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[Scylla] Ishtars

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Mournful Conciousness
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#301 - 2015-03-25 20:07:48 UTC
Even on a battleship, a damage-augmented sentry drone is a battleship-powered weapon with an interceptor's lock time and the accuracy of a cruiser.

Without DDAs they were acceptable. With DDAs they are game-breaking.

Embers Children is recruiting carefully selected pilots who like wormholes, green killboards and the sweet taste of tears. You can convo me in game or join the chat "TOHA Lounge".
Aeryn Maricadie
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#302 - 2015-03-25 22:18:00 UTC
Mournful Conciousness wrote:
Even on a battleship, a damage-augmented sentry drone is a battleship-powered weapon with an interceptor's lock time and the accuracy of a cruiser.

Without DDAs they were acceptable. With DDAs they are game-breaking.


They have a sig resolution of 400 so they have the accuracy of BS weapons not cruisers, looking at the chart you will notice that even the closest ranged sentries cant hit **** under 20km making it easy to get under the guns when fielded by Battleships.

Also don't forget that they have the lock time of the parent ship as well. getting around that by using the assist function means there is a problem with that but not the sentries.

Sentry drones are fine as a Battleship class weapon its giving them to cruisers that causes the problem.
afkalt
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
#303 - 2015-03-26 08:52:27 UTC  |  Edited by: afkalt
Soldarius wrote:
afkalt wrote:

Actually it's perhaps more true than you may first realise. The problem is comparing them to (unbonused or not) other weapons and that is that they cap out at FIVE possible "turrets" per ship before bonuses. Most other DPS boats have more than this.

This is why when hulls are compared they use the terms "effective" launchers/turrets and allows more meaningful comparison at a high level.

This is really not obvious from the chart and is being overlooked when it shouldnt be. The chart is an oversimplification (and was originally done to show why rails were being nerfed)

They are still outliers, but that chart is a bit of a misrepresentation because if you alter sentries to fit there, you nuke them as a battleship platform (where they belong, imo).


Your point of my solution nerfing sentries so as to be inappropriate as a BS-sized weapon platform is correct, and after further reflection I realize that my suggestion would so exactly as you say. But CCP has yet to even acknowledge that Sentries are a BS-sized weapon. (plz link if I am wrong. But I've never seen or heard of it.)


I don't think they've ever admitted it. Sig radius is the big tell though. My phone rounds so it may not be exact but curator II have 0.03 tracking, mega beams 0.02 but the beams go further - but almost identical.

It's the application bonused hulls that make them so fiercesome (no one complains about geddon drones Or in fact the VNI or the old Gila).
Mournful Conciousness
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#304 - 2015-03-26 10:52:38 UTC
Aeryn Maricadie wrote:
Mournful Conciousness wrote:
Even on a battleship, a damage-augmented sentry drone is a battleship-powered weapon with an interceptor's lock time and the accuracy of a cruiser.

Without DDAs they were acceptable. With DDAs they are game-breaking.


They have a sig resolution of 400 so they have the accuracy of BS weapons not cruisers, looking at the chart you will notice that even the closest ranged sentries cant hit **** under 20km making it easy to get under the guns when fielded by Battleships.

Also don't forget that they have the lock time of the parent ship as well. getting around that by using the assist function means there is a problem with that but not the sentries.

Sentry drones are fine as a Battleship class weapon its giving them to cruisers that causes the problem.


Thanks for your reply. My response:

First, lock time. The lock time of a sentry drone is the lock time of the sensor-boosted Confessor destroyer you have assisted with it - half a second? Confessors can perma-tank lowsec gate-guns while sporting 2 or 3 sensor boosters. A gate camp of 1 confessor and 3 Ishtars can alpha most ships that will come through a gate (since no-one uses battleships any more).

Second, accuracy:

We of course agree on the numbers. optimal Sig radius 400 and base tracking of 0.036 for a garde II (about 2/3 that of a neutron blaster cannon)... but:

* With the advent of range-bonused hulls, the drones hit out as far as targeting range, making tracking a moot point.

* With the introduction of the DDA, they hit as hard as a close range weapons system.

