Gallente is terrible, let's discuss why

[RansomList]

You are right to a point, but small gang to me IS 3-4 people and the cyclone has the same problems as the Myrm as number increase as do all active tanking hulls. Also...

There is no 'cyclones can just roll shieldgank' because there is no reason to fly it like that- because you can fly a Hurricane. Even issues of isk are irrelevant because anyone that can afford a cyclone can afford a Hurricane and those that dont know better or dont have the skills to fly a BC yet, well there is no helping them and it doesn't matter what they fly anyway.

Myrm/Cyclone niche is high output active tanking on a BC hull. In that niche the Myrm is better.

You say tripple rep caps out fast. So does Cyclone Xl booster fit. The difference is, the Myrm can choose to have only 2 reps active where the 3rd is redundant and you are able to micromanage cap and use your reps more effectively- no risk of 'overrepping' and your more evenly distributed rep cycles are better for a sustained tank. You can also carry dual medium boosters and tackle, something the Cyclone most definitely cannot do. If you want to get really nitty gritty, the Myrm can also carry a flight of ewar drones for GTFO of dodge moments, the cyclones DPS is low enough already it cant afford to love its 3 medium/2 light drone flight.

[kyrieee]

For a lot of blaster ships in a lot of situations tracking CAN be an issue, but it's not easy to get around with the way the hit calculation for turrets work. The problem is that when you're very close to your opponent a small change in range is much bigger, relatively. If your optimal is 4km, and your guns track there, but you're at 3km then you track quite poorly because it's 25% inside your optimal, but 1km is nothing and you can't control range that accurately. The problem is that if you make guns track things they're meant to hit then they start hitting things they aren't supposed to. Doubling the tracking of a gun has the same effect as halving the signature resolution of the gun. To get around the tracking problem specifically (not that it'd "fix" blasters) you'd need to make signature radius a function of range. A ship that's close to you is a much bigger target, and that should offset the increased transversal (in radians), but at the moment it doesn't. A battleship can get under the guns of another battleship, it's silly.

[Sepph]

I agree that lowering hybrid PG and CPU costs is a must. I don't see any way around this.

These PG and CPU issues lead to gallente ships being more expensive to fly due to implant and faction mod requirements. You can't make a decent Proteus with less than 600-700M, while you can easily make a 450M Legion.

Another problem is that some Gallente ships have a much higher sig radius compared to other races. I haven't checked this thoroughly, but for instance:
Vagabond: 115m
Zealot: 125m
Deimos: 160m
Vagabond + 2 LSE II: 165m
Arazu: 162m
Rapier: 132m

We're talking about a 30%-40% higher sig radius over Amarr and Minmatar HACs, which practically negates the penalty of using LSE, while Gallente are slowed down even more (they're the slowest of all races already) when using plates.

There are so many things wrong with Gallente right now the best thing to do is just cross-train, seeing as a Gallente boost is very unlikely. If CCP was aware and/or gave a shit they'd have done something by now.

[kyrieee]

I don't know about a cheap Legion. Granted, I don't fly one, but I do like EFT-ing quite a bit and all the different fits I've tried always end up being very tight on CPU, even with a lot of faction gear.

[Suitonia]

What about giving gallente ships bonuses to overheated ABs and Microwarpdrives? Can build in those shitty mwd cap bonuses by just increasing the base capacitor, then giving them something like 10% Speed boost while overloading mwd per level. The bonus only applying while overloading would mean that it wouldn't be able to be used for some faggy kiting shit, but would allow them to get into range, and wouldn't be too much of an easy GTFO option since they have to enter scram/web range anyway.

[Sepph]

I don't know about a cheap Legion. Granted, I don't fly one, but I do like EFT-ing quite a bit and all the different fits I've tried always end up being very tight on CPU, even with a lot of faction gear.

I'll send you a PM with proteus and legion ahac fittings to compare. Seeing as this is not a fittings thread we can continue this discussion via PM.

[Securitas]

You are right to a point, but small gang to me IS 3-4 people and the cyclone has the same problems as the Myrm as number increase as do all active tanking hulls. Also...

There is no 'cyclones can just roll shieldgank' because there is no reason to fly it like that- because you can fly a Hurricane. Even issues of isk are irrelevant because anyone that can afford a cyclone can afford a Hurricane and those that dont know better or dont have the skills to fly a BC yet, well there is no helping them and it doesn't matter what they fly anyway.

Myrm/Cyclone niche is high output active tanking on a BC hull. In that niche the Myrm is better.

