Originally by: Kepakh

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Having damage without tracking... What's the point? In both cases you lose damage.


I have way more evil idea:

Make Hybrids capless and projectiles using cap

This will fix issue with cap burned for catching your target and help Gallente being active tankers as they are supposed to be. Also it will nerf Minmatar boats that have utility slots combined capless guns which is plain dumb.

Gallente boats are already using Autocannons anyway...



The rest of the Blaster fix is the ship speed re-balancing mostly and removing selectable damage type on projectiles.

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Originally by: Ephemeron

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Even if Lead ammo gave 25% tracking boost, it would still not make me want to use blasters

It would also not make me want to use Lead over Antimatter for blasters
The tracking boost on Lead would have to be 100% in order for me to consider it worthwhile.

I'm speaking from perspective of PvP pilot who can choose any ship and weapon type and wanting most effective short range combat ship.

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Originally by: TimMc

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Originally by: TimMc

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Blasters problem is previously we had 90% webs and signature radius huge from the MWD running on a target. In my opinion, blasters need a tracking buff, tiny damage buff and their ammos to be rethought. Not different damage types like minmatar, but different ranges, tracking, falloff and a quicker ammo change timer (5 seconds?).

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Building on my idea with raw numbers here, lets say a 25% tracking buff and 10% damage buff. This pushes the tracking above autocannons (silly considering autocannons are used in falloff) and damage to point where its not on equal terms with an amarr boat (who will be shooting long before you get in range).

Ammo charges could be (Taking Large ammo stats):

Short Range Tier - Difference is tracking for damage.
Antimatter - 28 Kin 28 Therm. -30% Optimal & Falloff. -25% Tracking.
Plutonium - 28 Kin 24 Therm. -30% Optimal & Falloff.
Uranium - 28 Kin 20 Therm. -30% Optimal & Falloff. +25% Tracking.

Medium Range Tier - Less cap usage. Difference is tracking for damage.
Thorium - 20 Kin 16 Therm. 0% Optimal & Falloff. -25% Tracking. -50% Cap usage
Lead - 20 Kin 13 Therm. 0% Optimal & Falloff. 0% Tracking. -50% Cap usage
Iridium - 20 Kin 10 Therm. 0% Optimal & Falloff. +25% Tracking. -50% Cap usage

Long Range Tier - Ability to choose mostly therm or mostly kinetic
Tungsten - 18 Kin 6 Therm. +60% Optimal & Falloff.
Iron - 6 Kin 18 Therm. +60% Optimal & Falloff.


Tech 2 Blaster Ammo
Null - 20 Kin 20 Therm. 0% Optimal & Falloff. 0% Tracking. -100% Cap usage for capless hybrids.
Void - 39 Kin 39 Therm. -50% Optimal & Falloff. -33% Tracking. 25% Cap usage

Tech 2 Railgun Ammo
Spike - 24 Kin 24 Therm. 75% Optimal & Falloff. -75% Tracking.
Javelin - 28 Kin 32 Therm. -75% Optimal & Falloff. -33% Tracking. 25% Cap usage


PS I'm talking out of my ass and didn't check these numbers.

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Originally by: Venkul Mul

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Interesting, but you should consider the cap use part too. The different hybrid ammunitions has a different cap use, your change should require a cap use rebalance, too.

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Originally by: Amantus

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Real men don't need to get into blaster range.

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Originally by: The Djego

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Well I like the idea for rails, for blasters however you would need insane tracking boosts to archive something useful.

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Originally by: freshspree

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Viable solution if minnie ships get more cap and gallente get less.

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Originally by: Goose99

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In EVE, PVE can happen anywhere, anytime. Whenever you undock, you subject yourself to involuntary PVE.

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Originally by: Malcanis

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Originally by: The Djego

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Well I like the idea for rails, for blasters however you would need insane tracking boosts to archive something useful.

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Would Ephemeron's suggestion of +100% for Iron be sufficient?

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Originally by: Amantus

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Real men don't need to get into blaster range.

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Originally by: Wacktopia

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Edited by: Wacktopia on 28/02/2011 14:56:44
I support this. Ranged ammo for blasters is so pointless, considering they're a close-range weapon.

Void is now proof of concept for low tracking = more damage. So you can only use it if your target is fully tackled and you're not zipping about.

The range variant for rails I actually do use in missions. However, the ammo is the same between both guns so perhaps some further thinking there?

Hybrids / Gallente need something.

Edit: checked support

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Originally by: Malcanis

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As we're all constantly hearing, Hybrids just aren't very good right now. Blasters suffer from lack of range as well as inadequate tracking within that range. Rails suffer from heavy cap use, mediocre DPS, weak alpha, and poor tracking - all of which is supposed to be compensated by extreme range - currently useless in today's fast-probing combat environment. Either lasers or projectiles are more effective in just about any high probability combat environment.

