The tracking speed on a standard Neutron Blaster Talos with Null loaded is .0794
The tracking speed on a new 250mm Railgun Deimos with Antimatter loaded will be .0304

It looks like the Talos tracks 3x as well as the Deimos. In reality, because of the role Signature Resolution plays, the Deimos will actually track moving targets about 19% better than the Null Talos.

As always, looking forward to feedback.
CCP Rise

mmkay so why are all the comparisons ignoring T2 ammo? ..... who uses antimatter on rails? .. anyone?

T2 ammo needs a buff on long range guns .. -75% range makes it unusable...

Swap the arty RoF buff to a 20% damage bonus instead. Artillery is for alpha strikes, this risks making all weapon systems a bit too similar which is boring.

Its very intentional that it gets ROF and not damage. Alpha on Arty is already plenty high, making arty Hurricanes and Muninns both viable before the changes. We wanted to make sure the dps kept up with rails and beams somewhat without overbuffing alpha which is working fine currently.

Its very intentional that it gets ROF and not damage. Alpha on Arty is already plenty high, making arty Hurricanes and Muninns both viable before the changes. We wanted to make sure the dps kept up with rails and beams somewhat without overbuffing alpha which is working fine currently.

CCP Rise is there any intention to do a ammo review ?
-50% and -75% penalties are too high for long range guns

so why would I want to fly anything other then arty stuff. they will probably track better then rails or at least have very simliar, have similar dps, will always kill the target before reps land? ****, count me in on this because that just owns in the unbalanced whoopass kinda way

mmkay so why are all the comparisons ignoring T2 ammo? ..... who uses antimatter on rails? .. anyone?

T2 ammo needs a buff on long range guns .. -75% range makes it unusable...

Good morning space adventurers!

IF YOU WANT TO CRITICIZE THIS PROPOSAL PLEASE READ THE EXPLANATION BELOW FIRST <3

Okay so I'm going to give you the numbers first, then do some text walling below to try and explain why we arrived where we did.

Medium Rails (all sizes and metas):
+15% Rate of Fire
+15% Damage Multiplier
-15% Tracking Speed

Medium Beams:
+25% Damage Multiplier
-10% Tracking Speed

Medium Artillery:
+10% Rate of Fire
-5% Tracking

So the basic idea is that we're increasing damage by quite a lot for all medium long range turrets, while also lowering their tracking a little bit.

From a high level, the goal here is to make long range weapons valuable enough that people are able to use them for both PVP and PVE without being laughed at. This is hard to accomplish without stepping heavily on the toes of either large weapons or short-range medium weapons. We felt that a large damage increase was absolutely necessary for there to be any chance of seeing increased use, but the higher damage goes the more pressure gets put on other weapon systems. By making tracking speed a bit worse we preserve a lot of the advantage that medium short-range guns bring, while also making medium long-range guns a great choice verse large guns in many situations.

To understand why that last part is true, its VERY important that you understand how tracking works in EVE. I want to use an example here to help illustrate:

The tracking speed on a standard Neutron Blaster Talos with Null loaded is .0794
The tracking speed on a new 250mm Railgun Deimos with Antimatter loaded will be .0304

It looks like the Talos tracks 3x as well as the Deimos. In reality, because of the role Signature Resolution plays, the Deimos will actually track moving targets about 19% better than the Null Talos.

A real tracking number that combines tracking speed and resolution would look like this:

Real tracking on standard Neutron Blaster Talos with Null loaded is .0001985
Real tracking on a new 250mm Railgun Deimos with Antimatter loaded is .0002432

If you want to make this kind of comparison for other ships and situations, divide tracking speed by the signature resolution of the gun and compare the resulting numbers. If you want to see an awesome in-depth explanation for tracking, I recommend reading THIS BLOG by Azual Skoll.

One of the discussions we had with the CSM on this topic (there were a lot) revolved around a situation where you get to choose which ship to bring to a fight where you will be shooting at Talwars. Do you want a new medium long-range gun ship, or an Attack BC with large short-range guns. So I made a DPS graph here showing three fits: a 200mm Rail Thorax, a 250mm Rail Deimos, and a Neutron Talos, all of which have 2 tracking enhancers fit. The situation shown would be if the Talwar has MWD on and is moving at full speed at an angle of 60 degrees (hopefully fairly average, though it will vary a lot). You can see what that looks like here: DAMAGE GRAPH

There are of course a lot of other reasons to bring medium long-range ships over large like price, speed, resilience, and the option to shoot to much longer ranges. Overall we are still a tad worried about power creep here, but hopefully this will put medium guns in a healthy place in relation to their competition.

