Devs: Is Afterburner speed affected by speed buffs?

[Nemarus]

The ship stat sheets always list Afterburner speed as 320%. I'm curious if Speed Thrusters or the "Increased Ship Speed" upgrade on most engine components increases Afterburner speed or not.

 

The 320% stat never changes ... and from what I've done in testing, Afterburner speed is NOT affected by "ship speed" type upgrades.

 

If true, that's kind of a shame, as most ships--if they are trying to get somewhere fast--can get there exclusively using Barrel Roll and Afterburners. It's especially weird for Scouts, who rarely if ever run out of engine energy and thus never need to use "W" to get somewhere. It effectively means that any ship speed boosts are mostly wasted for them.

 

Tait, can you get the devs to confirm or deny my understanding? Thanks!

[Itkovian]

The ship stat sheets always list Afterburner speed as 320%. I'm curious if Speed Thrusters or the "Increased Ship Speed" upgrade on most engine components increases Afterburner speed or not.

 

The 320% stat never changes ... and from what I've done in testing, Afterburner speed is NOT affected by "ship speed" type upgrades.

 

If true, that's kind of a shame, as most ships--if they are trying to get somewhere fast--can get there exclusively using Barrel Roll and Afterburners. It's especially weird for Scouts, who rarely if ever run out of engine energy and thus never need to use "W" to get somewhere. It effectively means that any ship speed boosts are mostly wasted for them.

 

Tait, can you get the devs to confirm or deny my understanding? Thanks!

 

One thing I CAN attest to, at least, is that engine power allocation DOES affect afterburner speed. If I'm burning after someone and switch to full engine power, I will often start catching up (it's a small different, but it can go from losing .2k per second to gaining .2k per second, for example).

 

Given that, I think that the speed bonus does apply. Afterburner increases your base speed by 320%, and your base speed is modified by your components.

 

At least that's the logical conclusion. I haven't actually tested it.

[Ramalina]

My experience with a Pike is the opposite of what you [Nemarus] are suggesting. Driven by the desire to have enough boost endurance to stay at an effective range for Proton torps and Concussion missiles I wound up mastering all the secondary thruster components. Speed thrusters blew all the other options completely out of the water. It seems to get multiplied by the 320%, and I believe it also affects how far you get carried by barrel roll. I discovered the latter by thinking, "Oh, I have plenty of room for a barrel roll here," only to find that some barrels apparently roll farther than others.

 

If it had been close I would have tried quantitative flight tests, to see which was really the best but the speed thrusters were so much better that I didn't think I needed to bother.

 

I will note that on a Novadive the engine efficiency and regen are good enough that the speed thrusters are not as great, because you have enough endurance to boost almost continuously. With a strike fighter you run into engine pool limits much quicker, and where the speed thrusters shine is getting the most out of a small engine power pool that can't be expanded/recharged much past the baseline.

 

To be a bit more specific, without speed thrusters a Pike's boost capacity gets you from the Republic ship to about the 'gate' through the wall around sat B. With speed thrusters you can get to sat A and still have a little bit of reserve. Using barrel roll as an extender of course.

Edited January 27, 2014 by Ramalina

[Itkovian]

My experience with a Pike is the opposite of what you [Nemarus] are suggesting. Driven by the desire to have enough boost endurance to stay at an effective range for Proton torps and Concussion missiles I wound up mastering all the secondary thruster components. Speed thrusters blew all the other options completely out of the water. It seems to get multiplied by the 320%, and I believe it also affects how far you get carried by barrel roll. I discovered the latter by thinking, "Oh, I have plenty of room for a barrel roll here," only to find that some barrels apparently roll farther than others.

 

Wasn't Nemarus saying that speed increases DON'T apply to the boost speeds?

[Ramalina]

Well my reading is that Nemarus is saying that the boost speed = 3.2 * (unmodified ship speed).

 

My experience leads me to believe that boost speed = 3.2 * (unmodified ship speed * speed upgrades).

 

What makes the speed thrusters so great for a strike is that the other components enhance boost endurance roughly 10% or so. Speed thrusters enhance base speed by roughly 10%, but when you hit boost, that 110% upgraded speed is multiplied by 3.2. Having valuable ship attributes multiplied by 3.2 is very nice. At least when trying to get the most out of a finite resource pool that you would like to be much bigger.

