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Player Features and Ideas Discussion

 
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Modular Hardpoints

Author
Nikk Narrel
Moonlit Bonsai
#1 - 2015-04-22 14:50:18 UTC
Ok, I have been pondering this in various forms for a while.

Here is something I think might be a good addition.

Make each size class of weapon capable of holding two, of the next size class below it.

(A large turret hard point could hold two medium turrets, or four small ones)
The tracking and support for such weapons is not a thing given freely, however.
The ship must mount sensor boosters scripted for a size class matching the weapon to be supported, or the smaller weapon set will track and target using the larger weapon's speed and accuracy.

(The script simply gives a generic unboosted equivalent for a hull the appropriate size for the weapon, a second unscripted sensor booster would give normal bonuses)

Thoughts?
Siginek
Newbie Friendly Industries
CeskoSlovenska Aliance
#2 - 2015-04-22 14:57:27 UTC
interresting idea ... it is only logical for bigger ships to have all sizes of weapons to be defense-capable, but current game mechanichs "forces" you to use only weapons designed for your hull size that are incapable to defend you vs small targets, which is pretty ridiculous considering 1km long ship to be defenceless vs 50m long ship with 100 times smaller price
Cade Windstalker
#3 - 2015-04-22 15:41:53 UTC
This would be stupidly over-powered. Just looking at some numbers real quick:

A single Neutron Blaster Cannon II does 78 DPS mounted on a Megathron (note, that's *with* the hull bonuses to Large Hybrids).

Two 250mm Railgun II's do 73 DPS and have roughly 3 times the Optimal and around twice the overall total range with Antimatter.

Four 150mm Railguns do 87 DPS, have twice the optimal, and roughly the same total range with Antimatter. Oh and they can effectively track Frigate sized targets fairly easily, never mind what they do to anything larger.

Note, those last two are un-bonused long-range guns being compared to a ship-bonused short-range gun. If you get into comparing short-range to short-range it gets even stupider, with 2 Medium Neutron 2s doing 87 DPS, and four Light Neutron 2s doing 130 DPS. Of course they suffer in terms of range but who cares when you can throw 32 of them on a Vindicator with that web bonus and hold someone in place for the short amount of time it takes your personal-frigate-fleet worth of mounted guns to blow through them.

It doesn't even cost more cap for this, the combined small or medium guns cost less cap than the Large one does.
Nikk Narrel
Moonlit Bonsai
#4 - 2015-04-22 15:54:35 UTC
Cade Windstalker wrote:
This would be stupidly over-powered. Just looking at some numbers real quick:

A single Neutron Blaster Cannon II does 78 DPS mounted on a Megathron (note, that's *with* the hull bonuses to Large Hybrids).

Two 250mm Railgun II's do 73 DPS and have roughly 3 times the Optimal and around twice the overall total range with Antimatter.

Four 150mm Railguns do 87 DPS, have twice the optimal, and roughly the same total range with Antimatter. Oh and they can effectively track Frigate sized targets fairly easily, never mind what they do to anything larger.

Note, those last two are un-bonused long-range guns being compared to a ship-bonused short-range gun. If you get into comparing short-range to short-range it gets even stupider, with 2 Medium Neutron 2s doing 87 DPS, and four Light Neutron 2s doing 130 DPS. Of course they suffer in terms of range but who cares when you can throw 32 of them on a Vindicator with that web bonus and hold someone in place for the short amount of time it takes your personal-frigate-fleet worth of mounted guns to blow through them.

It doesn't even cost more cap for this, the combined small or medium guns cost less cap than the Large one does.

I get your point about raw numbers looking over-powered.