Be sure to check out the HEAVY ASSAULT CRUISER REBALANCE as well as many of those ships are affected by this change and vice versa

As always, looking forward to feedback.
CCP Rise

Its very intentional that it gets ROF and not damage. Alpha on Arty is already plenty high, making arty Hurricanes and Muninns both viable before the changes. We wanted to make sure the dps kept up with rails and beams somewhat without overbuffing alpha which is working fine currently.

Its very intentional that it gets ROF and not damage. Alpha on Arty is already plenty high, making arty Hurricanes and Muninns both viable before the changes. We wanted to make sure the dps kept up with rails and beams somewhat without overbuffing alpha which is working fine currently.

at first I was super excited about this and was gonna buy some eagles. but then i saw the tracking nerf to rails and now...

I know you think that it tracking better then a talos with null is cool, but in reality its kinda ****** vs frigs unless they're ******** and coming at you in a staight line. m. rails already track the 2nd worst of medium guns, and only just slightly better then arties, so why even bother when you can just use the other, better tracking guns. Please, just remove the tracking nerf on medium rals, and give them the buff that they so desperately need. Literally nobody uses medium rails right now and if it turns out that its over-powered then you can always nerf it, but I really do not think that this tracking nerf is going to help.

Wahh, why can't I brawl down this frigate with my long range medium guns abloobloo

Ok.. this may seem like a strange question but still...

You have compared the tracking and dps on a Talos, against that of a Thorax and Deimos(t)....

The Talos being designed for large hybrids means, at least as far as I can tell, that it should have higher DPS numbers but lower tracking, whether it fits blasters or rails.

looking at your DPS graph showing what things will be like after this change, i can't help but notice that the Talos does not reach anywhere near the dps potential of either the t1 or t2 cruiser.

So, post change, a railfit cruiser will track better and do more dps than a large blaster fit battlecruiser?
Seems a little odd.

Capacitor usage of beams is still ****, even a 25% damage bonus is not going to make people use them instead of scorch heavy pulse or tachyon oracles.

Good morning space adventurers!

IF YOU WANT TO CRITICIZE THIS PROPOSAL PLEASE READ THE EXPLANATION BELOW FIRST <3

Okay so I'm going to give you the numbers first, then do some text walling below to try and explain why we arrived where we did.

Medium Rails (all sizes and metas):
+15% Rate of Fire
+15% Damage Multiplier
-15% Tracking Speed

Medium Beams:
+25% Damage Multiplier
-10% Tracking Speed

Medium Artillery:
+10% Rate of Fire
-5% Tracking

So the basic idea is that we're increasing damage by quite a lot for all medium long range turrets, while also lowering their tracking a little bit.

From a high level, the goal here is to make long range weapons valuable enough that people are able to use them for both PVP and PVE without being laughed at. This is hard to accomplish without stepping heavily on the toes of either large weapons or short-range medium weapons. We felt that a large damage increase was absolutely necessary for there to be any chance of seeing increased use, but the higher damage goes the more pressure gets put on other weapon systems. By making tracking speed a bit worse we preserve a lot of the advantage that medium short-range guns bring, while also making medium long-range guns a great choice verse large guns in many situations.

To understand why that last part is true, its VERY important that you understand how tracking works in EVE. I want to use an example here to help illustrate:

The tracking speed on a standard Neutron Blaster Talos with Null loaded is .0794
The tracking speed on a new 250mm Railgun Deimos with Antimatter loaded will be .0304

It looks like the Talos tracks 3x as well as the Deimos. In reality, because of the role Signature Resolution plays, the Deimos will actually track moving targets about 19% better than the Null Talos.

A real tracking number that combines tracking speed and resolution would look like this:

Real tracking on standard Neutron Blaster Talos with Null loaded is .0001985
Real tracking on a new 250mm Railgun Deimos with Antimatter loaded is .0002432

If you want to make this kind of comparison for other ships and situations, divide tracking speed by the signature resolution of the gun and compare the resulting numbers. If you want to see an awesome in-depth explanation for tracking, I recommend reading THIS BLOG by Azual Skoll.

One of the discussions we had with the CSM on this topic (there were a lot) revolved around a situation where you get to choose which ship to bring to a fight where you will be shooting at Talwars. Do you want a new medium long-range gun ship, or an Attack BC with large short-range guns. So I made a DPS graph here showing three fits: a 200mm Rail Thorax, a 250mm Rail Deimos, and a Neutron Talos, all of which have 2 tracking enhancers fit. The situation shown would be if the Talwar has MWD on and is moving at full speed at an angle of 60 degrees (hopefully fairly average, though it will vary a lot). You can see what that looks like here: DAMAGE GRAPH

There are of course a lot of other reasons to bring medium long-range ships over large like price, speed, resilience, and the option to shoot to much longer ranges. Overall we are still a tad worried about power creep here, but hopefully this will put medium guns in a healthy place in relation to their competition.

