My though t is this…Have turret bonuses affect weapons below their size by default. For example, a battleship that gets bonuses to Large Turrets, Those same bonuses would automatically apply to Medium and Small Turrets. For Cruisers and Battle Cruisers, their bonus that affect Medium Turrets would also apply to Smalls. Frigs and Destroyers would not be affected, since they only have small turrets.
This would allow for more flexibility and layered ranges. You could even add more turret hard points to the ship hulls, without unbalancing too much, as long as the PG and CPU stay the same (or change very slightly)
The problem with this though is that a large part of ship design and balance is the notion that larger ships can’t necessarily apply damage effectively to smaller ones (barring drones obviously). Having bonuses trickle down would very easily break this balance. You could end up with battleships having insane tanks applying solid damage with cruiser-like, or even frigate-like, accuracy to smaller-ships.
Also, hard “no” to just adding extra hardpoints willy-nilly.
The big thing i liker about this game over other MMO’s that i have played, is that fits are very situational; there is not really a “perfect” fit. Drones and to a lesser extent, missiles, is where i was going with this. Domi’s and Myrmidons get bonuses to drones…period. The bonuses are not limited to drones comparable to the ship class. Ravens, get bonuses to Heavy Missiles, Cruise Missiles and Torps. Caracals get bonuses to Light, Heavy and HAM’s. What i am suggesting, simply brings turrets in line with other, more flexible hulls.
That ship design philosophy has been shown to be broken in many ways, because small ships can damage up just fine. So it ends up with a small ships being on top at the low numbers end, until fleets get large enough then it’s about enough ehp to catch reps.
However… even in saying that I’m not sure this is the ideal way to fix it. Size locked weapon slots with small numbers of secondary guns might be a better way, so your battleship might have (as an example). 2 small, 4 medium and 6 large weapon slots. So your 2 small guns are slightly less than a frigate has, so you aren’t overpowering them with frigate sized dps.
So the disparity between missiles and turrets in terms of under-sized application is valid.
However, consider this: turrets can do full damage to undersized targets through a combination of good piloting and luck. Missiles can’t do that nearly as well, so it makes sense to have rapid launchers available.
Also, even within a given size of turret, there are smaller turrets available with better tracking that make applying to smaller targets easier. Missiles have no such option, so having rapid launchers makes sense.
A domi that uses small drones vs large drones loses 70% dps, maybe more. Small drones also have a lot less hp than large drones and drone boats that use this tactic can be easily de-fanged.
You cannot de-fang a battleship using small weapons.
The other problem is obsoleting smaller ships. Lets look at a destroyer like the coercer. It’s role is to be very good at hitting frigs at various ranges with its eight small turrets. But to balance that it has poor tanking capabilities.
Now imagine an apoc that gets 7.5% optimal and tracking with its also eight small guns. That’s pretty much the same as the coercer but at the same time it has a ■■■■ ton of tank AND it’s drones. It’s a no brainer. Apoc all the time everytime. Bye bye inties.
Small ships don’t always damage up well. Consider active tanks that can laugh off small ship dps. Large ships also tend to have higher resists thanks to more slots.
Any weapon can do full damage to a target that is not moving, moving slow or least likely, heading straight at you. Rapid launchers do not really come into the equation, my suggestion is about bonuses. Right now, i can put smaller weapons on a BS and it will still have the tank of a BS, even more so since it will have the Cap, CPU and PG. A BS getting bonuses to Med and Small weapons is still going to have the speed, agility and locking speed of a BS
I understand that Small drones are less tanky and do less DPS than large drones, but a Domi, for example, has a huge drone bay and can deploy drones based on what they are fighting. Imagine of CCP changed the Domi so only Heavy and Sentry drones got bonues, the Myrmidon only gave bonuses to Medium and the Algos only gave bonuses to light drones. People would lose their minds over their small, medium and large “Swiss army knives” being nerf’d
Interesting idea about limiting slots to a specific size gun. A possibility that may also work, is allowing the bonuses to go down one size, not right to the bottom. In that case a BS would get bonuses to Large and Medium, cruiser and BC would get bonuses on Medium and Small
Real world battleships had primary (offensive) and secondary (defensive) weapon systems. They were also vulnerable, high value targets that needed to be escorted.
Eve models this with drones as the secondary weapon system for most battleships (primary for a few like the Dominix). I think replacing the drone bay with specialized hardpoints for point defense weapons on a few hulls would add some variety. For the primary turrets we already have dual mount medium guns that are designed to hit smaller targets and receive all bonuses.
The dual mount medium guns do not do significantly different in shooting small targets than large guns do. they are just a name, not an actual dual medium turret.
The problem with this idea is that it will destroy the idea in Eve, that a new player can ‘catch up’ or ‘hold their own’ against an older player in the lower class of ships.
So for Frigs, you can max out your small weapons and frig bonuses and compete with anyone.
However if a much older player was to continue maxing out med then large weapons systems, their frig will get more and more powerful and always be better. (until the new player catches up with all the skills).
It also affects the balance of mission running in frigs etc…
The ship classes are balanced against the limitations of weapons systems, including not being able to use smaller weapons as effectively as smaller ships.
It is not, and should not be, true that a battleship is better in all cases (subcap). This would make that true and turn EVEs complex ship model to a flat bigger is better model.
This was just a thought, mix up the flavour a little bit. All big guns, all small, mix of big and small and be mediocre in fights against both, smaller ships are still faster and more agile.