[GUIDE] Sniping in Space: A Gunship Primer

[Mystry]

This is not a bacon is delicious thread; bacon has the most dynamic flavor ever, really unmatched by vanilla breakfast meats no matter the situation. Upgrading bacon to thick cut and/or smoked maple can really enhance its already dominant flavor mechanics. Over-confident sausages dare not challenge the bacon's flavor burst capabilities.

Learn to bacon or get smoked.

 

I laughed.

 

All hail to bacon.

[renegadeimp]

I notices you said choose ion cannon above plasma. This is true for a solo player, but in a group setting, plasma really comes into its own. The dot effect can really put pressure on another ship. Especially when it eats away at the shields and hull while its running off. Compared to Ion railgun which does its debuff, but most of the debuff duration can easily be countered with various skills.

[Kuciwalker]

No, in a group setting ion is even better, because it sets up kills for your allies.

 

The ion railgun is currently broken and is absolutely required. Gunships would be worth it even if they ONLY had the ion railgun.

[renegadeimp]

No, in a group setting ion is even better, because it sets up kills for your allies.

 

The ion railgun is currently broken and is absolutely required. Gunships would be worth it even if they ONLY had the ion railgun.

 

In a group setting, you put pressure on the other team. Disabling for a few seconds ( which are easily countered) doesnt really achieve much and you are relying on a team member to be in the right place at the right time, Putting pressure on another player while its being chased, as well as dmg to shields and hull, which cant be countered is much more viable.

 

 

I'll concede the fact that your tactic will work, and works well in solo pvp, especially if you are satellite guarding, but in organised pvp, plasma edges it out.

[reclipsed]

They are still a waste of time, might be raking up kills somewhere now and then, but honestly they have no real use as they got the concept when they made them all wrong, would be better if they actually would move around having players manning turrets inside of it, of course they would be more heavy and be able to sustain alot more damage that way, but patroling an area or offering somewhat mobile support would be better.

 

The point of sitting still in space is just not starwarsy at all unless it is some huge Capital ship or frigate or whichever doing it.

 

Just my 2 cents to it all... just feel like when having 4 GS on my side.. thinking.... what the hell are they doing? they are not capping anything... they pretend to offer some kind of cover fire... and now we are losing because they have the have the control over the satelite.

 

 

They are useless even with one that has a deadeye in them.

 

You must play with horrible gunship pilots. A GS pilot should be able to 3-shot the sats turrets in seconds, giving the quick scouts a easy route to kill those "ace" sat humpers.

 

A good gunship pilots does not sit in space the entire match, he takes his 1-3 shots and rolls to a new location to support his teammates. You think Scouts that do the lolmerry-go-round each other under 100m for 45 seconds is any better?

 

Take your baby bottle to the other half dozen crying threads. and merry christmas

[Kuciwalker]

In a group setting, you put pressure on the other team. Disabling for a few seconds ( which are easily countered) doesnt really achieve much and you are relying on a team member to be in the right place at the right time, Putting pressure on another player while its being chased, as well as dmg to shields and hull, which cant be countered is much more viable.

 

 

I'll concede the fact that your tactic will work, and works well in solo pvp, especially if you are satellite guarding, but in organised pvp, plasma edges it out.

 

Dude, you have no idea what you are talking about. Six seconds WITHOUT ANY ENERGY - which can be extended into any number of seconds - means that the enemy ship is doing NOTHING AT ALL. Not shooting and not boosting. Meanwhile you are also draining shields and energy in an AOE.

 

Your "pressure" thing is BS. The plasma gun does only slightly more damage than the slug railgun, and damage up front is always better than damage over time.

[renegadeimp]

Dude, you have no idea what you are talking about. Six seconds WITHOUT ANY ENERGY - which can be extended into any number of seconds - means that the enemy ship is doing NOTHING AT ALL. Not shooting and not boosting. Meanwhile you are also draining shields and energy in an AOE.

