Player Features and Ideas Discussion

ABs are just very limited compared to MWDs. I'm aware of the drawbacks of both, but when all is said and done, when it comes to spaceship combat in open space, MWDs are superior. ABs are only useful in niche situations, and they have virtually no hope of catching an MWD fit ship in scram range. You're a sitting duck in an AB fit ship, except in scram range, but there is no guarantee you can have the fight take place there; there exceptions to this, but in general it's true. In order to make ABs work you need to do one of the following:

1. Make sure your opponent is going to come into scram range (because you generally have no way of catching them)
2. Use structure mechanics to your advantage, for example, waiting at 0km on a plex beacon so that you can catch someone in scram range, or hanging around gates or stations where, if an MWD ship dances around you from far away you can simply dock or jump if you have to.

Anything other than that, in open space, the MWD fit ship has the advantage - it has the ability to control the range of the engagement, and although it is limited to fighting outside of scram range, it simply has no need to ever go within scram range if it's a properly fit kiting ship. MWDs are therefore king when it comes to space combat. Just because ABs have certain niches where they can be successful doesn't mean they are on par with MWDs.

My poor dead brother Sansha

If he would still be alive, he would strangle you.

Well before my time, but god damn that sounds like it would be funny to fly. Every so often I like to fly a fast frigate and orbit someone with a festival launcher, we see how many we can get to go off at once. Seeing that happen for real (and the reverse of it, a fast ship spooling up missiles on the target) would be hilarious.

Good point

And yet people still choose to bring oversized AB fits over MWD fits, because you are very very rarely facing a mirror-match of ships, and even in the cases where you do have a mirror match the ships that can fit an oversized prop mod often have enough fitting to do so without significant trade offs, except in cost of it, and the advantages more than make up for it in the rare cases of a direct mirror match.

Your Confessor example also assumes that the MWD fit can stay well away from the AB fit, while still keeping him on grid. The reality is that he probably can't because a single bad piece of piloting and the other guy is either outside point range or inside scram range, so probable worst case for the AB fit is he gets to run away, probable worst case for the MWD fit is he gets nailed to the wall of someone's KB. That's not to say that MWD fits on these ships are bad or can't be used, but in a kiting mirror-match they don't have nearly the advantage you seem to think they do.

For example the difference in base speed with all 5s between a 10MN Confessor and a 5MN MWD Confessor is 200m/s, a difference which is within about 1 fitting mod, a few skills, or a faction prop mod of being reversed. That is *really* not a big difference, and even a half decent pilot can use course changes to maintain or even open up distance on an opponent, and as I mentioned previously the AB fit is going to tank *much* better in a straight up fight with even a little transversal, and you'd be amazed how much that makes up for in fitting trade offs.

AB fits aren't niche, kiting is just in the meta right now. ABs and MWDs serve different purposes and we don't need a return to horribly ridiculously OP stacked-prop fits to 'fix' this imagined problem.

If you do one bit of math here I recommend going and throwing some speed numbers into a pyfa graph or something to realize how stupidly powerful an AB going anywhere near the speed of an MWD is. Stuff like that is literally the reason webs used to be 90% because it was the only way you could slow anyone down enough to hit them. It's also one of the biggest strength of oversized AB fits today. "Oh, I'm webbed and scrammed, don't care still speed tanking!"

Ships that fit an oversized prop often have enough fitting to do so without significant trade offs? Really?

I don't think you have any idea what you're talking about here.

The 10mn Confessor literally has to trade at least one rig and one low slot to be able to fit the 10mn; that is a very significant trade off. We're talking about an extra heat sink's worth of DPS and an extra Locus rig worth of range. In a 1v1 against an MWD fit Confessor, the 10mn is going to die. There is no debate here. The 10mn has a way slower align time and top speed - he is the one who can't afford to make a mistake, not the MWD fit version. The MWD fit can dance around the 10mn all day and basically kill the 10mn whenever he feels like it. The 10mn is the one who will be unable to keep the MWD fit on grid, because he has no way to chase the MWD fit with his terrible align time. All the MWD fit has to do is make one turn and he'll be out of point range - or make another turn and he'll be back into it. The MWD fit literally controls the entire fight, and has a significant damage and range advantage.

This is one thing I certainly do know from experience, and just general logic. You're dead wrong here.

