4. Light and heavy missiles already have options with Precision and Fury ammunition types, so I'm not sure what additional types are needed. We have standard, FoF, Faction, Precision and Fury in all 4 flavours.

Im talking about specific ammunition for Rapid missiles, I don't know what CCP has exactly planned, but i am getting a sense that they aren't content with the fact they just shoot one tier down missiles. Yes they like the idea of a missile system designed for hitting smaller targets, but they don't want them to be "ultimate" smaller target killers.

Designing a missile specificly to be used for Rapid missile systems would solve a lot of problems. The'll have there own speed, flight time, explosion velocity, explosion radius and damage, wich allows them to get the stats to what they envision as optimum for this kind of weapon, without haveing to revisit every ship, make weird adjustments to the current missiles or launchers just to make them perform adequatly.

They would have a system that differentiate in roles from eg a Light missile Corax between a Rapid missile Caracal. (in this example the corax beeing designed to take out frigates, and the Rapid missile to take out the smalles size cruisers and / or destroyers, while haveing a slightly harder time to take out frigates then said Corax.

For the purpose of High burst, long reload, a new missile is also beneficial, since you can opt to make missiles that have multiflavored damage types, wich coincides with the gun type patterns. A big concern with longer reload times, is the fact that you can't switch damage types if needed. With a dual Triple or Omni damage type missile that concern is lessened.

Additionally This would allow ships to benefit all of their bonuses to include the Rapid missile launcher. With a new Rapid missile ammunition, the Typhoon can transfer its awesome Explosion velocity bonus to this new Missile, wich with proper tweaking then behaves exactly as the current heavy missile, but on the Raven it would convey its Equally (awesome) Velocity bonus Allowing longer range, but slightly less damage application. In essence that would make the ship feel like a typhoon, or raven, or (insert other favorite ship) with all missile options, instead of a full fledged typhoon for Cruise and Torps, and a halfbaked one with rapid heavy

As we all anxiously await an updateGǪ

Yes, I do realize this. If you buff light missiles any more they will actually start outperforming both HMs and HAMs. In fact, one could already argue that Fury light missiles are fairly close to T1 heavy missiles in terms of damage application. Run the numbers... it's not a pretty picture.

What if they add a small # to base capacity, like 2, so a t2 RLML holds 20 missiles. Then create rigs that add +2-3 missile capacity? That way its a compromise between more missiles without sacrifice, but also giving more missiles for base stats. So if you think you may run across a cruiser, add a rig or 2 for additional capacity, bringing the total to 24-26 if you add 2 rigs. Yes, you sacrifice tank, but thats the point.

Rig drawback would be like any damage rig calibration, and increases CPU cost of launchers. This way, some scrub with t2 launchers doesn't get max capacity, and have max tank. The RLML as is it sits now is very strong for those 18 shots. I've killed 2 frigs within 1 reload, and had 7 missiles left. Granted, they were t1 frigs, but you have to be careful on the capacity, too much and these will decimate frig gangs without proper sacrifice on the fit, from just a single boat.

In order to make this work well, wouldn't you also need to change defender missiles to make them attack the nearest missile that's hostile to your fleet, rather than just to you?

I think the fact that defender missiles attack only missiles inbound to you personally is why they are essentially useless.

I'm guessing that at best we will see some balance tweaking on the launchers in 1.1 and if a 1.2 gets released we may see the other two updates then. But these are all being worked on. I don't see the need to constantly post in this thread moaning all the time. The weapons do work. They do have glitches that need fixing and the balance may be a little off but they are still useful.

On a side note. The more I look at missiles and how to fit your ship to use them the more I am convinced that they are currently in a very balanced state. **Dons flame retardent clothing**

Yes and no. The way they work is that they go after the closest missile that's inbound, so even a 4-second ROF on a HML Tengu leaves a huge window where enemy fire can get through. With a faster 2-second ROF on RLMLs, they cycle fast enough that a single launcher could intercept multiple volleys from different enemies. They''d be much more effective in PvE environments or solo activities. I'm not saying this will make defender missiles not suck, just suck less.

But but but... at the moment in order to mitigate damage with a defender missile you have to give up a corresponding outbound missile. So while you are reducing your enemy's firepower, it is at the expense of your own.

This may be useful if you're bait but utterly useless in any other circumstance unless your ship has spare, unbonused missile launcher slots and another effective means of delivering damage. So I guess a typhoon or loki may benefit during some engagements, and some of the recons when tackling tengus... but this seems to be a very narrow application.

Correct, with the caveat that a RLML-based defender setup could take out 2 enemy missiles per launcher. So you'd only need 2 RLMLs loaded with defenders to negate 4 incoming missiles - leaving you 3-4 offensive launchers. And yes, it's a very narrow application.

Considering the current, extremely limited amount of missile boats being used in Pvp, would defenders even be worth carrying?

CCP Rise has posted a rapid missile update here.
I have endeavored to provide a balanced counter-proposal based on the various feedback and discussions we've had. Comments welcome and appreciated, thanks.

I told you that would be the kind of change they would make. They are painfully predictable if nothing else.

And unstickied. See you on the other side.

The problem is not overall the reload, it's having to switch ammo. But at this point I don't think there's anything I could add to this thread and say anything that's not already said.

Oh god, it looks like this thread has... finally... finally... died a decent death.