 

Your "pressure" thing is BS. The plasma gun does only slightly more damage than the slug railgun, and damage up front is always better than damage over time.

 

They still have energy. You just lower it and stop regen. Like i said, it can be countered various ways. By counter, i mean the duration. Sure, they wont last as long as if they had full energy, but if they are near any obstacles, then its easy to out maneuver you until the duration expires.

 

How do i know? been there, done that. Multiple players, targets, 'test beds'. You are working from theory. I am talking from theory and putting it into practice in multiple scenarios.

 

Im not trying to derail the thread, but giving much more insight on the GS and abilities, which is what this entire thread is meant to be about. If it was a one size fits all approach, then the Op should have made a blog. Not an open thread on a forum.

[Mystry]

While I'm glad that people are deviating from the norm, I have to agree in that Plasma subpar compared to Ion and Slug. It simply doesn't have the pure damage that slug does, given slugs passive shield-piercing, and it has none of the utility of Ion.

[paowee]

For pure defense, nothing beats out Distortion Field max right now. Try it with Barrel Roll fully upgraded. You will never die from a Scout gank again..

 

One reason why Plasma also pales in comparison to the other two is the lack of Accuracy upgrades. I miss a LOT more times when running Plasma compared to Ion and Slug. Not to mention a lot of scout players i know seem to go for Evasion so every little bit of RNG counts.

Edited December 24, 2013 by paowee

[renegadeimp]

For pure defense, nothing beats out Distortion Field max right now. Try it with Barrel Roll fully upgraded. You will never die from a Scout gank again..

 

Yup. Can agree.

[Kuciwalker]

They still have energy. You just lower it and stop regen.

 

It is obvious that you've never used the ion railgun (upgraded), nor fought anyone who does. No, they DON'T have energy. A single shot drains 35 points - and it does so even if you charge it for only a hundredth of a second. You can hit a person with three shots in a fraction of a second, which WILL fully drain them.

 

Like i said, it can be countered various ways. By counter, i mean the duration. Sure, they wont last as long as if they had full energy, but if they are near any obstacles, then its easy to out maneuver you until the duration expires.

 

In the very worst case that they have to hide, we've removed an enemy from the fight for about 8-10 seconds, which is a long time during which we can take out multiple other targets.

 

How do i know? been there, done that. Multiple players, targets, 'test beds'. You are working from theory. I am talking from theory and putting it into practice in multiple scenarios.

 

No, I'm working from an 80% win rate and a consistent position at the top of the scoreboards. You are working from ignorance of how your ship even functions.

Edited December 24, 2013 by Kuciwalker

[renegadeimp]

It is obvious that you've never used the ion railgun (upgraded), nor fought anyone who does. No, they DON'T have energy. A single shot drains 35 points - and it does so even if you charge it for only a hundredth of a second. You can hit a person with three shots in a fraction of a second, which WILL fully drain them.

 

 

 

In the very worst case that they have to hide, we've removed an enemy from the fight for about 8-10 seconds, which is a long time during which we can take out multiple other targets.

 

 

 

No, I'm working from an 80% win rate and a consistent position at the top of the scoreboards. You are working from ignorance of how your ship even functions.

 

Ill concede the energy thing... for now. its going to be nerfed. 35 removal on one tap.... yeah no.

[Kuciwalker]

Of course it will be nerfed.

[renegadeimp]

Which is why i made my point around an actual mechanic that wont be nerfed, and not say that EVRYONE has to use the 'bugged ion railgun'.

 

Everyones entitled to their own playstyle though.

[Kuciwalker]

Which is why i made my point around an actual mechanic that wont be nerfed, and not say that EVRYONE has to use the 'bugged ion railgun'.

 

Everyones entitled to their own playstyle though.

 

Ion aside, plasma is just a slug railgun that doesn't pierce shields and leaves its targets alive for 6 extra seconds.

 

And everyone's entitled to their own playstyle, but this thread is a guide to playing gunships effectively. Part of that is not using the plasma railgun because it sucks.

