Ships & Modules

if your blasters are outranging point-range, then you aren't flying a brawler anymore. If you say "but Talos" then we get into the issue why are you trying to kite a ship that is setup to kite? Outranging a ship with larger guns has always been a bit dicey. AC tornado and pulse oracle will do the same thing if you're trying to maintain a 23km range on them. Perhaps I'm just making your point for you, but it seems like getting ranged tackle just means you need a specialized ship, and not just any cookie-cutter vagabond will do. IMO there are still plenty of options, such as tackle ceptor, using ewar to neutralize the target's offensive capabilities, or yeah gallente recons! Its a bit hard for standard kiting ships to mitigate damage now since pulse always has scorch and blasters with null actually do something, but this just represents a change in which ships are viable targets, and the kiting ship still has GTFO ability.

That's like saying that logistics are required to get reasonable tank.

I'm not saying link values are fine (in fact, they are not), but trying to get it down to just values alone (without addressing unlimited boosting - imagine 1 logistics healing 10 ships at a time for the same effect as when healing just 1) is wrong way to go. Because of that unlimited boosting everyone can bring a gang-linking ship without making trade-offs in the fleet composition and that's why it becomes required that the other side brings it, too. Introduce proper mechanics (and then reduce link effects themselves) and then you'll find out that bringing 10 gang boosters into a gang of 20 is not viable, while 1 booster provides pretty minor boosts and thus is no longer mandatory.

Also, yes, range is inflated, but this is mostly due to 2 very simple things: TEs and OP tier3 BCs.

I don't see that being true. If anything, this may come as a result of CCP's weird policy of constantly giving ships more and more grid/CPU so that they always pick the heavier guns. I remember playing with plain tech1 points (tech2 didn't exist) and don't recall point range as an issue, although there already were scorch and barrage. Neither Blasters nor ACs outrange tech2 points without adding TEs. Which weaponry has got excessive range in your opinion?

When exactly unlinked tackle became lacking in terms of range?

I, for one, can say exactly when EVE became overtanked. Surely every issue can be traced down to its origin.

I am actually shocked people think i'm being but-hurt over loosing a stabber. The fight i gave an example of was because IT ACTUALLY HAPPENED. I'm not debating that the result was favourable for my side, i agree 100%. But it highlighted something that didn't make sense.

SO since you're hating on a real situation, I'll go back to theory-crafting since you love it so much on these forums. Thorax VS Stabber. Both in the same class and specialisation of ship. Here are the 2 fits im running. Both are Twin extended fits using long range ammo - which it common for this class of cruiser. Here are the fits.





Now they both have a 5% damage bonus and the secondary bonus reflects their usage. The stabber has a falloff bonus for kiting, the thorax has a tracking bonus for closer range combat (i guess that's why it has it...). The main discrepancy is the that the stabber is using medium guns instead of large ones, like the thorax. But it's not possible to get 425's on the stabber without seriously gimping the EHP by a factor of 10-20%. It's borderline made of paper as it is. But here's a graph of their dps in 0-25km without the stabbers missiles being used or the thoraxes drones being used (so bonused slots only).

http://i1262.photobucket.com/albums/ii606/B1zmark/StabberVersusThoraxNoDrones_zpsbd75bbfb.png

So its basically 22km before the stabbers range bonus becomes useful. Beyond that the story is very 1-sided in favour of the stabber. It has very reliable damage up to around 40km... but since disruptors only go to 24km... that doesn't make any difference.

Oh btw, here's the graph with missile launchers/drones included. But this proves nothing other than the new stabber is trash. And yes, im serious. The rupture is still a better stabber than the stabber due to the combat range of 24km and the Stabbers general sucky slot/turret layout.

http://i1262.photobucket.com/albums/ii606/B1zmark/StabberVersusThoraxwithDrones_zps32d89063.png

So i'm struggling to see how range bonused ships will ever be viable with current combat ranges when brawlers can easily achieve these effective ranges and still have triple the DPS of kiting ships up close. Speed is the only real advantage kiting ships have, but 1 mistake and that advantage is gone. A brawler can make many mistakes in a fight and only has to get 1 slingshot right to win the fight.

Be careful when referring to 'winmatar' btw. Much of what you base your hatred on revolves around gang links and faction mods when you don't have either.

While I'm familiar with the talos not getting a range bonus, I suppose I forgot that all the other tier 3's do get range bonuses. And yeah, blasters overall, and null ammo specifically has been improved to the point that most blaster ships can fit neutron blasters standard and project damage quite well. The talos can do it with no modifiers other than ranged ammo. But that same performance/projection looks a lot less impressive on less mobile platforms like the mega and hype. The Naga and Rokh have range bonuses and will be fit with tracking enhancers, so they're just doing what they're supposed to do. As you remember, back before hybrids were buffed, they had lingering tracking issues, really terrible damage projection, fitting issues, and hybrid-boats were slow. The complaint was that even if the blasterboat could catch the winmatar ship shooting him in falloff, by the time the blasterboat caught up, the autocannon ship would have already done significant damage, and the slightly better dps of blasters was would never be enough to overcome that disparity, as the autocannons also did more damage at close range. CCP boosted blasters in the usability department as an alternative to making them do so much dps they would be worth using despite the issues.

Obviously this isn't just about blasters, its that any ship with guns and shields loads up on TE's for that sweet sweet damage application. Unless its a frigate because they don't have the spare slots.

So if T2 warp disruptors get boosted to 30km, does that mean 15km can be the range of a standard t2 web?

I'd say that it's not as simple as boosting disruptor range to 30km. Instead, I'd say that tackle ranges should be roughly equivalent to the ranges we see with gang links now and that gang links should not have such a strong effect on them.

-Liang

So he goes through a long, complicated, and well thought out argument. It's carefully laid out. You agree with every detail individually, and combined. Then you come up with a completely wrong conclusion.

Amazing.

-Liang

No, you were pretty out and out with your particular bias. You basically said "I'm a brawler and I think kiters should be easy prey".

-Liang

I'll leave the rest for tomorrow (kinda late here), but I think this is a bit of a bad idea, Liang. Blaster brawlers depend on getting in your face to do anything - if you extend the Scram range, you severely weaken their ability to get up close and personal, thereby effectively neutralizing their dps - this is obviously less true for autocannons (good falloff) and pulse lasers (scorch).