Unless you fit a td or a tc.

Well, thats because the HAM is supposed to be the high-damage, close range variant. Right now heavy missiles are a high-damage, long range variant. There's little reason to equip HAM's when you can get get almost the same DPS and much longer range. Scaling back the heavy missile DPS allows the HAM's to shine as the superior choice if you want maximum DPS. I predict that HAM's will become much more popular for Drakes, caracals, and other ships wanting to achieve optimum DPS in a fitting.

Fit a tracking enhancer, fit a tracking computer, fit a web, fit a painter, fit neuts, use appropriate ammo, or use ecm.

Here are some raw numbers useful for understanding the proposed HML, beam laser and artillery changes:

250mm Railgun II with Spike:>Needs buff, medium rails are the most useless thing in the game currently.
DPS: 20
Alpha: 92
Optimal: 65 km
Falloff: 15 km
Cap/sec: -1.1
PG: 187.2
CPU: 31.5
Time to hit: instant

Heavy Beam Laser II with Aurora:>Needs buff, probably will get one cause they suck
DPS: 21
Alpha: 91
Optimal: 54 km
Falloff: 10 km
Cap/sec: -3.8
PG: 223.2 (previously 248.5)
CPU: 27.8
Time to hit: instant

720mm Artillery II with Tremor:
DPS: 17
Alpha: 242
Optimal: 54 km
Falloff: 22 km
Cap/sec: 0
PG: 223.2 (previously 248.5)
CPU: 24
Time to hit: instant

Heavy Missile Launcher II with Caldari Navy Scourge:
DPS: 23 (previously 29)
Alpha: 189 (previously 237)
Range: 63 km (previously 84)
Cap/sec: 0
PG: 94.5
CPU: 41.3
Time to hit: 10 seconds

This is without any ship bonuses. My view on this is that a 25% range and a 20% dps nerf only seem ridiculous if one ignores just how much better HMLs were than other weapon systems.

m8 you just need to bring more ships than they have tracking disruptors. Eveiseasy

This game isn't supposed to be easy for newer players. I started Amarr and I had a hell of a hard time trying to work my way through the Omen, Harbinger and Apocalypse with T1 fittings. The fact that this game is such a breeze with a t1 drake or raven is an insult to all other races.

The current proposed changes make them useless for everything except blobbing where they will then be just ok.

You're doing level 4s in a t1 battlecruiser? The fact that it's even possible is pretty ridiculous. You try doing that in a Harbinger, sure you'll have a lot of fun warping out every odd minute.

both tengu and drake are massievly overtanked

You QQ now but once you try a Torp raven with tracking enhancers...

Well I meant for the carebears, I totally agree they suck for pvp.

And I hope that all unsubs will be charged to CCP Fuzzy and his more than dumb ideas which leads to a dismissal of him!

People have adapted to many changes in EVE and there has never been a SP reimbursement. This Change will not make any skill you trained unusable only changes how items work. If you need further reference please ask all the Nano pilots if they got there skill points back when they nerfed that.

Will your skills still allow you to use missiles and the only Missile that is getting nerfed is the HM so yes its a pretty even skill train match up. Heavy Missile V High Speed Maneuvering V don't see how this is all that different.

So firing guns when being TD and hitting in falloff is not less DPS? News to me.

Thank you for the reply.

Could you address the point that the 20% nerf seems to be a bit harsh and that 10% seems to be more reasonable?

You cant fix falloff by piloting unless you mean closing range. Hey guess what you can fix missiles the same way then also. Your argument on this is weak as now you suffer the same issues that turret pilots can face out in space. TD are being changed this winter also so hold on the sky is not falling at the moment.

I was thinking this too. No reason for HAMs to cost more in terms of fitting. Should be brought in line with the formula used on long and short ranged turrets

By making tracking enhancers/computers affect missile range, that's exactly what they're doing. HAM drakes with Javelins (which will have no speed penalty) and a couple of TEs/TCs should hit out to around 45km.

You really want to equalize the playing field, try moving everything to shield tanking because at least there is a regen.

On a side note, I would love to start seeing T2 FOF missiles :)

Torp raven isn't really any worse off than several other bs tbh. See quite alot of torp phons being effective too and they don't even get any range bonus. And the torp navy scorp makes a nice mess of stuff. Torps are not nearly as broken as cruise.

Will depend on the actual release schedule but it's possible.

I thought you guys want best ship in game.

I have to agree that there's something wrong with missile BSs when "worst turret ship" aka Rokh can rip through Raven's tank.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8aX60biCE4#t=6m04s

with a ~550 DPS 35km range Fury Drake.

Both precision and fury are closer range than T1 or faction.

Oh I did however your blatant attempt at underplaying your obvious miss click mistake was rather underwhelming. Saying things like "I went back to writing" to try and underplay it further is convincing no one. I will look forward to thrashing you again in the near future. Do try and not make noob mistakes next time, it makes the kills worth so much less for me.

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

How is that different from T2 short range ammo for turrets?

Turrets can't be smartbombed or destroyed with defenders.
Also turrets do instant damage, while missiles have to fly to target first to apply damage.

With EVERY weapon system we have long range ammo and short range ammo

Somehow You guys decided that caldari main LONG RANGE weapon t2 ammo will be short range, maybe give us snipe ammo variant then? PRecision for example (yes i see cons of that)?

Sorry I wasn't clear. I know you are rebalancing every ship but you often mention Cruise Missiles as a broken system currently. It however it doesn't seem that broken when you look at the one hull that uses them the Raven. It is short 1-2 Launchers or a Second Damage Bonus in comparison to its peers, 1 Launcher more on the Drake as well it has a bunch of other poor traits.

So what I meant was will you be looking into the Missiles or the one Hull that uses them primarily? Which one do you think is the more major issue and how will that affect plans for the second Battleship Missile Boat you said you would be converting the Phoon into? Will the Phoon be Cruise Capable and how is it expected to compete with the Raven in that category? Will Battleships be balanced around a six launcher only system while balancing the Drake around a 7th Launcher System?

I know this area of balance is a ways off so I am not trying to demand answers when you're probably not there yet but anything you have would be appreciated.

Yeah, just looking at the range effects, I posted before itt or in another thread that the range skills are skewed. Gunnery has two 5% range skills (and one of those is for falloff so really only half a range skill). Missiles have two 10% range skills.

And a more important question is how are you ever going to get TE/TC's in when all the missiles will still be over-ranged after this rebalance?

I wouldn't quite say "quite" balanced. Missiles will still have a good amount more damage at ranges beyond ~15-25km than other medium long range ship weapons depending on the ship and fittings.

I would say "more" balanced though. And that may be enough, when ship rebalancing comes to BCs, to result in more equal numbers among BC usage stats.