What buff will amarr and gallente gunboats, and T2 projectile ammo, receive to go along with this? They're all limited in damage types too...

Actually, only the minmatar get a bonus to all types of damage.

Amarr only get em/thermal bonuses, gallente only get kin/therm. Yes, they both get drones, but you're either using thermal for nearly everything pve, or getting laughed at for using a drone carrier in pvp.

What buff will amarr and gallente gunboats, and T2 projectile ammo, receive to go along with this? They're all limited in damage types too...

Why does every turret player have to attempt to hijack missile threads? Put your proposal forward on its own merits.

Drone carriers are doing VERY well in PVP atm. But even they only use therm or explosive.

What does that even mean? You're asking for a race to no-longer be reliant on one damage type. I am asking you what the other three races, all of which are reliant on one or two damage types, would get to balance the scales.

explosive usually to take advantage of the explosive hole when they get a ship into armor, harder if its bricktanked ofc.

What do gunnery ammunition bonuses have to do with kinetic-specific bonuses? About as much bearing as the price of Fedos in Jita. But since you specifically asked... Gallente have drones which can apply multiple damage types, and have a comparable number of hybrid-only hulls to the Caldari... Minmatar can apply any damage type with projectiles, missiles or drones... The only race that is somewhat hamstrung is the Amarr, and I'm not entirely sure how to address that beyond expanding the number of missile ships or giving them some additional ammunition (neither of which I'm opposed to).

So...the vast majority of caldari hulls should have true damage type selection with no drawbacks whatsoever, wheras the only other race that can come close is minmatarr using faction ammo...(You do know that T2 projectile ammo is all explosive/kinetic, right? And drones can be shot down fairly easily...) And the reason for this is...?

Caldari hulls have drones

If you want the damage type restriction removed, either propose buffs to the other guys to make up for it, or propose a different drawback.

Actually, only the minmatar get a bonus to all types of damage.

Amarr only get em/thermal bonuses, gallente only get kin/therm. Yes, they both get drones, but you're either using thermal for nearly everything pve, or getting laughed at for using a drone carrier in pvp.

Things like Amarr and Gallente have no damage type bonus because they're perma-locked in those ranges. They get the flat 'turret rate of fire/damage' bonuses because we already know what they're gonna do. Tons of EM for amarr (with some thermal) and Thermal for Gallente (with some kinetic). While most ammo in Projectile is rather all over the place, the T2 ammo is all distinctly explosive heavy.

Giving Caldari general damage bonuses on such a wide scale is just an across-the-board buff.

Gee, and I thought people were supposed cry over when things get more generalized and made the same. But anytime the Caldari damage bonuses come up, people chime for homogenization, giving up the racial flavors.

To be fair, not *all* Amarr boats are laser. There are a number of them that use predominantly drones (which can use any) or missiles. Specifically, the Vengeance, Malediction, Heretic, Sacrilege, Legion (with Assault Optimization), and Damnation all primarily use and receive bonuses to missile damage. In addition, the Magnate, Anathema, Dragoon, Arbitrator, Curse, Prophecy, and Armageddon all have at least as many launcher hardpoints as turrets, and receive no specific bonuses to any turrets (and all of them except the Magnate and Anathema instead receive bonuses to drones). I'm intentionally excluding the Purifier, as it's obviously irrelevant.

That's a fair amount of missile-oriented ships, and not a single one of them has an EM focus (the Purifier being the only Amarr ship that has an EM exclusive bonus). Minmatar are the same way, the only ship of theirs that has an explosive-specific launcher bonus is the Hound.

So yes, every single race has a secondary option for weapon systems that allow omni damage types on a fair number of their hulls. Minmatar have that innately with faction ammo on projectiles, as well as their non-typed missile bonuses. Gallente have drones. Amarr have missiles and drones. Caldari...have hybrids, which allow thermal in addition to their base kinetic, that's it.

Basically, it just flat makes sense to remove the restriction to kinetic damage.

