As you can see in the picture the faction smartbombs are balanced really weirdly right now. It depends completly upon the damage type whether the faction smartbombs are usefull or terribad.
While the damage, range and activation cost of the T2 Smartbombs of all 4 damage types are completly identical, the faction smartbombs vary heavily depending on the damage type. There is no trade-off, no interesting mechanics. Faction EM smartbombs are better in all stats, Thermal and Explosive are much worse and Kinetic is utter crap.
Since all T2 smartbombs are identical I don’t really see any balancing reason for this. Unless you need a specific damage type it currently is “go EM or go home”. And even if you need a annother damage type, chances are EM is still better because they are so much more powerfull.
Especially the difference in ranges is laughable. EM gives twice the range bonus over T2 as the 2. best (thermal). Picking up the EM faction variant gives you 6x the range bonus as you would get from the kinetic type. SIX TIMES!!! Who designed this?
I would suggest to bring all 4 faction Smartbomb types in line with the EM ones, as they seem to be in a healthy spot. Increasing the variants to 4 for each type might also be usefull, so there is enough of all types seeded.
An even more interesting but more complex change would be to actually give tradoffs. They could be balanced around the EM smartbombs, with one type giving more range, one giving more alpha damage, one decreasing the capacitor and the last one having faster cycle time
This would give players more options to do interesting things and 6 useless items will become usefull.
Is there any reason against this that I’m missing?
Six times the bonus range, not six times the total range. I think when they made the bombs they were rping because yeah sure sounds easier to make an em pulse than a kinetic one so longer range and easier to fit yadda yadda. This kind of pseudo realism has no place in eve. The bombs should either be the same or have respective pros and cons.
Not really the logic I used. Those modules you listed have different strengths and weaknesses. For example the warrior is a lot faster and tracks much better than the hobgoblin which has more damage.
Right now non EM smartbombs are just weaker in every way. This is what tiericide was meant to eradicate. I’m all for different things that perform better in different ways but I’m strongly against things that are simply better in every way.
I don’t know what I said warranted a personal attack but… Yeah EM is in no way the worse damage type. For it to have the best stats on everything just because it does EM doesn’t make sense. EVE is situational. Also, on any tech II hull other than minnatar EM is one of the correct natural damage types, that is before modules obviously.
the only times can think of where EM is the right type after mods is a few small gal/amarr fits. before fittings the only thing you should be shooting EM at T2 is caldari.
again the EM sb isn’t used significantly more than any of the others that alone should show there is no real balance issue
I believe this thing came up in discussions on the old forums once. If I recall correctly, a DEV said that it was absolutely intentional for EM smartbombs to be bigger and better than others, because in their minds smartbombs are energy weapons every bit as much as lasers are. Therefore, the Amarr create better ones than the other races.
you also need to remember that knowing what smartbombs are better is a way to let the person on the receiving end make judgments on how to defend from them
