Gunships Fleeing to Carriers

[Verain]

Not exactly. Depends on the situation. The point of the matter is, the behavior needs to be discouraged and penalized so that people won't do it anymore.

 

I can't think of a way to discourage you from doing that, sorry.

 

That is the problem, right? You choosing to endlessly persue the gunship on a faster and more mobile ship that has a greater engine pool, a gunship that can't hope to win in a dogfight and has to retreat to spawn to not die?

 

Not only does it take away from the fun of the game, it's cowardly and unsportsmanlike.

 

Now now, I wouldn't say a flashfire is unsportsmanlike. It does take away the fun of the game, and it's certainly cowardly....

Edited February 17, 2014 by Verain

[Royox]

why?

seems to me like a very good strategy for gunship pilots.

 

you fail to follow the maxims:

47. Don't expect the enemy to cooperate in the creation of your dream engagement.

 

war is hell.

 

The problem is that on Deathmatch they have absolute no penalty for doing that. They can be relavitely near to the mothership and still one-shotting people. When one striker/scout tryes to defeat them they only have to move a few Km's to the safe spot and then return to the previous location to keep firing people from distance.

[LordHelio]

I do not think this is so much an issue of chicken running back to your capitol ship as much as it is gunships having a 15000m range and can sit on their ship and snipe anyone who gets close without any fear of death.

-that is ridiculously unbalanced. any enemy approaching is greeted with death.

 

I do agree they should not be able to park on capitol ships and snipe without fear of retribution. The only fix i see for this is anything not moving within 5000m of a capitol ship gets an afk penalty and loss of points until they are outside the range. I used 5k because it is feasible that a scout can target said gunship at that range.

[Dormancy]

Any gunship sniping from their cap ship can be ignored. The game doesn't need fixing. Their behavior doesn't need fixing. But your team's strategy needs some help if you're trying to fight within range of their cap ship.

 

If you know they're going to do it, devise a strategy to deal with it. All they did was patch their weakness. All you need to do is find another one. This issue does not need fixing.

[Llama-Eight]

I do not think this is so much an issue of chicken running back to your capitol ship as much as it is gunships having a 15000m range and can sit on their ship and snipe anyone who gets close without any fear of death.

-that is ridiculously unbalanced. any enemy approaching is greeted with death.

So don't follow them back. If it's a Domination map, they're not helping their team, if it's a TDM, you are only helping their team by following them back in.

[Kuciwalker]

This is fine for dominion, but almost every single TDM I have played has ended up being fought right up next to somebodies capship.

 

This is always 100% the fault of the team camped outside the opposing capship (i.e. the team that is winning). The team sitting in their capship is always the team that is losing badly and is only hovering in spawn because the moment they leave they are instantly killed by the blockading ships.

 

IOW, capship turrets are doing exactly what they are supposed to - prevent really egregious spawncamping.

 

Recently I have noticed that many gunships don't even move forward in TDM and just wait for the fighting to come to them over at their spawn. The more gunships the faster this happens.

 

I only ever see this in the above situation when the imps are losing horribly. I've never seen reps do it and I've never done it. (In fact, I hit barrel roll immediately after spawning 100% of the time.)

 

Just make it so that no points are awarded for actions within the safety zone of the capships. Gunships can run back to if they wish, but if they want points they are forced to leave the capship's protection. And its a double edged sword in that if you kill someone that's in their capship's protection you don't get points. Thus it deters spawn camping and running to capship in TDM and to a lesser extent Dominion.

 

This doesn't do anything to mitigate the real and frequent situation where reps set up a blockade on the mesa overlooking the imp spawn.

[GOLANX]

Not exactly. Depends on the situation. The point of the matter is, the behavior needs to be discouraged and penalized so that people won't do it anymore. Not only does it take away from the fun of the game, it's cowardly and unsportsmanlike.

 

hmm if the coward lives to see another day, i don't have an issue, legitimate tactic called retreat. as has been pointed out in earlier Posts your scout is faster than that Gship your chasing. that Gship is also not well equiped to dogfight with you,

 

so what is he supposed to do?

Stay stationary let you kill him? ("shh stay still his vision is based only on movement" -Gunship Pilot just before he gets spaced by a scout)

try to dogfight with that bus of a ship? (really?)

fly into a rock? (oh wait im guessing your the type who would rage about that too)

ignore you, keep rail-gunning by-standards, and hope you go away? (they can use fortress shields cant they? totally viable)

or maybe he should surrender himself into your capital ship? ("I surrender don't shoot *Bam* ARRGHH!!!")

