yes please

I can really be on pretty much any day (Barring any specific events of course) in my listed times as long as I have something to do/a reason to get on.

Guardian tank coming back to the game after a little over 6 months. Got in all HM gear a long time ago before NiM and had nothing more to work for, so my guild kind of fell apart with a lot of people leaving the game in addition to my shift being changed to nights. I want to get back into raiding, am geared for NiM but don't mind doing HM more to help guild get to that point. Been raid tanking since launch and also was usually our raid leader so have plenty of experience. Normally on around 0230-0630 central US time. Have a DPS set that is pretty much full HM gear too but would prefer to stay as tank as my main role. I do also have control of my old raiding guild so if enough interest from people who play at night and do not have a guild I wouldn't mind recruiting. Have plenty of experience leading and can teach all fights to anyone competent in their class.

It would create a huge farming opportunity for skilled players. Anyone who has any skill in GSF can do just as well in an unmodified ship, upgrades are merely icing on the cake. With a tiered system what's to stop a really good player from hopping on an alt, grabbing their stock nova dive and completely destroying the noobs? Best thing would be some sort of matchmaking system that evenly distributes vets and noobs rather than separate queues.

Gunships themselves are not overpowered and fairly balanced, the issue is how multiple gunships boost the odds in their team's favor exponentially. They can hit from extreme ranges and can cover each other from even more range, no other class can cover each other like gunships can. And with this game turning into nothing more than giant gunship battles lately this giant overlapping field of cover becomes even more of an issue. A group of scouts or strikes need to be flying almost in formation to cover each other with their short ranges, yet gunships can form a net with each other as long as they are in the same general half of the map, this is when they start to become an issue.

Playing what you enjoy only gets you so far though. When the current game meta is large gunship sniperfests and you enjoy playing a dogfighting class, you are not going to have fun when you are one of only 2 or 3 players on your team that is trying to dogfight against a team of 4+ gunships sitting in a field of bomber mines. So your options become either play a class you don't enjoy, or play a class you do enjoy but but have an absolutely horrible time in it. When it gets to the point that the only way you can contribute is by getting every available powerup and hoping you can do something before you get popped by an ocean of gunships as you try to get in range... little enjoyment in that.

The problem is not in the fact that new people have no upgrades to their ships. You can study the controls, play the tutorial a few times to get used to piloting and do decently in a game still. I routinely fly on my alts with no mod ships and still get first or second place on the score board almost every time. The problem comes with what the current meta has turned into. GSF has become nothing more than giant gunship and bomber battles with less and less digfighting. It is not commonplace to see clusters of 4 or more gunships covering each other and now we have the issue that new people starting out now only have two ship options... Both dogfighters. So you have someone new to the game in the only type of ship available going against an ocean of gunships with little to no actual experience other than tutorial, getting oneshotted before they can even get close enough to for the lack of module upgrades to even matter. Untill the meta of the game goes away from nothing but giant gunship sniperfests, and returns to dogfighting with the occasional sniper here and there, it is going to be extremely discouraging for new players. Well actually for anyone who likes to do anything other than sit on the sidelines and snipe but especially new players who don't even have that option available to them yet.

So what you are saying is, if I want to play a real dogfighting class in a deathmatch game, that I have to first get three different powerups just to have a CHANCE at doing ANYTHING at all. So get three powerups... run in to the ocean of gunships and mines... kill one maybe two enemies... then get tagged by 4 other railguns since I'll be the only person trying to take them out in a role I enjoy playing. Or I can not try to do that, sit around all day in the hopes that someone will fly to a spot that I can attack them and not get an entire fleet of railguns aimed at me simultaneously and get non contributing debuff. Or I can go with the direction that this game is going, grab a gunship, join the sniperfest and be bored to death all match. Sounds fun and tactical. Yes I occasionally get a match where there is an actual brawl and only 1 or 2 gunships per side and can actually have fun in a huge dogfight but those are becoming far and few, the vast majority are becoming nothing but sniper standoffs.

