Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Actually i think this kind of story's can actually help if we properly analyse it. With Arthur's use hes useing it on a covert ops tengu, a burst weapon on a stealth ship makes sense. You uncloak, burst and recloak. Perfect viable tactic. Good adaptation there.

His other examples also show how it could work, on overtanked ships, Prophecy, Armageddon, Scorpion, these are ships that currently already benefit greatly form the RLML.

On t1 hulls, especially the Caracal, i'm not convinced we have the right stats on it yet.

Personally i still believe that creating the new charge groups Rapid Light missile and Rapid heavy missile is the way to go for proper balanceing

What about leaving the reload time long, but increasing the fire speed drastically? It's supposed to be rapid and get close up targets off you, right? Make a 1 second firing cycle where you can blow everything you have, and hopefully give you enough time to pull away while it reloads. I'd make it a much shorter range than normal also.

They wouldn't laugh if you were in a destroyer.

It's utterly ridiculous honestly. The autocannon rename thread that no one gives a **** about is still stickied from months ago, and this one is already unstickied? WTF?

I've tried mixing and matching and it's a crapshoot at best.

The rapid launchers are now essentially anti-frigate and anti-cruiser weapons, respectively. They're more geared towards a role as an unbonused secondary weapon system on hulls that have a few launcher slots, ie: Prophecy, Rattlesnake, etc. While they can be utilized as a primary weapon system in PvP, the right hull is key. Since battlecruisers and battleships are ill-suited for solo roams, this basically leaves us with rapid light fit cruisers. There are really only two hulls where you can now run these and have any chance of "holding your own": the Cerberus and Tengu.

Even bumping the capacity, further reducing the reload time and addressing the ammunition swap issue isn't going to radically change things at this point. I think it's probably safe to say that the days of heavily-tanked rapid light Caracals are basically gone.
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Some points to ponder...
• Drones need drone augmenters and Omni links to be halfway effective. This is at least 4-5 slots (3 of which come directly out of their armor tank) to be effective. And RLMLs absolutely massacre them regardless.
• Hybrids are thermal and kinetic - two of the highest bonused resistances. Lasers are stuck with EM and thermal, so one really only has to cover the EM hole. They also have huge capacitor requirements. Projectiles offer the best option, but that means you're relegated to flying the ugly Minmatar ships. With hybrids and lasers if you get capped out you're toast as well. All three of these options require a minimum of 5-6 slots (3 damage, 1-2 tracking or enhancement and 1 web or target painter) to be halfway effective as well.
• Missiles really only need 2-3 ballistic controllers - that's it. A single target painter and rigor makes a huge impact, so we're really taking about 3-4 max. As most of the gunnery skills apply to all turret weapons, I would imagine most turret-based players are maxed out in most areas. Since missiles are a niche skill by comparison, I don't think a lot of missile-based players have these necessarily maxed - and some of those IV and V skills make all the difference in the world. An assortment of +3-5 missile implants offers huge benefits as well.

Any way you slice it missile-based fits are at least one slot ahead any of the alternatives. So what this really comes down to is damage application, or lack thereof. Ever configuration should be running at least one target painter and one T1 rigor. Target painters escaped the recent nerfs, so we should be taking full advantage of it. I think dual propulsion or another target painter offers a better alternative than stasis webs, which I think are going to get hit pretty hard with the nerf bat in the not too distant future... T2 launchers are key - as you can run Fury and Precision ammo types.

Once again I would like to propose to the floor that rapid launchers function much more like
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70yNAwUUsc0
In that they expend an entire clip pretty much immediately.

Balancing factors vs other alpha doctrines is while arty suffers tracking, missiles still suffer their normal penalties due to target speed and sig radius, factors which piloting alone can't compensate for.

Also more variation between meta levels for ammo capacity and reload time, eg meta 0 launchers hold 15 missiles, reload time is 15 seconds. ROF is nearly instantaneous expulsion of whole clip through use of the "charges per activation" being modified to 5 per cycle and ROF being changed to 2s base.

T2 gets 20 rounds and launches whole clip in 4 seconds, takes 20 seconds to reload. Navy and such continue the trend.

This allows extreme customisation of the weapon and ships mounting them.

It is a shame what was a decent missile platform is now only really usable on costly T2, T3 hulls or as an unbonused support weapon alongside drones.
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Ishtar fit for max DPS is not usually armour fit. Prophecy (don't know why you would fly 1) has 7 lows, losing 3 of them to Drone Damage Amps is no big problem. Myrm can be shield fit for max DPS. Look at all the dedicated drone boats they have very good fitting options..
Caldari missile boats?? Yeah, 4 lows - 2 BCU, DCU, Nano (or 3 BCU) Mids - TP, Point, Prop Mod, 2 left for tank. Rigs - EM, Astronautic, Rigor (so your missiles hit). Oh and Kinetic missile bonus on many missile boats is a big help (to your target)
Most drone boats can also fit ancillary weapons (more DPS) Missile boats generally have very low drone bandwidth.

