How do you take down a good gunship pilot with a scout?

[Zoom_VI]

(also note to self figure out how to kill kuci cross server)

You could just transfer to Jung Ma, Me and Kuci would love to have more meat....err friends.

 

 

right Kuci?

[Kuciwalker]

slug and ion need a range reduction. 10000km would be ok.

Either this or staggered damage like burst. ie the damage increases as the distance reduces. 1600 damage for targets within 5000m 5-10k 1200 damage and max range 800 damage.

 

this keeps in line with the damage missiles currently do with out the long lock times or the notification beeps. Imo it would be fair.

 

Railguns are supposed to be far more powerful than missiles.

[Kuciwalker]

You could just transfer to Jung Ma, Me and Kuci would love to have more meat....err friends.

 

 

right Kuci?

 

om nom nom

[Icebergy]

Easy, get up in their face and blow them the hell up. They can't escape you, just keep pressuring them.

[RiVaN_]

Quad or Burst lasers maxed, Blaster overcharge maxed, rocket pods or cluster missiles maxed Crew ability that gives you extra damage, increases damage, bypasses shields, etc.

 

Safe approach: From behind and below hit blaster overcharge and crew skill and open fire as soon as you are in range. Start locking on missiles after a few confirmed hits from lasers. BOOM goes the gunship.

 

The IDGAF (I Don't Give A Frack) method: Run at them head on at full boost until you get in range, then Pop Blaster overcharge, & crew ability then open fire with everything you got.

 

Either way if they don't move or don't have a buddy watching their backs they are toast.

 

Run with teammates (I run with 2 gunships and a bomber usually) tell them who you are targeting. They can start "Love tapping" the Enemy GS with Ion cannon or Slug railgun to knock down the enemy shields. Call out when you get in range. Everyone opens fire, fastest gun gets the kill everyone else gets an assist.

Edited March 4, 2014 by RiVaN_

[Armonddd]

Railguns are supposed to be far more powerful than missiles.

 

not the point

 

see my previous wall of text

[okiobe]

I think it is pretty simple. Want to beat a good gunship pilot in a scout. Be a better pilot than him. In that match up, despite what the qqers say, if you are a better pilot you will beat him. If you are equal or lesser skill and you get the jump on him you have the advantage at close range. If he runs, close the distance and keep the advantage.

[WiseStranger]

It's sad too see bads refusing to get better as there are many scouts who can give a lot of problems to gunships (forcing them to just run instead of shooting at the enemy and eventually die).

All that crying about nerfing railguns is just pathetic.

 

Effective DPS on a Slug railgun is 444, for Ion it's 514(129) vs shields(hull) because you have 2.7s charge time and 0.9s reload time.

You MUST remain still for 2.7 seconds to do full damage.

You can't use any other weapon you have when you charging a railgun.

Slug and Ion Railguns when shooting at the edge of a firing arc have 9% accuracy at max distance (now think of evasion your target has and you won't hit them at all)

And that garbage of a railgun called plasma has 0% accuracy at max distance at 21st degree out of 24 degrees of firing arc.

 

When you compare that to BLC, QLC, Ion and Heavy cannons you see that they for max distance they are respectively at:

Accuracy: 66%, 73%, 73% and 66%. It's a big difference for accuracy at the edge of your firing arc.

DPS Shields(Hull): 500, 723, 1210(151), 662(714). Wow that's better DPS than railguns, especially considering that I didn't add damage capacitor and final tier talents for extra damage to shields/hull.

And you can use your secondary weapons/systems to buff that damage even more.

And you can still fly while firing.

And you don't have to charge your cannons to fire them, isn't that awesome? You don't need to spend 1/4 to 1/3 of your weapon power pool to fire a single shot.

 

Oh yea.. to those complaining about armor and shield bypass on a slug... Heavy Cannon has 15% shield bypass and 100% armor bypass vs 28% shield bypass and 100% armor bypass on a slug railgun. Heavy Cannon has higher DPS, you can still shoot missiles at the same time, you can still fly and it has about half the range of a railgun. I don't see anyone complaining about heavy laser cannons.

 

If I can have the same mobility as a strike with the ability to shoot my railguns while flying and use missiles at the same time as I fire railguns and have railguns function as a sniper rifle (meaning when I left click I shoot right away instead of charging for 2.7 seconds. Add a 4 second CD on railguns to compensate), bring tracking penalties in line with other primary weapons, sure I don't mind range nerfed and forgo my pathetic choice of primary weapont. Oh and don't forget to give more options for engines that break missile lock since we have only one.

