Alena Ventrallis
The Neutral Zone
481
   |
Posted - 2014.01.17 21:24:00 -
[1] - Quote
Okay, so everyone knows how the rifles are utterly imbalanced against other weapons, and more importantly, against ehp of dropsuits. But for me, there isn't really much difference between the rifles. A skin change, and a charge up mechanic for the rail rifles, but other than that, there really isn't anything that makes the rail rifle different from, say, the assault rifle (hereafter referred to as blaster rifle) beyond ranges. In this post, I'll breakdown how each Eve weapon performs, and then how its Dust counterpart could be changed to bring the unique flavor of the Eve weapon system into dust.
I am leaving all TTK concerns out of this, because that is a separate problem that needs to be addressed regardless of any weapon changes. I am also ignoring tracking stats when talking about weapons, as that is an Eve mechanic. All numbers can be changed. It's the concepts I'm trying to get across, not the exact details. That's for CCP to hash out.
First, the rail rifle, my personal favorite weapon. (I try to stick with Caldari tech personally) So currently, the rail rifle is a breach assault rifle, with a small spool up time, then normal assault rifle operation beyond that. Now in Eve, railguns have extremely long optimal ranges, and very high alpha damage. The balancing factor is their rate of fire is laughably low, and they have next to no falloff range. So making the rail rifle a breach weapon doesn't fit very well with how they behave in Eve. So let's utterly revamp this weapon.
Make the rail rifle the tactical rifle. You must spool up the rifle, it fires a single round, and then you must release the trigger and spool up again to fire the next round. Let's also give a boost to optimal range, reduce the effective and absolute ranges, and a boost in damage. Now, here's the kicker. Let the rifle fire EVEN IF YOU DON'T SPOOL UP THE WHOLE WAY. Let you able to empty the magazine (not a clip :P) with no overheat mechanic whatsoever. Now before you grab the plasma pitchforks, here's the balancing factor. Let's make the regular damage very low. Say... 30 damage, which is negligible on most suits fitted. However, have damage increase as you charge up the weapon, to 400% more damage at full spool up. This equates to 120 damage per round at full spool up. Sure, you can spam the trigger and fire off rounds as fast as you please, but it will be extremely ineffective doing so, as the dps of rapid fire unspooled will be laughable, while the alpha damage at range, with someone spooling up each shot to max, gets the full effectiveness of the weapon. If you're combatting someone with a rail rifle, it behooves you to get in close, where your weapon's dps far outweighs his, regardless of whether he spams the trigger or not. The rail rifle will be the long range rifle, but will be outclassed by other weapons as you close the distance.
Now, the laser weapons. I speak of both the scrambler rifle and the laser rifle. In Eve, the Amarr use both short range and long range laser turrets, which in dust, are the scrambler rifle for short range, and the laser rifle for long range. the laser rifle has it's own problems currently, so I'll focus more on the scrambler. Eve pulse lasers (short range, like the scrambler) shoot moderately fast, with above average range and average damage. In keeping with this, let's make the scrambler rifle a breach type rifle, with a small boost to optimal, a reduction is effective and absolute ranges, and a slow-moderate rate of fire. The same as, perhaps even slower than the breach blaster rifle (BAR) we have today. reduce damage per shot to compensate for the increased optimal and ROF. Sounds OP, just as the original BAR was OP, but as it is a laser weapon, we have heat as a balancing mechanic. Have it overheat fairly quickly, and you won't have a new noob slayer. |
Alena Ventrallis
The Neutral Zone
481
|
Posted - 2014.01.17 21:44:00 -
[3] - Quote
Going off of the base numbers of the most powerful Large turrets from Eve.
Railgun: 425mm Railgun II, 57,600m optimal, 24,000 falloff.
Blaster: Neutron Blaster Cannon II, 7200m optimal, 10,000m falloff.
Short Range Laser: Mega Pulse Laser II, 24,000m optimal, 8,000m falloff
Long Range Laser: Tachyon Beam Laser II, 52,800m optimal, 20,000m falloff
Autocannon: 800mm Repeating Cannon II, 4,800m optimal, 19200m falloff
Artillery: 1400mm Howitzer Artillery II, 48,000m optimal, 35,000 falloff.
The range profiles I've described are accurate. |