Edited December 24, 2013 by Kuciwalker

[Verain]

I would claim that the plasma railgun is fine- if anything, it could use a talent to ignore some evasion, just as slug mysteriously has one to ignore ALL armor- and that far from sucking, it is much closer to what a gunship should be about. Ion is so strange as to likely be an oversight, and slug is likely too good given that the only counter to it are things that work against all railguns, and it synergizes too well with bypass.

 

You are correct that it's not competitive with the other choices at max upgrade. I would say that it's got a lot to recommend it before that though.

[renegadeimp]

Ion is an oversight or a bug. I very much doubt that it was intended to do as much debuff wise with continuous taps as it currently does. Seriously a 1 sec tab adds the debuff and drains some energy.

[Verain]

Ion is an oversight or a bug. I very much doubt that it was intended to do as much debuff wise with continuous taps as it currently does. Seriously a 1 sec tab adds the debuff and drains some energy.

 

It's definitely NOT a bug. A bug would be it doing something unexpected. An oversight is when something that is intended has strange effects. Aka, if the description said you needed a full charge to drain energy and partial charges drained less, then what we see would be a bug. Instead it says "every hit does X", and hell yea it does.

 

But it is likely an oversight. The game play encouraged by the ability is both strange and generally too strong, and that combination in particular tells me something is fishy. No other railgun rewards you for 30% charge (unless you are trying to hit an opponent that is fleeing behind a rock, coming at you, or has low health), but ion rewards the smallest little hits possible because it enervates or snares as a perk. I bet that when they were testing, they didn't even think to do that- seriously. Because it's not how railguns are "meant" to be used, and internal testing often misses unintended play.

 

 

One of the things I liked about the original tone of the OP was that it was sort of "what is this ability supposed to be good for". We've gotten away from that with firmly worded "take distortion field, barrel roll, slug, ion, lightweight armor, or you are playing wrong".

 

Here's some thought on things that are a bit off of normal:

 

> Dampening Sensors only help if you are far enough from their enemies to not be detected. A scout can often sight you if they went range sensors. Meanwhile, you can miss out on other targets who have also chosen dampening sensors. Range sensors doesn't have this disadvantage, though you will get targeted much more often. I think the real decider between these is where you plan to be sniping from and what your team plans to do. I agree that in a solo queue whatever, dampening has an edge- but that's not the only thing.

 

> Lightweight armor, the 6% evasion passive, and the distortion passive and effect all stack additively, which makes them probably a bit too good (if your chance to hit goes from 100% to 95% you've lost 5% of your hit space- if it goes from 50% to 45% you've lost 10% of your hit space). The downsides of these, even in the current meta, are that you are still vulnerable to lucky nonsense. The upside is that most opponents favor abilities and powers that ignore shields, but don't have anything available to them that ignores evasion besides missiles, which are much more in your hands. If you should be playing against opponents who are skilled at landing rocket pods, or whose missile lock and positioning are such that you are bound to take something, you could definitely argue for the other shields. I do think we'll see a bit of a change in the way that evasion effects work.

[Kuciwalker]

One of the things I liked about the original tone of the OP was that it was sort of "what is this ability supposed to be good for". We've gotten away from that with firmly worded "take distortion field, barrel roll, slug, ion, lightweight armor, or you are playing wrong".

 

I think that a guide can and should have that tone, but it should also, after explaining what everything does, explain why you should only take a particular build.

 

In the future, I expect balance changes to fix enough that there is genuine choice in gunship builds, at which point the guide could legitimately recommend alternative ones. As it stands, it should not pretend that any other builds are good idea.s

[Mystry]

Given the extensive popularity of the distortion shield/barrel roll combo, I added it to example builds

[NathanielStarr]

Why would this easy *** ship need a guide?

[Tentou]

Why would this easy *** ship need a guide?

 

If it whines like a sh*tter, plays like a sh*tter....... Guess what?