 

If you're still complaining about railguns and gunships - L2P or find another game.

[Pilgrim_Grey]

I'm ok with the idea of ranged debuffs, and I think the ion debuff could be balanced if it were adjusted properly. I've long supported the idea of ranged support in the form of gunships shooting allies to heal them. Ranged damage -- especially when so much of it ignores the shields we commonly consider our safety bubble -- just does not work.

 

I agree that because railguns cannot be used concurrently with primary weapons, they should be as strong as the combined power of the primary and secondary weapons other ships can use concurrently. I agree with the concept of a long-ranged class. Unfortunately, the current implementation of gunships has too many positives and not enough negatives, to the point where I don't believe the class would be balanced if railguns had a 10 km max range.

 

Range, damage, and balance: pick two.

 

This is basically what I've been saying, other than the 10 km thing. Gunships debuff too much with ion and slug does too much damage to shields (an easy equivalent to this would be STO: energy weapons do well versus shields and weak against hulls, whereas torpedos do well versus the hull, and are weak against shields). Gunships need that balance that STO has and they'd be fine.

 

I'm not super convinced they should have burst lasers removed, but some variants and the barrel roll thing make them far too maneuverable as well. I've had some people rotating to my scout after I roared past them and beating me in the turn, which is just all kinds of wrong unless they used a maneuver ability.

 

As for 10 Km... that's just too short range. If you made those above adjustments, gunships would be fine: they'd have teeth at range but not too much.

[Yndras]

.

 

If you're still complaining about railguns and gunships - L2P or find another game.

 

You need to resit your math class.

[Armonddd]

If you're still complaining about railguns and gunships - L2P or find another game.

 

All of your math completely discounts the superior range and burst damage railguns bring to the table, both of which are major factors. Your comparison to heavy lasers discounts the fact that when a gunship and a (e.g.) bomber see a target with weakened hull, the gunship can one-shot him out of the air almost twice as easily due to the massively increased shield piercing. You also completely ignore the inherent versatility of being able to partly charge a shot, especially when combined with the debuffs ion railgun brings to the table. I refer you to my previous wall of text.

[Armonddd]

This is basically what I've been saying, other than the 10 km thing. Gunships debuff too much with ion and slug does too much damage to shields (an easy equivalent to this would be STO: energy weapons do well versus shields and weak against hulls, whereas torpedos do well versus the hull, and are weak against shields). Gunships need that balance that STO has and they'd be fine.

 

I agree, though I kind of think that you should have to choose between damage (either to hull or shields) and debuffs. Maybe if slugs did tiny shield damage (with no piercing), slugs did tiny hull damage (with no debuffs), and plasma did debuffs (with no damage)? I dunno, maybe that could work.

 

I'm not super convinced they should have burst lasers removed, but some variants and the barrel roll thing make them far too maneuverable as well. I've had some people rotating to my scout after I roared past them and beating me in the turn, which is just all kinds of wrong unless they used a maneuver ability.

 

I don't think that the problem is necessarily with bursts or barrel roll individually, but when combined with each other and the railguns, it creates an extremely powerful package. It's kind of like how no one component of the flashfire/sting is particularly overwhelming (with the possible exception of burst cannons), but unlike other ships, it has no component slots that aren't perfect for its role.

 

My gripe with burst cannons on gunships is that if you're going to have a long range damage class (which is a bad idea), it shouldn't also be good at short range damage... but I'm not convinced burst cannons need to be removed because of that. If nothing else, the gunship's lack of maneuverability (that is to say, engine efficiency and turning speed) make it significantly worse at close range combat than a scout.

 

As for 10 Km... that's just too short range. If you made those above adjustments, gunships would be fine: they'd have teeth at range but not too much.

 

Why? Why is it ok for gunships to be able to shoot people from the safety of their capital ship? Why is it ok for them to be able to snipe a point from outside the range of everyone on the point (who can't leave unless they want to lose the point)? Why is it ok for gunships to be able to snipe people on the respawn?

 

These are just some of the issues that a super long range weapon brings to the table. They would be problems even if railguns did very little damage. The only way to make them not problematic would be to make them easily avoidable, similar to proton torpedoes -- but that's flat out impossible in the current implementation.

[Pilgrim_Grey]

Why? Why is it ok for gunships to be able to shoot people from the safety of their capital ship? Why is it ok for them to be able to snipe a point from outside the range of everyone on the point (who can't leave unless they want to lose the point)? Why is it ok for gunships to be able to snipe people on the respawn?

