Player Features and Ideas Discussion

So a key reason guided missiles aren't used in fleet pvp and pvp in general is their travel time and the fact that they can could be countered by a smart-bomb firewall.

From my limited experience in the game Missile Pros:
-Always hit within range
-Select-able Pure Damage Type
-Long Range
-More Alpha than rails but less than Arty
-Requires no Cap
-Immune to tracking disruption
-Immune to all Ewar if using Auto-Targeting Missiles

Cons:
-Can be outrun (Rarely)
-Long Flight Time (Delayed Damage leads to wasted Volleys)
-Can never deal full damage to small targets
-Damage can be heavily reduced by speed in addition to Sig
-Capital Variants Sucks (Move really slow, Giant explosion Radius, Low explosion Velocity)

Defenders aren't a real problem since nobody really uses them, only rockets/HAMs/Torps r used but the long range variants aren't even used in sniping squads. T3 BCs only use turret weapons.

Introducing the M.O.M.B.O. Active Module

For the cost of Cap or even Cap Charges guided missiles jump on launch and reappear 75% of the way to the target (Straight line from you to them), as long as they are greater than 40km away (Could be adjusted). Overheat or a Tech II variant would allow them to jump even closer like 80-90% of the way. This overcomes travel time and smart bombs but not defenders. As the firewall carrier would have to be in the fleet itself. Missiles r limited by targeting range so you wont be getting 500km missiles or something like that.

That or the first M in M.O.M.B.O. could be Microwarp instead of MicroJump, which would reduce guided missile flight time but increase flight speed greatly. Keeping the same range but fly extremely fast. Right now its Flight Speed * Flight Time, so this module would scale it, the flight time has a minimum of at least 3 seconds or so to allow for defenders)

So instead of 4000 m/s * 9 sec flight time = 36 km (easier numbers) so this would make it 12000 m/s * 3 sec Flight time = 36 km, reducing flight time by MWDing the missiles as they exit the bay.

What does everybody think?

Ok under the assumption that they are more popular than I believe, I still believe it is stupid that an entire weapon system can be invalidated by well timed smartbombs.

I did suggest that cranking their velocity would be an alternative, but making them faster doesnt remove the fact that a carrier with properly cycled SBs and positioning could completely reduce a fleet of missile ships dps to 0. Unless you didn't blob and spread out your fleet so that you could cover more angles, which is not what people do.

MJDing the missiles close makes it riskier to firewall them unless your willing to have a SB cycling ship on top of ur own fleet.

Well, smartbombs killing missiles is kind of cool, I'm under the impression that its pretty niche functionality. SB are used more to stop actual bombing runs. Maybe if missiles were more popular in the first place for fleet pvp we'd see smartbombs used more.

The idea of this module is not to remove the downsides its to make it less pronounced when sniping, with a target 80 km away it takes so long for the first volley to reach that the 2nd volley has already fired

Thats why I stated there is a minimum threshold for them to jump, and arty can do just that at 200Km they can snipe without travel time at all and deal damage well into falloff.

And what?

Your also comparing turret weapons to missiles which defeats your distinction between them. As I said purpose of this is not to remove travel time its to make it less ridiculous and I add that I respect that travel time is part of their identity.

What prevents them from being used at all ranges is their inability to deal full damage to things outside their weapon size which is what CCP intended. You can blab smaller ships with larger guns but you cannot with larger missiles.

Their very method of damage application homogenizes their performance at all ranges anyway, turrets follow a gradient where they are more effect at close or long depending on autocannon or arty.

TL:DR
Your comparing 2 weapon systems that are completely different and apply my modifications to a different context.

Using this Module doesn't increase dps or range, it just makes them more able to hit things without the target warping off b4 impact as well as allow you to notice the effect of your volleys before the next one at the cost of Cap.

Edit: Also b/c this module normalizes their flight time to within their cycle time between shots it helps with target swapping

As an added effect it makes firewalling less risk free as a full counter to missiles.

You put enough painters on something in fleet PvP, everything gets blapped. A full fleet of missile ships is likely to have 30+ painters spread across it. A dozen painters on anything larger than a frigate and heavy or cruise missiles are going to bend it over.

