Am I the only one who thinks this bonus has been outdated for far too long? Perhaps I'm just another frustrated Caldari pilot but I think this is the worst ship bonus in the game to be on so many ships.

Is there an actual reason for a type specific damage bonus on the Caldari missile boats?

So they don't get unrestricted, full damage-type selection.

Also, laser capacitor savings bonus says "hi."

The kinetic bonus is there because lasers and hybrids, and therefore Gallente gunboats and Amarr gunboats are limited in damage type. Look at it this way, at least you can still change your damage type, unlike those gunboats. Of course Minmatar gunboats can choose their damage type, sorta. They can't get a pure damge type on any of their ammo, and Say for instance they want a long range thermal damage ammo. They don't have any.

The kinetic damage bonus is ther for a reason. Now that is not to say that all missile ships should only have that. But it is not an imbalance to Caldari any more than damage with lasers is an imbalance to Amarr. It just is a part of the game.

Drone boats have other weaknesses. Their damage is destructible. If sentrys then either abandon them in one place and risk losing them or basically you sacrifice mobility and your ship is pinned to one place.

This has been an old whine with Caldari. Tell me you fly another race of ships and understand the damage type limitation with lasers or hybrids. Do you accept that? If so then accept that your ships may only have kinetic missiles bonused. Because if you really think missile boats should all get bonuses that buff all damage types then maybe you want to post about intorducing explosive laser and hybrid ammo etc.

Caldari have a much harder time matching other races dps, usually giving up most of their utility or tank to do so.

As was pointed out minmatar gun boats, when they get a dmg bonus are not restricted on damage type and their dmg is immediate and non-destructible.

Yes Gallente drones can be destroyed but so can missiles with defender missiles. Just because people dont often use them doesnt mean there isnt a counter. Neuts counter laser boats well, smartbombs decimate drones, defenders blow missiles out of existence. Perhaps if the caldari missile bonus was not type specific defender missiles would see more use.

Plus drones dont have a reload time but missiles do.

As for Amarr lasers they do both thermal and em which are commonly the 2 weakest resists.

Lasers and hybrids don't get any damage type selection. Just be happy that you can do so if the situation justifies it.

Also consider that those platforms can still do considerable alpha strike damage where missiles have a travel time.

Thundercats Fleet Doctrine Says Hi.

I fly minmatar and this answer still sounds stupid to me. Anyone who has the isk and sp to burn on a t3 fleet doctorine is obviously going to be effective. Hell, i've been on the recieving end of a legion/proteus Rooks and Kings gang and it absolutely rocked our male/scimi fleet 5x their number.

If we said anything an elite corp could pull off was balanced cruise ravens are fine because BE used to lolsnipe with them and hero tacklers.

Also consider that those platforms can still do considerable alpha strike damage where missiles have a travel time.

Drake Blob Doctrine says Hi. (Adopted because Missiles have pretty nice Alpha)

Valid, but the point is the drake stands alone. Not to mention, the drake is slated to loose it's kin bonus (relavent to the OPs concern).

Missile velocity/flight time is no different than optimal/falloff/tracking speed bonuses for other ships.


Oh you mean like projectile turrets?

How do Caldari give up tank for dps? Oh you mean sprs

Sure, minmatar have more damage options. But, ammo that mixes explo and em that's hardly a great thing. Besides I already provided the example of no long range thermal and there are other oddities. Meanwhile missiles are like drones, they do one damage type, whatever is optimal for the resist weakness you are trying to exploit. Also, tracking disrupters are used and they can disrupt projectile damage (usually better if applied on arty, but can do some damage to ac dps also). Oh, and then there's the wonders of fall-off or the enforced choice of alpha over dps. Really, get some experience with projectiles before you just cry "winmatar."

Ok, loving this weak argument. Get serious. Defenders are broken and noone uses them in pvp. Sure some rats use them in pve, but they frankly don't even screw up your dps like npc damping, ecm, or tracking disruption do.

] Wow, another gem of a weak argument. Drones have travel time. So much so that heavy drones are worthless unless you are right on top of your target. And sentrys mean you either don't move your ship or you take your chances that they won't be there when you come back for them. But these are acceptable drawbacks. You don't see continual whine threads over snetry lack of movement..