That can be managed rather easily, to be honest.
Apply a penalty to the damage, either by limiting which weapons can be fitted, or by simple damage penalty as a whole to multi-fitted weapon systems which share a hardpoint.
(You don't want to penalize the small weapon that is single hardpoint fitted to the larger ship, which we can do already)
A combination of the two could be used, quite well.
James Baboli
Warp to Pharmacy
#5 - 2015-04-23 20:46:56 UTC
A version of this which does this by bundling the turrets into size appropriate packages has been proposed. Lets let this easily abused implementation of the concept die, and all support one of these two implementations of the same high level concept:

Turret-Equivalent of the Rapid ML Concept [Quad Beams&Dual 250 Rails] by Iroquoiss Pliskin

Or

Proposal for 'multi-barrelled' turrets (example given) by Gabriel Karade

Talking more,

Flying crazier,

And drinking more

Making battleships worth the warp

Nikk Narrel
Moonlit Bonsai
#6 - 2015-04-23 21:06:41 UTC
James Baboli wrote:
A version of this which does this by bundling the turrets into size appropriate packages has been proposed. Lets let this easily abused implementation of the concept die, and all support one of these two implementations of the same high level concept:

Turret-Equivalent of the Rapid ML Concept [Quad Beams&Dual 250 Rails] by Iroquoiss Pliskin

Or

Proposal for 'multi-barrelled' turrets (example given) by Gabriel Karade

Truly, they are similar in many ways.

But I have not seen either address a need for frigate or cruiser class targeting and tracking. Particularly where they sacrifice a mid slot in order to recoup the lost difference.

With this, a battleship may not always be the best answer to pick as an option for a fleet, but I think it can safely avoid ever being labeled as the wrong answer.
James Baboli
Warp to Pharmacy
#7 - 2015-04-23 21:15:15 UTC
Nikk Narrel wrote:

Truly, they are similar in many ways.

But I have not seen either address a need for frigate or cruiser class targeting and tracking. Particularly where they sacrifice a mid slot in order to recoup the lost difference.

With this, a battleship may not always be the best answer to pick as an option for a fleet, but I think it can safely avoid ever being labeled as the wrong answer.


Both of those include that they would have comparable, but not quite equal, tracking with the undersized guns they are mounting in an array.

As for the need to fit application mods to reach cruiser/frigate tracking on oversized modules, HTFU. you have more slots and more fitting space. Get over it and make the tracking happen, or don't make it happen and live with what you get.

Talking more,

Flying crazier,

And drinking more

Making battleships worth the warp

Cade Windstalker
#8 - 2015-04-23 21:18:56 UTC
Nikk Narrel wrote:
I get your point about raw numbers looking over-powered.

That can be managed rather easily, to be honest.
Apply a penalty to the damage, either by limiting which weapons can be fitted, or by simple damage penalty as a whole to multi-fitted weapon systems which share a hardpoint.
(You don't want to penalize the small weapon that is single hardpoint fitted to the larger ship, which we can do already)
A combination of the two could be used, quite well.


Then what's the point of doing this? It would require a big overhaul of the UI and the same thing could be accomplished without all the stat juggling and other weirdness by either re-balancing the existing smaller Large and Medium guns or adding new modules.

Split guns are never going to be optimal because people build ships for a focused specialization because that's basically always better than splitting your specialization. I think you can count the number of exceptions to this rule on one hand.
Ncc 1709
Fusion Enterprises Ltd
Fraternity.
#9 - 2015-04-23 23:01:59 UTC
basically using star citizen weapon mount system with swivel mounts....
Daichi Yamato
Jabbersnarks and Wonderglass
#10 - 2015-04-23 23:27:01 UTC
Cant we just add a bit of tracking to the lesser used smaller weapons within a size class?

EVE FAQ "7.2 CAN I AVOID PVP COMPLETELY? No; there are no systems or locations in New Eden where PvP may be completely avoided"

Daichi Yamato's version of structure based decs

Mara Koseki
Zaknafein Tactical Reconnaissance
#11 - 2015-04-23 23:41:49 UTC
Rather than screwing with existing fitting, they need to make the double weapons a thing. Dual 425mm auto cannons have worse stats than the 425mm cruiser varient yet uses large ammo instead. The existing dual weapons need a touch up and new ones need to be added that fill the missing slots. Would be nice for dreads to with twin battleship guns
Daichi Yamato
Jabbersnarks and Wonderglass
#12 - 2015-04-24 02:55:01 UTC
Mara Koseki wrote:
Dual 425mm auto cannons have worse stats than the 425mm cruiser varient yet uses large ammo instead.


Confirming tracking is the only useful stat. Range and DPS are worthless.

Small electron blasters are OP.