The sole reason missiles are not used in fleet PvP is the travel time. That time that permits the target to realize they are under attack, warp out, or call for broadcasts. Sig radius is not that much of an issue in PvP when any missile dedicated fleet will ensure it brings enough target painters to ensure excellent damage application on any sized target. Changing long range missile flight time from 40 seconds to 4 seconds or so is an insanely massive buff to all missile ships.

My comparison to the gun based system was meant to illustrate the ridiculousness of removing the drawbacks inherent to a weapon system.

Guns are limited by their own / targets transversal velocity, the tracking of their guns, their guns sig radius, the targets sig radius, the guns optimal + falloff, and the limited damage types available to each weapon system.

Where for missiles, the only concern is flight time, max range (ignorable for cruise missiles) and the targets velocity and sig radius. One can be ignored (range for cruise) and one of the others can be mostly ignored by the mass application of target painters. You are proposing that one of the only remaining two effective drawbacks of using missiles in PvP be reduced by a factor of 80-90%!

Complaining that the use of missiles in fleet PvP is ineffective because of flight time and must be fixed is like complaining that blasters are ineffective in PvP because of range and must be fixed to work well at all ranges.

TLDR: You still want it. It's still a bad idea, and CCP is not going to implement it.

You put enough webs on something in fleet PvP, everything gets blapped. A full fleet of turret ships is likely to have 30+ webbers spread across it. A dozen webs on anything is going to bend it over.

The sole reason turrets are used in fleet PvP is the lack travel time. That lack of time denies the target the time to realize they are under attack, warp out, or call for broadcasts. Transversal & Sig radius is not that much of an issue in PvP when any turret dedicated fleet will ensure it brings enough webs to ensure excellent damage application on any sized target. Changing long range missile flight time from 20 seconds to 4-12 seconds (Adjusted for accuracy assuming 150km or so range) or so is not an insanely massive buff to all missile ships. This is an optional module that is a Quality of Life option.

Your comparison to the gun based system to illustrate the ridiculousness of removing the drawbacks inherent to a weapon system is invalid because this doesn't remove the drawback.

Guns are limited by their own / targets transversal velocity, the tracking of their guns, their guns sig radius, the targets sig radius, the guns optimal + falloff, and the limited damage types available to each weapon system.

Where for missiles, you state the only concern is flight time, max range (this module only applies to guided missiles) and the targets velocity and sig radius. I'm proposing that travel time be reduced such target swapping is eased without removing the drawback, sure you can trash the T2 and overheat ideas as this is a proposal.

Complaining that the use of missiles in fleet PvP is ineffective because of flight time and must be fixed is not like complaining that blasters are ineffective in PvP because of range and must be fixed to work well at all ranges because they're entirely different systems.

TL:DR; I do want it and your not CCP, and your right that cooperation solves everything.

I know I'm being a little pushy and this example is sound, if you want me to give up I'm open to your reasoning.

But what is the purpose of missiles having the best damage projection if they don't outperform something? Every weapon system has its ups and downs and range isn't the the strength of hybrids. Arty would be closer in performance. Let me ask you, SHOULD rails be able to do as much damage as missiles at similar ranges without lag time? is that fair?

4-5 second lag isn't gonna change the original dps, said fleet of Rohks could just warp into the Ravens. This hypothetical situation is comparing turrets to missiles again. Whats gonna happen? unless both sides were heavily bubbled at best the Rohks would just tank one 1 volley then warp in on the Ravens. Rails werent meant to function at such ranges. Missiles are and they have to sacrifice a slot to do it anyway. (b/c this thread is about a module) otherwise their just normal missile ships like right now.

I'm pretty sure a glaring resist hole would never exist in situations were u could snipe from absurd ranges.

I don't think its a comparison either. Missiles aren't Turrets. Their suppose to do different things.

If this whole situation was done right now without the proposal how would it go? Assuming somebody would ALLOW a squad of ravens to bombard from 250km range it would take 25 seconds to get to them and the Rohks would suck at firing back if they had that specialized setup. They would just warp to the Ravens at optimal and dodge all the missiles at the same time. Then out-dps the Ravens.

