As you all know, we are rebalancing all of the tech 1 battleships for Odyssey. This means its a very good time to begin looking at large missile systems. This post covers Cruise Missiles specifically.
The biggest problem for Cruise missiles is that their main draw is their range (roughly 75k with no skills, 170k with all 5s, and 250km or so with a Raven). Unfortunately, using long-range missiles in most pvp situations is unrealistic, as the flight time for the missiles, which can be up to 20 seconds, allows plenty of opportunity for your target to evade damage. On top of that, in situations where flight time isn't as much of a problem (like small scale engagements), cruise damage is extremely low. The result is a situation where Cruise Missiles have pve applications, but otherwise torpedoes become the only available weapon system for missile focused battleships. We want to change that!
We are hoping to improve Cruise from two angles. First we will increase their damage by around 30%. This will happen partly in a change to the base missile damage, and partly in a rate of fire increase for the launchers. Secondly, we are going to increase the base velocity of cruise missiles substantially, making their role as the premiere long range missile at least slightly more realistic. These two improvements will be balanced by an increase in power grid need for the launchers, and a small explosion radius increase for the missiles.
Specifically:
5% increased rate of fire for all Cruise Missile Launchers 200 added power grid need for all Cruise Missile launchers
4700m/sec base missile velocity for all Cruise Missiles (up from 3750m/sec) 14 second base flight time for all Cruise Missiles (down from 20 seconds) 25% increase in base damage for all Cruise Missiles 10% increase in explosion radius for all Cruise Missiles
Please keep in mind this change is not comprehensive. Following Odyssey, we hope to do more work to improve the missile systems in EVE by potentially adding new modules and/or interactions.
Look forward to hearing your feedback, as always Rise
Adventures in whack-a-mole game balancing with CCP
Lets look at the 'new' phoon that has 6 launcher slots. It gets about 480 DPS non heated. 30% increase in damage is about 560 dps. Now that DPS is still anemic for a BS class ship. Throw in that 10% increased explo radius and you are left with an extreamly minimal increase in DPS when shooting at anything BC / BS size and a SIGNIFICANT decrease cruiser size and down.
The current cruise missiles will actually be more effective at PvP than the ones proposed in the changes. Even if you are flying with strong Crash. wtf ccp.... This game is becoming stale, because you are taking the riot approach to balance. Give everything a nerf bat, so that way everyone can fight with plastic knifes and paper bags.
As you all know, we are rebalancing all of the tech 1 battleships for Odyssey. This means its a very good time to begin looking at large missile systems. This post covers Cruise Missiles specifically.
The biggest problem for Cruise missiles is that their main draw is their range (roughly 75k with no skills, 170k with all 5s, and 250km or so with a Raven). Unfortunately, using long-range missiles in most pvp situations is unrealistic, as the flight time for the missiles, which can be up to 20 seconds, allows plenty of opportunity for your target to evade damage. On top of that, in situations where flight time isn't as much of a problem (like small scale engagements), cruise damage is extremely low. The result is a situation where Cruise Missiles have pve applications, but otherwise torpedoes become the only available weapon system for missile focused battleships. We want to change that!
We are hoping to improve Cruise from two angles. First we will increase their damage by around 30%. This will happen partly in a change to the base missile damage, and partly in a rate of fire increase for the launchers. Secondly, we are going to increase the base velocity of cruise missiles substantially, making their role as the premiere long range missile at least slightly more realistic. These two improvements will be balanced by an increase in power grid need for the launchers, and a small explosion radius increase for the missiles.
Specifically:
5% increased rate of fire for all Cruise Missile Launchers 200 added power grid need for all Cruise Missile launchers
4700m/sec base missile velocity for all Cruise Missiles (up from 3750m/sec) 14 second base flight time for all Cruise Missiles (down from 20 seconds) 25% increase in base damage for all Cruise Missiles 10% increase in explosion radius for all Cruise Missiles
Please keep in mind this change is not comprehensive. Following Odyssey, we hope to do more work to improve the missile systems in EVE by potentially adding new modules and/or interactions.
Look forward to hearing your feedback, as always Rise
Adventures in whack-a-mole game balancing with CCP
I don't know much about cruise missiles or ravens, but that much extra grid needed per launcher seems like a lot. Looking at all level V on eft, a raven has 11875 grid and 6 launcher slots. So this means you are going to lose about 10% of your grid using the same cruise missiles launchers after this change, but with 25% damage buff 6 launchers after the buff will be the same as 7 1/2 now. The raven is a weird ship having 8 high slots, with 6 launcher, 4 turret, but no bonuses for the turrets. If they wanted to buff the ship why not just give it 8 launcher slots instead on top of the buffs to explosion velocity, instead of grid per launcher nerf? What are those unbonused turret slots even for? Also, they should come out with an explosion velocity/flight speed mod for the low slots, instead of just giving it as a bonus for everything. After all ballistic controls are the only missile dmg mod iirc. (other than rigs of course) Give people a decision to make according to what they will be shooting at. BTW, I suck at math so don't hang me if I fucked something up or forgot to take something into account in my math.