Time for a fix.

In order for a fix to be implemented, it needs above all to be easy for CCP to implement. The fewer things it changes, the more likely to be implemented.

We also need to avoid making hybrids a pale copy of either of the other two kinds of turrets. We don't want "lasers with ammo", or "cap-using autcannons". Ideally, hybrids should be as distinctive from lasers and projectiles as they are from each other, not a pointless halfway house.

With all that in mind, here is my proposal.

Currently, hybrid ammo, like the other types is ranged on a damage vs range continuum. Lower range = higher damage, and vice versa. My proposal is that we change that to a tracking vs damage continuum. All T1 hybrid ammo would have a 0% range modifier, with the lower damage ammo having a higher tracking bonus, and vice versa.

Rails:

This will have a dramatic effect on railguns. They'll be doing their best damage to the most distant targets, but they'll lose effectiveness as targets close in. It'll be a little harder to get completely "under the guns" of a railboat because they can switch to high tracking ammo, but they'll sacrifice a lot of DPS to do so. What we'll see is almost a reverse of fall-off. They wont obsolete arty, because arty will retain the advantage of high alpha. They wont obsolete beams because beams wont lose tracking/DPS as they close in. This change will restore rails as the kings of extreme range turret combat, but it will redefine that range to be within the paramaters of fights that actually occur these days.

Blasters:
This change will solve (or at least mitigate) the two biggest problems that blasters currently have: range and tracking. By switching to a lower damage ammo, the baster user will be more able to hit similar - or even smaller - size targets. With no range penalties, BS sized blasters at least will start to have a somewhat useful range. A Rokh with no range mods will have a 7+13Km range; this will put it within 50% falloff on jumping in from a gate even using Antimatter. With tracking enhancers, we'll see blaster BS actually be able to usefully engage outside web range.
On a personal side note, the poor old Megathron, with it's whopping tracking bonus, will once again become awesome with these changes.

Tracking mods - Tracking enhancers, tracking computers and target painters - will become as useful to hybrids boats as they currently are to projectile platforms.

It is also worth noting that if it becomes difficult to balance rails with blasters (egL the one becomes overpowered with ammo bonuses that are appropriate to the other) we could also add a falloff modifier to the ammo as well as the tracking modifier. Ideally I would prefer not to do this, as projectiles are supposed to be the falloff weapon. But the option is there.

I have deliberately avoided putting any specific numbers in to my proposal, because really that kind of detail is for the balance teams to work out. But I think the core of my proposal could be at least a good starting point to reviving the poor, neglected hybrid turrets. (For instance blaster boats could still need some tweaking with respect to agility or mass to be effective.)

Comments and suggestions?

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Originally by: Jade Greenfire

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Question, How would this effect Hybrid POS Batteries ?

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Originally by: Goose99

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In EVE, PVE can happen anywhere, anytime. Whenever you undock, you subject yourself to involuntary PVE.

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Originally by: The Djego

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Originally by: Malcanis

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Would Ephemeron's suggestion of +100% for Iron be sufficient?

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Excellent question, actually not this easy to answer.

Iron deals around 41,67% of antimatter damage, keep this in mind when you read this. I did run some graphs in EFT(Iron Mega, 1 web, 3x Cormacks TCs with scripts = 101% better tracking) against a Mega with just a web but antimatter since I was mostly monitoring the range of 0-5km, the range difference isn't this important. T1 ammo, normal pvp fits(plategank mega, plategank ruppi).

Against a rupture(plate gank, scram+web no AB, 45% degree movement -> orbit) your break even point is around 2km, after this antimatter out damages it, however the it prevents the rupture for shaking off next to 100% of the incoming DPS till 200m, while this point is around 800m for the antimatter mega. At 1km the antimatter mega deals around 36DPS while the Iron Mega can do 157 DPS. Break even point is mostly 2km where antimatter surpasses the Iron + 100% tracking by raw dps.

If we put Antimatter in the Iron mega the numbers look a lot better, it pulls off a 378 DPS at 1km against the rupture, what is 10 times more than the mega does today. Peak would at 5400m with 797 dps for the +100% tracking mega with antimatter and 718 for the normal mega at 6900m.

Btw, the +100% fit with antimatter scales up really well against a AB rifer beyond 5km till it reaches nearly 380 DPS against it a 10km(standard mega deals like no damage at all against it till 9.5km.

As you can see it is not so easy, even more so if you consider that you are not in the position to dedicate the range in a blaster ship, as you where before QR within web range. The numbers look good as you only look at them in theory but with the lack of range control you will end up with the worst case more often then not, where even a massive 100% tracking boost doesn't change this much.