 

hmm if none of these work i guess he has one choice left: fly back to the capital ship and hope you go away, take potshots if you decide to stick around

[Bolo_Yeung]

Golanx: 3-4 gunships covering each other - pair advanced a little,, pair behind, close to mothership. Amount of coordination needed to fight in group like this is much lesser than amount needed to succesfully attack this group. While it is possible for a premade with voice communication, it is virtually impossible for pugs.

[Delta_V]

This is getting really obnoxious in TDM.

 

Just got out of an 8v8 where 5 of the enemies used gunships, and they just refused to go farther than one barrel roll away from their capship. First of all, it gets annoying no matter what when half the enemies are in gunships, because playing Whack-a-Mole with that many gunships is just not fun. We ended up winning by a few kills, but neither team broke 40, and it was incredibly boring. We tried falling back to the center of the map, but the gunships just would not budge, even when they were losing. Their handful of scouts/strikes would occasionally venture out to attack us, but they ran back to their gunships at the first sign of trouble. And of course, when you attacked one gunship, it just turned and barrel rolled back to the capship, leaving the other 4 to deal with you.

 

We ended up winning, partly because of a few timely Damage Powerups that let us break open their gunship formation, but it was not fun at all.

 

edit: Even if this "tactic" is not optimal, the current set-up encourages a tactic that is detrimental to the game, and something needs to be changed.

Edited February 19, 2014 by Delta_V

[Verain]

I want to be clear that "gunships fleeing to carriers" is VERY different, and not at all the same as, "my TDM faced a premade who got ahead by a couple points and then camped out on their spawn until the time ran out".

 

I don't know ANYONE who doesn't want an answer to the second. If this was rated- if you cared super lots about your losses and wins, and only played in premades, who fought each other constantly- TDM would actually become that, and that's very bad.

 

 

But, this is both VERY rare- even the above post admits he WON when the enemy team ran back to spawn, meaning that they couldn't compete with his team and were actually being farmed at their spawn (though he tries to hint that's not the case several times). Armondd also mentions the exploitative behavior, and makes it sound common. I have never seen it, but my crew has seen it. Twice ever I think? It isn't common, but no, it should be fixed.

 

 

But that's very different from "I hate it when a gunship barrel rolls back to the ship because I have no choice but to follow and die to turrets".

 

 

EVERY time I've seen this thread- which is common- there's one of two situations. The first is players who can't deal with the fact that the gunship didn't die when they charged it with their obviously superior flashfires, and they come on the forum to make the devs fix the big mean enemies who actually don't try to dogfight them in their non dogfightable ships. These people I laugh at, mock, and taunt. I screenshot every fool that runs into a cap ship- it's hilarious! The second situation is "we were farming these guys and winning a TDM, and eventually they couldn't leave their spawn ship and they all got on their gunships and time ran out. Instead, they should have to run into our blasters so we can continue murdering them". The post above is one of those guys- he just wants to camp spawn harder.

 

 

Anyway, fix the "TDM gets ahead that squats in safety until time runs out". That won't be fixed by making cap ships not shoot at you, or making them not defend their allied gunships who come barrel rolling back after a fun time of leading a bunch of nublets around the map for three minutes. It won't be fixed by any of that. It will be fixed by some scoring mechanism that penalizes a team- not a player- for hunkering on a ship. Doing it with a score will make it such that the "get ahead, hide on capship" is no longer a strat (because it will result in a loss), and the "we're being farmed, everyone on your gunships and stick here so we don't feed them kills" becomes a faster loss (as it should be- a team farmed back to spawn is a game over).

[Sindariel]

so what is he supposed to do?

Stay stationary let you kill him? ("shh stay still his vision is based only on movement" -Gunship Pilot just before he gets spaced by a scout)

try to dogfight with that bus of a ship? (really?)

fly into a rock? (oh wait im guessing your the type who would rage about that too)

ignore you, keep rail-gunning by-standards, and hope you go away? (they can use fortress shields cant they? totally viable)

or maybe he should surrender himself into your capital ship? ("I surrender don't shoot *Bam* ARRGHH!!!")

 

Activate his shield ability and use his blasters?

 

A lot of scout and striker pilots can be caught off-guard if their "free kill" actually fights back.

I had some matches myself, where i killed more enemies with my blasters, than with my railgun.

 

Beside that, the problem aren't those newbies. It's the "experienced" players who use this "tactic", because they are plain cowards.

[Delta_V]

I want to be clear that "gunships fleeing to carriers" is VERY different, and not at all the same as, "my TDM faced a premade who got ahead by a couple points and then camped out on their spawn until the time ran out".

 

I don't know ANYONE who doesn't want an answer to the second. If this was rated- if you cared super lots about your losses and wins, and only played in premades, who fought each other constantly- TDM would actually become that, and that's very bad.