Prior to the introduction of DDAs and the ishtar/dominix re-jig, sentries were never cited as a problem in PVP. Today, it's a weapons system that dominates the eve skirmish battlefield.

The events are not unrelated.

Retrospective nerfs to the Ishtar aren't going to help matters or improve the game - no-one wants half a bonus on their ship. Even with no drone damage bonus on the hull, it can fit 3 DDAs, a target painter, micro warp, some shield tank and a DLA... to deliver 440 explosive damage with what is now pinpoint accuracy from 100km away.

If someone is able to burn the 100km, the ishtar itself can burn away, abandon the first set of bouncers and drop gardes, berserkers, warriors etc. Now it can abandon one set of drones and re-connect to another at will, keeping the attacker in a crossfire.

Now, it can be argued that this is good game-play and requires a skilled ishtar pilot - and this it correct. However, the ishtar has been given a running start - a 100km range advantage. If there are 3 such Ishtars on grid, with good separation, then the target is not in a position to even give chase - no ship can chase down a nano-ishtar while tanking 1200dps.

When I first started Eve, the complaint of all gallente pilots (like me) was that we could never get into the fight because the ships were slow and the weapons were short range. Now the ships are fast (this is good) and the weapons range is extreme.

Everyone else now suffers the disadvantage that we used to suffer.

It ain't right I tell ya (although until fozzie sees sense I will be abusing it all I can).

Embers Children is recruiting carefully selected pilots who like wormholes, green killboards and the sweet taste of tears. You can convo me in game or join the chat "TOHA Lounge".
Soldarius
Dreddit
Test Alliance Please Ignore
#305 - 2015-03-26 16:37:04 UTC  |  Edited by: Soldarius
So, looking at that medium weapon+sentry chart, I decided to do the same thing with large weapons. Target conditions are identical to the previously posted chart, except the target is a 400m sigRad ship moving at 101m/s; a typical large ship target before links.

http://imgur.com/XJIWFZY

You may notice I did not include heavy drones. Reason was simple, they are so far superior to everything else that it was distorting the graph. Only Berserkers did less damage than Cruise missiles, and Geckos, lol, 2x the damage obviously. Wasps, Praetors, and Ogres all do more damage than cruise missiles.

Ofc, we have to keep in mind that in order to get the indicated ranges with drones, one has to fit multiple Drone Link Augmentors and Sensor Boosters.

http://youtu.be/YVkUvmDQ3HY
Frostys Virpio
State War Academy
Caldari State
#306 - 2015-03-26 16:37:11 UTC
Harvey James wrote:
Vertiggo Andumi wrote:
Please forgive me if I missed something... does this mean the Navy Vexor has more sentry dps than Ishtar?


thats what i asked too .. no response Shocked


No T2 resist profile
No application bonus
No MWD sig bloom bonus
No heavy speed/tracking bonus
No drone range bonus
No T2 sensor strenght
A wee bit less warp speed

Yes it does get more DPS out of 1 type of drones.

Did I miss anything relevant one side or the other?
Frostys Virpio
State War Academy
Caldari State
#307 - 2015-03-26 16:40:12 UTC
Soldarius wrote:
So, looking at that medium weapon+sentry chart, I decided to do the same thing with large weapons. Target conditions are identical to the previously posted chart, except the target is a 400m sigRad ship moving at 101m/s; a typical large ship target before links.

http://imgur.com/XJIWFZY

You may notice I did not include heavy drones. Reason was simple, they are so far superior to everything else that it was distorting the graph. Only Berserkers did less damage than Cruise missiles, and Geckos, lol, 2x the damage obviously. Wasps, Praetors, and Ogres all do more damage than cruise missiles.

Ofc, we have to keep in mind that in order to get the indicated ranges with drones, one has to fit multiple Drone Link Augmentors and Sensor Boosters.


How do heavies compared to short range weapon if we don't take into account the potential to travel so far because the delay is borderline insane anyway?
Soldarius
Dreddit
Test Alliance Please Ignore
#308 - 2015-03-26 16:55:06 UTC  |  Edited by: Soldarius
Frostys Virpio wrote:
Soldarius wrote:
So, looking at that medium weapon+sentry chart, I decided to do the same thing with large weapons. Target conditions are identical to the previously posted chart, except the target is a 400m sigRad ship moving at 101m/s; a typical large ship target before links.

http://imgur.com/XJIWFZY

You may notice I did not include heavy drones. Reason was simple, they are so far superior to everything else that it was distorting the graph. Only Berserkers did less damage than Cruise missiles, and Geckos, lol, 2x the damage obviously. Wasps, Praetors, and Ogres all do more damage than cruise missiles.