EVE FAQ "7.2 CAN I AVOID PVP COMPLETELY? No; there are no systems or locations in New Eden where PvP may be completely avoided"

Daichi Yamato's version of structure based decs

Tabyll Altol
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#13 - 2015-04-24 09:05:34 UTC
Nikk Narrel wrote:
Ok, I have been pondering this in various forms for a while.

Here is something I think might be a good addition.

Make each size class of weapon capable of holding two, of the next size class below it.

(A large turret hard point could hold two medium turrets, or four small ones)
The tracking and support for such weapons is not a thing given freely, however.
The ship must mount sensor boosters scripted for a size class matching the weapon to be supported, or the smaller weapon set will track and target using the larger weapon's speed and accuracy.

(The script simply gives a generic unboosted equivalent for a hull the appropriate size for the weapon, a second unscripted sensor booster would give normal bonuses)

Thoughts?


Would be an interesting idea, but i would reduce the dmg from the smaller sized weapon systems.

Another option would be to lower the applied dmg from smaller ships to lager ships :

e.g.:

Small --> small = 100%
Small --> medium = 75%
Small --> Large = 60 %
Small --> Capital = 30%

It would make bigger ships capable to last longer against smaller weapons. But would not make small ships worthless, because their support role would be still the same.

+1
James Baboli
Warp to Pharmacy
#14 - 2015-04-24 09:10:02 UTC
Tabyll Altol wrote:


Would be an interesting idea, but i would reduce the dmg from the smaller sized weapon systems.

Another option would be to lower the applied dmg from smaller ships to lager ships :

e.g.:

Small --> small = 100%
Small --> medium = 75%
Small --> Large = 60 %
Small --> Capital = 30%

It would make bigger ships capable to last longer against smaller weapons. But would not make small ships worthless, because their support role would be still the same.

+1



Interesting. Mind if I math that out.

As proposed, effective turret numbers from the small turret base stats are:

Small --> small = 100%
Small --> medium = 150% (2x .75)
Small --> Large = 240% (4 x .6)
Small --> Capital = 240% (8 x .3)

Not quite sure I want to see capitals having that ability, but at least they are sufficiently underpowered to be purely for lulz fits at that point.

Talking more,

Flying crazier,

And drinking more

Making battleships worth the warp

Cade Windstalker
#15 - 2015-04-24 09:17:04 UTC
Tabyll Altol wrote:
Would be an interesting idea, but i would reduce the dmg from the smaller sized weapon systems.

Another option would be to lower the applied dmg from smaller ships to lager ships :

e.g.:

Small --> small = 100%
Small --> medium = 75%
Small --> Large = 60 %
Small --> Capital = 30%

It would make bigger ships capable to last longer against smaller weapons. But would not make small ships worthless, because their support role would be still the same.

+1


Not needed, not balanced, and never going to happen. Small ships already do overall less DPS than larger ones almost without exception (certainly the top DPS in each class is lower than the following classes) because small ships have smaller guns and fewer guns. They tend to fire faster but the overall DPS is still lower by a significant amount.

At present it's perfectly viable to run fleets of smaller ships. What you're talking about would completely kill this, along with probably 90% of the solo PvP in the game, since now a Frigate pretty much physically can't kill a Cruiser with a decent active tank (oh and there's no room in your listings for BCs or Destroyers).

Oh and using sub-caps to kill a Carrier... yeah no. That's not gonna work anymore either.

Your big ships have more base HP and more guns. There's your DPS offset by size category. Not by some arbitrary damage reduction based on the size of the gun firing the antimatter shell at the target.
James Baboli
Warp to Pharmacy
#16 - 2015-04-24 09:19:22 UTC
Cade Windstalker wrote:


Your big ships have more base HP and more guns. There's your DPS offset by size category. Not by some arbitrary damage reduction based on the size of the gun firing the antimatter shell at the target.


So much of this.
It just doesn't make sense that two otherwise identical turrets would be that different when flown on hulls with the exact same bonuses, but one is a frigate and the other a cruiser.

Talking more,

Flying crazier,

And drinking more

Making battleships worth the warp

Nikk Narrel
Moonlit Bonsai
#17 - 2015-04-24 14:02:47 UTC
I am revisiting the drawing board on this.

I am looking for a way to have large subcap hulls, AKA the Battleship class, be more combat effective against smaller hulls.