- Outside of drones (which is a moot argument for a number of reasons*) 3 out of the 4 races are pretty much locked into a certain damage dealing profile unless they are willing to give up raw DPS numbers to compensate (which the Minmatar do overall as projectile weapons operate primarily in falloff range... which means they are always dealing less than their "on-paper" damage).

I'm on my iPad, so I don't have access to all of the hull bonuses, but I'm certain someone can make a quick chart.

TL;DR - Ditch Caldari kinetic-specific damage bonuses.

Caldari is continually the only race still relegated to kinetic-specific missile damage bonuses for many of its hulls. This is not the case for any other race, who typically receive generic damage bonuses that apply to any type. With few exceptions, Caldari ships don't even rank in the Top 10 picks for any specific hull size or category. So this is a simple and straightforward petition:

GÇó Nighthawk receives 7.5% bonus to Heavy Assault and Heavy Missile Damage
GÇó Drake receives 10% bonus to Heavy Missile and Heavy Assault Damage
GÇó Tengu receives 5% bonus to Missile Damage on the Accelerated Ejection Bay
GÇó Cerberus receives 5% bonus to Missile Damage
GÇó Onyx receives 5% bonus to Missile Damage
GÇó Osprey Navy receives a 10% bonus to Missile Damage
GÇó Corax receives 5% bonus to Light Missile and Rocket Damage
GÇó Hawk receives 10% bonus to Missile Damage
GÇó Buzzard receives 5% bonus to Missile Damage
GÇó Crow receives 10% bonus to Missile Damage
GÇó Hookbill Navy receives 20% bonus to Missile Damage
GÇó Condor receives 10% bonus to Light Missile and Rocket Damage

I think that's it. Oh, I missed one...

GÇó Phoenix receives 5% bonus to Missile Damage

Fix missiles instead.

Actually, only the minmatar get a bonus to all types of damage.

Yes, because we've seen how well that worked out for heavy missiles and rapid light missile launchers...

The issue at hand is that all turrets do (at least) two types of damage, while missiles, regardless of size or type, always do only one type of damage. This allows greater flexibility but then you limit that flexibility by giving bonus only to kinetic missile damage.
This makes Minmatar missile boats superior to Caldari missile boats in a a number of situations.
I reckon that Rattlesnake would become pretty sucky if it would have bonuses only to Drone kinetic damage, instead of damage of all drones (similarly with Dominix and drone thermal damage, but to a lesser extent, since Gallente drones are still good against all rats except Angels).
Also, lasers have that advantage of being great against typical shield tank PvP setups.

So for some ships like Manticore kinetic damage bonus makes sense, but I would definitely remove it from most Caldari ships, especially the Phoenix (while the thing is great for shooting POSes, unless you're shooting a Minmatar POS or a dickstar, you'll still do more damage with other ammo).

TL;DR - Ditch Caldari kinetic-specific damage bonuses.

Caldari is continually the only race still relegated to kinetic-specific missile damage bonuses for many of its hulls. This is not the case for any other race, who typically receive generic damage bonuses that apply to any type. With few exceptions, Caldari ships don't even rank in the Top 10 picks for any specific hull size or category. So this is a simple and straightforward petition:

GÇó Nighthawk receives 7.5% bonus to Heavy Assault and Heavy Missile Damage
GÇó Drake receives 10% bonus to Heavy Missile and Heavy Assault Damage
GÇó Tengu receives 5% bonus to Missile Damage on the Accelerated Ejection Bay
GÇó Cerberus receives 5% bonus to Missile Damage
GÇó Onyx receives 5% bonus to Missile Damage
GÇó Osprey Navy receives a 10% bonus to Missile Damage
GÇó Corax receives 5% bonus to Light Missile and Rocket Damage
GÇó Hawk receives 10% bonus to Missile Damage
GÇó Buzzard receives 5% bonus to Missile Damage
GÇó Crow receives 10% bonus to Missile Damage
GÇó Hookbill Navy receives 20% bonus to Missile Damage
GÇó Condor receives 10% bonus to Light Missile and Rocket Damage

I think that's it. Oh, I missed one...

