What makes gunships problematic?

[MCaliban]

If someone is busy capping an objective or dogfighting someone, there really IS no way to avoid that first shot from a skilled gunship pilot. No matter how much one maneuvers around, a good gunship will nail you, and you simply CANNOT always be busy finding and hiding from gunships, because there's more to a match than doing that.

 

This is incorrect.

 

I have avoided the first shot many times while capturing a control satellite. I have also been the gunship that's missed my first shot on a capturing ship.

[zechio]

...

Its easier to hit someone with a gunship shot than with regular laser cannons(though with regular laser cannons you get more tries). Yet this guarantees a one-shot against scouts, regardless of the skill level of the scout player, and a 2 shot against strikes, with a good chance of one-shoting. There's too little margin for people playing against any reasonably competent gunship....

 

It's NOT guaranteed. My scout is rocking 26% evasion, and the gunship has 95% base accuracy over 7500m out ( and inside that it's as good as dead already. ) Their accuracy is further decreased by trying to aim.

 

Also, I'm still struggling to see how they can 1 shot a strike fighter without popping pretty nasty abilities...which is sort of the point of them, and they have a good sized cooldown. Strike fighters have a base 1450 hull points. Slug does less damage than plasma, but the advantage would be lost if the target pops their own ability to heal hull. With slug, you would need to use your ability plus get a crit to 1 shot a single strike fighter...and this is all assuming the strike fighter has absolutely nothing defensive wise. They could have increased evasions, the gunship can still miss due to accuracy, and they could have damage reduction. Yes, there are counters to some of this with purchases...but that blocks you from getting others. For accuracy you need to take an offensive companion with pinpointing, which will get you to 101%. There's also the upgrade for accuracy and tracking...but it's only 3% accuracy and you lose the 10% power cost reduction.

 

As a scout, the most likely to be 1 shot by gunships, I am perfectly fine the way they are. Sometimes they can be a nuisance, but I know I am ALWAYS a pain for them.

 

Also...the one about being forced to break off a dogfight because a gunship is targeting you: This should be true of ANY ship targeting you. If you are trying to dogfight 1 person, and end up with a tail...you should be bailing. It doesn't matter if it's a scout, a strike fighter, or a gunship. Unless you're like 2 shots from killing your target...you'll lose. Your target IS fleeing, so they are harder to shoot. Meanwhile, you are flying nice and smooth trying to line up your shot...making yourself a perfect target. This is where I get probably over half of my kills. People go all red mist and don't pay attention to the person shredding their rear shields, and they almost never get the kill they are after, and ALWAYS die.

[JimG]

The people who think gunships are OP should try and play gunships themselves. You better know what you're doing in one of those because once people spot you, then you are fodder. I tried out a gunship....it turned out not to be as fun as it looks, lol. If gunships are causing you the most problems on the battlefield, then upgrade your shield capacity so you can take a hit from gunships better, upgrade your weapons with more targeting range so you can hit the gunships from further away, upgrade your sensors so you can counter their sensor dampening better.

 

Generally speaking, its not possible to avoid the first hit from a gunship intentionally.

Avoiding flying aimlessly through open space or sitting stationary to try to take out turrets helps. I would suggest you scroll through the list of opponents during the match-up screen, see who is flying gunships for the other side and then use tab targeting when the match gets going to identify where those gunship are....if a gunship is within range of an ally's sensors, then you'll see that gunship when you cycle through tab targeting. I'm always on the look out for them after that.

And that really is the main issue. Gunships can essentially dominate an area and prevent people from doing waht they enjoy the most, and so that frustrates people.

And you can just as easily target that gunship, hunt them down and prevent them from doing what they enjoy. People apparently want to be able to roam free and shoot enemies like shooting fish in a barrel without any chance of getting hit. The whole point of PVP is dictating the game to the other team and not letting them do what they want to do.

[Vandicus]

It's NOT guaranteed. My scout is rocking 26% evasion, and the gunship has 95% base accuracy over 7500m out ( and inside that it's as good as dead already. ) Their accuracy is further decreased by trying to aim.

 

Also, I'm still struggling to see how they can 1 shot a strike fighter without popping pretty nasty abilities...which is sort of the point of them, and they have a good sized cooldown. Strike fighters have a base 1450 hull points. Slug does less damage than plasma, but the advantage would be lost if the target pops their own ability to heal hull. With slug, you would need to use your ability plus get a crit to 1 shot a single strike fighter...and this is all assuming the strike fighter has absolutely nothing defensive wise. They could have increased evasions, the gunship can still miss due to accuracy, and they could have damage reduction. Yes, there are counters to some of this with purchases...but that blocks you from getting others. For accuracy you need to take an offensive companion with pinpointing, which will get you to 101%. There's also the upgrade for accuracy and tracking...but it's only 3% accuracy and you lose the 10% power cost reduction.

