Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Do you even check what you say? Lets compare talos with tornado.

http://i1331.photobucket.com/albums/w591/Stitch156/talosvstornado_zps136c3122.png Talos is green, nado is red.

The talos, WITHOUT any range bonuses on hull, stomps a/c in dps and application all the way out to 55km with null. The Tornado with faction with a fall-off bonus is quite below what the talos can output. With barrage, a/c start to out dps blasters at 40km. By then though, i would need to sink an RF point and links to actually tackle the talos with the nado at the range i would start to out dps them. Talos will track me better than i can it, since it has tracking bonus. Tanks are comparable (both shield fit).

Hurricanes kited, but not with sabot, you only have like 17km fall-off when using sabot, doing a whole 350ish dps. Maybe they could have used sabot when brawling smaller targets, since thats all i use it for on my nado. Hurricanes used to kite before TE nerf/nano nerf, that is not the case anymore. The only time i see hurricanes is fitted with artillery and camping gates. I see the occasional gank cane, but still rarer than i see myrm, talos, brutix, drakes, cyclones etc.

Explain how the wolf and jag are best for solo and fleet work, i'm curious how you came to that conclusion? The wolf has 2 mids, meaning, anything with a web could pull range on it, and it has a pathetic fall-off bonus, meaning you have to be within 10km to apply meaningful dps. Which comes back to the web thing. And if jag is so good for fleet work, why are you guys using harpies? I've never once seen a jag doctrine (could be that i haven't been in a fleet for a year, but still, never read about one before). Could it be because a/c's apply meaningless dps at the ranges you guys fight at? Or that you can't fit artillery and a tank to it like you can harpies with rails?

This is a discussion about a/c, not artillery. So your point on nado and maelstrom alpha fits is irrelevant. Where are the a/c maelstrom and nado doctrines? They don't exist because a/c fall-off gives **** dps at engagement ranges and is not favorable for fleet work. If i recall, the TFI doctrine uses artillery (correct me if i'm wrong, i don't study everyone's doctrines).

You are still missing the point. The only buff a/c's need is to their base fall-off, to shift their dps curve into a medium engagement range, instead of being right in blaster range with null, which blasters are supposed to be short range weapons, but as shown in the example above, out dps a/c's in all relevant ranges. Not asking for a damage, RoF, tracking buff, just simply a 10-20% fall-off increase to base a/c stats. In the big picture, you're talking 2-4km increase and maybe shifting dps 50-75 out at point range. This is not game-breaking, or trying to get the FOTM back, its so a/c's have a role that aren't outperformed by blasters.

Not to detract from the point you're trying to make, but in comparing the primary weapon system you would typically remove drones from the DPS graphs. At least I'm fairly certain that the loss of drone control at 60km is why you have a sudden cliff of a DPS drop as opposed to the nice curve we've had for the rest of the graph. Yes the Talos does outdamage the Tornado at just about all ranges, but the argument is typically Blasters vs Autocannons, not Blasters+Drones vs Autocannons.

Good point. It was a rush job this morning. Forgot to remove them. blasters still out dps at ranges regardless of the drones. Its 5 warriors in the graph, which is like 80dps i think.

Baltec, thanks for derailing my thread and turning it into this. If you could stop commenting on it completely I'd appreciate it.

Bottom line here is Im proposing a buff to the falloff of autocannons, the issue is whether that would improve the current meta, or break the game. The majority of opinions seem to think it would improve the meta, with a few exceptions.

Point from the discussion is that
A/Cs advantage is profound on select cruiser hulls and BS level where TEs can be fit.
Less so on frigate level, especially on hulls with tracking bonuses. Falloff bonused ships can manage (rifter/wolf), jaguar has enough slots to pull some magic off.
Part of the issue on frigate size is scram/web being constant throughout all ship sizes. If you are scram webbed on BS level you are in blaster optimal anyway.
But on frig level null reaches out to scram kite range and the advantage of barrage A/Cs don't matter anymore.

Why are you linking arty and rail fits when we are talking about autocannons?

Ok. Let me rephrase that since we are splitting hairs instead answering the basis of the question. Why do you think the jag and wolf are among the best frigates? Out of shear curiosity, why does your alliance favor harpies over a jag?

Blasters have blapped things at 40km, especially tackle. I myself was killed at about 35km when talos was first released in a merlin, and again when i was in a keres. Im sure i could find a handful of videos to prove this. Acs with the already low dps become even worse at those falloff ranges. Meaning that ships will generally escape due to not being able to get relevant dps on target.

