Posted - 2007.08.02 20:28:00 - [31]

 

Nice thread Welshie.

First let me say that I'm not going to list all the "rules" of Caldari ship design. Someone else can post those. (like being ugly, using ECM, using missles, etc) I'm merely going to point out some areas where rules exist but appear rather broken at the moment.

I'd like to approach the issue from an RP perspective that I normally abhor. Take a look at pretty much any Caldari ship. They all look like a frail combination of various starship parts (no offense minmatar ). Their attributes confirm this with low armor and structure HP numbers. One would logically assume that Caldari ships are rather lightweight and moderately quick.

From this we draw the first law of Caldari ship design: Caldari ships should be relatively agile with moderate speed

Nothing overpowering here, just bring the Caldari closer to the speed and agility of the Amarr and Gallente designs, but definately not faster or more agile than Minmatar ships. If setup for speed then Caldari will be forced to use precious midslots for MWD and cap injector, plus loose what few low slots they have for speed mods. Speed tanking Caldari ships will be specialized setups (as they should be like everyone else) that sacrifice HP and DPS for speed. Let's not forget that many shield tanking modules increase signature radius, so I doubt "nano"-Caldari ships will be overpowered.

Another characteristic we can draw from statistics and Caldari background story is that the Caldari specialize in using shields to protect their ships. This leaves their low slots (what few they have) open for damage modules, ECM upgrades, and fitting mods.

Thus the second law of Caldari ship design: Caldari ships should be shield tanked

So what changes here? For the most part all the Caldari ships follow this rule pretty well. An increase in shield HP for ECM ships that need their midslots for ECM modules would be nice but still balanced. A new midslot module that offers low passive resists to all dmg types along the lines of the non-energized adaptive nano plating would answer a long time whine for many Caldari pilots.

What else? Turrets, or railguns more specifically. This is a true Caldari weapon engaging the enemy from long range. Sadly the Caldari lack well thought out gunships with two exceptions, the Harpy and Rohk.

The third rule: Caldari gunboats engage from range with railguns.

Simple concept that is lost on a few ships. All Caldari gunboats should make use of the following bonuses. Increase in optimal range, increase in damage, and shield tanking. Most all the Caldari gunboats make good use of these bonuses already but lack the hardpoints to fit enough turrets to do any sort of DPS. Give the Caldari rails boats more turret hardpoints and grid at the expense of missile hardpoints. These ships should be a bit slower than their missile toting counterparts, but make up for that speed deficit with increased tanking. The Moa -> Ferox -> Rohk lineup is an excellent illustration of such a setup with shield resists and range increase. A raptor with a bonuses to range and shield resists or HP sounds fun.

For my final notes I would like to say two things. First, the Caldari should be pretty easy to balance guys. Their combat style is very strictly laid out and buffing a few small things should bring the Caldari back into PVP pretty easily. Second, I would like to ask the Devs to please do away with split weapons setups! With some very rare exceptions, ships that have split weapons systems are near impossible to fit, do horrible damage, and typically suck much more than their counterparts with a focused bonus system. Every race has them (well not the Amarr any more) so lets just do away with this broken concept once and for all.

Posted - 2007.08.02 23:00:00 - [33]

 

Edited by: me bored on 02/08/2007 23:03:14
My only complaint is that the nerf to spike ammo crippled the caldari rail boats as snipers. The lack of a damage bonus is made all the more painful by the reduced spike damage and the nerf to range lessened the only advantage the ships had.

That said I've taken out large amounts of t2 fitted thoraxs and ruptures with t1 fitted moas and firmly believe that it's one of the best pvp cruisers in the game.

Posted - 2007.08.03 02:48:00 - [35]

 

Originally by: me bored

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Edited by: me bored on 02/08/2007 23:03:14
My only complaint is that the nerf to spike ammo crippled the caldari rail boats as snipers. The lack of a damage bonus is made all the more painful by the reduced spike damage and the nerf to range lessened the only advantage the ships had.

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Thats pretty much the point, t2 long range ammo is way to strong. The long range bonus of caldari gunboats just increase the range over any reasonable fighting distance and thus stands pretty useless.

Posted - 2007.08.03 03:04:00 - [37]

 

All I have to say is that if a "nano"-Drake becomes a possibility it will be a super-weapon.

Posted - 2007.08.03 03:18:00 - [39]

 

Edited by: Blood Cultist on 03/08/2007 03:19:14

Originally by: Hannobaal

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All I have to say is that if a "nano"-Drake becomes a possibility it will be a super-weapon.

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No it wouldn't, not with a mass similar to Gallente's.

The Drake has the fewest low slots of all BCs so it's either speed mods or damage mods. It would need the speed mods for a nano fit to work but with less than three damage mods damage is pathetically bad compared to the other tech 2 bcs. Add to that having the largest sig radius and then look at the nano myrms today with their drones that can deal full damage while speed tanked -do you see any, because I don't.

So no, a drake with a mass similar to the myrms would not be a "superweapon" even nanoed, not by a long shot. No one is asking for insane speeds but enough for Caldari to be competitive again.

Posted - 2007.08.03 06:22:00 - [41]

 

Aye, it's not like these ships have to be fast, it's just that they are rediculously slow right now...

Posted - 2007.08.03 08:26:00 - [43]

 

I agree WW.

The most depressing thing (for me) about flying caladari ships is how piggin cumbersome they are to manoeuvre.