 

These are just some of the issues that a super long range weapon brings to the table. They would be problems even if railguns did very little damage. The only way to make them not problematic would be to make them easily avoidable, similar to proton torpedoes -- but that's flat out impossible in the current implementation.

 

Because if you did all of those things noted in my post (take out the overpowered debuff and the ability of slugs to take out a lot of shields AND health, take out the ability to run so far and for so long, and maybe even take away burst lasers), all the Gunship has left is being able to do damage at that extreme range. You'll have officially gone from having an overpowered ship to a "lulzwhyflygunship?" They'd have nothing they could do at close range, they couldn't escape as much, and thanks to having to be within 10 km, the majority of the opposing team would know where they are (because the gunship had to get so close) and have no issues whatsoever closing that distance to get within kill range. So they'd spend the majority of their time running and dogfighting, meaning they might as well fly a scout or a strike, completely removing the point of the class.

 

Gunships are like bombers, they add another layer to GSF that makes it far more interesting (even if you don't like to fly them). The point isn't to nerf them into oblivion, the point is to balance them.

 

And again, I think gunships are too good right now. Tonight I just chased a gunship from his side of the map to mine back to his... he just kept having ways to dodge my concussion missiles, just dodge out of range before my heavy lasers could do more than land a hit or two, etc. I probably would have had him if my starguard had his heavies upgraded all the way to shield piercing (almost there), but it was ridiculous. No gunship should have that much maneuverability. And there is no way one ion shot should drain your power levels (and remove your ability to regain them for so long).

[Armonddd]

Because if you did all of those things noted in my post (take out the overpowered debuff and the ability of slugs to take out a lot of shields AND health, take out the ability to run so far and for so long, and maybe even take away burst lasers), all the Gunship has left is being able to do damage at that extreme range. You'll have officially gone from having an overpowered ship to a "lulzwhyflygunship?"

 

It's not good design to justify a ship's balance around a broken mechanic. You can reduce their blatantly overpowered numbers, but that doesn't change the fact that an enormous range railgun as a primary weapon plays havoc with literally every other combat mechanic.

 

I don't disagree with anything you said. I just think the base problem is that gunships have up to five times the range of other combatants, not that their numbers are too big.

[wvwraith]

The notion that gunship's range be reduced to 10k is just plain ridiculous. A scout can close 10k before a railgun can charge up and fire to do any kind of damage. If it goes off before hand you do minimal damage, especially if scouts/strikes are using directional shields. If you don't think so, then you're not playing gsf enough to understand that concept of the game. You've forgotten the nerf to railgun charges already. 15k is hardly "extreme" range when it can be closed rather quickly.

 

 

I personally think gsf would be boring without a diverse selection of ships. The game should have short and long range craft whether you agree with that or not. If you guys continue to want "nerfs" to gunships, let's take a look at scouts who have bypass(still works and allows scouts to 2 shot. Yes folks they do and I've had it happen more than once fully upgraded and it wasn't power-ups), access to the two best lasers quads and bursts, double cluster missiles, shield distortion, great speeders that can pop agility and dodge attacks. Yes, I know nova dives don't have access to bursts and quads, but which scout do you see 90% of pilots flying. Scout ships shouldn't be loaded down with heavy weapons and missile payloads. Such things should decrease their agility and speed. How bout a penalty to their speed for having heavy payloads? Let's start there. A guildie of mine perfectly described the flash fire as a hybrid ship, but still do you still see a scout what would be classified as a scout?

 

You can flame me for the above statement, but there's truths to it. If you start overhauling too much on one vessel than might as well start overhauling the others. I guarantee you when everything is nerfed down to nothing, nobody is going to be happy. All those popping ques will dry up quick. Just like in ground pvp with all the diversity there, you should have it in gsf, period. You guys want your cake and to eat it too, it don't work out that way. Instead of worrying about one ship, how bout you guys start concentrating on ways to deal with them. Change up your strategies to deal with certain ships. I hate to tell you guys, but 80% of people don't share your visions and that's including people that don't even fly gunships.

 

Before anyone accuses me of crying about scouts, I have never posted complaining about them. I used the statement above to reflect points about them and to flip it around on those wanting to completely nerf gunships down to nothing. Did I care I've been 2-shotted by scouts? Nope. I've maybe said a curse word or two and got back out there. I have no problem with any ships weaponry except that I would classify flashfires as hybrid fighters. I think things with minor tweaks here and there would be fine.

