Right now, projectile’s close range/high dmg ammunition is thermal, explosive and EM (with a smattering of secondary dmg types). How the hell does projectiles not have a mostly kinetic close range/high dmg ammunition type?
because reasons
that said…load hail, never fail 
Why should projectiles need better kinetic ammo?
Projectiles already are blessed with a selection of ammo of all four damage types:
where for example hybrid weapons are limited to kinetic and thermal:
lasers are limited to only EM and thermal:
and disintegrators limited to explosive and thermal:
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In fact, it looks like projectile weapons have a luxurious position that they can choose between all types of damage!
Only drones and missiles have an even better damage type selections that they can pick from any flavour, all other weapons are stuck with max two types and can at most pick a different ratio between the two.
So why again do projectiles need even more damage type choices? They’ve got the best choice of all turrets already!
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Because it only makes sense that PROJECTILES have a high dmg kinetic ammo.
Ok but why?. There needs to be a weakness, otherwise nobody would pick other types
Why?
If you’re going for realism it makes sense that the ammo with the highest kinetic energy is also the ammo that can fly the furthest, so mid to long range ammo (carbonized lead, titanium sabot).
The short range ammo makes use of other effects to deal high damage, like plasma (thermal), hail (which explodes) or EMP ammo with heavy EM damage.
If you’re going for game balance I’ve already shown above that projectile weapons are the only turret-based weapon system that can deal all four damage types. They don’t need further flexibility.
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In a future Sci-Fi scenario? Not so much. I am pretty sure most weapon designers wouldn’t try to make the projectile as heavy and dense as possible to load it with the maximum in kinetic energy, because… physics. It would require a LOT more energy to do that and the same energy would affect your own ship while shooting (recoil… you know, action ↔ reaction).
So, what designers would probably do is to make the projectile as light as possible to make it as fast as possible with the least energy and effort required. And then add highly potent explosives or energy-based payloads onto it. So the projectile is only the vehicle for the payload.
And voila, what is the result? A mixture of less kinetic, but high explosive, thermal or EM damage, depending on what payload you chose. And if you use the more “classic” projectiles like Titanium Sabot and Lead, yeah you gain some accuracy but lose lots of damage, because the payload-based projectiles are way more advanced.
Seems to me, that the designers of EVE have put some thought into the weapon system…
Edit:
What I would agree to is a simplfication of the damage distribution. Like in other fields, EVE is needlessly overcomplex for no real gain.
- Quake and Hail for example could share the same damage distribution: 25% Kin + 75% Exp.
- Faction Ammo could use the same distribution, but exchanges damage for some range and tracking: 25% Kin + 75% EM/Therm/Exp depending on the type.
- Tracking Ammo gets a balanced distribution: 50% Kin + 50% Thermal (Depleted Uranium) / + 50% Exp (Titanium Sabot)
- Barrage and Tremor as high Range get the distribution of the High Damage ammo, but switched: : 75%Kin + 25% Exp
- Sniping ammo shares this distribution, but exchanges damage for range and tracking: 75% Kin + 25% Exp (Carbonized Lead) / + 25% EM (Proton) / + 25% Therm (Nuclear)
This way the different purposes would be kinda sorted by type, easy to understand, easy to remember.
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Rocket assisted projectiles would give the projectile a slight boost in velocity and damage but would have maybe a second’s worth of fuel.
A new projectile - the Pulsed Projectile Round.
‘Round numbers’ doesn’t really simplify it much, I still wouldn’t remember damage distributions and refer to graphs like above to remember which ammo uses which damage type.
What such a change would do is remove flavor.
For game balance turning everything in 100% 75%/25% or 50%/50% distributions doesn’t make things much simpler, but in my opinion it adds a lot of flavor if distributions can also be 63%/37% like current standard energy crystals. It adds some realism, feels less ‘game-like’.
And if it doesn’t matter for game balance anyway, not simplifies it much, why remove flavor?
Other than that, I agree with your post!
The splits don’t need to be 25/75, albeit quarters or thirds (33/67) or fifths (20/80) would be easier to memorize for most people.
