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I don't think taking BLC from the T2 is necessary. A scout is meant to be the most maneuverable ship in the game, and BLC are the correct weapon for such a ship. True, a BLC/pods build will still be the highest burst build in the game, but BLC/ion cannons will be quite a strong build too. You can strip the shields off a scout in the T1 with that build before the scout ever makes it into range, and BLC will offer force the scout to outmaneuver the strike. Combined with a strike's superior shields and hull, that might be enough to make the difference. In general, I don't think strikes were meant to be close-quarter killing machines. They are mid-range fighters, and can if pressed hold their own in CQC. As for choosing a strike over a T2 scout, here are some examples: killing bombers. A T1 strike with BLC will be a much safer choice than the T2 scout (due to CP/directional, and a range advantage). You'd sacrifice some burst for tankiness, but you'll still have enough power to down a bomber quickly with BLC alone (before considering long rang blasters). while a scout will still be better at killing a single bomber, the T2 strike will be able to keep constant pressure on a node with EMP/concussions. It will also be able to control any ship handily with ion/interdiction missiles chained.

Thanks for this. It means a lot to us.

I completely forgot about that suggestion, I think it's a great idea as well. I was trying to keep the OP as simple as possible because I feel adding special 'strike-only' components or such makes for a cumbersome fix. I'd love to see strikes having something special going for them though. There is always hope. MaximillianPower actually gave exactly the answer I would have. I don't really have hope, but I did see the devs turn some attention to GSF (either via unassembled components, or datamined stuff that can't be discussed here). I think now is as good a time as ever to remind them that some fixes are in order. Maybe it'll pay off. Yes, but I wasn't talking about balancing the game as having even teams - that would be possible even if only a single ship with a single build would be meta. Everyone flies that ship, and problem solved. I meant balancing components so that you can create a viable build with each one available - no trap components, no components that are only good for trolling. A balanced component would have its weaknesses and strengths, but it would be never be a horrible choice in all situations. I did not want to suggest giving the T2 strike PD for two reasons: PD is already abundant, and it's the natural counter to the T2 strike. Having it on it too would make one more ship missile-resistant. If strikes were to be buffed, they would be the no.1 target for missiles, and that's how it should be. If strikes get the engine efficiency buff suggested (as scouts do now) ion would be less of a problem. Certainly id quick-charge shields are buffed and the ion reactor disable is nerfed, there will be enough counters to ions to make this issue quite small, I think. As for cluster spam, the T2 strike already has two counters - CP and directionals. I actually rethought that buff, and I think that if anything EMP might need a nerf to the debuff uptimes after that buff. You'd be able to keep any ship on a node/in a nest under 100% systems and shield/engine disable without much trouble (you can land an EMP every 8.1 seconds with the buff and Rapid Reload). Combine that with 11k range, and I really do think that EMP would be an excellent way to clear nodes. Ion GS, for comparison in spoiler: Remember that, while an ion GS ion 3 times for each EMP, the ion GS can only clear 3 mines that way (or 4, if the first shot is on a mine) while EMP clear out all the mines and also disable drones/turrets. I'm not suggesting EMP will suddenly replace ions as the best way to clear mines, but I think they'll become pretty much necessary to clear nests and bombers. They'll definitely be a more reliable choice than they are now, and I think they'll not be a bad option ever. Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it!

Battle scouts are not OP, they are the only ship in the game with hard counters - railgun drones and mines. Gunships and bombers can do their job from range our out of LoS, scouts cannot. In low-level matches scouts can do well, but it's quite easy to render scouts useless - 2-3 bombers on a team will force any scout to either swap ships or die repeatedly. It's fine, every one of the three useful ship classes has been called OP at some time or other here. It goes to show, it's all a matter of perspective. Thanks for making your point relevant to the discussion at hand and not personal. It makes you more convincing that way. Did I make an angry impression? I'm not. Either way, this discussion seems to have gone off the actual topic (if it ever was on it), so I'll leave it at that.