Ofc, we have to keep in mind that in order to get the indicated ranges with drones, one has to fit multiple Drone Link Augmentors and Sensor Boosters.


How do heavies compared to short range weapon if we don't take into account the potential to travel so far because the delay is borderline insane anyway?


Aye, heavies be slow. You really don't want to wait for them to go 100km. I think when one is considering which is short range and which is long range, Heavy Drones are short range and Sentry Drones are long Range. But EFT always shows mobile drones doing linear damage.

Like I said, Berserkers do slightly less damage than cruise missiles, and all the others do more. Guess I really should have included them.

http://youtu.be/YVkUvmDQ3HY
Xequecal
Ministry of War
Amarr Empire
#309 - 2015-03-26 17:44:55 UTC  |  Edited by: Xequecal
I've said it before, I'll say it again, the real problem with the Ishtar is that there is no ship in the game that can effectively hit an Ishtar shooting from range without being locked into kin/therm damage and shooting right into its T2 resists.

No ship smaller than a battleship has the range to hit an Ishtar other than the Tengu, Vulture, and Eagle. All three use kin/therm railguns. Since you can't fight at range, you're forced to bloom your sig to try to MWD up closer letting them destroy you with sentry guns as you try to get in close.

Even if you include battleships, only the Apocalypse and Megathron have sufficient range and tracking to hit an Ishtar shooting from max range. Artillery with tremor has tracking that is so bad it can't actually track Ishtars, even if they're 125km away. Proton L has only a 96km optimal and does absolute **** for damage. The Megathron does kin/therm damage, and the Apocalypse doesn't have the fitting room to use Tachyons in the first place.

The only real counters to Ishtars that don't use sentry drones themselves (Dominix, carriers) are Navy Apocs, or an absolutely gigantic blob of Tengus that can alpha them off the field despite doing kin/therm damage only.
afkalt
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
#310 - 2015-03-26 17:52:49 UTC
If they unlocked the cerb from kinetic, it'd give them an interesting run. But they wont, because being locked to a damage type is "fun".
SilentAsTheGrave
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#311 - 2015-03-26 18:24:03 UTC
Would removing the sentry bonus [from the Ishtar] completely be enough of a change?
Lienzo
Amanuensis
#312 - 2015-03-27 23:18:53 UTC
Why should a Gallente ship get a bonus to using Amarr drones?

Limit the Ishtar drone damage bonuses to thermal damage and call it a day.
Shaklu
State War Academy
Caldari State
#313 - 2015-03-28 11:44:34 UTC
I just don't understand why a cruiser class has bonuses to battleship weapons. Heavy drones and sentries are battleship class weapons, and unless you are flying a t3 battlecruiser or battleship you shouldn't have bonuses to battleship weapons.

I'd even say being able to have 5 sentries/heavies up at a time is overkill. Removing bonuses and only allowing 3 or 4 sentries to be active via bandwidth makes the most sense to me.
Aiyshimin
Shiva Furnace
#314 - 2015-03-28 12:29:06 UTC
Shaklu wrote:
I just don't understand why a cruiser class has bonuses to battleship weapons. Heavy drones and sentries are battleship class weapons, and unless you are flying a t3 battlecruiser or battleship you shouldn't have bonuses to battleship weapons.

I'd even say being able to have 5 sentries/heavies up at a time is overkill. Removing bonuses and only allowing 3 or 4 sentries to be active via bandwidth makes the most sense to me.


They aren't battleship class weapons. They are drones.
Aiyshimin
Shiva Furnace
#315 - 2015-03-28 12:40:59 UTC
Soldarius wrote:
Aiyshimin wrote:
Gallowmere Rorschach wrote:
Soldarius wrote:
http://evenews24.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/zbg9Bbn-1024x702.png

Sentry drones are so well balanced. Roll

Holy crap. I knew Artillery and ACs were bad, but goddamn dude, when you put it like that...