GÇó Phoenix receives 5% bonus to Missile Damage

Basicaly you are right but form an amarr pilot perspective: most pvp is done with armour not shield. Every T1 ship has EM resist as it's best. Some T2 ships have sick EM resists (loki) altough some have nice EM weaknes (bot not a large hole). Despite lasers being the worst weapon system in terms of going through resists I still like them very much. So don't cry missile boy.

The issue at hand is that all turrets do (at least) two types of damage, while missiles, regardless of size or type, always do only one type of damage. This allows greater flexibility but then you limit that flexibility by giving bonus only to kinetic missile damage.
This makes Minmatar missile boats superior to Caldari missile boats in a a number of situations.
I reckon that Rattlesnake would become pretty sucky if it would have bonuses only to Drone kinetic damage, instead of damage of all drones (similarly with Dominix and drone thermal damage, but to a lesser extent, since Gallente drones are still good against all rats except Angels).
Also, lasers have that advantage of being great against typical shield tank PvP setups.

So for some ships like Manticore kinetic damage bonus makes sense, but I would definitely remove it from most Caldari ships, especially the Phoenix (while the thing is great for shooting POSes, unless you're shooting a Minmatar POS or a dickstar, you'll still do more damage with other ammo).

Drake gets 9 kin locked or 6 free type
Cyclone gets 6.25 free type

I think they can manage.

Excludign the typhoon, what minamtar missile boat is superior (as a damage source since we are talkign about weapons) to the caldari equivalent?


NONE!

What buff will amarr and gallente gunboats, and T2 projectile ammo, receive to go along with this? They're all limited in damage types too...

If you do the maths a 5% kin bonus works out to roughly the same as a 1.6%Damage boost.

Excludign the typhoon, what minamtar missile boat is superior (as a damage source since we are talkign about weapons) to the caldari equivalent?


NONE!

Actually, only the minmatar get a bonus to all types of damage.

Amarr only get em/thermal bonuses, gallente only get kin/therm. Yes, they both get drones, but you're either using thermal for nearly everything pve, or getting laughed at for using a drone carrier in pvp.

What's so bad about the Cyclone?

What?
The kin bonused ships have more launchers than their omni equivalents. They do nearly as much damage as the kin do off type.

Saying that Caldari can use any damage type because they can switch to un-bonused missiles is nearly the same as saying that Amarr can use any damage type by switching to projectile or hybrid turrets. If you throw out the bonuses, than every race can use every damage type. The advantage to caldari here is the ability to do it without refitting.

Might I also add that those who fly the missile majority Caldari are also immune to TD's.

Excludign the typhoon, what minamtar missile boat is superior (as a damage source since we are talkign about weapons) to the caldari equivalent?

NONE!

You may
But you would look foolish.
Matari and Khanid missile boats are no more affected by td's than Cal are.

A td has 0 percent effectiveness againt a rof bonused missile boat
A td has 0 percent effectiveness againt a kin bonused missile boat

TD are just not a variable in this post which is discussing effectiveness of hull bonuses.

Just like Tracking computers and remote tracking links and tracking enhancers are not variables either.

Smartbombs are not variable either.
Nor how many hookers you have in your cargo.

I'm not coming up with a rpoposal though, that's not what this thread is about. It's about the discussion of YOUR proposal, so coming back with 'Well you say somethign better then' is kind of worthless.

Caldari hulls have drones, and they have gunboats too. And drones, outside of sentries, kind of suck in PVP anyway.

T2 ammo has it's niche, and if rage missiles were available in all flavours on all caldari hulls, guess what kind of ammo would get used in them in PVP?

Hell, you can already use any damage type in a caldari missile hull, you just don't get the bonus. Gallente and Amarr are locked on EM/Therm, they cannot do another damage type with thier guns.



If you want the damage type restriction removed, either propose buffs to the other guys to make up for it, or propose a different drawback.

Amaar and gallente have had there buffs , massive range and damage boosts for amarr a couple of years back , massive damage boosts and tracking for gallente not long ago.

