Letifer Deus
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Posted - 2005.02.19 21:39:00 -
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Edited by: Letifer Deus on 19/02/2005 23:03:45
 Originally by: Lallante
sigh, If they lower MP range, then itll just be a Neutron LITE with greater cap requirements and ****ty tracking.
On an apoc, your DOT will be much less than a Thron, and with its crappy tracking it will NOT be able to hit frigates or cruisers closer than 20km.
Changing the fitting requirements is clearly a very easy thing to tweak, whereas changing the range causes all of the problems I outlined in my first post.
I'll address the cap usage and Apoc DOT first, as they require the shortest replies.
A) Apoc was never ment to be high DOT, it is ment to be an extremely good tanker with decent DOT, which is exactly what it is. Blasterthron is horrible tanker with great DOT, so simply comparing the DOT on the two ships is pointless. Though, to be honest, I have always seen the Apoc as more of a long range mega beam/tach using ship than med/short range mega pulse ship.
B) Now let's look at the cap usage of Neuts and MPs... (using lvl4 BS and lvl5 controlled bursts)
Neutron Cannon
22.5 cap
Mega Pulse
18 cap
Ok, now that we have that cleared up...
C) Lowering optimal range to 16-20km on MP would not make it a Neutron Lite. With the highest damage ammo the range (with 18km base and lvl5 skills) would be:
Mega Pulse
11.25km with a 10km falloff.
Neutron
3.75km optimal and 12.5km falloff.
The range difference is still quite significant, about 24% better max range (opt. + falloff.) It should also be noted that the Neuts will start to lose accuracy much sooner than the mega pulse. Now let's look at the other end of the ammo spectrum:
Mega Pulse
36km optimal with 10km falloff
Neutron
12km optimal with 12.5km falloff
Here the range difference is made even more clear. The optimal on the mega pulse is 3 times greater than the Neutron Cannon. And the actual range difference can be made even larger with the addition of tracking computers or tracking enhancers.
Yes, the tracking will not be up to par with the neutrons, but it should be obvious that they have no need to be. They are not ment to shoot frigates and cruisers at <20km, they are battleship-killing turrets. Still, MP with radios will be much more effective against cruisers and frigates than a neutron blaster ever will be due to the effective range of the two guns. Not to mention the MP's tracking is still ~17% better than a 250 rail.
They will still have their insane DOT, but they won't have as much of the versatility that they have enjoyed up until now.
If one still wants long range on the Mega pulse to kill frigates, throw on 2 SB2s and a tracking comp 2 with 2 tracking enhancer 2s. Presto, ~50km optimal with ~.0473 tracking. Or if you prefer 3 SB2s, put on 3 tracking enhancers.
D) Also, I do not think changing fitting reqs. is as simple/effective as you think it is. Even if the PG req. on MP was changed to 3000 (20% increase) a gankageddon pilot would simply have to swap out 1 HS2 for a PDU2, and bam, right back in action with minimal DOT decrease and increased cap capacity and recharge rate. Going any higher than 3000 PG and you are getting extremely close to mega beams (3250.) Now let's see what that does to a tanked apoc. 8 MP would now leave an Apoc with 375 PG to spare, whereas before there would be 4375 pg to put towards an armor tank, and a 7 MP arma would need 1 RCU to simply fit 1 large repairer.
Now let us try and change CPU reqs. Changing the CPU reqs. to 50 (~20% increase) will still allow a gankageddon to fit 7 mega pulse, 8 HS2s, 2 SB2s, and a tracking computer 2. Obviously it does not affect this setup at all. Want 2 tracking computer 2s? Well, drop 1 HS2, and put on a relay for added cap duration, (or something else.)
How about both both changes? That's 50 cpu and 3000 pg for Mega pulse. 7 mega pulse, 2 SB2, 1 tracking comp 2, 1 PDU2 and 7 HS2s. Bam, done. o_0 Not much of a change from the normal setup. Now take the consequences of the PG increase on tanked apocs and armas that I have already illustrated, and add in a 20% cpu req. increase... Ouch.
In light of this, it can be seen rather easily that optimal range decrease (to between 16 and 18km) would be a much more effective balance than fitting req. changes. It will affect the role it plays in all amarr BS setups equally, and will still leave mega pulse with a much more reasonable, though still very high, range of effectiveness.
On an off note, blasters should get a damage increase at the same time that MPs should get balanced.
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