Even with DO and engine overcharge ions will put a strike at a dead stop outside of any threat range. A couple of taps are all it takes to render that strike dead in the water (I've been on both sides of this fence, might even have a recording somewhere). Scouts are more mobile than strikes, more maneuverable and more evasive. You know this of course, but what we disagree on is the fact that you need to fly against a 4-man in order to find that out. All you need is a single good scout or gunship pilot to fly against you and you learn the weakness of strikes. I'm sure you have taken me out. I'm not invincible. However, I do doubt your contribution to your team in such cases (unless we were a bunch of new players). I don't only fly the Flashfire. I fly the Condor and Quarrel close to equally, and I bomb with the Rampart quite often as well (although not as often and certainly not on Harbinger). Point being, when I think the match is going to be serious you probably won't see me in a strike. That's because I know they're weak, not because I don't like them. What crew is this that you'd like me to give your fondest to? I'm not offended by you being better in strikes than in other ships. Perhaps you are, I do not recall seeing you in a strike, much less in any other ship. If anything, I will be disappointed to find a strike on my team in any serious match, if the player has a better option (read: pretty much any other ship in the game) on their bar. I am also amused that you think I only fly gunships and scouts. Of course I do in serious matches, they're better. Don't worry, I also fly strikes. Clarion on TRE - Quell on TRE - Pike on SL - Star Guard on TRE - I haven't recorded in a while, but rest assured I still fly strikes regularly. The difference between us seems to be that I don't confuse weak opposition with good ships. Recording no. 3 is a prime example of how easy it is to shut down strikes, by the way.

Why aimbots would be useless in GSF (or mostly so): In GSF, your ability to hit your target is governed by two factors - your ability land the shot on target, and your ability to center the shot. Take for example the most obvious candidate for aimbotting - a gunship with railguns. Any railgun has a 5% accuracy drop per degree off center - meaning, if you're two degrees off center you're losing 10% accuracy against your target. Two out of the three railguns have an upgrade that eliminates the first 4% penalty you receive, but after that you still get that extremely harsh tracking. An aimbot can't fix for tracking, only for your ability to place your cursor on the enemy's targeting reticle. Meaning, more often than not using an aimbot will result in firing high deflection shots. 6° off in a slug railgun (half your firing arc, depending on your crew) is -25% to your accuracy stat. if you add to this passive evasion, you're left with ~50% hit chance on anything more than a bomber or a strike. Even without a cooldown active you have less than 50% of hitting a scout like this. As for aimbotting on scouts or any other ship with blasters - in GSF you're moving while aiming with blasters. Any app that will snap your mouse to your target will gimp your ability to control your ship while aiming. In short - aimbots are a possibility, no one would argue otherwise. They're not a reliable option though, and their worth is doubly questionable when regarding accuracy, evasion, tracking and movement in GSF.

A gunship wall is harder to counter than any other tactic in the game because when built right it has very few exploitable flaws. If an enemy team spawns too many bombers, gunships can take them out from a safe distance. If they spawn too many scouts, bombers are the natural answer (railgun drones ignore evasion, seeker mines force tem to save their cooldowns). However, a couple of bombers and the rest of the team in gunships cannot be easily countered by any other composition. Scouts are forced to pop distortion field when approaching a good gunship or they will be shot en route. This only leaves them with a single missile break, even though they'll usually be flying straight into a nest of seekers (not to mention the Condor/Jurgoran has cluster missiles). Once they've used both cooldowns, they are forced to retreat and wait for them to refresh. A good gunship will simply kite through DF and then shoot you. You can't endlessly chase them because you'll die to other gunships, or bomber ordinance. You can only maintain your stay in enemy nests for a maximum of 6 seconds. After DF wears off, good gunships will kill you. I mostly agree with this. However, sensor dampening will usually be useless, and taking a long detour in order to deroost enemy gunships is not worth the time in my opinion. Sensor dampening will be useless because you won't be able to hide inside 15k of their focus cone, meaning they can see you where it's important. Furthermore, taking a long detour takes you out of the match for a longer time than it takes them, meaning you're gimping your own team by doing that (even if they can't see you approaching on the minimap, which the most probably can). As stated however, using your evasion cooldowns in order to make your approach means you won't be able to stay in for long. Fact is, gunships are complimentary to each other because they cover both close and long-range effectively. A bomber or two can fill in the rest. In TDM (and TDM only, domination is a different matter) scouts won't win a match against a competent bomber + gunship combo.