Compared to those boosts this request is modest.
and also needed.

Kin only bonuses are amongst the weekest given out to ship hulls.
If you do the maths a 5% kin bonus works out to roughly the same as a 1.6%Damage boost.

This is calculated from max damage to all target types at lvl 5 as against lvl 0

For spending time training hulls cal pilots get very little back in terms of increased dps.


A maxed trained cal pilot in a hull getting a 5% per level kin bonus does 6.5% more dps when using optimal ammo ( ammo switching to most damaging type in each case ) than a level 1 pilot

This compared to 25% for straight damage bonuses , 37.5% for rof and 50% for most drones

Lasers and blasters get muchg greater raw dps to compensate for lack of damage type switching.

How about amarr and minin get full bonuses to all missile types and gal get full bonuese to all drone damage types.

Oh wait !
They all ready do.

Cal are already restricted on therm/kin on hybrids they dont need restriction on missiles too.

As a damage dealer RLML Scythe Fleet Issue is superior to RLML Osprey Navy Issue.

Khanid ships are a specialized brand requiring intensive skill training, not a T1 hull available to all on the quick and cheap.
And TC/TE's may not bonus missiles on the fitted ship, but they do still have their own equivalent for damage application. TPs.

If the kinetic damage bonuses on Caldari ships were ever replaced with an across-the-board bonuses to their numerous missile hulls, then I would hope as a drawback they'd become susceptible to TDs. By explanation that the signal transferred to the missile computer at launch is interrupted causing fuel use inefficiency in flight, or premature detonation of missiles.

Ok... then you wil expende the same level of damage bonuses for the minmatra missile ships? Because they susually have far inferior bonuses to keep the all damage types available.


Just comapre missile damage between drake and cyclone...

The clone is not a pure missile boat so here is the full damage comparison
cyclone
6.875 effective launchers
2 effective turrets
2 effective drones

for a total 10.875 effective damage dealers

drake has
7.5 effective launchers
1 effective drones

for a total of 8.5 effective damage dealers.

clone is faster and has a better solo tank bonus
drake has better slot layout and better group tank.

looks like the drake could do with a proper missile bonus
lets go with 10 damage to all

that would then be

9 effective launcher + 1 effective drone for a total of 10 total effective damage dealers
Still behind the clone but close enough.

You are mixing guns and drones. That completely negates your argument about beign able to deliver pure damage type. Not to forget range and the fact aht the turrets and droens will not bennefit from the damage mods that will be for missiles.

Again. MISSILE DAMAGE. Compare both.

Stop trying to look smart because you are NOT! Split weapons cannot be compared like you try. There is a reason why everyone hates them

The Cyclone has 6.875 (according to the post above) effective BONUSED launchers.

The Drake has 9 effective bonused launchers.

That means that the Cyclone does 76% of the damage of a bonused Drake. It also means that the Drake, UNBONUSED, still does 87% of the damage of a BONUSED Cyclone.

Seems pretty fair to me.

You need to bring up the broken stupid RLML that get ultra bennefit form the base damage bonus on the scythe being large. THat is an anomaly due to the broken weapon system that should NEVEr be taken seriously in a balance discussion. The fault of this is a bad designed mechanic on the launcher.

Dav - some basic math...

Using kinetic missiles...

6 x 1.5 = 9

10% bonus per level to kinetic missile damage = 50% damage bonus, or 150% of unbonused damage. 150% = 1 x 1.5

Have I explained the basics of math to you clearly enough?

The Cyclone has 6.875 (according to the post above) effective BONUSED launchers.

The Drake has 9 effective bonused launchers.

That means that the Cyclone does 76% of the damage of a bonused Drake. It also means that the Drake, UNBONUSED, still does 87% of the damage of a BONUSED Cyclone.

Seems pretty fair to me.

In addition, for those of you attempting to compare turrets and missiles, food for thought:

When was the last time you MISSED with missiles? Target in range, and not moving fast enough to outrun your missiles.