Spoken like someone who only flies shield tanking ships and thinks everyone else does also.

Keep trying. It's fun to see you flailing about presenting easily countered justifications for a fix without a problem.

Only if Hybrids and Lasers get to choose damage type.

With no damage bonus that would probably be balanced although the lore science behind making a laser deal kinetic or explosive damage would be a little tricky.

stuff

Frequency modulation and quantum entanglement create a subatomic reaction in the opponent's hull, creating an explosive reaction or even penetrating it outright.

Took me 5 seconds to come up with that. I'm sure CCP could do better. God knows there's stupider stuff out there.

Missile velocity/flight time is no different than optimal/falloff/tracking speed bonuses for other ships.

Oh you mean like projectile turrets?

But, just so you know, my favorite ship is the phoon. When it was 4/4 I always keyed on the missile half, it got the BCUs, not the porjectile guns and gyros. Now that it is thankfully 5/3 I always fit 5 launchers. Most people do fit them with a missile focus too. So much for the "winmatar/projectile" whines. Also, I have two other characters which have been taking full advantage of the drake op-edness.

However, unlike you I try to look at the game as a whole, and have sought experience with every race of ships. Sorry to tell you there is nothing any more wrong with kinetic missile bonuses than there is with other race's ship bonuses. And here you are saying you fly Amarr yet you see nothing irksome with the ubiquitous laser cap use reduction bonus? The bonuses are all less than wonderful. That's the point. If the bonus was too good you'ld not want for anything else, and every other race would be easy fodder.

Good luck thinking somehow Caldari ships should get an extra slot more than every other race. Have fun trying to convice CCP to do this. Missiles and missile boats have drawbacks because every weapon system and ship type has drawbacks. Certainly having heavy missile launcher II as the most used weapon on pvp kills (and probably also on pve kills) surely means that Drakes and kinetic missile bonuses are a real bad deal

Balance ships, not bonuses.

It's a lot different when even HAMs comfortably reach out to (unboosted) point range. The one case where it's really good (IMHO) is the Hookbill. On anything with HMLs or cruises, it takes you well beyond relevant combat ranges for very little real gain.

LOL if you have ever flown ANY laser boat with an active tank you would be wishing for better cap reduction bonuses not complaining about their uselessness. Lasers have several important limiting factors that don't apply to every weapon system. Cap use and restricted damage type being the two defining drawbacks to lasers. Cap use bonus adresses one of these.
Artillery has a slow rof so some minmatar ships get a rate of fire bonus, again to help with one of the major drawbacks to the weapon system without making arty alpha dmg insane.

And since you pointed it out, there is the Typhoon with EXACTLY what I was talking about, a 5% RoF bonus to cruise/siege launchers yet I don't know anyone that considers the phoon to be in any way OP. That RoF bonus applies to all 4 ammo types but as limiting factors means you have to reload more frequently which lowers overall dps. Pointing out that the Typhoon is your favorite ship just reveals how much of a troll you are. If the bonus on the phoon was changed to ONLY siege or only cruise launchers it would be called a nerf, and if it was changed to single damage type all hell would break loose. Again thank you for supporting my position.

And isnt it funny how the Naga WAS slated to have 1 more slot than the other new tier 3 bcs right up until they dropped all the siege/torp bonuses entirely? Between that and upcoming revision of the drake bonuses, I'm confident that CCP is already aware that caldari missile bonuses need to be changed.

They don't get full damage type selection. Unless you know of some kinetic-heavy, high DPS/alpha ammo I've been missing out on...?

Give each race a missile platform with damage type specific bonus - Hey look the Gallente already have a ship with bonus to missile thermal damage! (Kudos to you if you know which one without looking it up!)

With no damage bonus that would probably be balanced although the lore science behind making a laser deal kinetic or explosive damage would be a little tricky. Aside from that I'm not talking about changing MISSILES. I'm talking about half the caldari ships having a useless bonus. Stop changing the subject.

There is a better way of doing this.

Give each race a missile platform with damage type specific bonus - Hey look the Gallente already have a ship with bonus to missile thermal damage! (Kudos to you if you know which one without looking it up!)

