Thoughts On Hybrid Changes II - Blaster Battleships

One thing that was brought up in response to my post yesterday about the sniper HACs is that ships should not all be equal in every role for every faction, and in that regard I agree. The goal should not be parity but be competitiveness. The problem currently as it stands is that rail ships are never a realistic option in sniping configurations due to the problems of high fitting reqs, anemic damage, low alpha, etc and if these are addressed in a reasonable fashion than maybe Gallente/Caldarthei the hybitrd ships can be considered in some roles where their advantages can be useful.

Anyway, on to battleships.

There are four tech I battleships with bonuses for hybrid weapons but the Dominix has never been considered a solely hybrid platform due to its drone capabilities, so we're going to ignore it today. Instead we'll concentrate on the tier 2 Megathron and tier 3 Hyperion and Rokh battleships.u

Current State

First we are going to assume a standard role and similar setup of best tech II blasters (Neutron Blaster Cannon IIs) and three tech II damage mods. We will not discount drones in our analysis but they will not be included in the DPS numbers. We will not compare tanking in this exercise as our purpose is more to measure the effects of the proposed changes. For comparision purposes, the Amarr will put forth a similar pulse Abaddon and the Minmatar will present an autocannon Maelstrom .the

Ship with faction ammo	Range	Falloff	DPS	Alpha	Tracking (radians/sec)	Tracking (m/s at optimal)	Tracking (m/s at optimal+falloff)	Tracking (m/s at 10 km)
Megathron	4.5	13	935	4054	0.07442	335	1,302	744
Hyperion	4.5	13	1322	4633	0.05412	244	947	541
Rokh	6.8	13	1013	3707	0.05412	368	1,072	541
Abaddon	15	10	916	3971	0.04219	633	1,055	422
Maelstrom	3	24	878	2854	0.054	162	1,458	540
Ship with Tech II ammo	Range	Falloff	DPS	Alpha	Tracking (radians/sec)	Tracking (m/s at optimal)	Tracking (m/s at optimal+falloff)	Tracking (m/s at 20 km)
Megathron	11	16	745	3231	0.05582	614	1,507	1,116
Hyperion	11	cy by	1105	3693	0.04059	446	1,096	812
Rokh	17	16	840	2954	0.04059	690	1,339	812
Abaddon	45	10	730	3165	0.03164	1,424	1,740	633
Maelstrom	6	36	700	2275	0.0405	243	1,701	810

So, what do those numbers mean? Well, the tracking is the big thing with blasters and the reason why is this: at optimal range with highest damage ammo a battleship sized target with just an afterburner or a MWD with one regular web will move too fast in transversal speed for your weapons to hit it. At optimal plus falloff you have better tracking transversal but fighting in falloff means your hits are missing 50% of the time anyways.

The Abaddon with its big optimal range with Imperial Multifrequency means its lower tracking number is not as much as a problem unless the enemy closes range, while the Maelstrom's big falloff range alleviates some pain (not to mention its ability to switch damage types and not use capacitor).

When we looks at Tech II ranged ammo, the situation is slightly better due to the boost in optimal range, but you still need a web or two to bring target's speed down in order to be able to track them. For an example, a Maelstrom with a Tech II MWD moves 835 meters/sec so that at 20 km the Rokh and Hyperion will have trouble tracking it (as well as fighting in falloff).

So what do the numbers look like with a 20% boost to tracking? Well, assuming my math is correct we get the following numbers:

Ship with faction ammo	Range	Falloff	DPS	Alpha	Tracking (radians/sec)	Tracking (m/s at optimal)	Tracking (m/s at optimal+falloff)	Tracking (m/s at 10 km)
Megathron	4.5	13	935	4054	0.089304	402	1,563	893
Hyperion	4.5	13	1322	4633	0.064944	292	1,137	649
Rokh	6.8	13	1013	3707	0.064944	442	1,286	649
Abaddon	15	10	916	3971	0.04219	633	1,055	422
Maelstrom	3	24	878	2854	0.054	162	1,458	540
Ship with Tech II ammo	Range	Falloff	DPS	Alpha	Tracking (radians/sec)	Tracking (m/s at optimal)	Tracking (m/s at optimal+falloff)	Tracking (m/s at 20 km)
Megathron	11	16	745	3231	0.066984	737	1,809	1,340
Hyperion	11	16	1105	3693	0.048708	536	1,315	974
Rokh	17	16	840	2954	0.048708	828	1,607	974
Abaddon	45	10	730	3165	0.03164	1,424	1,740	633
Maelstrom	6	36	700	2275	0.0405	243	1,701	810

What the impact looks to be is that the blaster battleships, especially the Megathron, will have a better chance at tracking other battleships, but will probably still need webs on target bring its transversal speed down to the large blaster cannons ability to track. So now the question is how much impact the agility and base speed improvement will have on the three vessels and if that will allow the short ranged blaster ships to get in range more easily.