I like this advice, though I would recommend beginners consider specific tactics for domination matches: 1. If a gunship is threatening the satellite you can always move to the other side of the satellite. This is very frustrating to solo gunships without good bomber/scout support and they will often come to you. Most opponents are not coordinated enough to get both sides of the node covered efficiently. If you are the only one on your team under the satellite, make sure you do not leave it to chase gunships if there is an opponent on or next to the satellite. 2. If you are on the satellite, you will not have the luxury of flanking a gunship unseen. However, you can still use a scout to get the advantage on them by moving out with an evasion cooldown (running interference, distortion field), flying a little to the side or top/bottom (pick a spot roughly 4000m to the edge of the gunship). 3. If the gunship retreats, go back to the satellite or engage a second gunship. Some of the best gunships really protect their K/D ratio. This is easy to diagnose and exploit if you are thinking about it. They will yo-yo the whole game. 4. If the gunship(s) get run all over the place, allowing your team to solidify the satellite, it does not really matter if you die. It is a trivial point and the respawn is usually quick. (exception: Denon with no friendly hyperspace beacon). 5. Gunships on the satellite are more of a bomber problem than a gunship problem. If they are there by themselves, dive to the other side of the satellite and then chase them down. Watch out for the sudden stop they can do that you cannot do.

I think this could be done with existing resources with minimal modification. The eternal fleet ships would be on rails but make up for it by having superior numbers. Think Space Invaders, only in 3D. For example: Kuat Mesas TDM map: 8 pilots defend a point in the center from incoming NPCs. NPCs come in squads from various approaches. The units flight path are fixed for any one attack squad. Existing Zavuul resources are given the abilities of existing gsf ships. Defenders use gsf ships. 1. Early on, incoming NPC units fly in and shoot objective. 2. Later units fly in and deploy drones and mines and shoot objective. 3. Later units aimbot players with the frequency of shots increasing as difficulty increases, leaving evasion/tracking penalties in tact to reward evasive flying by players. 4. Some NPC units are given EMP pulse with a 10K radius. 5. Some attack squads patrol perimeter for gunships. 6. Multiple NPC squads attack at once with randomization of which ones are coming in simultaneously. 7. Some NPC squads have the same composition with variation in flight path at various points in the attack run to be less predictable (these are not randomized in at the same time). 8. Difficulty is modulated upward using NPC ship number, speed, armor, shields, frequency/damage of aimbot fire. It would take a lot of runs to get the difficulty tuned, but the existing resources could be used. There is also a question whether the engine could run all the NPC units required without it becoming a frame stuttering mess. I could also see levels where players are attacking a bunkered in Zakuul position on Mesas B domination map or a moving Zakuul convoy on Shipyards TDM map (Possibly including a large ship with bomber-drones attached to it). All with NPCs on rails with pre-programmed squads being added in random combinations. This could be a fun game with players completely off rails.

Meta players are not going to switch to T1 scouts if there are mines out in TDM. They will fly gunship. Really good scout pilots choose gunship a lot with even one bomber out in a close shipyards TDM match. We are already choosing gunships over the ship that you think is over-powered.

Guess what? If you are going to impune others' motives, you have the burden of proof. You have to prove, not only that you are right, but also that your opponents are not arguing in good faith. You have the burden. Somehow, you think that you can make these accusations and then force the accused to have the burden of proof. You did nothing to refute that I prefer S2E scouts. Nothing. You just repeated your accusation of false motives. For crying out loud, literally no one opposes strike buffs. There, now you have two arguments that we are arguing in good faith. Are you going to repeat the accusation a third time? Try to shift the burden again?

I prefer to fly S2E to the battlescout. It is significantly more fun for me. I am identified as a battlescout, only because it is the meta ship. I agree 100% that nerfing the battlescout in isolation will be a huge benefit to the gunships. So, I guess you just wrongly accused me (and others) of having false motives in this debate. The arguments that nerfing battlescouts will help gunships are not in any way disingenuous. Motive attribution is often misplaced and should never be supported with "I've always had the impression ..." and "It seems ..." as the underlying source of the accusation.

Long regarded as the ultimate Imperial mine layer, the M-7 Razorwire has received a substantial increase in cargo capacity. The new hull holds a seemingly endless supply of mines.

I love playing scout. I always want to play scout. You do not need to fly bomber to counter other scouts, you can go scout vs scout. It is definitely doable to take on a bomber 1 vs 1 on a node and win, but it is hard to do and takes significant practice. However, you should have a gunship to counter stacked bombers. I would strongly recommend getting a quarrel/mangler and upgrading ion rail to tier 4 before anything else. Flying the tier 2 gunship is inferior under all circumstances. The tier 3 gunship is kind of scouty. If you like flying it, then it is a good choice. However, if the only reason you are in a gunship is to counter stacked mines, the best tool for that is tier 4 ion rail. As a scout, a quarrel/mangler with tier 4 ion should always be on your bar.

