Player Features and Ideas Discussion

With proposed changes, IMO, up to 20 seconds reload time could be acceptable but no more! Better solution, as already stated, would be making a new launcher or new missile types so we can CHOOSE! Please, please, please, don't kill the last decent weapon system for most of the Caldari ships

Cruise missiles are pretty good after the rebalance last year.


However, I do have to say that there is some interesting capabilities with these.

For instance, hit and run tactics.


The one thing I will say is that it appears the RHML with this iteration seems to be almost designed with the goelm in mind specifically.


Golem could drop a tengu with these before reload, and it's the only ship that can use it and have the tank to last while reloading.

Let's just go all the way down the slippery slope.

How about we finally delegate missiles to being support weapons? The ancillary concept is basically the RL equivalent of a one-shot anti-tank weapon carried by infantry. Meaning, ancillary missile packs just provide burst damage and are either a limited use item or have extremely long reload rates, making them something that you would put into a utility high slot (dedicated launcher slots would go away.)

Burst damage promotes hit and run tactics, guns reign supreme, load is reduced (except for that spike when everyone pops off their missile packs at once) and the Phoenix can finally be replaced with a gunship.


Think missiles from the old Renegade Legion Leviathan cap ship combat game or Rocket Launchers from Battletech.

you're oversimplifying. yes, you can do this job with other ships and weapons.... but how many of those ships and weapons do THAT much damage with THAT much precision to THOSE kinds of ranges with no need to concern about tracking?

that's the thing. you could do all these jobs with a normal dps ship and keep shooting while the rapid launchers are reloading... but the rapid launcher is a specialised option in this purpose, that's what makes it such an interesting idea.

lets try some other numbers, lets take Rise's triple BCU raven and throw caldari navy scourge heavy missiles on there, because lets be honest we'll probably use these rather than fury.

taking into account the base damage difference of 17% caldari navy scourge missiles (assuming i've not ballocksed up my maths) will throw out a rather nice 769 dps. so the question becomes... is there another weapon system within the game which will deal 769 dps as accurately or precisely or as far as the RHML? remember, assuming that these weapons systems don't receive range bonuses from ships like the raven (need to check up on that) we're looking at around 60km optimal range, if they do apply we're looking at around 90-100km.

hell... strap these things to the typhoon with its explosion radius bonus o_o

we're after all not talking a single weapon system for all situations, which is what makes me interested in this concept, its a weapon system designed for an anti-support role and the potential for this concept alone makes me kind of want to see it in action...

seriously... find a weapon system which does the same thing.... not even tengus can dump this much firepower with heavy missiles into a 50 second window >_<

True but they aren't as much used in small gangs pvp.

FORGET THE DPS!! How much TOTAL damage can you do before reload? It will be less than EHP of a cruiser!! That is the issue.


Even if you have 20 THOSUAND dps, but you fire for 1 second and reload for 20k seconds.. you will NEVER kill a well fit enemy cruiser.. in fact this last example is the worse situation you could have basically

This.

"Situation Specific" weapons are a bad idea. The weapons and tactics that get used are good in multiple situations even if they aren't the best choice in a specific situation. Their are loads of weapons and items in EVE that get little use because of this. Not that a "swarm" type missile launcher idea isn't cool, I just have doubts about this idea.

I'm fairly certain that the whole point of this change is that RLMLs should not be good against enemy cruisers, and should be a specialized choice for fighting smaller stuff, not the weapon-of-choice that lets you apply damage perfectly to everything all the time.

Ok how about this. This trend of increasing reload time is a bad design philosophy to keep applying. At this rate you'll make 1400mm artillery take 10 minutes to reload because it can do a 13K volley. Because y'know burst damage or some crap like that.

It is bad to have to disengage just to reload your primary offensive weapon. rapid light missiles are not bomb launchers or asb's. You could just increase the cerberus damage more with rapid lights to that 409 dps so people have an even bigger reason to specialize beyond another 30K flight range. For rapid heavies you will need a t2 specilized boat like the golem maybe that can boost that damage up to where you are considering it ~900 dps (maybe higher to 1100 dps on golem and 450 dps on cerberus)

Leave the modules as generally good where you have them now...increase bonuses for specialization. Incentives are great.

RLM/RHML are equivalent in size to say Quad Light Beam lasers and Dual Heavy Pulse lasers/dual650mm AC's as far as application goes. Are you going to make those take 40 seconds to reload? Of course not! Don't be daft. Leave them generally good and make people train to make them exceptional. Caracals don't need 409 dps with rapid lights but a level 5 HAC pilot might do some good with it. Same goes for a raven...it doesn't need 900 dps or so with rapid heavies...but a golem pilot would. Think about how this all impacts ship families on top of the base ship.

On further reflection, this is actually quite an innovative direction for RLMLs and RHMLs. I think the reload time needs to be adjusted down to 30 (or even 20) seconds, as 40 seconds in PvP is an eternity. The one thing that no one's really considering is that you may see a mix of RLML/HML and cruise/RHML setups.