Ok, two things... this is a space pvp game, not a first person shooter. There should be no concept of a sniper..... period. Secondly, if they are supposed to be bad in close up fights, then they wouldn't have burst laser cannons. At the moment, the gunship has, unbeatable range of any other ship class. The destructive power of the heaviest scout weaponry for close quarters fighting, the speed to out run all but the scouts equipped for outrunning and an ion cannon better than anything else out there that REMOVES any speed or shield advantage another class might have. And thats just one variant. The other one has the heaviest long range lasers available and the heaviest missiles available, coupled with the hardest hitting long ranged cannon in the game. And people argue this is balanced? Get your heads out of the clouds, railguns need to be nerfed... significantly, and i wouldnt stop there, id nerf the sentry railguns range too.

Punctuation bro....That is so hard to read.

slug and ion need a range reduction. 10000km would be ok. Either this or staggered damage like burst. ie the damage increases as the distance reduces. 1600 damage for targets within 5000m 5-10k 1200 damage and max range 800 damage. this keeps in line with the damage missiles currently do with out the long lock times or the notification beeps. Imo it would be fair.

Agree full heartedly. One or two gunships is actually fine. I play a starguard almost exclusively, and I rarely have problems killing gunships in it, but more and more I see the stacking of gunships, which makes flying anything other than a gunship utterly pointless.

You know, in beta they reduced the range of gunships to 10000km. This was great as it meant that the dogfights didn't get broken up so quick. It also meant that torpedo's were more effective at dislodging camping gunships. The problem is not with the bomber class or the gunship class as a single entity. Singular instances of these ships are actually ok. The problem arises when you get 4+ gunships, supported by 2 or 3 drone/mine layers. Penetrating this security net the gunships have with the support of the bombers is nigh impossible with out gunships of your own. In fact the only actual working way i have seen this defence broken is by adding more gunships than the other team currently have. The gunships clear the Mines/drones with the ion cannons, this allows your strikes and scouts to get to the gunships to dislodge them, once they are dislodged the rest of your gunships can finish off the bombers then pick off the running gunships. In order to counter this counter, the opposing team needs to enlist more gunships, once the scouts and strikes have been eliminated by the extra gunships it becomes a sniping match. I see this in almost every team deathmatch. And its rather silly, gunships or the number of gunships, should not decide how the match will play out. Pilot skill and team domination should. This should be a game of intensive dogfighting, but in reality its a little dogfighting until you start a lot of gunship chasing.

TBH, most people in this list for the harbinger are gunship pilots. Donna'lynn has kindly told me that I am one of those people that complain about everything, needless to say, I don't complain about " everything" I just complain about gunships, and gunship stacked deathmatches where you spend the whole time chasing gunships. Im sorry but that kind of game is unenjoyable. I have a lot more respect for people that fly other types and do well. Although, I also think the burst cannon damage needs a small tweak to bring its burst down, but its manageable unlike a hoard of gunships...

Sure, but the only solution to the above makeup is to add gunships. You don't need bombers, eventually the team with the most gunships will win,

All this does is continue to build evidence against gunships and their ridiculous range and damage. Sooner or later, your 2k crits against ships and your insane damage on damage overcharge will be a thing of the past. Personally I cant wait...

Yes, I was an advocate in beta that this was changed, but this was when there was 50% bleed through, I thought now that it was only 20% it would be much move favourable. However, it seems I was incorrect, the damage does bypass the ability and the armour choice.(I got pealed to pieces in seconds by heavies with the active ability on) THanks for the info people. p.s bioware - Please adjust this to make the shield choice worthwhile.

I reserve judgement until I get confirmation of that. THe above does not sound feasible.

This is why gunships need to be fixed.

I don't believe so. Why have an ability that is ignored completely by 50% of the weapons available. No, I think it only ignores the equipped armour slot for ships that have it.

The problems with gunships do not become apparent until you keen adding more to the match. When you reach 4 or more gunships on anyone side in a death match, the only feasible counter is to fly a gunship also. The matter is exacerbated by adding bombers to defend the gunships with railgun drones and seeker mines. If this is the type of gameplay you want, then I can understand why you are defending it and have decided you must tell everyone else that disagrees that they need to learn to play. In essence it detracts from the dogfighting expected by the majority of people that play this game. Now dont get me wrong, railguns are not the only thing that need to be rebalanced, I think burst lasers could use another balance pass as well. Basically anything that can kill something in a few lucky shots is not really my idea of a balanced weapon. Dogfighting is about gaining superior position over your opponent and tussling for target time on them. P.S running back to you cap ship doesn't count as out manoeuvring.

Bioware, Could you please answer a question on how charged plating works with the armour choices on the FT-6 Pike. I would like to know if the passive damage reduction is additive to the active skill. For example, Method 1 - additive Passive damage reduction of 5% is added to active ability reduction of 60% giving 65% of hull damage reduction. 500 - 65% = 175 method 2 - accumulative Passive damage reduction of 5% is applied after the active ability reduction of 60% is applied to the damage. 500 - 60% = 200 - 5% = 190

I had a 8v8 match where 7 of the 8 ships were gunships on one side, and there were 5 gunships on the other. I was a strike fighter and the rest were scouts or bombers. Makes for a dull match. But I guess, welcome to Galactic Gunfighter.

You were probably being sniped by a gunship as well. Heavy laser could only two shot you with damage overload. Even fully upgraded it will take about 8 shots or more to kill you with heavy lasers.

It could have been a seeker mine. These are bugged and you will sometimes still get hit by them.

It doesn't break a lock, it stops you from getting locked on.

Lol, you have 0 engine power, 0 laser power and slowed by 40%. If you can close that gap without thrusters..... well, you must be cheating. Its not that your shield arcs are gone,... its that you are dead in the water, if the gunship doesn't kill you, the scout behind you will.

If you are using Slug as your first shot on any ship other that a scout id say your doing it wrong. ION rail is a hard counter to any ship. one hit with this and then one with the slug. goodnight...

Oh my stomach hurt with laughter when I read this. Pike lol. You were right on one thing tho, I cant fly for ****.... lol

So what would you recommend? The above comment is hardly adding to the topic. Out of the 4 classes, the best counter to the gunship is a gunship. The best counter to a scout, is a gunship. The best counter to a bomber, is a gunship, The best counter for a strike fighter, is a gunship. As you can see, gunships have an edge.

I actually think it was a needed change. I play sentinel, particularly smash spec, and the AOE component in PVP was OP. It has been for some time. In saying that, the nerf was pretty evently handed in my opinion. Keeping the single target damage, and removing the auto crit and damage increase from singularity on subsequent targets was actually the right thing to do. This way you keep your high single target burst, but you cant just smash a team into the game like no other class. You could basically have one melee dps doing the work of three, which was never balanced. I welcome the days of watchman pvp back, alas, that will not happen so combat seems to be the most viable. Most sentinels had already switched to combat for pvp anyway.

you should learn to contribute more.

I have also "took-en" out bombers. Destroying them is not the issue. Its when there are many in one place along with gunships. For the record, took-en, is not a word.