I think we've reached the point where no one else left at CCP actually understands the arcane missile damage equations. The poor sod still in charge of it must don a seer robe, and and perform sacrifices while intoxicated in hopes to divine the necessary information from long dead gods that are rumored to have created mystical words of power like explosion radius and explosion velocity.
at this point it seems like CCP could announce that all cruise launchers now fire pink fuzz balls and torps do -1 damage and there instantly would be a page of people saying these were the changes missiles have needed all along
On April 16 2013 03:37 419 wrote: I think that the attention given to his pvp videos is undue. Most of the time he just approach f1s people, in which case the fight was decided at the fittings screen.
for an example of what I consider a better video:
excellent piloting, some very thoughtful positioning/isolation tactics (especially with the thorax v blob)
see, for example, the rax v enyo comet rax rax fight at ~17:00, he is hard tackled by comet with thorax closing at 50 km. As the comet enters structure you can see him search for the celestial align directly opposite the incoming thorax. He's already thought through his exit strategy - you can even see him pulse his MWD after comet dies. thorax is too close and lands web, though, so he gets scrammed and dies in a fire. Nonetheless it is a pleasure seeing someone multitasking that well.
I did notice that he puts [links] when the enemy gang has them, but not when he has them.
the fact that this is the first observation of a lot of people shows just whats wrong with the eve community
On April 17 2013 00:31 Ramiel wrote: I don't understand the cruise changes at all.
Lets look at the 'new' phoon that has 6 launcher slots. It gets about 480 DPS non heated. 30% increase in damage is about 560 dps. Now that DPS is still anemic for a BS class ship. Throw in that 10% increased explo radius and you are left with an extreamly minimal increase in DPS when shooting at anything BC / BS size and a SIGNIFICANT decrease cruiser size and down.
The current cruise missiles will actually be more effective at PvP than the ones proposed in the changes. Even if you are flying with strong Crash. wtf ccp.... This game is becoming stale, because you are taking the riot approach to balance. Give everything a nerf bat, so that way everyone can fight with plastic knifes and paper bags.
I'm going to take 5% increased rate of fire to mean 95% cycle time (i.e. just translating from English to CCP).
Take a DPS of 1.
DPS * 1.25 * (1/(1-.05) = 1.32
So we're expecting 32% more paper DPS. At the cost of grid and explosion radius nerf.
I'm not gonna talk about grid because I think it's fairly easy to look at the very negative effects of a repeated module costing more grid. But I will talk about explosion radius.
In a lot of ways, explosion radius (Er) is overshadowed by explosion velocity (Ev) in terms of what affects damage output more. These two stats are compared directly to target stats, but their ratios are completely out of whack.
A frigate is about 40m sig with no MWD. Cruise missile explosion radius? 225. That's a roughly 1:5 ratio against.
A frigate goes about 450m/s with no MWD. Cruise missile explosion velocity? 104m/s. That's a 1:4 ratio against.
These seem reasonably close. But in reality everyone uses MWD apart from a handful of exceptions.
Frigate MWD sig is about 260. Compared to 225 Er it's 1.15:1 for (but it doesn't count since this is constrained to a minimum of 1 in the math).
Frigate MWD speed is 3300. Compared to Ev it's 1:32 against. This eyesore of a ratio causes all kinds of bad things to happen to missiles (e.g. battleship missiles being completely worthless). So while a nerf to Er is certainly bad (it's not like BS missiles are too good...), it's only going to change things by small percentages - probably smaller than the 32% DPS increase.
I did some quick figures to look at this more closely. I looked at a Rifter and Zealot being shot by CN cruise missiles. The exact numbers and fits don't matter as much as the relative numbers.
Missile damage works based on taking the worst penalty from either signature-focused or velocity-focused terms. So it looks like
As I said, the velocity term is the dominating term 95% of the time (look at this CCP, signature doesn't matter - only velocity [something something shield vs. armor balance]). Using a MWD on any ship pretty much guarantees that S won't be the minimal term.
But for a non-MWD Rifter, S is about .21 - so you'd expect to take 21% of the EFT damage. With the Er nerf, it's 19%. So overall it's 1*.21 = 21% DPS (old) or 1.32*.19 = 25% DPS (new). These percentages are using the current DPS as a baseline, so this is a 19% increase in overall damage to frigates.
For a Zealot, it's pretty much the same story. S is .85 (old) or .77 (new). That's 1*.85 = 85% DPS (old) or 1.32*.77 = 102% (new). This is a 20% increase in damage to cruisers.
Keep in mind those numbers are for ships not using their MWDs and sitting completely still - so not likely to come about in actual play.
Now let's look at the more interesting V term. While it's dominated by the velocity comparison it still is affected by signatures.
Without MWD, a Rifter can get a V of .0649 (old) or .0597 (new). That's 1*.0649 = 6.5% DPS (old) or 1.32*.0597 = 7.9% DPS (new). This is a 21.5% overall increase in DPS. On an absolute scale, we went from 6.5 damage to 7.9 - basically nothing.
