EVE General Discussion

Nothing stopping you forming up a missile incursion fleet, and hey look at all dem droneboats in incur.... oh wait.

Ravens & RNI are considered just as if not more desirable than ships like the Rokh. When you compare them against their counterparts as T1 & Navy Battleships they perform fine.

The Incursion imbalance is caused by two mechanics.

Firstly, Contests. If you are using missiles, the other fleet can alpha your targets out from under your missiles if they are fast enough, meaning missiles will never win a contest. Since they cause you to waste your effective DPS while gaining their DPS towards the score. This is caused by the single objective PvP nature of contests where one person takes everything and the other nothing.

Secondly, the lack of a true Missile Pirate BS. Meaning missiles have no equivalent to the Nightmare, Machariel & Vindicator. So of course they aren't going to quite compete against Pirate Battleships when they are T1 or Navy battleships. CCP's own design philosophy says Pirate BS's will be better (just a little, but that little counts).

So when we see a pirate battleship, we may see some shift in that, though the contest factor will still remain true if it has a fast flight time (Like speed bonused cruise missiles do) it can be close enough to instant at close ranges to be effective, and have enough pirate BS bonuses to make it's DPS compete with the Vindicator in close (Vindi is also due a rebalance remember and may loose a little in some area's)

Note how you just listed the three shield pirate BS.
Not counting the Drone Pirate BS, that has some serious issues really.

Armour use Bhal's a lot as well.

So.... All the Pirate BS except the Drone BS are considered attractive for incursion.
Until we get a proper Pirate Missile BS, we don't know how it will compare.

Right now, you are complaining that your Navy Ship isn't considered as good as a Pirate Ship. The same is true for all the races. No-one is going to take a Navy Apoc above a Nightmare if they are going for perfect fleets (Some fleets simply take first to X up in order, and accept slower times). No-one will take a Mega Navy above a Vindi.

Missile flight time. Incursion fleets want instant damage.

realise that EVE is more then incursions,
so just because you whant missile to perform on par with turrets,
dosent mean that will translate well to the rest of the game..

Train for the job you want to do... not the ship you want to fly.

Missiles have their place and are very good at certain things.

Those things do not include incursions. This is called balance.

Because that's not what balanced means. Missiles are fine, their inherent and intended advantages and disadvantages make them not preferred by players for a particular activity, everything is working as intended. Your issue is with incursions communities more so than with CCP.

Also, train all weapon systems.

+1

select the job, then the ship + fitting to accomodate the job

Most agree that, once they have an MTAC, they'd rather have 'mare's than Mach's... So two choices... the long range choice and the Vindicator...

Torp CNRs, prior to their "rebalance" should have been quite good as close range DPS - they even had significantly more range... Except that their DPS wasn't quite as high as the Vindi and they didn't have the Vindi's web bonus. Which made them less useful for all but the towers... Well... less useful overall in fact...
In order to become a preferred choice for Incursions you would need a missile system on a ship with the utility of the Vindi's web and more damage than the Vindi - at ranges comparable to avoid the contest issue. I suspect that such a set-up would draw a certain amount of flak...

The Rokhs and Maelstroms which make fleets ahaed of missile boats are generally people who are learning their role before they get into Vindi's or Mach's and the effort to meet the expected requirement will buy them a fair amount, provided they don't take the mickey. Missile-centric fits are not making the effort...

If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a Sansha!