 

 

But, this is both VERY rare- even the above post admits he WON when the enemy team ran back to spawn, meaning that they couldn't compete with his team and were actually being farmed at their spawn (though he tries to hint that's not the case several times). Armondd also mentions the exploitative behavior, and makes it sound common. I have never seen it, but my crew has seen it. Twice ever I think? It isn't common, but no, it should be fixed.

 

 

But that's very different from "I hate it when a gunship barrel rolls back to the ship because I have no choice but to follow and die to turrets".

 

 

EVERY time I've seen this thread- which is common- there's one of two situations. The first is players who can't deal with the fact that the gunship didn't die when they charged it with their obviously superior flashfires, and they come on the forum to make the devs fix the big mean enemies who actually don't try to dogfight them in their non dogfightable ships. These people I laugh at, mock, and taunt. I screenshot every fool that runs into a cap ship- it's hilarious! The second situation is "we were farming these guys and winning a TDM, and eventually they couldn't leave their spawn ship and they all got on their gunships and time ran out. Instead, they should have to run into our blasters so we can continue murdering them". The post above is one of those guys- he just wants to camp spawn harder.

 

 

Anyway, fix the "TDM gets ahead that squats in safety until time runs out". That won't be fixed by making cap ships not shoot at you, or making them not defend their allied gunships who come barrel rolling back after a fun time of leading a bunch of nublets around the map for three minutes. It won't be fixed by any of that. It will be fixed by some scoring mechanism that penalizes a team- not a player- for hunkering on a ship. Doing it with a score will make it such that the "get ahead, hide on capship" is no longer a strat (because it will result in a loss), and the "we're being farmed, everyone on your gunships and stick here so we don't feed them kills" becomes a faster loss (as it should be- a team farmed back to spawn is a game over).

 

LOL, we weren't even *close* to "farming" the other team. We won by less than 5 kills, something like 39-35. The only reason we were near the enemy spawn was because the enemy had 5 gunships that refused to come farther than one barrel roll away from their spawn ship. At the beginning of the match, the 3 enemy scouts met us at the center of the map, where they faced a 3v8 because their gunships were a bunch of cowards, so of course they got destroyed. After we realized what they were doing, we *tried* pulling back to the middle of the map, where we ended up sitting around twiddling our thumbs because the enemy, with the exception of a single scout, refused to move. So what the hell are we supposed to do? Sit around doing nothing for half the match?

 

So yeah, stop accusing everyone who complains about this of being "spawn campers" or just wanting to farm new players.

 

 

 

Oh, and how the hell are you supposed to "spawn camp" in TDM anyway? Unless the other team is filled with *complete* noobs who don't realize they can switch spawns (which should be pretty damned obvious), it's rather difficult to camp *both* enemy spawns simultaneously. And yet, in most of the situations people have been complaining about, everyone ends up clustered around a single capship. If this is because one team is getting farmed, they can just switch spawns.

[Armonddd]

Armondd also mentions the exploitative behavior, and makes it sound common. I have never seen it, but my crew has seen it. Twice ever I think? It isn't common, but no, it should be fixed.

 

To be clear, I've only rarely seen it happen myself. It's just dumb exploitative behavior that demonstrates why capital ship turrets are not an answer to spawn camping, and I hate it.

 

I guess I don't really have a problem with capital ships blowing up people who fly into them, but it just feels cheesy when gunships turn defensive weapons into the most powerful offense available.

 

I really think there are a lot of other ways spawn camping could have been dealt with (if it deserves to be dealt with at all, because, come on, dying 20 km out from spawn is just about as bad, but no one seems to care about that), but aggressive base defenders of all types have only ever really proven themselves exploitable in my experience.

 

EVERY time I've seen this thread- which is common- there's one of two situations. The first is players who can't deal with the fact that the gunship didn't die when they charged it with their obviously superior flashfires, and they come on the forum to make the devs fix the big mean enemies who actually don't try to dogfight them in their non dogfightable ships.

 

>dogfighting game

>people playing not dogfighting ships

 

Yes, mock the flashfires.

[Ravenschild]

I have seen this more and more and in fact have had it happen both against both factions on BC. The last match I was in they got ahead and tried that cover by the mothership BS. We were lucky enough that a few came out and won by 3 points. I have said it before put a 30 second timer on the launch and if you go back to the mothership it should shoot you. Gunship players say "Then where would I run to?" Simple...you wouldnt. Your high damage is mitigated by the slow power up of the shot and your range is mitigated by the fact you arent very maneuverable. Running to the mothership and then shooting out from its cover is just plain cheesy. Especially if you break ahead and try to keep the ahead in kills in TDM. If you pvp you are going to be killed. Accept it. Edited February 19, 2014 by Ravenschild

[TrooperRCH]

Everyone says gunships are easy prey for scouts. It couldn't be further from the truth. At this stage in the game, with everyone maxed out on upgrades, my gunship encounters usually happen like this.

