Armonddd Posted March 8, 2014 Share Posted March 8, 2014 So, first, you have to understand that the railgun version of ANYTHING is better than the non railgun part. Also that the dps on a railgun is inferior to blasters, but superior to missiles. That's the hierarchy of these things. Unstated is that railguns don't just randomly get added to scouts and strikes, but instead are exclusively on gunships. I don't think the inability to combine your railgun with a missile shot justifies significantly increased drain per second (from both engines and weapons), increased shield damage per second (exception: ion cannons), increased range, arguably decreased difficulty of landing a hit (it's certainly easier than landing an ion missile), and the stupid t5 options. I agree that the t5 upgrades could use a nerf and the drain should scale with charge, but I'm not convinced that would be enough. I'd honestly be ok with the idea of removing all CC from the game, but that's me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pilgrim_Grey Posted March 8, 2014 Share Posted March 8, 2014 I agree that the t5 upgrades could use a nerf and the drain should scale with charge, but I'm not convinced that would be enough. I'd honestly be ok with the idea of removing all CC from the game, but that's me. I'll agree with him there, but I don't agree that the ion railgun needs to do more damage. Even if you take away some of the debuffs, it's quite good against shields. If it doesn't stack up well enough against slug, that's the other thing we've said to death where it's too good against shields (and it'd still be worth taking if you greatly weakened its damage to shields and kept its shield piercing). I hear you on the CC thing. Every time I get hit by an ion railgun that completely drains me (even when I'm fighting two bombers at a satellite or am outnumbered in some other way), I think "I was having fun until that happened." The line between making debuff or cc useful and making it annoying is a thin one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-Streven- Posted March 9, 2014 Share Posted March 9, 2014 Absolutely agree that the engine power drain on ion rail is overkill and needs to go. That change alone would bring much balance to gunships. Killing shields is enough and maybe keep the power regen debuff as is but taking all your engine power, shields, and power regen is a bit ridiculous. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Highborne Posted March 10, 2014 Share Posted March 10, 2014 OMG are you telling me that 2 gunships kill 1 scout? And you should probably need, I don't know, an equal number of scouts as the enemy has gunships. Nonsense! We're talking battle-scouts here - the divinely-ordained Masters of the Universe! For proper "balance", a scout should be able to take down three gunships by spitting at them, all with one hand tied behind its back! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zoom_VI Posted March 10, 2014 Share Posted March 10, 2014 Nonsense! We're talking battle-scouts here - the divinely-ordained Masters of the Universe! For proper "balance", a scout should be able to take down three gunships by spitting at them, all with one hand tied behind its back! To be fair I have met a quite a few gunships that believe the same thing about themselves Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Armonddd Posted March 10, 2014 Share Posted March 10, 2014 Nonsense! We're talking battle-scouts here - the divinely-ordained Masters of the Universe! For proper "balance", a scout should be able to take down three gunships by spitting at them, all with one hand tied behind its back! Knowing some of the pugs I've faced... Challenge accepted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kuciwalker Posted March 10, 2014 Share Posted March 10, 2014 The ion RAILGUN is only on the rail sniper (Type 1 Gunship). It deals moderate shield damage (1850 base, nowhere near the multiplier that ion cannons have over, say, quads), and is generally not well thought of until the later talent choices. A mandatory third tier talent gives it "an additional 10 units of energy" drain, and the base seems to be 0 for weapon, 0 for engine, and 1850 for shield. I do not believe this is correct. I believe that the base energy drain is 25 weapon and engine (shield doesn't really matter). The additional 10 units makes this 35. The fourth tier talent offers the poorly named "Hits do AOE Damage" talent, which, indeed, offers AOE damage (at half the damage done to the primary target), but also adds 18 engine and weapon power drain to everyone struck. I believe that the 18 is done only to those hit by the splash (not the primary) and that the number 18 is derived from half of 35 rounded up. (Half energy drain to go with half damage.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Armonddd Posted March 10, 2014 Share Posted March 10, 2014 I do not believe this is correct. I believe that the base energy drain is 25 weapon and engine (shield doesn't really matter). The additional 10 units makes this 35. I believe that the 18 is done only to those hit by the splash (not the primary) and that the number 18 is derived from half of 35 rounded up. (Half energy drain to go with half damage.) I'm not sure I believe those numbers (35 sounds massively excessive and I don't think there's any base drain), but I can't confirm them at all. :/ Maybe I should get a baby gunship on your server or something? