What do you guys think of medium arty? I feel like it’s a little underwhelming. Even a Gila hits the Muninn’s volley with three gyrostabs and 720mms. You guys think it’s in a good place or could it use a bit more alpha to rof ratio?
Imo a fully skilled 720mm ship with a damage bonus should do 5-6k with close range ammo rather than the 3-4 it does currently.
Edit: This isn’t an advice thread. I’m asking what you think about medium arty’s place. If you don’t know or have an opinion do not feel the need to reply.
The 5-6k close range volley is just too much for a 720mm gun. Most missile BS (with x5-6 Torpedoes and Cruise Missile Launchers) doing around 6k volley. Arty guns have an advantage at damage applying over launchers. Therefore, arty Cruisers and BC can’t have more powerful volley than Typhoons and Ravens.
But yeah, the Arty guns, especially that 720mm Howitzer needs some reworking with recent changes. Even with Advanced Weapon Upgrades V, the 720mm Howitzer has difficulties to fit. It should have lower PG requirement and higher Falloff and for different ships different values of it. For example, one of the best ship designed to use T2 720mm guns is Hurricane. Without Advanced Weapon Upgrades V is hard to fit it and, which is the most interesting, it doing the same volley as Muninn at the same distances being a BC class for fleets mainly.
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And yeah, one more thing. These arty guns have one big drawback, in my opinion, - their performance isn’t so dependent by ship type and class. You can get nearly the same combat abilities on both Hurricane and Ferox (-100 dps) ships by using arty guns.
Regarding the Gila thing Hammer IIs on the gila do almost the same alpha damage as a rack of 720s on a Muninn. I just think they’re an underwhelming alpha weapon in their class, especially for their massive powergrid needs. I don’t think they need more dps just a longer firing time and more damage, either that or like you said less required pg.
I mean, i think a lot of weapon systems need a buff. Small rails arn’t super powerful rn, small focused beam lasers outshine it in almost every way. Same with heavy missile launchers, why does they still exist?
Yeah except a sleipnir loki or cane are not a cruiser like a Gila. Drones don’t have poor tracking and cost all your pg like 720s.
The whole point of the arty rework was they are supposed to be best in class alpha damage by far. This is true for both small and large weapons, why are medium inconsistent?
And a gila is an anomoly in cruisers to base your entire judgement on about 720s as the gila has rediculous damage bonuses. So for comparisons sake, cane, loki and sleip all have competitive damage bonuses to keep the comparison accurate.
Realistically if you want to use a muninn as comparison, you should be using an ishtar as comparison.
I really don’t get it. Comparing the drone damage from gila to the artillery damage… They really don’t compare well. Why are you comparing these unrelated things? And if you don’t have AWU 5, then train it. I have no problem fitting ships with artillery.
Ishtar will track inherently worse with heavy drones, even with the tracking bonus. Pyfa/eft numbers dont translate out exactly to 100% application in actual fights.
Arty still applies instantly and drones can be killed. Arty isnt meant to brawl. If something got under your guns, it means you messed up. Arty doctrines have been a thing for years. Muninns being incredibly popular in fleet fights now.
I personally fly solo and small gang with arty and do fine with fitting and damage. Wheras a gila isnt really a good choice for what i want to do. As its too slow and drones arent reliable for catching fast ships.
Edit: Also, where are you getting your numbers from? A gila does not have more alpha than a muninn. 2 Augmented hammerheads with triple sentient DDA’s shows a volley of 2839. A 720 muninn with 2 gyros has a volley of 3433, with 3 gyros 3629. So a Gila does not have more alpha than a muninn.
To support what @Stitch_Kaneland said, we frequently fly HACs and occasionally T3Cs (thankfully not often, hate those fuckign things).
We’ve got Cerbs, we’ve got Muninns, we’ve got Lokis. We do not have Ishtar or even Gila doctrines. They’re inferior.
Take a quick peak around and you’ll see that most of the other large fleet comps these days are Muninns too. Not Ishtars.
Clearly, even if you ignore the actual numbers (which I’m not asking you to do) the Muninn is seeing heavy adoption right now - far more than the Ishtar. Those Muninns are all arty fit.
And then of course, in the cherry-picked example of a Gila, even if your numbers are right and the Gila does more (I’m not going to fact-check, looks like Stitch has already done so), look at the survivability of those two hulls.