You say tripple rep caps out fast. So does Cyclone Xl booster fit. The difference is, the Myrm can choose to have only 2 reps active where the 3rd is redundant and you are able to micromanage cap and use your reps more effectively- no risk of 'overrepping' and your more evenly distributed rep cycles are better for a sustained tank. You can also carry dual medium boosters and tackle, something the Cyclone most definitely cannot do. If you want to get really nitty gritty, the Myrm can also carry a flight of ewar drones for GTFO of dodge moments, the cyclones DPS is low enough already it cant afford to love its 3 medium/2 light drone flight.

You can roll shieldgank in Cyclones, actually, and the advantage is that you have an extra midslot over a cane and can fit more tank, less gank. I did it up in Venal as the baitish ship for my 2-man roams with a friend(yes, you need bait for a 2 man gang. People are so cowardly these days.)

It's not great and 90% of the time you're better off with a cane but it does work fine. You can also fit 3 medium neuts on it which allowed me to break this guy http://securitas.eve-kill.net/?a=kil...kll_id=6682883 . It was so close (half structure for me) that without that 3rd neut it wouldn't have worked.

[RansomList]

Thats just far too situational to ever justify me flying buffer/gank cyclone. The hurricane is faster, does better DPS, can still fit 2 neuts. I'll take that over the 10% (seems too high man) of the time a cyclone might be better.

[Vinata]

Thats just far too situational to ever justify me flying buffer/gank cyclone.

No surprise here - the situation would require you to log into EVE Online.

[Securitas]

Thats just far too situational to ever justify me flying buffer/gank cyclone. The hurricane is faster, does better DPS, can still fit 2 neuts. I'll take that over the 10% (seems too high man) of the time a cyclone might be better.

Well cyclones look like trains of death too. I had a 4x cyclone roam...it was awesome. We had 16 Medium neuts between us and just looking at us flying around was fun.

[Sepph]

Funny how a "Gallente sucks" thread turned into a "which of the Minmatar BC is better" discussion, but I guess unavoidable.

And Cyclone shouldn't be compared to Myrmidon, as they are different tier BC. Rather Cyclone vs Brutix and Hurricane vs Myrmidon (in terms of usefulness of course). Fuck if I remember the last time I've seen a Brutix.

[Viribus]

Funny how a "Gallente sucks" thread turned into a "which of the Minmatar BC is better" discussion, but I guess unavoidable.

Oddly enough the Myrm is one of the few halfway-decent Gallente subcaps precisely because it doesn't have to rely on blasters for DPS, and because it has enough mids for tackle and cap injection (lol enjoy you're 3 mids, deimos pilots), or the option to shield tank.

[Grim]

Back on topic here, you need to think about the overall mindset of each races ships. Minmatar are supposed to be fast and pack a punch. Caldari do long range sniping and missiles galore, Amarr are bricks with lasor that own at most ranges, and Gallenta are supposed to be close range facemelting DPS.

To make the gallente reach their potential they need some kind of ability to do a "ramming speed" attack. Make them too fast and you have them kiting people all over the place like minmatar but with a tank like Amarr. Maybe a boost to how fast they can accelerate would be in order? For most ships their size it takes a lot of time to get up to full speed with the MWD. Cut that down to a quarter, and you would have them be quite agile, accelerating at high G forces, but a lighter ship would still be able to escape since there is no real speed boost, just an acceleration boost.

[RansomList]

No surprise here - the situation would require you to log into EVE Online.

I was subbed last in early January, the time expended doesn't justify the actual reward for actually being logged in atm, unless i was was to effective dropout to play EVE and thats just fucked up and not desirable.

I'm liking this idea of Gallente being 100m sprinters with sawnoff shotguns, better than the current situation with blaster etc.. by far and give them a schtick

[Mira Z]

I'm liking this idea of Gallente being 100m sprinters with sawnoff shotguns

That's how I view them too, the question is how to make them work like that within existing game mechanics.

Edit: Which means that there has to be issues with capacitor, it effectively limits their time mwding.

[Vinata]

Well they were able to add tracking, signature resolution, all that missile stuff - they can easily add an acceleration option.

[Viribus]

Back on topic here, you need to think about the overall mindset of each races ships. Minmatar are supposed to be fast and pack a punch. Caldari do long range sniping and missiles galore, Amarr are bricks with lasor that own at most ranges, and Gallenta are supposed to be close range facemelting DPS.