 

As a scout, the most likely to be 1 shot by gunships, I am perfectly fine the way they are. Sometimes they can be a nuisance, but I know I am ALWAYS a pain for them.

 

Also...the one about being forced to break off a dogfight because a gunship is targeting you: This should be true of ANY ship targeting you. If you are trying to dogfight 1 person, and end up with a tail...you should be bailing. It doesn't matter if it's a scout, a strike fighter, or a gunship. Unless you're like 2 shots from killing your target...you'll lose. Your target IS fleeing, so they are harder to shoot. Meanwhile, you are flying nice and smooth trying to line up your shot...making yourself a perfect target. This is where I get probably over half of my kills. People go all red mist and don't pay attention to the person shredding their rear shields, and they almost never get the kill they are after, and ALWAYS die.

 

Lets get more specific then.

 

Default Strike Fighters do not have evasion available. The secondary strike fighter can get up to 10% evasion, which still isn't very much.

Gunships pierce damage reduction on hulls, so damage reduction hull upgrades are irrelevant

It does take the shield-piercing cd to one-shot strikes on a crit(one shots scouts without crits)

[Vandicus]

The people who think gunships are OP should try and play gunships themselves. You better know what you're doing in one of those because once people spot you, then you are fodder. I tried out a gunship....it turned out not to be as fun as it looks, lol. If gunships are causing you the most problems on the battlefield, then upgrade your shield capacity so you can take a hit from gunships better, upgrade your weapons with more targeting range so you can hit the gunships from further away, upgrade your sensors so you can counter their sensor dampening better.

 

 

Avoiding flying aimlessly through open space or sitting stationary to try to take out turrets helps. I would suggest you scroll through the list of opponents during the match-up screen, see who is flying gunships for the other side and then use tab targeting when the match gets going to identify where those gunship are....if a gunship is within range of an ally's sensors, then you'll see that gunship when you cycle through tab targeting. I'm always on the look out for them after that.

 

And you can just as easily target that gunship, hunt them down and prevent them from doing what they enjoy. People apparently want to be able to roam free and shoot enemies like shooting fish in a barrel without any chance of getting hit. The whole point of PVP is dictating the game to the other team and not letting them do what they want to do.

 

I have played gunships before. They were broken when the shield piercing active was available in closed beta(and apparently someone decided they should add it back in for live).

 

You miss the part where I am dying in one-shot from full shields. Gunships pierce damage reduction on hulls, so damage reduction on hulls is useless.

 

I do not fly aimlessly through open space nor sit stationary while killing turrets. TBH, its not that hard to hit a moving target in a gunship. Its certainly easier than hitting someone with lasers.

 

Their ability to one-shot players is not acceptable. It was never acceptable. They didn't need a damage reduction like they had at one point(which made them nigh useless), they just need to remove shield-piercing so that they cannot one-shot people.

 

I also spend a lot of time actively hunting gunships. Being one-shot from full is simply not acceptable.

[Brewski]

Well, I did address that in my posts: if you hunt gunships exclusively, then you're golden and you are correct.

 

But there's more for scouts to do than hunt gunships, after all, and you can't expect all scout pilots to be focused on that role alone.

 

And regardless, nothing should have the power to one-shot you without any warning, as a simple matter of game balance and fun-factor (it is just Not Fun to get one-shotted, and Not Fun is bad ).

 

Some scouts will speed cap, some will hunt gunships, and others will dog fight. It's all good. You only need 3 or so hunters. Everyone can fill a role they like that way.

 

As for Not Fun, ask a gunship pilot how fun it is trying to get away from me after I find them. I don't begrudge them the one and two shot kills because it is their only advantage.

 

I would argue nerfing gunships now is premature. Wait until we see how things balance out after a few months. Once people start flying mastered ships it may be that it's scouts (or even strikers) that need the nerf. Changing things while the game is still so fluid carries it's own risks, and you need more data before you can say something must be done as definitively as people seem to be saying here.

[Vandicus]

Some scouts will speed cap, some will hunt gunships, and others will dog fight. It's all good. You only need 3 or so hunters. Everyone can fill a role they like that way.

