Let me know what you think and keep in mind that numbers may be adjusted slightly as we continue to test.
Thanks

No desire to be clever. I actually thought it was pretty obvious, but nobody had mentioned it yet so I decided I would.

This made me scared for a second and then I realized you used the RHML charge amount instead of the RLML. So instead of 23 charges it should be 18 which will lower the DPS a bit more.

This is a terrible idea.

1) Having a lot of downtime is just bad gameplay design. In a gang, you might stay on the field to provide point and webs, but if you are solo, you basically are going to kill 1-2 targets and warp out. And then nobody gets to do anything for the next 40s while you reload. It promotes non-interactive gameplay.

2) Its not intuitive. Its yet another thing that vets know that noobs dont.

3) Its not that people use rapid lights because they are really good. We use them because the other medium missile systems are utter trash. I would love to be able to use heavy missiles again, but there is just no reason since they are currently the worst weapon system in the entire game for anything but giant blobs.

4) There is no alternative. You can use normal shield boosters instead of ancillary boosters. You can use normal armor reps instead of ancillary reps. There are good reasons to choose each. For medium missile launchers, there isnt any alternative to rapid lights. Heavy missiles are too slow, do too little damage for the fitting, and apply too poorly. Heavy assaults are too short range, and apply even more poorly.

5) While roaming, its can be very difficult to make a 40s reload when going gate to gate. This will just slow gangs down, with no real reason to do so.

Making this change will basically just end the use of missile ships in small gangs. People will just go to other ships, instead of dealing with the possibility of being tackled and having to wait for close to a minute to return fire.

If you want people to choose heavy missiles, then make heavy missiles be something besides a trash tier weapons system.

RLMs outperform HAMs on pretty much all cruisers, even if webbed.

My perspective for what it is worth is that this will be a huge buff for those people that like to prey on scouts and tackle at the edges of fights. Getting a quick kill then disengaging away before the victims friends arrive and a moderate nerf to f1 monkeys who still decide to fit these missiles.

Didn't light missiles as a whole receive a slight damage buff recently?

I said, Rapid ligh tmissile launchers- not light missiles never recieved a buff. Read the damn post moron.

its even worse. Its a binary system.

Either you are in a frigate that has no chance to survive the caracal because it has under 12-14k ehp. Or you are in a frigate (faction or t2) that can simply IGNORE the caracal, because there is ZERO chance the caracal can kill you even if you are a horrible frigate pilot, just because his missiles will end at half the job done)

Wow, you are so, so wrong. Get out of this thread. And stop shitting up the worthwhile conversations going on here- with your mind blowing misinformed ideas.

Scythe fleet, and Osprey Navy both have bonuses.

No, it has a bonus to ALL missiles. Unfortunately I am yet to find a way to fit a citatel launcher on it :P

The second part of this topic is whether or not the other medium weapon systems are actually viable. The way players are behaving says they are, but following this release I'd like to have a conversation internally about missiles as a whole and figure out where we stand. Maybe there is some more changes needed and I'd like to look into that.

I think we will come out of this with a very fun pair of weapon systems. If we don't, it will get changed.

2. I don't know the last time I brought a 3x BCU II Cerberus to a fight and outran anything... ever. For example: A Cerberus at 1376 m/s vs a Thorax... at 2028 m/s is just disgusting. .

I'd agree with this. It's about time Kinetic-only damage bonuses die in a fire.

I just tested the new RLML launchers in a Caracal with triple BCS on Tranquility and they where unable to kill a cookie cutter dual repp Incursus.

now, that Incursus fit, all level 5:

lows:
DC II
2 x Small Armor Rep II
ENAM II

mids:
1MN Afterburner II
Small cap booster II
J5b scram

highs:
3 Light Ion Blaster II

rigs:
Anti Explosive Pump I
2 x Small Auxiliary Nano Pump I

That's 217 DPS tanked on lowest resist before any link / gang / implant bonuses.

Right, the trouble is that he will be able to hold you for his friends. At the moment the only option left for a solo RLML Caracal pilot is to never engage more than 1 tanked frigate if he want to make proper use of the new weapon platform (hit and run before reinforcements arriving). As a gank weapon is very nice in gangs but kinda sucks for solo on regular platforms (Tengu is still great).

Could you adjust those figures to allow for the scram and web.. With web and scram you don't get 28k EHP, it is closer to 23k and 88 DPS tank, sadly with your figures, the caracal does in fact lose.

Gypsio, your last post that you used them in 0.0, you talked about a significant gang made up of many other ships in support of yours. This is where a 20% dps nerf and a 40 second reload, don't really matter as much.

I say put the reload on RLMLs and RHMLs back to 10 seconds and leave the other stats. The ammunition capacity was already nerfed by 77.75%, the power grid requirements nearly doubled and most of the hulls don't bonus RLMLs or RHMLs anyway. Let the games begin!

It should be pretty obvious that was said tongue in cheek, so the real question is why did you bother working all that out?

Yes, sorry - that was a poor attempt at humor on my partGǪ I think the solution is to increase the ammunition capacity to 1/3 of the original (ie: 30 for Faction RLML and 45 for Faction RHML). Then the 40-second reload/ammunition swap isn't as much of a mitigating factor. Thoughts?