Stealth bombers don't count ....

As Mitchrus pointed out - it was the Eris I had in mind. (Stealth bombers use torps, not missiles - Oh and Mitch, the Gal bomber is the Nemesis, not the Helios).

The kinetic bonus is there because lasers and hybrids, and therefore Gallente gunboats and Amarr gunboats are limited in damage type.

Well I agree that the extra missile range is unnecessary for long range missiles like HML/Cruise but the same could be said about caldari hybrid range bonus when using rails. However those same range bonuses make a difference on their shorter range counterparts so they aren't entirely without a function. It's a trade off. I'm sure most caldari pilots would prefer a dmg bonus to hybrids over a range bonus as well.

Believe me, double optimal bonuses make the Eagle a piece of **** too.

As an example take the Lachesis - get rid of it's hybrid damage bonus, give it thermal missile bonus and get rid of the split weapon system by allowing it to fit 5 launchers. You get a beautiful little ship then don't you think?

Ships that have a bonus to racial damage by race:
Caldari


Gallente


Minmatar


Amarr

Khanid ships could be considered to have racial damage bonus

More Caldari ships on the list than the other races combined.

Gallente have drone boats if you want full damage type selection. Amarr have some drone boats (and even their gunboats have generous drone bays) and some missile boats for full damage type selection (and Amarr have much, much better gunboats and better guns than either Gallente or Caldari). Winmatar have ... oh wait, let's not talk about Winmatar (hey, how about changing all Winmatar projectile weapon damage bonuses to projectile explosive damage bonuses, since explosive is their signature damage type? How'd you like that?). Caldari have exactly zero drone boats.

Also, there are some Caldari missile boats with missile ROF bonuses instead of missile kinetic damage bonuses (Raven, Golem, etc). Are they overpowered in any way?

Do they not go hand in hand? Considering the bonuses are directly tied to the ship, i fail to see a distinction but thanks for playing, tell him what he's won Bob...

Is the drake, with its current kinetic missile bonus, UNDERPOWERED?

How about the tengu? Deciding you don't like a certain type of bonus and demanding it be changed on all caldari ships is a TERRIBLE way to go about looking for balance. The drake in its current form is already overpowered, as is the tengu,

As far as its offensive capabilities go? Definitely.

As far as its offensive capabilities go? Definitely.



Neither of the two ships is overpowered in the offensive section.

The drake can only be called overpowered because it combines a ridiculously low shield recharge time (half that of Caldari battleships) with a ridiculously high base shield capacity (three times that of Caldari cruisers, and almost as much as Caldari battleships), with a signature that's still well below that of a battleship (so it's not as vulnerable to large weapons).

The Tengu might be called "overpowered" because it has all the advantages of a Caldari ship (strong shield tank, long range, etc) while ditching most of the typical Caldari weaknesses (it's not a slowboat with a huge sig. Still lacks good drone capacity, though). Oh, and it finally has enough mid slots to actually fit stuff. (Most Caldari ships have one low slot too many and one mid slot too few.)

They go hand in hand, but they are not the same, and there is a VERY big difference with regards to how you balance them.
The way it should be done is this:
"This ship seems to be under/over powered, maybe we should change one or more of its bonuses to balance it out."
What you seem to want is this:
"This bonus seems underpowered, let's change it on all ships that have it, and disregard the fact that it will result in massive balance problems as certain ships become horribly overpowered after our little blanket buff."

When you balance something in the game, you have to look at how it performs against everything else in the game, from the point of view of how things will work out when said changes actually hit the game. Weaknesses are given to ships on purpose, to provide balance for the strengths. If you don't like the weaknesses of a ship, fly something else. Buffing it beyond the point of being overpowered is not the answer.

Uh... you really think that??

Really???

-Liang

Actually yes. The raw dmg numbers on the drake using kinetic missiles are sub par vs other BCs however the drake has an overpowered tank, which more often than not balances it out. Even as a caldari pilot i hate the drake. I'm glad it's getting re-balanced even tho some people are calling the changes a nerf. The reason the drake is so common is because aside for the training intensive shield skills it takes very little time to get into one and it's easy to use. Even an undertrained shield tank can fly one adequately because the shield setup of the drake is quite overpowered on its own. So drake fleets were born, dozens of new characters with crap skills in a ship with low damage but a respectable tank have become the most comon and hated sight in the cosmos. I sneer at every drake I see the same as you guys, because having spent quite a bit of time in one myself I consider them to be the ship of choice for noobs and lazy pilots.