With MWD, a Rifter can get a V of .0550 (old) or .0506 (new). That's 1*.0550 = 5.5% DPS (old) or 1.32*.0506 = 6.7% DPS (new). This is a 21.8% overall increase in DPS. Absolute 5.5 to 6.7 - basically nothing.
Without MWD, a Zealot can get a V of .3243 (old) or .2982 (new). That's 1*.3243 = 32.4% DPS (old) or 1.32*.2982 = 39% DPS (new). This is a 20% overall increase in DPS. Absolute 32.4 to 39 - a small but maybe noticeable buff to damage.
With MWD, a Zealot can get a V of .2929 (old) or .2692 (new). That's 1*.2929 = 29% DPS (old) or 1.32*.2692 = 35.5% DPS (new). This is a 22.4% overall increase in DPS. Absolute 29 to 35.5 - small but maybe noticeable.
The DPS difference is a straight linear increase, but it won't actually reach the CCP-claimed 30% increase in damage in practice unless a target is fully hard-tackled and painted.
But for a non-MWD Rifter, S is about .21 - so you'd expect to take 21% of the EFT damage. With the Er nerf, it's 19%. So overall it's 1*.21 = 21% DPS (old) or 1.32*.19 = 25% DPS (new). These percentages are using the current DPS as a baseline, so this is a 4% increase in overall damage to frigates.
Previously it did 21% of EFT DPS. With the changes it does 25% compared to the OLD EFT DPS. That is an increase of 4%, yes, but not a 4% increase in dps. It is a 19% increase in dps relative to the amount of damage it used to do.
But for a non-MWD Rifter, S is about .21 - so you'd expect to take 21% of the EFT damage. With the Er nerf, it's 19%. So overall it's 1*.21 = 21% DPS (old) or 1.32*.19 = 25% DPS (new). These percentages are using the current DPS as a baseline, so this is a 4% increase in overall damage to frigates.
Previously it did 21% of EFT DPS. With the changes it does 25% compared to the OLD EFT DPS. That is an increase of 4%, yes, but not a 4% increase in dps. It is a 19% increase in dps relative to the amount of damage it used to do.
I was trying to get across two ideas at once, but you're right I ended up saying something that is technically wrong. I went back and clarified what I was saying. 20% of basically 0 DPS is still basically 0 DPS. In the same way, 20% of 20 DPS isn't a big deal in absolute terms. 20% of 100 DPS is starting to be a meaningful buff.
/edit - Basically, in terms of damage gained from this patch, it's fairly minimal because of the harsh penalties applied by the V term. The only exceptions to this are going to be things like a MWD BC sitting still. Or a fully tackled BC that's heavily painted - things these missiles are already good against.
On April 17 2013 09:09 Impervious wrote: Basically they went around and said "we're increasing DPS by 30 percent", when in reality, it's closer to 20%.
And the main problem in the first place being they deal practically 0 damage to targets that aren't BCs - a problem which will not be fixed by linear percent increases but by fixing the Ev.
/edit - This is why EVE is so backwards. No one understands how these systems interact, and CCP doesn't communicate how they interact because they probably don't collectively understand it themselves.
I'm sure it will be a big deal for amarr BS gatecamp lords ... and Logan Durandal
(a nice video though the gang certainly isn't 'cost-streamlined' so the odds in some cases seem underwhelming)
complaint on the eve thread:
The Music sounds like mixed with hard background noise (i like metal but the screaming .. i wouldnt call it singer .. is just horrible imho, i rather listen to Blind Guardian) and you have really no clue whats going on.
As for the "whats going on" part, i dont think anyone could really get everything that happens, thats why i prefere solo videos. You just see one person of a gang flying around, its okay if the person frapsing is the one that tanks and you see the damage applied, but its allways good to write whats going on if you dont want to do it via audio.
its an armor BS that doesn't f1 approach? Clearly the tactics are impossible to understand without voice comms
I guess these are the same people that find slicer frig fights boring to watch
For some reason the related kills on that fight shows someone else killing the nemesis. I killed it. Basically, I was running around with some milita guys, we went for a maller, then 2 more mallers a prophecy and random other shit showed up. We got a maller, caracal, and catalyst, and talwar.
I was shooting a prophecy and maller, kiting their brains out, while the other maller was trying to get 150 away for a warp in. Eventually the prophecy gave up and left. The crusader was burning straight at me for tackle. I overheated and burned away from him. I've never flown an omen in combat before and I really just wanted to see how far I could push it. I could have got out, but I let the crusader tackle me because I was scram fit. So he tackled I scrammed, I switched to multi and put my drones on him. They killed the drones and I burned out my scram, oops. I was barely hitting him either way, once my drones died, I died. But all in all I was very happy with the ship, I probably killed 15 t2 drones in all of this while kiting. I kited the prophecy until he gave up and left and was just having some fun harassing the mallers. They had a merlin who I was hoping to get, but he just left. I guess they got sick of me messing with them and someone grabbed a crusader. I managed to get the maller into half armor before I died, and he was bait tanked. Hotpocket was crying in local, about my being bad, noob shield omen ect. I gave a GF and after he talked all that smack, I asked him if he was referring to my omen, that was kiting them alone for 15 minutes.
EPT