My accuracy went up 10% when I dialed it down to 800 and another 10% when I dialed it down to 400. I have poor fine motor coordination and below average accuracy compared to top pilots, though this second change (400 dpi) moved me up a step on the ladder. There was a very helpful thread here a few months ago about accuracy on the final scoreboard. It is derived from clicking on the target at the correct range. Evaded shots do not hurt accuracy. I have found that I can maneuver the ship equally well at 1200, 800, and 400. If ship maneuvering is the issue, then I would recommend taking your ship into the tutorial and flying it hard through narrow spaces, stopping and starting. It should help a lot.

Those look terrible. They should just give strike fighters the ability to ram other ships. All problems solved.

I used turbo plus distortion field and power dive on my type 2 scouts for many months. So much damage on the satellite is predictable and controllable using that build. Too bad it is a liability in total death match and I had to give it up.

This is great advice. Do not spend fleet requisition on anything except ships until you have all these ships and the drone carrier bomber (B4-D Legion, Warcarrier). If you feel that you are struggling a lot, you might consider getting this bomber before the flashfire/sting. You will eventually want to spend fleet requisition to unlock a copilot with accuracy. I would not do this until after KOTFE launches. We are worried that it may bug out the gsf companions. Having an offensive fleet member with accuracy is helpful, you get this at baseline on republic side. On empire side, you can make Salana your copilot to have bursts of great accuracy with the Wingman ability. One last thing that cannot be repeated too often. Rapid fire lasers are terrible. Do not spend requisition on them. Check out the build guide and switch your weapons before you start upgrading anything. It will speed the ships immensely. Many ships feel 50% stronger with just 10% of requisition if it is used right.

From Dulfy.net we also have this cryptic promise: Backus- I will probably lose my job for this, but I can say that there are two things that we are actively working on to address your concerns here and what you describe as ‘better than cross-server’. I can’t say much more than that, except that you will see an announcement and implementation before next New York ComiCon.

Shipyards TDM does seem to favor gunships. I have seen many good scouts go gunship even with just one bomber in play on that map. Personally, I hate that map. It is only one map out of 5. Having said that, gunships are pretty well balanced in domination and Kuat Mesas TDM. I would hate to see them nerfed. Bombers would be completely out of control on all the domination maps if gunships were nerfed.

If the detonation range of EMP missile was buffed to something like 7000 meters, I think the T3 scout would be good against bomber heavy compositions (very common these days). EMP missile would cover both sides of the node (better than ion rail), essentially neutralize all interdiction and prevent activation of charged plating for 15 seconds. The T3 scout could then go harass an opposing gunship off target. Allied bombers and battlescouts would have a quick feeding frenzy. I am not sure what the exact buff to emp missile should be, but I am pretty sure it is between 5000 and 8000 meters detonation radius. With the current detonation radius, it is hard to make that missile work as well as routine ion rail spam for clearing a satellite or a bomber-gunship ball. To be useful, it needs to be decisively better than ion rail for that purpose because ion rail offers many additional uses.

If you clear the intro mission you will have a daily and a weekly appear in its place. Just an FYI, maybe just select it and not track it.

I am pretty sure what Verain meant is that the first upgrades are most meaningful. For example, if I take a Novadive and put 1000 requisition into the rocket pods, I will be able to destroy turrets and charged plating bombers much easier. To me, the next 32,500 requisition on the rocket pods is not as important as that first 1000. Not all components work this way, but every ship has many components that do work this way. There are two things that make this a problem for new players. If either one was fixed, it would not be a problem: 1. Not all components are equal and the new players have no idea which ones are better. If the developers even did balance passes with simple number buffs to the broken components 4 times a year, this would be much less of a problem. 2. A lot of ships start with components that are inferior, most notably rapid fire lasers. Thus, they could easily waste 33,500 requisition on a full upgrade of rapid fire lasers (e.g. my original Novadive). The developers could switch out the starting components to the most popular end components to solve this problem. I actually would not mind if they got rid of ship requisition. However, I queue more regularly at prime time because of dailies/weeklies. It might hurt the queue substantially. It is not clear at all.

Mako has had a very tough life. Cut her some slack. Plus, who else is going to upload your highlights to the holonet. I think you made some assumptions about how all aces feel that clearly do not apply to all aces. See this thread for more information: Do we really need a requisition system? You should also try to come to the stock event on Harbinger. If you think those players are nothing without their ships, try to queue against them. (Hint: many top players go imperial because Salana has wingman).