 

As for Not Fun, ask a gunship pilot how fun it is trying to get away from me after I find them. I don't begrudge them the one and two shot kills because it is their only advantage.

 

I would argue nerfing gunships now is premature. Wait until we see how things balance out after a few months. Once people start flying mastered ships it may be that it's scouts (or even strikers) that need the nerf. Changing things while the game is still so fluid carries it's own risks, and you need more data before you can say something must be done as definitively as people seem to be saying here.

 

Not suggesting we nerf gunships. I'm suggesting we eliminate the shield piercing buff active(which was already acknowledged in closed beta as being broken in conjunction with gunships) or reduce the shield piercing on the gunship's weapons. I would prefer removing the shield piercing active.

 

Personally I feel their actual dps is fine.

[BarkingWolf]

No one is OP. This is the same old tired argument that dribbles from game to game. And tired old song sung by people who need to work on their skills.

 

I play a gunship. We are slow. We have long cool downs and most of the time we are setting ducks. I wont tell you my strategy but if a gunship pilot has a workable plan he can wreak havoc on the battlefield or battle space as it is not really a field. But that is what gunships are suppose to do. It is what a tank is suppose to do. Moaning about someone playing the way the craft is designed to play is useless. You cannot float through life with everything being easy for you. You need some challenges. Or play an easier game like Mario Carts or one of those lame Facebook games.

 

I know I sound harsh and really I am not a bad person but I get so tired of the OP moaning in every game. Before deciding that something is OP you need to learn to play your role extremely because most of the time the person who killed you were just better than you. Sad but true. It is very rare to see a character who is actually OP.

 

Starfighter takes skills. you have to practice, read and practice some more then any player who has not spent the hours on hours developing their skills will bother you. Or you can continue to whine and moan and try to make the world feel sorry for you. It is all about choices.

 

I am not the best gunship pilot. I have not made a single kill. But i have lots of assisted kills. I have broken up dogfights and forced our enemies to either break off their target or be killed. That is what we do. If we one shot you then stop blaming us it was your lack of armor that got you killed or you persisted on following a target despite the fact that we were hitting you. One shots are actually pretty rare. Most of the time you did not notice the first two shots because you were focused on something else then got upset when you blew up and thought it was only one hit.

 

I have hear gunship players say the scouts were OP because they are hard to hit and I heard it all. NO MORE. The game is too new to know if anyone is really OP. We need time for people to put enough hours into the game to be really good at playing it.

 

So relax. Stop moaning and enjoy the game. Practice until you are the best and then no one will be OP except the guy or woman who has spent a little more time at the helm than you.

[Grimbear]

Gunships as they stand in Galactic Star-fighter are just a mechanism to introduce a sniping mechanic into a dogfighting arena and I'm not sure that sniping is a mechanic that belongs in dog fighting. Though to be fair I'm completely failing to feel anything star wars like out of Galactic Star-fighter at all.

 

The real problem with gunships in my mind is they don't feel like gunships. When I think about gunships I think about some heavy frigate sized vessel with a lot of guns or gun turrets that wades in slowly and creates heavy bombardment. I'd like to have seen Gunships as multi-player ships in a match with one to two people taking on turret roles with the pilot having control of something like torpedoes. That then would have added a great mechanic for maps which are an assault on a capital ship or other defended space station which the other side has to defend. The gunships could then have flown in with other players acting as escorts to cover the gunships approach.

[Zoom_VI]

I like all the posts that are along the lines of "gunships are fine, just use <insert improbable tactic that would only work in a 1v1 against a braindead gunship>"

 

Tell me this: do you spend the entire matches locating, plotting tactics to kill, and perpetually having to hunt either of the other classes? No, the fact that you have to base your entire strategy around dealing with ONE class is proof of its overpoweredness. Also the one-shot capability is the single largest source of frustration which can drives players away.

[Dustotepp]

No, the fact that you have to base your entire strategy around dealing with ONE class is proof of its overpoweredness.

 

Healers are OP in warzones.

 

Also the one-shot capability is the single largest source of frustration which can drives players away.

 

I do think that one-shot kills, if available on a regular basis, are generally undesirable.

[reclipsed]

IMO what makes them problematic is that you don't get a clear warning that you're being targeted. I'm not 100% positive but I think when a GS starts targeting you it triggers your missile lock warning as I've gotten a lot of lock warnings, suddenly get hit by a GS railgun instead and once the railgun hit lands the missile lock warning goes away.