So you really believe that 5% Kin damage isn't a useful bonus?

-Liang

Ed: I mean, you'd really equate a 5% Kin damage bonus on the Drake to 10% laser capacitor usage on the same Drake?

You are aware that the Drake actually has really respectable DPS when it has 3 BCUs on it right? You're also aware that it has far superior damage projection to every other BC?

-Liang

With all lvl 5 skills a drake w/ 7 HML2s and 3 bcs t2 the drake does not even break 450dps w/ the t2 high dmg kinetic missiles. 444.55 dps to be exact. Now you gotta remember that while yes that is at a great range (75k) you ONLY get that damage output against a BS or larger unless it is also webbed and tp'd. And who is going to be webbed at 60k or farther? So even if 444.5 dps was on par dps for a bc the actual dmg output is even lower unless the target is larger or not moving.

While it may not be a fair comparison being a t3 (although it is still a cruiser not a battlecruiser), a tengu w/ 3 bcs t2 and 6 HML2s does 621dps w/ the same ammo. This is why you see so many tengus in small gang/solo pvp because it actually has the dps to compete 1v1 vs other races.

Almost yes. Because only rarely to we actually use Kinetic missiles and that's mostly in missions. Switching from Kinetic to a dmg type thats more likely to be lower is a significant dmg increase even over the bonus to kinetic. As an example if i use EM missiles instead I would gain about 40-50 dps if EM is their second lowest resist, and about 60-70dps if EM is the lowest resist. Now this just just a simple example from some tests I ran about a week ago in hacs w/ some corpmates. I would honestly prefer a missile explosion velocity buff or sig factor vs missile damage reduction bonus instead. But again any bonus that could be used at least a majority of the time, even if not an offensive bonus would be better in my opinion.

The Kinetic dmg bonus doesnt mean we only carry one ammo type so we still use alot of cargo space which means less cap charges or less ammo of each type. also if you have t2 launchers youre carrying at least 8 types of missiles.... high dmg t2 and faction of each dmg type and if youre a pessimist or not in a fleet you're probably also carrying the t2 range missiles as well. Thats alot of cargo space. The Kinetic dmg bonus isnt big enough that it makes using kinetic missile more worthwhile than the other dmg types, unless you would already be doing so anyways. So what exactly was the bonus intended for?

With all lvl 5 skills a drake w/ 7 HML2s and 3 bcs t2 the drake does not even break 450dps w/ the t2 high dmg kinetic missiles. 444.55 dps to be exact. Now you gotta remember that while yes that is at a great range (75k) you ONLY get that damage output against a BS or larger unless it is also webbed and tp'd. And who is going to be webbed at 60k or farther? So even if 444.5 dps was on par dps for a bc the actual dmg output is even lower unless the target is larger or not moving.

While it may not be a fair comparison being a t3 (although it is still a cruiser not a battlecruiser), a tengu w/ 3 bcs t2 and 6 HML2s does 621dps w/ the same ammo. This is why you see so many tengus in small gang/solo pvp because it actually has the dps to compete 1v1 vs other races.

Being able to drop 20% of your DPS to switch damage types is an advantage most other races don't have. Be thankful you have it.

Gallente have drone boats if you want full damage type selection. Amarr have some drone boats (and even their gunboats have generous drone bays) and some missile boats for full damage type selection

It's not, so don't be dense about it. Compare similar ship classes.

Compare the Drake to the Cane or the Harbi. All commonly flown shield.

Drake (Fit I just tossed together), 73k EHP, 398dps with faction, 445 with Fury. Range 73km. Point and TP

Cane, 48k EHP, 596 dps RF Fusion (~16km range, but falloff eats a fair bit of damage), 475 dps Barrage (~27km range, again falloff)

Harbi, 40k EHP, 601dps Navy Multi (~10km range, lasers no likey falloff), 479 dps Scorch (~26km).

