Player Features and Ideas Discussion

---Well yes the idea is to improve other ships so that they are on par with the drake, i love the drake as it is, but the problem could be resolved by improving other ships so they are more enjoyable to fly.
and better at what they are ment to do.
Everyone is happy everyone wins

To put this simply: those that really know how to use the Drake will continue to do so, and probably better in some ways.
Those who are clueless newbies that are upset their mission ship is broken will continue to cry and moan in the face of the inevitable.

BUT DUCHESS WHAT ABOUT MY RESISTS??????????????

I did, and you’re a terrible troll

The problem with a range bonus to missiles is that missile’s weakness become more and more pronounced and thus less useful in PVP as their engagement ranges increases.

Lets consider a basic example, of a fleet of Caracals with heavy missile vs a fleet of Rupture’s armed with 650 mm artillery cannons. Lets say that first volleys begins firing at a range of approximately 65 KM. Not an unreasonable range for these ships given their abilities. Lets assume that both fleets have enough fire power to destroy an enemy ship in one volley.

With my considerable skills, Caracal Heavy Rage missiles travel at a velocity of 7,875 m/s. This divided by 65,000 m means that the first Caracal volley will take 8.25 seconds to reach it’s target. In that time, the rupture fleet (with a rate of fire of 6.88 seconds) will have fired two times with about a second and a half to spare. For a reasonably trained pilot, 1.5 seconds is enough time to destroy a primary target and then switch over to a secondary target. This means, that by the time the first volley of Caracal fire arrives, two caracals will already been destroyed. This problem only gets worse for longer ranges, say in the example of railguns vs missles

Wait it gets better….Because 8.25 seconds is also enough time for the target caracal to figure out that a bunch of missiles are headed it’s way and warp out before it takes ANY damage. Which means the EVEN the caracal’s chance of damaging a target is at risk. BTW the problem ALSO only gets worse for longer range missile duels.

But wait…it gets better still…because the Caracal’s rate of fire is only slightly longer than it’s missile flight time; which means that the Caracal FC has to correctly guess at whether or not the current volley is sufficient to destroy the current target or waste an ENTIRE volley on a destroyed target. This effect can effectively cut a missile boat’s DPS in half if not correctly guessed. This is a problem that the Rupture FC will not have to deal with as he will know instantly whether or not the target is destroyed. AND in addition this is ALSO ALSO a problem that only gets worse with longer ranges.

These THREE problems with long range missile fire, illustrate exactly what is wrong with long range missile bonuses. They are terrible bonuses give, because missiles are terrible long range weapons in PVP. Contrary to CCP doctrine, Missile’s are actually better short ranged weapons than long ranged weapons. Their lack of tracking problems over turrets, becomes more of a bonus as you get in close and their flight time problem vs turrets becomes almost nothing. As such the best missile boats, are short ranged missile boats.

Thus ,with this in mind, range bonuses on missile ships, are not a bonus at all. If anything the range bonus on the caracal/Raven should be removed in favor of a resistance bonus or some other bonus.

Are you serously suggesting that missiles mearly getting to their targets faster is a bonus on par with what other BCs get? Why not just suggest they get black camo bonus instead for all the use it would be....

And I use caracal/rupture example becuase it's the closest ship to what the drake WILL be. No piont in comparing the CURRENT drake when we are talking a future changes.

What's the caldari solo pvp ship? Disruptor range is 24km. I don't need a velocity bonus to hit that. Screw a fleet. I like 1v1. I will fleet if the opportunity presents itself but if I have to base my sub off of finding someone else everytime I want to do something I can quit and find a new game. I don't like to hang on the "i quit" argument in a debate but these changes are unnecessary, they screw the solo guy trying to pvp in a reasonably cost effective ship with missiles. The other option is a cloaky tengu with mediocre damage at a 500mil price point. Unless you want a uncloaked solo pvp ship. Then the damage isn't quite mediocre but good luck sustaining Tengu losses financially.

Keep the resists. Lose the damage bonus for a rof bonus to open up omni missile packages and "slightly" cut back on the base shields of the ship.

You do if you're using HAMs.

Besides IMHO all tier 2 BC should be brought closer to their tier 1 counterparts, and then balanced between themselves, just so that T1 cruisers have a reason to exist.

Edit:
Just to make it clear in what I consider to be tier 1 status:
- drop 1 high slot from each of the Tier 2 BC
- drop one mid/low (depending on race) from each
- decrease the fittings accordingly

For example a hurricane would be something like:
7 highs / 6 turrets
4 mids
5 lows

Now you have a armor tanking minmatar BC that doesn't completely overshadow the shield tanking cyclone or the rupture.

ITS A DAMN BUFF TO DRAKE FFS
DID U EVER FLY ONE IN PVP?????????

I think *snip* the person(s) who have been presented with pages full of actual hard data and STILL continue to post unsupported counter claims containg no actual data without actually READING what has been posted before.

NO missle velocity bonus is NO bonus at all. If you disagree, READ my above post on WHY MISSLE ARE BAD LONG RANGE WEAPONS. I explain why in great detail.

and BTW...it doesn't matter WHAT ships I used in my example becuase the scenario problems are applicable to ANY missle boat.

*insults removed - ISD Eshtir*

As a new player with one Drake toon who can now fit it fully T2 and has been getting into some PVP, I do not like the sound of this. I suppose if it was more clear what the _reason_ to make any changes at all were then it might seem less concerning.

I just don't see the problem really. Drake seems to hover in the top 4 of the kbs, tis true. But as the OP pointed out, the top 20 is dominated by Winmatar. Any "imbalance" to the Drake would seem to be overshadowed by imbalance in the Hurricane, Maelstrom, etc. Thus, irrespective of what effects the proposed changes would have on game dynamics (which NONE of you can predict for certain BTW) the need to make any changes at all is not apparent to me.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

If you want to convince people it needs fixing then convince us it's broke. Seems a bit hard to argue there is a real Drake imbalance when it is pretty much the only Caldari ship in the top 20 . . . *ADDIT* Ah my bad . . . okay so THREE Caldari ships that tend to be in the top 20 and 13 Winmatar . . . yeah, not the same as only one Caldari, but still seems pretty compelling prima facie evidence of exceptional need to change some Winmatar before change any Caldari.

BTW, I also don't see the need to resort to derogations like "whiner" and "level 1 skilled" noob, etc. You don't make a more compelling argument by patronizing or belittlling your counterpart on the other side of the debate.