How are Flashfires/Stings not Overwhelmingly OP?

[Resipsal]

I am all for balancing and doing it in a timely fashion but I would like to see some kind of data that proves an imbalance. Right now I don't see any class of ship and think "I am screwed", only a few familiar pilots who excel with one ship or another.

 

Not saying that there aren't imbalances to be sorted out, I am sure there are, rather I think we need more than anecdotal evidence to start screaming nerf on anything.

 

I don't see a lot of screaming in this thread, and nobody is demanding anything be done immediately or even particularly soon. However we are beginning the process of identifying a balance issue, theorycrafting why it exists, and monitoring to see if we can adjust our metagame to obviate it.

 

As I see it, the ball is in the striker fighters' court. Whenever I fly my strike fighter now, I am trying to figure out if my hull/shield strength is enough to outperform a Sting/Flashfire in the same situation.

 

In the nerf gunship threads, there's people on one side claiming there's nothing to be done about gunships, while people on the other side provide detailed explanations on how to dislodge a sniping gunship.

 

In this topic, on the other hand, I don't see any specific tips about how to outpilot the Sting/Flashfire.

[CKHelseth]

In this topic, on the other hand, I don't see any specific tips about how to outpilot the Sting/Flashfire.

 

Alright I will give me two cents on that then

 

I fly a strike fighter and do pretty good overall. For the scouts I try not to dogfight them, they are faster and up close I am not going to get a lock or see a lot of blaster shots hit. I keep my distance and go after them when they are pursuing others. When they are coming for me I try to bait them into a head on attack, all I need is the few seconds for a lock. Using the shield boost and hydro spanner I can absorb their damage, burn their shields with blasters and when I get the lock they are done. Quad lasers and a concussion missile is more than enough fire power.

 

The strike fighters best asset when fighting a scout is the beating it can take along with just a slight edge in firepower.

 

And yes, "scream" might have been a stronger word than the thread warranted.

Edited December 17, 2013 by CKHelseth

[Helig]

1)i stat that makes them less likely than a striker to get hit by that first shot when they get caught by surprise.

An answer in itself. A Striker with a fat, upgraded HP pool and Directional shields won't be 1-shot, even with Bypass. A Scout will, no matter the upgrades, by a direct hit from an upgraded railgun.

 

Granted, I don't like RNG a lot myself. I'd rather have the Evasion stat diminish the ship's hitbox (aim area), or something like that.

2)if the scout is aware of the gunship and still needs evasion to bail them out It sounds to me like the scout pilot isn't thinking 3D in this case. I'd be curious to know from gunship pilots how random adjustments to elevation along with speed adjustments and left/right movement (relative to the gunship) screw up their aim. I have serious doubts that a scout that's aware of gunships and utilizing their agility and speed to its maximum potential make easy targets.

 

Scouts are without a doubt the most agile ships in the game so why do scout pilots insist that the only reason they aren't blown out of the sky by every ship in the game is because of evasion? (Yes I've heard the quoted argument pretty much used in the exact same way when discussing scout vs striker combat). If evasion is literally the only reason they aren't dying they're probably doing something wrong and making themselves much easier to shoot than they should be.

Even the best pilots aren't omniscient. You can't constantly be aware of every potential gunship that's targetting you.

 

If the Scout is aware of the Gunship, he either, boosts, runs for cover, or uses engine specials. Two of the three are a finite supply, one means that he's temporarily out of the fight - not actively attacking/capturing objectives.

 

If baseline speed was higher, then yes, I would agree that Scouts don't need Evasion. But when a ship is just going by its cruising speed, no matter how often it turns, you can achieve almost 100% accuracy against them. 100% chance to hit a Scout, sans him using cooldowns=Scout dead in 2 seconds or less. The Scout's agility simply isn't enough to avoid blaster fire at cruising speed vs a competent gunner. Booster - yes, engine specials - yes, line of sight - yes. regular turning in open space - no.