I see it totally the other way, having the split being 22/78 isn’t more “flavour” to me than 20/80 would be. In fact, most people only memorize the primary damage type and the rough percentage anyway to make a quick decision which ammo would fit the enemy resist profile the best. It’s completely irrelevant for most how exactly that split is. What is way more important is the fact that it’s better to have only 3-4 different splits to memorize than 6 or 8, which add absolutely nothing of value. Neither game-balance wise nor lore-wise. It’s just an additional but unnessessary complexity that Quake and Hail have different damage type splits between ACs and Artillery, but Faction Ammo has the same damage split, no matter if you insert it in an Autocannon or an Artillery. It’s not nessessary, it adds nothing that makes the game better.
I guess we disagree then on that point.
Yeah probably. No problem with that.
I am just a fan of simple systems that work and enable newcomers to catch up to existing players very quickly. Good old Credo “Easy to learn, hard to master!”. Let me give you a simple example:
I am playing Amarr since I entered this game. 90% of my ships are Laserboats and I fly them excessively for more than 15 years. Do you know how much different Ammo types I use? 3, rarely 4 per Turret System (Pulse/Beam).
For pulses: Conflag, Scorch and Multfrequency (in case I need to hit a ship smaller than my weapon class). Very rarely Standard.
For Beams: Aurora, Standard, Multifrequency. Rarely Gleam.
And except for some very very very niche situations (that could also be solved with the ammo mentioned, losing an insignificant percentage of effectiveness), basically all other ammo types are close to useless. So why flood newcomers with 7 tyes of lenses, all coming in normal, navy, pirate and elite pirate versions… plus 4 T2 variants? It makes no sense, there is no usecase where all that other ammo really shines. Every newbie training Amarr ships is basically told “use those 3, ignore all the others!”. It’s overcomplexity without any gain.
Lasers could be simply reworked to have only 5 Ammo types instead of 9:
- Extreme Range T2 (Scorch/Aurora)
- High Tracking Longrange (Radio)
- Cap Saving (Standard)
- High Tracking Closerange (Multifrequency)
- Extreme Damage T2 (Conflag, Gleam)
You can solve pretty much every combat situation with those and any exception (from which I couldn’t even name one right now…) is extremely rare.
We won’t really disagree that this would be a lot easier to learn and understand for a new player than the existing rack of Conflag, Gleam, Scorch, Aurora, Multifrequency, X-Ray, Gamma, Infrared, Radio, Microwave, Ultraviolet and Standard? From wich only the same few are useful anyway?
Oh I agree that players usually only bring a selection of the available ammo to cover multiple scenarios.
What I disagree with is that the game should be simplified to only include those few ammo types.
I like that there is player choice. That there is perhaps just a little too much player choice, rather than too little. It broadens the game and gives a sense of accomplishment when you’ve figured out which choices are the best for your situation, rather than seeing the options and understanding the ‘best choices’ at first glance. Games like the latter are fun too, for an evening.
If the game is too simple and every range has only one ‘choice’, the game doesn’t really have choices anymore.
It then becomes an exercise of matching the right ammo:
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sry for the late reply Gerard, had to work all day long…
I see what you mean, but I think your conclusion is only correct if you see “selecting the right ammo” as a minigame within the game. I don’t agree here. For example X-Ray, Ultraviolet, Microwave or Infrared lenses aren’t “choices”. They are mistakes, nothing more, nothing less. They create the illusion of choice, but in the end you only learn (or more likely: get told) to simply ignore them.
This creates a gap between players who (yet) don’t know this simple truth (which will be mostly new players) and those who do. An unnessessary gap. It isn’t like you really “evolve as a player” once being told that 4 of the 9 ammo types for lasers are simply crap.
I see the tactical, strategical and social part of EVE as the main game and everything else: Ships, Modules, Charges etc. are just tools. And for tools, I like a clean of that:
a lot more than that:
Exactly!
And having such bad choices is part of good games.
I grew up with Magic the Gathering. Every set had a bunch of really good cards, a bunch of mediocre cards and many bad ones.
Would that game have been better if all the bad cards and this ‘illusion of choice’ had been removed? If every set only contained the top tier deck cards with only competitive cards?
Not really, the whole fun of optimizing your strategy is then gone. The deck building. The minmaxing phase.
EVE too has many choices and few optimal choices. Every ship type generally has 4 variations, one for every faction, even though often people consider only one or two to be viable and ignore the rest.
