Ships & Modules

The bigger picture is that kiting in general is becoming less viable as a meta. TE nerf, LMJD, MMJD, stabs in low, med rails buff and many others result in warp disruptor range becoming less optimal compared to brawler or skirmish ranges.

They also have the easiest fitting, no cap use, semi-selectable damage types and better tracking than lasers.

First of all, it's a good thing that even a Rupture is faster than a Moa and can get into under 10km pretty easily and utterly **** over rail tracking then.

Secondly, agreed with Ishtars. I'm getting sick of seeing those things. It's seemingly all people fly anymore.

Thirdly, not going to agree or disagree. Typically with a light tank you can sorta cram on 425's and an MWD, but this isn't possible all the time. It depends on preferred tank numbers and ship.

Fourth, I'll disagree with the cap use advantage. Cap use can be quite important, especially when you compare to an Omen or a Maller and their 3 midslots meaning they have to go cap booster and actually keep using their guns (but being unable to hit things,) or web, to help them actually scratch stuff.

For (non-drone) Gallente ships you can fly around their fit. Rails have **** tracking, and you can get under them and burn the bastard. Especially since on a role to role basis you outspeed them. Against Blasters... unless you're a Stabber, you're dead. But if you're a Stabber you can actually kite them and out DPS them outside certain ranges.

Against Amarr ships, just get in close and orbit them. You'll outrun their tracking, or use your utility high to cap them out. One way or another they won't be doing **** to you. Lasers actually have such **** tracking that it makes me cringe. I once had a ******* Merlin orbit faster than my guns could track when I was in my Coercer, and I wasn't even trying to use Conflag or Scorch. It was Multifrequency. And yes, perfect skills.

Caldari: agree on the Caracal, agree on the Moa. If you're at a range where the Moa's not chewing you up, he's probably passively tanking your DPS.

So downplay all the advantages and then whine about all the disadvantages......oh we don't outdamage blasters, we don't outrange lasers. Dude, if pulse lasers didn't have scorch there would be no reason to use any laser boat ever.

So, you want the biggest alpha weapon system in the game to get easier to fit so you can "fit more". That is exactly why they are hard to fit, because of a huge advantage. Go have a look at a damage over time graph for arties compared to anything else.

Very few AC ships were designed to only use ACs. Many of them were intended to have supplemental missile DPS.

Autocannons seem the 'sloppy man's' turret.

If you're able to control range and angular fairly well, blasters, pulse lasers and even railguns hit harder at their respective optimals.

If you're not, you're already halfway into losing the battle anyway - though autocannons will still somewhat hit.


Selectable damage is a pretty powerful feature though (while I agree no cap use is situational), and they're the only fast tracking turret that can deal explosive dmg.

What a load of rubbish.

Ruptures are faster than Moas, which is about the only correct thing you've said. Barely. Then you basically prove my point by saying the Moa (with double the EHP of a Ruppy) can passively tank the Ruppy. Again, what's wrong? The fact the Moa can load Null or CN Iridium and out-DPS the Ruppy at the Ruppy's ranges, whilst out-tanking them?

If you remember, this thread started off with a discussion of ACs as being for kiting, and Keith stated they were, in fact, bad at it and worse than anything else.

You say to get in close to Amarr ships. You do realise that the Stabber must kite to survive on account of having absolutely no tank, and the Ruppy is actually slower (1700m/s) by a large margin than the Omen (2018 shield fit), which has better damage projection (Scorch), does more DPS and can actually shoot its lasers continuously when capped out from running its MWD. So, assume you are in this mythical Rupture which can actually do something, it can only catch the Omen after a significant stern chase, most of which is spent in peak omen DPS, and if it does catch the Omen it's not going to actually do any better. Given you cannot actually catch the Omen your utility highs are useless, ergo, Ruppy is useless and so is the Stabber. Ergo, medium AC's are useless if not solely because the platforms they rely on are slower, weaker and have to use ACs.

The stabber only out-DPS's a Thorax if the Thorax is using Void and blasters. However, the Thorax with Null will still do competitive DPS up to 8km and has drones beyond that. The Stabber only goes 200m/s faster than the shield Thorax, which isn't much of a safety net. Shield rail Thoraxes (which are a thing you're unaware of, as you are from BoT) will own the Stabber, which can't appreciably kite them, as long as the Thorax knows what to do, which is to not fly directly at the Stabber, and instead to lure it into a stern chase.

You are saying a Rupture can get under a railrax's guns? In which universe, the one where people 1600 plate Thoraxes and use 250mm T2 rails? Hint: it's not possible. Railrax's will just kite the Ruppy to death outside of hard tackle range, laying down massive DPS. So, sure, get into a stern chase with a faster rail Thorax and see how you go.

1. Lowest Minimatar have bad fitting to refelect low costs.
2. Minmatar have terrible, TERRIBLE cap to compensate for this.
3. Lowest Damage modifier/ROF Combination on all their guns to make up for selectable damage
4. Better tracking than lasers, but the instant you hit falloff this reduces Hit quality to the point where chance to hit is greater for lasers. AC's also have the worst optimal by FAR

minmatar no longer winmatar...oh cry me a river

Don't forget heavy missiles took a hit too. If I had to guess I would imagine that the reason you hear more people still talking about ACs is because during the "battlecruiser era" more people flew Minmatar than Caldari as Minmatar were easier to run away with and the cane was packing neuts instead of nothing in its highs. The Drake was a solid fleet ship to be sure but it was a lot less common to see them running around alone compared to Hurricanes. ACs didn't so much get worse as the ships did and other things got buffed around them and eventually lead to the rise of loathsome drone doctrines.

While I have no actual data to back it up I do seem to remember an awfully long time where entire killboards were filled with killed and lost Minmatar ships, exceptions were rare. You know the orange nebula background to Minmatar ship icons? It was getting to the point where I swear I could see it every time I closed my eyes. In fairness though the fact that I lived in Minmatar space could be a contributing factor. So I feel you hear about ACs more often because more people feel sad about the changes than do heavy missiles, not that you never hear about heavy missiles either. The fact that these rebalance passes have made killboards quite a bit more multicultural is a good thing. They are still not as Gallente heavy now as they were Minmatar heavy two years ago.

On another note because it has come up during this thread is the Ishtar. I actually don't like the Ishtar. This has nothing to do with its power level because it is quite strong. I have just never ever enjoyed "minions" as a primary weapon, style of gameplay, drones as supplemental damage is fine for me though. I like to get the job done myself not delegate it to others, this is true of me IRL as well. The only legitimate things I don't like about Ishtars is that if you are kiting around your sentries and end up having to warp out you end up leaving your guns behind which does not happen to other ships and second, people are well aware of the power of Ishtars and so getting a fight with them is a trick. I will continue to fly Ishtars as long as my alliance asks me to but I will still puke my face off in private while not so secretly wishing they would get nerfed.