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I think a subtle solution to gal survivability would be to drastically reduce signature sizes of gallente cruiser/BS hulls. this keeps them from becoming better tankers raw HP wise than amarr while still making the reduction of speed a web brings against blaster boats less effective.

i do applaud your calm and hopeful approach towards this hybrid rebalance good sir despite all the obvious trolls and minmatar fanboys that are trying their hardest to say otherwise with basically bold faced lies,propaganda, skewed stats, and other terrible examples and reasons why gallente is *fine*

Rails should deal Alpha. Thats what they are there for. DPS should be Artilery/Autocannons/Blasters. Thats pretty much how you balance the things and make them viable.

yeah if game was new ill say the same but imho too late for that change

This is an issue. Say, Armor Cane vs. Shield Cane. Now, the armor cane has a speed penalty for his tank, and the shield cane has a sig radius penalty for his. But really, does this sig radius increase actually make a difference at all if these 2 are brawling (and yes, I know the armor cane does benefit from higher eHP and more utility for webs and whatnot, but if the shield cane wants to kite around 20km and has those extra lows for TEs he will lay out alot more damage.)

I think the heart of the Gallente problem comes down to the disadvantages of armor tanking being significantly worse than shield when you need speed. Armor however, is better for logistics (when compared to a LSE fit bassy) simply because a 1600mm plate affects a guardian about the same amount as it would on a harbinger, but a LSE on a bassy has 2-3 times the signature radius effect as it would on a drake.

Gallente need an option to tank yet have some reasonable speed. Honestly I like your suggested change, but it would need to be pretty extreme to have any actual effect, and then more likely than not you will just see more shield tanking brutixs

Lets assume that Gallente speed is increased significantly (say 20-40 m/s per ship or something).

Outcome: More shield Gallente ships since they would be fast enough to catch those shield ships. However, you run into the problem of no one wanting to use armor on them because they'd still be too slow (14.3% speed reduction from 3 trimarks hurts too badly assuming max rigging skills). And you are back to square one.

Perhaps another angle to this could be a massive railgun buff, being able to effectively punish those who are kiting you. But Caldari Hybrid shields tend to have an optimal range bonus and are better suited for rails(and with the SiSi Null ammo buff are looking better for blasters), whereas the Gallente seem to have more tracking bonuses which are difficult to take advantage of with blasters. For example, the Vindicator. Why do you need a tracking bonus with 90% webs? The Talos is the exception to this because of the nature of its platform: its fast moving and using oversized guns, so that tracking bonus is a tremendous help.

Honestly I don't think there's an easy tweak for this, but my list would be:
1. Sig radius reduction on Gallente ships.
2. Increase medium sized weapons to sig radius/explosive radius of 140.
3. A way to use Mid slots for armor ships to sacrifice tackle/eWAR for speed yet make it undesirable for current nano-fleets (say a mod that reduces plate mass modifier)
4. Increase Warp-To Range to 200km to give railgun battleships a specialized range.
5. Give Hybrids a more unique ammo choice by not changing damage, but changing the Rate of Fire. So instead of +40% range ammo doing say 60% less damage, it would cycle whatever percentage slower to equal about the same DPS and still hit just as hard. Thus it gives railguns some alpha choices at longer range ( I REALLY LIKE THIS IDEA).

I had to bold number 5 because I really really like the sound of that.

Not sure where your figures are coming from, but mine are from in game and correct as far as I can tell.

the thing is its up to CCP to decide whether high alpha is good for teh game or not. Once they decide that they can start balancing long range guns. If they want high alpha then they need to increase railguns and beams alpha(no idea how good beams alpha is admittedly). Artillery, Railguns and Beams should all have comparable dps and alpha imo. Obviously the one with the least range has the highest and vise versa. As it stands now the difference it too great.

it is never too late

projektiles where crap before 2007 now they are overpowered
what does it tell u ??

i was hoping to say that huge changes can be made any time in mmos.

and i dont wont hybrids to be overpowered just equal with less then 5% diference in performance compared to other guns.
thats balance

what we have now are huge jumps between them

at least, every race should have a ship that can be used for the same task equally good.

and now projektils/minmatar are not only the best in pvp but also in pve
for example the machariel fitted for high alpha onshots rat battleships in belts at a distance of 100km

is that balance ?
with railguns u are happy when u hit 25% shield at this distance

same with lazors or missiles and sentrys aint better either :(
damage drones nowdays are becoming even useles after so many turret bufs
so drone ships are also the worst choise for pve or pvp