Be sure to check out the HEAVY ASSAULT CRUISER REBALANCE as well as many of those ships are affected by this change and vice versa

As always, looking forward to feedback.
CCP Rise

Garviel Tarrant]TL:DR The fittings on these weapons (And cap use) is too high to use with armor tanks.. I want to armor tank my ******* amarr ships >_<

Welcome to my world - these are further changes that are going to be rushed out the door, leading to issues further down the line.

It's a general consensus that Medium Rails need a buff, but giving them a 15% bonus to both RoF and damage seems a bit drastic to me - they don't suck that bad (and Rail Proteus or Astarte still works very well in killing rats that are weak to Kin/Thermal).

2. This entire thing is an excersize in powercreep. You should nerf the talos and t2 ammo properly rather than majorly buffing everything else IMO.

Medium beams and rails were essentially unused even before tier3 BCs were introduced. They haven't been buffed because of powercreep, but because they're just terrible.

Capacitor usage of beams is still ****, even a 25% damage bonus is not going to make people use them instead of scorch heavy pulse or tachyon oracles.

CCP Rise or Malcanis,

What's the reasoning in not changing Heavy Missiles along with everything else? Weren't they originally nerfed because they didn't line up with the other long range weapon types and now they're being left behind in changes?

Good morning space adventurers!

A real tracking number that combines tracking speed and resolution would look like this:

Real tracking on standard Neutron Blaster Talos with Null loaded is .0001985
Real tracking on a new 250mm Railgun Deimos with Antimatter loaded is .0002432

CCP Rise

Ironic, isn't it?

It does have a bit of symmetry, but it wasn't HML users fault they were OP before so there's no reason to leave them behind now that they're nerfed. Let's fix them now so we're not revisiting this topic a month from now.

A 25% damage buff is equivalent to a 20% improvement in their cap efficiency. I dunno but that seems like a pretty huge improvement.

Heavy Missiles were previously so powerful because there was no short range medium missile weapon system. The introduction of HAMs changed that, but they were bad and heavy missiles still too good, thus the combo buff/nerf to distinguish them from each other more.

HMs retain the classic missile advantages over guns of being "immune" to tracking (you can't get an advantage over them by simply getting in close) and static damage profile (I do the same DPS at 0km as at 60km). I'll need to dig into numbers once someone gets EFT updated, but HMs are probably still just fine in comparison to the new long range guns for those reasons.

any timeline on adding missiles to TE's TC's etc. ?

And TD ... seems fair if you want our cookies , take our pain too.

BTW +1 to those changes. I'm really not that bad person . Not complaining as always :P. But i do when changes are terrible. This one is nice and seems in order. What i would also change is T2 crystals. Seems like no matter what you do with guns itself people don't want to use those.

Ah and one more thing <3 CCP for increasing damage on beams without increasing RoF. Seems like you are starting to see where Amarr problem is.

any timeline on adding missiles to TE's TC's etc. ?

Heavy Missiles were previously so powerful because there was no short range medium missile weapon system. The introduction of HAMs changed that, but they were bad and heavy missiles still too good, thus the combo buff/nerf to distinguish them from each other more.

HMs retain the classic missile advantages over guns of being "immune" to tracking (you can't get an advantage over them by simply getting in close) and static damage profile (I do the same DPS at 0km as at 60km). I'll need to dig into numbers once someone gets EFT updated, but HMs are probably still just fine in comparison to the new long range guns for those reasons.

I'm eager to go start crunching numbers and test out to see if a rail tengu will now be a viable (PVE) alternative to the current hml/ham setup with the AEB subsystem.

One of the discussions we had with the CSM on this topic (there were a lot) revolved around a situation where you get to choose which ship to bring to a fight where you will be shooting at Talwars. Do you want a new medium long-range gun ship, or an Attack BC with large short-range guns. So I made a DPS graph here showing three fits: a 200mm Rail Thorax, a 250mm Rail Deimos, and a Neutron Talos, all of which have 2 tracking enhancers fit. The situation shown would be if the Talwar has MWD on and is moving at full speed at an angle of 60 degrees (hopefully fairly average, though it will vary a lot). You can see what that looks like here: DAMAGE GRAPH

I really don't understand why you guys do not attack the Tracking formula for the much larger problem of no scaling at range.

at first I was super excited about this and was gonna buy some eagles. but then i saw the tracking nerf to rails and now...

I know you think that it tracking better then a talos with null is cool, but in reality its kinda ****** vs frigs unless they're ******** and coming at you in a staight line. m. rails already track the 2nd worst of medium guns, and only just slightly better then arties, so why even bother when you can just use the other, better tracking guns. Please, just remove the tracking nerf on medium rals, and give them the buff that they so desperately need. Literally nobody uses medium rails right now and if it turns out that its over-powered then you can always nerf it, but I really do not think that this tracking nerf is going to help.

