Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Those viewpoints don't conflict at all because they're referring to different types of missile. Heavy missiles suck, lights are OP, lights apply too well, torpedoes don't apply well at all, etc. etc.

Vexor. The vexor is the go to t1 pvp cruiser atm. Caracal has been relagated to anti-frigate duty because HAMS barely leave enough room to fit tank, and heavies are pretty terrible. Plus a range bonus applied to heavies is mostly worthless outside fleets.

The caracal shines with RLML. Not hams or hml. RLML does not equal all missiles.

Not to mention, the Caracal has a tiny dronebay and no utilities. Heavies or HAMs on it make it hilariously poorly equipped to deal with frigates for solo PVP, contributing greatly to it being the one-trick pony it is now.

Just gonna throw my 2 cents on cit. missiles so you get an idea on them.

Torps:
Are they stationary and a capital/painted within ~55km? They're going to feel it.
Are they moving? Forget about it.

Cruises:
Are they stationary and a capital/painted within lock range? This will tickle.
Are they moving? Forget about it.


Basically, there's a reason nobody wants to really fly a Phoenix or Leviathan aside from them being shield capitals. They can't hit anything moving without major assistance. Even capitals move faster than their explosion velocity which means a massive reduction in damage in most all warfare situations except against other sieged dreads. Add to that, other class of dreads can gain greater range by swapping ammo types, while the Phoenix (and levi) would have to switch weapon systems entirely which are heavy and will not fit in its cargo hold.
When flying a capital you always have to plan for the chance of being hot dropped. As such fielding ships with like-tanks and ability to track moving targets at variable ranges is key. And is a large reason why you don't, and likely never will, see missile capitals aside from the token Phoenix at a POS bash.

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That aside, in general there are several major downsides to this weapon system which lead to why you don't see them used in large scale combat, which is why stats on their damage in pvp is so low.
1) Damage application: instant vs delayed makes for wasted cycles. Smaller ships can outrun missiles entirely where turrets will eventually hit even the smallest of targets (while cool looking, is very annoying esp with new t3 destroyers).
-Can be helped, not solved, by giving them the "Garmur" treatment by vastly increase all missile velocities and decreasing flight times to compensate.

2) Firewalling: Smartbombs, which are meant to handle close orbit tackle and drones, can make this entire weapon system obsolete by destroying the missiles before they have a chance to hit their target.
-Can be solved by not allowing missiles to be damaged at all. Resist with tank, not offensive weapons.

3) ECM: loss of lock on a target while missiles are in flight cause them to deal no damage. I still don't understand why this is even a thing. I'm jammed, not my missiles, which I would assume have their own guidance system.
-Solved by fixing what has obviously been a long standing bug in the game.

4) Lack of versatility in range. As I stated with citadel torps/cruise in order to change the range of a missile weapons system outside of t2 precision vs rage. The only way to change your range is to change the entire weapon system currently installed on your ship.
-The only acceptable solution to this would be to finally add a mid slot module that allows for the range to be modified against something like explosion velocity (buffs range but lowers exp velocity, scripting can increase range further or lower the penalty). Adding more missile types just makes things far too convoluted.
-As far as citadel launchers are concerned, all they need is a massive size reduction in the modules themselves so they can be carried within the hold to allow for the weapon system to be swapped between since they cant just switch to a longer range ammo.

This.


CCP, imo, has hen pecked missiles in stop gap fixes creating a mixed bag of tricks. Lights were in need of some love I will admit. They got that...and then some. They were imo changed in a vacuum. 1 problem child done in a sea of them...so now the other problem children stand out.

Also missiles will get these "confusing" arguments since imo missiles are rather hull dependent. I can slap on as much speed as I want on the frigs and not care. Try for a 10mn frigate that burns full time and not pulses prop mod...do it till the cap runs out. I don't track on them, no skin off my nose. Also get long range for a frigate at lower skill levels. Me to get my arty wolf or jaguar if masochistic (oddly wolf does this better, insert switch the damn bonus rant here) was a long path of many 5's (AF 5, gun skills 5, rig 4 to fit t2 range rigs or reduce rig downsides if t1) to get that max range.

Turret side...by an large ccp goes wide sweeping changes. Its ammo base changes at least from small to large. Hybrid fix a few years back for example was ammo across the board. It made for me caldari hybrid use at severl levels more fun to use. Then later ccp hen pecked mediums and some can argue made them OP. Seeing a trend there...when ccp henpecks bad things can happen lol.

Which would just make them useless at point-blank range.

you can shoot missile down with defender, smartbomb or ECM*

No one ask for missile do more dps than turret in paper. Most of time, they ask for better applied dps.

*there are auto-targeting for Light/Heavy/Cruise, but none for Rocket/HAM/Torp.

I do not think you fully understand the layout of slots and the impact towards armor and shield tanking ships at all.

High Slots are for external to ship Mods ie turrets and some ew items

Mid slots are ship hull Mods such as shields, afterburners

Low slots are for internal Mods such as armor repair and cargo, and modifiers to performance of high slot items.

Rigs are for further refinement but they often act like extra low slots than anything.

Subsystems well that is a whole different ballgame as per intended.

For this i will be using the classical Caldari Vs Gallente examples

The reason you see so many cruise missile boats in high sec is because torpedoes are nerfed to the point they are worthless to bring into missions, heck cruise missiles out dps torpedoes in the fitting screen and have 3 times the range or more. Missiles only do 1 type of damage so yes that should be higher than charges which do 2 types of damage. It's point and shoot for steady dps VS charged ammo which damage depends on the player, ship placement skills and damage modifiers like luck. Caldari dreadnaughts are already pretty usless for ship pvp engaments.

Now why armor tankers have to balance tank VS damage output unlike armor tankers. Cuss when a shield tanker looses all its shields it dies quickly cuss it's not armor tanked. where armor tankers have the shields as a buffer before then begin to tank. Now if you make it so you can armor tank and have all damage mods then you seriously unbalance the game towards armor tankers then everyone will be flying blaster boats then what is the point of the other fractions to be skilled up.

Fraction roles are to be considered too. Caldari are better suited for long range engagement even for the rails, gallente are close range brawlers. What and how you fly dose apply in choices of race advantages here.

It sounds more your a minmatar auto-cannon style of player.

Do ask some of your fellow alliance members why they fly certain types of ships compared to others. You will learn how they fly them matters as much as the ship they pick.

They could ALL stand a velocity increase and a flight time decrease to keep neutral range changes but get more consistent results. You get some stupid anomalies shooting at approaching, or straight line fleeing targets. Yes, yes "features" and all that but pilots value consistency over most things.

I wondered when someone would start spouting the misleading rubbish of "missiles always hit". I find it's inevitably the mark of someone clueless who's never used them and so far that's never been wrong.

I'll try and keep it in simple words:
Missiles always hit - true.
Missiles always work when they do - false.

Yeah if you lob a missile at a smaller/faster target, yes it will always hit if going fast enough, but it'll do so little damage it may as well have missed. So yeah, "missiles always hit" as justification for half of them being worthless crap is a joke of an argument and the mark of a clueless newbie.