Gunnery equivalents to RLML and RHML

EVE Technology and Research Center Player Features & Ideas
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The Dual 425mm Autocannon should use medium ammo, have the same range, tracking and sig as the 425mm autocannon, with twice the rate of fire.

The Dual Heavy Beam Laser should use medium crystals, have the same range, tracking and sig as the Heavy Beam Laser, with twice the rate of fire.

The Dual Heavy Pulse Laser should use medium crystals, have the same range, tracking and sig as the Heavy Pulse Laser, with twice the rate of fire.

The Dual 180mm Autocannon should be renamed to the Dual 200m Autocannon, use small ammo, have the same range, tracking and sig as the 200mm Autocannon, with twice the rate of fire.

The Dual 250mm Railgun should use medium ammo, have the same range, tracking and sig as the 250mm Railgun, with twice the rate of fire.

The Dual 150mm Railgun should use small ammo, have the same range, tracking and sig as the 150mm Railgun, with twice the rate of fire.

There used to be blaster and artillery guns named “Dual …” (I think one was named “Quad …” !!) and those names should be brought back and given the same range, tracking and sig as the single smaller gun, with twice the rate of fire. Doesn’t have to be twice the rate, balancing may require it to be higher or lower than that. The point is gunnery ships ought to have the same option as missile ships to fit turrets that can use the smaller ammo and hit smaller targets more easily.

And why not have some gunnery ships with sig radius bonus, like some missile ships have explosion radius bonus? I think this is one of the things that makes missile ships so much more preferred than gunnery ships in roles like mission blitzing.

Anyway, that’s my suggestion.

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Becauae sig radius doesn’t work the same way on guns it does on missiles. Guns it’s part of the tracking formula so any ship with bonused tracking already has it.

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3

As long as the reload is also just as long as RHMLs and RLMLs, why not.

I don’t see the point in having these weapons though.

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Essentially, we already have them. The dual 180mm autocannon has better tracking and a faster rate of fire than the 425mm autocannon and this also true for other turrets like the Quad light beam laser vs the Focused medium beam laser.

If you want to punch down with medium turrets, you can, and you don’t suffer the 30 second reload penalty!

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5

It has marginal differences. Not on the scale being discussed.

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Not really Rokh, only one turret/launcher, T1 ammo
Imgur

What’s important here : the damage applied is in same ratio from 425 to dual 180.
The damage applied is the same with rlml, but Ă— 0.2 for HM.
The application is the key here : the gap in application between HML and RLML is much higher than between 425 and dual 180.

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7

I get the point but think the example could be improved - use a Rifter as the target rather than the Stabber - you’re only going to fit dual 180’s if your intended targets are frigates, destroyers or drones where the improved tracking will make a bigger difference.

It would also be useful to factor in the reload penalty - RLML is the undisputed king if it can accomplish it’s task without a reload but less effective if the engagement lasts longer than that!

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8

It’s even worse. The application of the HM will be much worse than the application of the rlml, so the RLML helps a lot in that case ; it does not help in the case of medium AC because they won’t hit.

But feel free to make your own graph, instead of telling me what I should do.

RLML : 4.3s rof, 20 ammo => 86 of sustained fire, 35s reload => Ă—86/(86+35)=Ă—0.7 to take reload into account.
=> 12.8 DPS compared to the HM 6 DPS.

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9

The Dual 425mm Autocannon tracking is 5.7132. The 425mm Autrocannon tracking is 33.792. The Dual Heavy Beam Laser tracking is 1.75. The Heavy Beam Laser tracking is 9.504. There’s a big difference in tracking between the single medium turret and the same medium turret in the “dual” configuration.

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10

Strange that. Wonder if it would have anything to do with the fact you have double the gun mass on a larger turret mount.

Basic physics.!

The idea behind the dual and the quad turrets was to have a turret with better tracking and ROF, than other turrets in the same size group

Comparing a dual 425mm against another turret in the same size size is what should be done. (large vs large,medium vs medium, small vs small)

Not comparing 425mm medium turret against a dual 425mm large turret. They’re not designed for the same ship classes. It’s like trying to compare a heavy beam laser to a Tachyon laser, yes both are long range lasers, but ones for battleships, and the other for cruisers and battlecruisers.

Think of it this way a cruiser can mount 5× 425mm. Turrets, but wouldn’t have the CPU or Power-grid to mount 10. So how can you compare an item thats has almost double its requirements and combat spec.

Its like saying “well a 105mm tank cannon of a turret turns 5degrees a second, so it we mount 2 105mm cannons it’ll still turn at 5degrees a second”, thats beyond physics without first changing the hull to support the extra mass of just the cannon, let alone targeting mechanics, extra turret structure to house the extra cannon and then armour to protect it.

I think someone fail logical thinking here.

If you what high tracking you go quad or dual, or for better result downsize turrets, large to medium, medium to small. The largest of the next size down tends to be the worse tracker of that size, but miles better than the best tracker of the next size up.

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As the title of the thread indicates, I am comparing them to RLML and RHML, which are missile turrets designed to make it easier for larger ship classes to hit smaller ship classes. Missiles ability to hit ships of small size is determined by the ammo loaded, not the turret itself. Missile ships have RLML and RHML turrets that load ammo of the next size down, and have increase ROF and damage bonus to allow them to also do substantial damage to ships of larger class. I’m suggesting the same thing should exist for gunnery turrets.

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12

Yeah, I also think he totally missed your point.