Have to say I agree, lately the matches have predominately turned into nothing but giant gunship fests with the occasional bomber, dogfighting has become a thing of the past in most of the matches I have gotten lately. This game (at least with deathmatch) has turned into nothing more than a "who has the biggest ocean of gunships" fight. I've been trying to keep having fun with it in the hopes that I will get some real matches with people who want to actually have an epic dogfight, but after constant, nonstop pure gunship and bomber fights it seems that there is only two options now. Either grab a gunship myself which I find to be an extremely boring and skill-less play style... or be the one person who tries to fly into the ocean of gunships and mines to do something about it... which has an obvious outcome.

The seemingly random lock drops are lag between you, the server, and your target. Your client sees the target in the arc properly, then the server tells it "No it's actually here" which is just outside of your arc, and the lock breaks. They just need to change it where the lock is dependent on if your client sees the target properly in the arc.

I'm ok with them having boosts, engine abilities, and lock breakers. Their power drains pretty quickly anyways, but they do need to remove barrel roll from these craft or greatly increase it's cost and cooldown for them. A ship that large should not be able to cover that large of a distance in that short of a time with almost no engine cost. Barrel roll (as it currently works) should be exclusively a scout and strike engine, any others are ok though.

Fleeing isn't really the issue, I would expect any GS pilot who is paying attention to his surroundings to do so when he starts getting attacked by a dogfighter... that makes sense. And if you can get away from me, (which you probably can with my build) Then good on you. But you can go run to friends to help you or if positioning is favorable, and they are coming straight at you, tank it and burn them down with fortress or feedback and your own lasers. But typically fleeing is the best option. Only have a problem with it when they pull the coward's card of running to the cap ship to gain protection from an NPC that will cause an instant kill. It's like some of these people don't even try to use any tactics, their first instinct is to turn and instant barrel roll to the ship. Ive actually had to make a nova set up specifically for this with sab probe and EMP. So again, running is fine, I don't expect you to just sit there and take it but use some real tactics or go find help from friends. In ground pvp, is there a spot that you can run to and any pursuers get insta killed? No, you spawn in an area that enemies cannot get to and once you drop down into the field you have to stay and fight. Make the spawn point a large bubble that enemies cannot enter or get exhaustion, and until you yourself leave or attack (and actually hit) an enemy you are safe in there. But once you leave or damage an enemy you can also not return without getting exhaustion. On another note, played a deathmatch the other day where this Imp GS pilot, even though he would flee, appeared to be avoiding this tactic, running away from or along side of the ships but never to them. Unless he shot me directly, I actually left him alone most of the match out of respect for not using this ship "tactic".

That is just pathetic, I refuse to do that on any of my ships, including GS, I will either fight or run to allies, but a dogfighter doing it? Pathetic.

Because it clearly is. And yet, even with this clear cut advantage, there was still a gunship pilot on the other team that ran to the mothership with his tail between his legs every time a single blaster bolt hit him. http://oi58.tinypic.com/28tdhlw.jpg

In scenario 1 I was simply painting a picture for people to understand things that happen more than just simply trying to spawn camp, I do have a nova set up specifically for gunships with barrel and sab probe, but you shouldn't have to have a specific build set up specifically to counter someone trying to exploit an instant kill safe zone just because they refuse to fight. On another note, when I play my GS I refuse to use that coward's tactic, I will either run to allies or attempt to kill them myself somehow but running to my cap ship is completely out of the question. If you have any shred of skill, there are plenty of tactics a GS pilot can use to survive a dogfighter.