 

I'm a Fleet Req-hungry SoB - I fly all ships, favouring the NovaDive. Whenever I'm on my Scout, Evasion or not, whenever my shield is hit by a pebble, I'm forced to dart off with Boost, or Barrel Roll, or use Distortion if I need just a couple more shots to finish off the guy I'm chasing. If there's someone who isn't a complete idiot on my tail, I *will* get vaped, if I don't take measures. Scout survivability has little margin for error. Evasion does make it a little more forgiving in terms of taking blaster fire, that's it. The seemingly intimidating 41% base is considerably lower when you stack accuracy, use skills that reduce enemy evasion and use proper weapons at appropriate ranges and line your shots well (to avoid tracking penalties).

Edited December 17, 2013 by Helig

[Svarthrafn]

The seemingly intimidating 41% base is considerably lower when you stack accuracy, use skills that reduce enemy evasion and use proper weapons at appropriate ranges and line your shots well (to avoid tracking penalties).

 

Exactly what I have been trying to say. It isn't a flat-out miss percentage. Get on a scout's tail, and damn near every shot is hitting.

[Gaudrath]

OP, you do know that Sting/Flashfire is just technically a scout. In practice, it's a dedicated dogfighter. It's supposed to be the best choice for those who want to dogfight and get to the action quickly. Strike fighter is a multi-role ship, contrary to established opinion, it's a support ship, not the backbone of a team. It's supposed to bring heavier, more adaptable firepower down onto targets already engaged by dedicated dogfighters. As such, by definition, it is supposed to be inferior at dogfighting than Sting/Flashfire.

 

That said, the RNG evasion is pure ******** in this type of game. I fly a Sting exclusively and I can't tell you how many times I was totally frustrated because some random number generator decided that, although I lined up my shots perfectly, welp, nothing happened.

 

Removing evasion entirely from the game would be an excellent move. And no, scout maneuverability wouldn't be so OP in that case - if you can aim.

 

Oh, and one other thing - noticed how your hits do not register at extreme close range? Yeah. It's not the dogfighters that are OP, it's the wonky mechanics. Bioware should realize already that they can't sit on two chairs at the same time - if they wanted to make a twitch-based space shooter, why the hell are clicky MMO mechanics in there at all?

Edited December 17, 2013 by Gaudrath

[renegadeimp]

How are they not OP? My GS 1-2 shots them. Nerf Ion cannon if anything.

[BuckeyeChris]

Good lord people, GS has been out what, 2 weeks now? It's still in its infancy and despite how leet and wise you think you are you're playing in an undeveloped metagame. Most pilots are pretty bad, most ships don't have many upgrades, most teams don't work together, and those that do haven't been doing so for long.

It's a little early to be screaming for nerfs. At most we're still in the early impression stage. But go ahead and cry because on day 1, gunships or scouts or whatever feel OP. My current impression is that the balance is great, but it's still early.

Give it some damn time.

[DarthVindictus]

Good lord people, GS has been out what, 2 weeks now? It's still in its infancy and despite how leet and wise you think you are you're playing in an undeveloped metagame. Most pilots are pretty bad, most ships don't have many upgrades, most teams don't work together, and those that do haven't been doing so for long.

It's a little early to be screaming for nerfs. At most we're still in the early impression stage. But go ahead and cry because on day 1, gunships or scouts or whatever feel OP. My current impression is that the balance is great, but it's still early.

Give it some damn time.

 

Every other ship has distinct weaknesses. For multiple reasons that have been discussed, the Flashfire/Stings do not have significant weaknesses.

 

That's the discussion.

 

Nova/Blackbolts have weak firepower as their weakness, Strike Fighters all have weak sensors, Gunships have weak maneuverability.

 

Weak armor/shields is a moot thing when a combination of maneuverability and passive evade make them much harder to hit than any other ship.

[Phantasym]

It is still an issue, because even without the RNG evasion, they can manually evade everything except another scout, while locking on missiles and unloading a lot of laser firepower.

 

As a gunship, fighting Novadrives/Blackbolts is more annoying than threatening, yes they can stay on me for a long time, but its hard for them to actually kill me.

 

Flashfires get on me and I either have to flee straight for spawn point and hope they're stupid enough to follow or break pursuit, or I'm pretty much dead. I won't be able to get distance on them to rail gun, and I won't be able to hit them with lasers because of their maneuverability, and they can spam cluster missiles and use burst and quad lasers on me.