I was on impside last night. In Drakolich's defense: 1. There were 3 top pilots. Mikaboshi was barely even in meta ships except for the Denon match where we actually threatened them by holding two nodes several times. Drakolich was playing a scout build that is not his best build much of the time. 2. They were clearly trying to counter my scout shenanigans as opposed to killing all the new players to run up their stats (especially in the shipyards 3 cap that you referenced). 3. The impside had an advantage a little earlier in the night. 4. There were two matches going on concurrently so it was hard for them to judge who the imps were in the other match. 5. Drakolich and his various premades do switch sides. I have spent much of my GSF time in solo queue switching factions and picking up 20% vs 50% vs mastered ships to balance the queue on Begeren. There are a lot of changing variables and it is very hard to do. I used to think it would be easy and straight forward, but it is not. It is much harder on Harbinger where the population is bigger and many more pilots are just there for the daily. So, even if a balanced match was Drakolich's main goal it would be difficult. It is fun to play with your friends and I can't fault them for wanting to win. There were a lot of 5-shippers on that faction in the intermediate to good category who were not in the premade. This made a huge difference in how the game felt to the new players on our side and was completely out of Drakolich's control. If Drakolich switches factions, many of those players will drop or switch too. Edit: I wrote this before I saw what Drakolich and Sriia put up there.

Nemarus, this is just a great suggestion. The 30% range and 50% damage boosts seem about right to me. I don't think anyone would take 20% accuracy. 35% +5% +5% +5% accuracy might be worth taking. Plus, if you put 35% accuracy on the starting strike, it will help the new players overcome the tracking penalty. Having said that, if it is that much harder to code accuracy, then just make it 70% firing frequency. Then everything is the same as the current component except for the input constants. The strikes really need a buff and an advanced capacitor might just push the type 1 strike into the top tier of the meta.

Uhhh, this would be a gunship/bomber ball, for sure. Only top players can solo kill a decent player with type 3 scout or type 3 strike. Everyone can use a drone carrier and almost everyone can use a slug railgun. At least 15 seeker mines in a great big pile of drones would be present in every match. Ion railgun AOE is the best way to clear a TDM minefield and keep premades from flying in too close of formation. It is needed. Plus, TTK for a bomber would be too slow in domination. Satellites would be so hard to turn. The game would be much worse off. I think that buffing weak components is the best answer for the weaker ships and could probably alter the meta dramatically. Back on topic: no amount of buffing the torpedos is going to make them competitive on a gunship. However, if you buff the plasma rail and the non-distortion shields enough, it might be worth having two gunships on the bar.

There is a low chance that we get anything more than component buffs or possibly a rearrangement of a tree. Proposal: Plasma Rail: 1. nerf damage to 1000 2. reduce base tracking penalty to 2% 3. increase evasion debuff to 40% 4. increase armor debuff to 50% (charged plating now susceptible to mines) 5. switch crit boost with armor debuff, so that the armor debuff is always in the tree Fortress shield: 1. nerf duration to 5 seconds (10 seconds with tier 3 upgrade) 2. change cooldown to 10 seconds (5 seconds after tier one upgrade) Good gunships tend to behave one of two ways under pressure. Either they turn and shoot you (bursts), or they start stop and keep supporting their teammates. I think that having this build with a short Fortress shield would support the start/stop/support much better, in a way that has not been possible since the barrel roll nerf.

I always use EMP on my T3 scout, because in most scenarios where I would lock one of the other missiles the ship is stripped of shields and/or one shot away from dead. When they first came out, I would use them in competitive matches and the disable ability did help kill intercepted bombers. However, there is no question that I am more effective in the T2 and T1 S2E scout than that build. In a competitive match, I have caused my team to lose by staying alive too long in that ship. A charged plating bomber or ion rail gunship have so many uses beyond clearing the minefield. This is why EMP builds are not competitive. You can clear a satellite with an EMP missile, but these other weapons/ships have so much else to offer. I think you would have to be on Denon, on voice, running some sort of Tensor-fueled bomber blitz between satellites to make it worth while. What we really need to talk about is how to buff the missile to make it much better at clearing mines than the other solutions. I would suggest 2 second lock and 10000 meter radius of effect. I am still not sure it would be worth giving up all those goodies in the other ships.

This is a fair statement. I think there are some completely over the top accusations going on. I had to defend taking Kuat Mesas B the other night instead of trying to defend A and C against a decent team. However, Monumenta, what you said was that people should be reported for "please do not 3 cap." That is clearly what you said and you characterized it as cheating. This is of course completely crazy (see superbowl cheating reference). If you want to report people for chat bullying, that is another issue entirely and depends on what they said. However, reporting people for "please do not 3 cap" is forcing your own will on others. To most of us, it is a clear abuse of the report system.

... and if you don't agree with someone be sure to report them to to the developers for cheating, like Monumenta.

This was mentioned in a vague statement a long time ago. It was renewed in another vague statement August 7. From Dulfy: "Cross server? Not ignoring the issue, something awesome in the works"