"Lack there of" is very much the key phrase. What are you using for tank, with Web, TP, point and prop mod? Most fits I see are either or, not web and TP.

I really would not expect to see a lot of RLML Cerbs or Tengus (the only ships RLML will really work on as a primary weapon) simply due to cost, spending 300 to 400 mil just to go shoot frigates?? You would need to be pretty dedicated and have way too much isk.

RLML is very much a niche weapon as a main weapon system and may see limited use as an ancillary weapon on the few drone boats with launcher slots

Wow... Box launchers..... Sit down and work out the DPS on those, seriously. You are getting almost the same DPS INCLUDING RELOAD as the old RLML, that was well known as an OP weapon overall. And you are getting it front loaded which overwhelms active tanks better. Some of you won't be satisfied till you get twice the old DPS it seems at least.

I don't believe that you get the point what this discussion is all about. Its never been about dps. Heres what concerns ME:

Basicly a weaponsystem has been completly removed. Then we received a new weapon system with a new mechanic that happened to have the same name as the old weapon system. Why am i stateing it like this?

The Rapid launcher mechanic is basicly a completly new system. It has different fitting requirements, different rof, different reload times, different application and uses then the old Rapid launcher system.

The old system received an enormous influx of usage. But instead of examining why this influx happened, or what the underlying problems are that make many people believe that it was overpowered, or makeing minor adjustments, was overnight without warning, consultation, or extended testing transformed into the current system.

In my eyes, the main reason why the Rapid launcher was overpowered, was due to its damage application. This new system, has actually made the damage application issues worse. The Dps of the Rapid Launcher alone was never the issue. The issue was that they were verry effective at applying the dps they had. With rof, ammunition ammount, and reload time, you will never be able to solve the applied damage. Yes you can alter the DPS values, but that doesn't change the fact that a frigate that requires 10 missiles to die, suddenly requires more, or less missiles to die. The current mechanic only changes the amount of time to launch those 10 missiles, and the frequency of allowing to apply that salvo.

So what did change?

First of All PVE:

Previously as a missile pilot you had a much more gradual power and learning curve. Missile Frigate, Missile Destroyer, Missile cruiser with Rapid missiles, Missile cruiser with Ham or HML.
Hams take up 85% of the power grid of a caracal for starting players
Hml take up 80% of the power
Rapid only take 58% of the power.

For a new player the options of fitting your ship are thus drasticly lower with Ham or Hml. The range of Ham missiles in the hands of a new player, is abysmal if they can reach 15 km they should be happy. Combine this with the difficulty of applying the dps to frigate sized targets (Wich is the primary target for new players) makes these 2 weapon systems not ideal for starting players. The new Rapid missile system suddenly changes the amount of missiles, and the reload time to values, that would make anyone, trying to pve with them pull their hair out.

PvP:

Eve PvP where you want to use rapid missiles, is a fast paced pvp scenario. Frigates and destroyers, and the Cruisers that make use of the Rapid lights are fast in speed, deadly in applied dps, and often require the high amount of dps to overcome the others buffer, or active tank to kill the target.

With the Rapid missile beeing predominantly used on Caracal and Bellicose, the resulting mix of applying dps and buffer / active tank was significantly favoreing the Rapid missile user, especially if you was in something smaller then a cruiser.

The ratio DPS / Buffer / Active tank has only slightly been reduced. But the ability to burst, has made it even more deadly for anything smaller then a cruiser. For them, the changes of the Rapid Launcher are a huge, unwanted buff. To them it doesn't matter if you can only take out 2 frigates in one reload instead of 7, there still dead, and dead faster.

For the Rapid missile user the opposite is actually happening. If they can't kill all the tacklers / hostiles within one reload, they have an for their feeling enormeous ammount of time before they can shoot again. This is combined with the inabillity (currently) to switch ammo to the correct type.

Conclusion:

In essence there are multiple discussions going on. Old weapon system vs new one, Dps, Burst, Reload time, Ammo swap, Viability in certain scenario's and tweaking for ships.

CCP: Don't get me wrong, i love the prospect of a properly designed burst weapon like the itteration of these rapids. But i have serious concerns in the way that its done, the amount of time that players were allowed to test it and the amount of discussion given about it. The entire handeling of this, for me personally has been done in a very disrespectfull way towards the players. (No forewarning, Limited testing time, even more limited feedback discussion)

To me the burst weapon system, should not replace the rapid missile system. For me the present itteration, or tweaking that can be done on the present itteration, can never solve my issues with rapid missile system because they don't adress my real problem, damage application. I can adapt to these systems in PvP. I'm certain the'll provide situations that are fun for me.

But it doesn't mean i'm happy with this, or that i will continue to try to voice my concerns about the system, and its problems, till i have the idea, that i'm beeing heared. This can be in future itterations and announcements, or a plain post of why some changes were deemed nessicary this way, or a more detailed glimpse of the future then