I crunched some pyfa numbers with the current state of affairs and one thing kind of stuck out at me: HAMs are clearly going to be the go-to, but are the tracking enhancers and tracking computers going to be enough? I can eke 625 DPS out of a Drake using Scourge Rage, lows full of ballistic control systems, weapon rigs, and HAMs, but that's all on paper. Other battlecruisers can shame that if they so choose. Are HAMs going to be looked at as part of this maneuver?

Crucifier vs HAM Drake? Crucifier will just fly away unless his gang turns up, or TD the missiles down below 20km (including Javs!) and sit with utter, utter impunity.

or splitting off a separate set of missile disruptor modules that use the same skill and get the same ship bonuses as tracking disruptors (in the same way that ECM ships have different racial jammers).

How do you fit your HML caracal? since with all 5s you have not enough PG/CPU????

In pretty much all the fleets i end up with where the FC ask to reship into BC. The total ham drakes on the field is always anywhere between none at all to almost none at all. I wonder why ?

Maybe it's because there are far better close range BCs ?

...and forget an armor cane. its pretty much dead. Viva la Cyclone.

Sadly that won't fit, with medium neuts anymore, it'll fit with a pair of HAM launchers in their place, with an RCUII I think it would wedge in, but with the hull changes its going to be about 8% over grid with a T2 fit.

The fact that it was already the fastest hull in the class (pre -tier3) with dual weapon bonuses AND 6 free low slots always challenged the realm of believably, and the justification for that excursiveness was the Drake.

Well, that is getting knocked down a rung, so I'm not terribly worked up.

but that's the thing, it doesn't require a hell of a tank and small sig to pull it off. I'm talking 1 vs 1, after these proposed changes, the drake will be rendered useless in PVP, and it's PVE applications will be greatly reduced as well.

[Post nerf some of them are going to be laughably bad.

This please!

More options to specialise = good = more meaningful decisions to make

I would absolutely love to, but there's no way we'd be able to get them done for this release.

Out of curiosity what exactly are you guys hoping you'd see from a BC balance pass that would change your opinion of this missile proposal? The Drake has a fine set of bonuses so once heavy missiles are balanced I don't expect I'd want to change it very drastically.

Swap the DCII for an IFFA and it fits fine with a disruptor II and no implants.

My EFT version is giving me slightly different numbers, but still bloody insane. I will be honest, I had absolutely no IDEA you could do that with a HAM drake. That's freaking nuts.

So, tell me which Caldari ship is viable for small scale, roaming or 1on1 above frig size when the Drake gets nerfed to oblivion by crippling its most versatile weapon platform and making the other weak against a pretty regularly fitted ewar-module (TD) ?

So where exactly is your small gang combat caldari ship above frig class?

Lol no, only in optimal, you do 50% at optimal+ falloff.

For the records: I never said the Myrm and Brutix are OP (they are not, but still they can beat the sh*t our of a Drake if the fight is taking place under their rules)

This will still not help HMLs, for reasons why look no further than the Cerberus. The reasons for why it's not so useful, will be the same reasons why even longer ranger lower dps HMLs on a drake will not be so useful.

What is the range of the HAM-Drake again? ;) And remember, no falloff, and it will always be way shorter than what EFT says.

In your face he will kill you too.

How will you be able to dictate range like you said you will? You are slower, not more agile and the other pilot can keep you pointed well outside your theoretical fighting range.

I invite you to stop modeling things, but play the actual game. I can provide you with people who will gladly burn you down ingame to show how wrong you are. Plain and fair, no links/gang/whatever involved, just 1on1. They will do this as often as you wish, and generate a nice ammount of ISK for you if you keep insuring your Drakes. My offer stands ..

Was not me, so get your facts straight. I said, I want the Golem/Torpfitted to be able to perform as well as a Vargur/ACfitted in missions l4. And thats not too much to ask for, but just balance, no? Apart from that, I would also like to see at least one missile ship (and it may be pirate faction, ofc) be able to perform as well as a Machariel, in missions and PvP. Too much? I think not.

