Posted - 2004.06.25 18:28:00 - [31]

 

Posted - 2004.06.25 18:56:00 - [35]

 

TomB!!!
Very nice changes man!

When can we exspect these changes to hit TQ?

Posted - 2004.06.25 19:15:00 - [37]

 

Originally by: Imhotep Khem

---

In reading my words it looks like I am asking for an optimal of 0km. Am I insane If so, why

---

Actually, the largest weapons can easily hit at 0m, provided you and your target are moving at 0ms.

It's all about tracking.

Posted - 2004.06.25 19:39:00 - [39]

 

Originally by: Joshua Calvert

---

I'd happily let a Tempest have a 100m/s speed boost as long as they took off 1500 HP of hull

The speed increases would, in effect, make you very very difficult to hit due to the tracking changes. Mch too difficult, I think.

---

Sure but they (tempests) would have even more trouble hitting you back because of the quite alot worse tracking.

Posted - 2004.06.25 19:59:00 - [41]

 

I wonder if TomB is even going to reply to the fact that proj's are so horrible now =/. Every post dealing with this has gone unreplied... All kinds of changes going into lasers and hybrids, but proj's get the shaft...

Posted - 2004.06.25 20:34:00 - [43]

 

How bout instead of speed increases, we let them fix the tracking, and lower the rof a tad. 1400 dot is suffering, and the frequency of wrecks that used to put you almost on par with other ships, has reduced big time. Add to this the lost overall dps from the inability to effectively use cruise missiles any longer, and the overall dps has dropped far below where it should be, even taking into acct the fact they use no cap. The cap usage is a huge benefit to proj users, but if you can't effectively kill anyone, all that leftover cap will get you nowhere.

Posted - 2004.06.25 21:12:00 - [47]

 

Originally by: Zervun

---

I wonder if TomB is even going to reply to the fact that proj's are so horrible now =/. Every post dealing with this has gone unreplied... All kinds of changes going into lasers and hybrids, but proj's get the shaft...

---

Hear Hear Zervun,

TomB I have posted numerously and frequently on this subject also and have not been answered. Please advise if I should discontinue my use of Projectile Weapons. I thought part of this game was RPG....my character class obviously points me to projectile weapons......Should I mothball the tempest...and start training another couple million skill points to use other weapons.....and what will happen when the dev team randomly decides to short change another weapon?

So far I can't defend against being warp stabilized....I can't hit anything..and everyone is doing more damage then I am.....I guess I wasted training my skills.....

What did Minmitar do anyway to the dev team......we are beginning to feel like an oppressed minority here....give us some love...or at least give us an acknowledgement here.

Still Waiting

Monkeyman

Posted - 2004.06.25 21:40:00 - [49]

 

Don't know about long range but Tempest loaded with auto cannons can give a Megathron with blasters a run for it's money concidering the practically no cap uses of Proj guns. A serious Tempest pilot should actually both shield AND armor tank since they have enough med and low slots for that. Reducing Shield AND Armor damage by 50% would greatly enhance a Tempest in a battle. Of course a Large Armor repairer and Med shield booster would be the right repair setup.

But then I have exclusively only used Megathrons so I might be wrong

Posted - 2004.06.25 22:27:00 - [51]

 

Originally by: ProphetGuru

---

How bout instead of speed increases, we let them fix the tracking, and lower the rof a tad. 1400 dot is suffering, and the frequency of wrecks that used to put you almost on par with other ships, has reduced big time. Add to this the lost overall dps from the inability to effectively use cruise missiles any longer, and the overall dps has dropped far below where it should be, even taking into acct the fact they use no cap. The cap usage is a huge benefit to proj users, but if you can't effectively kill anyone, all that leftover cap will get you nowhere.

---

I would have to agree with that. I would much rather the DOT of 1400's get looked at than a speed boost. The cpu issues and high ROF (on cruise launchers) prevent cruise/siege launchers being a viable secondary weapon now imo. The tempest is a gunboat and it needs to have a viable main weapon and there is no doubt the DOT of 1400's has suffered recently.