In conjuction with lower overall dps and even further reduced applied dps in falloff, exactly how am i supposed to kill a dual repped anything in my vagabond, when im doing 200-350dps at 20km? Most dual rep fits are 400-500 dps tanks. Am i supposed to get in close to use my small neut to cap out a cap boosted ship? Or so i can get scrammed/web and be a dead vagabond.

I get what you are saying, but thats not how it works in practice. To commit to a fight and accept i will be scrammed/webbed, i need tank. Show me a vagabond that can tank a deimos without dropping a crystal set + ded sheild booster to make it work. Not gonna happen. Even when i have a medium neut on my vaga, you are outside of its effective range while kiting and is therefore not providing the utility you mention. All the vaga can rely on is the acs to kill things at range. Otherwise you must commit to the fight and get scrammed for the neut to be useful.

Ishtar is OP because it can use sentries, yep glad we agree. Its still OP whether its the ship, or drones its allowed to use.

In a roaming frig gang, perhaps, where a/c short comings are not as noticeable since you have additional dps on field. Solo is another story. Jag dps is pretty low in comparison to other AF's. Its tank is decent when fit with ac's, however the optimal bonus on the hull provides no benefit to autocannons, and is wasted. The jag is meant for artillery, but struggles to have it fit with anymore than a single AAR for tank.

Wolf would be perfect if it had a 3rd mid, but without it its not a good solo boat. It's slowish with MWD, and if you fight someone with a web, they will be able to range control the entire fight. The only niche i've found for it is giant killing (cruisers), similar to claw. In a fleet/gang though, i agree, it probably is a good boat because you have other webs on the field.



Depends on how the ishtar is fit, if shield fit, i'm hitting 50% base resist + tank mods. If its armor fit, there is a good chance explo hole will be plugged. EM is best against ishtar in either case most times. Blasters have higher dps than a/c's, and the difference in resists to DPS is noticable, but not a huge struggle. Especially on most of the kite ishtars.

What has been bolded/underlined clearly illustrates the benefit of increased fall-off that is being discussed. See how well those a/c's perform and apply damage due to the high base fall-off of large guns (and higher dps). Now, by no means am i saying i want medium's at those ranges. But adding a few km to base fall-off on mediums will actually make the lower dps of medium a/c's apply half-way decently and not be so weak.

With selectable damage comes added expense and cargo. Blaster boats are often being fed by a cap booster, and can hold more "tank" since normally they only carry 2 types of ammo, faction AM and null. I have to fill up with 5-7 types of ammo in a projectile ship to get all those benefits you speak of. This limits room for cap boosters, depots etc. As previously discussed, if you're kiting, most times you are using barrage, not "selectable" ammo types, since most times the bump in application on barrage will still mean you do more dps than if you were using selectable faction ammo.



Dual rep ships are fed by a cap booster, the only time they're hungry is under heavy dps, or being neuted themselves, though its quite common for some ships to carry 2 cap boosters. Which makes it a non-issue then.

If i get close, i get scrammed/webbed/neuted etc, which is the dumbest thing you can do in a vagabond. If i sit too far, then i don't do enough dps to break their tank, which means they could potentially run a single rep to tank me, extending life of cap boosters. And its VERY rare that the t1 vexor i have pointed, doesn't have a 5-10man gang behind him. So i cannot just "take my time" waiting for him to run out of cap boosters, that's just absurd.

The vaga is all minny have for a HAC. The muninn is garbage in almost all but armor HAC fleets, but has been made obsolete by the isthar. You're telling me that my 300m HAC is doing the same job a 25m stabber or caracal can do? Anti-frigate duty, as thats all it will be able to kill while kiting.

Also, T1 vexor is a tough cookie? wut


nerf deimos? 2 right off the top of my head are sac and ishtar.

Which reminds me, about the "Age of Balance" you mentioned earlier. What about drones in general? They have selectable damage types, move with the target, or have ridiculous ranges (sentries). You could say they can be shot, but most drone boats have durability bonuses and generous drone bays. Also have to hope you'll be in range to shoot the drones. I'd like to see a vagabond try and shoot sentries at 60km, or have to burn in to shoot the sentries. It won't end well.

How come drones don't suffer from **** application with selectable damage type like missiles and a/c's. Missiles can also be killed, and a/c's TD'd, so the drone killing argument is almost irrelevant.

Spot on.

I disagree. You forgot about the other benefits they have such as RANGE, and no flight time.

As a Minmatar, I like the Autocannons and Arty just fine the way it is.