 

Which if the railgun is indeed triggering the missile lock is very confusing in the middle of a dogfight since avoiding them requires different tactics.

 

 

I think a simple QOL fix would be to have a different warning sound when you're railgun locked, or even make the bigger red arrow start to glow or blink if that target starts to charge his railgun.

[Zoom_VI]

Healers are OP in warzones.

The number of nerf operatives threads agree with you

[Sportiva]

All this 1-2 shot stuff is non-sense. No one seems to realize how often rail guns miss.

 

If the target is stationary, yeah it'll be dead in one or two shots no questions. However, a moving target is very hard to hit with a rail gun. Plus, a lot of the time the first shot will hit but not kill. A good target pilot will begin to evade. So the GS wil take 3-4 shot to get the final kill. If a GS takes more than 2-3 shots from one position then they will almost certainly be discovered and counter-attacked.

[funkiestj]

 

3) Teamwork.

 

Queue with 3 others? Get in voice chat? Analyze what happened in the match with my 3 buddies afterwards? NEVAR!

[reclipsed]

All this 1-2 shot stuff is non-sense. No one seems to realize how often rail guns miss.

 

If the target is stationary, yeah it'll be dead in one or two shots no questions. However, a moving target is very hard to hit with a rail gun. Plus, a lot of the time the first shot will hit but not kill. A good target pilot will begin to evade. So the GS wil take 3-4 shot to get the final kill. If a GS takes more than 2-3 shots from one position then they will almost certainly be discovered and counter-attacked.

 

 

I find the opposite true. Coming from someone that has played many, many mouse-based shooter games. The few game that I have played as a Gunship, I found it way easier to anticipate/ lead my bead 15k away compared to the "chasing a oiled piglet with your barehands" that is close quarters dogfighting.

[paowee]

Reducing their shield piercing is a light step that shouldn't overly nerf the class. People have been using the Bypass Copilot ability for an almost guaranteed shield piercing shot. Add the default shield piercing of Slug and then add the 10K (?) upgrade to that as well (increases shield piercing by X%). It is starting to feel really cheesy and unfun 1-shotting scouts and 2 shotting fighters and other gunships

 

-Gunship user

Edited December 9, 2013 by paowee

[Sangrar]

Post your reasons.

 

Currently they can 2 shot any ship with sufficient upgrades, and 1 shot on a crit.

 

My primary take on this is that the shield piercing is an issue. Their dps is only on par with other ships if its not being done directly to the hull. A TTK of 0(crit against any ship) is impossible to counter. Being in red hull damage(dead if you're a scout) after a single shot is extremely difficult to counter.

 

Their dps has to be greater, its what we were sold on, just as scout is fast and strike fighter has a lot of torpedo capability. These threads bother me, as it is I have heard people wanting to nerf gunship range and damage, even though without that the gunships is nothing, a guy even said lies saying that the gunship had as much speed capability as a scout and said that gunships can sail across the whole map on booster power ( completely untrue) and said that they got "heavy armor" ( also untrue he must be thinking about troopers from the ground game) that makes them hard to kill, all a bunch of lies made up. The fact is though, gunships are open targets when firing, they have less survivability from being shot, from a distance scouts can easily evade shots (the lightweight armor buffs this evasion further) and yes, gunships have 15000 m range and high damage, that's the point. Nerf one or both of those, you got a useless rock in space, people will yell and quit GS, and I do not want that to happen ( don't think it will happen if gunship is nerfed? look at ground pvp, a bunch of complainers early on called it unbalanced, look now what a bunch of bad nerfs and buffs did!), so yeah, these complaint threads, 2 thumbs DOWN.

[JAWA_THE_HUT]

Post your reasons.

 

Currently they can 2 shot any ship with sufficient upgrades, and 1 shot on a crit.

 

My primary take on this is that the shield piercing is an issue. Their dps is only on par with other ships if its not being done directly to the hull. A TTK of 0(crit against any ship) is impossible to counter. Being in red hull damage(dead if you're a scout) after a single shot is extremely difficult to counter.

 

Gunship DMG is not the problem.. Their ability to one shot a scout is not the problem.. The problem is they can one shot ships WITHOUT LOCKING-ON. That is the problem with Gunships.

 

If a change was made, preventing the use of the rail-gun without lock-on, the problem would be solved.

[AlrikFassbauer]

I rather find Scouts problematic, nowadays. Not Gunships.

[Brewski]

I can agree with a slight nerf to the crew skill that grants penetration. That is a bit OP in anyones hands, and is not a direct nerf to gunships.

