this is false you need a certain ammount off missiles/ships. The #ships you kill before reload depends on clipsize not dps. the clipsize is smaller therefore youll kill less before reload.

Exactly. Even if it only takes a couple of volleys to kill each ship, there are a lot of ships in missions, and 18 capacity is a lot less than 30 or whatever it is now and 10 sec is a lot less than 40 sec.

Alright, so far I feel like I'm seeing 3 major areas of complaint, alongside a lot of people who think this will be a good change. Those areas are:

40s reload is boring and will be miserable to use please don't do it

Switching ammo types (other damage types or to FOF(does anyone actually use fof?)) will be very difficult which is key for missile users

This is a nerf to RLML and I love them so please don't do it

I'm not convinced at all by the first complaint. As I've said before, this delay creates new kimds of decision making, it creates spikes of tension in fights rather than a flat amount of damage moving around and beyond those things it can be completely mitigated if you want. As others have pointed out, simply splitting your launchers into two groups and alternating them means you are never stuck in reload. It also means you lose the advantage of having your damage front-loaded into a very high DPS number. Still, if you can completely bypass this 'downside' I don't see how you can argue that this mechanic alone ruins the system.

I commented earlier on the missile switching - I think it is a valid complaint and I'd like to find a work-around for it as an iteration but I don't think it's a show-stopper. Several of the ships using these systems are kinetic bonused which means you don't switch that often. You still have time to switch on the way to a fight based on what damage type might be best. You still have the option to switch as you run out of charges and would be reloading anyway. But again, this is a legit complaint and I want to look into it.

Most of the complaints about it being a straight up nerf make me feel like going ahead with the old plan and leaving RLML in their current state would have been a mistake. I think most of you feeling this way are just disappointed with the idea of losing a slightly over-powered weapon system, which is understandable. Please keep in mind that this change represents a 15-20% damage drop over long fights but offers a new advantage in trade. I suspect that ships like FW Caracals with RLML will remain very strong. Also, if they don't, it's very easy to tune the reload time down slightly or the rate of fire up slightly to bring them into balance and we would absolutely watch that and make necessary adjustments. I would be extremely unhappy if the numbers were bad and rapid launchers disappeared from Caracals and Fleet Scythes completely.

Broader complaints about missiles vs turrets or training time often have merit, but they represent much bigger projects that we fully intend to take on, just not during this rebalance. We hear you though and hopefully we can start working on major module balance projects in the coming releases as we are closing in on finishing our first lap of all the ships in the game.

Hope this answers some of your concerns

Or you can start fitting frigate weapons to your cruiser hulls to do more dps.

also makes the LML + XLASB caracal an idea

THe last time I saw a dev idea so relentlesly bashed as HORRIBLE , was back at zulupark time, when we got ideas like limiting carriers to only fighters

This would be fine with the RLML was buffed in terms of DPS to project the same DPS quantities as other long range weapon systems. IE 300-400 damage. (400 dmg Rail-Moa/Thorax) And somehow you didn't make them as gay as HMLs unable to hit anything smaller than a BS.


You fail to see the strength of missiles is their range. The frigate short-range missile system is the rocket and those hit out to 15km while blasters hit out to 2k. Frigate rails can hit long or short range depending on your 10 ammo choices. Frigate LML hit out to 42 (unbonused) RLML usually only can hit out to 42km when they're unbonused. So basically the same as what you have.

And what you also don't realize is flight time is drastically inflated when comparing to Optimal. A 36k flight time will be not be enough to catch a 5k m/s ship orbiting you at 20. So once again, a frigate is non-killable by a anti-frigate cruiser.

Even if the caracal does not have a rof bonus to standard launchers the new rlms still put you in a position where you can't actually adapt to any changing situation at all. Standard launchers are still able to do this, but ultimately outside of edge case scenarios where you are against only one or two people the caracal is pushed further into obsoletion in terms of solo and small gang pvp viability when compared to other ships of its class.

Cerb and scyfi still remain semi viable for solo and small gang being forced to use standard launchers in order to adapt to changes in a fight. Hmls and hams are still nearly worthless because in solo and small gang you don't normally have the ability to apply their damage. This puts other ships such as the omen and thorax so far ahead of it in terms of viability for solo and small gang that the caracal has no real use. Besides, instead of taking a ship designed solely to allow the caracal to apply it's damage, I can take an omen or thorax and then take another omen or thorax and achieve double the result of hml or ham caracal+application ship.

Between locus rigs and frentix/drop the omen and thorax are able to hit out to linked pointrange which is more than enough to deal with tackle. Pulse omen gets less range then rail thorax however scorch and locus rigs/frentix fix this problem easily. Not to mention the navy omen and it's build in range bonus netting you around 40-50k with scorch if shield fit.

Destroyers can hit frigs just fine, they just don't have a tank decent enough to hold up, hence why the caracal/thorax/omen get used instead.

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.

A new module that counters missiles would be interesting and workable, adding it to the current TD's would simply make TD the overwhelming choice for ewar (that's another thread entirely and has been visited already last winter).

glad to see you CSM folks finally showing up, but at this point it's too little too late.

This is messed up. CCP Rise PLEASE consider the small gang/solo players!
If we don't have powerful RLMLs how are we going to effectively evade blobs with the new warp speed changes!?

If you are going to do this, please buff something else so we can deal with frigates effectively before we get hard tackled and blobbed.
Come on Kil2 don't let us down! You are an awesome guy and I have strong hope that you won't!

This is going to negatively effect solo and small gang rlm usage for these reasons and I have no idea why you didn't take another course of action such as reducing light missile dmg or increasing rlm powergrid usage to prevent the ships using them from fitting things like the triple lse caracal and lse+xl asb cerb.

Run the same calculation on heavies and they have no chance to compete without at least a 3x paint scenario, and who can afford 3 option mids and still fit a decent shield tank?

http://pbrd.co/1anRRKG
Drake vs cane, no links, no drugs, etc.

The high damage region to the left is with dual webs on the cane.

http://pbrd.co/1anS3JV
Raven (fit pretty much as close to the drake as possible) and fury drake vs cane. Raven is not kin locked, is faster, has a heavy neut, etc.

And before you ask, dps with CN missiles is a bit higher at 384

Er, no

Of all of those ships, the only ones threatened by 1 rifter is the zealot and oracle.

Edit: Seriously, a cookie cutter rifter is going to kill an ishtar or navy vexor? Are you for real?

Solo BS lol

As if that was ever a thing

Eh? Shoot a MWDing inty and get back to me.

Furthermore a cerb with todays RLML is only doing ~400-420 DPS (ish, dont remember if I had implants loaded).

That's just not a big number in today's game.

Yeah, they are nice now when you're shooting untanked frigates. Sadly things change for the worse when you start shooting tanked frigates.

Hu ? When did they ruined HAM ? In 3 years I only saw them buffed...

and RLML's weren't OP, HAM/HML's just sucked worse.

Do I sense an inty pilot?

and RLML's weren't OP, HAM/HML's just sucked worse.

prolly but I really wish the nerfs were evening the playing field instead of shoving missiles off the bottom of the chart.

Ok, I'm a carebear and I can see neither of those fits working in pvp except as KM feeders for other people.

next time set eft to show your applied damage vs a sig of 40 instead of 4,000.