[Besides, your point is it would be absurd to demand another BS to be as good as the Mach, so wouldnt it be absurd then too to demand other BC are as good as the Drake?

I never demanded any *Caldari* ship to be as good (OP!) as the Machariel. But I want a missile ship (pirate faction) which is doing what the Mach is doing now - zooming around, deliver close range DPS with its Torps to absurd distances. Or nerf the Machariel, whatever you like better, so it will be in line.

Btw, I am not pleased at all by your tendency to completely ignore my questions. They are not rhethorical. Do you agree on the fact there is no reason why the Caldari Marauder should be worse than the Minmatar Marauder, and since it is atm not (neither with long nor with short range weapons) there is a need to buff both the systems and the ship, or nerf the Vargur so its in line with the Golem?

And do you agree on the fact, the same applies to all Caldari missile hulls except the Drake and Tengu, and to all systems like Torp, CM, and to a degree also HAM?

I see no more answers to my question about the imbalance between Torp/CM vs Arty/AC, and Golem vs Vargur performance. So I take it as a confirmation of my assumption, and people accept there cant be balance as long as so many ships and weapons are not in line.

1. Some ships have to be worse than others, equality is virtually impossible. This is not justification for change unless you can demonstrate that the gap is excessive. You should either demonstrate that the Golem is excessively poor relative to the other three Marauders and therefore deserves to be boosted, or that the Vargur is excessively good and deserves to be nerfed. Or both, conceivably. You will also need to account for the missile TCs about to introduced. This is tricky because we don't know their stats. Since I don't run missions, I can comment no further, but you will probably need to post mission completion times for a representative sample of L4 missions in various factions' space.

Bottom line: atm the Tengu is considered to be worse in PvE than the Vargur (and Paladin in EM-missions), and the only missions where it really shines are kinetic-resist weak enemies anyway, means in all others its even more behind. Still its better than the current Golem or CNR. So if its getting a nerf, pls bring the others in line with Winmatar.

Its been done plenty of times, and common sense tells the same. I wont do your work, and your tendency to not answer most of my questions at all is not helping to motivate me more either.

I invite you to stop modeling things, but play the actual game. I can provide you with people who will gladly burn you down ingame to show how wrong you are.

as it can do considerable dps with cruises

As a comparison

Torps
Rage
radius - 650.0
velocity - 91.5

Javelin
radius - 450.0
velocity - 106.5

T1/CN

radius - 450.0
velocity - 106.5

Cruise
Fury
radius - 412.5
velocity - 108.8

Precision
radius - 202.5
velocity - 133.1

T1/CN

radius - 225.0
velocity - 129.4

I guess they're meant for killing caps and supercaps now.

I simply deny the fact there is a reason to nerf something, just because its good (or maybe even better than other things) as long as its neither the best nor the only strong/OP thing in this game. As long as Winmatar dominate everything there is no need to nerf Caldaris strong ships and weapons. Simple as that.

for all of those that are saying switch to hams here something to consider it said all missle so hams will also be affected and seing hams dont actualy benifit from skill for drcressed explosive radius they aint gonna be able to hit the side of a barn

and seing hams dont actualy benifit from skill for drcressed explosive radius

do you agree with the fact missiles are UP in all other PvP ranges/fights than those described 35-70km in med weapons battle?

1) yes

2) no

If you choose no, I will like to hear examples for that claim. Currently I hear only examples for 1).

As im not going to search thru the 200 pages on this thread can someone explain in short why different range missiles arent a good idea? Different flight times for different damage.

I highly doubt that the HAM tengu will be viable in PvE (especially missions) after the change, unless someone can show me a build with ~70km reach and ~700dps after implants.
it's a pity, really.

what exactly will you see when I tell you this? http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/combat_record.php?type=player&name=ROU+Psychopath#kills

The only changes on Heavy Assault Missiles is the PG change and the tech2 missile changes

Even with these changes there is still no reason to fly a Caldari Torpedo BS. And Cruise Missiles remain a joke.

rage

.. and all those missile support skills have no use for anything else. And:

RoF and damage bonus skills have both 1% more per level for gunnery in comparison to RoF and damage bonus skills for missiles. Why? This sums to a 5% bigger RoF and 5% bigger damage bonus for turrets over missiles on all l5 ... change that ASAP.

