Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Not a fan of this idea. A few people said it, but if one of the advantages of missiles is the flexibility of the selectable damage type, and ability to switch to FoF missiles, then putting a huge delay on the reload removes that advantage. And I call it an advantage despite so many of the missile hulls having a fixed damage bonus (kinetic), making it less true that pilots are switching missiles during an engagement.

I would rather see you guys shelve this module altogether for now, and focus on coming up with a full plan for fixing the entire missile weapon class to be viable and different compared to gunnery.

The upcoming Gunnery Tiercide which removes the requirement for the previous size weapon to be trained up before training the next size removes one of the key differences between missiles and gunnery. This allowed missile users to specialize in one weapon system faster, at the cost of more SP per system in a size - for example Rockets + Light Missiles vs Small Hybrid Turrets (Rails + Blasters). This post goes over how the SP values for training missiles need to be rebalanced, consdering the investment, and the support skills only applying to one weapon class (Missiles) versus 2 of 3 in Gunnery classes (Hybrids, Energy Turrets, Projectiles).

For a missile tiercide, you need to fix FoF missiles, Defender missiles, and countermeasures or just admit that some are useless and replace them. We also need modules for letting us adjust the missile velocity, travel time, and explosion radius outside of rigs. This was said to be coming for a while, and I'd rather see energy put into this than shoehorning another module into the middle of a weapon size.

I'd also like to see a proper progression for missile ships, because they are all over the place right now, and really feel like the ugly stepchild.

• Caldari have a lineup of missile ships but are stuck with mostly kinetic damage bonuses. You could call if half a progression since it's split with Hybrids. The progression does have T1, T2, and T3 ships.


• Minmatar don't really have a progression for missiles, and I pity the new pilot who tries it. For T1 ships - Breacher, Bellicose, Cyclone, Typhoon. But once you get to T2, you only have the Hound and the Claymore, which are very specialized roles. I was hoping the Claw in the Interceptors rebalance would be switched to missiles, and there are no HACs or AFs which use missiles in the lineup either. I am happy we got rid of the split weapon system requiring an effective pilot to train both missiles and projectiles, but it should have been replaced by something.


• Amarr have the Khanid lineup and the Legion, but no T1 missile ships, so no real progression for a new player - you're effectively forced into training Energy Turrets first. I am looking forward to the new Malediction and Heretic in Rubicon.


• Gallente had Roden ships (again only T2), but now that it's being changed to be hybrids in Rubicon, that's another option removed for missile ships (No Ares, Lachesis, Eris). I was hoping to see a full missile lineup in Roden with bonuses for either Hybrids or Missiles to give people the option to choose the weapon system, but that didn't happen.


• All races having stealth bombers using different torpedo damage types, even when there's no progression to get to them.

So to be able to use missile ships, you have to train all races, which is an expensive proposition, and needing multiple races is usually only needed for pirate faction ship bonuses. Speaking of which, I'm hoping when the pirate ship rebalance happens, the Worm and will be as useful as a Daredevil or Dramiel. Since Blood Raiders, Sansha, and now Sisters of EVE ships are bonused to Energy Turrets, and Guristas are mostly used as drone boats, there might be some opportunity here as well.


Hopefully this was more constructive and less of a rant.

I really like the approach and I think, once it's iterated into the right place, that this could be a starting point for a proper gunnery 'tiericide' for some of the 'dual' versions of frigate/cruiser turrets.

I like the idea and the potential changes in tactics that this will produce. Nice one CCP Rise. I do have some reservations and constructive input, but in general, sounds like it'd be fun and lead to some very exciting skirmishes.

I've read most well reasoned posts in this thread & skimmed over the hysterical omg sux so bad stuff. Let's just get one thing straight...

Such a mechanic is, in general, better suited to skirmishes / solo / tiny gang use. Just like those ASBs that you might have heard of. So, the people crying because it won't be better at killing red crosses than existing missile systems, please continue as before, you've lost nothing. People crying because it won't be of much use in huge blob vs huge blob, please continue as before, you've lost nothing. To all those who fly solo, in tiny gangs or prefer quick small scale skirmish tactics, or people who can find potential uses for such a missile system, please provide some much needed well reasoned input.

RLMLs first.