For situations where you really need it, it would probably still not sufficient(combined with the problem that it does far less damage by itself), if you look at large blasters and solo/small gang pvp where it creates the most issues this days.

On the other hand it would slaughter stuff at bigger ranges than point blank really quick(mega/rokh for instance) and would create in gangs a rather huge sphere where smaller ships can hardly enter without getting slaughtered even without hard tackle(scrams/webs). It basically boils down to the problem that tracking scales rather bad with range and something that tends to be balanced at close range can be quite a bit out of balance at other ranges.

That's basically one of the few reasons why I would prefer the stronger web over far more tracking. It scales better, gives you a far better range control and by this it reduces most of the problems that you face today to manageable levels for a experienced pilot while it doesn't change much for bigger gangs.

For reference, medium turrets track by default around 400% better. Also before QR a blaster pilot that did know what he did could force the target into a situation where he did track 2000% better(by playing a bit with range, forcing the target to turn his MWD on) than now if the 400% improvement over now(web) wasn't sufficient to get the job done quick.

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Originally by: Jade Greenfire

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Question, How would this effect Hybrid POS Batteries ?

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Originally by: Maxsim Goratiev

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This is a fairly radical proposal, interesting nevertheless. Definately an option. However, i would like a reduced reload timer in order to make use of this ammo.

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Originally by: Kayl Breinhar

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Despite their adherence to "hybrids are meant to be different," really the only thing that needs to be done here is hybrids made just as effective as autocannon/artillery are now, but given boosts to either damage or range simply because they use cap and the projectile turrets don't.

This of course would entail buffing Gallente, though - something CCP seems completely unwilling to do - which even though it would also buff Caldari, no one cares about Caldari turret hulls anymore.

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Originally by: Kaelie Onren

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Even though on the surface the proposal sounds both interesting and plausible to me, the real question to ask is why people think there is a problem here. Gallente are supposed to be drone heavy.

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Originally by: Kaelie Onren

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Finally, someone on the thread who is asking the 'right' questions. Even though on the surface the proposal sounds both interesting and plausible to me, the real question to ask is why people think there is a problem here. Gallente are supposed to be drone heavy. Caldari missles, Amarr lasers, Min projectiles. Unless you think that current overall game balance in ships for the entire *race* is skewed, then there is no point 'balancing' just the gun types.

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Originally by: Kaelie Onren

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Originally by: Kayl Breinhar

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Despite their adherence to "hybrids are meant to be different," really the only thing that needs to be done here is hybrids made just as effective as autocannon/artillery are now, but given boosts to either damage or range simply because they use cap and the projectile turrets don't.

This of course would entail buffing Gallente, though - something CCP seems completely unwilling to do - which even though it would also buff Caldari, no one cares about Caldari turret hulls anymore.

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Finally, someone on the thread who is asking the 'right' questions. Even though on the surface the proposal sounds both interesting and plausible to me, the real question to ask is why people think there is a problem here. Gallente are supposed to be drone heavy. Caldari missles, Amarr lasers, Min projectiles. Unless you think that current overall game balance in ships for the entire *race* is skewed, then there is no point 'balancing' just the gun types.

Overall, the most important play balance is this:

If hybrids get a ++ (without associated -- somewhere)

then
Gallente++
Caldari++
which makes it unfair unless you also buff out Amarr and Minmatar somehow. For simplicity sake lets say that means buffing out lasers and projectiles.

It makes no sense to "equalize out" just the guns, which are only 1/2 of a racial weapon mix.

As for the megathron, oh well, there are plenty of odd ship hulls in every race which just aren't too popular due to their specialization. It's a futile exercise to try to make *every* ship equal to it's racial opponents, and to do so would be to take away the characteristics which make each race unique and the tactics they employ different.

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Originally by: Bagehi

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I really like Malcanis' proposal. I think, along with the ammo change, blasters would also need a mild range increase. That way the tracking would not need to be boosted to the point where frigates are under constant threat anywhere near the blaster boat.

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Originally by: Amantus

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Real men don't need to get into blaster range.

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Originally by: Obvious Forum Troll

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I like it. A few more things to be worked out, 7km+13 on blasters still seems long, for example.

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Originally by: Malcanis

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Originally by: Obvious Forum Troll

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I like it. A few more things to be worked out, 7km+13 on blasters still seems long, for example.

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Dont forget that's on a ship with a 50% range bonus.

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Originally by: Kazuo Ishiguro

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Originally by: Maxsim Goratiev

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This is a fairly radical proposal, interesting nevertheless. Definately an option. However, i would like a reduced reload timer in order to make use of this ammo.

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Blasters already have massive ammo clips, so maybe just increase the capacity of railguns somewhat?

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Originally by: Artamis Kane

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I'm not convinced that blasters are 'broken' per-se.

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