They aren't bad and neither sentries are op when you fit the weapons on the appropriate hulls. The only thing that gets bizarrely out of line are RLML, which outrange and damage most other weapon systems.

Unfitted weapon stats aren't really relevant in balance discussions.


Holy crap. Did you seriously just post that? Unfitted weapon stats absolutely relevant. If the weapons within a group are not comparable (comparable means having some variation within a general performance range, not identical in performance), then exactly how do you balance them? Put widely disparate bonuses or even penalties on every ship in the game to compensate?

The unfit weapon stats are exactly where CCP should start with balancing. Then they can correct any obvious and glaringly bad bonuses on the hulls that have them. Charts like the above indicate disparities in performance (poor balance) between systems in the same category; this case medium weapons + Rapid Lights.

Sentry drones have better applied dps to a medium target under worst conditions than every other weapon system by a large margin from 28km all the way out to as far as you can get them to engage.

I've suggested multiple ways to fix this. Here is another way; nerf the damage on Gardes, Curators, and Bouncers so that they apply the same dps as Wardens to the same target at their engagement ranges. They'll be comparable to the short-range weapons at long range, better than the long-range weapons at long range, and worse than short range weapons at short range.

tbh, even that might not be enough.

edit: The only thing you said that I agree with is that Rapid Lights (ie light missiles) have too much range. The front-loaded dps is ok.


Holy crap, did you just post that nonsense? Do you not realize that unbonused, unfitted weapons do not exist on TQ? All the weapons you compare are fitted on appropriate ships in reality, and what is relevant is how the weapons are balanced between these ships.

Do yourself a favour and compare those weapons fitted on ships in EFT graphs and you realize how big of a fool you just made yourself.
Iroquoiss Pliskin
9B30FF Labs
#316 - 2015-03-28 19:51:18 UTC
Lienzo wrote:
Why should a Gallente ship get a bonus to using Amarr drones?

Limit the Ishtar drone damage bonuses to thermal damage and call it a day.


Yes. This.

Or

Remove Sentries from the Ishtar completely.

CCP vOv

// [PvP Damage Done by Class (Scylla)] //

[Cruisers Online]
Deacon Abox
Black Eagle5
#317 - 2015-03-28 20:52:01 UTC  |  Edited by: Deacon Abox
HazeInADaze wrote:
I was in sentry drone fleets long before the HAC rebalance. The changes that brought on mass sentry use just amped up an already powerful fleet design. The issue is, and will remain, the ability to put out battleship firepower and range from a mobile and resilient platform.

The HAC will remain resilient and mobile, what it needs to lose is the area control provided by mass sentry. Simply nerfing the fire power is a brutish rebalance, what should be introduced is a hard counter. Maybe a battleship or capital class module which jams drones or reduces the control range of drones within an area. Create a way to force the HACs to defend the area by risking their ships. The counter to sentries should come with some weakness so the RPS chain is maintained -- preferably a chain that climbs the ship-class ladder.

Reducing the power of a ship is never a fun solution. Players want to feel like their ship or fleet is amazing. Creating a solid Rock, Paper, Scissors chain allows people to fly powerful ships, have absolutely lopsided victories, but never give the impression of total imbalance because if the proper counter was used the fight would have gone dramaticalky different.

Hey Haze o/. Recently, I tried suggesting a solution along this line of thought. One that would simultaneously buff an ewar and ewar boat line that could use a buff. And would not kill the Ishtar or sentries, but would alter how the ship could perform. Bring it closer or force it to armor tank more.
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=5562713#post5562713

But as you can see it just got shot down with the usual flair and usual suspects. What?

edit - The Ishtar problem is similar to the old Drake problem. Having decent or good damage at range while being able to perma mwd all around and avoid getting wiped. The game seriously needs to examine the advantages to certain sniper type ships. Ishtars and Tengus already in the crosshairs but if nerfed to heavily it will only favor the rise of Eagles, Cerbs, whatever. Sniper Corms at range already rule small plexes in FW. Either buff the other gun types to compete, or change some factors about ranged damage and mobility.

