The current state of charges for turrets is rather sad one. Here is my attempt at fixing some issues (and creating anothers ).
The document I will link is rather huge one, it has “Notes” tab with A LOT of text (sorry for caps, but I don’t know how to stress this enough). If you don’t want to read through text – the link should conveniently land you on the page with the each EVE player’s favorite thing: the numbers.
Before you will go to the document – at your own risk, you was warned; I won’t take any liability for possible side-effect, including, but not limited to, sudden fits of rage, sudden desire to create your own spreadsheet, unability to stop posting extraneous comments in this topic, e.t.c. – so before all this starts, I want you to read very short summaries of my proposed changes.
This charge rework, despite being presented in a single document on a single sheet actually consists of several (sub)parts, that can implemented, discarded or changed regardless of other (sub)parts:
T1 frequency crystals rework
T1 hybryd charges rework
Navy/pirate faction ammunition adjustments
T2 ammo rework – it’s just crude draft and despite having numbers they are just placeholders to indicate direction I think they should take.
T1 charges rework summary
Long-range laser ammo get EM or THER damage or even mix of them.
Close-range laser ammo stays primarily EM with some ammo dipind into EM deeper than now on live.
Long-range hybrid ammo stays primarily KIN.
Close-range hyrid ammo become primarily THER.
State of mid-range laser and hybrid ammo varies between different versions.
Projectile turret charges are intact (at least for now ).
Faction ammunition adjustment summary
Navy ammo got damage bonus reduced from +15% to +10% but got +10%/+15% optimal/falloff range bonus.
Low-grade pirate faction ammo got +5% tracking/cap use bonus (depending on faction) with damage bonus intact (still +10%).
High-grade pirate faction ammo got damage bonus reduced from +20% to +15% but got +10% tracking/cap use bonus (depending on faction).
T2 ammo rework summary
Summary:
Four T2 ammo variations for each of short- and long-range turrets – each T1 ammo has respective T2 ammo variant.
Removal of tracking penalty from shoort-ranged T2 ammo and slight nerf to their damage.
New high-tracking T2 ammo for short-ranged turrets.
New mid-range T2 ammo for long-range turrets.
New cap-efficiency ammo for both short- and long-ranged turrets.
T2 ammo have damage profile similar to the T1 ammo it is based upon (so if T1 ammo deals THER/KIN/EX damage – then T2 ammo will do so too).
Projectiles got additional high-damage ammo instead of cap-efficient one and artillery also got additional high-range ammo instead of medium-range one.
#Behold, Spreadsheet, The
Important note #1:
You will be able to view and leave comments in this spreadsheet.
Please comment spreadsheet if you have something to add to it.
Important note #2:
If you have different and well-formulated opinion on how charges should
be reworked, and if this opinion is incompatible with mine -- please
make you own spreadsheet an post it in this thread.
This thread named "Turret charge adjustment & rework thread for a reason
(and it is for people to productivly share their ideas).
P.S. It would be nice if you will find a time to vote in the polls I will make in my next post
Do you support any of proposed frequency crystals changes?
No – Frequency crystals are, generally, in a good state
No – Frequency crystals need rework, but they should have constant EM-to-THER damage ratios
Maybe – It will be interesting if different Frequency crystals will have different EM-to-THER damage ratios, but all proposed ratios are wrong and should be changed
Yes – Different Frequency crystals should have different EM-to-THER ratios and proposed ratios are close to what they should be
Do you support any of proposed hybrid charges changes?
No – Hybrid charges are, generally, in a good state
No – Hybrid charges need rework, but they should have constant THER-to-KIN damage ratios
Maybe – It will be interesting if different Hybrid charges will have different THER-to-KIN damage ratios, but all proposed ratios are wrong and should be changed
Yes – Different Hybrid charges should have different THER-to-KIN ratios and proposed ratios are close to what they should be
I’m not going to nitpick the numbers - others are much better qualified, but I do have some comments on the concept.
It makes sense that the frequency of the crystal should influence the frequency of the laser and control the ratio of EM/thermal damage.
I have a problem with hybrid weapons in Eve. Are they plasma or projectile or have the engineers of New Eden figured out how to combine the 2 states of matter in the same weapon? Plasma railguns should be primarily thermal damage while projectile railguns should be primarily kinetic. Since we have antimatter, why not degenerate matter (neutronuim)? Current ammunition types (possibly excepting antimatter) are in the projectile category and should be primarily kinetic.
Projectiles are basically small bombs and missiles are basically self propelled projectiles. In my opinion, they should have the same types of damage with variation in size, range and mode of delivery.
Turrets will be undergoing module tiercide this summer and I expect we’ll get precise (tracking), scoped (range), enduring (capacitor) or ample (number of rounds) and compact (CPU/grid) for each class.
I do not believe the ammunition should control the accuracy or resource requirements of the weapon that fires it. Tracking, capacitor, CPU, power grid requirements should not be modified by the ammunition.
The ammunition should determine damage type and the tradeoff between range and damage amount.
I think projectiles should take time to reach their target - offsetting the flexibility to choose damage type. This creates an overlap with missiles but CCP can easily fix that by creating VLS for missiles. Real life navies have been using them for 30 years - someone in New Eden should have come up with the concept!
That is exactly what I did (to the certain extent) with my rework – short-range hybrid charges (the ones, that are used with blasters) reworked to deal mainly thermal damage, while long-range hybrid charges (the ones that are used with rails) reworked to deal mainly kinetic damage.
But there are limitations to how turrets work with charges now, so it is possilbe to load long-range ammo into a blaster and deal mostly kinetic damage – to change this would require also a turret damage multiplier changes (give hybrid turrets different damage multipliers for thermal and kinetic damage type) --as far as I know this is technically possible.
I toyed with this idea (different damage multipliers on one turret) and ended on (as I think) few good solutions, but I’m afraid that this will have severe drawbacks:
It will make hybrid turrets too complex (and there is already a lot of complexity in weapon systems).
It will reduce variety in damage type combination rather than increase it (and increasin this variety was main goal of rework).
Only radio is noticeable (have pere EM). Other craystals all have primarily EM as their damage in the range 58.3% (Multifrequenvy) to 71.4% (Infrared) – it is only a 13.1% difference, which I wouldn’t call “varying levels”. It’s almost unnoticeable, and this difference is only because amounts of damage on T1 crystal kept integers.
There’s literally no justification provided for this or reason for it to happen that I can see beyond “I’m mildly annoyed at the current numbers” on your part.
I can appreciate that you probably put a lot of work into that spreadsheet, but it’s kinda worthless without any kind of justification for why a change like this is desirable. The current setup works fine, the current damage ratios work fine, there’s nothing here that needs to be changed.
Also please avoid any sort of appeal to realism or whatever. CCP as well as half the lore buffs on these forums can provide an infinite wall of technobabble to support or refute any possible lore-based justification for a gameplay change. Gameplay changes need to be rooted in gameplay and balance, not lore.
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