Drake gives up a piddling little bit of DPS to TRIPLE its engagement range (you *Do* have intys and long tackle to use that range, right?), while sporting half again as much tank.

By the way, A HAM Drake gets 553 DPS rage, 497 faction @ around 16km. It also has ~66k EHP. Hey, isn't 16km roughly the range of a cane with Fusion?

Lets examine the underlined quote by taking a look at some common fits and the fits from several of my latest kills. Lets also consider having a 25% kinetic damage bonus and whether or not you should be using Kinetic missiles.

EHP from common fits:
- Drake: 67k EM / 76k Thm / 92k Kin / 105k Exp (Use EM damage)
- Nanocane: 49k EM / 48k Thm / 54k Kin / 60k Exp (Use Kin damage)
- Plate Cane: 102k EM / 71k Thm / 66k Kin / 61k Exp (Use Kin damage)
- Nano Binger: 44k EM / 44k Thm / 50k Kin / 56k Exp (Use Kin damage)
- Plate Binge: 89k EM / 74k Thm / 69k Kin / 68k Exp (Use Kin damage)
- Vagabond: 64k EM / 35k Thm / 23k Kin / 26k Exp (Use Kin damage)
- Abaddon: 164k EM / 137k Thm / 128k Kin / 126k Exp (Use Kin damage)
- Maelstrom: 76k EM / 66k Thm / 73k Kin / 78k Exp (Use Kin damage)

Here's the EHP from my last several kills:
- Vengeance: 6944 / 8128 / 10569 / 19937 (EM)
- Keres: 3889 / 4245 / 6265 / 3807 (EM)
- Tornado: 36599 / 32127 / 39529 / 45299 (Kin)
- Brutix: 86332 / 72613 / 74938 / 62804 (Kin)
- Sacrilege: 45075 / 84244 / 62322 / 115721 (Kin)
- Hurricane: 44843 / 42369 / 47880 / 51888 (Kin)
- Moa: 35594 / 31873 / 38778 / 44625 (Kin)
- Caracal: 13147 / 9782 / 11051 / 12284 (Kin)
- Taranis: 3992 / 3795 / 4322 / 3846 (Kin)
- Megathron: 153882 / 128045 / 131742 / 133635 (Kin)

Its most certainly possible to get a wider selection of fits but I'm pretty sure you're going to see a similar layout - maybe 5% of fights should use EM, 5% use Exp, and 90% use Kin.

-Liang

Ed: It occurs to me that you may not have trained BC5. In which case you should just be quiet. :)

The shield recharge has exactly nothing to do with the drake being OP, and is irrelevant anyway, because the issue at hand is this:

If you swap the kinetic damage bonus with a ROF bonus on all caldari ships, the drake and tengu will become horrendously overpowered. That alone is a good reason not to change the bonus. As a general rule, if you ask the question "Why don't we buff all ships with bonus X by giving them a better bonus?" And the answer is "Because it will make one or more ships so terribly overpowered that nobody will fly anything else ever", it's pretty safe to say the buff was poorly thought out.

Tengu is already the best t3 by a fairly wide margin in a fairly wide range of situations (and is, IMO, in need of a nerf itself) and the drake is not only the best tier 2 BC (though it more or less shares that trait with the cane) but is so absurdly good at what it does that the damn thing singlehandedly changed 0.0 warfare. Even now drake gangs are quite common, because drakes are one of the best fleet ships in the game, despite being cheap and easy to skill for. The LAST thing they need is a massive boost.

TBH though I can tell you're a caldari fanboy, and it's kind of funny how you don't even seem to realize it. You literally said that the tengu is good because it has all the advantages of caldari ships with none of the downsides (which is BAD, not good, ships have drawbacks for a reason) while acting like this is a good reason why it should get a buff...

Ok take that HAM Drake and change to Hellfire or Torrent ammo. And then reduce that dps by however much dps you think a cane loses at 16k due to falloff. That number would be close to our dps against a BC in motion without a TP or web. Somebody said earlier that caldari ships seem to have 1 too few mid slots and 1 too many lows. Try doing something like your HAM drake fit with a Cerb and compare to the other Hacs and tell me what the tank looks like. Now as i've said the drake being overtanked makes up for its lack of dps in most situations, but not every Caldari missile boat is as over tanked for it's class as the drake is.