[Hyrune]

Nothing is fullproof.. however there is absolutely no reason in general for a scout to ever be hit by a Gunship IMO.

 

1) Trapezium style maneuver based on the geometry of the trapizoids. You become more trouble to a Gunship then you are worth to be honest. Angles work against Gunships. And always take advantage of three dimensions.

 

At 15km, I have no issue to hit any target that is not LOSing me.

 

2) Give the Gunship an obvious "rabbit" to target... one that is deliberately enticing to target.. and configured for survivability. You can even just go with a "canary" to sacrifice if you are up against a really good Gunshipper.

 

The rabbit is efficient but there is no such thing as "configured for survivability."

A good rail gun will ignore armor and have 30% to 66% shield piercing.

 

Conclusion: the toughest Rabbit is a Quell with Reinforced armor and 1740 hull HP. The rabbit will soon be dead :s

 

3) Teamwork.

 

My tips:

* keep a high engine pool

* wait for the enemies to be on the radar, check the Gunship and look for their facing in your selection zoom.

* make sure they are not facing you as you get close and shot them down

Edited December 10, 2013 by Hyrune

[Ramalina]

So we do know that a scout with upgraded sensors can detect a sensor dampened gunship from beyond upgraded railgun range, right?

 

"But sensor upgrades don't help me kill things."

 

The point of a scout is not to kill things, it is to find things. Sensor upgrades, sensor buoys, evasion, speed boosts, fuel capacity, these are all core-mission related upgrades for scouts. Primary and secondary weapons upgrades are not. The payoff is that two upgraded scouts can make it almost impossible for a gunship to hide ANYWHERE on the map. Of course, you don't really want more than 2-3 real scouts per team. The 'heavy scouts' really aren't scouts at all, they're lightweight air/space superiority fighters. They should vector in on the gunships only after the scouts serving in a Recon/AWACS role have located the buggers. On a related note, I'm not sure I've seen anyone flying an actual scout ship in an actual scout role yet.

 

The role that gunships play is not really that of a sniper, they are AAA. If you can't outrange air defenses then they are the highest priority target. Sending an entire strike package to take out air defenses is not broken, it's normal operating procedure for any air (or space) force that wants to accomplish its mission successfully. After the air defenses are down, then you go after other objectives.

 

As far back as WWI you saw division into Recon, Fighter, and Strike(bombing) roles in air combat. You also saw the benefits of a diversified and coordinated force. So far what really stands out in Galactic Starfighter is the lack of operational competence in the player base.

 

Seriously, from an air/space operations standpoint, if your team hasn't worked out wingman assignments and task objectives before flying out of the spawn point at the start of the battle then the only thing you have just cause to complain about is your own incompetence.* Superior personal flying skill consistently looses when faced with superior team flying skill, there's more than 70 years worth of air combat history to back that up.

 

*Knowing MMO populations you shouldn't expect to see team-wide competence anytime in the forseeable future. The upside is that if you get 2-4 people with voice chat and the ability to work as a team you can expect to roll the entire opposing force in most cases, especially if you're flying with people that have experience from some of the more realistic combat flight sims out there.

 

Just be glad that there aren't Falcon 4.0 or DCS FC:3 Virtual Squadrons flying in Galactic Starfighter, if you spent the whole match getting camped at your spawn point you'd realize how much more unbalanced communication and cooperation are compared to mere gunships.

[Svarthrafn]

That's a mighty post there, but sadly, due to how node control works in this game, teams can't afford to have dedicated scouts. Also, because of the low respawn times compared to the hassle of finding then trying to kill gunships, going after them almost isn't worth it.

 

The strategies you mention are great in the real world. But in GSF, all it gets you is kills, but not wins. In GSF, multiple gunships on the scene means it is time to hit a different node.

 

All that stuff works great when my squad and I play Rise of Flight though.

Edited December 10, 2013 by Svarthrafn

[Luneward]

Gunship DMG is not the problem.. Their ability to one shot a scout is not the problem.. The problem is they can one shot ships WITHOUT LOCKING-ON. That is the problem with Gunships.

 

If a change was made, preventing the use of the rail-gun without lock-on, the problem would be solved.

 

And at that range... it doesn't take much to maintain a lock-on on something. So they would almost be guaranteed hits instead of needing close to pinpoint accuracy to do it. While it doesn't completely nullify the skill advantage good scouts have at evading gunship fire, it makes it much more likely for a good scout or striker to get pegged.

 

Yeah... no.