I really don't understand why you guys do not attack the Tracking formula for the much larger problem of no scaling at range.

I've said this so many times and gotten nothing but positive feedback from players as well as solved the long standing issue with rails.

But instead of listening to common sense, you guys just play with damage and tracking numbers rather than hit the source of the problem which is the formula not accounting for a benefit to tracking at range.

Create a sig multiplier on every gun that get's modified at range to inflate the sig resolution of the guns. Vary the percents by gun type and size.

This allows rails to excel in the longer ranges but worse in the shorter ranges by having a larger base sig resolution, but much lower inflation rate, makes artillery alpha nice... if it can actually hit. It also removes some of the concern for webs because tracking can't cancel out sig resolution when webbed to near 0.

Your Talos example is a prime reason why this has to be done. 19% tracking difference for a massive damage increase on the ship will always get trumped with webs. But if you were to add signiture inflation to blasters, it means that they will be limited to certain ranges of effect that rails can always surpass even at the mid size level.



I wish you guys would just be honest and either say, "we can't do that" or "it would make to much lag" or something rather than continue to skirt the issue for the 11th year now. It's getting downright ridiculous.

If you have more questions about how it works, please, ask or go look at some of the other post. It's time to change this horrid formula.

CCP Rise - one thing, while You gave nice boost to guns, You left out something.

After this HML will be 100% unusable - outclassed with damage from their gun counterparts.

CCP Rise - one thing, while You gave nice boost to guns, You left out something.

After this HML will be 100% unusable - outclassed with damage from their gun counterparts.

I don't understand. I thought range affected tracking..which is why you orbit close to a big ship to make it miss with its guns. Range reduces traversal velocity allowing you to track them...no?

Capacitor usage of beams is still ****, even a 25% damage bonus is not going to make people use them instead of scorch heavy pulse or tachyon oracles.

Good changes, now just nerf ABCs.

What are 'ABCs'?

mmkay so why are all the comparisons ignoring T2 ammo? ..... who uses antimatter on rails? .. anyone?

T2 ammo needs a buff on long range guns .. -75% range makes it unusable...

Rails and Beams DPS will be about 40% better then Artillery DPS.
Give Artillery 20% RoF bonus. Artillery DPS will be still 25% less then Beam or Rails DPS

Heavy Missiles were previously so powerful because there was no short range medium missile weapon system. The introduction of HAMs changed that, but they were bad and heavy missiles still too good, thus the combo buff/nerf to distinguish them from each other more.

HMs retain the classic missile advantages over guns of being "immune" to tracking (you can't get an advantage over them by simply getting in close) and static damage profile (I do the same DPS at 0km as at 60km). I'll need to dig into numbers once someone gets EFT updated, but HMs are probably still just fine in comparison to the new long range guns for those reasons.

I disagree, if you plug in current TQ numbers into EFT you'll see that HML ships are already less dps than an equivalent beam-fitted ship and to a lesser extent rail-fitted. For example, the harbinger navy issue and drake have similar dps bonuses and both fit 6 turret/launchers so I plugged them into EFT. With all lvl 5's, 4 heat sinks/bcs, and T2 weapons/ammo, and no implants I'm getting 610 dps for the harbinger and 508 for the drake. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

I would argue that the advantages you cite are already baked into the current TQ numbers, now with a 20% buff beams/rails/arties will pull even further ahead.

You realize that dps on paper isn't necessarily what you actually get? Things like tracking, sig radius, ship speed, etc. all come into play. HMLs hit with their full damage regardless if you're close or far, if your Drake is flying around, etc.

Please read more carefully, I said those advantages are already baked into the TQ numbers (and HML's don't hit for full damage regardless of range, they're damage just isn't affected by range, there's a difference). A beam fitted ship with same bonuses and turret count is 20% greater dps than HML ship ALREADY, with the upcoming changes they'll be way ahead.

I disagree, if you plug in current TQ numbers into EFT you'll see that HML ships are already less dps than an equivalent beam-fitted ship and to a lesser extent rail-fitted. For example, the harbinger navy issue and drake have similar dps bonuses and both fit 6 turret/launchers so I plugged them into EFT. With all lvl 5's, 4 heat sinks/bcs, and T2 weapons/ammo, and no implants I'm getting 610 dps for the harbinger and 508 for the drake. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

I would argue that the advantages you cite are already baked into the current TQ numbers, now with a 20% buff beams/rails/arties will pull even further ahead.

Ok, so for you 552 < 424 ? Impressive.
And what about hitting frigs at 100% damage at 30km as soon as they don't get good transversal? That's what you get with guns.
When a missile boat would need them to stop their ship entirely while keeping the Mwd on to do full damage? Especially if you use fury.
Why are missile boats never used in incursions (except cruise and then again they are not optimal)?

