Player Features and Ideas Discussion

And I completely forgot that the vast majority of missile players aren't using them...

They're fleet modules that relieve effort from individuals in having to paint their own targets (and lost painter hits due to server ticks) not to mention that their benefit scales infinitely across the whole distance of the missiles flight time while painters suffer fall off to 0% in time.

Actually, Sir Livingston just posted a video up on his "Eve is Easy" youtube of using an FoF tengu with 2 MGCs...
I commended him for actually finding a viable use for MGCs; Though, it doesn't make FoFs funtional missiles for anything better than burning through HS sites trying to farm out escalations.

thats interesting. would be funny if ccp would have overlooked that most of crimewatch is disabled in nullsec and that those auto targeting missiles are basically following crimewatch flags to find targets.

last time i used them in low they worked fine and i was able to hit a keres with a heretic, my main issue was always that they usually went for drones instead of ewar ships. So if you had a few tristans around you and a maulus they where completely ineffective all you did was to kill 2 goblins before exploding

Under some more stress tests, the MGC seems to have a small niche on suplimentary dps sniper ships like talwars and kite caracals. If they're willing to go OS prop/ no tank type of setups. The MGE continues to be totally worthless. The bonus is not competitive with a third BCU, nano, or SigAmp for the kite type setups.

just like everyone said when you released the new values. Also, CCP, please hire someone who completed some form of college math course please.

Exactly, for OS prop setups, they allow a shuffle trade, you give up tank, move your application to mids, move your PG mods to rigs, and gain BCUs. But this is hilariously niche, and leaves you dead if you come up against a turret boat that can track you. Often possible with an eagle that has a single TC in the mid. Which will still be tanked, unlike you. So what's the point?

Mods not worth their slot cost IMO. Need slight buff for MGC and huge buff for MGE.

Very niche. Like "rare" PvE niche... Just for kicks I took the Tengu configuration from SirLiv's video and tweaked it a bit (Obfuscation Manifold, 3x Faction BCUs/~+6% DPS and a T2 Warhead Calefaction rig to get another ~+5% DPS as this setup only has 3 lows; I dumped T1 Hyperspacials in the remaining slots, swapped the MWD for a Deadspace passive kinetic amplifier and went with Faction HMLs to reduce the power grid requirement). With Ascendancy/Missile implants and full missile skills it was warping along at 9 AU/s and putting out just shy of 600 DPS (600+ DPS pverheated). Faction launchers make a huge difference for FoF missiles as they have a higher rate of fire (even with T2 HMLs/Heavy Missile Specialization V) and hold +5 more rounds of ammunition.

As expected, it worked quite well running pretty much any type of standard HS combat site (then again, it worked fine with rigors prior to MGCs too...). Downside is a huge EM hole and a lot of shiny tied up in a fit with a very low rate of return (not even sure running HS combat sites rates above mining). There's no way I'd sacrifice two mid slots on a Tengu and pooch the tank other than sh*ts and giggles. And we're still talking PvE - nevermind PvP!


If you ran 3x rigors prior it's slightly less effective now in terms of damage application. Thus, a T1 flare is now worth more than a T1 rigor for a third rig. Running either MGCs or MGEs in combination with rigors or flares is only going to see marginal gains (certainly not more than what you're sacrificing in the process).

Let's not go down the turret vs. missile vs. drone path... Turrets can apply full (and more damage), but they also frequently miss (missiles do as well, but not to the same extent). With larger ships and turrets you need a combination of straight vectors, distance or target painters and webs (usually 2/3).

Looking at a few popular examples for ships, would you use a MGC or MGE on (PvE only):

1. Golem. Nope. 2x T2 rigors and 2 TPs allow you to blap most frigates with single Faction volleys. Yes, you have to activate TPs, and yes - there is falloff - but TPs and rigors aren't stacking penalized together, and the Golem gets a whopping +50% TP bonus. Plus it has no low slots and few (if any) mids to sacrifice. Definitely nope.

2. Rattlesnake. Nope. Low slots for a MGE over missile or drone DPS? Nope. Mid slot for a MGC when you need at least one scripted TC for drones? (either range or tracking speed) Nope. Would you run a pair of MGCs to provide range and damage application over utilizing your rigs? Maybe., but unlikely. So a nope.

3. Tengu, Caracal, Cerberus. Yeah, nope, nope and nope. Is there really a scenario where you need more range with any of these setups? Not really. I mean, I guess you could retrofit a Cerberus with HAMs - but the velocity is so slow that you're going to loose so many volleys with an extended range to the point you'd have been better off with HMs and rigors. This applies equally to the Tengu.