Posted - 2004.06.25 22:42:00 - [53]

 

Originally by: Bella Verde

---

I think large autocannons need some love... increasing the rate of fire would use too much ammo, as they use tons already. So what about raising the damage of them?

---

Actually all autocannons apart from the bottom of the line gun in each group have had ROF improved.

Posted - 2004.06.26 00:51:00 - [55]

 

Originally by: Hellek

---

Edited by: Hellek on 25/06/2004 23:08:54
Wow TomB, really great work. I am glad that you did not do the calcs with lvl5 BS skill this time, and I am glad that you had a look at Lasers.

Its really good to see that you are taking our feedback very serious and I think that things should really be balanced very well with those changes (including lasers).

I did not try it out on Entropy yet, but your post really looks promising.

EDIT: To those complaining about Apoc being too powerful: Just look at the graphs, you clearly see that the other guns still do more damage, and if you do some calcs, you will also see that the apoc still uses up a big part of his cap size bonus for the extra cap use which lasers have. Maybe it has more cap left after substracting the extra cap use of lasers, yes. The other side is though, that lasers still do less damage, that it still has a smaller dronebay than i.e. megathron and such, so I have good reasons to think that its not unbalanced. And don't get me wrong, I am NOT saying that Apoc would be too weak or anything, I am just saying that it looks balanced for me for the reasons I mentioned. Also don't forget that, while Apoc has enough grid for almost anything, it is very low on CPU which is limiting its fitting possibilities a lot. Like other ships (like raven) in contrast have a lot of CPU but are limited by grid (and megathron/tempest are pretty balanced on cpu/grid which is sometimes advantage, sometimes drawback, but under the line, also okay, and yes, I fly a tempest). Besides that, I mostly see Megathrons and Ravens on TQ now, not so many Apocs. Would this be if Apoc would be totally overpowered now? No. Would a slight boost to lasers overpower it? No. I really think TomB did a great job, and I really think that balance is better now than it ever was. Thanks

---

Ravens are so in favour cause of the bugged tracking thing, thy are horrible at tanking

Apocs are still a bit too god in tanking in my option but when thy start using Lasers maybe its getting better (hell why not giving them even lower CPU and increase the CPU need of Lasers, was very fun on my raven)

Posted - 2004.06.26 01:21:00 - [57]

 

Edited by: Cesta on 26/06/2004 01:26:55
Hey everyone, hey TomB. Here’s my two cents on the accuracy issue.

First off I will say that I am making some rash assumptions for the sake of simplicity here. They are the following:
- In this comparison Battleships are always transverse at 150m/s, cruisers 250m/s, and frigates 350m/s. I know that those are not the transverse speeds involved in every accuracy calculation for every shot ever fired but it's a representative scale of their speed ranges.
- I am assuming that when firing at a cruiser with a large gun you are working with a 50% tracking penalty, and when firing at a frigate you are working with a 75% tracking penalty. These are, again, rash assumptions meant to simplify the issue and represent the relative to-hit penalties.
- The only guns in the universe are lasers because that’s what I use and what I know, so that's what I worked with on Entropy.

Let me start out by laying out what I personally think the role of each of the large energy turrets SHOULD be.

Tachyon Beam: Huge damage potential at long range against battleship opponents. The sound of a tach from an adversary at 50k should be a very bad thing to hear.

Mega Beam: Long range with high to moderate damage. The all-around middle/long range vs. battleship gun also able to hit cruiser targets at long range.

Dual Heavy Beam: Low to intermediate range weapon with low to intermediate damage. The multi-purpose mid-range vs. battleship gun which can hit cruisers at medium range and even low transverse frigate targets at long range.