To make the gallente reach their potential they need some kind of ability to do a "ramming speed" attack. Make them too fast and you have them kiting people all over the place like minmatar but with a tank like Amarr. Maybe a boost to how fast they can accelerate would be in order? For most ships their size it takes a lot of time to get up to full speed with the MWD. Cut that down to a quarter, and you would have them be quite agile, accelerating at high G forces, but a lighter ship would still be able to escape since there is no real speed boost, just an acceleration boost.

That's pretty much exactly what I said in the first page, that Gallente should be able to cover ~12km from a standstill relatively quickly but not be able to outrun minmatar in the long run. This would encourage the two races to play to their advantages rather than minmatar being the jack of all trades and gallente being the shit of all trades.

Frankly, I think web range should be the gallente racial ewar bonus and point range be the minmatar bonus—after all, that would make a lot more sense considering their respective racial doctrines of holding-down-and-fucking and kiting at mid range—but that would cause a biblical amount of distress on eve-o and SHC so it's not even worth considering.

Suddenly blasterazus are extremely viable wololo

[Viribus]

I was subbed last in early January, the time expended doesn't justify the actual reward for actually being logged in atm, unless i was was to effective dropout to play EVE and thats just fucked up and not desirable.

I'm liking this idea of Gallente being 100m sprinters with sawnoff shotguns, better than the current situation with blaster etc.. by far and give them a schtick

I don't have my formula sheets with me right now but you could mathematically estimate the change needed to Gallente's acceleration (inertia mod, whatever) by increasing to the point where the integral of their Vx(t) graph from zero is greater than a comparable minmatar ship's within a certain time frame (say, 5 or 10 seconds). IE so a thorax would cover more distance in 5 seconds than a rupture, but the rupture would cover far more distance in 15 seconds.

Frankly that and some fiddling with PG and slot layout of some ships, and maybe tracking would be all the buff gallente needs; any reduction/removal of the speed penalty from armor mods and many amarr ships would be disproportionately buffed (1600-plated scorch Nomens coming to a roaming gang near you)

[Grim]

All it needs is a change to base stats. Yeah, if you put a full rack of 1600s on it dont be surprised if it goes slower because it has more mass. But just changing the base mass and inertia stats, and an add a ship bonus to MWD impulse.

[Nobani]

If you put in a MWD mass penalty or speed bonus across a large swath of Gallente ships, what existing bonus would you remove?

I think trying to create an armor tanking agility race isn't going to work very well. Sure you could probably force it by changing stats around enough, but it seems counter-intuitive. In my opinion, Gallente has much more synergy with being a long-range race than extreme short range. Nerfing ECM ranges so it doesn't extend out to sniper ranges easily (possibly buffing jam chance to compensate for range loss?), and making RSD effective at sniper ranges gives Caldari the short range ewar, and Gallente the long-range ewar. Make the majority of the Gallente ships primary rail or primary drone boats, with only leaving a couple (gimmick) dedicated blaster boats with a MWD bonus or probe launcher fitting bonus or something.

[Mira Z]

If you put in a MWD mass penalty or speed bonus across a large swath of Gallente ships, what existing bonus would you remove?

The active armor rep bonus ofc.

It's pretty useless outside of certain solo / small gang applications. Most of the active rep bonus ships are the ones that are flavoured as being point blank bruisers, so its a pretty easy swap.

Not sure about the myrmiddon though.

[Securitas]

Haha. I agree with the proposed agility change but just imagined the new nanoed ishtars. :P

[Mira Z]

Haha. I agree with the proposed agility change but just imagined the new nanoed ishtars. :P

Changes should be focused on the blaster boats. 2008 called to say "hi" btw...

[Securitas]

Changes should be focused on the blaster boats. 2008 called to say "hi" btw...

I remember those. Or more specifically, sitting in a sniper apoc in IAC trying to hit them.

[Mira Z]

I remember those. Or more specifically, sitting in a sniper apoc in IAC trying to hit them.

One of my first PVP experiences was sitting on a gate somewhere in the Great Wildlands watching them and the damn vagabonds zipping back and forth raping a FDN battleship fleet.

Sticking most of the changes as a bonus on to blaster boat bonuses should avoid a repeat of that era.

[Grim]

One of my first PVP experiences was sitting on a gate somewhere in the Great Wildlands watching them and the damn vagabonds zipping back and forth raping a FDN battleship fleet.

Sticking most of the changes as a bonus on to blaster boat bonuses should avoid a repeat of that era.

Hence my suggestion that it be a ship bonus and not a module/mechanic change.