Without necessarily involving drones. Using those as a universal go-to here doesn't feel right.
Elenahina
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#18 - 2015-04-24 14:43:19 UTC
Nikk Narrel wrote:
I am revisiting the drawing board on this.

I am looking for a way to have large subcap hulls, AKA the Battleship class, be more combat effective against smaller hulls.

Without necessarily involving drones. Using those as a universal go-to here doesn't feel right.


But that is exactly how drones are indeded to be used. They give large ships, like battleships, the ability to effectively damage small ships like frigates.

Warning, real life comparison inbound.

Take a look at your average carrier group in the US Navy. Is it all carriers? No. Why not? Because carriers suck at defending themselves against small attacking vessels. That's why they have planes and escorts. Drones basically serve the same function as a carrier's planes - they're useful in attacking things the ship can't effectively kill alone.

Borrowing from another real life example is the idea of combined arms, which is something you don't see nearly as much oif in Eve as I would expect (except in huge battles of multiple thousands). Normally fleets are all composed of the same basic ship (AHACs, Armor BS, Kiting cruisers). You rarely, if ever, see a fleet comprised of long range snipers dealing damage from a far, combined with up close brawlers to pin down your targets and put down a pounding. It's one or the other in Eve. Obviously, it's effective, within the context of the game, but I always feel like we're shortchanging ourselves.

Eve is like an addiction; you can't quit it until it quits you. Also, iderno

James Baboli
Warp to Pharmacy
#19 - 2015-04-24 14:45:53 UTC
Nikk Narrel wrote:
I am revisiting the drawing board on this.

I am looking for a way to have large subcap hulls, AKA the Battleship class, be more combat effective against smaller hulls.

Without necessarily involving drones. Using those as a universal go-to here doesn't feel right.

It comes down to the avionics (scan res, sensor strength), tackle, and mobility. With hard tackle on a frigate, a battleship can rip it right off the field, especially if using close range, high tracking guns.

Why this happens so rarely is a big difference between armor and shield

Armor:
Order of problems: tackle, mobility, avionics
Issues come in with the fact that: armor battleships have got room for cap booster, web, scram, prop and maybe if you are lucky, or pick your ship for it, one other mod, like a target painter or second web. Add on the terrible mobility of a buffertanked armor battleship and/or the major compromises to get a multi-rep active tank, and it is likely that Joe Rifter can get under your guns well before you can lock him down.

Shield:
Order of problems: tackle, mobility, avionics
Again, biggest issue is the lack of space for hard tackle. In this case this is a soft limit, as tackle, prop and tank are all competing directly for those precious mids, for which you have maybe 7. To match the normal 3 slot tank of a roaming armor ship, you end up with 4 for tackle and prop, which means that you are SOL on getting the necessary hard tackle. Then you have to sacrifice DPS to have the avionics to catch that little frigate before it warps off, and maybe a bit more to keep from being jammed. All this combines for a slightly better time than armor, while still requiring a different fit from if you were persuing prey of more even size.

Talking more,

Flying crazier,

And drinking more

Making battleships worth the warp

Cade Windstalker
#20 - 2015-04-24 19:46:43 UTC  |  Edited by: Cade Windstalker
Nikk Narrel wrote:
I am revisiting the drawing board on this.

I am looking for a way to have large subcap hulls, AKA the Battleship class, be more combat effective against smaller hulls.

Without necessarily involving drones. Using those as a universal go-to here doesn't feel right.


There have been several suggestions along this line in the last few months or so.

Personally my favorite is adjusting the smaller turrets in each size class (smaller caliber, but still a Large/ Medium turret) to have distinct advantages over the larger turrets, with the smallest size having a smaller signature resolution. The effect of this on tracking smaller targets is huge but fairly minimal against same size or larger size targets. This ends up effectively giving Medium and Large hulls a turret equivalent to Rapid Light Missile Launchers where you're trading overall DPS and Projection for application.

Also, and absolutely no sarcasm or negativity intended here, props for stepping back and looking for other solutions to the problem you're looking to solve. Way to many ideas on here turn into endless circles of "you're wrong!" vs "No, you're wrong!" when someone tries to defend their idea to the death and force it to work. Takes a lot of maturity to go "this doesn't seem to be working" and step back. Big smile