After the last patch, when they got rid of the "X amount of hull damage = destroyed target" coding, missile-boat pilots were complaining that it altered their shot count, that some targets took an extra salvo to kill.

Think about that for a moment; missile damage is so consistent that pilots are able to determine precisely how many shots it takes to kill a target, and develop a shot pattern/pace for optimal ammo usage.

Drone pilots can't do that. Turret pilots can't do that. Pilots with bonuses to both can't do that. Turret and drone damage are nowhere near as consistent as missile damage.

PLUS, you get to select optimal damage type, although, having flown a Drake in Level 3 missions, you don't need to. It's damage bonus is so big, it simply clobbers every rat it comes across. PVP is a different story, I understand, but this is a way to make a consistent comparison.

So, trying to complain about turrets being buffed (which, in all honesty, they desperately needed) in a thread about (some) Caldari hulls being bonused for a single damage type is, at best, completely misunderstanding turret, and, to a lesser extent, drone, dynamics.

caldari get more dps focussed into a single damage type - other races get less dps, but more versatility.

I thought that was the point. I wanted caldari RoF bonuses too, but cant really complain when u get 10% damage bonuses.

as for dav's math where u divide the bonus by 4 because its only one damage type, i have never seen that before. u must be arthurs alt, because he is the only other person ive seen do math that bad.

should all laser and hybrid ships have their bonuses to effective turrets halved because they can only do two damage types? and theres only really 3 faction ammos u want to use with projectiles, so do they need their effective turrets reduced to 3/4?

i simply cannot take u seriously with this line of thinking, no one should take u seriously.

GÇó Phoenix receives 5% bonus to Missile Damage

and if we swap ur example around to an armour tanking ship, ur 50% boost to kinetic damage is looking pretty good. Such is the nature of focussing into one damage type. good thing it does the extra dps over comparable ships to compensate.

so missiles are better because they have the options lasers and hybrids don't? in fact missiles have more options than projectiles as using anything than the high damage 50% optimal ammo will do u more harm than good. therefore all turret ships should have their effective turrets discounted?

because the turrets never have option to swap damage type in the first place, does not mean we should ignore that they do limited damage types. otherwise ur just being disingenuous, thus why it is so hard to take u seriously.

between arthurs incessent whining over ALL THINGS MISSILE, and complete ignorance over the fact that some missiles do work well (perhaps because he uses nothing but heavies), and this ridiculous way of figuring how many effective weapons a ship is supposed to have, u discredit any arguments for buffing any missiles and any genuine gripes over how some missiles work.

take into ur consideration of how many 'effective drones' a cyclone has over a drake, have u completely forgotten that a medium drone only has 50% more dps than a small drone? and applies this dps with less tracking?

take into ur consideration of how many 'effective drones' a cyclone has over a drake, have u completely forgotten that a medium drone only has 50% more dps than a small drone? and applies this dps with less tracking?

What's a phoenix ? I don't know any useful ship that uses this name. I didn't check in the shuttle category though.

Sometimes its good somwtime its bad.
Work out the average , if you want to understand the effectiveness in overall terms.
Thats what the numebrs are for.

Lasers and hybrids are boosted in raw dps and application compared to Projectiles to compensate for there lack of damage switching.
That the disingenuous argument here pretending there somehow at a disadvantage in base design.
All system have there pro's and con's


A con of a system should never be it can't be trained up effectivelly - eve is an RPG.

What value should be put on the training of each race compared to each other ?

I always start from the point that all races training should be of equal value to the player.

If Amarr are getting 25-37% bonuses to damage output for hull training then the same should be true for Gal/Mini/Cal

Kin bonuses don't deliver value.
The overall effectiveness increase is too small compared to other races.

So your medium drones are having difficulties with tracking a slow and fat battlecruiser?

Dreadnought. Google "Eve worst dreadnought" for an eye opener...

^^^ This guy totally missed it...

