Ships & Modules

Paritally agree with you. But, the rise of the Drake coincided with the probing changes that killed sniper BSs. That midrange 70-80km sweet spot became very important. You are correct though about price. And especially with the introduction of rig sizes. Sniper HACs were probably better, but then really couldn't compete on isk efficiency. Also, iirc sniper HACs were not doing 400 dps at that range. Armor HACs could not catch Drakes. RR BSs ran into other problems and of course, cost differential and ease of button mashing differential.

The advantage of the drake though was more than price. It was easy to get more dps out of other ships but not at 80km. Perma running a mwd was problematic with turret ships that used energy for their guns. The alpha of projectiles (Maels, Munnins) was better, but not by so much to dwarf the delayed punch of massed HM volleys landing. For the Munnin it was a range dps problem, and for the Maels it was mobility v bombers. And this was all before buffs to medium guns.

Really, the game was quite different. Drakes were op in their day, not because they had any stat locked up, as you say, but because they fit into the way the battlefield had been shaped by so many other changes. And then yes price and ease of skilling into were biggies.

It is true and it always baffled me that they hit the HMs so hard while ignoring the tank, price, and mobility issues that played just as important roles in the Drake hegemony. But then the devs were right, in that the HM changes killed the Drake 3 year reign.

I personally have no problem with some of the former effectiveness of missiles, and HMs in particular, coming back. But only coming back at the expense of fitting missile "tracking" mods in med or low slots. And, also if those improved missiles are subject to TD boat disruptions. And I say td boats because I think the other ewars are due for some lesser ecm module treatments and corresponding specialized boat buffs. Damps, TDs, and painters are all too strong on unbonused ships as things are now. Would be nice to give a reason for flying crucifiers, arbitrators, vigils, and belicoses as much as one sees mauluses, griffins, celstises, and blackbirds.

from what I remember, drakes beat ahacs, ahacs beat BS, BS beat drakes.

then again I wouldn't be surprised to hear that drakes got nerfed because firewall bs put way too much load on the server

Yeah, I too think that the tengu needs a buff. Currently it only gets like 1150dps at even less than 40km, it's a nightmare to run L4s with it. If you even want to start shooting targets outside of that 40km bubble because you only make 750m/s AB'ing, your damage drops further to 800dps at 70km. All the while you even only have one TP, what a ****** ship.

Hey guess how many of those ships and/or weapon systems have received massive buffs in the time since HML Drakes were nerfed into the ground.

Yes but those long range weapons won't track up close, they HAVE to switch ammo so you can't just hop target ranges all the time. Also, kinetic is NOT "the worst damage type", stop lying. On top of that they CAN select damage type, at a 25% damage loss which makes it better off than using fixed damage types vs T2/T3 resists.

That's really the issue with HML damage more than anything else - at the ranges they hit at they do very competitive damage, but even fury missiles are long range for a medium weapon system.

Assuming no range rigs, perfect support skills. Longest range T2 ammo. I used T2 ammo because the poster used Fury as his example. For PvP, faction ammo is better for almost every platform. But the differences are similar.

Heavy Missile launcher II
Fury missile travels 47 km and not an inch further. In practice, if your overview shows 47km, you won't hit anything. Overview needs to show 46km or less.

720 Artillery II
Tremor- 54 Optimal + 21 Falloff. Total of 75 with instant damage. Mounted on a Rupture in game. (It had Tracking mods when first looked at)

Heavy Beam II
Aurora- 54 Optimal + 10 Falloff. Total of 64 with instant damage AND quick change ammo. Mounted on a Harby in game.

250 Rail Gun II
Spike- 64 Optimal + 15 Falloff. Total of 79 with instant damage.

Just the optimal on all those medium systems is 15% to 25% better.

I'd like to add that guns can have a fitted module, Tracking Enhancer II, that adds 10% range to optimal and 20% range to falloff.
Most gun snipers would actually mount one or two of these.

Missiles don't have such a module that I am aware of. Rig yes, module no.

ftfy

What I was saying is that there's no "short range" style ammo for HMLs like there is with long range guns, not that fury was the longest range ammo (which it's obviously not) - missiles don't do bad damage at the ranges they hit at (ie if you're shooting at something 40km away HMLs are competitive. If you're shooting at something 20km away, it's an entirely different story.

I used fury as an example specifically because it's shorter ranged - but even then it's still much closer to the longer range ammo than short.

How you know? You were not there when that happened..