Rising Sin
   |
Posted - 2003.08.15 15:58:00 -
[1]
Edited by: Rising Sin on 15/08/2003 16:36:23
TomB, these are my thoughts on Minmatar ship balance (starting at Stabber and working upward):
Minmatar cruisers are pretty decent but the Stabber needs a bit of oomph to put it on level with similarly priced cruisers - maybe some more speed.
In the battleship department, there's only one major problem I see - the Typhoon outguns the Tempest. I'm not repeating that age-old argument that a ship costing 2X more should be 2X better at everything - but I think the situation needs to be changed. The main reason behind this can be found in the low slots and CPU of the Tempest. While the Tempest can mount 2 more turrets than the Typhoon, the Typhoon's 4 turrets have almost as much power as the Tempest's 6 because the Typhoon can mount far more gyrostabilizers than the Tempest can (due to 2 less low slots and 200 less CPU).
Since the guns are almost equal, the Typhoon then gets 4 more high slots and a lot more drone space to work with, thus allowing it to easily overpower the Tempest, whose only advantages are an extra middle slot (which will be hard to provide with CPU) and slightly higher stats. At best, you can see the Typhoon is almost on equal playing ground as the Tempest (if not completely).
I think one possible solution might be to give the Tempest 7 low slots and 4 mid slots and give the Typhoon 5 low slots and 5 mid slots (thus exchanging low/mid slot setups). In addition, the Tempest needs more CPU, and I think 550 would be reasonable.
Of course, both Minmatar battleships (and Minmatar ships in general) have a hard time competing with other races' ship because of projectiles needing improvement. I think these are the following problems with projectiles:
1. The 250mm, 650mm and 1200mm Artillery guns (the preferred guns used by most projectile users) have a pretty big flaw - each level up, the gun doesn't offer much more than its smaller counterpart offers. For example, the ROF of the 250mm gun is 6 seconds, while the 650mm gun's ROF is 12 seconds. Since the 650's ROF is double that of the 250mm, it nullifies the 2X damage that medium ammo gives the 650mm. The relationship between the 650mm and 1200mm has this same flaw, only the respective ROF's are 12 seconds and 24 seconds. Thus, by equipping a larger version of this gun, you are sacrificing CPU, immense powergrid, and immense tracking for only one thing - range.
However, since projectile's poor optimum range makes them really only good at a closer range than other weapon types, this extra range doesn't really help all that much, especially when you compare to other weapon types. This relates to the second issue projectiles have:
2. Tracking. If projectiles are supposed to be used upclose (such as autocannons and artillery, with their poor optimum range), why is it that they have the worst tracking? This doesn't make much sense to me as it seems the projectile users are placed in a very bad situation - they need to get close to hit for good damage, but if they get that close, they can't hit anything at all.
I suggest that either the weapons are given better tracking or better optimum range. I think better tracking may be the better option. To fix the problem with the 250,650, and 1200, larger versions of these guns should provide more damage over time. The 650mm should have a 10 second ROF while the 1200mm should have an 18 second ROF. Other guns, such as the 720mm, 800mm, and 1400mm could also use a slightly faster ROF.
--
"If they're shooting at you, you know you must be doing something right." |