Ships & Modules

IMO, hybrid guns deserve a buff; a small one for blasters because their main problem is more the ability to get in range than to inflict damage; and a better one for railguns which really lack some damage considering their weaknesses.

IMO, the best way to fix blasters is to add an ewar module to break the range control at long short range (inside point range, but outside webrange) like an inertia destabilizer which would decrease agility at medium range. Kitting ship using this will have to sacrifice something else like tank; that is why I like the idea of a module to break the supremacy of nanofiber+shield buffer which are the real problem of blaster boats.

Railgun niche was their ability to snipe, but considering the advantages of the others weapons (no ammo for lasers, instant switching of length for a damage projection not so far from missiles ; no cap for arty, damage selection and alpha), I think making hybrid just more powerful wouldn't really hurt other weapon systems. This is an easy solution, another one may be to give them more tracking, hence increasing their dps as well as giving them a role at killing smaller target, but I don't know if this role is really needed. No other idea. :-(

Making hybrids a new overpowered weapon system would not fix anything; and making gallente ship overpowered won't fix anything too.

people keep in mind that the only reason why small hybrids are fine is A. frigs are fast B. small hybrid turrets have good tracking for the range...

by grimpaks suggestion all one would have to do is simply increase caldari/gallente speed and give both blasters and rails a major tracking boost... (slight for medium big for large since all three blasters are meant to fire within 10 km anyways...)

Not sure if trolling but w/e:
If hybrids were boosted to the point of being useful, the bonuses to range/damage hybrid using ships get would make them better on those specific ships, just like every other weapon system in the game...

As a massive fan of blasterboats I have to say you're idea stinks. Even though Cambarus and I dissagrees with massivly on my toys at least he is trying to come up with ways to make my chosen weapon type better.

The PG issue will have to be looked into at some point, and maybe it's one way of going about it. I don't know if Caldari have the same PG issues (I don't fly Caldari ships, at least not much).

I too did the same comparisons you listed, and added the Abaddon. I even suggested a concrete PG increase for the Hyperion based on those comparisons. Nothing came of it, but I believe the issue is visible to enough people that it will be corrected at some point.







30%-40% is overdoing it. I would thing something like a extra built-in MFS would be more like it, and perhaps even that is overdoing it.

As for tracking, perhaps the equivalent of a built-in TE? I don't think boosting their tracking is optional, it seems to be one of the best ways of improve them.

I too would be willing to trade a small bit of optimal range for these changes, but not really falloff unless something else changes. The falloff of large blasters is what makes a Megathron with Null work, and work really well, in a RR BS gang today.

If such changes were implemented, then yes, leave the ships "as is", i.e. slow.



I was thinking something along the same lines. Medium range, but steady damage.

There are some fleets where blasters aren't accepted because they can't hit out to the required ranges, whereas ACs and lasers can. Even ships with bonuses for it falls short (Deimos comes to mind), albeit not by much. This mostly applies to cruiser-sized weapons. In those fleets, hybrid users must use rails.

As others have mentioned, rails seems much harder to "get right" than blasters. I have no real suggestions for how to "fix them" that wouldn't make them overpowered one way or the other.

Say you upped their damage, perhaps through increased RoF to introduce more cap usage as a offsetting penalty, and increased their tracking considerably, then lowered their range (either optimal, falloff or both). Some rails would then be useful while others, such as the dual-180s which today have neither alpha, DPS or range, would still be broken. The Rokh, which today can hit silly ranges, but for pitiful damage, would become much better, but Gallente would be even harder pressed to come up with a sniper fit. I.e. not ideal.

High tracking and face melting damage other weapons cannot manage with the drawback of much reduced range. Personally I think gal ships should be shield tankers but the abundence of lows means I can overcome the issue of speed while keeping omgnottheface damage.

Biggest issue with blasters many face is tracking at very close range. This might be overcome by computer magic. CCP could make the guns track targets better the closer they get so in effect, blasters would get the same tracking no matter the range.

When you say the guns worked fine before the speed nerf you are forgetting that hybrids are not only blasters, but also rails. Please tell me how being able to close the distance to the enemy faster would make rails working fine?

You know what else CCP did? They forgot to alter the guns, after both lasers and projectiles saw massive buffs.
Nano nerf whacked all the ships, it was specifically changes to mods (lasers, projectiles, webs, scrams) that hurt blaster pilots the most.


It was my understanding when I first joined eve that the short range guns were separated by their core mechanics as follows:
Pulses had high optimal, instant ammo swapping and moderate damage, but could only deal em/therm and had poor tracking to compensate.
ACs could deal all damage types and had high falloff, but had low optimal and low DPS to compensate, and even the falloff was kind of meh(nowhere near what amarr could do with their optimal)
Blasters had really,really high DPS, but had low optimal, falloff, high cap usage and fixed damage types.


Then, CCP boosted tracking on pulses by an absurd 25%, increased falloff on ACs pretty much across the board, gave TEs TWICE the bonus to falloff that they give to optimal (which is not the same, a gun with 1km optimal and 10km falloff ODs a gun with 10km optimal 1km falloff from 11km onward, both have their uses) and messed with resists to lessen the impact of the em/therm damage spread.

CCP basically looked at a bunch of guns that each had their own unique flaws, and started removing the flaws of ACs and pulses while leaving blasters as they were. You want variety in the game? Make blasters actually do what they're supposed to do, rather than giving them slightly more DPS than lasers at less range than ACs.

Don't use them so not much point on commenting on rails. Last I saw of them in pvp was when sniper BS were usefull. They did the job well but tactics have changed so like cruise missiles and tachyons they are not used in fleets these days.

this.


and by this I mean that blaster ships should stuff czar bombas in somebody's face.


at sword range.





and I don't mind them having even shorter optimals and falloffs to counterbalance if I get extreme, over the top, ludicrious and completely tank-smashing dps in return.

and I mean ANY tank.