 

Oh, and roughly 10% as I'm using it here could mean values as high as 17%. I was too lazy to math out all the competing tooltips after I had already had a, "Holy ****! This is so much better," flying experience.

Edited January 27, 2014 by Ramalina

[Altheran]

I'd just add to your statement Ramalina, that Strike Fighters get the most of Engineering Companions that give -13% on Thrust costs and consumption (Efficient Maneuvers). The +10% of pool is only a band-aid in comparison.

 

I did not tested crew memebers that give both of them though (C2-N2 or Blizz)

[Zoom_VI]

Speed buffs increase base speed. Afterburners increase speed by 320% of base speed. 320% of larger base speed is a faster afterburner speed.

[Ramalina]

I'm running C2-N2 on my Pike. A case of every little bit helps. I also decided that with a long ranged missile flight style I wasn't really loosing anything important for it.

[Altheran]

That's true that on a Pike, you probably miss less things by putting anything on Engines...

 

Personally, I mainly use the Star Guard. That's why I went for Ashy. Definitely way better than Tharan Cedrax (Engine Pool and Blaster Consumption)

 

 

EDIT : I should try unlocking Yuun. -13% is definitely better than +10% pool regarless of what is increased, and he has efficient consuption on both.

Edited January 27, 2014 by Altheran

[Lytewraith]

Yunn is defintly the way to go I have him on all my ships now and wih the speed thusters on the pike you can have about 20-25% eng powr left even if you are going to can a b or c it works very nicely and lets not forget all the people running bypass and crit builds on there comps are about to get changed out because the nerfs to the comp abilities that have that so we will b seeing a lot more of the stuff like the eng drain instant 40% and the sicers loop 6 secs no regen which is awesome when you are tryig to get away from a scout that has infinit boost welp with out there regen buff of 6 secs that they like to pop if you hit them with the slicers loop they are no longer following you beaucse they don't have the power and when they run out of boost the are easy pay for the ion missle as you get range and flip and then lock and fire it with another speed debuff for -40% for 15 secs that pretty much brings rthem to a stand still and if you his them with the concussion that has the other speed debuff with the 25% eng powe drain they die at 6000 m wile you are at full power and full shields

 

nothing like watching a boosting scout come to almost a dead stop and then trying to barrel roll with 2 slows on them that stack

[dancezwithnubz]

yes.

 

I've gone a double speed upgrade on my Blackbolt for 120% base (speed IS life!). I don't just 'beat' 110% scouts to a node at the start of a game, i FLOG them. it's been a long, long time since anyone's beaten me to a node at the start of a game.

 

generally, the nearest opponent is still ~9k away when I get the green flashies to start capping the node.

[Zharik]

Yunn is defintly the way to go I have him on all my ships now and wih the speed thusters on the pike you can have about 20-25% eng powr left even if you are going to can a b or c it works very nicely and lets not forget all the people running bypass and crit builds on there comps are about to get changed out because the nerfs to the comp abilities that have that so we will b seeing a lot more of the stuff like the eng drain instant 40% and the sicers loop 6 secs no regen which is awesome when you are tryig to get away from a scout that has infinit boost welp with out there regen buff of 6 secs that they like to pop if you hit them with the slicers loop they are no longer following you beaucse they don't have the power and when they run out of boost the are easy pay for the ion missle as you get range and flip and then lock and fire it with another speed debuff for -40% for 15 secs that pretty much brings rthem to a stand still and if you his them with the concussion that has the other speed debuff with the 25% eng powe drain they die at 6000 m wile you are at full power and full shields

 

nothing like watching a boosting scout come to almost a dead stop and then trying to barrel roll with 2 slows on them that stack

 

...........!!!!?????,,,,,,,,

I had some spares and it looks like you need some.

[Zharik]

yes.

 

I've gone a double speed upgrade on my Blackbolt for 120% base (speed IS life!). I don't just 'beat' 110% scouts to a node at the start of a game, i FLOG them. it's been a long, long time since anyone's beaten me to a node at the start of a game.

 

generally, the nearest opponent is still ~9k away when I get the green flashies to start capping the node.

 

Pretty sure it is actually 121% (multiplicative not additive). Oh and I totally /agree.

[JadedJasper]

The ship component speed increases definitely affect afterburner speed. You can see this clearly when chasing ships that don't have them, and when rushing to the nodes at the start of a match.