 

I spot a GS. I get out of its line of sight, and come up behind/beside him.

 

I try getting a missile ready, but because of the horribly long lock times, the GS is already turned in my direction and two shots me.

 

Or

 

I fly in blasting away, and the GS takes next to no damage, turns around, and flies back to its cap ship. I could A) Follow and die, or B) Wait for him to come back out and repeat the process over again.

 

Needless to say, being a scout going after gunships right now in the game usually ends in me having next to no kills or damage done, and a disproportionate number of deaths.

 

Scouts are pretty useless right now, and gunships are WAY over powered.

[Jandi]

On my Pike, I can still get kills because even if when they run, I can go after and get a proton out before turning back. Many times the proton will hit, eventually due to it's slow speed.

 

There's 2 scenarios.

 

1: The GS doesn't roll out of the proton that I lock on while he/she is powering a shot. Eats the protorp and gets finished by my quads.

 

2: The GS does roll out from the proton, wasting the roll on that and I boost after and demolish them with quads/cluster, if it looks like they might get away, I switch to proton again and just trust in the force that it locks on before I get turreted, most times it does and while they get away, the torp will hit them and with the damage my quads/clister did, they can't survive it.

 

The reason they can't really get away, is because I don't use my own roll on the approach, I use it to go after them and just take the shot hey are powering in the face. Doesn't make a huge dent to a Pike with mastered directionals pointing forward.

 

However, a Pike can't take more than 2 GS head on. When there's more, it becomes impossible. Even against 2, you need to use barrel on the approach because if there are 2 GSs, chances are one is using ion railgun and you really can't take that as a Pike relying on shields.

 

Half the team sitting one roll away from turrets however, is what's ruining TDMs.

Edited February 19, 2014 by Jandi

[Kuciwalker]

Everyone says gunships are easy prey for scouts. It couldn't be further from the truth. At this stage in the game, with everyone maxed out on upgrades, my gunship encounters usually happen like this.

 

I spot a GS. I get out of its line of sight, and come up behind/beside him.

 

I try getting a missile ready, but because of the horribly long lock times, the GS is already turned in my direction and two shots me.

 

Or

 

I fly in blasting away, and the GS takes next to no damage, turns around, and flies back to its cap ship. I could A) Follow and die, or B) Wait for him to come back out and repeat the process over again.

 

Needless to say, being a scout going after gunships right now in the game usually ends in me having next to no kills or damage done, and a disproportionate number of deaths.

 

Scouts are pretty useless right now, and gunships are WAY over powered.

 

That's funny, my scout encounters with a GS usually go like this:

 

1. I see the gunship.
   
2. I boost and/or BR towards the gunship.
   
3. I shoot the gunship and it dies.
   

 

Occasionally there's a step 4 where I have to come back around for a second pass.

[Morgrid]

That's funny, my scout encounters with a GS usually go like this:

 

1. I see the gunship.
   
2. I boost and/or BR towards the gunship.
   
3. I shoot the gunship and it dies.
   

 

Occasionally there's a step 4 where I have to come back around for a second pass.

 

For me it's

 

1. Attempt to sneak up on said GS
   
2. If 1 is successful, afterburner by said gunship and drop 2 mines.
   
3. Wait for explosion.
   

[Highborne]

This is a problem, and I'm sick of it. Not only are gunships one of the most OP and unbalanced ships in the game, (sorry but let's face it, the most fun matches have been the ones where there are few or no gunships and it's just pure dogfighting with scouts and strike fighters) but the <insert a number of colorful expletives here> gunship pilots always run for their carrier so that they won't get killed. This needs to stop, and it needs to stop now.

 

Have the carrier's guns fire on anybody who goes back to the ship, friend or foe. Or have it be so that once you've left the spawning area trying to go back there is like entering the exhaustion zone and counts as a suicide (and in a deathmatch should count as a point to the enemy team to really discourage pilots from doing this) I don't know, but do something Bioware, and do it fast. Because I'm sick of this crap.

 

Gunships are not OP in close quarters. Rather the opposite - speaking as a gunny pilot, I can tell you with the benefit of firsthand experience that a gunship in close-quarters is dead meat, unless one or both of the following are true:

 

(1) Our opponent is a bomber (Sorry, bomber-jockeys - but your ships are even worse dogfighters than ours, although you're much tougher); or

 

(2) We're close to fully-upgraded and our opponent is barely upgraded at all. At similar upgrade levels, any strike fighter or scout will win a close-quarters fight with a gunship any day, and the only way for the gunship pilot to survive is to get lucky (very lucky) or retreat.