It's funnyGǪ the players that are protesting the most are the ones enjoying current dominance with their preferred weapon system (lasers, hybrids, projectiles, drones, etc.) over missiles - and heaven forbid someone should actually bring the various hulls and missiles on par. Whatever would they doGǪ

what are u even blabbering about? u obviously missed the post where dav tried to say the drake had one effective set of drones and the cyclone had two effective sets of drones and therefore has twice as much drone damage...

again this isnt even the full story as 5 drones dont exactly equate to a single effective weapon, but he tried make that comparison anyways. This thread is so full of fail its not easy to keep up.

So basically you're saying that set of spare drones is useless or that 150dps from unbonused medium drones is nothing at all because drones can be destroyed, right?

would that mean the ships do dps on par with other races with all damage types AND have the extra option of doing more dps with kinetic?

cause that would not be balanced. it would have to be something inbetween, where perhaps they do a little less damage with other types but a little extra with kin.

Considering the fact that their hulls are slower, have larger sigs, and pathetic drone capabilities yes it would be balanced.

drake doesnt need the buff OP wants.

No, but it doesn't need the 6 unbonused launchers either (when dealing kinetic damage isn't the best option). Check the damage bonuses on Osprey Navy Issue, why not paste them to Drake as well (even though I would personally prefer 5% RoF/level bonus over that)?

so now its not just the weapon system that makes caldari crap, its their slow speed, large sig and smaller drone bays as well all of a sudden?

vs minnie missile boats, caldari get better cap and tank
vs amarr missile boats, caldari generally have the similar or faster speed and similar sig radius.

and despite all they lack in drones, caldari still have better dps. so other races can bring more ecm drones...thats about all that having a larger drone bay gives to the missile ships of other races.

1) Amarr missile boats generally have much smaller signatures than Caldari missile boats because of how shield tanking works.

and for this same reason caldari ships move much faster than amarr, and we all know speed is more important...u ARE nip picking

gonna leave it there since half my posts got removed. i guess all i can say is there are some good arguments for improving upon missiles/the kinetic bonus, but many of the ones here arent good arguments

Caldari ships are now "much faster" than Amarr ships? This is news to me...

blah blah... but that seems a bit OP... too OP blah... blah...

It's funnyGǪ the players that are protesting the most are the ones enjoying current dominance with their preferred weapon system (lasers, hybrids, projectiles, drones, etc.) over missiles - and heaven forbid someone should actually bring the various hulls and missiles on par. Whatever would they doGǪ

Caldari get more launchers and a larger bonus in order to compensate for limiting their optimal damage type.

Do the math, and figure out how many EFFECTIVE TURRETS/LAUNCHERS a hull class has.

The Drake, with six launchers, and a 50% bonus, equals NINE effective turrets.

I'm on my iPad, so I don't have access to all of the hull bonuses, but I'm certain someone can make a quick chart.

Yes, because shield-based hulls and missiles with time-to-impact delays don't offer any drawbacks at all. That's why everywhere I look, Caldari hulls dot the horizon... Are you seriously trying to convince me that most players use T2 ammunition for PvP? Your only argument for why this change shouldn't be considered is... "because".

Because Gallente can use hybrids and drones, so they're not really limited...
Because Minmatar can use missiles, projectiles and drones - applying any damage type...
Because Amarr... well, as I already indicated - not entirely sure what to do there. Come up with an interesting proposal and I'll support it.

Let's compare at the BC level (ignoring Attack BCs and drone boats):

Harbinger: 6 turrets, 50% bonus, 9 effective hardpoints, 2 damage types.
Drake: 6 launchers, 50% bonus (kinetic), 9 effective hardpoints, 1 damage type (6 effective hardpoints, all damage types).
Ferox: 7 turrets, 0% bonus, 7 effective hardpoints.
Brutix: 6 turrets, 50% bonus, 9 effective hardpoints, 2 damage types.
Cyclone: 5 launchers, 25% launcher bonus, 6.25 effective hardpoints, all damage types (technically, 2 unbonused turret hardpoints as well).
Hurricane: 6 turrets, 66.7% bonus, 10 effective hardpoints, all damage types (technically, 3 unbonused launcher hardpoints as well, but only 7 high slots).