Mega Pulse: Low range weapon with high damage potential. The beat-down gun vs. BS that make the mistake of coming too close, even cruisers at medium range, and frigates at high to medium-high range.

Dual Heavy Pulse: Lowest range weapon with moderate to high damage. This gun should be accurate vs. BS down to the lowest ranges, cruisers in the middle range, and frigates in the high-middle ranges.

Now that the conceptual role for each gun is out there I can assign some arbitrary numbers to them and see some illustration of what’s on Entropy right now.
Again this is assuming battleships transverse at 150m/s, cruisers at 250m/s, and frigates at 350m/s. Also assuming a 50% tracking penalty for cruisers and a 75% penalty for frigates when firing a large gun.

Given a circle (enemy orbit with you at the center) you can use the radius (range to target in meters) and a measurement in radians (tracking speed) to yield the arc length on the circle (target speed in m/s).

Assuming that target's transversal velocity is equal to the arc length on the orbit circle in meters per second you can use this to calculate the tracking speed required to track that target at a given range in radians per second.

Now what exactly having the tracking speed required to satisfy that formula actually means in-game is subject to a black-box accuracy system that I don't know the details of. So all I can do is talk in relative terms given known ranges, speeds, and tracking speeds and assume that the results have a relative effect on actual situational damage output.

These calculations do not take skills or tracking enhancements into account. Obviously they make a difference but I want to take as many things out of the equation as possible.

~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tachyon Entropy .0159 rad/sec yields:
vs. Battleship tracks at 9.50k || vs. Cruiser tracks at 30.0k || vs. Frigate pure luck

As you can see with the Tach's tracking speed how it is now on Entropy it pretty much walks all over the roles of mega beams, dual beams, and even mega pulses on the accuracy issue and has tons of range as well. I think it has been tuned way way too high and outside its role as the long-bomb devastator.

A conceptual Tachyon with .005 rad/sec tracking would yield:
vs. Battleship tracks at 30.0k || vs. Cruiser tracks at 60.0k || vs. Frigate fat chance

Relative to the other large energy turrets I think the lower tracking speed would take it out of the territory of a close engagement weapon and take it back to the realm of hellfire from afar. It would also allow further tuning to increase its damage potential because it’s limited to a smaller segment of combat. Currently its damage mod divided by rate of fire is no better then a mega pulse. Using a Tachyon would be committing a high slot to long range vs. battleship damage.

Posted - 2004.06.26 01:34:00 - [59]

 

Edited by: Zervun on 26/06/2004 01:36:20
My biggest problem is the horrible projectile tracking. MWD in with 425mm's equiped even with a tracking enhancer etc just doesn't hit crap. Took me over at least 7 - 10 min with 6x 425mm's with a named tracking enhancer I to take down a 750k npc bs at about 5 - 10k. Now I'm not even talking cruiser spawns I'm talking about the closest range BS proj guns with a tracking mod vs. a npc bs, that was stuck in a roid field as was I. Neither was moving. It took that long with 6x ogres and 2x siege launchers with torps. They did MUCH more damage than the guns, and I ran through at least 400ish EMP L. And no it was not the bs's regen, I was just not hitting anything. A very occasional 20 - 40 hit, and thats with the tracking enhancer and a gyro II.

I just want my proj's to hit decent at short range against BS's otherwise they are utterly pointless. At 10k+ they were a tad bit better, but omg aren't these supposed to be short range guns? Basically it nullifies any short range proj setup, there is no point anymore especially with the movement issues. I mean BOTH the bs and myself were not moving AT ALL and I still couldn't hit crap.

I'm training up hybrids right now just because it's better equiping no high proj turrets than any at all, at least I'm saving some ammo costs and fitting costs. Talk about frustration with no responses.... at all. At the moment it is just as effective going with 4x sieges on a minmatar ship with NO large guns (which they get bonus for) than putting them on. The damage is so so minimal of the large projectiles that there is no point, it's just wasting ammo that could be used to buy torps or cruise.