Levin Cavil
   |
Posted - 2004.05.07 13:56:00 -
[1]
Edited by: Levin Cavil on 07/05/2004 14:06:42
Heres how I look at this. Get a ruler, draw a circle that is 1400mm in diameter (4.5 feet for our american readers.) Now imagine firing a hunk of metal of that diameter and length (roughly) at an object the size of a house (frigate) moving at 120m/s (432Kph or 268 Mph) from 50km (31 miles) thats like a half hour drive. I think that would be pretty hard.
So only in the rare occasion that you have a frigate pilot flying DIRECTLY at you or he is COMPLETELY stationary should a hit even occur. On the other hand, if you do score a hit I don't undertand how a 4.5 foot diameter chunk of iron can possibly *glance* off of ANYTHING, concidering it is moving at like the speed of light. Seems to me that it would probably do some damage, like vaporize whatever it hits. So if a BS does manage to hit a frigate, like if the frig is at the wrong place at the wrong time and gets hit with that VW beetle sized chunk of metal moving at lightspeed it should explode. There should be no surviving, you get hit by a BS in a frigate you should die or at least show up 40km away from where you were.
I think the bee/fly/whatever vs. glock thing is a pretty good analogy, you have to pick the right weapon for the job. HINT: SMALL GUNS ON BATTLESHIPS ARE NOT THE ANSWER. These changes along with the missile changes should balance things out nicely, unfortunately we are going to have a time of imbalance before missile changes hit but it won't be any worse than it is now. I fly both battleships and frigates and I don't mind these changes at all. Seems to me that a cruiser should be equally likely to hit a friagte as a frigate is to hit a frigate, cruisers act as support ships for the heavy hitting battleships. Frigates can also kill cruisers if it is the right situation but it really should take a coordinated effort from several ships to kill a BS. I think this is how combat in Eve was intended, you have to have 3-4 frigs and 3-4 cruisers with just a couple battleships, but at that point you can take on pretty much anything. Sounds great to me, it actually looks like a fleet of a few merlins/crows with a couple kestrels and a Moa or two, a Caracal and BB along with a Scorp and Raven should be able to take on pretty much anything (fill in other races at your discretion) This makes alot more ships viable in their intended roles, assuming missiles are changed so that small/heavy kill frigs and cruise/torps kill battleships I guess heavy and cruise should be for cruisers. It would also be nice if cruisers were a little faster and more mauverable to avoid torpedoes, those should be a BS only type weapon for when you know your support ships can hold the target in place long enough for the sidewalk of death to reach them.
With these changes frigs should keep cruise missiles and I think they should even get torps back as the diferent missile types will only be able to hit the intended types of targets. You won't see cruise missiles in frig vs frig fights, it'll be a fleet weapon, light missiles will be used to kill frigs.
HYPOTHETICAL FLEET ENGAGEMENT:
You have 3 Battleships 5-6 cruisers and 5-8 frigs.
If you fight the exact even forces you might win or might not, losses on both sides.
You find a group of all BS 4-6 in number you kill the majority of them.
You see a group of 20 frigs, they all die, you might loose a BS but it's not likely.
You will need some ships to stay with the battleships to defend against the enemy warp scrambling ships so you will want half of your cruisers/frigs on defence, killing other support ships, the rest of your support ships go kill the enemy and the battleships just get wheeled around like huge space cannons.
The most exciting thing is that I can see a ship for every role from every race out there. It will be possible to make complete balanced fleets from any race in the game.
I got a little off topic I guess but I think it's all at least somewhat relevant to this thread, if they make the missile/tracking changes I think combat will only improve.
EDIT: I can't type
------------------------------
<Hammerhead> we can't do anything that requires programming
|