Thanks, reading it as i type

Laser you have a point, but forcing your opinion / being negative takes away the meaning. Humanity sees negative before positive (i can do 1000 good, but 1 bad will take it all away), it's up to you how you want people to see your posts. Yknow what i mean?

1. Im a negative person when it comes to vehicles, all i have seen in this game is nerf nerf nerf and more nerfing to vehicles since it began so anything positive i take it with a pince of salt because if they are good infantry will get them nerfed again and the cycle will never be broken and vehicles will never progress from WP pinatas to actual useful assets to have on the field

Despite having ~400 more DPS, the engagement range is literally half of what the Forge Gun is. Given how CCP's weapon philosophy is [Range <-> DPS] this is balanced.

It's kinda both. Ditching Minmando bonus would be one thing to help. I don't think any suits should get AV related bonuses it just invalidates the usage by other suits(if it's balanced) or makes them ZOMG **** your Incubus in in three rounds(otherwise).

Against an LAV? Not even remotely.

Matari Commando vs. Saga

Volley 1: -1323 HP (721.6 Armor HP Remaining)
Volley 2: -2067 HP (-1346 Structure HP Remaining)

TTK: 2.5s

Matari Assault vs. Saga

Volley 1: -1328 HP (128 Shield HP / 900 Armor HP Remaining)
Volley 2: -1838 HP ( -964 Structure HP Remaining)

TTK: 2.5s

Not trying to start an argument, but MinComs only have 2 High Slots.

To put that into perspective, MinAssaults with 4 DMs can reach +20% Damage (with stacking penalties) while the MinCom can reach +23.5% Damage with 2 DMs.

The 3.5% won't increase the SL's TTK (neither would the 5.5% if the Assault only used 3 DMs).

The time it does take to fire three volleys of swarms is stupidly low. For sure.

Mostly my problem with the swarm logic is there is no margin for error on either side. If swarms were more flexible and pilots could actually use buildings to evade as often as not we would have less whining.

Did you look at my flight time thing? It's a thought. I think it's better than todays blow your wad NOW meta.

1: Light weapon AV values are all over the map. Swarms are almost 400 DPS ahead of the IAFG and the PLC is one of the lowest applied DPS weapons in DUST.

2: Heavy weaponare hamstrung by poor damage mods which add nothing to TTK in most cases.

3: Standard and breach forge guns are inferior in application to the Assault Forge Gun in almost every possible way and are poor choices for AV.

4: Lacking Racial parity in both turrets and infantry AV is creating poor interactions allowing one weapon or one chassis to always be clearly superior.

5: Heavy missile turret burst DPS negates any utility armor vehicles might otherwise have.

6: The railgun maintains the highest alpha, range and sustained DPS among vehicle turrets.

7: the blaster has the worst range, alpha and sustained DPS of all the heavy turrets. It's dispersion is too wide to be of much utility vs. Infantry. Blasters are the worst choice for a heavy turret in all situations.

I am quite sure there are more issues.

Also where there is a good balance struck we need to look at. While we're fixing what is wrong let's not overlook or lose what is right.

As a tank hater I would not be against this but I would like either increased ammo supply or further reduced efficiency of the vehicles main blaster

An increase in the distance you can get a lock might also balance lower dps

Breach is not a viable AV weapon by itself.

2: Heavy weaponare hamstrung by poor damage mods which add nothing to TTK in most cases.

6: The railgun maintains the highest alpha, range and sustained DPS among vehicle turrets.

7: the blaster has the worst range, alpha and sustained DPS of all the heavy turrets. It's dispersion is too wide to be of much utility vs. Infantry. Blasters are the worst choice for a heavy turret in all situations.

Breach is not a viable AV weapon by itself.

Heavy mods weren't rebuffed solely because of the HMG. Rattati mentioned that once.

I should have clarified and said single shot alpha for rails.

The burst DPS of the missile turret is beyond excessive. There's no other weapon that can hit 3000+ DPS.

And I have yet to encounter any situation in my madrugar where a rail hasn't been the superior option to the blaster to date.

Right now the rail is the best all round weapon for heavy turrets.

Finally the dispersion for blasters vs. Infantry is horrendous.

All of my OP assertions are tested in game and crosschecked with numbers.

1. Missile turret is made for high alpha and the SL in uprising could hit 3k per volley from 6missiles

2. If the missile turret did any less then why pick that over the rail?

the problem with the missile turret is the high adds vs. armor tanks. You can get close and shotgun an armor tank, a point you have made before and I have experienced firsthand. And the Swarm Launcher from uprising doing 3k a shot ticked me off righteously. It made running a forge gun the idiot option, because easy street was a couple million SP away.

Rails being highest single shot Alpha and longest range should have the lowest DPS out of all of the turrets.

If Missiles were more between rails and blasters for efficacy we could make a case for the projectiles moving faster so you could hit the targets more accurately further out than a blaster can clip optimally.

My problems with heavy turrets are that the Railgun is hands down the most efficient in all situations, and is more likely to kill infantry in blaster optimal than the blaster, and the missile turret can blap any armor tank you can field because 3,000+ DPS not including damage mods, skills or the profile bonus vs. armor.

Are there highly skilled blastermobile drivers? Yes, and my hat's off to you.

However, until the heavy turrets conform to the standard progression of High alpha = Lower DPS and High DPS meaning lower alpha across the board, HAV vs. HAV fights are going to remain the short, brutal affairs better reserved for those charming times when a scout meets a sentinel.

Let's assume we gave the SL an increased lock-on-time (~2.5 secs) while increasing lock-on range (~250 m) and adjusting for DPS. Would it then not infringe on the purpose of the FG?

Other than that I do think the PLC should be the 0-75 meter AV weapon of choice. For that it mainly needs a direct damage buff of about 30%.

But if swarms have full range, wouldn't that means swarms can control a great distance, rendering an entire 400m sphere vehicle-less?

Or am i understanding you wrong breakin?

slower rate of fire means pilots still have more time to react and get to cover. I have a theory about how swarms track, and if I'm right I'm going to facepalm.

I think swarms update the target's last location based on a timer. So every... we'll say half second it updates the target location. So it bombs along on the last valid trajectory and THEN updates 30m later.so your dropship bolts around a corner where they should turn and ram.

But they overshoot and turn the corner because they had not hit their update tick yet. It's a way to save processor speed by not having them update constantly and having swarms eat all of the calculation time.

basically to fix tracking the algorithm needs to be reset to always zero in on the target rather than follow it's pathing.

I think swarms update the target's last location based on a timer. So every... we'll say half second it updates the target location. So it bombs along on the last valid trajectory and THEN updates 30m later.so your dropship bolts around a corner where they should turn and ram.

But they overshoot and turn the corner because they had not hit their update tick yet. It's a way to save processor speed by not having them update constantly and having swarms eat all of the calculation time.

basically to fix tracking the algorithm needs to be reset to always zero in on the target rather than follow it's pathing.

so the longer the flight time the more chances a dropship has to get behind something solid

What about increasing the amount of time it takes for swarms to update and reducing the rate that they turn? Ie make them clumsier. I don't think this would change too much for ground game as it's not terribly hard to get them to smash into cover etc, but it could make worlds of difference for air.