Ships & Modules

I'm not a Titan pilot. I'm not even a dread pilot (although I am skilled for one). I'm just totally opposed to damage scaling becoming a permanent fixture of this game, for reasons I and others have made perfectly clear, though honestly sometimes I don't see why we bother when moronic publords like yourself show up and either post without reading the thread or deliberately ignore and gloss over reasoned arguments.

The tl;dr of the argument against damage scaling is this: It removes the need for piloting skill and situational awareness in EVE Online: A Bad Game, and encourages rock-paper-scissors style gameplay that a lot of us aren't interested in partaking in.

If it's impossible for larger ships to do decent damage to smaller ships regardless of how the smaller ships are flown, then there's no need to do things like fit appropriately or maintain transversal in order to survive in a fight. While using modified sig radius rather than unmodified helps in this respect, doing so simply makes scaling less-bad. It's still a **** mechanic.

I'm not against CCP implementing their proposed hotfix next week as long as it remains just that-- a temporary measure designed to deal with the Titan problem immediately while CCP actively seek a suitable long-term solution, be that a rework of available XL gun types or a shift of Titan roles away from direct combat entirely.

What I and many others DO NOT WANT TO SEE is long-term implementation of damage scaling or its application to other classes of gun. Doing so would dumb-down EVE gameplay tremendously and remove one of guns' only existing benefits over missiles-- the fact that their damage output is based on tracking and target transversals more than target size. Currently this functions as a double-edged sword-- if you can fit and pilot in a way that lets you minimize target transversals, you can do large amounts of damage to smaller targets. If, on the other hand, you screw up and find yourself unable to maintain good transversals, you can find yourself unable to do any damage at all to smaller targets. Missiles, on the other hand, generally lack the potential to do as much damage as guns, but do consistent damage based solely on the much more predictable variables of target size and speed.

Missiles = predictable damage within a defined range (there are small fluctuations in missile range and DPS based on Doppler-shift-like effects, but they are more or less negligible) and governed exclusively by the size/speed of your target.

Guns = "unpredictable" damage within a far more varied range (due to randomization elements in the tracking formula) governed by target size, speed, and transversal (trans being a factor that varies immensely on the field and is at least partly dependent on your ability to manipulate the geometric aspects of a fight).

Introducing damage scaling keeps all the randomization elements of the tracking formula (the "negatives") while removing the potential positive consequence of using them (the ability to do disproportionately large amounts of damage to smaller targets by manipulating geometric circumstances), leaving them "like missiles, but worse."

I agree take all the other t3 on par with the tengu , i mean we need to balance the other ships too.

Well, if you do gun resolution inflation over range, it actually gives small ships many more advantages that can play into roles. For instance, destroyer's can be given better fittings and much more range with small turrets because they will still have the signiture penalties against smaller ships as range increases. However, they can exploit that same range versus battleships and the boosted gun resolutions won't matter one bit since battleships already have an increased signature.

So if you gave small artilleries 10km signature resolution range as an example:

The ship be designed to hit out to 100km range, but at that point, it's signature resolution would be 400. This means at that 100km range, it's much much harder for it to hit frigates, but it can adequately project it's damage to larger ships. This reduces what you just mentioned about BS having superior range and damage, since the range arguement goes away. The sig res increase on the BS guns also means that destroyers at 100km aren't so easily blapable since BS guns will have a vastly increased sig res, meaning they will be more defensively able with good piloting. Ultimately, Destroyers are still glass cannons, and relatively low DPS at that rage, so the imbalance of size and cost are not tainted. But it does find a role for smaller ship classes in warfare and not just feed the bigger is better concept.

Want to kill destroyers... fine, bring a smaller platform than a BS, such as hacs or BC's.

Need a new ship role? Fine, implement gun sig res reduction roles to some ships as a means conducting anti support measures.

Now eve becomes diverse again as both sides have to think of ways to counter a multifaceted fleet and not just bring in a 1 ship centric fleet design that trumps everything.