Should the lesser viable choices just be removed for simplicity? Would such simplicity improve the game?
I say no, variation and lesser but different choices are good for the game.
Only if there are options that are strictly worse in every possible way than another option do I think it is a problem and that the game should fix it, like the Epithal is surpassed by the Squall in pretty much every aspect, but other than that I love variation and the existence of less-often-used options.
Part of playing this game is to select your own top image out of the options given in the bottom image.
My hangar doesn’t have all ships, it has a selection of each of the choices that is optimal for me.
Selecting these optimal choices is also part of the game, a game process that would be deleted if all the less-optimal choices were to be removed ‘for simplicity’.
Na my friend. In MtG the decks themselves are the game. Of course you need a lot of diversity and a lot of different strength levels here, else it would be pretty boring.
Thats not the same like Ammo Choice in EVE, because here it’s not like you have a usecase for the crap ammo. It’s just there, but nobody really uses it. It could be removed without anyone (except some newbros) would even notice it.
Thats not the same like reducing MtG to only the top cards, because, let me guess: not everyone has always the free choice to only pick top cards for their deck, has he?
Unless the ammo is inferior to other ammo in all ways it isn’t crap ammo.
As far as I know there is no crap ammo in EVE, or do you have an example?
I have given the examples. Using Ultraviolet, Infrared, Microwave or X-Ray lenses simply makes no sense in like 99.99% of all scenarios. I can’t swear to god that there isn’t some fancy niche use that one of 3452523433567 players is using and telling nobody about it, but really, that makes no difference.
The named lenses are outright crap. Their slight differences in range/damage/capneed isn’t even remotely worth carrying them and thats why exactly no single good fit ever uses them. Whatver you can do with them, you can do with the standard set of T2, Standard and MF, a lot better.
Why is it crap?
If I compare it with other crystals I see a nice range of range versus damage, with reduced capacitor use if you don’t go to either extreme:
Seems to me like each of these ammo types has it’s own strengths and weaknesses, none is strictly worse than others and players can pick a few of these ammo types to bring. Any choice seems viable.
Why exactly is for example Ultraviolet bad?
Look, I could understand if you only want to bring the ammo on either end for ‘maximum damage’ or ‘maximum range’, but what if your have enough weapon range to want to engage slightly below the max range of Radio crystals? Then the next step, Microwave, can be viable.
And if you’re bringing Microwave for range and Multifrequency for damage you might as well bring Ultraviolet rather than Standard as your new middle ground.
Or you bring a whole set, for fun. Why would you want to delete this from the game?
Flavour is good!
T2 is a different story, not everyone has the skills or the fitting space to equip the T2 weapons required for T2 ammo.
If that would be the case, pilots, especially experienced ones, would use them. They don’t. Those slight differences simply don’t matter.
Come on… people who want to fly laserboats will have T2 Lenses available pretty quickly and even if not (tiny minority), the combination of Radio + Standard + MF solves all problems again. Nobody needs or really uses the other ones. The slight differency are simply not worth carrying them or even switching them out during a fight, because distances change way too fast when you are on the move. Its sometimes even hard to do it with just 3 types. And I say that as a combat pilot.
Justifies nothing. CCP could add 32 more useless lenses in 32 more colours so you could do a lightshow with your own alts. If they want to have lightshows in their game, they could simply add “Festival Lasers” with “Lightshow Lenses” like they did for the launchers. For fun.
Well, I think I made my point clear. EVE suffers from overcomplexity without nessessity in many aspects. Because it makes the game look unattractive for a newcomer that is drowned in the illusion of choices that really don’t benefit him in any way, but he can’t understand that in the beginning. EVEs complexity on basic levels that add no real benefit to the game build a reputation. And this reputation is a deterrent for players who will never try the game. And thats why a LOT of basic things should be simplified and streamlined, following easy principles of K.I.S.S. and then, later on, far beyond “which ammo to pick” questions, the game can become demanding, challening and extremely difficult to master. But not in simple a-or-b choices, but in advanced tactics, survival techniques, group-cooperation and relation-building. Because that is what makes EVE great, not having 9 ammo choices per gun from which like 50% are completely useless.