Sounds good. I also think range and explosion hull bonuses should apply to them, and there needs to be a skill that reduces reloads to 30 seconds at max rank (5% per level). They also need to make swapping ammo take 10 seconds rather than the full reload time. If they do those things and they might be genuinely decent while remaining true to the original concept.

I mean if this is actually the root of a lot of the problem then that's a different issue that we need to address. I'm not totally sure it is, but I want to take a hard look at HML before the point release and make sure we're okay with where we're at. If that needs a tweak then we should be doing that, not focusing on RLML as a solution to a HML problem.

The RLML is useless. It cannot beat a well tanked Incursus.

A non burst gun ship can blow up a very popular, very strong T1 Frigate. The RLML cannot.

Astarte fitted with all T2 Armor Links + Armored Warfare Mindlink

Links are not overpowered. The fact that they work off grid is.

673 DPS is what I get in EFT with HAMs and pure DPS lows and rigs (nothing above T2 and no drones). Good luck getting your target within their 16.9km range and keeping them there while also having any kind of tank, and good luck applying more than 25% of that DPS number under most circumstances (you will do 146 DPS to a stationary Rifter lol).

Hey guys. As I'm sure you know, we're keeping an eye on how people are using the new Rapid Launchers, watching how people adapt to the new strengths and weaknesses of them and keeping a close eye on the metrics surrounding them. We're also getting some good experience flying with them on our own player characters in a live environment. Rest assured that we're not ignoring these modules.

As a quick tidbit of metrics for you: Over the last week the number of characters using RLMLs each day was 6.5% lower than the pre-Rubicon average. We were actually expecting the decrease to be a bit more significant at this point, and this easily falls within acceptable ranges.

Thanks as always for the continued feedback!

Sounds good, but if you plan on soloing in web range would you not be better to just go with a brawling turret ship, or a drone boat instead? When battlecruisers are used in fleets and gangs for things like camping gates and stations the high alpha and instant dps of turrets is more useful than HAM volleys regardless of tank/dps, and I imagine it's a similar situation in fleet engagements, where turret and drone tactics would be superior to missiles.

Attached to that was the goal of keeping them as fun or more fun to use than the were before. This was motivated by the knowledge that if we simply lowered their damage output to achieve the first goal, they would be left feeling very unexciting even though they would still have value against small support.

Well... about the HAM's lol....

Lets see what those puppies do against those same Cruiser targets huh?

Against the AB fit Cruisers - the ships they are designed to hit a three BCU Caracal with HAM's and Faction Missiles (The best ones for hitting targets with) - On Paper DPS: 395 DPS (Oh dear)

Against another Caracal: 230 DPS
Against the Thorax: 161 DPS .... ahahahahahahahahahaha
Against the Stabber: 103 DPS ..... muhahahahahaha

WTF!!!!

Okay... I'm being unkind, lets really ramp up the DPS and use Rage missiles! Peak DPS now up to 464 DPS over 25km.

Against another Caracal: 140 DPS.... ahahahahahahahahha
Against the Thorax: 96 DPS.... oh dear, I think I just hurt myself...
Against the Stabber: 61 DPS.

Epic. Just Epic.

Yes the HAM is what we are left with.

Once more, this is why all my future gangs I'm arranging don't use missiles, and are not Caldari.

Conclusions:
GÇó RLMLs: You get about as much benefit from a single stasis web or target painter, so you might as well use your rigs for tank.
GÇó HMLs: They still suck, man do they suck. The fact that you need full rigors and flares to do 100% damage to battlecruisers speaks volumes.
GÇó HAMLs: The clear winner in all of this, as they have some incredible potential when combined with rigs and webs/target painters (which probably means they're going to get nerfed next).

Comments welcome. Thanks.

Since you didn't mention any fittings, I assume all the targets are naked? So, no AB or MWD.

Yes that's completely fk'd up, HML's RLML's and HAM's are cruiser weapons, not just battle cruiser weapons.

If you look at the sig resolution on medium turrets they are all set to 125m, which shows medium weapons are designed to hit other cruisers for full dps under optimal conditions... all except HML's which no matter how many implants and painters you put on won't hit a cruiser for their full dps.

They are based on ships that aren't moving

if you're going in with the intention of using jav hams, you may as well be using hmls instead.

What's the comparison with pulse lasers, blasters and drones?

First, forget about damage application to Interceptors - those things can outrun heavy missiles. I found myself in a scrap with a Malediction that pointed me, then a Thorax which I switched to after watching my heavy missiles spiral around endlessly. I came close - but not quite - to killing it before encountering the dreaded 40-second reload.

And you just can't say the Stabber is more commonly seen. That assumption is pure fantasy as only CCP have the relevant statistics. You make some kind of assumption with EVE kill, but that'll only be half of the reality, yet that would be a lot closer to it than your assertion regarding the Stabber. People are complaining so much in this thread about the Thorax that this one would make an infinitely better comparison than the Stabber which is almost a destroyer. Can you answer why numbers are all shown against a Stabber and firepower and damage application are all taken from a Thorax ?

Bouth, just stopGǪ Until you actually start flying the ships and missile systems we're talking about, you're just trolling.