Mind you I fly all races, hac 5, all medium sized weapon systems, in pvp and pve and... If you fail to see how bad hml are atm that's either because you don't use them or because you are blinded by your hate for missiles and don't want anyone to use them.

Had you not purposefully forgotten hi damage ammo for beams, your post might have made sense...

You obviously don't fly missiles, or you'd know how bad they are. That's all. Or maybe you only use Tengu, the single ship making hml worth it?

You are wrong. Your numbers are about as disjointed from reality as mittens 'war updates'.

For a start, good luck fitting 4 BCSs on a navy drake and still fitting a tank. But even if you did, you are looking at 362 dps at 94km with faction, 424 dps at 71km with fury. For a navy harbinger, you are looking at 522dps at 23km with scorch, 239 dps at 48km with faction radio and beams, 332 dps at 54km with aurora. Either way, both your dps and your max range is superior with hml, and you don't have to account for tracking.

This is probably one of these cases where the great unwashed of Eve hear pubbie mcmissionrunner bitching about their nerfed drake (still), and actually believe them when they make great sweeping claims on the dps and range of heavy missiles that have no relation to actual facts.

Edit: You were talking about normal drake not navy drake. For the standard drake, you are looking at 407 dps at 63km with faction, and 478 dps at 47km with fury. This of course locks you into kinetic damage, other damage types are worse. Faction still does more dps at a longer range than the longest ranged beam ammo, and fury does twice the dps of the ammo type that operates at the same max range.

tl:dr heavy missiles are fine, shut up.

Had you not purposefully forgotten hi damage ammo for beams, your post might have made sense...

You obviously don't fly missiles, or you'd know how bad they are. That's all. Or maybe you only use Tengu, the single ship making hml worth it?

YOu obviously haven't tried medium rails or beams or you'd love your Heavy Missiles.

You pay for all that damage and tracking on beams with the crappy cap use.

If they were made to have less cap issues and lowered the damage or tracking to compensate they'd be treading on the toes of rails which would be boring, it's best if the weapon systems are as different to each as possible while still maintaining balance.

- Arties will have high alpha and selectable damage, but low dps and tracking.
- Lasers will have high dps, high tracking and instant ammo switching, but a fixed damage type and high cap use.
- Rails will have high dps and the longest range, middling cap use and tracking, and a fixed damage type.

I don't think high cap use is a problem, if they still need boosting then compensate in other areas (lower fitting) rather than taking away a unique aspect of the weapon system.

You are wrong. Your numbers are about as disjointed from reality as mittens 'war updates'.

For a start, good luck fitting 4 BCSs on a navy drake and still fitting a tank. But even if you did, you are looking at 362 dps at 94km with faction, 424 dps at 71km with fury. For a navy harbinger, you are looking at 522dps at 23km with scorch, 239 dps at 48km with faction radio and beams, 332 dps at 54km with aurora. Either way, both your dps and your max range is superior with hml, and you don't have to account for tracking.

This is probably one of these cases where the great unwashed of Eve hear pubbie mcmissionrunner bitching about their nerfed drake (still), and actually believe them when they make great sweeping claims on the dps and range of heavy missiles that have no relation to actual facts.

Edit: You were talking about normal drake not navy drake. For the standard drake, you are looking at 407 dps at 63km with faction, and 478 dps at 47km with fury. This of course locks you into kinetic damage, other damage types are worse. Faction still does more dps at a longer range than the longest ranged beam ammo, and fury does twice the dps of the ammo type that operates at the same max range.

tl:dr heavy missiles are fine, shut up.

Because changing numbers in the database is a tweak. Changing the tracking formula is a massive overhaul. Same reason for not overhauling POSes and any number of other "why don't you JUST.." changes.

Rough estimate based on previous fittings puts the Deimos at a healthy 500+ dps @ 16+40ish, rail Proteus at > 700dps @ 22+29. All figures depend on tracking/range mods and my memory, of course. I can't be bothered to use beams so I dunno about those.

Toss the numbers for the Proteus out the door.
I figured out the same numbers until I realized I forgot that CCP plans on destroying the T3 ships, so no way those numbers will exist for more than a flicker of game time.

Can't decide what to level next T3 cruisers or battleships. T3 cruisers now seem like risky time investment.

Let's go over the rails checklist.

Shield ships: Tank - check, Speed - check, Range - check, Tracking - check, DPS - check. Done ship it!

Armor ships: Tank - not if you want to fit the guns, Speed - not if you want a tank, Range - checkish, Tracking - not if you want range, DPS - not if you want that tank, but then again if you wanted a tank you can't fit the guns. Ship it? Sure why not. CCP Rise pities the fool that flies armor.

When are we going to see Armor 2.0?