 

The weakness for gunships is that they're terrible in close range and have to blow as much evasion and engine power as possible to try and run away if engaged in close range. The weakness for strike fighters is they have poor sensor detection, and don't maneuver as well as scouts. The weakness for a normal scout is that they have paper thin armor/shields AND weak weapons.

 

Flashfires relegate that to just weak shields/armor, but with their superior moving and good firepower that's not even really a weakness. I think giving them a better selection of blasters was enough of a tradeoff for losing upgradable sensors. It still makes them offensively powerful, but giving them 1.3s lockon missiles is just too much.

 

In a gunship if you get a scout on you honestly you should not be able to escape that's sorta the point scouts are a gunships weakness, you are not supposed to be able to outrun them. Frankly I can kill a gunship in either scout, the base scout has rocket pods which give no warning fire faster and have armor penetration, If I use F1 and short range I can still kill a gunship and there is no way they outrun me. They can also equip thermite missiles, sensor dampening and sabotage probe which the other scout cannot. Anyone with a sabotage probe on them currently is dead, its not escapable.

 

The Sting gets blaster overload which gives it great firepower with its lasers for a few seconds and freaks people out with constant missile locks using cluster missiles. It still has most of the speed of the other scout, except for the engine boost abilities.

 

Stings/Flashfires loose the boost engine component over the base scout which limits how far they can travel on boost the base scout can boost straight from A to C, a sting cannot.

 

The sensor dampening they loose right now isn't a big deal due to the 15km dampening bug posted in known issues. Same is true with the sensor range bonus, but if that bug ever goes away having that increased sensor range or being able to sneak up on someone in that scout will greatly improve the base scouts advantages both in spotting gunships no one else can, and in sneaking up on them or taking a satellite with dampening where its hard for people to notice you heading there or see you as they approach. I honestly have an easier time taking a satellite currently on the base scout then my sting due to the rocket pods with armor piercing.

[mtsr]

how come the matches I am in is mostly all starfighters then?

just a personal observation.

[Zoom_VI]

Every other ship has distinct weaknesses. For multiple reasons that have been discussed, the Flashfire/Stings do not have significant weaknesses.

 

That's the discussion.

 

Nova/Blackbolts have weak firepower as their weakness, Strike Fighters all have weak sensors, Gunships have weak maneuverability.

 

Weak armor/shields is a moot thing when a combination of maneuverability and passive evade make them much harder to hit than any other ship.

 

Flashfire/stings have the weakness that their shields are made of paper and their hulls made of tissues.

[DarthVindictus]

Flashfire/stings have the weakness that their shields are made of paper and their hulls made of tissues.

 

Not a weakness when they're harder to hit. They're a straight up upgrade over the Nova/Blackbolt and an upgrade over the strike fighters.

[DarthVindictus]

In a gunship if you get a scout on you honestly you should not be able to escape that's sorta the point scouts are a gunships weakness, you are not supposed to be able to outrun them. Frankly I can kill a gunship in either scout, the base scout has rocket pods which give no warning fire faster and have armor penetration, If I use F1 and short range I can still kill a gunship and there is no way they outrun me. They can also equip thermite missiles, sensor dampening and sabotage probe which the other scout cannot. Anyone with a sabotage probe on them currently is dead, its not escapable.

 

The Sting gets blaster overload which gives it great firepower with its lasers for a few seconds and freaks people out with constant missile locks using cluster missiles. It still has most of the speed of the other scout, except for the engine boost abilities.

 

Stings/Flashfires loose the boost engine component over the base scout which limits how far they can travel on boost the base scout can boost straight from A to C, a sting cannot.

 

The sensor dampening they loose right now isn't a big deal due to the 15km dampening bug posted in known issues. Same is true with the sensor range bonus, but if that bug ever goes away having that increased sensor range or being able to sneak up on someone in that scout will greatly improve the base scouts advantages both in spotting gunships no one else can, and in sneaking up on them or taking a satellite with dampening where its hard for people to notice you heading there or see you as they approach. I honestly have an easier time taking a satellite currently on the base scout then my sting due to the rocket pods with armor piercing.