CCP, there are off buttons for ship explosions, missile effects, turret effects, etc. "Immersion" does not seem to be harmed by those. So, [u]please[/u] give us a persisting off button for the jump gate and autoscan visuals.

Shaklu
State War Academy
Caldari State
#318 - 2015-03-30 15:09:02 UTC  |  Edited by: Shaklu
Aiyshimin wrote:
They aren't battleship class weapons. They are drones.

But they are. Heavy and Sentry drones are designed as anti-BS drones for use by ships like the Dominix. While you can use them on smaller ships, you can only use a very limited number.

Frigate Drone boat bandwidth is 25 - allowing 5 light drones (1 sentry/heavy)
See: Tristan, Dragoon, Algos

Cruiser/BC Drone boats have bandwidths of 50 - allowing 5 medium drones (2 sentry/heavy)
See: Vexor, Curse, Pilgrim, Harbinger, Prophecy, etc.

BS Drone boats have a bandwidth of 125 - allowing 5 sentry or heavy drones
See: Dominix, Armageddon

There are some minor exceptions, like the Prophecy having 75, and the Algos having 35.. but the most gross exception is the Ishtar which has 125, more than the Battlecruiser done ships, the same as a Battleship drone boat. Except it's not a BS and has a tiny sig radius and can MWD all over the place, Making it deal equal damage as a Dominix without having to worry about having a tank as it can fly away, and is much harder to hit in the first place because it's a cruiser.

Edit:
In the same way that weapons are restricted via powergrid requirements, so too are drones restricted via their bandwidth. You may be able to fit 1 or 2 battleship guns on a smaller ship, but that would be silly.. the same thing goes for drones. Bandwidth and drone bay capacity limit the number of drones you have available and the number you can actually use. Cruisers should only have a bandwidth designed for medium drones, though sentry drones could be used if you wanted to - in a very limited manner.
Soldarius
Dreddit
Test Alliance Please Ignore
#319 - 2015-03-30 15:42:20 UTC  |  Edited by: Soldarius
Aiyshimin wrote:


Holy crap, did you just post that nonsense? Do you not realize that unbonused, unfitted weapons do not exist on TQ? All the weapons you compare are fitted on appropriate ships in reality, and what is relevant is how the weapons are balanced between these ships.

Do yourself a favour and compare those weapons fitted on ships in EFT graphs and you realize how big of a fool you just made yourself.


You do realize that it is completely impossible to even get those lines on the chart without fitting them to a ship right? EFT rulez, m8.

Not only that, but you clearly didn't even read the relevant posts, nor are you capable of understanding why anyone would want to compare the base weapon stats. The graph in question was not even my idea. I just copied what someone else did and applied it to large weapons.

Without being able to compare base weapon stats, one cannot even begin to try to balance the ships that apply bonuses to them. You are so far behind the power curve in this conversation that you may as well just excuse yourself at this point.

http://youtu.be/YVkUvmDQ3HY
Soldarius
Dreddit
Test Alliance Please Ignore
#320 - 2015-03-30 16:02:55 UTC  |  Edited by: Soldarius
Aiyshimin wrote:
Shaklu wrote:
I just don't understand why a cruiser class has bonuses to battleship weapons. Heavy drones and sentries are battleship class weapons, and unless you are flying a t3 battlecruiser or battleship you shouldn't have bonuses to battleship weapons.

I'd even say being able to have 5 sentries/heavies up at a time is overkill. Removing bonuses and only allowing 3 or 4 sentries to be active via bandwidth makes the most sense to me.


They aren't battleship class weapons. They are drones.


425mm Railgun II: 400m signature resolution, optimal 57.6km, falloff 24km (81.6), tracking .01 rad/s.
Tachyon Beam Laser II: 400m signature resolution, optimal 52.8km, falloff 20km (72.8), tracking .014rad/s.
1400mm Howitzer Artillery II: 400m signature radius, optimal 48km, falloff 35km (83), tracking .009 rad/s.

Bouncer II: 400m signature resolution, optimal 36km, falloff 54km (90km), tracking .019 rad/s.

Definitely not a BS-class weapon.

edit: Also don't mind the best-in-class range and tracking.

http://youtu.be/YVkUvmDQ3HY