What does this mean? That two or three players chase you? That's not because you're good, that's because you're food. Notice the 'f' instead of 'g' there. Gladly. Although I have been flying on Harb every day for the last couple of weeks and not even seen you once. Not to mention in any of my other 500 matches there. I see now. You meant to say that you lose when not in a strike, and that causes your team to be frustrated. That's believable. What isn't is that you would win under the same circumstances while in a strike. However, I'd love to be proven wrong. I can be found under Close shave-srw mostly on Harbinger pubside. Let me know if you can show me the error of my ways.

I have been GSFing for a while now and I believe I understand the game mechanics well enough to comment on the various components with regards to balancing them. No one who has flown for a long time will claim that all ships can be brought into a serious match and be expected to perform on the same level. I think it is mainly because of how certain components outshine others in too many ways, leaving little choice as to which ones are taken. Without further ado, here are my ideas for fixes, starting with components and moving on to ships. Critical fixes (bugs) are labeled in red. Some of the ideas here are mine alone, other ideas come from discussion with friends. In either case, these buffs are what I think is required in order to make more components and ships viable. Missiles: General fixes: Missiles (all weapons that require a lock on their target) are now divided into three categories – short, medium and long range. Short range missiles have 5000m range baseline (before upgrades), take 1.5 seconds to lock on to their target baseline, and have a 3 second cooldown baseline. Medium range missiles have 10,000m range baseline, take 2 seconds to lock onto their target baseline, and have a 6 seconds cooldown baseline. Long range missiles have 15,000m range baseline, take 2.5 seconds to lock onto their target baseline, and have a 9 second cooldown baseline. Additionally, short range missiles all have a 24-degree firing arc and cluster missile speed baseline, medium range missiles have a 20-degree firing arc and concussion missile speed baseline, and long-range missiles have a 16-degree firing arc and torpedo speed baseline. Reasoning: Currently, missiles are underpowered in GSF. The only truly viable missiles are clusters, and only because they can be spammed faster than ships can break them. Even they have trouble with certain builds (powerdive/distortion field scouts can break three volleys in a row). I think increasing the range for medium and long-range missiles will make it harder to escape them, and reducing the cooldown will mean that after one or two misses you will land a hit. At the very least, your opponents will be forced to respect the fact that you can keep them under pressure for as long as needed. Increasing the firing arc for long range missiles should make them more viable against targets more maneuverable than bombers. Due to their long lock on and cooldown, they still won’t be a real threat to scouts and gunships, but they will land on strikes (as well as scouts or gunships who have lost their breaks to other missiles). Cluster missiles: No fixes required. Interdiction missiles: Now considered short range missiles. Baseline interdiction effect reduced to 4 seconds (down from 8 seconds), T2 upgrade (Reduced Reload Speed) reduced to 0.5 seconds (down from 3 seconds), T3 upgrade (Increased Slow Duration) reduced to 1 second (down from 2 seconds). Reasoning: Currently, interdiction missiles are useless. They are very powerful, but only situationally. There are many better and safer ways to slow down a target – ion railgun, interdiction mines/drones, even concussion missiles. For such a short range these missiles are impossible to land on anything more than a bomber, and if you’re getting that close to a bomber you may as well kill it. Side note – another fix would be renaming the T2 upgrade to “Reduced Reload Time”. The current name does not reflect on the upgrade. Ion missiles: Now considered short range missiles. Reasoning: Ion missiles are the worst missile in the game currently. They deal low damage compared to their lock on and reload time, it’s never better to use them over your blasters. Their power drain effect is pitiful. If they were to benefit of the shorter reload and lock on that short-range missiles will get, they would be much more useful for a reliable power drain and keeping shields down. In return for this buff they will be sacrificing range. Concussion missiles: Now considered medium range missiles. Reasoning: Concussion missiles are quite close to being perfect in my opinion. They have decent damage, decent lock on time, decent reload time and are highly customizable. Their downfall is that they’re impossible to land and most ships – mostly because most ships have two missile breaks. The extra range will enable them to land even on a ship that has barreled out of range, and if strikes will be more viable they will be an obvious target for these missiles. EMP missiles: Now considered medium range missiles. Reasoning: EMP are meant to clear satellites from bomber spam, but ion railguns are a more reliable tool for that job. The increased range and ability to land them more often should make them better suited for the job. Combined with the fact that they disable systems, this buff will make them almost required in domination, instead of being a slightly amusing missile to be used in lopsided matches. Sabotage probe: Now considered medium range missiles. T5 upgrade (Speed Reduced) no longer removes all other effects of the probe. Base effect duration reduced to 2.5 seconds (down from 6), T3 