Explosion radius is far better in the meta than velocity, especially while brawling. It allows HAMs/HML to apply to smaller ships without having to resort to RLML. Which broadens your engagement profile and you dont have the long reload time.
For battleships, explosion radius is no contest as the best bonus. My navy raven has a 144m sig radius with torpedos. When combined with a grappler and target painter, it applies full damage to nearly every cruiser in the game. And still manages 300-500dps against frigates. Explosion velocity is barely a bonus when you have a grappler and intend to brawl. Grappler will always bring velocity down below the explosion velocity of your missiles, with or without the bonus. The only areas where it benefits is if someone is feathering around 8-9km where the grappler is a little weaker (this can be compensated with missile computers though). The other area is kiting or long range application, such as cruise missiles.
The kestrel and caracal are also range bonused, when looking at any competent kestrel pilot, they utilize that range to scram kite. If the kestrel didnt have a range bonus it would not be nearly as good. Same with the caracal, except its used as a cheap ship to spam kiters with that still has a decent tank. Theres more to those ships than just the damage bonus.
The nighthawk is not strictly kinetic locked, it has a RoF bonus and kinetic bonus.
Missiles will hit for full damage when you fit for it. They will always hit, that is the part people dont understand or refuse to acknowledge. That is a major bonus when you exploit it. Ive had no problems getting torpedos to apply to battleships, battlecruisers, cruisers and even frigates. I have a video where im hitting a garmur for 300 damage every volley while its going 4k/s @ 24km in my RNI. Is 300 a lot for torpedos? Not really, is it a lot against a frigate that has 1500 shield HP? Yes. That is why the missile formula is the way it is, its a huge benefit when you work with it.
Missile computers/enhancers, target painters, rigor, webs/grappler and crash are all their for a reason.
that’s because when your damage is 5,000 and you hit for 15 most just write it off as a miss.
expl rad is ONLY good for brawling ships. because at range you can still paint but you can’t slow down. missiles also miss out on the 1.5X and 3x damage that turrets get
Because they always hit. When you exploit the formula you could stack smashing/wrecking hits, which would be rediculous.
Radius is good for brawling and kiting. Good with kite HML (DNI/nighthawk) and good when using torps on battleships. This is why i disagree with your original assesment about caldari ships. They are excellent brawlers and apply well even at range. Their ships just arent fast like minmatar, so people cant kite with them and then cry that theyre bad missile ships.
If youre hitting for 15 out of a 5k volley then youre either not fit properly, supported properly or your opponent has brought a hard counter or is supported better.
I already mentioned that in an earlier post, when talking about cruise missiles.
You wont need paints or as many with radius bonus, so it works both ways. Its a useful bonus depending on composition and is especially useful when brawling. Also a missile computer with precision script gives velocity bonus as well as radius. So you can get nearly the same (16.5% compared to 25% hull bonus) velocity bonuses with an enhanced radius bonus by just using a missile computer. If you dont brawl or like to brawl, then you wont see the advantages of the bonus.
As someone who uses the DNI, CNI, RNI and Nighthawk, which are all radius bonus, its an invaluable bonus to have and makes shooting down a ship size easier and helps apply full damage to same size.
Our playstyles are different, radius is more important solo, whereas velocity is more important to you in gang/fleet. Doesnt make radius an inferior bonus or caldari ships somehow “bad” missile ships. People just dont like committing to a fight by brawling.
I could see another attack BC bonused for cruise missiles though (fitting in with the “large weapons on BC hull” idea).
That would give Caldari two attack BC’s though while everyone else has one. To balance that you could change the Oracle into two ships… one with a range bonus and one with a tracking bonus, do the same for the Tornado (change the falloff to tracking), and then add a drone based gallente attack BC bonused explicitly for sentries.
Or maybe leave the Oracle alone and give the Amarr a Torpedo option (Cruise missiles to Caldari).
Caldari - L. Railgun and Cruise Missile Attack BC.
Amarr - L. Laser and Torpedo Attack BC.
Minmatar - L. Autocannon and L. Artillery Attack BC.