• It will add more depth & decision into gameplay e.g. Primary the RLML firing ship and remove his very effective dps as quickly as possible? Or leave him until he gets near finishing his reload? Similarly who you engage or primary first gets more interesting when you have a percentage of your dps removed for a while.
• For ships like the Rupture that have a "spare" missile slot, this will probably be the goto launcher. It's make a great addition to these hulls for small scale PvP.
• Even for slightly bigger gangs, the RLML will be great for removing light early tackle. It's a sort of small counter to the big buff that light tackle is getting with Rubicon's warp changes.
• The effectiveness of the RLML is considerably reduced by it being pointless to reload the "correct" ammo when a fight kick off. This will probably mean roaming with Kinetic or Thermal and hope you don't run into T2 Caldari / Galente. This change does fly in the face of the reducing the instances of Kinetic missile bonus that has occurred during tiericide, which essentially made it viable to pick and choose your damage type with missiles. This change reduces that for RLMLs & RHMLs.
• In general, I see the RLML being useful and adding considerations into the mix.

Now let's take the RHML.

• Main issue is scenario for use. Micro scale skirmish tactics basically require cruiser (sometimes BC) and smaller hulls. RHMLs are used on BS hulls so skirmishing is not really feasible.
• For plain vanilla solo / micro gang stuff, again BS hulls aren't usually used, but it's not unheard of. It's just not very popular. RHMLs would potentially be used for removing tackle quicker, but generally your drones do this for you if you're in a BS.
• Bringing along 1 RHML fitted BS in a small gang for it's cruiser killing capacity is probably going to slow things down too much for a small roaming gang of cruisers, particularly with the Rubicon warp changes.
• Gate camps? Yeah maybe, but slow lock time on a BS and then potentially reloading when someone else jumps in means it's not really feasible.
• For hulls such as the Tempest that have "spare" launcher slots, again I think the RHML could work well for small scale PvP.
• Reloading ammo just before a surprise fight kicks off is more likely than with cruiser hulls as at leas tyou'll probably survive until it reloads. But it'll still be a silly thing to do. You're stuck with the ammo you've already got loaded.
• What we have left is a role for the RHML as an efficient remover of heavier cruiser tackle in small gangs of BS hulls. It's quite a niche use. If you're brave (or crazy?) I guess you could go solo roaming in a RHML & MJD fitted BS hull. You do at least have a decent amount of EHP to get you through your reload. But it is really niche.

A big difference between this mechanic used for weapons and a similar mechanic used for tanks (AARs & ASBs) is that weapons have different charges that you want to load depending on circumstances. AARs & ASBs do not. Having said that, the changes may work relatively well for the RLML, but the RLML already works quite well. It would add more decision and consideration to gameplay.

The RHML however is potentially always going to have a more niche role (unless it's OP and ubiquitous) and with the burst / long reload idea, it has possibly become even more niche. If you're happy with it being quite specialized, I'd say go ahead and implement it and see how it pans out. The ASBs required tweaking after going live. I'd expect this would require it to.

EDIT: What if ammo reloads took the standard 10 seconds (or instant?) but only when the launchers are ALREADY loaded to capacity? This way you can choose your ammo before a fight and then decide to change ammo near your reload point if you so desire.

This change is likely going to happen to rlm, although it's probably going to be a 20 second reload. Heres my reasoning:

It been mathmatically proven (there are several graphs and hard numbers) that hml are not viable against smaller targets (frigates and cruisers) when compared to nearly all other weapon types in a solo/small gang situation. Hams face potentially severe application issues that also make them unused on many hulls for solo/small gang. Buffing hmls by giving them enough damage application to be used consistantly vs smaller targets would make blobs of hml ships too powerful. This leads to the awkward situation where you have hulls such as the caracal/scythe fleet issue/cerb that are very good for kiting but have no really ideal damage application outside of flying in a specific gang or having to use standard crash the majority of the time. Rlms solve this problem, allowing these hulls which are very good for kiting and facing off against multiple ships a way to actually apply damage.

What ends up happening is that rlms seem to be the go to choice for everything because there are no other options that produce any similar results. Without being able to unnerf hml application it gets to the point that rlm is amazing for solo/small gang and hml/hams are really only great on hulls that can support it well such as the cyclone which will likely have a web and crash, or a cerb using standard crash and relying on the hulls projection bonus. When you look at the stats it appears that rlms are best for the majority of situations because the majority of situations are smaller engagements. Changing rlms does not mean people will switch to hmls or hams because as previously mentioned, these weapon systems just aren't flexible enough to be used with as much regularity compared to other weapon systems.

When this change happens I expect a number of solo/small gang attempts to make it work although it seems far more likely that people will merely change to flying ships such as the navy omen instead. Front loading the damage also makes it terrible in any extended fight which isn't an uncommon occurrence. They can be used to a much greater extent in large gangs but become terrible when working as anti tackle in a small gang extended fight and can easily be manipulated into either not firing and waiting for tackle, or having a significant window for tackle to come in unopposed. In this situation replacing the caracal with a navy omen solves this problem very easily and gives relatively no benefit to having the caracal in your gang.