 

Given that a strike fighter can two-shot a gunship and that a scout with missiles or any strike fighter can missile-lock us to death if they're feeling persistent, I don't know what the hell you're kvetching about, either. It's certainly not impossible to prevent gunships escaping to their dreadnaught/cruiser, and 15k out from said ship isn't even half the distance to the nearest objective in any domination map. If we want to affect the outcome of the battle, we have to come out and play anyway.

 

Frankly, your entire post reads like one long call for a waaaambulance.

 

This. The fact that they can sit in safety and keep on fighting. Either penalize players for flying back to the carrier, or shorten the range on the gunship. Pick one.

 

Added in Edit: Or we could just remove the guns from the spawn carriers altogether.

 

********. From the carrier, it's a minimum 35k to the nearest domination point - my railgun can cover less than half the distance, and makes no difference at all to the all-important question of who controls the satellites. Basically, the only time that a gunship camping their own spawn will do anything at all is if the other team is spawn-camping them so hard that it makes Arathi Basin look civilized.

 

In which case, my heart bleeds. Truly. /sarcasm

[Highborne]

Everyone says gunships are easy prey for scouts. It couldn't be further from the truth. At this stage in the game, with everyone maxed out on upgrades, my gunship encounters usually happen like this.

 

I spot a GS. I get out of its line of sight, and come up behind/beside him.

 

I try getting a missile ready, but because of the horribly long lock times, the GS is already turned in my direction and two shots me.

 

Or

 

I fly in blasting away, and the GS takes next to no damage, turns around, and flies back to its cap ship. I could A) Follow and die, or B) Wait for him to come back out and repeat the process over again.

 

Needless to say, being a scout going after gunships right now in the game usually ends in me having next to no kills or damage done, and a disproportionate number of deaths.

 

Scouts are pretty useless right now, and gunships are WAY over powered.

 

Sounds like a personal problem to me. I routinely do well on my scout - not as well as my gunship, but it's not nearly as upgraded and my reflexes aren't quite fast enough to be a truly good scout pilot anyway.

 

If you can't kill a gunship with your scout after you've gotten to close quarters without having your butt shot off at long range, then you need to get better. It's that simple.

[Highborne]

For me it's

 

1. Attempt to sneak up on said GS
   
2. If 1 is successful, afterburner by said gunship and drop 2 mines.
   
3. Wait for explosion.
   

 

Boost will get me out of the mines' radius if I'm quick enough, but even then I'm disoriented and have to find you in turn.

[Morgrid]

(1) Our opponent is a bomber (Sorry, bomber-jockeys - but your ships are even worse dogfighters than ours, although you're much tougher); or

 

Just because you're chasing me doesn't mean I'm the prey.

[Kuciwalker]

Gunships are not OP in close quarters. Rather the opposite - speaking as a gunny pilot, I can tell you with the benefit of firsthand experience that a gunship in close-quarters is dead meat, unless one or both of the following are true:

 

True, false. Gunships are not OP but neither are they UP. I get about 1/3 of my gunship kills with burst lasers, and that's not just against scrubs. With proper flying gunships can mix it up fine.

Edited February 19, 2014 by Kuciwalker

[Jandi]

True, false. Gunships are not OP but neither are they UP. I get about 1/3 of my gunship kills with burst lasers, and that's not just against scrubs. With proper flying gunships can mix it up fine.

 

I always find it adorable when a gunships kills thrusters and thinks I won't do the same. Sorry, my Quads > Your peashooters.

[Toraak]

I have seen this more and more and in fact have had it happen both against both factions on BC. The last match I was in they got ahead and tried that cover by the mothership BS. We were lucky enough that a few came out and won by 3 points. I have said it before put a 30 second timer on the launch and if you go back to the mothership it should shoot you. Gunship players say "Then where would I run to?" Simple...you wouldnt. Your high damage is mitigated by the slow power up of the shot and your range is mitigated by the fact you arent very maneuverable. Running to the mothership and then shooting out from its cover is just plain cheesy. Especially if you break ahead and try to keep the ahead in kills in TDM. If you pvp you are going to be killed. Accept it.

 

I would change 1 thing. Where would I run to? other friends, and hope they can help peel them off. Plus you can use rock walls, or asteroids to help LoS the enemy away from you. But I agree Capital ships need to be fixed, running to them like a coward shouldn't be allowed.