 

Can you explain the 15k dampening issue? You can only get a max of 11.5k dampening. I know Dampening works to some extent because you can outright lose strike fighters. Is it that you can only reduce their sensor range TO 15km? That'd make sense because it seems like I "lose" strike fighters after getting 15km away from them, they stop advancing on me if I make a turn, because I think they can no longer see me, but realistically a strike fighter should lose me if I get more than 6km away from them (as long as I'm also 13km away from the nearest scout)

[Phantasym]

GSF isn't rock paper scissors. You don't have that kind of system at work. A striker can beat a scout, a scout can beat a striker, a gunship can beat a scout, a scout can beat a gunship, it's scenario dependent, it's also component dependent.

 

A gunship vs a default scout, the gunship may be able to beat the scout if they're using fortress shields and using the active. they can sponge the scout's puny damage while they lay them out with a charged shot. Not possible with a flashfire, they have too much firepower.

 

Against a default scout, a gunship can also evade lock on from thermite torpedos just by boosting, avoiding a lockon of cluster missiles is much much harder and usually requires using an engine component skill. Avoiding a cluster missile lock on from a strike fighter is also easier, as you have more of a chance to stay out of range, a flashfire you have very little chance of staying out of their range and you'll find yourself unable to stay out of range after about 8s.

 

The counter to gunships is scouts actively looking for them, gunships can one shot a scout if they get a hit scouts that sneak up on a gunship can kill one very quickly regardless of the scout. If you are in a gunship and whining about dying to a scout try reading one of the 40 threads where some scout pilots try to convince everyone gunships don't need nerfing because of scouts being able to counter them. A gunship right in the description says they are slow and cant be maneuvered well you shouldn't be able to evade missile locks easily, or outrun them. In fact I would say that if a gunship is easily able to out distance the striker and stay out of missile lock with the striker actively pursing them then something is wrong the striker should always be able to catch them and out maneuver a gunship, the gunship strength is the rail gun and 15km range.

 

As far as cluster missiles go both strikes and scouts get them with the same 1.4second lock-on time, That said their damage is minimal, In my strike fighter with the shield upgraded to regen at 60% rate even when being damaged I just ignore the clusters they sorta scratch my shield a lil, about 2 seconds in shield focus mode (f2) fixes that. If I see a lock-on taking 4 seconds I pop my defensive as soon as I can if I cant break it. On a scout I have to worry about every lock and anything using shield piercing destroys me in seconds if I don't have my defensive cooldown up.

 

I fly both scouts and strikes, I don't play exactly the same roll in both but I can be effective in both. In a scout I am either capturing points or zipping to defend them or hunting gunships, I do this in both scouts and switch between them depending on the roll. If I am killing turrets I take the blackbolt, if I am doing to be dogfighting more the sting. I can hunt gunships in both. If I am going to be defending one turret in a big furball I often take my strike fighter which its shields and increased hull and hull repair active it is extremely hard to kill me, I like to use ion cannons and quad lasers taking out their shield first and swaping to quad for the kill or just letting my shields absorb hits and taking out shields with ions when convenient to help other people fighting.

[Zoom_VI]

Not a weakness when they're harder to hit. They're a straight up upgrade over the Nova/Blackbolt and an upgrade over the strike fighters.

 

And having low firepower isn't a weakness for NovaDrive when you realize how to use the available weaponry. And being immobile isn't a issue for gunship that know how to kite and when to do so. And being slow isn't a weakness for strikes that know how to leverage there weapons and armor.

 

And lol they are not a upgrade of Novadrives, you lose maneuverability and raw engine speed and power.

Edited December 17, 2013 by Zoom_VI

[Phantasym]

and 41% chance to evade, and fast enough that you're never going to be able to fire fully charged shots directly in the center of your arc at them, so often you will aim spot on and completely miss because you're 5-10 degrees off your arc

 

5 degrees off center of your arc = 25% additional chance to miss, you have a 34% chance to hit then.

