Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I have to disagree with this point. with an over-reliant focus on the negative aspects of the weapon. you are proposing that fast kills are better kills, yet use this as an argument against a burst fire style weapon system? it seems counter intuitive.

by all rights, the concept of a burst fire mechanic should incline the user to try and maximize this advantage. by front loading your dps you are making a determined attempt to overload you're opponents tank in a short period of time. the downside of this of course is that more durable opponents do indeed have the oppertuinity to do as you say above, but as a technical point considering the previous version of the weapon system (pre-rapid launch) only had 10% more effective dps than this new iteration, what would prevent them from doing ANY of the above against a standard mechanism?

indeed, one of the more significant points you make is being struck by ECM or an ECM drone just before your reload completes, rendering your damage output moot. I would counter argue that there is just as much likeliness of this jam landing at the start of your reload cycle, rendering it's effect moot. to claim higher ECM strength would be foolhardy as well as normal weapon systems would be just as badly effected by continuous jamming cycles, if anything the burst fire of rapid lights would prove themselves superior in this situation firing more missiles between sucessful jams.

similarly, you speak of adaptive hardeners which, if i'm not mistaken mechanically, require continuous incoming damage in order to calculate the resistance shift and also have a predetermined cycle time. logically speaking the burst fire mechanic of RLML's are actually a superior weapon choice in this instance as your target would have less cycles for the modules to make the correct switch, the module then not changing further during your reload time.

there are of course intrinsic weaknesses to the rapid launch burst fire mechanic, but to argue that the weaknesses completely outweigh the advantages is disingenuous. you don't expect me to proclaim blasters worthless because i can shoot further with rails nor would you expect me to proclaim autocannons vastly superior to pulse lasers because they can select their damage types.

there are situations and decisions that every pilot has to make when deploying their vessels in combat, rapid lights might be a particularly specialized version of this but this does not render them as some would claim worthless.


as for these changes, I've already made it aware that i'm very much a fan of this weapon system and these changes are only a buff for a weapon system i was already using with glee in wormhole operations. more deeps and shorter reloads? yes please.

What don't you get about how terrible this idea was from the beginning? How many posts do you need with people telling you "No"??

Sometimes in life you need to suck it up and admit you had a bad idea mixed in with all the good ones. You'll come out looking better than you are now.

Don't forget the high burst you had before you "jammed" yourself.

I'm okay with this

So you can't get these changes "as you like them" done by 1.1.
But you acknowledge there are serious problems still with this entire concept.

Fine.

Then for 1.1, revert back to the old system, put the system that you have tweaked (with the 35 sec reload, and increased capacity) on Sisi, and let the players screw around with it there until you get it right.

Why are you dumping a broken weapon system on Tranquility, when you have a test server designed for that very purpose?

Miz's guide to fixing your own RLML
With 1.1 stats

1. Split your launchers into 2 groups
2. Start shooting with one of the groups
3. After roughly 40s of shooting start the 2nd group
4. When the first group hits reload, let it reload and start shooting right away
5. Enjoy sustained dps

Protip: If you start with 2 different ammo types you can start shooting with the one that matches your target's resishole while reloading the other one to the correct damage type.

Please focus on the part of the post where I said we considered bigger changes because of how people felt about the extended reload in general, but decided to make a tweak and wait for more data and feedback rather than reversing things too quickly.

If you want to help us out on this topic, try to give specific reasons or examples and then just hang in there and watch for updates heading into the next few months.

Also, a small response to the comparison with jamming: I think parts of the experience are obviously the same (not being able to fire for a period of time), but there a lot of other parts to compensate (or at least that is the idea). With RML you get to choose when that period of time will be, you get to control a lot of factors that contribute to how significant that period of time is (how your ship is fit, where you're located in space, what targets you choose etc), and you get the huge benefit of very high front-loaded damage. Not disregarding the fact that not being able to shoot doesn't feel good, just pointing out that they are different situations in some important ways.

30s and you have a deal

fc pls

I approve of these changes. Still entertaining reading the tears though. If you can't kill or evade a few frigs with an rlml fit, then you're doing it wrong. Being blobbed is one thing, but sizing up your opponents before engaging is how you rlml. I use my scyfi and belli all the time to defrig gate camps.

Personally, I like Rapid Heavy Missile Launchers. I use them alongside Sentries in PvE because they serve as good burst damage on anything cruiser sized and up that gets into range of my sentries. That said, even mitigating the reload to after I've used a Micro Jump Drive, I find myself out of ammo too quickly and then doing nothing until I've reloaded again. If it's not a good idea to MJD away at a given moment, I usually need to sigh and wait for that painfully long reload before I can do anything. I might like and be using Rapid Heavy Missile Launchers, but it's a begrudging sort of use. They're what I want to use, but the reload time is so bad they're pretty much not worth using. I only stick with them for lack of a better option.

I feel they need at very least a 30 second reload, OR a much larger clip size to justify their use. As it stands, 25 missiles and 35 seconds just isn't enough. 25 missiles and 30 seconds seems like a better option, since the biggest issue with this is the cripplingly long reload time removing any real utility to the weapon, making it an extremely blunt "empty your magazine and hope the target dies" weapon. You can't change ammo due to the long reload, if you need to reload you're doing nothing for the next eternity, and if you want to have a full clip in preparation for new enemies, your reload is so long there's a chance they could land on you and be attacking before you're ready to do anything about it.

I'll still use them with this buff, it'll help, but I think the reload still severely hampers their use to the point of worthlessness in many cases. This is a step in the right direction, just not a very big one.