Ships & Modules

On a general level i'd tend to agree with Cambarus, all systems have drawbacks and for most part they are largely balanced.

I think he'd do good in actually looking at what he's arguing though. Overblown drawbacks have been removed from alot of Tech II turret ammunition. Not because of turret-balance in some imaginary pair-up with missiles (making either an "enemy side" for low skillpoint pilots who can't use both), but simply because it was not used as there was no incentive to it. Alot of the changes that were made to turret Tech II ammunition have been good changes that provide alternatives without affecting some overall notion of balance (don't shame Conflag, Conflag as it is today is excellent for PvP and well balanced for what it does).

Missile Tech II ammunition however not only come with your typical range-modifiers and damage-accuracy considerations but also with arbitrary drawbacks that immidiately affect the ship. On top of that the considerations on the ammunition (as opposed to Conflag, or the reason Void was changed) is that in the existing balance they're not even worth using there. No one in their right mind use Precision, ever. The drawbacks are simply too steep, while the benefits are doubtful at best. Fury have a potential appeal since the extra damage is there but they suffer the same issues Void used to do - whatever raw damage appeal is there, it's effective damage increase is so highly limited by accuracy modifiers that it's hardly ever better than Faction. Void used to face that, Fury do so still.

So if it's a question of seeing the ammunition used as alternative to Faction, then yes, there's room for discussion here and the whole "there's a balance for turrets too" remark is as void as blaster ammo.

If it's a general discussion claiming missiles need a buff, then no, things are relatively balanced as they are.

The only thing the missile ammunition need to do (if you feel you necessarily have to discuss changes to it) is to provide balanced options like the changes to the turret ammunition have done. As far as i'm concerned it's yet another low impact discussion that should get the same low priority. The sucking chestwound of EVE online is 0.0 political gameplay, how it affects the size or scale of community or politics and how that ultimately stifles conflict. I hate having to fall back to that at all times, but it's so pointless discussing balance with actual examples in the game dwindling, because the gameplay isn't there to draw from. I bet the majority of missiles fired today are not even faction, but standard tech I en masse. That should exemplify my argument about the irony of modifier balance discussions over mechanical and environmental.

Don't let general standpoints cloud the judgement of the details you are arguing. It's the reason i keep trying to provide both perspectives in my posts (separating finer discussion from larger or general discussion, if you may). I think that would be a good lesson for Cambarus as well so he keeps it factual.

"Ship X can't do something that ship Y can do" is not a problem, it's variation within the game. "ship X can't do ANYTHING better than ship Y" is a problem, or "ship X is good at too many things" I'm trying to stay away from arguing inty balance because I have little experience flying ships with rockets. I will say this however: Tracking disruptors on frigate hulls let you do absolutely silly things to other people, and they're the reason I hate rocket using ships, because I can't TD them :(

The main advantage of a ceptor is and always has been it's speed, and speed is MUCH more important than sig radius for staying alive.

1)Small ACs have an optimal range of 800meters, a crow can skirt the edge of web range and still do damage. See? I can point out the differences in weapon systems too :D

2)A TD will bring a claw's DPS to about 0. I know this, because back when I was pretty much living in a bomber having a TD saved my ass from more claws than I care to count, and it got to the point where I was letting them tackle me if I had friends nearby because a TD on my bomber made me untouchable by claws. I don't know off the top of my head how much DPS a crow does, but I'd wager it's more than 0.

3)Well given that you'd load faction ammo to deal with drones, why do either of the T2 ammo types matter? You're also being very inconsistent arguing in a thread about ammo and using a ship whose job isn't shooting things as your proof that said ammo is broken.

Then I declare it also a problem that turrets having drawbacks that missiles don't is also a problem. I'll take my capless, variable damage type lasers now please.


But you STILL haven't actually given any reason why ship-based drawbacks are bad. You're basically just upset because missiles have certain drawbacks that turrets don't. You're acting like a ship based drawback instantly makes them useless, which is absurd, because the ships using them are in no way underpowered, and your " X should have the same sorts of penalties as Y" logic can literally be applied to every weapon system in the game:

Giving one turret shorter range than all the others? That's not balanced!
Making one turret fight in falloff, thereby notably lowering its DPS? That's not balanced!
Giving one turret such heavy cap use the only ships able to continuously fire their guns without cap injecting will have to forfeit a bonus for it? That's not balanced!

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Penalties that affect ships using a weapon and penalties affecting the weapon itself are essentially the same thing.

You remind me a lot of the people whining that they should switch the damage modifiers on EM/explosive drones, because there wasn't really a reason to use the EM ones. What they claimed was a buff (which it was, to em drones) was really a nerf to drones as a whole because they were so caught up in making the spreadsheets line up that they weren't paying attention / didn't care about the balance of the weapon system as a whole.

When I read:
"Then, if you still think T2 missiles are too good and/or out of balance tinker with their range, explosion velocity or explosion radius. "
what I hear is
"I don't actually care about the BALANCE issues being discussed, I just want the spreadsheets to line up."
You should never intentionally make something imbalanced for the sake of balance, it just doesn't make sense.

Okay i tried to avoid it ...but you are dumb

He's saying the penalty from Rage rockets is nowhere near enough to be a concern during most (not all) TQ situations. Meanwhile, the sig reduction bonus on ceptors is huge, mathematically and practically.

Exactly. As I've said over and over, the T2 Missiles do have penalties to themselves as well as to the ship.

My alts do not post.



No. Just remove the ship penalties then, if needed, adjust missile range, explosion velocity and/or radius to balance them. Far easier and balanced then the current system.


It's not just torps. It's all missiles. With that in mind, any missile ship going against a turret ship of the same size will have sig bloom or gimped speed if it chooses to use T2 ammo, while the turret ship performs at its peak. This should not be. Instead, both pilots should only have to worry about the performance of their weapons. As it stands now this is not the case.

Turret ship vs. missile ship of same class in a small gang or 1v1 situation: When deciding to use T2 ammo the turret ship must consider range and tracking issues. Missile ship must consider range issues, "tracking" issues, gimped speed, AND/OR balloned signature. Any sane person would see this for the imbalance it is.

Wrong again! It affects chance to hit, quality of hit AND tracking. It also affects missiles even more which is why artillery fired from a BS at a stationary frig will obliterate the frig, while a torp will just tickle it (unless the frig is loaded with rage missiles then it takes more damage) And therein lies the imbalance.

Your "points" are meaningless and just a rehash of your proven poor logic. I have decided to stay in this thread with my limited pvp experienced character both to annoy you and because this issue is dear to me.

Furthermore:


Carry on.

So you have a problem with the phoon then? Aside from raven hulls and stealth bombers there aren't really a whole lot of options for people who want to use torps, and tbh that sounds like something that could be fixed (if, indeed, it needs fixing at all)

Why? "It's something turret users don't have to deal with" isn't a reason to change something, since if anything we need MORE variation in the different weapons, not less.


You keep doing this thing where you point out the downsides of missiles, ignore the benefits, and act like that makes it imbalanced. Very well then, I'll stoop to your level for a moment:

Turret ship vs. missile ship of same class in a small gang or 1v1 situation: When deciding which ammo to use, the missile ship can freely choose its damage type, while all the guns (even autocannons if we're talking about t2 ammo) are forced to use a specific damage profile regardless of the enemy's resistances. Any sane person would see this for the imbalance it is.