How it fixes titans is that they can't hit **** in those mid ranges of 30-90km that titan gun blapping occurs at. Ask any titan pilot, and they will tell you, the reason blapping works is because of those mid ranges. When you provide a penalty to those mid ranges by inflating their sig resolution as suggested already, then ship speeds and transversals have to be much much lower for the titans to even hit. Meaning a titan at 60km is going to hit just a poorly as a titan at 30km range, but for a totally different reason.

It also fixes ass backwards fleets like Maelstom blobs, and Pulse Abaddon fleets. Artillery maelstroms won't be able to dominate any fleet concept on grid by simply taking more range and applying webs, and Abaddons won't get insanely high tracking with low sig resolution at any range out to 75km. I don't even thing 50% of eve or 10% of the developers get that an Abaddon at 70km range gets some obsurd tracking limit of near 2400 m/s. I mean seriously, how many ships in game move faster than this speed cruiser size and up? And what's so assbackwards about pulses is that by swapping scripts on your tracking comps, you can keep that same tracking at 45, and by swapping ammo, you can keep that same tracking at about 33km range. And even worse, you can swap your ammo out to radio, and get nearly 4000 m/s tracking at 50km range. Now frigates are becoming vulnerable even with their transversal near 50% of potential. WHERE THE **** IS THE PENALTY AT RANGE?

I mean, WTF are players supposed to do to counter this problem with any smaller ship class against any capable FC.? MWD inflates their sig. Perfect transversal is basically impossible do to any orbit mechanics. Attackers can manipulate orbit paths further to reduce a defenders transversal. The problem is that range boost tracking by insane amounts w/o penalty. 1000% tracking boost every 10km just doesn't make sense unless resolution suffers at the same time.

Range needs to dictate part of the tracking formula. Sig resolution inflating with range is the way to do this. Stop avoiding the problem.

For everyone saying this in regards to MWDs - please please keep in mind that the MWD sig bloom was not intended to make sub-cap ships the same 'size' as capitals. The whole point was to stop speed-tanking being broken - the capital-ship size signature on battleships is just incidental.

Providing you definte 'unmodified sig' as:
a) Including all passive effects (halos, shield extenders, istabs, etc) and
b) Not including all active effects (MWD, target painters, etc)
I think that definitely should be the temporary solution until all target signatures and tracking can be rebalanced. Long term we need a more balanced foundation that makes ship sizes actually distinct, serving as a basis for future balance:

Frigate is less than
Cruiser / MWD Frigate is less than
Battleship / MWD Cruiser is less than
MWD Battleship with 3 TP's is less than
Capital with 3 TP's is less than
Supercapital

Then capital weapons and scan resolution can be properly balanced for their intended targets, with role bonuses as required by future roles.

Off-topic I know, but why does this limitation still exist? It was implemented to stop alliances spamming dozens of towers pre-DT in old-style sov wars. What reason is there for it to continue?

Probably because when you introduced that change people would still pos spammed , and stopped now because sov isnt related to pos?

The thing i don´t get is the hard on people have to ratting supers/dreads? They werent made to be PVE machines but people adapted , i really don´t see a problem in titans tracking if you would ~have made the thing that you said in this or in the other thread the ability to jamm/tracking disrupt the titans giving them a pool off some sorts.


Basically nerfing this , nerfing that will only make people go to the next counter , and if you think people wont go to halo carriers you are in for a surprise, if most of alliances reinburse titans , dont you think they would reimburse the carrier and implants?And no i don´t think you should nerf the carriers opr the implants , can´t you guys give more roles to the ships that no one uses?electronic frigs, af, etc?

1. /me remembers 40billion Chimera in WH space and chuckles over "relatively cheap"

2. Thank you for hearing us. I hope you would do as that.

Will you fix the bridge bug ? Or you gonna reshape noob ships again to look pretty ?

Are you gonna fix the SUPERCAPITAL bumpage ?
What exactly are you fixing apart ghimping titans ?

Last time i checked i pay the subscription like you so as long as i have things that need fixing i will say it out loud. I was not even talking to you or any goon muppet. These Bugs like the titan bridge and the bumpage when you cyno in is pretty stupid and needs fixing.