Unless CCP is actually willing to reinvent the mechanics entirely, which I honestly believe would do a whole lot more than just tweaking numbers.

Reducing turn radius of swarm is actually a buff, it allows you to shoot around corners. I can't count the number of times a vehicle tried to escape behind something and my swarms turned so quickly they hit the obstacle. With reduced turn radius they'll get around and hit the vehicule.

What was the reasoning behind making depleted shield regen delay lower than regular shield regen delay? Was this actually intended?

Don't even ask questions.
I am sure we are not worth CCP's wiseness to go through our brains ... I am sure it also makes perfect sense in their heads that a grenade does 900 damage.

The PG cost was reduced considerably.

by 2 pg is not considerably. the kin cats pg now are where they should have been from day 1.

To be fair the packed grenade is rather useless because of the pitiful splash radius.

Dear players,

We have been hard at work, and especially our new CPM, diligently running feedback threads and collecting community thoughts. They proposed a "Top Priorities" list, based on that and my own thoughts, we have a new Hotfix planned out. Now is the time to give us good feedback, but again, a lot of it has been sourced already and we are quite happy with the numbers. If you want to know more about the CPM process, just ask them, they are always around.

On top of that I do have my own ideas, and then we had the 23 pages of "Propose one change for the next Hotfix" thread. I actually typed every single idea from that list, and gave it a rating. I will need to clean it up and share it, because in its current state, it's rated R or 18.

Now to the changes, found here:

Shield Tanking
We are taking a major step towards a balance between Armor and Shield tanking with this new Hotfix, radically strengthing the shield recharge rates, recharge delays and damage thresholds of Caldari and Minmatar Dropsuits. We also reduced the CPU cost of Shield Regulators by almost 20%t to top it off.

HAV/AV Balance
There is a logical thread through this that needs to be explained.

We have talked about HAV vs AV balancing for an eternity it seems. The situation is simply

1.Gallente HAVs are very strong due to Hardener/Repair combo
2.Caldari HAVs are not strong enough comparatively
3.Dropships are ok, Caldari need a PG buff (not in this hotfix) but Swarms are too strong
4.Dedicated AV in the form of a Minmando with Swarms or otherwise, can definitely suppress HAVs and area deny Dropships, but rarely destroy vehicles.

So instead of trying to tweak our way out of this, I propose a radical skill-based solution.

Simply increasing the weak spot on HAVs considerably will allow dedicated AV and other vehicles to use positioning, speed and skill to heavily change the outcome of each encounter without having an effect on Dropships.

Secondly, changing the Swarm Launcher profile to be a new Explosive GÇô Missile, and granting the damage bonus to the Caldari Commando, and leaving Minmatar Commandos with Explosive GÇô Explosives (both have a +20% Armor/-20% Shield damage profile.

Thirdly, changing all Explosive Weapons to deal full damage to HAVs, making the Breach Mass Driver a potent AV weapon in the hands of a Minmatar Commando. Same thing for Assault HMGGÇÖs and Nova Knifes.

All this extra damage potential towards HAVs is met with a strong buff for Caldari HAVs in the form of increased recharge rates and decreased recharge delays. The Gallente HAVs are strong enough to deal with it.

Finally, reducing the Swarm Launcher lock-on range, hit impact and turning radius should improve the quality of life of Dropship users, and somewhat for HAVs.

Rifles
The range discrepancy has made it very difficult to align the purpose and behavior of the fully-automatic rifles. They will therefore all be brought considerably closer to each other, with the Gallente Assault Rifle unchanged.

Scrambler Rifle capability to hold a charge and follow up with multiple accurate hip fire shots is too strong. We are increasing the heat cost of the charge, and thereby reducing the number of follow up shots. The difference should be around 4 shots for a fully skilled Amarr Assault, more for non-skilled users. The movement speed while holding the charge is also reduced by 20%, similar to the Forge Gun.

The Assault Scrambler Rifle is also a little too strong, especially against shields, and we will just increase the heat a little to bring the damage output down to where the other rifles are on the curve.

The Gallente Assault Rifle family is fairly underpowered to the rest of them, not statistically per se, but due to other Assault Dropsuits having better Skill bonuses. ThatGÇÖs why we are introducing a very strong bonus into the form of a ROF bonus for Gallente Assault Dropsuits. Players have been clamoring for a better Caldari bonus as well, and that is being added as a Kick/Recoil reduction for Rail Rifles.

Other Weapons
Breach Shotguns get a Clip and Ammo Buff, as do Burst Scrambler Pistols. Bolt Pistol ROF is reduced but Assault SMGs, Assault Scramblers and Scrambler Pistols get a ROF buff. MagSec gets a healthy damage buff and a charge time reduction. Small Blaster given a robust Splash radius buff to help with Anti Infantry work, especially from the skies, but also from HAVs/LAVs.

Locus Grenade damage progression made Standard and Advanced grenades fairly useless, so we are going to have the same damage for all tiears, with increasing radius per tier. We are also fixing the Packed Locus and buffing the Fused Grenades considerably.

Modules
We wanted to improve the Biotics family so are reducing the PG cost of the KinCats, buffing the Cardiac Regulator. We normalized the Myofib damage bonus but increased base Melee damage on all dropsuits to make up for it.

ThatGÇÖs it for now, go ahead and comment on these changes, that look like they will stir up the meta quite a lot.

nade spammer.

M8 is now a finesse tool :-p

I threw it right at the feet of a Sentinel, didn't even register damage.

I threw it into a little crevice where a Logi was hiding, did nothing.

That is reasson why i have my thingy XD

If not work just use this strategy XP

Get a room

Dont worry boyko, plenty of space for you too XD

Now I remember you...

He's my friend.

Blasters? Nope.
Railguns and Missiles already did (or at least close to full anyway.)

I'm receptive to the idea of separating SLs into long and short range versions. However I advise against separating them too far for several reasons. Most importantly, once we get into a territory where the two variants are separated into "anti-DS SL" and "anti-HAV SL" the utility of each individual SL will be greatly reduced.

It's a good idea to have one SL that does long range supressive damage to both DS and HAV and a short range SL that can kill HAVs and forces DS to immediately flee out of range. But the long range SL needs to be able to deter an HAV that is rolling up to your face and the short range SL needs to be able to keep a DS away. Otherwise people won't use either of them unless they perform so well at their respective jobs that it'll be an unfair fight for the HAV or DS pilots.

would love to have these thoughts spelled out in actual before and after numbers per each swarm variant.

Question for theorycrafting...can missile speed and/or flight range be adjusted between variants? or just lock range?

consider everything to be adjustable. I just need to create a different projectile type if we would do a faster one.

It is also possible to do one missile per swarm, if that's something interesting.

It is also possible to do one missile per swarm, if that's something interesting.

would love to have these thoughts spelled out in actual before and after numbers per each swarm variant.

- 1 "Missile" per shot
- No lock-on
- 400 direct damage per shot
- 8 shots per clip
- 60 rpm
- About the same projectile speed as current Swam Launcher (-> playtest)
- Same splash damage stats as current Swarm Launcher
- Same range of rockets as current Swam Launcher

Does the forge have tracking? the forge is a heavy weapon with loads of drawbacks and therefore packs the highest punch.