 

I just don't want to see devs start making huge changes to gsf because a few people think there should be when most of the masses think otherwise. As Yoda would say, "Once you start down the path to the dark side, forever will it dominate your destiny." Like so many of you, I'd hate to have things nerfed down and out of balance. Let's not go the way of blizzard games, please.

Edited March 5, 2014 by wvwraith

[Kuciwalker]

It's not good design to justify a ship's balance around a broken mechanic. You can reduce their blatantly overpowered numbers, but that doesn't change the fact that an enormous range railgun as a primary weapon plays havoc with literally every other combat mechanic.

 

No, it really doesn't. Closing the 15km gap doesn't take very long and doing so while avoiding the railgun is trivial. I do it with pure thrusters all the time. The only difficulty with gunships is that you need basic situational awareness to know that they're there - boo hoo.

[Yndras]

No, it really doesn't. Closing the 15km gap doesn't take very long and doing so while avoiding the railgun is trivial. I do it with pure thrusters all the time. The only difficulty with gunships is that you need basic situational awareness to know that they're there - boo hoo.

 

Spoken like a pure gunship player. Have you ever played anything else?

[Kuciwalker]

In the post you quoted I was talking about my experience with scouts, which should be completely obvious because in a gunship you don't usually want to close the gap, and if you do it's with BR.

[Pilgrim_Grey]

Spoken like a pure gunship player. Have you ever played anything else?

 

I'm saying 15 km is needed and I mostly fly strikes and scouts. The issue isn't the range... if that was it, gunships would be balanced. The problem is they can completely drain you, all their railguns do multiple things very well, they're able to fly all over the map, and they have good in close weapons.

 

Whatever the Barrel Roll change ends up being will help with this some, but I haven't heard if they're doing anything to ion's major debuff issues. One shot takes out a huge swath of your energy and keeps you from regenning. There is no reason for such a potent debuff to be attached to an AOE weapon that fires from 15 km away. None of the rockets that require a lock do that big of a debuff, and they are fired up close and can be broken.

 

But if Ion just did well against shields and maybe slowed your power regen (capping out at half? something like that), it'd be balanced, rather than completely lame right now. And it would be balanced with the 15 km range.

[Yndras]

 

I personally think gsf would be boring without a diverse selection of ships. The game should have short and long range craft whether you agree with that or not. If you guys continue to want "nerfs" to gunships, let's take a look at scouts who have bypass(still works and allows scouts to 2 shot. Yes folks they do and I've had it happen more than once fully upgraded and it wasn't power-ups), access to the two best lasers quads and bursts, double cluster missiles, shield distortion, great speeders that can pop agility and dodge attacks.

 

Burst laser cannons could do another balancing pass tbh. Currently they are way to good. And i have mentioned this before.

 

But what makes them good is not the dps of the laser, but the burst damage. If your using these your looking for crits, and the crit mangitude with these cannons is insane. 1200damage on a crit if your at close range and you only need to hit once or twice to destryoy a ship, so you can time your shots, and tear people apart in a few seconds.

 

In my opinion, any weapon that doesn't require you to have a good amount of time damaging an opponent to kill them is probably a bit overpowered.

 

I think people should get at least 4 seconds under the reticle receiving damage before they are destroyed. You should be litterally tapping your feet to kill them if they are flying straight.

 

But that's just my opinion.

 

Most of my kills are from using rapid fire lasers, arguably, the weakest of the lasers available.

Edited March 5, 2014 by Yndras

[Yndras]

I'm saying 15 km is needed and I mostly fly strikes and scouts. The issue isn't the range... if that was it, gunships would be balanced. The problem is they can completely drain you, all their railguns do multiple things very well, they're able to fly all over the map, and they have good in close weapons.

 

Whatever the Barrel Roll change ends up being will help with this some, but I haven't heard if they're doing anything to ion's major debuff issues. One shot takes out a huge swath of your energy and keeps you from regenning. There is no reason for such a potent debuff to be attached to an AOE weapon that fires from 15 km away. None of the rockets that require a lock do that big of a debuff, and they are fired up close and can be broken.

 

But if Ion just did well against shields and maybe slowed your power regen (capping out at half? something like that), it'd be balanced, rather than completely lame right now. And it would be balanced with the 15 km range.

 

Nope, because its the range AND the damage that is the issue.

 

Consider this, you have one gunship at 15km. There is a second gunship behind the first at 20km. A third gunship is off to the left about 25km away.

