Muon Farstrider
Partial Safety
50
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Posted - 2017.04.02 18:09:25 -
[1] - Quote
After pondering for a while, I don't think these proposed changes are on the right track.
The problem with RLML isn't their range, or their sustained DPS. The problem is how their raw burst damage, combined with the way their light fitting and perfect application (on cruiser scales) completely frees up the rest of their fit for tank/oversized prop/etc, obsoletes other medium missile systems for fighting other cruisers and up rather than just lighter ships.
Range and velocity are actually necessary for their *intended* role of anti-light support. Unbonused light missiles only go about 40 km @ 5.6 km/s with max skills, which in a fleet context isn't actually much. The battle area is usually notably larger than that, and the low velocity is also problematic - many inties can straight-up outrun them, and even a ship moving 'only' 3 km/s can force the missiles to chase long enough to expire in many cases. Removing the velocity bonuses will weaken RLML, for sure, but not in the right manner. It makes them worse at anti-support without weakening their oppressively strong brawling potential.
RLML nerfs need to focus on making them weaker against cruiser-up targets *without* excessively nerfing them against small targets. This is why I think Suitonia's suggestion of reducing clip size instead of increasing reload time is heading in the right direction - most small ships will still die in a single clip, but the more chance cruisers have to survive one, the better.
However, there's still a fine balance to walk here, mostly because there are a lot of quite tanky small ships these days. Keeping RLML strong enough to properly threaten them can easily make it still too good against cruisers. As such, I'd personally suggest playing with a different stat on RLML - application.
While the application on light missiles is very good, it's often overlooked that it's not *perfect* - a lot of small ships will somewhat reduce the damage from them. If you pyfa up a few examples, you can see that many t1 frigates mitigate 10-30%ish of the damage, while in the extreme case inties often mitigate over 60% with MWD on. Destroyers, meanwhile, don't avoid any faction missile damage, but the advanced versions often avoid significant amounts if the firer is using fury.
As such, playing with application is one possible way to allow for lowering RLML damage against cruisers while keeping it good against small ships. If rapid platforms all had a light missile expvel or exprad hull bonus (or if the launchers themselves applied this bonus to the missiles they fired? not sure if the game mechanics can do that), it would allow the clip sizes or fire rates on RLML to be further lowered to reduce their oppressive damage against cruisers while the application bonus counteracts this against small ships.
TL:DR - leave RLML range alone, reduce RLML clip size, give missile cruisers a light missile application bonus. Probably also increase RLML fitting cost.
Meanwhile, as this article indicates, the problem with heavy missile launchers (and their cousins HAMs) isn't just the damage, it's the application. A 5% damage bonus is all well and good, but when you can't *apply* that damage even to peer targets it doesn't help much. This update really ought to also include buffing HML/HAM *application* by a good 10% or so at least. |