The speed difference is crucial when you add speed mods, the MWD fit will be hundreds of m/s faster, with the agility of a frigate whereas the 10mn will have the agility of cruiser or battlecruiser. Combined with his extra DPS and range, it's simply not up for debate which fit is going to win, provided both pilots are more or less equal - the MWD fit wins, hands down.

The only way the 10mn fit can win is by closing the distance and webbing the MWD fit - and this is nearly impossible to do unless the MWD pilot is a carebear or something. If they're both fit with a nano and poly the difference will be something like 300 m/s in speed, and 6 seconds in align time - there is just no way the 10mn is catching the MWD fit before he explodes due to his poor tank and the Confessor's insane dps.

Even flying in a straight line the MWD fit wins easily because of his superior dps/range/speed. The 10mn simply has no chance unless the MWD fit makes a huge mistake.

You ain't using any course changes or anything against another pilot who has basic understanding of how to pilot. His speed, and especially his agility, are just far too superior. The MWD fit just wins.

And even if the MWD fit has a hard time tracking the 10mn, the MWD fit is the one who can disengage at any time - his align time and speed are such that all he has to do is turn away from the 10mn fit's trajectory and he will escape - if the 10mn fit gives chase, transversal will become nothing and the MWD fit will be landing critical shots and win the fight easily because of his superior dps and range. Again he wins, or he just flies away.

I am well aware of all the benefits of AB fits, especially oversized ones and ones fitted by super fast ships or ships with AB bonuses like the Sansha lineup. I know they're an awesome part of the game and they definitely have their niche - but let's not delude ourselves, because that's just what it is - a niche. They are not as powerful as they are sometimes made out to be. All it really takes is two webs on any oversized AB ship to bring them close to what the base speed of a scrammed MWD ship (of the same class) would be - at that point their gimped tank is exposed for what it is. And their terrible align time makes them more likely to get caught in those webs in the first place - whereas a super fast aligning MWD fit could have shot away from danger like a comet.

Sorry OP, but this all just sounds a lot like EFT-warrioring and not like concerns from an actual encounter.

With *three* Overdrive Injectors a MWD confessor doesn't even manage 250m/s over a 10MN AB fit. The difference is larger for Cruisers but the margin for error is smaller, and an error in positioning is more devastating to the MWD fit than the AB fit, which is the main and *massive* advantage an oversized AB fit has. If you get into web and scram range the AB keeps going, and at that point the AB fit can dictate range at will over the MWD fit.

Since the MWD doesn't actually have enough speed to free-orbit the AB fit this all comes down to manual piloting, and under those circumstances mistakes are, frankly, quite easy to make. Between the enforced 1 second of reaction time and the still not that great align time of a MWDing ship the AB fit has a much easier time opening distance if it's chasing or closing distance if it's being chased than the other ship has preventing that from happening, especially since engagements are happening within point range, which means sub-30km. That gives the MWD ship a buffer of about 10km between "can hold point" and "webbed, scrammed, and screwed".

Also, a MWDing ship with a web and a scram on it is still slower than an oversized AB fit with two webs and a scram, and in a 1v1 that requires your opponent to spend three slots holding you instead of two, *and* if he's MWD fit you still have a speed advantage on him and can pull away.

Regarding "significant tradeoffs" allow me to correct and clarify a bit. Yes, you have to trade in fitting space and a couple slots, but the trade off is still not significant enough that it's not a very beneficial choice, to the point that it was nearly a no-brainer for a long time and, as far as I know, is still quite viable for the reasons I stated above. There's a reason that the few ships that can pull off these oversized AB fits have been very dominant in the meta, and it's not because MWD fits hard-counter them the way you're implying.

If you could effectively trade just two slots and less fittings than required by an oversized AB for most or all of the benefits of one (but without most of the align penalty) then I think pretty much everyone would go for it. That's without getting into the Sansha ships which would be able to easily outrun an MWDing ship with two ABs running. Those things would just be hilariously broken.

What happens if you fit a 100mn AB, 10 MN AB, and a 1MN AB. Activate all at once.

I think thats how the Doc got the dalorian to time travel.

People did do that. Maybe you weren't there. You're probably one of those guys who thinks that the Garmur was the "king" of frigates, too. T3Ds (including the 10mn variations) had plenty of counters.


Yes, if the idea were to introduce dual-afterburners into the game it would be similar to oversized afterburners, just with different penalties; you have to give up an entire mid slot to do it, but it's easier on fittings so you need less PG upgrades. The speed limits and align times would also be different. I'm not sure what your point is here. Because they would be similar to oversized afterburners, that means.... what?