You guys keep playing the "if you are that close to a cap ship then you must be camping" card but are not looking at everything going on. Let's say I am in a scout or strike, I go to chase down a gunship sitting on one of the sats. He immediatly turns around and barrel-rolls toward his cap ship. Being set up for dogfighting I have retro and cannot barrel roll to him instantly so I hit the afterburners. I catch up to him and get a few shots off and he barrel-rolls again, completing his journey to the safety of his ship. I see the ship and turn around to engage something else. Now I have my back to the gunship and in open space with no cover as I move back to the real fight, and if in my strike, most likely out of engine power and sniped by the same gunship that just fled since he now knows he can hit me without fear of taking any damage himself. Now there is the deathmatch scenario where the enemy team gets ahead by a few points then all turtle on their cap ship with 5 gunships. Well we can fall back and make them come to us like you say, but knowing they are in the lead will just stay there to wait out the timer and win. Or we can all bum rush them, and they turn tail to run back to the safety of mommy.

On the flip side of this, there is the issue ive been seeing repeatedly on my server. Imp team taking 5+ gunships and sitting on their cap ships after they get the lead in kills. Then the options are either hide and make them come to you but since they have the lead they will just let the game time out, or rush them and between the 5 gunships and the cap ship turrets, you die anyways. So far this is the only type of spawn point play that I have witnessed, not seen any spawn camping for more than a very brief moment before they spawn at different ship.

Forgetting the guy that ends 90%+ of his games top score by a factor of 2+ and has taken out half an imp team solo, simultaneously But yeah, Grunty is pretty good and the few times I've seen Udezak he seemed pretty good. It's rare to find someone who poses any challenge so I like seeing them in the opposite team in a pub vs pub match

Method 3: Wait until I get a pub vs pub match and I spawn on the "Imp" side. Take a pic in our own "Imp" ship to look cooler than I really am. Then go actually play the game.

If the battlefield is that calm, I am attacking those gunships and killing them rather than sitting there waiting and watching for their tell tale cloud. I am talking about those shots that come from nowhere that you do not see or expect because they are out of sensor range or the battle is too heated and you haven't spotted them yet. The whole point of the quick recovery is so that your hull does not get to that point barring the occasional unseen snipe referred to above. And D-field will not stop that from happening anyways. You still have to KNOW it is coming and then once that 6 seconds are up you are even more vulnerable, much prefer having the constant, quick recovery and let actual piloting skills be my evasion.

Would love it to be a little faster. I always use it to pick off those people who think they can hug a sat and not get hit. Roll so my top side is against the sat and strafe down so I can point my nose slightly more inward while kicking my ship out further to get a better line of sight on my target. maybe a new engine ability for strafing: constant passive ability that greatly increases strafing speed at the cost of engine power, does not break missile locks like other engine components but reduces missile damage taken by X% while strafing (reasoning could be missile misses due to the maneuver but warhead detonates in close proximity, still causing SOME splash damage)

Distortion will also not save you from being oneshot by that slug. Unless you are talking to that enemy GS pilot and they tell you "incoming bypass slug in 3 seconds" you will not know to hit distortion. Some forms of damage are just going to happen and nothing you can do about it, distortion or not. With quick charge's 60% recently consumed, plus the 20%regen/20% extra recently consumed recharge from the reactor, you can recover from taking unavoidable damage very quickly, AFTER it has happened and is too late to use distortion. and that 80% recently consumed with proper reactor is active constantly, not for only a few seconds with a cooldown. I've tried both shields, have both mastered and much prefer quick charge over the 6 second immunity crutch that can just be waited out. But if you want to call to a buff to other shields, I'm ok with that.

Then perhaps you are not really as skilled as you would like to think you are. I play on alts all the time with 0-upgrade novadives and default crew, yet still get in the top 2 of the score board almost every time. Heck, one time I even forgot to remap my keys before a game on a new toon and had to play without being able to use any power conversions yet still got top score by a factor of 3. This game is almost entirely skill based. Upgrades provide a very minor boost to good pilots.

Have noticed this as well with rocket pods. And it does not seem to be limited to just weapons. I use quick charge shield on my scout over the distortion field specifically for the 60% recharge while taking damage and since the patch, it no longer charges. Seems like all upgrades are just not activating.

Those brackets you see on the wings are actually the cluster missile pods. If you change out to rocket pods like the dive has, they go away and it looks just like the dive.