Arenis Xemdal
Amarr Evolution Band of Brothers
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Posted - 2007.08.18 22:06:00 -
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There are several problems with the current tracking formula that have been brought up many times over the years. Devs knew of them, and responded to them when they were raised.
1. Broken transversal calculation. Turrets on ships are calculated from a point in space not a moving hull whose orientation is constantly changing. The faster ships orbit, the more they miss, even if the target is sitting still. It has also been bug reported.
2. Flawed mechanic for signature resolution. The only aspect of 'range' in EVE that matters is the optimal and falloff of your turret's. Ships do not have a smaller hit or contact area the further they are from you. Therefore, small ships like frigates and cruisers become easier to gun down from afar. It also ensures perfect hit every time that ship stops. Conversely, a battleship can get in your face and block out the sun. You will still somehow miss this giant object because your optimal does not match with its distance.
3. Signature radius scale does not match actual ship size. You can put a few dozen or a hundred frigates into a standard battleship hull, but its signature radius is roughly 8-10 times smaller. This condensed range of radii means destroyers and battlecruisers do not have much of a niche with respect to the other ship classes, and all the high tracking/low damage/low range guns in EVE have become obsolete. Furthermore, this imbalance makes it difficult for Dreadnaughts to wage in anti-capital warfare, when certain situations allow a Carrier, Mothership or even Titan to become untouchable by XL weapons in siege.
Revelations brought fixes to existing features like probing, agents, complexes.. but it didn't do anything for fleet battles. Even the use of Logistics and Bombers remains gimmicky, and virtually no projected ECM has been used. It does not take a genius to figure out that a lot of people will subscribe/return to EVE in Revelations 3 with the graphics update.
Maybe instead of introducing more AOE toys to curb blob warfare, you combat devs focus on splitting the fleet battle into class based warfare, not 200 focusing fire on one for either side. I know I'd prefer 2 hour fighting, where logistics and reinforcements matter, over being vaporized by bombs and incinerated on jumpin.
Just to show that I'm not biased towards turrets, here is an idea for missiles..
1. Speed vs Range, the age old debate of how blindingly fast missiles need to be before a Raven is useful for fleet combat. People don't have issues with missiles being slow, they simply want to do damage before the target goes down in flames. A way to do this is to keep current launched missiles active even after target lock is lost. When the missile pilot begins shooting another target, those still in space arc back towards it.
The benefit is that you only experience one delay for the first target, instead of a delay for every target. It also gives missile users some form of alpha strike, instead of simply consistent and predictable dps. The downside is that missiles do have a max flight time, and it may expire before you can reuse them. Or the second target might be wise enough to come in from another direction, putting him out of range. This itself is a good deterrent for fleets to cluster up into a giant ball.
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