Sure it can be useful to have front loaded missile damage on the rare occasion but that's not really something an anti tackle ship is generally needed for and even then you can still do similar damage with the navy omen. Turning frigates and intys into mincemeat but not really being usable vs cruisers essentially makes the rlm system obsolete compared to medium lasers and even medium rails.

The problem with rhml still isnt solved because you still have subpar application compared to cruise launchers. There are graphs and hard numbers to back that up as well. Allowing rhmls to work with ship application/projection bonuses would actually fix this problem although ccp seems to have no intention of doing that at the moment. Having rhmls work with ship bonuses and leaving rlms as they are would be the best option in my eyes as that keeps the caracal/scythe fleet/cerb/osprey navy as viable solo and small gang ships without having them potentially overpowered vs frigates in very small fights or difficult to actually pull their weight and therefor having decreased viability in extended fights.

As I said though I expect this change to go through in some form (especially after what happened with the hurricane) so it will probably be far more likely that small gang shifts more into ishtars with navy omens supporting, and really hurts newer players as they can't fit into fleets and be as useful in a longer fight.

The damage selection thing is also an issue I almost forgot about and now that I consider it I would not expect to see many rlm ships in solo/small gang mostly due to that alone.

This isn't merely a bad idea. It is a horrible idea. Unable to select damage types, unable to switch to FoF when jammed/damped. What the hell is this change good for?

Stop pigeonholing ships and fits into fleet support roles. There are enough ways to fit ships for anti-tackle roles already! We don't need the RLML Caracal/Bellicose to become pretty much useless in solo or very small gang situations because you cannot reload damage type and cannot load FoFs without flying around like an idiot for 40 seconds.

Seriously, this is idiotic. Not every single thing in the game needs to be balanced via the ASB route! The ASB route works because the modules have ONE charge type and do not rely on different charges for part of their utility. Doing this for a module which inherently needs to reload (and quite often) to be useful is bad design.

Back to the drawing board on this, please! Or better yet, just abort this idea altogether.

OH NO !!!!!!!!!!

I am a true Caldari, and i like to use Rockets and Missiles, and i understand, that the previous changes would be too powerful,

BUT 40 - 50 SECONDS RELOADTIME is far too much, even 10 seconds is quite a lot of time,
each other weaponry has got much... less reloadtime.

You were putting the stats of the missles down all the time, since i started playing eve.
It all started with nerfing the Drake and decresing firerange of Heavy Missiles, i was abel to shoot about 80 km with the HMs, you nerfed it, also the DPS, exploding speed and signatureresolution.

Please don´t Change the stats of the Rapid Light Missile Launcher (RLMS), these things are good, a lot of ammo inside
and 10 Seconds reloadtime.

So why, dont you set the Rapid Heavy Missile Launchers (RHML) similar to the RLML
And dont change the RLML, leave them untouched.

And the ammorack with 23 Missiles is too less. What about 60 or 50 for the amount of ammo ?
And slightly enhance the firerate the RHML. These one´s are for Battleships not for Cruisers, because of the high Power and CPU usage, remember that.

Don´t make them unworthy to use.

Imagine a PvP fight, where you are not able to shoot for 50 seconds !!
Within 30 seconds, you are dead in the most cases !!

Nobody would use Missiles anymore, if you were changing the stats like that.

Since it came on friuday.. it seems as an idea fueled by excessive beer.

To be honest, I was scratching my head as I read this. Why change a weapon system that works well within it's niche? RLML are not massively overpowered.

"Oh, Mr Falcon, would you mind waiting 40 seconds while I swap to FOFs? Thanks mate."

The idea of a "Swarm" launcher/ammo type sounds pretty cool. But radically reworking RLMLs is not needed. If anything the fittings could be increased to limit overtanked Caracals/Scythe Fleets or the DPS numbers could be tweaked.

I thought that it will be a better patch. Rise crash it.
i want to change type of dam. 40 sec!
falcon. 40 sec!
rewarp pvp style!

i agree with you the problem does not lie so much with the mechanic it self but with the ability to switch ammos.
the mechanic is maybe balanced or atleast it could be balanced (rof and reload a easily adjusted).

but even the sugested hey you can swap ammo on a smaller timer but wont get increas in charges is only equivalent in situations where your launcher is alread full or nearly full.
in situations where youd want to change ammo when your launcher is nearly empty you were able to combine those two options, but now your severely punished if you do not empty your launcher before reloading in a fight.