Missiles don't have to account for tracking yes. And guns don't need to account for sig size (as far as I know, I'm new to the game). Also tracking is irrelevant the moment rats start to chase you at a straight line when you out of their optimal range. Not saying HM are weak, just pointing out you're mittaning your facts too.

Medium Rails (all sizes and metas):
+15% Rate of Fire
+15% Damage Multiplier
-15% Tracking Speed

Watch this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WT8VqVcLDqc

It will open your eyes.

One of the discussions we had with the CSM...

Corresponing cap use reduction?

At present an Omen with Heavy Beams will burn about 10.5 GJ per shot while a Thorax with 250mm Rails burns 10. (According to the values listed in the EVElopedia). The base ROF on the two turrets is the same 6s (the Omen than has an ROF bonus of course).
The ROF gain of new rails puts a significant, additional cap pressure on the ships using them - pushing them closer to Lasers with ammo use...

Ah yes, I see, thank you. Didn't know that guns tracking is affected by sig size. But still NPC frigates approach you in a straight line, aren't they?

mmkay so why are all the comparisons ignoring T2 ammo? ..... who uses antimatter on rails? .. anyone?

T2 ammo needs a buff on long range guns .. -75% range makes it unusable...

When you get 6k alpha out of a T2 arty fit you get about 2.5 from a dps fit with other guns and alpha > to DPS everyday, if you can't kill it with a single volley bring more arties. Those are already the reason why beams and rails are total crap atm.

Would like to see some form of reduction in the cap usage of lasers too.. Try fitting any beam ship and not run into cap issues.

Yes, because AI in this game is programmed to do that. That's exactly same thing what happens every time you hit orbit button if you have to approach.

I still don't see how missiles are broken.

When you are fightign larger ships.. DPS >>>>> ALPHA.

Not saying they're. But they look weak in particular case. Low sig (up to and including cruisers) fast ( >500 m/s) ships that swarm L3s. On paper mid-to-long range turrets on a kiting ship look better than heavy missiles.

Even with precision missiles. _Right now_ precision missiles on slow (<300 m/s) targets look about the same as rails. Post buff rails will do ~33% better. Range wise rails do better too.

That makes Drake look bad. It'll not be effective in L3s (due to dps) and L4s (due to tank/damage trade off). Maybe some kind of damage application bonus would do in theory (instead of range bonus, since drake have enough tank for L3s). Or players can adapt with HAMs.

But you don't have to believe me. Play with DPS windows in EFT. I could be wrong.

The damage buff is far to massive, there will be little reason at all to use blasters and auto cannons with this numbers outside solo pvp, the only saving grace of puls is that beams are nearly unfit able on everything except the Harbinger, Zealot and Absolution and puls got scorch ammo.

The major issue of medium rails is the lack of tracking in combination with fast movement at 18-28km kitting ranges and that caldari hulls lack the effective turrets(gallente hulls with drones + rails already get ok damage on paper). The reason why small rails work is that they are used within web range and large rails are used on hulls with a lot of tracking mods or at far higher ranges. Damage is not the source of the problem with medium rails(at least on gallente hulls), it is damage application and all you gain by this change is wrecking medium blasters and auto cannons.

Tank and dps is fine for level 3 missions. Tank should be enough for Guristas level 4s.

[Drake, L3 Active PvE Drake]

Ballistic Control System II
Ballistic Control System II
Ballistic Control System II
Internal Force Field Array I

10MN Afterburner II
Medium Shield Booster II
Kinetic Deflection Field II
Kinetic Deflection Field II
Thermic Dissipation Field II
Phased Weapon Navigation Array Generation Extron

Heavy Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Scourge Heavy Missile
Heavy Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Scourge Heavy Missile
Heavy Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Scourge Heavy Missile
Heavy Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Scourge Heavy Missile
Heavy Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Scourge Heavy Missile
Heavy Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Scourge Heavy Missile

Medium Processor Overclocking Unit I
Medium Warhead Rigor Catalyst I
Medium Warhead Flare Catalyst I

Corresponing cap use reduction?

At present an Omen with Heavy Beams will burn about 10.5 GJ per shot while a Thorax with 250mm Rails burns 10. (According to the values listed in the EVElopedia). The base ROF on the two turrets is the same 6s (the Omen than has an ROF bonus of course).
The ROF gain of new rails puts a significant, additional cap pressure on the ships using them - pushing them closer to Lasers with ammo use...

Just shut up please. Alpha is NOT > DPS every day. Alpha is > DPS only if ALpha is high enough to kill the enemy. When you are fightign larger ships.. DPS >>>>> ALPHA.

Great points on medium beams, it is still far easier to just fit pulse scorch and save the ass ache of trying to make a beam fit work with the PG fitting and cap use.

