...need I say more

Recons are a closer race between Rapiers and Lachesis....again situational...but you rarely see either turned from fleet.

OK so first

I think blasters are and have been fine

I think rails are not



I also think most of the problem comes from the shared nature of hybrids belonging to two races. This makes how you balance them so much harder. The dogma of the two races (Caldari/Gallente) are very different so getting a weapons platform that works with long range and high DPS well simotausly not giving the range side to much DPS or giving the DPS to much range extremely hard. Also the dogma of Gallente is rooted in versatility, you see this in there slot lay outs and the very nature of drones.(they do every thing, and are not dependent on slot use) and the dogma of caldari is specialization. How dose one make this fair?

I strongly dislike the way both platforms preform. They are the "alleged" mixing of both energy weapons and projectiles, and yet have nether of there strengths and both of there weaknesses. equal to or highest CPU use, take twice the resources to fire using both cap and ammo(about half the base cap and the hopper can hold more volume but the ammo is twice the size), they need to reload*, They posses no ability to control damage types its always majority KEN minority THERM (but like lazors in T2 ammo they get a few 50/50 splits)

they have the same base rate of fire as lazors or slightly more. The only thing they walk away with is a middle ground on the need for power grid.*

*Both recently addresses but IMHO still not hybrid enuf.


I love si-fi and rail guns and plasma weapons are iconic parts of that and I kinda take it hard that they work the way they do in game.

Blasters are plasma weapons(read there description) why do they mostly deal KEN?

One of the thing that has always been present in rail gun myth/theory is they cause a different form of recoil (out from the rails as apposed to back from the barrel) this is not how they look on screen. Also the RoF on rails in testing now is way higher than projectiles, really only limited now buy materials used and heat build up the materials cause.


How would I fix it? If I had my own privet test server?

-all hybrid ammo would deal 50/50 ken/therm

-rails would multiply only the ken damage, and blasters only the therm still leaving a little of the off flavor

-T2 Rail ammo would add in a splash EXP damage( the piecing nature of rails plus and the Caldari ancient foe just screams explosive)

-T2 Blaster ammo would add in a splash of EM (lots of raw dc current there used to contain the plasma and ammo far more damaging would need a stronger feild to contane it)

-Rails would use the least power grid buy far with a increase to cpu (their using cap to fire not raw power grid), they would go the botom of the alpha pile but to the top of the RoF pile this would call for a damage and cap use reduction or Caldari hulls doing cap redux like Ammar one some times do.

-Blasters would get there damage doubled but there RoF reduced (and honestly maybe even further, closer to arty's but at close range) as there ammo has to be "prepared before firing"

-Mimatar would lose some agility, the Gallente would get a lot more. Speed is to strong of a feature IMHO to leave it all to one race, Mimitar can be fastest on grid, Gallente should be fastest to and off it.


Why would I like to try this?

Well the ammo stuff would make me feel like the races spin on the tech more, the flavor control/splashing would feel like projectiles and the already reduced reload dose feel like lazors.

I would like to see if pushing apart how the weapons fit hulls would help to make them the best choice for there race, but still leave the option open.

I think blasters being slow and rails being fast would help to make them feel different, and fits with how there Allies would influence how the techs have respectfully developed over the years (Gallenta Using slower Rof wepons like the Mimitar and the Caldari using faster Rof weapons like the Ammar) and this would contrast there other wepon systems more(drones doing lots of little hits, and missiles doing one big steady bump).

As for the speed rehash...I fly with a lot of Gallente pilots and they tend to not even bother with slow boating/MWDing/AFing to the target. They get some one to grab a target and they warp pile in, this fits there "brawler/duelist" style and a agility increase would let them bounce in and out of fights letting other Gallene tactics have a chance to be used (active tanking would be way better if you could quickly get out heal up with your repair amount bonuses and back in, and dampers would be so-good if you bounce to a far on grid and can keep them from locking you at range well you regroup and slowing there lock time once you bounce back in). As it is now no race calls this style of combat theirs, and of all the race pair ups this style feels organic to them, as bouncing in and out helps the most against missiles and ECM as the warp beaks the lock/ends the effect/makes missiles go all drunk like. The elegance and need for team work and coordinating of this tactic just feels so Gallente. Also I hate Mimatar and just want to nurf there already over sized piece of the combat pie.

Lots of dislike for med rails but try them on an Astarte and they do ok.

The real buff for Gal has been the speed and agility boost. Since Crucible came out and I noticed a decent chenge in agility I've added an agility implant and Gal ships now behave as ships rather than flying bricks.

You have to remember not all combat is PvP

Well, looks like you missed a fairly significant piece of information.. something that EFT and Pyfa can't calculate. What you don't realize is that another factor is "hit quality", and that makes all the difference in the world. When you have combat at optimal ranges (and all other factors not coming into play), the percentage of barely hits, well-placed hits, etc. is a stable percentage, with the 5% being "Wrecking Shots". As you go into falloff, the TOP end of this spectrum degrades, meaning that there is a point in falloff where you cannot get Wrecking shots at all. (See Eve's information on falloff: http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Falloff, under the topic, "What does that mean for Turret DPS").

So while it may be technically true that the average, unmodified damage may degrade slowly, when you factor in the loss of higher quality hits, the practical damage applied to the isn't unreasonable.

Just to point something out, wasn't the difference (pre-blaster buff) of the DPS of 425mm Autocannon II's and Large Neutron II's only in the region of 6%?

I'd hardly call that massively low DPS, and especially not an issue when taking into account their capless nature and greater range.



Fwiw, I concur with the general sentiments that Falloff is out of wack, and I still think TE's need their Falloff bonus knocking back to 15%, even if it will hurt blasters slightly.

I haven't found a Diemost in the wild in a long time. Gee, I wonder why...

What penalty should armor plates or rigs have if not mass or speed? Tracking enhancers are a range modifier. They are obviously a low slot module but they do have a mid slot cousin in the form of tracking computers. Would other mid slot module variations for damage ala msf/gyro/ heat sinks have a place in Eve?