upgrade (Reduced Cooldown) reduced to 2 seconds (down from 5). Reasoning: The T5 upgrade is a bug, and should be addressed. Making sabo probes medium range would make them an actual counter to scouts – they will be possible to land on them making the evasion reduction worthwhile. The nerfs to duration and cooldown should balance out their viability. Torpedoes (proton + thermite): Now considered long range missiles. Thermite locks no longer randomly break while inside firing arc. Reasoning: Torpedoes are meant to be heavy ordinance. They are, but as they currently are set, they are impossible to and even on bombers without them going AFK. The additional range will allow them to threaten any ship (even if they most probably won’t land on anything but a bomber), giving them additional utility). ---------- Primary weapons: Rapid fire laser cannons: Range increased to 500m, 3,000m and 6,000m. Accuracy increased to 110%, 95%, 85%. Reasoning: RFLC require an immense uptime on their target to be of any use, and even then, they don’t really offer any advantage over the other short-range blasters. They deal less DPS and damage per shot than both other options, have worse tracking than BLC and worse accuracy than LLC. There is no reason to take them in that category. However, were they moved to the long-range category (currently consisting of only HLC) they would offer a new option – a large firing arc, good tracking and high sustained DPS. This would make them good against any non-armored target, and HLC would cover the other options. Additionally, they would be viable in close-range while HLC lack in that area. Ion cannons: Range increased to 500m, 3,000m and 6,000m. Reasoning: Ion cannons have incredible DPS vs. shields, but that’s not enough. The problem is that by the time you’ve managed to get into range to use them, most likely your target’s shields are already almost gone rendering them obsolete. Increasing their range will mean that they can be used to clear out shields before landing any missiles or finishing off the target with close-range weaponry. LLC: Accuracy increased to 110%, 95%, 90%. Reasoning: LLC offer the highest DPS in the game in theory, but most blasters will out-DPS them in practice. They lack accuracy at range, and close-range the tracking penalty will often offset their increased accuracy. As it stands, BLC have higher accuracy than them from 2,250m and outside that range you’re better off using a mid-range blaster. With this accuracy fix they should be a viable choice for all their range – making them a short to medium-range blaster in contrast to BLC – a short to point blank-blaster. All other blasters are fine as they are, and require no tweaking. ---------- Railguns: Plasma railgun: T3 upgrade (Reduced Power Draw) is replaced by an upgrade named “Reduced Evasion and Damage Reduction”. This upgrade reduces target evasion by 5% and target damage reduction by 10%. Reasoning: Damage over time is already quite weak in GSF when it is dealt to shields, because shields regenerate on their own and the damage can be avoided by turning your ship around. This railgun should offer more team utility for the tradeoff it requires – lower accuracy than the other options and lower effective damage. This upgrade promises that plasma shots will always be at least partially effective against any ship regardless of which upgrade was chosen in the 4th tier. The 5% evasion debuff will also act like a tracking mitigation (which other railguns get). Ion railgun: T5 upgrade “Reactor Disruption” slows target’s regeneration by 55% (as stated in the tooltip, down from 100% as is currently the situation). T5 upgrade “Engine Disruption” slows down target to 55% (as stated in the tooltip and up from 40% as is currently the situation), and is effective for 6 seconds (as Is currently the situation and down from 12 seconds stated in the tooltip). Reasoning: The ion railgun is so powerful right now because it can guarantee a kill on almost all ships. It drains more than half the power pool in one shot, prevents regeneration of said power pools, and it can clear mines/drones as well as deal damage via AoE. I think that fixing the regeneration bug will allow components that are meant to be soft counters to ion drain (rotational thrusters, fortress shields) to be more effective in doing their job. The slow effect is currently only 6 seconds, and I feel that is enough. 12 seconds of slow are too much for such an easy weapon to use, and are usually death sentence to any ship hit by them (since they outlast counters such as distortion field). Slug railgun: T4 upgrade “Reduced Power Draw” is swapped with T3 upgrade “Ignore Armor”. Reasoning: The slug currently has it all – high accuracy, armor ignore and one-shot power against scouts (or almost any ship with damage overcharge). This swap should make it a more specialized weapon – either strong against high-evasion targets, or against armored targets, but not both. It will make plasma railguns more desirable too, as their debuffs will compliment this railgun’s power. ---------- Systems abilities: Blaster overcharge: Ability duration increased by 3 seconds baseline. Reasoning: BO is a very specialized ability even now – it sacrifices accuracy, evasion and effect on secondary weapons for a boost in raw blaster damage. Its short uptime means that it cannot be reliably used even against gunships, because a good gunship will simply move out of the way and the cooldown will have been wasted. This slight uptime buff should allow for the ability to be more forgiving when used even against experienced players. EMP field: Range is increased to 4,500m baseline (as stated in the tooltip and up from 3000m as is currently the situation). Reasoning: I’m not sure this is enough