Hi,

After reviewing the rifle tuning that CCP Rattati posted here I want to go over some suggestions for...

1. The breach AR
2. Future rifle variants

In Rattati's proposal the breach AR has been set in line with the regular AR. From my understanding the breach AR is a rifle that is trying to mimic the Caldari's rail tech. CCP Remnant stated this philosophy before.

CCP Remnant
"The idea being that each race will have it's base variant be Assault, (Gallente) Burst (Minmatar), Breach (Caldari) or Tactical (Amarr) and then the variants are a specific race's take on the others using their own tech. So, you'd get an Assault Rail Rifle that attempts to somewhat mimic the behavior of the Gallente Assault Rifle and a Tactical Assault Rifle that attempts to mimic the Amarr Scrambler Rifle and so on." Link

and also

"Assault Rifle (Hybrid - Plasma) - short range
Combat Rifle (Projectile - Autocannon) - short-mid range
Scrambler Rifle (Laser - Pulse) - mid range
Rail Rifle (Hybrid - Railgun) - long range"

With this in mind the rifles should follow this DPS vs Range

Increasing Range & Decreasing DPS -->
Assault (Gallente) --> Burst (Minmatar) --> Tactical (Amarr) --> Breach (Caldari)

The Plasma Rifles currently have all variants however there is an outlier in the Breach AR. Actually, currently it seems that Tactical Weapons are supposed to be the longest range of the rifle variants so that..

Increasing Range & Decreasing DPS -->
Assault (Gallente) --> Burst (Minmatar) --> Breach (Caldari) --> Tactical (Amarr)

I don't think this is the philosophy we want to follow.

The current proposal for breach weaponry is too similar to the assault variants and does not leave much room for new rifle variants that have a unique feel. I propose we take this opportunity to correct this. However, I understand this may make significant changes that we probably don't want to make at this point. Regardless, the breach AR should have a longer range, and thus a lower dps, than the regular AR. So there are two paths I think we can take.

1. Use current philosophy to correct the Breach AR and add rifle variants
2. Use the old "correct?" philosophy to define the breach line of weaponry and add rifle variants.

Here's a spreadsheet that outlines this.

Rifle Tuning Doc

I followed similar linear trends that Rattati has posted for the rifle tuning. I used these linear trends to calculate a correct DPS while guessing at some appropriate ranges for both our current philosophy and the old rifle philosophy. I didnt bother to plot them up because google docs has an awful plotting interface. (im used to excel i guess)

As far as implementing the new rifle variants I believe we can use existing rifle models with and without scopes. I do think the burst AR should not have its scope. The breach AR should have a scope and considerably more kick if its range is buffed to match the old "correct" philosophy.

Please don't go into too much detail into the new rifle variants in the spreadsheet other than their DPS and range; their damage and ROF were just guesses. The main focus should be on the Breach AR

TL;DR:
Breach AR in CCP Rattati's rifle tuning doesn't make much sense IMO. I propose we adapt the old philosophy where...

Increasing Range & Decreasing DPS -->
Assault (Gallente) --> Burst (Minmatar) --> Tactical (Amarr) --> Breach (Caldari)

I presented some numbers for the breach AR under this philosophy, presented in the spreadsheet above. Obviously if we give the breach AR the highest range, it should have considerably more kick than it currently has, as well as a scope.