[Dwergi]

Well, there's two easy candidates for these changes - Thorax and Brutix hulls. Honestly, if you gave them the increased MWD acceleration (10% per level?), you'd pretty much fix blaster boats. Deimos would get the bonus, Eos and Astarte would get the bonus. Hyperion should probably also drop the active rep for acceleration.

That and making neutrons actually fit on blaster boats would instantly make the Gallente faceraping potential much, much better. You might even see blaster boats flying around!

[Aventine]

I sometimes wonder if Gallente would work as a high speed low agility faction, using blasters with high alpha and tracking. A sort of jousting arrangement where by Gallente ships charge the enemy, unload a staggering ammount of damage, and then spent five minutes turning around to make another pass.

[poaw]

That would be hilariously easy to counter by simply orbiting a blaster boat.

Attempting to make any put any race on par with Minmatar for solo/extremely small gang PvP is a foolhardy endevour because Minmatar will always be better. Having the initiative in deciding fight/flight in general and being so much faster/agile than other races in specific will leave them as the standard because any fight they can't win they can simply walk away from barring any glaring deficiencies in pilot skill.

[Aventine]

You can't orbit a ship fastest than your own, unless it's pilot lets you.

[Malcanis]

I know this has been covered before, but would ball crushing DPS and tracking at knife fighting ranges be acceptable for a Blaster niche (with T2 LR ammo having no falloff but more optimal and the T2 'high damage' ammo having the same damage as normal non faction but MASSIVE increases in tracking so you can hit hulls a size smaller if using webs?) and rails being the extreme range weapons system as they currently are but with better tracking than arty and much less cap use than Beams?

So many problems with Hybrids can be sorted out by just tweaking base numbers on the guns and letting the additive effects trickle down

What does this do for rails?

[FireZeMissiles]

good ideas and yea i think rails really need some love too.

[poaw]

You can't orbit a ship fastest than your own, unless it's pilot lets you.

With low agility he can force you into a situation where he needs to turn. You could simply zig zag away from him to open up the range, then orbit normally. Once people figured out that you can't turn for shit it's back to the old paradigm of kiting with LR ammo till a wreck appears, expect you cold potentially run away.

You'd also need to boost blaster DPS a lot to make those kind of engagements work. Assuming you spend 25% of the time able to apply damage, in order to put them on par with other weapon classes, they'd need to apply 4 times as much damage to be on par.

[Aventine]

That's is certainly true in a 1-on-1, though as you noted it still allows the gallente pilot the option to disengage, and requires the opposing pilot to fly without making a mistake and dipping into warp scramble range. In larger engagements the situation becomes less clear cut.

In regards to blasters, boosting the alpha allows us to leave the dps alone, so long as the tracking is also improved to the point where each volley almost always hits. That does raise an issue where gallente cruisers could potentionally one shot frigates at short range if tracking is pushed too high, but I imagine there's enough room between small and medium weapon tracking for a compromise to be achieved.

[Borza]

With low agility he can force you into a situation where he needs to turn. You could simply zig zag away from him to open up the range, then orbit normally. Once people figured out that you can't turn for shit it's back to the old paradigm of kiting with LR ammo till a wreck appears, expect you cold potentially run away.

You'd also need to boost blaster DPS a lot to make those kind of engagements work. Assuming you spend 25% of the time able to apply damage, in order to put them on par with other weapon classes, they'd need to apply 4 times as much damage to be on par.

This shows that your plan is unworkable.

[BobFromMarketing [banned]]

Without Gallente as it currently is how would I bait 10 man gangs in a single close range battleship and somehow manage to survive? Don't make my beloved blaster hyperion less of a special snowflake.

[Aventine]

Assuming you spend 25% of the time able to apply damage, in order to put them on par with other weapon classes, they'd need to apply 4 times as much damage to be on par.

This shows that your plan is unworkable.

The ammo capacity and reload time of blasters could be adjusted to front load 400% burst damage 25% of the time, and long term dps would still remain unchanged. This is basically the shotgun model.

[Malcanis]

My dumb terrible idea was to make hybrid ammo as different from projectiles and projectiles are from lasers, and to do it like this:

Instead of the normal longer range = lower damage ammo continuum, change Hybrid ammo to a higher tracking = lower damage continuum.

This would me that all hybrid ammo would have a +0% optimal range modifier, but with a [TBC] tracking modifier relative to the damage. As blasters have very little optimal to start with, this means that they can switch to lower damage ammo to use vs smaller faster targets, or vice versa. This stops them being instapwn against smaller size ships while also not being useless.