to make this systems ability viable, but even if not currently it can be used as little more than a trolling novelty – the range is too small to disable mines reliably, it does not even cover a satellite. I might consider increasing the range to 5,000m baseline. Sensor beacon: Sensor beacons are now indestructible, meaning they only die once the scout that has deployed them is dead (or if the timer on them runs out). T3 upgrade (Increased Duration) is moved to be a T5 upgrade instead of “Reinforced Beacon” (now redundant). T4 upgrade “Sensor Jamming” is moved to be the T3 upgrade (where “Increased Duration” was). The new T4 upgrade is called “Target Prediction”, and it reduces the evasion of all nearby enemies by an additional 5%. Reasoning: The detection capabilities of sensor beacons are redundant currently, ship sensors can do without them even before counting targeting telemetry on scouts. Even were it useful, sensor beacons can be easily killed rendering the scout deploying them nothing but a gimped version of itself. With the beacons becoming indestructible, they will be of use in any place where ships tend to group up (such as on nodes) for their debuffs. The increased suppression range will make them even better for defending nodes. Missile sentry drone: Missiles fired from the drone are now true concussion missiles – meaning they have 10,000m range and deal 1,055 damage baseline (as concussions will be if buffed). Reasoning: This drone is not a real option currently. The range is short on both blasters and missiles, and even if the missiles land by mistake they deal a pitiful amount of damage. Scouts can simply ignore the drone while focusing on the bomber. Increasing the range will create a threat to incoming ships from farther away, and the damage will no longer be something to shrug off. Ion mines: Mines now deal 1,250 shield damage baseline. Reasoning: These mines barely deal more damage than concussion mines, and their drain (while nice) is certainly not very strong. I feel that increasing their drain too much will make them too strong, so my solution is turning them into a better shield counter by increasing the amount of damage they deal. This may not be enough to fix them, in which case I think their T5 effects will need a buff. Combat command, Repair probes and Remote slicing: Range on these abilities is increased to 10,000m baseline. Duration of Remote slicing is increased by 3 seconds. Reasoning: Combat command and Repair probes are already hard to use to benefit your team because you cannot know the distance from your teammates. Giving these abilities 10,000m will ensure that lag and other interferences won’t be as detrimental to these effects. Remote slicing needs an additional buff because it is weak to begin with even considering a long range on it. The shield drain is hardly there, the only real use it offers is the engine/shield disable. All other systems abilities are fine as they currently are. ---------- Engines: Interdiction drive: Base cost of interdiction drive is reduced by 10 (at least). Cooldown reduced to 30 seconds. Reasoning: Taking this maneuver means sacrificing a break on most ships. Even if you take it on a ship without breaks (T1 or 2 bombers) it still costs a lot per use, has a long cooldown and barely produces any effect worth mentioning for that price. It’s hard to know just how much the price should be reduced because there is no indicator of how much it costs. I feel like it costs probably around 50 engine power baseline, in which case it could probably use with an even larger cost reduction (15 engine power less than current, perhaps). Rotational thrusters: Increase accuracy on all weapons by 5% for 5 seconds after use passively. T3 upgrade “Increased Turning Rate” now increases turning rate passively by 15% (up from the current 10%). Reasoning: Like interdiction drive, taking this maneuver sacrifices a break on the gunship taking it. However, it also sacrifices mobility. It’s not a hard maneuver for a scout to negate, either – they can just boost behind the gunship and turn around again. The accuracy increase will allow to shoot at higher evasion targets, making this a better offensive option than other maneuvers. The increased turning will mean that even gunships without thrusters will be able to turn considerably better with this choice than with regular maneuvers such as barrel roll. Weapon power converter: T3 upgrade increases either weapon or engine power by 25% (up from 15% currently). Reasoning: I am not sure this will be enough. The main problem with this maneuver (apart for the mobility and break loss it suffers from like the aforementioned ones) is that ion railguns can shut it down by draining both weapon and engine power. Hopefully with a larger pool this maneuver will be a more viable choice for gunships. Koiogran turn: Increases engine power regeneration rate by 50% for 6 seconds after use. Reasoning: Koiogran turn is a weak move – it offers nothing either offensively or defensively other maneuvers aren’t better at, and it’s not even good for mobility. This boost should allow it to become a superior defensive maneuver because it will now have a counter for ion weapons, and it will allow boosting farther away. In case the user decides to stay in the same spot (for example, on a contested node) they will still have the option. Snap turn: Increases engine speed by 30% for 6 seconds after use. Reasoning: Like Koiogran turn, this maneuver offers nothing other options aren’t better at. Giving it a speed boost will make it better for escaping tight situations. Having a shorter cooldown that barrel roll will make it a viable contender for mobility. ---------- Shields: Shield projector: Base effective radius increased to 10,000m. Base