Especially when you consider the ramifications of having to put a PG mod in a lowslot instead of a heat sink as a result.

In that case, it's still Pulse >>> Beams.

The range, I presume, cannot change all that much without causing balance issues. So the solution lies in the fitting requirements and cap use. But then, I've had this argument all before. At least Bouh hasn't popped up yet to scream about how you can't buff beams at all ever.

And these changes aren't making LR weapon HACs any better or better choice than ABCs but they will have some uses.

Just shut up please. Alpha is NOT > DPS every day. Alpha is > DPS only if ALpha is high enough to kill the enemy. When you are fightign larger ships.. DPS >>>>> ALPHA.

so why do med rails have less tracking then med arty? do you plan on changing that for all sizes?

also shield rail brutix now does more dps then armor blaster one \o/

HACs, on their own? Maybe, maybe not. But they are still the pre-alpha, the starting point for discussion, as Rise mentioned. Hence why this discussion is so important.

I was just EFTing, and you cannot fit an 800mm plate thorax with 200mm rails without investing in an ACR or some implants. It's the same for an 800mm plated 250mm rail deimos.
Also, this falloff bonus is stupid for railguns, adds less and less as you go up the ranges. Should switch all gallente range bonuses to optimal, then make blasters more optimally than falloffy.

Indeed but for what we can read all around everyone has his version of what HACs/SACs are meant to be, which clearly demonstrates ther is no real defined role for T2 assault cruisers in between T1 versions and ABC's, meanwhile HAC/SAC are supposed to be SPECIALIZED ships.

My question after T1 cruisers rebalance, after ABCs rebalance is, and legitimate I think: what are AHAC/SHAC supposed to be specialized at?
Being expensive with no real benefit over T1 versions nor good enough to compete with ABC's? -what's the point?

Of course this is only my version and vision of AHAC's/SHAC's but ihmo for a very specialized ship they need to get the special role they're meant to and most important the tools to achieve their task:

-be dam fast with a nasty small signature and tank (via resist profile), 0 sign bloom when MWD or change bonus to 100% AB speed eventually even bigger to catch MWD speeds

-deliver average 650dps at least (BC dps for a T2 specialized cruiser isn't OP) with in disruption/web range without requiring additional range modules

-get a 3rd rig slot !! this is clearly important and there's no reason they shouldn't have it to increase the interest over T1's

With these changes the natural way to balance those bonus is to force those ships to resist profile tank rather than buffer

->very small signature with good speed and nasty resist profile and only after------->DPS


Only my opinion of course

How medium arties are used at the moment, Lokis? Hurricanes?
Aren't they been used in a sort of "niche" combat only (certain fleet types in certain conditions) ?

It's an honest question, I only fly frigs (and badly), I really don't know the current application/meta of medium arties.
If one day I decide to upgrade to cruisers (solo - small gang low sec roamer), I really can't see why should I use them.

really thats crazy i assume blasters with 2 mags against Rails with 3 mags?

[Brutix, 250s shield_buffer]
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Tracking Enhancer II
Damage Control II

Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II
Experimental 10MN Microwarpdrive I
Warp Disruptor II

NEW 250mm Railgun II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
NEW 250mm Railgun II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
NEW 250mm Railgun II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
NEW 250mm Railgun II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
NEW 250mm Railgun II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
NEW 250mm Railgun II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
[empty high slot]

Medium Ancillary Current Router I
Medium Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I


Hammerhead II x5

[Brutix, mixed_blasters higher_tank armor_buffer]
Damage Control II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
1600mm Reinforced Steel Plates II

Experimental 10MN Microwarpdrive I
Fleeting Propulsion Inhibitor I
Fleeting Propulsion Inhibitor I
Faint Epsilon Warp Scrambler I

Heavy Ion Blaster II, Void M
Heavy Ion Blaster II, Void M
Heavy Ion Blaster II, Void M
Heavy Ion Blaster II, Void M
Heavy Electron Blaster II, Void M
Heavy Electron Blaster II, Void M
[empty high slot]

Medium Trimark Armor Pump I
Medium Trimark Armor Pump I
Medium Trimark Armor Pump I


Hammerhead II x5

Also, this falloff bonus is stupid for railguns, adds less and less as you go up the ranges. Should switch all gallente range bonuses to optimal, then make blasters more optimally than falloffy.

Bomber defense for larger fleets, mainly.

Given this buff, Heavy Missiles also need to be brought back in line with the long range turrets to make sure they stay competitive, especially given that they have flight time.

I think that's the point and the difference between a gallente hybrid boat and a Caldari one. The gallente boat is designed to be strapped with blasters hence falloff and tracking bonuses while the Caldari boats are designed for rails and hence get optimal bonuses

I'm saying this since the beginning of this thread, HM's are now uninteresting as hell, after turrets rebalance HM's will be of no interest at all.

