I understand where you are coming from and I like the viewpoint but my disagreement with you is in the execution or implementation of it.

You are taking Caldari lore...really Space craft and weapons design...and extrapolating what is the basis of your concept from that. The style of combat you describe is accurate only up to a point and particulalry when you look at similar examples form EVE.

For example...many folks think that Caldari are all about slow rates of fire and long ranges and high accuracy weapons. They would be only partially correct. This is almost purely indicitive of the missle / rocket / torpedo / cruise missile line of weapons which has not much to do with Rail Rifles.

When you compare the hybrid weapons (rail and blaster) there is less clear difference in their design than the one you are describing. First, the RoF for like size rails and blasters is not that far off...in fact, they are pretty close. Some style of rails even have a better RoF than some Blasters. The range and DPS are the true deciding factors. Rails don't track as well in close fight but hit pretty consistently in close conditions with some higher skills and blasters have excellent tracking against highspeed targets in close but have serious downsides in falloff damage.

Another fun fact...any ship in EVE that has bonuses to "Hybrid" weapons apply equally to Rails and Blasters. Cal ships generally get more range bonuses and Gal ships more DPS bonus....might be cool to take a similar approach in Dust.



......OK, enough EVE specifics. The whole concept fo the charge mechanic as we have implemented in the game is simply an off-shoot of folks grasping about for ways to differentiate weapons and actual game play as an afterthought. Having a spool time between each shot on an automatic weapon is just not a good design choice from a practical point of view.

My honest opinion is that we should be bringing the weapons somewhat closer in line with each other while perserving their individual flavor.

You are 100% welcome on the show. If you are available this weekned you've got a spot. As I said, ping me in game and we can squad and discuss as well.