restoration increased to 40%. Reasoning: Like similar systems abilities, it’s very hard to know whether you’re helping your team with such an ability. However, this ability is even more limited – you can only help 5 team members max. Increasing the range should help deal with that problem. Increasing the amount of shields restored should both make the ability more viable and help mitigate some of the loss that the ship with the ability has to endure – 20% less shields. Overcharged shield: Shield passive capacity is +60% of base (up from 40% as is now). Reasoning: Overcharged shields offer very little over charged plating. The slight benefit in shields is all but worthless against other bombers and gunships, and most missiles pierce shields as well. They’re not a horrible choice currently, but they need a slight buff to make them a clear superior option when shield piercing is not as abundant. Fortress shields: T3 upgrade “Increased Duration” is replaced by an upgrade called “Reduced Cooldown” which reduces the cooldown of fortress shields by an additional 5 seconds. Reasoning: Fortress shields are extremely weak in most situations. Many players fall into the trap of thinking that they can tank damage with them, when in fact they’re becoming easy kills by sitting still. Even experienced players won’t use them except in matches where they know they won’t need to move a lot (gunship chess). Reducing the cooldown will make these shields good for mitigating unavoidable incoming damage more frequently, and hopefully player will realize they don’t have to sit for the full duration of the shield uptime. Quick-charge shields: Base shield loss from these shields is 20% (down from 30% as is right now). Base cooldown is reduced to 20 seconds (down from 30 seconds as is right now), and the T3 upgrade “Reduced Cooldown” reduces the shield cooldown by 5 seconds (down from 10 seconds as is right now). Reasoning: The mobility buff these shields offer is not enough to make them a viable choice. They bring a huge loss in survivability, and they don’t mitigate burst damage at all (most of the damage in GSF). A shorter cooldown should allow them to do that better, and the larger shield power pool may help players using them make the escape these shields are supposed to help in making. ---------- ---------- Ship changes: I don’t think any ship requires a drastic change, not even strikes. They are the one class that requires a change as a whole of course, but while many other players have suggested adding new components to buff strikes, I feel that swapping around their minor components and component choices they have available should make them worthy of flying in a competitive match. One change I do think they need is giving them the engine efficiency of scouts. Meaning, their boost activation cost and cost per second should be 16.7% cheaper than that of bombers and gunships. They will still be slower than scouts and less maneuverable, but they will be more mobile than they currently are. That should help them a lot, because they rely on CQC as much as scouts do. Now, for specific buffs: FT-8 Star Guard/F-T6 Rycer: Has access to all primary weapons. This means it gets access to BLC, LLC, and LC in addition to those it can currently access. Magazine is replaced with an armor minor component. Reasoning: This ship is meant to be the premier blaster ship. It’s quite strange that it doesn’t get access to the best close-range weapons (BLC) or even to their runner up (LLC). It does not require a magazine, it never runs out of power even if you take munition capacity extender. If someone feels that they need more juice, they can easily choose weapon power converter as their engine maneuver. FT-6 Pike/F-T 2 Quell: Has access to all missiles. This means it gets access to interdiction missiles, sabotage probes and thermite torpedoes in addition to those it can currently access. Capacitor is replaced with a reactor minor component. Weapon power converter is replaced with Retro thrusters. Reasoning: Just as the T1 strike is meant to be a blaster ship, this ship is meant to be a missile boat. As such, it should have all options available for maximum customization. The capacitor, while nice, is unnecessary on a ship which is supposed to deal damage with secondaries. A reactor will serve it much better. Weapon power converter is likewise redundant on a ship that only uses its primary weapons as a utility. Retro thrusters will allow for more missiles to be landed and will generally make this ship a scarier frontal offence ship. NovaDive/S-12 Blackbolt: Capacitor is replaced with a reactor minor component. Reasoning: Scouts are in less need of a capacitor than other ships, because their system abilities grant them a huge offensive increase already. Losing it will reduce the offensive output of the T1 scout, but it will be able to use the engine power converter much more easily, and will be able to shield tank some damage too. Sledgehammer/B-5 Decimus: Magazine is replaced with an armor minor component. Now has the option for missile sentry drone as a systems component. Reasoning: The T3 bomber is lacking in defensive capability and area denial compared to other bombers. The area denial lack is fine if it’s meant to be more of a jousting ship, but low defensives mean it’s food for more other ships (including strike fighters even in their currently weakened state). If it gets an armor component, charged plating can now be safely used. The offensive output should also be increased due to the buff in secondary components it will get. Missile sentry drone is a good option on this ship, to compliment cluster missiles. All other ships are in my opinion either fine right now, or will be fine once components are changed as suggested.

