Ships & Modules

This thread will contain a lot of contributing factors to the conclusion i draw, so im afraid you can't TL;DR. Incoming wall of text

The way Eve used to be (I've played since RMR):
Only T1 points, no T2 disruptors. Faction available but not necessary for most fits. Falloff bonuses limited to a select few ships. All webs went 10km for 90%, scramblers didn't turn off MWD's and 20km points where the norm, scramblers (post WCS nerf) are pointless (hohoho, pun!) outside of EXTREME fitting problems on frigates.

The effective range of an autocannon with barrage is around 14-16km without bonuses. Other guns is <10km apart from lasers which aren't heavily used. Falloff bonused ships are hitting out to 20-25km with long range ammo. Falloff hybrids are htiting to 15km or so.

Now:
Damage projection has gone up alarmingly since the change to Tracking Enhancers falloff bonuses. This isn't a bad thing, i like extra range and more to the point, better hit quality. I like the choice of more damage or more range in my low slots. These are good things. So what's this thread all about? I'd like to link the battle report, but i wasn't in a corp when it happened, and the pirate that died hasn't API verified the kill (probably 'cause HE MAD). But here is the situation:

(Retribution Expansion) - This was on day 2 of the expansion release. So it's a while ago.

I'm flying a stabber with a Large ASB, 24km Point and a mix of gyro/TE's in the lows. I jump into a a losec system and a Pirate Hurricane is on the gate - he is dual LSE fit. I engage, knowing my backup of a Blaster Dual-Large-ASB Moa is 1 jump behind. I start fighting and hold a point on the Hurricane. I strip most of his shields before i die and my blaster-buddy arrives just in time to land a scram on him. he finishes him off. Stabber lost for Cane kill. We get 20mil bounty and enough loot to instantly replace my stabber and fitting. GF!

And that's my point, this is a standard fight most people can expect to find and this isn't a big deal, the specifics of the fight are my problem. I had a T2 disruptor on and held a point on this guy. I'm a ship with a Falloff bonus so realistically i operate out of the 10km 'Kill Zone' and my tank is lighter, reflected by my lower fitting and slot layout versus a more 'Brawler' style ship, such as the Hurricane. But the hurricane was still projecting damage, easily, to me at 20-24km - enough to out dps my Large ASB tank and still strip armour and structure. I died after my ASB ran out of charges, but only about 5-6 seconds after... i was already well into structure before it needed to reload (i kept it running anyway).

Now we get to the meat of the issue: Damage projection has gone up a LOT recently but the effective range of combat hasn't. The effective range of combat is defined by the maximum range you can warp disrupt to, since without warp disruption people will just leave and you have a fail-fit with no chance of committing to fights and getting a kill on anyone with enough a brain to warp out.

If you fit a faction disruptor and have an OGB, you can get 45km warp disruptors without over heat. If we look at the same fight i was in and say i was 30-40km away, i would have avoided 90% of the hurricane's dual TE damage and slowly picked him apart. But spending 150mil on a 30km disruptor another billion spent on a Loki to boost my point range, this average fight for new to old players becomes a specialist fight for big spenders with alts... and for what? So my 10 mil stabber can effectively use its range bonus?

Ok lets take into account overheating. Had i overheated my disruptor i would be looking at 28km range. But i'm not going to kill this guy quickly. My disruptor will burn out before i kill him - and at that range is a 50/10 (which is fine, he IS a battlecruiser and im a T1 cruiser). But lets look at the other side of the coin. He has a Scrambler fitted. He can overheat it to around 10km range. He does this and catches me. The secondary effect of the scrambler turns off my MWD and im dead in literally seconds. Once he has scrammed me he can un-overheat his module and it wont burn out. He just needs 1-2 cycles of overheat to catch me. Similarly with Web's - they can be overheated for 1-2 cycles then un-overheated once standard optimal has been reached. This makes the standard disruptor a massive last place in terms of effectiveness during overheating.

With loki links/faction mods - an overheated disruptor CAN be useful to secure a kill on a fleeing target - but this is only because you had enough disruptor range to keep the fight going long enough to let you maintain enough range to stay out of the majority of the damage of a brawler. The overheat is the just used to keep them pointed while you nibble that last of their HP away.

To this end, i propose: We increase the range of Disruptors. Why? Here's some points.

-T3 links are being heavily nerfed, so combat range will be reduced soon regardless even with OGB.
-Brawlers can now project higher damage to 20k+ against kiting ships who have less damage and tank - but more range (range which is unused due to the limitations of disruptor range).
-Overheating scramblers' and webs' is massively powerful and used in 90% of fights.
-Overheating disruptors is rare and rarely useful outside extreme faction/OGB fights.
-Oversized AB's are incredibly popular and more useful than an MWD now simply because they help avoid damage more so than an MWD... all of which is entirely related to the combat range dictated by warp disruption range. (all ships get amazing tracking against an MWD target, so with higher projection on all ships, kiting ships cannot speed tank or range tank and are forced to Sig-Tank/Speed tank with oversized mods which is only viable on a handful of ships)

The new ranges i think would make more sense would be:
T1 - 25km
T2 - 30KM
Fac - Up to 33KM
Scram/web - unchanged.