A weapon system in a void can be compared. The moment you start putting different hulls with different traits against each other, you need to factor in those other traits. A Muninn will take way more of a pounding than a Gila will. IIRC (don’t cite me, just a gut feeling) the Muninn is a faster hull too. Say nothing of the MWD bloom reduction.
To compare Drone and Arty Alpha Strikes isn’t correct. These values tends to different weaponry paradigms with their mechanics. Drones are something between guns and missiles - a significant dps with delivery delays. Drones are dps beings mostly, instead of an Alpha Strike beings.
Arty guns aren’t a solo PVP weaponry. They are PVE tools mainly or big fleet PVP and structure bashing tools. The 720mm arty guns have a special place in both PVE and big fleet PVP - it can’t be used in any PVE scenarios and not in every big fleet PVP cases. I mean traditional combat PVE is similar to a big fleet and structure bashing PVP with similar fits, locking and shooting mechanics, while in PVP you just striking player ships instead of NPC icons. I did just a loooot of L3 and L4 “none Blitz” Security missions with all possible Arty guns and respective ships. You can call me a specialist in bashing targets with arty guns. So, I’d like to know your purpose to use the 720mm guns?
For PVE both Volley and DPS are important under good tracking off course.
For PVP:
Arty’s Volley is more important when its required to shoot at other sub Cap ships. With one command you should be able to one-shot any sub Cap target.
Arty’s DPS is more important while bashing enemy structures. You know, to hold the structure timer off, you need to push a constant and stable dps like 5000 for these new FLEX structures. The higher is arty dps the easiest is to perform it, even while losing ships.
Therefore, 720mm Arty Muninns become so popular not because of their improved tanking only, but due to their tracking boost which can vary between 11 and 13 and optimal range. They can shoot at structures as effective as other moving targets like Jackdaw fleets. Other ships have a default tracking value of 8 and have difficulties to fit for tracking additionally.
I want to notice few interesting and important things about Arty guns:
their overall performance isn’t so dependent by Gyrostabilizers only;
their Alpha Strike depends by weapon caliber (650mm, 720mm - damage modifier) and by the number of turrets;
their dps depends by rate of fire, which can be gained from ship boost and Gyrostabilizers mainly. With 650mm arty guns you can get near the same dps as 720mm guns doing with significantly reduced Volley and range;
their effectiveness is determined by tracking speed. The higher is tracking the faster and smaller targets you can hit. Just imagine, with good skills you can perform one shot per 8s with 720mm and one shot per 19sec with 1400mm guns! So, it’s very important not to miss it, especially if the target is repairing;
their optimal isn’t so important as their falloff.
Therefore, based on previous arguments, we should look for different specifications in every scenario:
High tracking and Volley while shooting other distant flying ships like BC, Cruisers and Destroyers;
High Volley and DPS while bashing structures;
High Volley while bashing tackled big ships like BS and Cap.
By comparing Hurricane, Muninn and Cynabal, I’d say both Cynabal and Muninn can be easily fitted with 720mm guns, while the Hurricane has difficulties. Similar situation is with other T1 Cruisers. I’d like to fit with these guns one of the best sniper ship - a Stabber. Moreover, I also think it’s a great misconception that a 6x720mm BC Hurricane doing the same Volley and dps as a 5x720mm Cruiser Muninn at nearly the same distances. The 3700 Muninn’s Volley is ok, but the Hurricane Volley should be a bit higher - 4k by default and 4.5k with Rigs and implants. Anyway, we don’t want a cheap BC version of a Tornado to bash and one shot targets at Gate Camps and other Ganks.
The problem with ANY artillery is the HIGH powergrid requirements and the SLOW tracking. Honestly Rails and Beam lasers are better choices for all around fights. BUT the Artillery shines in its versatility in a fight. You can choose a WIDE range of ammo which makes up for its shortcomings. Unfortunately nothing lowers its power grid requirements. (outside of skill)
Unless you use T2 ammo T2 Arty isnt worth it. Just run the Meta 4 guns and your PG requirements drops.
My problem with artillery is you pretty much HAVE to use it with a web in PVP to be any use in any fight smaller than a Battlecruiser. But when used in conjunction with a web and a target painter it becomes a pretty good weapon but so does a missile launcher.
Just some food for thought. Every gun in game has a use… some not so easy or as apparent as others.
Titanium Sabot is solid anti-armor ammo while depleted uranium being a decent alternative against shield fits. 720s might have meager tracking but that’s what a bellicose in fleets are for, plus they have the most effective range of all turrets.