Probably. In that case, they're probably bad gunships. How do they allow you to get within 15k of them without ioning you dead is the question. Even if you somehow made it to them, they can just barrel away. This is a waste of time though, it's been proven time and again. Which server do you fly on? I've been around a bit and never met a strike ace. Scout aces, gunship aces, sure. Even bomber aces. Not strike aces. I have met many players who claim that scouts and gunships are "OP", and that without them strikes would be fine... you know, like they phrase "rock is fine, nerf scissors. --paper". In short, I do not think you are a threat in a strike and I do not think you should be afraid of what you'll achieve in one if they were buffed. Offtopic, but what has chagrin do to with anything here? This sentence doesn't make sense to me.

And people immediately take a sarcastic post seriously... /sigh Edit: of course it might be me being to cynical. I hope not.

GSF is riddled with hacks. People don't get it, but it's true. Being two-shot is a hack, and if I'm in a scout and a gunship kills me with one shot that's cheating. Damage overcharge is BS, some people always seem to get it. Definitely a hack. Bombers are dumb, I shoot at them with my lasers and see yellow "6"es popping up, they're cheating. How don't they take damage? Sometimes I shoot at scouts and miss everything even though I'm right on target - I've reported it but no one does anything. A gunship has hit me at 15.2km, but the toolbar said 15k. Dude's a cheater, and I quit every time I face him. Railgun drones hit me even when I pop disto, what gives?? I might have forgotten some cheats, these are the ones I run into most commonly. /rant

Hatred is not a strong spec in PvE, and it isn't strong in PvP. It has a long build up time, sub-par survivability and very low utility. Play deception if you want something competitve, or darkness. Hatred is in a bad spot.

Excellent point! Or it would be, if not for the fact that what is seen is a whole bunch of mercs. Sure, any class stacking can be annoying, but the only time I've ever seen 6 snipers or 6 ops was when a premade decided to troll regs. 6 mercs is not too far from default state now. Good comparison, though. 5/7.

