Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Yes people with perfect skills often forget how important those few skills are.
Shield management 4 to 5 makes a difference of 5k EHP on an LSE caracal. Or the equivalent of an extra LSE.
Missile bombardment 4 to 5 is equal to an extra 6k range, with HAMS.
I find the web is better than TP but is harder to manage as you have less than 2 mins cap it can be hard keeping range.

If you did want to fit that way, you could use CA-1 CA-2 and +3 implant

Thanks for the reply to my earlier post. I was finding it a bit hard to get my head around RLML Fury being so effective vs AHAC or even AB cruiser.
But it is a tengu and I would expect a 600mil mini battle ship to perform.

I know this is probably a big ask after all the work you have already done. Would you mind doing a comparison using a rail fit tengu vs missiles. Maybe using faction antimatter and the 2 T2 variants.

I will understand if you don't and appreciate all the information you've put out there for us.

Np. One thing I should point out: I'm not factoring range into any of these comparisons, just noting it in my comments as to what will probably work best to enhance damage application, ie: rigs, target painters, stasis webs or some combination thereof.

I should be able to come up with something. Let me plug away at it...

Tengu Analysis
Tengus are kind of a tricky ship to do a comparative analysis with. For starters, it's a $350-million+ ISK pocket battleship plus whatever you value the loss of 4-5 days of skill training at. Since Tengus shine particularly well (see what I did there?) with Deadspace modules, more often than not the $350-million ISK sticker price represents the base model that almost no one flies. As such, it tends to attract a lot of unwanted attention from small groups seeking fame and fortune. Very rarely will you find yourself engaged by a lone opponent (in every instance where a frigate has engaged me, it was merely to establish point until reinforcements could arrive).

The stated design of the Tengu is to fulfill multiple roles, just not necessarily excel at them beyond their T2 or faction counterparts. That being said, it's a difficult juggling act to get the fit right when you're potentially facing a group of everything from interceptors to other strategic cruisers.

I had a close look at three Tengu setups: one with rapid light launchers, another with heavy assault launchers and the last with 250mm railguns. On paper, if we exclude reload times and damage types - DSP is very similar (603, 557 and 578 respectively). Range is also comparable with 42.2km for LMs, 45.6km for HAMs and 36km+15km for rails. The ability to hit targets is also fairly consistent among the three, that is until the target angle changes - and where the importance of tracking enhancers or computers comes into play.

And therein lies the rub. With a rail setup, Tengus only have a sole low slot reserved for damage control - so if you want a passive tracking enhancer you're giving up about 10% DPS or the damage control. Otherwise, you're relegated to running 1 or more tracking computers in mid slots. Since there are only five free slots after a propulsion mod, this starts to chew up real estate relatively quickly. If you get into a short-range engagement (a definite possibility if jumped by multiple opponents), nothing short of dual-webs is going to allow you to hit anything. Rail Tengus work great in fleet doctrines because they basically apply instant damage, and compared to heavy missiles this is night and day.

The unfortunate reality is that in anything but a missile fit, the Tengu is extremely vulnerable. The only thing working for it is the range advantages of missiles and the ability to hit moving targets regardless of angle. At close-range, it's easily neuted by a Legion, webbed by a Loki or scrammed by a Proteus. There might be some interesting armor Tengu fits, so I'm going to take a look at those.

(sorry, no chart)

Caught a Dramiel last night and he died to the combined efforts of a) 5x Arbalest RHMLs, b) 2 stasis webs and a scram and 3) a medium neut. I went with an armor fit on my Tengu, which suffice it to say he was not expecting. I would've got another frigate but got caught reloading my RLMLs, whereby reinforcements arrived and led to my untimely demise.
…..

I later went out with another "ship" fitted with RLMLs, and drove everything up to and including a Tengu off. This fit shows a lot more promise (wasn't a Tengu). Still loathing the 40-second reload...

You mean a stupid tengu? because even 2 cerberuses with rapids cannot even get to half shields of a tengu before they run of of chrages and the tengu kill one of them before turnign awy and leaving with plenety of time before you reload.

MUCH higher no.. On same class maybe. Arties have a HUGE issue with tracking (being the worst trackign weapons in game) and being the LOWEST dps weapons in game. So giving missiles larger alpha than arties will be wayyy OP. Specially on fast missiles like cruises.

The main reason missiles are not included in incursion fleets is due to the extra time it takes to run sites. There are many shield fleets running incursions, Vindi, nightmare, mach, Rokh, all shield boats that show prominently in incursion fleets. Instant DPS and a lot of it is what makes a successful incursion fleet, missile battleships just can't provide that

Zvaarian, its an issue with missiles in general. The time to target and delayed response, is a pain in missile gangs. I saw this most when I ran sniping / kiting caracal's pre-crucible nerf on Heavy Missiles. We'd fit to reach 110km, as it was one of the best ways to avoid Thorax's (Stabbers were a pain in the bum though).

But anyway, you'd call primary, and then wait. And wait. Then you'd see a lot of damage sometimes, coming in slightly apart depending on where people were on the field, and how well they'd responded to the primary call etc.

The problem you have is when you call to switch to another target, because it looks like the next set of volley's are going to finish your primary off, but sometimes by the time the missiles get there, he's got reps etc.

Its actually a real problem, and its something you don't have with guns. Its either dead, or it isn't. So missile fleets in general are slower at switching targets, because of the delay in seeing if your current inbound missiles have done the job. And by the time you've found they have, then another set of missiles is already on there way - and effectively completely wasted.

This is why I said the new RLML with just 18 missiles is incredibly inefficient in a small gang now, because every missile has to count, but it nearly impossible to call it right in advance of the missile landing.

Is this still the case? Are all medium missiles going to be reviewed because I haven't seen a single player with any credibility try to say that HML's are working, or even close to it. I think most of the open hostility towards RLML really comes from the fact that a lot of people were not just using RLML for killing frigates but as the last plausible weapon against other small cruisers as well.