 

I think this is a l2p Issue, I feel I am one of the better pilots at noticing gunships and avoiding them but I still get hit with fully charged railshots anytime I didn't notice the gunship ahead of time then I am on red hull immediately and trying to close on the gunship to hope I can kill it before I die. If any other ship interferes I am dead because my ship is weakened. I don't know any gunship that doesn't use full charge on their rail guns 90% of the time baring the I only need a 20% charge to finish of the scout I hit once, or the issue with ion rail debuffs.

 

If you are trying to fight scouts one on one in a gunship at anything less then 10k range then that is your problem. Gunships are meant for sneak attacks at 10km-15km range, when a ship gets close you get the tracking penalty and they turn very slowly in sniper mode, if they are 15km out its easy to keep them near the center of the reticule so you don't have that tracking penalty. It sounds as if you are trying to play the gunship like a strike fighter with a really big gun and that's not its role.

[DarthVindictus]

The counter to gunships is scouts actively looking for them, gunships can one shot a scout if they get a hit scouts that sneak up on a gunship can kill one very quickly regardless of the scout. If you are in a gunship and whining about dying to a scout try reading one of the 40 threads where some scout pilots try to convince everyone gunships don't need nerfing because of scouts being able to counter them. A gunship right in the description says they are slow and cant be maneuvered well you shouldn't be able to evade missile locks easily, or outrun them. In fact I would say that if a gunship is easily able to out distance the striker and stay out of missile lock with the striker actively pursing them then something is wrong the striker should always be able to catch them and out maneuver a gunship, the gunship strength is the rail gun and 15km range.

 

As far as cluster missiles go both strikes and scouts get them with the same 1.4second lock-on time, That said their damage is minimal, In my strike fighter with the shield upgraded to regen at 60% rate even when being damaged I just ignore the clusters they sorta scratch my shield a lil, about 2 seconds in shield focus mode (f2) fixes that. If I see a lock-on taking 4 seconds I pop my defensive as soon as I can if I cant break it. On a scout I have to worry about every lock and anything using shield piercing destroys me in seconds if I don't have my defensive cooldown up.

 

I fly both scouts and strikes, I don't play exactly the same roll in both but I can be effective in both. In a scout I am either capturing points or zipping to defend them or hunting gunships, I do this in both scouts and switch between them depending on the roll. If I am killing turrets I take the blackbolt, if I am doing to be dogfighting more the sting. I can hunt gunships in both. If I am going to be defending one turret in a big furball I often take my strike fighter which its shields and increased hull and hull repair active it is extremely hard to kill me, I like to use ion cannons and quad lasers taking out their shield first and swaping to quad for the kill or just letting my shields absorb hits and taking out shields with ions when convenient to help other people fighting.

 

Again, this isn't Rock Paper Scissors, it should not be that one ship is a free kill to another ship. You're asking for gunships to be free kills to scouts and strikers.

 

I'm not asking for flashfires to be free kills. That's why I haven't been targeting their evade as a thing I'd change. If evade was removed then yeah, they'd be free kills at 15km range. But as it is, I can be dead on aiming at 15km and miss a scout. I won't often miss a strike fighter at that range, but I will miss scouts often enough.

[Phantasym]

Oh, and one other thing - noticed how your hits do not register at extreme close range? Yeah. It's not the dogfighters that are OP, it's the wonky mechanics. Bioware should realize already that they can't sit on two chairs at the same time - if they wanted to make a twitch-based space shooter, why the hell are clicky MMO mechanics in there at all?

 

This is completely accurate, I cant count the number of times I have been right on someone's tail, my weapon is most effective within 500m, and getting 0 hits not because evasion, but because the mechanics are screwed up where being too close makes you not hit. They need to fix it so you can hit at almost zero range and add in collision to the ships and satellites. A lot of people probably mistake this for the evasion stat when it is just bad coding. If I have a ship filling up nearly the entire firing arc I shouldn't be able to miss, instead it misses every single shot. If hit the break and open a some distance say 1000m then I hit with every shot.