A couple of GSF related snippets I think are relevant to this thread. Fastest turning is in balanced power (F4) with S pressed. Credit to Neutrinos for testing this. F1/F2 are multiplicative, not additive. Probably F3 too, but I don't know how boosting adds up. Here's a discussion on the subject (page 6). Related - Bleedthrough/shield piercing shots use hull damage, and border shots use hull damage as well. This is almost always irrelevant to TTK, but a notable exception is when ioning someone. Damage might be floored before crit, but this is not certain yet. I'll try and test it today and see if I can get results. Sub's almost out, so I thought I'd share.

Reverse maneuvers are very possible. What's preventing them? Inertia? A ship balance pass would be nice, but three ship types are viable (7 ships if you decide to count the Comet breaker for some reason). Strikes are the outliers, so balancing should be done over them. I started answering each suggestion here, but I realised you're coming from an immerion PoV. Let me tell you that doesn't work. Even if GSF was getting active development (it isn't) the immersion RP crowd is tiny compared to just about any other sector. Most people play a game to have fun, not to make believe they're really in a star fighter shooting rebel scum. Devs make gameplay a priority over immersion for that reason, and many of your ideas (most of them) aren't easy to balance for that. Yes, a bomber could drop a billion mines IRL. A scout should be exactly that. Doesn't matter, because if it's not fun, people won't play it. As for evasion, RL guns jitter too. If you've ever shot a machine gun, you'll know that they're not 100% accurate at distance even when mounted on a tripod. That's the "immersion" explanation for evasion. The actual one is that it makes the game interesting, because without it games would become static and predictable. It also helps reduce aimbots (since they're not nearly as useful when they don't guarantee a hit).

That's fine, I'm just interested in your choice over it. I do take Stalker's swiftness, so I'm wondering what do you swap for it. Pretty much everything except for Avenging grip/Force harmonics is defensive. What I meant is that I usually have other people guarded. If you're guarding someone, you need to drop it before stealthing out, and often you don't have time to do both. So I stealth out to drop focus and get pulled back into combat anyway, but chances are they're leaving me alone long enough to either get a medpac or have a healer stabilize me.

Alright. Your posts reek of self importance, so I'm out. I have read them though - that's how I know that you seem convinced that OP is using the T1 scout. He never said anything about it in his OP, you just decided it. OP is not a new players by any means. You might be taken more seriously if you stop complaining about ships, and especially power ups (which are part of the game). You're welcome to check out my videos, I fly mostly scout. That ship that only does well with gunship support, only often I fly without it... Also, stop trying to turn this thread into a venting/whining thread. If your server sucks, make a new thread or ask for help.

It's not necessary, but it's an extra DCD. I still take it, just because there aren't many better options I feel. Sometimes you can't stealth out between DoTs, either (not to mention good players can and will drop force/rech AoE on you the moment you stealth). The one spec I don't take it on is tank. When I tank I'm usually guarding, and in that case stealthing out is only a focus breaker - you'll probably be pulled back into combat anyway because of guard. In any case, tanks have a reduced CD on Resilience, so I feel like it's less needed.

Not sure where you got your connection. Yes, thermites are buggy. Why do you assume that's what OP is using? Or the T1 scout for that matter? He never said anything about it in his post. As for gunships -check the records thread. You'll find that there are a bunch of other viable ships, and some do better than gunships in certain situations.

That's an old mara/jugg bug, not a hack. He doesn't benefit from it either.

Sundays are hard on my currently; I usually am away from my PC by Saturday evening. If I can catch you at the time, I'll be sure to show up. I'm looking forwards to seeing it either way, and it's great to hear that some of the group at least is returning.

That's flattering! I doubt I can fill any shoes, and anyway I fly only weekends (and not all of them). I'd love to see some of that old 4-man action again though, I was wondering if some competition would bring them back. I'll catch up on that stream. Also, I miss Verain's posts on the forums. Like being cut by an eloquent knife... Both entertaining and insightful.

YAAASSSSSS!!!!!1! Nerf stealth, they don't deserve to live anyway.