*Continues on next post*

After reading ur post, the first thing i can think of is in fleets, proteuses/arazu with faction point (and OGB) is looking at a 90 (110heated) km point range, this is often enough to stop a few hostile battleships and kill them, they wont burn away anytime soon.

ships like the slicer (and many other kiting ships) benefit greatly from disruptors as their sheer speed is useally enough to stop ships from scrambling u
in my opinion its a risk/reward scenario if u roam with scrams, its shorter range but if u do catch things with scram/web they generally wont get anywhere in a hurry, while a point might stop the initial warp but ppl can still speed away from you

if u were to increase the overall point range something would need to be done with gallente recons/t3 as 150km points would be just to much

my 0.02$

This. Especially on the gang links vs training time front... and I have a maxed out link alt.

how about just nerfing TE's and bringing back close range combat?

No. Gang links, as a whole, are massively overpowered whether they are on grid or off grid.



Umm. LOL.



Yes, that is in fact a desired outcome.

-Liang

I am comparing a T1 cruiser to a good BC. I'd also like to point out i've fought a dominix in an assault frigate and held him to ransom. Eve is not about "Bigger = better", it's about a million different factors and video's such as 'The Stabber' by Yuki Li all those years ago where the perfect example of a no-tank ship with good speed and projection doing that they do best, and showcasing pilot skill.

Brawlers have a MUCH larger margin for error but are rewarded with more damage and surviability - this is is not countered by kiting ships having range advantage anymore, since range is relative to warp disrupt range which hasnt changed in 5 years, but projection and speed have. All these things contribute to a slow death of kiting ships outside of billion isk fits with OGB.

Here is a graph of stabber DPS versus Hurricane DPS in the 25km -50km range. They are both using 425's with 2x TE and RF-PP ammo.

[IMG]http://i1262.photobucket.com/albums/ii606/B1zmark/StabberVersusCaneGraph_zps03b550f3.png[/IMG]

SO basically its 27km before that range bonus benefits the stabber over the raw 'guns and deeps' of the hurricane. Now that's fine. You expect to loose a LOT of dps due to range, but you make sure you THEY LOOSE MORE. That's the point of a kiting fit.

Now lets look at those figures with 180's and no TE's - since 180's where the base falloff range before the larger guns got a falloff buff, and TE's never used to increase falloff. And for arguments sake, we'll do it with barrage since that's what people used to use before faction ammo and TE's.

[IMG]http://i1262.photobucket.com/albums/ii606/B1zmark/StabberVersusCaneGraph2_zpsf3b4eaf7.png[/IMG]

As you can see the changeover happens at about 21km, which (and here is the point) it within 24km T2 Disruptor range. Right now a brawler in disruptor range almost exclusively have better damage than a kiter.

Could i have killed that hurricane? Maybe not, he still has more drone and more EHP than me. But i can hold tackle on him for a longer time and i wouldn't have lost my ship in that situation.

"but thats not the point, it's still a T1 cruiser versus a BC!"

Fine, then why don't we all just fly 'Canes and play Hurricanes-Online.

You are still fighting withing the same class of ship i.e. medium just one half class bigger I'e BC over cruiser. What ever you can do in you stabber the cane will do better apart from raw speed. vOv It can out damage you get similar range due to better fitting abiltiy and tank way better than you. Your AF v BS is a totally different scenario and has no bearing on what you are arguing for here.

Simple fact of the matter is you probably had the best outcome of that engagement that you could expect with the tools you used for it. The stabber v cane is too similar a tool set that in this case yes bigger did equal better.

Don't get me wrong i'm not saying you didn't fight well and if your opponent was less skilled you could well have survived but given the match up you described I fail to see any argument to changing the stats of points/tackle other than you didn't want to lsoe your ship. I love the stabber myself i think it's great ship but in that fight I would expect to lose 9 of 10 enagements 1v1. Not the right tool for the job you are describing. Simple

My argument is that the fight you used to decribe your point is not a very good one as the ships used do not in any way give you a logical argument to support your propsal.

I am predominantly a brawler and I often have issues around catching kiters. If the point/tackle ranges were increased it would potentially imbalance the brawling/kiting tactics.

I said potentially as i'm not oppossed to it just that you haven't presented a reasonable or logical argument to support your proposal IMO.

Now if the fight were for example the stabber against a rupture and the same out come was pretty much guarunteed then i could see your point but it wasn't and an armour brawling ruppie would have issues killing you that cane just doesn't. If you can demonstrate that in equal class ships i.e two cruisers, BC's whatever that the kiting ships always get beaten by the brawler the I would agree with you. But as this is definately not the case (much as I would like to trounce all kiters!) then your argument has no logical basis.

A caught kiter (scram/web) is generally a dead kiter. A brawler that can't catch a kiter is generally a dead brawler. Or best case scenario can tank until help arrives. Seems like balance to me.

tl;dr I as in special snowflake ME should always a kiting BC in my kiting cruiser CCP change the game so!!11

Your OP makes no sense whatsoever and you should be ashamed.

Kiting ship vs kiting ship bad example for u argumenting ..........






Wiv