A few comments:
- A 3 BCU HML Drake with my skills (not max) gets 452 DPS with Furies and 531 if you include drones. With long range weapons, it outdamages a standard kiting nanocane from 15 (Fury) to 20km (Faction)
- A 3 BCU HAM Drake gets 644 DPS with my skills (not max). It outdamages a standard nanocane from 9-30km.
- For some reason you think its fair to complain about the Drake not getting full damage but think that turret ships get full damage. -_- The ability for the Drake (and any missile ship really) to deal full damage while totally nano'ed out is pretty pro. :)
- All ships get less in game DPS than they show in EFT.

-Liang

WoW, I'm amazed by your ability to leave out important factors.

While the drakes KIN bonus is OK (it's not on other ships), missiles are far more penalized by various factors you can do nothing about, from which a nanocane will never suffer in a cane vs drake-fight. This makes this comparision pretty much epicfail. But yet again another proof for fail-maths on forums.

A nanocane will outdps your 644 FURYDPS-HAMDRAKE by a large margin. I leave it up to you why this is the case ;)

Shares with the cane, so 1 caldari ship you actually seen in mass on a fleet, compared to how many minnie ships?
So great caldari has 1 ship...Yet minnie pilots scream nerf because a cane cant insta **** it. CCP nerfs the one fleet caldari ship and still doesnt touch the cane, which is one of many minnie ships used in pvp.

The irony of this is under the lore of caldari supposedly being superior in tech, yet are beat by every other race, and the rest are beat by minnie.
Whats even more interesting in the ship usage numbers is seeing abaddons high on the list, yet, guess what they are using for guns? Arties........

T3's are too costly for huge fleets.. So screaming tengu, is a crap answer.


(From the quote i just did... forum acted up)

Well my experience in actual combat has been quite different and of all my various saved fits i have found only 7 where Kinetic was in the bottom half of the resist table. However I will try flying a drake around for a while and see how well it works out. Or perhaps just load terror in the cerb more often. I'm willing to give it a try and see if I reach comparable results.

WoW, I'm amazed by your ability to leave out important factors.

While the drakes KIN bonus is OK (it's not on other ships), missiles are far more penalized by various factors you can do nothing about, from which a nanocane will never suffer in a cane vs drake-fight. This makes this comparision pretty much epicfail. But yet again another proof for fail-maths on forums.

A nanocane will outdps your 644 FURYDPS-HAMDRAKE by a large margin. I leave it up to you why this is the case ;)

No more of a crutch than a missile velocity bonus.

No, velocity bonus is a range bonus. Laser cap usage bonus enables the use of guns on a ship that would otherwise be unusable; it grants no advantage. This is especially true when considering that it is probably better to fit projectiles on any amarr ship with a laser cap bonus but no damage bonus.

The amount of angry fanboy showing in your post is adorable. Caldari are supposed to be " superior in tech"? Come on...
Anyway, the whole point of this thread was that simply replacing the kinetic bonus with a rof bonus is somehow a good idea, and I showed you a few examples of why it is not. As for your minni hate, the cane needs a nerf as badly as the drake does, but that doesn't change the fact that the drake is OP

What's more is that there is more to the game than large fleet pvp. In smaller fleets the entire line of caldari ewar ships is AMAZING, the manti is a great bomber, the basi an amazing logi (just ask Liang :P ) as well as nagas that are now making their way into mainstream pvp (and people complained because it uses rails, despite it literally being the best damage projection in the game on a subcap). The harpy is a great AF, and there are many others that don't get nearly enough credit; like the moa/caracal, as well as the raven and rokh. Caldari isn't broken, so stop complaining about them.

the basi an amazing logi (just ask Liang :P)

I fly pretty much all gallente.

You mention naga, yet for every 1 naga i see in a fleet, i see atleast 10 tornados and almost the same in oracles..Talos is just behind. When it comes to sniping, I can still do 200km with a Talos, get far better tracking and dps than a nag.

When it comes to sniping, I can still do 200km with a Talos, get far better tracking and dps than a nag.