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I cannot target them fast enough on my 2nd account to scram them before they are already in web range, at which point scramming them is bad because they overshoot with the MWD on, and you would just web yourself earlier. If you overheat your scram you scram at 13k factoring travel and the Dromi webs at 16km... I have no idea what that guy is talking about other than they have bad fighter skills.

Then you would run into the same problem as if you just gave them 'guns' and made them use that damage formula, where they would need to get increased application to offset Drones (and Fighters) being dumber than a sack of hammers about shutting off their MWDs and reducing speed close to a target, or even about reducing speed in general to better apply damage. Making Fighters lose damage based on their own speed would just create frustration by the pilot's inability to tell them to do something even an hour old newbie out on a fleet can manage, slow down their ship.

Drones get around this problem by having fantastic application but relatively low DPS, except for Sentries which are basically deploy-able guns and sit stationary, thus not needing the crutch of fantastic application for what they are.

Fighters are doing something similar, but because of how they function the gun damage formula would be massively impractical, for more or less exactly the reason you seem to want them to use some half-way version of it.

That said...



I really don't disagree with this. While I think micromanaging fighter recalls is a good challenge for Carrier pilots I think there are better ways this could be accomplished.

While I don't think it would be good to let pilots micro the speed of their Fighters (hard on the server load from Fighters, potential for abuse, and not very immersive or engaging) that is the first thing that comes to mind.

Maybe give Fighters a sort of "fuel" bar that recharges over time and is burned by the MWD. This would mimic the fuel management aspects of a real-world carrier. Then let the Carrier pilot toggle the MWD on and off at will, but have the sig bloom tick down over time after it's shut off instead of an immediate drop, so the Carrier pilot has to manage their (slowly recharging) fuel supplies, can burst the MWD for shorter periods, but has to consider when they're going to shut it off because the fighters lose speed more rapidly than they lose sig radius, making them vulnerable as they come out of a boost.

Also I missed that you can only launch one squad of Support Fighters. This seems a little arbitrary and not all that compelling to me, unless they're worried about these things being too good?

I don't really agree with this. The overall application is out of control and there's some pretty good math in this thread showing that. If the MWD ability was at the root of it they could just make them move slower and call it a day, but it's not, it's that they're doing the whole "nuke sub-caps off the field entirely" thing, not really how fast the fighters get out to 100km and start doing it.

I'm not saying that you couldn't make Fighters useless with a sufficient nerf to the MWD, but I think that would mostly just be frustrating to everything than an actual fix. What CCP are doing with these changes is an actual fix.

Large sig bloom is attached. Makes them miles easier to kill with appropriate weapons.

Only if the target is within the 20 second MWD abilities range, if not, it is another minute before those fighters can chase again.
IF the target is too close and you use the MWD ability - You miss your target altogether because fighters will overshoot due to speed.

So, without even having to think about it, there are 2 drawbacks to MWD use on fighters. Morrigan came up with the most obvious drawback, MWD bloom, so that makes at least 3. More?
Sure;
Cooldown management is a pain, I've lost squads of fighters because of them being stuck 100+k from my carrier and ceptors being fast enough to kill them off. (160 to 200 mil at a time, adds up)
Now we have 4 drawbacks to MWD ability on light fighters - Strategy of using MWD light fighters requires everything to be, just right, 10K short here, too close (and overshoot) there - MWD ability is wasted and your fighters die.

Suggestion - Remove MWD ability from Light Fighters, increase base speed by 25%. In exchange (so they are useful in longer range combat situations as CCP intended - 4,000Km lock range) Allow fighters to warp to and from a target using the tactical overview.

I would point out that the primary trade-off on using the MWD ability is the inability to use it again for a while. It's basically managing cooldowns. With that said...

I disagree with nothing here except the supposition that it's somehow at the root of the issues Carriers have. It might be part of the reason they can effectively camp gates, but there's plenty of evidence in this thread that that's not anywhere near the only issue Carriers have right now with game balance. Though it might be the one getting the most vocal opponents and proponents. After all, camping a gate solo makes you feel awesome and powerful, and having that taken away kind of sucks, but in this case I think it's better for the game.

Like I said, I wouldn't mind seeing the MWD ability made into something more interesting, provided server stress allows for it, but that's because I like interesting mechanics and it would give Carrier players more options, not because I think MWDs, or being able to apply damage with them running, is what's broken about Fighters.

Also Morrigan has a pretty good point about the sig-bloom.



Love so much about this.

So, I think the takeaways here are:

• Carriers aren't completely helpless against an Inty, and an Inty can't perma-tackle a Carrier with a decently balanced Fighter loadout.
• A Carrier can't blap an Inty without so much support as to make the exercise pointless, the support could just kill the Inty.
• The MWD ability is *really* powerful and cycling it is very strong.
• Fitting choice matters a lot in a Carrier's ability to deal with very small, very fast ships.

If the solution for anti-subcap ship to kill subcaps is to bring subcaps to fight them then the dev team has completely failed. Thank you for demonstrating this.

CCP, what's up with the change (as it is on SiSi) causing fighter primary weapons not to activate until they're within range? You're making carriers even more difficult to micromanage than they already are, please don't put that in the patch.

I respectfully disagree. I killed the ceptor in 30 seconds using 2 T1 FSUs and 2 T2 DDAs.


However there are much bigger issues abound - the lock range change is a nightmare.

1. I can shoot at a higher optimal than I can lock (without a weird fit) and cannot increase fighter lock range
2. I cannot see the fighter range to target so I need to button mash against something flitting in and out of range like a ceptor
3. Fighter UI is flood controlled and locks you out for 40 seconds if you issue too many commands in short order. Coupled with the point above, this is a total killer.

0) I'll await Vania confirming, he was surprised too. I don't have captures on this machine (I'm at work), it was late and I was in a rush.

1) Yes, you can. It's trivial. Maybe not that far passed, but you can do wit with just two omnis and the testing last night demonstrated it works. Remember the show info panel is at 0 skills

Lockout Results: http://i.imgur.com/clCEajV.png this actually starts at 40 seconds counts down and happens when you have things like a keres damping and scramming the fighters trying to kill it, or if you're peeling a ceptor using the method I used last night. It's a total pain.