It's not as easy as reducing the mass, because that would make the ships really fast with mwd on & overpowered. But making the 'turning circle' or agility, whatever somehow better would make these ships so much more playable.

Posted - 2007.08.03 16:02:00 - [45]

 

What ccp should do is UNNERF T2 torps they wernt overpowerd !

Posted - 2007.08.03 16:16:00 - [47]

 

Yeh same here i support it and ...

What ccp should do is UNNERF T2 torps they wernt overpowerd !

Posted - 2007.08.03 16:35:00 - [49]

 

The Caldari problem, is the pilots. Too many are whining, and think that Caldari ships should have the best ships in all classes.

Imho, Caldari has the most versatile fleet of ships. You can do anything well, and they are also quite low on skill requirements.

Asking to make all the ships really good is asking to much. All the races have a bunch of suboptimal ships, and some even lack ships for certain roles.

Posted - 2007.08.03 16:47:00 - [51]

 

Originally by: Brodde Dim

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The Caldari problem, is the pilots. Too many are whining, and think that Caldari ships should have the best ships in all classes.

Imho, Caldari has the most versatile fleet of ships. You can do anything well, and they are also quite low on skill requirements.

Asking to make all the ships really good is asking to much. All the races have a bunch of suboptimal ships, and some even lack ships for certain roles.

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Versatile? sure. Jack of all trades, master at none, etc...I could accept.

Fact is though, most of the caldari ships are poor at PvP unless you have insane experience and SP (in which case most ships can be lethal). The purpose of this thread isn't to give caldari ships the uberstatus that, say, gallente ships enjoy--it's to make them competitive.

There are some ships that are fairly capable in the caldari fleet--when well supported.

Here is the Caldari problem in the smallest of nutshells: Caldari ships are designed to engage at range. Caldari ships are UNABLE to dictate range, at all.

Posted - 2007.08.03 17:21:00 - [53]

 

Originally by: J Valkor

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Edited by: J Valkor on 02/08/2007 20:33:02
The Caldari problem is that you don't fly a Nighthawk.

It is pure sex.

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The Nighthawk is a good ship. If however you need to fit a scrambler the awesome tank of the NH isn't good enough to compete with other field command ships. The Astarte, Absolution and Sleipnir will all beat a nighthawk that fits a scram (The Sleip will have the most difficulty but it can still do so).

Not that I'm complaining about the NH, its a good ship and no change is needed, except perhaps a multi missile damage bonus instead of kinetic (which is a bit poor). Would still have the lowest damage of all field commands by far, but as an advantage it can choose its damage types.

At any rate I agree and /Sign welshie's post. Most Caldari ships are just somewhat lacking and could use a little boost.

Posted - 2007.08.03 17:36:00 - [55]

 

Originally by: Techyon

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Originally by: J Valkor

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Edited by: J Valkor on 02/08/2007 20:33:02
The Caldari problem is that you don't fly a Nighthawk.

It is pure sex.

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The Nighthawk is a good ship. If however you need to fit a scrambler the awesome tank of the NH isn't good enough to compete with other field command ships. The Astarte, Absolution and Sleipnir will all beat a nighthawk that fits a scram (The Sleip will have the most difficulty but it can still do so).

Not that I'm complaining about the NH, its a good ship and no change is needed, except perhaps a multi missile damage bonus instead of kinetic (which is a bit poor). Would still have the lowest damage of all field commands by far, but as an advantage it can choose its damage types.

At any rate I agree and /Sign welshie's post. Most Caldari ships are just somewhat lacking and could use a little boost.

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Not with the same number of damage mods. At which point the tank on any of the ships is the same when fitting tackling gear.

Posted - 2007.08.03 17:58:00 - [57]

 

Originally by: Benn Helmsman

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Originally by: me bored

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Edited by: me bored on 02/08/2007 23:03:14
My only complaint is that the nerf to spike ammo crippled the caldari rail boats as snipers. The lack of a damage bonus is made all the more painful by the reduced spike damage and the nerf to range lessened the only advantage the ships had.

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Thats pretty much the point, t2 long range ammo is way to strong. The long range bonus of caldari gunboats just increase the range over any reasonable fighting distance and thus stands pretty useless.

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Or it enhances the range of short range damage ammo inside the "reasonable fighting distance", with the additional option of a much longer range if needed and desired.

Anyway, what a reasonable distance is lies in the eye of the beholder. The 50% longer range of the Caldari ships is a tactical option you may or may not use.

Most people always think solo. In gangs, that is in conjunction with the other Caldari systems, the drawbacks cease to be, or are even strong points. Think about what tactics a purely Caldari gang would use. If Caldari fleet tactics are not effective, then it's underpowered.

In mixed gangs, it seems that nobody takes much care about racial tactics. If short range it's more or less Gallente tactics, if long range it's more or less Caldari.

Posted - 2007.08.03 18:49:00 - [59]

 

A few nights ago, my MWD'ing Drake was outrun by a MWD'ing battleship. It was a Tempest, and was running well over twice as fast as my max speed. And this is, somehow, supposed to be this way?

It seems to me that I can't fulfill my role with my Drake. Fitting a Gang mod is virtually impossible (The PG requirements are too high for it), and it's far too slow to get into range for HAMs to be effective.

Therefore, the only role that a Drake has is a semi-mobile POS that spews Kinetic heavy missiles.

Tera