If this scenario was done WITH said module, they would take 1 volley then warp to the Ravens. In both cases they still have time to react to overheat tank. If the Rohks were heavily tackled and being bombarded it would be the same dps, but they now actually need to worry about heat damage because they need to pulse overheat tank more often.

Might need this for clarity:

This is because assuming RoF of about 10 secs, A missile is fired and appears approx 4-6 seconds away from the target. There is STILL reload of 10 seconds, the damage happens halfway to the reload so the missile boats can retarget better.

There is STILL at reload + flight time between actual hits but the hit happens sooner so the person operating the boat can swap targets.

Is this really the OP?

Nope. They shouldn't, and they don't, as a quick check of the stats I quoted above show.
But since they can apply the DPS quickly and efficiently and have a much lower cycle time, they are the go to over missile ships.

Raven damage application is poor in actual PvP because the amount of firepower on each side is far in excess of that which is needed to kill any BS on cruiser hull on the other side of the field in a hurry. Raw DPS does not matter nearly as much as the ability to take 200 neckbeards, make them fire at a target, and know when it goes down so they can switch to the secondary. When all the ravens fire, if there's any uncertainty that the target is not dead or catching reps, the FC cannot call the switch to the secondary target. Under the current system, this period of uncertainty is as high as 18-20 seconds. Completely unacceptable when the average target dies in 3-4 seconds under massed fire. Gun uncertainty is nearly nonexistent.

Because of this, even the double damage and ignoring tracking of the Raven at long range compared to Rohks makes them unsuitable for when you have hundreds of players on each side. A good gun fleet will take out a target every few gametime seconds, even with much less damage and poorer application, just by the use of massive numbers of people.

Reduce the time it takes missiles to land at any range to 4-5 seconds though and you have a weapon with double the DPS and triple the Alpha of the previous weapon system. Time uncertainty is still a slight factor, but the FC can assume that the target is going to die because of the overwhelmingly greater dps and alpha. A single volley of 200 ravens does more damage at 250 KM than 600 Rohks, with double the sustained dps. At this point the Raven FC knows that he can alpha targets with a third the number of people that the enemy FC can.

While being more effective at very long range, the missiles still only have a 0-5 second flight time across that entire range, as well as dealing equal or greater damage at all ranges than all the competing weapon systems.

So if long range missiles want to have a method for forcing their missiles to jump across the majority of the space in between, largely ignoring the drawback of missile flight delay, game balance dictates that they be appropriately penalized for such capabilities like long range gun sytems.

Because of the overwhelming raw statistical advantage across all ranges combined with the now negligible flight time, the penalties would either have to be a massive reduction in DPS and alpha (40% or so), or an inability to fire at targets within a "safety" range (say 70Km) in order to bring the capabilities of the missiles down to the same general capabilites as the other LR weapon systems.

Edit: These penalties would wither have to be built into a "LR Micro jump missile launcher" designed to fire only these kinds of missiles and not standard ones, or be built into the enabling module in such a way that offlining the module does not suddenly remove the penalty.

Massive damage, massive alpha, selectable damage, and usefulness at all ranges near and far with short missile flight time is simply too powerful to be mounted on a subcapital ship.

Even a triple Gyro, triple scripted Tracking Computer, max skill Maelstrom with tremor loaded only does around 150 DPS with a 2800 alpha at max lock ranges, while having no tank at all. Plus 1400's are so incredibly terrible at anywhere near close range that the rise of AHAC's kind of buried the use of artyfleets for the foreseeable future. Small AHAC zealot fleets that managed to warp in on top of alphafleets could absolutely destroy even a much larger force.

Splitting gun fleets into sections though is unnecessary though since you can't fire on a dead target, and as long as the target is alive you want people firing at it. Simply broadcasting multiple targets in advance and having people fire on the oldest broadcast still alive is the standard practice, unless the FC tells you to unlock a target because they are catching logi reps. Alpha fleets work a bit differently with coordinated firings, but most gun BS fleets are simply "fire on what we told you to lock until it dies or until we say to stop shooting it"