So ya, the drake is on level, within it's own damage type, with the Harbinger and Brutix, except it's only dealing a single damage type. Using omni-damage, the drake is on a bit behind the Ferox (2 damage types) and the Cyclone (all damage types), and miles behind the Hurricane (all damage types).

You're also saying Minmatar missile ships should be weaker than Caldari missile ships. Caldari would need massive nerfing to make that fair which only would make things worse.

it would appear that the OP is dead set in his belife that EVERY other race can choose a specific damage type for a situation...

Now you know! Nomen is way slower than Caracal NI, Crusader is also slower than a Crow and we all know how fast Hawk is...

TL;DR - Ditch Caldari kinetic-specific damage bonuses.

Caldari is continually the only race still relegated to kinetic-specific missile damage bonuses for many of its hulls. This is not the case for any other race, who typically receive generic damage bonuses that apply to any type. With few exceptions, Caldari ships don't even rank in the Top 10 picks for any specific hull size or category. So this is a simple and straightforward petition:

Let's compare at the BC level (ignoring Attack BCs and drone boats):

Harbinger: 6 turrets, 50% bonus, 9 effective hardpoints, 2 damage types.
Drake: 6 launchers, 50% bonus (kinetic), 9 effective hardpoints, 1 damage type (6 effective hardpoints, all damage types).
Ferox: 7 turrets, 0% bonus, 7 effective hardpoints.
Brutix: 6 turrets, 50% bonus, 9 effective hardpoints, 2 damage types.
Cyclone: 5 launchers, 25% launcher bonus, 6.25 effective hardpoints, all damage types (technically, 2 unbonused turret hardpoints as well).
Hurricane: 6 turrets, 66.7% bonus, 10 effective hardpoints, all damage types (technically, 3 unbonused launcher hardpoints as well, but only 7 high slots).

So ya, the drake is on level, within it's own damage type, with the Harbinger and Brutix, except it's only dealing a single damage type. Using omni-damage, the drake is on a bit behind the Ferox (2 damage types) and the Cyclone (all damage types), and miles behind the Hurricane (all damage types).

I think modelling all Caldari ships with missile damage bonuses after the Hookbill is the way to go. Keep the high kinetic bonuses while adding a bonus to the other damage types equal to half the kinetic bonus. That's a perfect fix imo.

Can you explain why you think the Crow needs such a large buff?

Of course each hull would need to be assessed and tested independently, so I probably should've said most rather than all.

Quite. And, similarly, giving the Phoenix omni-damage would not make it useful by itself.

This line of thinking leads to the logical conclusion that the choice between omni-damage and kinetic is simply a balancing tool, to be decided for individual ships as appropriate. Personally, I quite like the variation and game heterogeneity that a mix of ships with kinetic and omni gives, but I wouldn't let it get the way of balanced ships. After all, there's no variability in practice if a ship isn't being used (lol Phoenix).

So which ships is it justified on? I think we can exclude the frigates straight away. On the medium scale, it could be the Drake, Tengu, Navy Osprey and Cerb, but IMO these will be fine after HMLs are fixed and something is done to RLMLs to make them less unfun and needlessly frustrating. The Onyx also has a kinetic bonus, but it hardly matters there.

So what does that actually leave? None of the battleships have a kinetic bonus, so only the Phoenix - which needs a whole lot more help than a simple omni-damage bonus!

Askign for the kinetic bonus to be changed to omni obscures the real problems of the Phoenix being worthless, HML being horrible and Rapids being deeply aggravating and frustrating and simply not much fun to use.

I definitely agree that the deeper underlying issues with missiles need to be addressed first, but I do feel that tying a race so heavily to one damage type is a bad idea. And really, we are always told how great selectable damage is for missile boats, but with kinetic-bonused hulls it doesn't really feel that great whenever you face a high kinetic resist enemy. It feels like you are choosing between two gimped options that are likely going to get you killed.