Likewise, rails would dominate at long range, because antimatter would be the ammo to use at long range but quickly become very weak at shorter ranges.

As a side benefit, the poor old Megathron would become extremely awesome again. Most importantly, hybrids ships would be qualitively different to fly from laser boats or gunships. The railships would be potentially very powerful at midrange, especially the mega and the rokh, but they'd need to be very actively and carefully piloted.

The T2 hybrid ammos would need to be reworked from scratch. It would probably also be necessary to reduce the reload time to midway between crystals and projectiles.

[Borza]

^ I quite like that dumb terrible idea.

[Viribus]

That is actually a pretty good idea, no troll.

I've always wanted a skill that reduces reload times but then again I'm a total sucker for support skills, having spent all of my EVE career training them.

[Malcanis]

When I suggested it the first time, some people told me it was dumb and terrible (although they didn't say why.)

For reference, with that change, assuming damage modifiers stayed the same, a 425mm rail fitted Rokh with no MFS would be doing 335 gun DPS at 108+30 Km using CN antimatter. A Mega would do 366 gun DPS at 72+30.

Those numbers seem OK to me, that's a good range for a "long range" BS to fight at I think. With a couple of TEs and MFS, you can outrange and outdamage a pulsepoc, but tracking would ofc be much less.

The numbers for blasters look interesting - A blaster rokh becomes an interesting beast with 7.2+10 range before range mods. The mega, with its massive tracking bonus, can fit low damage ammo and become a real threat to medium size ships within web range. Blaster boats will definitely want to fit tracking mods now - they'll get as much benefit from them as the AC and arty boats do.

Anyway that's my idea. It has something for Gallante and Caldari, it preserves the railgun as the king of long range combat and the blaster as the king of point-blank face-rape. It's not perfect, but I think it could be a good starting point for a real solution.

[Praesus Lecti]

Malcanis,

So if I understand you correctly, Antimatter would still offer the highest damage output but have the lowest tracking with Lead (the mid-line ammo) having no bias to either and Iron the lowest damage but significantly higher tracking? If that is correct, it's a quite good concept especially if the tracking bonus with Iron (in large guns) could give them the capabilities to accurately track say BC/Cruiser hulls at mid-ranges.

[Malcanis]

Malcanis,

So if I understand you correctly, Antimatter would still offer the highest damage output but have the lowest tracking with Lead (the mid-line ammo) having no bias to either and Iron the lowest damage but significantly higher tracking? If that is correct, it's a quite good concept especially if the tracking bonus with Iron (in large guns) could give them the capabilities to accurately track say BC/Cruiser hulls at mid-ranges.

Yeah that's p much what I had in mind.

It makes rails interesting because they're actually better at long range than close - almost a reverse falloff effect. And they're not obsoleting arty because arty retains the alpha advantage.

EDIT: There are some interesting PvE implications also.

EDIT #2: You can also tweak the idea to buff/nerf blasters without affecting rails by changing falloff as well as tracking.

[Viribus]

This is probably one of the better and more original solutions I've heard in awhile.

Though blasterboats still need an agility buff and slot rearrangement to bring them in line.

[Combat Scrub]

Malcanis 4 CSM!

Seriously, that's good, and might be less work for CCP to change, since it's just an ammo mod. That one, put it in the EVE forum where good things die (Assembly Hall). I'll + it with all 3 accounts..

[Malcanis]

OK I'll write this up in the Assembly. I actually have had some success in getting proposals implemented, but this one is fairly radical, so all the mouthbreathers will foam like crazy about it.

Also no Malc 4 CSM, since it's real work and I'm the laziest fuck in existence.

EDIT: proposal posted: http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard...readID=1473465

[BobFromMarketing [banned]]

The assembly hall is pretty much meaningless unless CCP decides they like your proposal. Even if it gets ten+ pages of unbridled support.

[Malcanis]

CCP cant make that decision unless they see it. The 10 pages of unbridled support serve the dual purpose of making the idea more visible and making me feel happy and loved.

[BobFromMarketing [banned]]

Except they've stated over and over there's no problem with Gallente. Why would they look for a fix for a problem they don't see?

[Malcanis]

Huh dont remind me, I trained Gallante Cruiser 5 and T2 large blasters for Dominion because I thought surely this time, CCP will fix Gallante. Instead we got new projectile ammo and I had to train Minmatar in a hurry.

owned