4. Raven, Navy Raven and Navy Scorpion. In theory you could use a few of the Navy Scorps mid slots to extend range, but you'd effectively end up with a buffed and more expensive Raven. A more likely scenario is using either a MGE or MGC to make a "poor man's" Navy Raven out of a Raven, since you could probably squeeze out a 20% overall damage application bonus without sacrificing much. Navy Raven? a MGE would offset the new stacking penalty for rigors to some extent such that you'd basically claw back what you lost and maybe gain 5-10% overall damage application previously.

5. Mordus Legion ships. You only need more missile velocity on the Barghest if you need to hit targets out to 395km (and yes, this is technically possible with FoF missiles - although I'm not sure the target would still be on-grid). Mordus ships really have a PvP niche since everything else has better damage application and can be flow for significantly cheaper. An extra low slot or two could certainly be utilized for a MGE, but not at the expense of a DCU or 4th BCU. So maybe, and definitely if you need the slots for Hyperspacial rigs.

6. Either Typhoon. Any halfway decent shield setup precludes the use of MGCs and a hull or armor setup eliminates the possibility of MGEs. So again in theory, maybe - but Typhoons aren't really bonused for PvE use. Again, you could turn a Typhoon into a "poor man's" Raven - but why not just buy a Raven?

I'm sure I've only made a dent and omitted quite a few, but the premise is basically the same: MGCs and MGEs are inherently underpowered.

What I'm seeing as the major issue with these modules is that missiles essentially have two different effects for application and range.

You have exp velocity and exp radius.
Then, you have missile velocity and missile flight time.

Now, this works out for the missiles as a stand alone system, but when you try to add modifiers, it becomes complicated.

In the case of range, that is easy. We're always going to want velocity over flight time.
so the issue with MGE and MGC, as far as range goes, can simply be addressed by applying all buffs to velocity. (though, you do have the issue of stacking penalties, which is the complication here)

As far as application goes, it's tricky business.
At a stationary or slow moving target, it's all about exp radius.
For a target moving at a moderate speed, both are equally important.
Against a fast moving target, the system favors exp velocity, though a smaller target will sway how important radius is, but it is still less important than velocity.

What's weird (and I've never seen someone actually mention it as an issue) is that when a target is moving very fast speed, reducing your exp radius can actually hurt you more than help you.
What I mean by this is, if you're already having issues with the target mitigating damage by out-running the exp velocity, this becomes worse when you reduce the exp radius, as they then have to out-run the velocity but in a smaller area, thus reducing the amount of time they spend inside the radius.

You then have the situations where you come across an immobile or webbed to hell target, to which exp velocity is basically meaningless. This causes the exp velocity bonus of MGEs and MGCs to be virtually useless.

You also have an odd case with short range missiles that turrets (if used properly) do not share the same concerns.
This is, when you need range. You can increase your range, but at the cost of application.
Now, the reason I say turrets don't share this concern is, while they do lose tracking while fitting range scripts, they can negate the tracking issues by catching targets on alignment, catching them on a turn, following travel direction, and hitting a slow/immobile target.
Missiles cannot do this, which means application modification is always required, unless the target is a larger class than what your missiles are intended for (IE lights shooting a cruiser).
There's basically no way to address this issue without removing a stat and/or always giving missiles some sort of application bonus, even with range modules.

As far as the varying importance of exp radius vs exp velocity... Well, this could possibly be addressed by having a exp velocity script, exp radius script, and a combined script.
However, you again face the issue of stacking penalties, which are the bane of missiles systems, probably more so than any other weapon.
It's kind of a catch 22.... Perhaps missiles just need to altogether go back to the drawing board.

It's a bit weird that introducing a module, that was intended to help missiles, has instead caused their blemishes to stand out; Kinda like when you're staining wood and it causes the imperfections to show...

The only aspect you could change is switching to RHMLs utilizing Precision ammo, but you take a huge range hit. The 35-second reload time could be a deal killer as well.


Yes. Yes it is. And don't forget there's supposed to be a missile disruption module as well...

My opinion, get rid of exp velocity and flight time.

Exp velocity is a bit of a weird aspect and I believe is a lingering aspect of when missiles were AoE.
It is likely too difficult for CCP to work with, as they likely don't understand it anymore than we do.

As far as flight time, removing this and instead going to a simple max range not only makes makes balancing missile velocity easier, but also relieves the range loss issues caused by acceleration time.

Then, all you have to worry about is a script for exp radius and a max range script.
As far as missile velocity, well... I'm not sure where to go on this, but if you change the others you could likely make it 100km/s and it wouldn't effect range or application, apart from catching frigs.
I'm not suggesting that speed, I'm just using it as an example.
I would imagine that any missile could go 10km/s and it wouldn't effect application, as damage would be solely based on radius.
Sig is essentially the missile version of tracking.
You might always be able to apply damage with my suggestion, but since you now only have 1 application factor to balance, it becomes much easier to establish pros and cons.