[Phantasym]

Can you explain the 15k dampening issue? You can only get a max of 11.5k dampening. I know Dampening works to some extent because you can outright lose strike fighters. Is it that you can only reduce their sensor range TO 15km? That'd make sense because it seems like I "lose" strike fighters after getting 15km away from them, they stop advancing on me if I make a turn, because I think they can no longer see me, but realistically a strike fighter should lose me if I get more than 6km away from them (as long as I'm also 13km away from the nearest scout)

 

Correct from the interpretation of the dev post everyone seems to believe that you cant reduce sensor range below 15km currently, even if you have 11.5km dampening and they only had 15km sensor range instead of them having to be 3.5km away to see you they can still see you at 15km. Some believe this is intentional in that it is the gunship range with their railguns. Either way that that will drastically alter balance if it is ever "fixed"

[Phantasym]

Again, this isn't Rock Paper Scissors, it should not be that one ship is a free kill to another ship. You're asking for gunships to be free kills to scouts and strikers.

 

I'm not asking for flashfires to be free kills. That's why I haven't been targeting their evade as a thing I'd change. If evade was removed then yeah, they'd be free kills at 15km range. But as it is, I can be dead on aiming at 15km and miss a scout. I won't often miss a strike fighter at that range, but I will miss scouts often enough.

 

Like I said previously, Blackbolt or Sting, a gunship I notice before they notice me is a free kill 80% of the time, even in a strike fighter I can close the range often and if I do can take them off, sometimes more easily using both blasters, ion for shields and immediately switch to quads or light blaster.

 

The opposite is also try if a gunship notices me and I don't notice them in a scout I am dead, you fire and miss... so what, it doesn't tell me you fired I have no bright streak of laser fire to tell me someone is on my tail, you didn't hit me so I cant hit R to target you, until you hit me, which kills me or brings me to 5% health I don't even know you are there unless I noticed your glow

[Zoom_VI]

and 41% chance to evade, and fast enough that you're never going to be able to fire fully charged shots directly in the center of your arc at them, so often you will aim spot on and completely miss because you're 5-10 degrees off your arc

 

5 degrees off center of your arc = 25% additional chance to miss, you have a 34% chance to hit then.

 

You have evasion mechanics wrong, it doesn't work like ground dodge does.

 

Evasion appears at least (BW doesn't tell us for sure) to affect the firing arc penalty. In other words it increases the penalty for being off center. If you have a target perfectly lined up in your sights and your sights are dead center of your craft you *will* hit your target. I at one point at least shot down a Distortion field Novadrive that was diving a turret doing this although it is a one-in-a-million thing.

 

Oh and if Distortion field is what's so OP wouldn't that mean that both Gunships and Novadrives are also OP? They both have lightweight armor and distortion field.

Edited December 17, 2013 by Zoom_VI

[Lymain]

Not a weakness when they're harder to hit. They're a straight up upgrade over the Nova/Blackbolt and an upgrade over the strike fighters.

 

With Cluster Missles and Burst Laser Cannons they're the best close range dogfighters. I don't see why this is an issue...that title is going to fall to one ship, and it makes sense that it would be the Flashfire/Sting. The only thing that makes them "overpowered" is the fact that close range dogfighting is so important given how the domination game mode is set up.

[DarthVindictus]

With Cluster Missles and Burst Laser Cannons they're the best close range dogfighters. I don't see why this is an issue...that title is going to fall to one ship, and it makes sense that it would be the Flashfire/Sting. The only thing that makes them "overpowered" is the fact that close range dogfighting is so important given how the domination game mode is set up.

 

Top dogfighter should go to a strike fighter. Strike fighters are space/air superiority ships. Scouts are scouts.

 

Carrying heavier armament should result in a slower turning speed and slower top engine speed then. Something has to give.

[Lymain]

Top dogfighter should go to a strike fighter. Strike fighters are space/air superiority ships. Scouts are scouts.

 

Carrying heavier armament should result in a slower turning speed and slower top engine speed then. Something has to give.

 

Strike Fighters are able to operate much better at medium/long range than Flashfires/Stings (while still carrying a short range weapon if they want to). I don't think making Strike Fighters better at short range AND medium/long range would be balanced overall. It just so happens that being better at longer range doesn't matter much if you have to hug a satellite.