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13

Consider the Typhoon Fleet Issue.

Minmatar Battleship bonuses (per skill level):
7.5% bonus to Heavy Missile, Cruise Missile and Torpedo damage
7.5% bonus to Large Projectile Turret rate of fire

That 7.5% bonus applies whether you use HML or RHML. Because it applies to the ammo. Plus it gets another bonus to ROF from the RHML, relative to HML. But it loses all bonus if it shifts to medium projectiles, because for guns, the bonus applies to the turret, not the ammo.

As a result, you can bet a TFI is going to be using missiles, and probably RHML, which destroys the supposed “surprise” element of having the dual bonus.

2 Likes
14

Just one thought to add:

Un-bonused / skilled for T1 missiles:
Cruise Missile 60km range.
Heavy Missile 30km range.
(Yes, I know skills can double those ranges)

Yeah, you might be doing the same damage with RHMLs and Cruise Launchers, but if I’m 50km away, RHML “application benefits” ain’t worth toffee.

80km or more for a railgun Cormorant is quite realistic. That’s still outside the RHML engagement range.

Also, the rapid variants also have really, really, mind-numbingly long reload times. I mean: Projectile weapons are pretty painful (I fly energy turrets normally) but there’s 30 seconds or so of “doing bugger all damage” with RxMLs - so pick your damage type / missile variant carefully: you ain’t changing mid-battle.
Yes, the rapid versions have their place - anti-tackle support for example - but they are not a universal panacea.

Also, for long range engagements missile flight time is a consideration. All in all, I’m happy that the balance between missile and turret ships is about right. Re-reading the OP’s first post his entire argument seems to be “because they are labelled dual they should use medium ammunition”.

So I apologise and add a second thought:

That’d be “Bonus to Tracking”
Like the Apocalypse has.
Or the Nightmare.
Or the Megathron.

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RHML can go 80km easily.
I have 80km on a barghest with bad skills, and with a range scripted TC I can go 101km while targeting range is 114 km.

This means nothing. The cormorant has a innate bonus to range.
Please don’t make comparison that have no meaning.

FFS we know that. You are not teaching us anything here.

Please stop spamming nonsense.

EVEN with the reload time a rokh with RLML (so no bonus at all) deals 2 times the DPS against a stabber than it would deal with HM. If you don’t factor the reload, it deals 3times the DPS. AND that’s against a target of size M, against a smaller target the effect would be even higher.

So the reload does not change a thing to this fact : there is no gunnery equivalent to rapid missiles.

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16

As it is there is no dedicated skills for rapid launchers, only core missile skills.

The same is true for turrets.

Currently there are three types of rapid launchers, but for some reason only the light and heavy versions have been talked about. If you compare rapids vs standard launchers the main differences are;

ROF
AMMO count
Reload time

Outside of that there’s very little difference.

What the OP should be asking for is gun batteries, light (cruiser/battlecruiser), heavy (battleship) and XL (capital).
These would be minimum of 4 large barrel or 8 small barrel turrets in a battery of turrets. The batteries would have similar stats as the single versions, but higher ROF, ammo and massively increased reload times.

The only issue here is the number required, as you need two versions (range and close) for each faction (hybrid, laser and ballistic).
These means s total of 18 new weapons just in T1, then add in the T2 and other metas.

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That’s literally what “equivalent to rlml” means.

https://imgur.com/aFHoHig

No you only need for range (rail, beam, artillery)

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18

I’ve long been on the fence about this.

On one hand, it would be nice to see more parity between turrets and launchers in this regard. I’m not gonna lie, a Thorax packing a rack of Dual 150mm Railguns that actually track and hit like a double rack of 150mm railguns while still getting Thorax bonuses to hybrid turrets would be fun to fly. (And probably OP AF…)

On the other hand, turrets already have far more options than missile launchers (2-3 options per class and range category vs 1 for launchers), and adding even more options without reworking the entire turret lineup seems like a huge effort for minimal payoff. Not to mention maintaining ship balance would be a nightmare. If you think the Thorax example I mentioned above is bad…imagine a Talos with a full rack of BS-sized railguns with cruiser-fast tracking. Ouch.

Plus…where is it written that turrets and launchers should all have the same options? Especially with the introduction of Entropic Disintegratiors and Arcing Vorton Projectors, which behave inherently differently to both turrets and missile launchers (and each other for that matter), a parity-based argument seems pretty weak.

The important thing to keep in mind is that damage application works differently between missiles and turrets. Missile damage is going to be pretty much constant depending on your target’s size and speed; there’s nothing you can do to change it other than paint them or slow them down (which also help with turret damage). In this context, offering a weapon that uses smaller missiles with better damage application makes sense because your options to deal with undersized targets are inherently limited. But with turrets, you always have the option (to the extent that you can given that you’re likely in a larger ship) to manually pilot and drop angular velocity and improve damage application. Turrets inherently have more tools in their damage application toolbelt because of how tracking mechanics work.

-1. I’m not opposed to the idea, but it would be of minimal benefit in real game terms, especially for the amount of effort involved in avoiding a balance nightmare.

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19

Missiles have been reworked several times over the years. RHML were added just a few years ago. Torpedoes and rockets used to do splash damage to nearby ships long ago, and were unguided, much like bombs today.

Gun turrets are basically unchanged since 2003, except for tweaks to the ammo damage.

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So…change them for the sake of changing them?

No.

Missiles got changed and updated because they were broken not just because CCP decided it was time to mix things up.

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