 

You see the first gunship and engage thrusters. The gunship is aware and loads up a charge. You notice the charge and divert all power to shields. While dodging and moving erratically you add an extra 3km to the distance needed to get close to the gunship to missile lock scare him. You eat the railgun shot as you line up the missile lock. meanwhile, the second gunship now has you targeted. he begins to charge his ion cannon. the first gunship runs, hits his barrel roll and you thrust to chase, as your chasing you eat the second gunships ion cannon.

Your now dead in the water and force to transfer power to thrusters in order to move so you can escape. You get power back to the engines somehow, and notice that the second gun ship is charging for the kill, you hit thrusters and initiate evasive manoeuvres. Now this can end many ways, either the first gunship lines you up and finshes you off, or the second gunship hits you with another ion cannon, or a <insert other ship> kills you with its laser cannons, or you just plain run into a conc mine.

 

Notice i never even mentioned the third gunship?

[Kuciwalker]

Consider this, you have one gunship at 15km. There is a second gunship behind the first at 20km. A third gunship is off to the left about 25km away.

 

OMG are you telling me that 3 gunships will kill 1 scout?

 

The gunship is aware and loads up a charge. You notice the charge and divert all power to shields. While dodging and moving erratically you add an extra 3km to the distance needed to get close to the gunship to missile lock scare him. You eat the railgun shot as you line up the missile lock.

 

Your first mistake was getting hit. If you approach properly he is not going to hit you. You don't have to dodge erratically, you just have to reach the edge of the cone of fire.

Edited March 5, 2014 by Kuciwalker

[Yndras]

OMG are you telling me that 3 gunships will kill 1 scout?

Your first mistake was getting hit. If you approach properly he is not going to hit you. You don't have to dodge erratically, you just have to reach the edge of the cone of fire.

 

Clearly you cant count. I only ever mentioned two of the three gunships. I even made a footnote stating this.. And further more, how many scouts should you employ to purposely remove gunships?

 

So you have to make the gunship turn? Using this analysis would mean you are flying across the gunships reticle, meaning your not going toward him, you are going away from him. You must be amazing if you can kill a gunship while flying away from it. I have never seen that done.

 

What i'm telling you is that the range and damage given to the gunships increases exponentially as more gunships are added. The gunship on its own is not unbalanced, but as a whole, the range and damage compounds to an over powered state when the number of gunships reaches or exceeds 4. This is especially true in an 8v8 match, in fact this can be reached with as few as two or three in an 8v8 match.

 

If you don't understand the above, i'm afraid i cannot put it any simpler.

Edited March 5, 2014 by Yndras

[Pilgrim_Grey]

To beat it to death again, part of what you mentioned is the energy drain, which I've already said is ridiculous and overpowered. If Slug did nothing but be better against hull than shields, ion good against shields and bad against hull, and plasma offered a midrange of damage and its current debuff, most of the complaints are moot.

 

Of course three gunships working in tandem will still be dangerous if that adjustment was made. So will three teammates of any combination. But that can be dealt with by pitting the strengths of your ships against theirs, rather than have the unfair advantage of ion in its current state, etc.

[Yndras]

To beat it to death again, part of what you mentioned is the energy drain, which I've already said is ridiculous and overpowered. If Slug did nothing but be better against hull than shields, ion good against shields and bad against hull, and plasma offered a midrange of damage and its current debuff, most of the complaints are moot.

 

Of course three gunships working in tandem will still be dangerous if that adjustment was made. So will three teammates of any combination. But that can be dealt with by pitting the strengths of your ships against theirs, rather than have the unfair advantage of ion in its current state, etc.

 

You just don't understand it do you. ION missiles, and ION cannons, and ION mines all do the same thing. Yet its the ION Railgun that causes the problems. Hell even the concussion missile has an engine drain.

 

Its not the effects that make it so leathal, its the range at which it can apply them. The aoe also helps. Changing the damage against sheilds or hull is negligible, all you do is make the Slug/Ion combination manditory. And you still dont change the matter, thats what most pilots do now. Hit you with ion, and make you a sitting duck with -40% movement and no engines, charge slug to finish you off. Weather the damage is against shields or hull is moot. The problem is the range, and the damage. And ill say it again as you seem to have problems with comprehension, its not exclusively in the condition where there is just one gunship(Although lets be honest, its a pretty ****** feeling being picked off in the midst of an epic dogfight with a worthy opponent), but when there are four or more.