Yes I remember trust me lol. I am glad I am not the only one that recalls these days.

Final question : the only answer to what is the origin of cruise missile problem are "lol cruise missiles" and "delayed damage". Considering the uselessness of the first answer, and the fact that the second would imply that HM which are slower than CM suffer from this problem too to the point they are not used for this reason (clearly wrong, as battleclinic stats says), should I consider nobody knows why they are bad ? or that they are not bad in fact and it's only HML which are better ?

I already posted a Raven fit..

Here a fleet Raven :
[Raven, test_cruise]

6x Cruise Missile Launcher II (Caldari Navy Mjolnir Cruise Missile)
Heavy Energy Neutralizer II
Medium Energy Neutralizer II

100MN Microwarpdrive II
2x Large Shield Extender II
2x Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
EM Ward Field II

3x Ballistic Control System II
Damage Control II
Signal Amplifier II

Large Core Defense Field Extender I
Large Warhead Rigor Catalyst I
Large Warhead Flare Catalyst I

I'm not pretending to be a specialist, and indeed you may have trouble using the neutra without a cap booster, though one heavy neut cycle will leave any cruiser or frigate dry. Now, if the missiles rigs are not optimals, replace them by something better. I didn't intend to artificially grow some stats and I was afraid of damage application to be a problem.

Your dps comparison with the Rokh is wrong though : navy antimatter at 70km have a little less dps than the Raven (25% falloff mean 95%dps), so dps is largely the same at this range, moreover if you consider damage selection. The Rokh though only lose dps as the range increase whereas the Raven don't. I persist : the Raven have a better dps than the fleet Rokh at 70km and beyond.

As for the tank, indeed it's worse than Abaddon and Rokh, though you ignored the Maelstrom which have the exact same tank than this one shield rig Raven.

In the end, the Raven trade tank for dps vs the Rokh, range vs the Abaddon, and trade alpha for dps versus the Maelstrom. It is also cheaper than all of these.

Maybe it's advantages are not enough for what it trade (tank (resist) or alpha), but that would mean that the meta exclude anything without either resist bonus or artillery bonus, not that the Raven is bad.

PS : and if you consider it's only a tier 2 BS, it's pretty good IMO.
PPS : I forgot an important thing : against a BS, you can use fury cruise missiles to reach 576dps and 4000 alpha damage.

Explosion radius ? With one rigor rig, you have almost the same application than fury heavy missiles. They have no problem hitting BC and up, and if you add some target painters, cruisers are not problem anymore.

And I said it : the Raven is faster and more agile than any fleet tier 3 BS.

When comparing the Raven to its opponents we see that it is typically slower, with less tank, less versatility, fewer drones, and lower (and delayed) DPS. It is difficult or impossible to fit with the modules that experience has shown to be necessary for a battleship. Its ONLY compensating advantage is the ability to hit and do moderate damage to large slow targets at range slightly better than other battleships -- in every other category it fails spectacularly.

Only deficiency of the Raven is tank, which is due to the lack of a resist bonus and the fact it is a tier 2 BS. It does have a good dps and damage projection though, the only problem being smaller targets.

Again, I think it's not a bad fleet ship, it's only that the Tengu obsolete it..

Drake with HAML, MWD, point and web: 68,5k* EHP
* - you need to use Medium Ancillary Current Router I rig if you don't have money to get 3% PG implant.

As I showed, the Raven definitly have some advantages against the other BS, if you exclude Abaddon and Rokh (the only 2 BS with resist bonus which are very powerful, if not OP, for blob warfare)...

Ask yourselves, what qualities a Megathron, a Hyperion, a Maelstrom, a Tempest, a Dominix, a Typhoon, an Apocalypse or an Armageddon have against a Raven, especially for fleet ?