Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Ugh, as I already said, laser ablation explains the damage already. In the REAL WORLD ablation allows lasers to do "kinetic damage".

From what I've observed of a lot of these threads, it usually turn into arguments by essentially two main groups of people-

1) Those who believe there should be differences between the racial types (damage types, ranges, looks, feels, speeds, etc.) and;
2) Those who believe everything should be the same between all racial types (i.e., things may appear different but everything is balanced and all the same no matter what race you pick)

Ultimately, CCP always strives to make balance changes to each (weapons, ships, etc.) only to find there is always someone, somewhere who feels things are imbalanced. (can't please everyone all the time)

Being an Amarr pilot (not always), and using energy weapons almost primarily- I've learned a lot about how they perform and what they work well on or don't. Sure they're not always the greatest, and sure there's a lot of other weapon systems that do better. But then again I think there's also a lot of perks- like switching crystals for range on the fly, being able to reload almost instantly (minus weapon cycle wait) small cargo encumbrance, etc. That said, I'm not really sure if the damage type is the issue, anymore than other racial weapon types have a particular issue- however the caveat here is that missiles have many selectable damage types and the only drawback is the sheer amount of ammo you have to carry around in order to change it. Some will argue that others could use drones for selectable damage types, however not every ship has a drone bay (therefore it's not an applicable argument, IMO).

Either everyone needs to have the same ability to choose damage types- or all must have limitations based on racial preference (i.e., whatever ship you choose to pilot) at least IMO.

(drops 2 isk in the bucket)

Energy Weapons are fine imo. They have a little trouble with some rats (just like hybrids do) but in PvP they're pretty good. It's true that projectiles and missiles have way more damage selection, but that's fine isn't it? Projectiles are all falloff and missiles have their own problems with application *cough heavy missiles are bad cough*.

If anything needs love then it is missiles. I purely fly missile boats, but on occasion take out the Phantasm even though my laser skills are not very good. Yet I do way more damage with lasers then with missile boats of the same size + that I don't have to buy ammo.

I think you're kind of missing the point by trying to say they should do different damage types. It's fine that they do just EM/therm; what really needs to be changed is their tracking speed.

It makes NO sense whatsoever for advanced laser weaponry that has had centuries to perfect has comparably the worst tracking out of each of the gun weapon systems for short-range. Yeah sure you can make the argument that it correlates with range, but that makes little sense considering the total range that AC's get, specifically on ships that get falloff range bonuses.

They should flip the two tracking speeds for them around; min ships have plenty of boats that get tracking speed bonuses, so it shouldn't be too much of an issue overall, especially considering amarr lore history and how they are placed in the game technologically. Also, while they're at it, they could swap the Quad Light Beam Laser into a pulse weapon while they're at it...if they could just do that I'll be very happy.

Regardless of Arthur's style of play, I think he is as entitled to express view as anyone else. Kindly refrain from ad-hominem attacks and try to address the post on its merits or otherwise.

Forums are for debate, from which we get ideas, that may become the foundations of a better game. Trying to make people look ridiculous because they tried something you yourself never dared to is not going to improve the game.

A quick look at kill boards can tell us that you have lost fewer high value ships, but does this tell us anything about your ides for the game? No. It simply tells us that you don't act alone, which Arthur likes to. We'd like to hear your ideas, because you may have something to say that is useful to the developers.

Why do lasers need more damage types? For PvE? lol.

Even bad players can have good ideas, and you should accept HIS play style like HE accept yours. (silly fitting can be fun, and if he's plexing his account you should glad he runs our server.

Back to topic, Lasers seems weak, but the longer you use them the more you can see and feel their benefits. Insta switching is pure gold, scorch is kinda OP especially with optirange bonus (btw. try a Vulture sometimes its kinda epic) and EM (and of course Therm) is a nice damage type.

The only true weakness is close range, at some point you simply can't hit smaller targets, where AC and Blaster can handle better, but because you need webs more then ever, i can't say its a real problem.

I was thinking kinetic-explosive, but I digress.


Very interesting observation, and yes - combat would potentially retain some element of surprise. I think it might make things a bit more unique, but that's just me. Especially since unlike T2 launchers, T2 turrets extend a damage benefit to non-T2 ammunition - and unlike missiles there's really no benefit in using Faction launchers.

And I wouldn't have a problem with changes to damage types for missiles, either - provided the kinetic-specific damages on most Caldari hulls could be nixed. T1/Faction = thermal, kinetic and explosive; T2 = EM, kinetic and explosive. I'm just throwing this out there (not necessarily advocating for this change).

The point is that if you want to shoot at your targets from Scorch range you can get the same DPS by using railguns with CN antimatter at that same range. The pulse laser boat has the ability to do more DPS at ranges closer than this by using closer range ammo, while the rail boat has the ability to snipe from further away if needed. The ability of the rail user to still deal DPS if they get further away is generally more useful than the ability of the Scorch user to do more DPS if they get closer.