Player Features and Ideas Discussion

So, it's been a while since the missile changes and I decided to post some analysis on the matter. Below you can see a comparison between the common medium-sized missiles used in PVP.

Missile Comparison

Now, what does this show us? First of all, we already know RLM platforms are very powerful and drastically overshadow the alternatives in most cases and secondly, Heavy Missiles do not apply enough damage even when rigors are used. Heavy Assault is in a good place in terms of range, application and raw damage.

This issue is primarily caused by nowadays' speed-meta rather than the actual HM nerf as well as T2 missiles being awful in general, across the board. When you can't apply even 50% of your damage against a medium sized target with an active MWD, with a weapon platform designed for medium-sized targets, something is not right.

What are some possible solutions here?

I think that a reduction in damage and reload time is appropriate for Rapid Lights, while keeping the sustained damage about the same which will slightly decrease the overall burst but offer more sustained use in fleets especially. No one enjoys a reload timer that lasts an eternity which simply comes down to poor design, rather than a fun mechanic.

Heavy Assault is, in my opinion, well-balanced within its intended purpose against medium-large targets.

My proposed change to Heavy Missiles is a possible reduction in range (if there has to be a trade-off), and increase in damage application. Speed is simply too much of an influence by today's standards and unfortunately hurts the performance of Heavy Missiles too much in PvP. It is simply not acceptable to fit for full damage projection and still not coming close to other platforms that can do without.


Thank you for taking the time to read and please share your thoughts.


Edit: Credit and thanks to Zavand Crendraven for providing the correct damage formula & Deerin for providing an updated and larger comparison.

I do hope heavies get some love. When the mordus ships and their missile bonuses came out I got my hopes up.

I've posted about this a few times in my own threads and other people's. There's a range of issues with launchers right now, which I'm not going to get into, but CCP has responded to one of my threads stating that they're looking at missiles. Hopefully it's on the list somewhere.

If you'd like a sort of unempirical method of looking at launcher usage in PVP check out the kill-boards. Most of them let you sort by ship type. It's not very sound method of gathering data but it can suffice to give you an idea of the launcher outlook in the current meta-game.

I'm not sure that PVE considerations should enter into ship balancing. No tweaking of current launchers or new modules are going to let ravens blap sleeper drones with torpedoes anyway, so I'm not particularly worried about it. Balancing the game around PVE activities could lead to a lot of unintended consequences.

The problem with increasing missile application to fast moving targets is that there is essentially no alternative to mitigate incoming damage. You can't get "under" missiles like you can with turrets, nor can you spiral in to cut down on the amount of real dps*. Torps do a lot of damage. If applying that to a frigate or cruiser were straightforward, they'd be incredibly powerful and versatile weapons. The same can be said (to a lesser extent) for HAMs. It doesn't even need to be full application to seriously hurt below-class targets. 25-30% application is bad news for frigates under HAM fire, and even 10-15% is going to wear you down fairly quickly if you aren't active tanked.

Heavy missiles could use probably some work, yes, but certainly not to their pre-nerf days. I think a lot of the seeming weakness of HMLs in particular is a combination of a moderate overnerf in combination with a lot of speed-creep in their likely targets (see snakes/links).


*It's easy to forget that turrets aren't usually doing their paper dps either, due to tracking or range/falloff issues.

Turrets are not, but they're murdering missiles in what I'd term "normal engagement ranges".

Example:

[Caracal, HML]
Ballistic Control System II
Ballistic Control System II
Reactor Control Unit II
Damage Control II

Experimental 10MN Microwarpdrive I
Large F-S9 Regolith Shield Induction
Large F-S9 Regolith Shield Induction
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Faint Warp Disruptor I

Heavy Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Scourge Heavy Missile
Heavy Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Scourge Heavy Missile
Heavy Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Scourge Heavy Missile
Heavy Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Scourge Heavy Missile
Heavy Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Scourge Heavy Missile

Medium Bay Loading Accelerator I
Medium Polycarbon Engine Housing I
Medium Polycarbon Engine Housing I

Warrior II x2

PAPER DPS: 300

Just spotted I had a rogue RCU in there, should have been overdrive but I'm not changing it now


[Thorax, Thorax Rails]
Damage Control II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Tracking Enhancer II

Experimental 10MN Microwarpdrive I
Large F-S9 Regolith Shield Induction
Faint Warp Disruptor I
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II

200mm Railgun II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
200mm Railgun II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
200mm Railgun II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
200mm Railgun II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
200mm Railgun II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M

Medium Core Defense Field Extender I
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I

Warrior II x5

PAPER DPS: 488/284 [Am/Tu]

Here is the thorax shooting the caracal:

http://i.imgur.com/c5PfO5m.png


And here is the caracal shooting the thorax:

http://i.imgur.com/Im9yibr.png

Combined chart for visible break points:

http://i.imgur.com/WcVXXiJ.png


So whilst, yes the HML has a greater range, at a useful engagement range i.e. point range, the rails absolutely smoke it, even at extremely high transversal.

You can see yourself it's not even close. Not remotely. And that's HML vs a MWD cruiser. Sure, you may point out that it is antimatter and short range, so lets slap some tunsten in there and see what happens:

http://i.imgur.com/aQEb8s3.png


It's really pretty damning.

Range on hmls is already low enough. They need a bit more damage though. I make due with them if I have to, but they're my least favorite missile to use now.

1: I am comparing the most-used missiles of certain launchers to prove that, Heavy Missiles in particular, have a severe shortcoming when it comes to applied damage.

2: Anyone participating in this discussion should already be well aware of the damage difference between the listed missiles and launchers, including CCP. Otherwise finding that basic information is easy enough on your own and shouldn't add any clutter to these numbers to keep it simple. HAMs do roughly 50% more damage, yet also apply more damage than HMs.

3: Rigs and modules are not added; an additional section with rigs is displayed to emphasize the problem at hand, which is that even with rigs, HMs still do not apply nearly enough damage.

4: T1 ammo is generally garbage and faction ammo is widely regarded as the best balance between raw damage and applied damage, as my numbers show. If faction ammo fails to apply damage, do you really think T1 will do any better? Rockets, LMs and CMs have no place in this discussion as they perform their intended role at an acceptable level.

5: Again, these values have no place in this thread as they do not reflect the problem at hand. If a missile fails to apply damage against an MWD, how do you think it will fare against an AB target? Just about every weapon in the game will apply close to full damage against its intended target-size if the target is webbed, including missiles. Battleships and above are in the league of Cruise Missiles and Torpedoes, and are greatly unaffected by the current speed-meta so damage application is not a problem, meaning that in a discussion about small to medium-sized damage application, they are completely irrelevant and would only take the focus of important issues away.

6: A couple of posts above yours shows a very good comparison between a HM Caracal and a rail Thorax, I suggest you take a look.

Those were before they were rehashed into the spam>relooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooad variants.

I chose 2500 as a reference point between T1 and the faster cruisers that exceed 3000 without heat, but you make a good point and it's worth taking a look at a more accurate comparison between the two:


http://i.imgur.com/sMmnD4k.jpg

The above numbers compare missile damage taken by a Moa on the left, and a Cynabal on the right. No links/boosters/overheating. We can see that HAMs still apply significantly more damage than HMs with T2/faction missiles, resulting in approximately double the actual DPS.

Another interesting note is that CN HAMs have better damage application than Precision HM, which is rather illogical.