Edited December 17, 2013 by Lymain

[Gavin_Kelvar]

An answer in itself. A Striker with a fat, upgraded HP pool and Directional shields won't be 1-shot, even with Bypass. A Scout will, no matter the upgrades, by a direct hit from an upgraded railgun.

 

Granted, I don't like RNG a lot myself. I'd rather have the Evasion stat diminish the ship's hitbox (aim area), or something like that.

 

Well I'd say that 1 shots shouldn't be possible period and that is probably a balance issue with the gunship. Theoretically if gunships were balanced to not be able to 1 shot enemies evasion wouldn't be needed to act as a bandage.

 

Even the best pilots aren't omniscient. You can't constantly be aware of every potential gunship that's targetting you.

 

As is the case for any pilot, but I don't think that means ships should get crutches that minimize the consequences of that (and to be fair I have growing doubts of the wisdom of giving gunships barrel roll on similar grounds).

 

If baseline speed was higher, then yes, I would agree that Scouts don't need Evasion. But when a ship is just going by its cruising speed, no matter how often it turns, you can achieve almost 100% accuracy against them. 100% chance to hit a Scout, sans him using cooldowns=Scout dead in 2 seconds or less. The Scout's agility simply isn't enough to avoid blaster fire at cruising speed vs a competent gunner. Booster - yes, engine specials - yes, line of sight - yes. regular turning in open space - no.

 

personally I think that light armor (which currently boosts evasion) should boost speed (both cruise speed and boost), and/or boost agility. Not sure what to do with companion buffs/abilities but I'm sure something could be worked out to replace their evasion buffs.

 

Distortion field should keep the missile lock ability, expand sensor dampening (allowing for easier escapes), and possibly cause them to be untargetable by targeting computers (perhaps for balance not drop them from targeting computers that already acquired them but eliminate the lead indicator so while an enemy pilot that was targeting them can still follow them they have to manually figure out the lead required). In the last case it would function similar to evasion by decreasing the odds of an enemy hitting them but the amount decreased would depend on pilot skill.

 

IMO all these adjustments would help give scouts either 1) enhanced ability to take evasive action on their own or 2) make it harder for an enemy to hit them by emphasizing pilot skill. In both cases the ability would focus on pilot skill not stats in determining the success or failure.

 

The seemingly intimidating 41% base is considerably lower when you stack accuracy, use skills that reduce enemy evasion and use proper weapons at appropriate ranges and line your shots well (to avoid tracking penalties).

 

True I suppose. For me the main problem is that evasion almost requires using those abilities because otherwise evasion can render a weapon ineffective when it maintains considerable accuracy against the other two ship types. As someone else pointed out at point blank with tracking penalties quads can have around 75% accuracy against a striker but in an identical situation against a scout it drops to less than 50%.

 

If evasion only made a 10-15% accuracy difference I wouldn't have as big a problem with it (though I still don't think RNG type stuff belongs in a twitch based game mode regardless of ship type). But it seems that right now it acts to artificially increase scout survivability beyond what should be possible given the paper thin defenses because of the significant accuracy penalty.

 

To add why I really think it's unbalanced: combined with maxed out evasion and the distortion field ability I can make attack runs on turrets and be essentially immune to any damage from them. That leaves me in relatively good position to take on defending fighters because I still have significant shield strength. By contrast in my striker my shields will take a beating and possibly leave me very vulnerable to defending fighters. To me it seems inbalanced when a single stat allows the ship with the weakest armor to be more effective making attack runs on defensive hard points than more heavily armored starfighters.

 

I concede that flashfires are probably designed/intended to be the best at close range dogfighting but when evasion also allows them to function as effectively (or more effectively) as strike fighters in attacking defensive hardpoints it leaves me wondering what role strike fighters are left with when flashfires are superior dogfighters and multirole fighters.

 

If my suggestions for light armor + distortion field were followed scouts would retain their supremacy as close range dogfighters while removing their multirole utility for attacking turrets and placing the strike fighter as clearly dominant as the mutlirole starfighter.