Tech 2 HM's were the first weapon system I trained for in eve. On my Damnation with 3 ballistic controls 2's and all support skills to 4 , I only get 236.9 DPS. I wish i trained for HAM's now

It Is Time To Fix How turrets use Sig and Tracking

ABC's

Missle's Need to be added to this balance.

Missles were nerfed and Once this update comes, they will be soo far behind.[/b]

The deimos is quite clearly NOT designed to be strapped with blasters.. Its pretty awful at it.

Not that its amazing at rails, like trouser said, its fittings can't accommodate armor tanking and rails. Also its slow.. Bringing us back to the Why the **** is the Vaga so fast compared to the deimos thing.

the problem, CCP, is not with medium guns...

it's with BS sized guns. This is true even for missiles. Nearly all battleships, after your last pass through, are capped at around 700-800 dps with long range weapons, and lvl 5 skills. That is where the problem lies. People expect that a battlehsip should face a significant improvment in dps over their medium setups, and in most cases, it's not.

The jump in dps from small ships to medium is huge. from 200 dps to 500, or 700, or sometimes 800. Then we move from the cruisers/battlecriusers getting 700, to a battlehsip getting 750.

the PROBLEM, ccp, is that battlehsips NEED 20% more damage on every weapons system, across the board... and torps/large blasters need 15-20% more BASE range.

i know you're afraid of power creep...

that is obvious, when you have made EVERY caldari bs with missiles (Navy raven, navy scorp, and golem), EXACTLY the same dps, exactly. you're afraid to create diversity, and it's KILLING your ships. nearly every BS out there gets within 50 dps of other races, other weapons systems. that's BROKEN. dont make the dps the same, and hope the other ship roles make them viable.

and battleships shouldnt be somehting that you're afraid to let some power into.

dont nerf the hell out of medium rails (who track terribly anyway), buff the larges! they dont have enough dps, by a LONG ways. they dont have enough dps on ANY platform.

but i've only been playing 9 years, with every race...

maybe all that first hand experience is wrong.

and you're also making ships REQUIRE a rig to get a fit on... a standard, baseline, everyone should be using it fit--needs fitting rigs. STOP THAT.

thanks.

the PROBLEM, ccp, is that battlehsips NEED 20% more damage on every weapons system, across the board... and torps/large blasters need 15-20% more BASE range.

Are you seriously comparing cruiser close range dps to bs long range dps to make a really bad point? BS top out at 1200-1500 dps with CR weapons Cruisers top out at 400-550 dps with long range weapons. Get your facts straight.

therefore, the mediums KEEP UP. it's the double bonus that's making it SEEM like mediums are keeping up with a large--when in reality, the base for the large needs to go up, to distance itself from the mediums.

Where are the missiles in all this?

858dps rail astarte 1016 with drones @ 20o+27f

Confirming rails are now OP and need to be nerfed

CCP, I appreciate the love for medium rails (and beams)! Please, though, stop avoiding the white elephant in the room. The T3 BCs (Attack BCs) are wrecking everything. You can't balance HACs (long- or close-range) or medium long-range weapons as long as you have these OP monsters in the room.

They are wrecking balance. They're still too fast, too strong, and too agile to not wreck other ships. They don't have as good tracking and their bullets are larger? --Doesn't matter. The buff they get from raw damage--8 bonused large turrets!!--outweighs any loss they get from tracking or the fact that their target is generally smaller than the charge signature. You guys ought to do something drastic like knock them down to 7 or even 6 turrets and then maybe you can find a compelling argument to how the medium long-range weapons systems fit into the picture.

I'm glad you're tackling the medium long-range weapons imbalance. It will genuinely be nice to have an option to use rails or beams, but as long as those T3 BCs are out there, you guys will continually be playing catch up to them, be it kiting fits, dps numbers, etc. The Attack Battlecruisers are the problem. Start there first. Then everything else will be loads easier to work around.

CCP Rise is there any intention to do a ammo review ?
-50% and -75% penalties are too high for long range guns

People seem to have issues with the T3 BC. But honestly, aren't they just less tanky battleships? All of their damage numbers should be similar to that of a battleship and they should be much easier to kill thanks to their weak tanks. So what am I missing that they are seen as over powered?

rise are you out of youre fr##king mind ?????

first youre making useless changes to industrials

n0ow youre ruin9ing my favorit ship the insta cane


i hope youre dev career is going te be freaking short !!!!!!

He is not Soloing the entire balance department you idiot. Stuff like this gets put to the CSM and has alot more devs than just Rise working on it.

Wow Wow WOW



I just realized something. CCP is buffing medium long range turrents without fixing drones!!!!


Why is CCP Buffing Medium long range Turrents while leaving drones and Sentry's F*cked?