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zoom_VI Posted March 10, 2014 Share Posted March 10, 2014 I'm not sure I believe those numbers (35 sounds massively excessive and I don't think there's any base drain), but I can't confirm them at all. :/ Maybe I should get a baby gunship on your server or something? all the talents read "additional points of drain" which implies that there is a base. and there certainly isn't enough drain from just talents to explain the massive swaths of my engine pool that disappear when I'm hit with one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gavin_Kelvar Posted March 10, 2014 Share Posted March 10, 2014 all the talents read "additional points of drain" which implies that there is a base. and there certainly isn't enough drain from just talents to explain the massive swaths of my engine pool that disappear when I'm hit with one. Likewise for my strikers. I know I get hit by an Ion Railgun because both my engine and blaster power pool hits near zero. Unless I have the most awful luck to only get hit when I'm boost and firing my blasters it clearly has a massive base drain. Which sucks as it not only cripples your ability to flee, it also cripples your ability to fight back (both in regards to the GS shooting you and any enemy fighters in the area). It would appear that it drains, with talents, at least 75% or more of your blaster/engine power and it is quite possible that it drains closer to 95-100% of your power as Ion Railguns seem to put me, invariably, at near 0% power every time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kuciwalker Posted March 10, 2014 Share Posted March 10, 2014 I think people just generally don't realize how low they typically keep their engine pool. However, I can't completely rule out the possibility that there is a bug and the ion railgun is fully draining people even from full. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pilgrim_Grey Posted March 10, 2014 Share Posted March 10, 2014 I think people just generally don't realize how low they typically keep their engine pool. However, I can't completely rule out the possibility that there is a bug and the ion railgun is fully draining people even from full. I've had my engine power go to near zero on a gunship I had parked and sniping for a long while. Not scientific, I know, but that's pretty consistent in my experience and I know I've flatlined my power levels after a couple seconds of shooting and then getting hit by an ion railgun shot. Even if those experiences are coloring it bleak, it has to be a 50% power drain, and even a 50% drain on a target's power levels (even JUST engine or weapon, let alone both at once and shields) is way too powerful with how GSF works. And that's before you even get to the fifth tier removing the ability to recover all that power you just lost for six seconds. In a dogfighting game. Six seconds is an eternity. The other ion weapons are much more measured in how they debuff and the railgun needs to get in line with those. Heck, I'd even suggest looking at some of those fourth and fifth tier debuffs, but they're at least much less than the ion railgun. I'm actually quite disgusted that PTS doesn't have any adjustments to it--even they seem to know how out of whack it is or they'd be putting the other ion weapons at the same levels. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zoom_VI Posted March 11, 2014 Share Posted March 11, 2014 I think people just generally don't realize how low they typically keep their engine pool. However, I can't completely rule out the possibility that there is a bug and the ion railgun is fully draining people even from full. I keep mine at 25% or higher so its at least 25 drain, but most likely more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Armonddd Posted March 11, 2014 Share Posted March 11, 2014 all the talents read "additional points of drain" which implies that there is a base. and there certainly isn't enough drain from just talents to explain the massive swaths of my engine pool that disappear when I'm hit with one. I don't disagree, but that base could be zero. I just flat out don't know. I think people just generally don't realize how low they typically keep their engine pool. However, I can't completely rule out the possibility that there is a bug and the ion railgun is fully draining people even from full. Yeah, I think confirmation bias plays a part in this too. Of course, if low energy pool in the middle of a dogfight is a common and/or (otherwise) optimal situation, it should be accounted for in the game balance. Not to say that it isn't -- and, after all, that only strengthens my build, which uses boost recharger partially because of its ability to help me recover from an ion shot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zoom_VI Posted March 11, 2014 Share Posted March 11, 2014 Confirmation bias maybe, but I don't buy into the notion that its only draining ten points of power. For starters I'm never running that low and I get zero'ed all the time by ion. I also had a case just before 2.6 dropped where I was diving towards a gunship in my strike fired one shot of HLC before getting ion tapped and was only able to fire one more shot of HLC before my weapon pool was zero'ed. The drain was not nerfed in 2.6 and I'm running on the assumption that it drains the same weapon as it does engine so its pulling at least Kuci's minimum of 35 if not more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kuciwalker Posted March 11, 2014 Share Posted March 11, 2014 Confirmation bias maybe, but I don't buy into the notion that its only draining ten points of power. For starters I'm never running that low and I get zero'ed all the time by ion. I also had a case just before 2.6 dropped where I was diving towards a gunship in my strike fired one shot of HLC before getting ion tapped and was only able to fire one more shot of HLC before my weapon pool was zero'ed. The drain was not nerfed in 2.6 and I'm running on the assumption that it drains the same weapon as it does engine so its pulling at least Kuci's minimum of 35 if not more. 35 fits your story perfectly given the energy draw of BLC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kuciwalker Posted March 11, 2014 Share Posted March 11, 2014 Another circumstantial corroborating argument for the 35 => (35/2)=18 theory: Bioware likes round numbers. It would be really weird for them to come up with a drain of 18 out of the blue. However, a base drain of 25 (+10 from talent) is a perfectly nice round number that is exactly the sort of thing they would pick. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zoom_VI Posted March 11, 2014 Share Posted March 11, 2014 35 fits your story perfectly given the energy draw of BLC. I said HLC I was in my strike. Stupid gunship ion taps he was supposed to slug my doubled forward 3.2k shield arc. curse him. But nooo he had to do the cheap move Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpacerSebben Posted March 13, 2014 Share Posted March 13, 2014 (edited) This discussion inspired me to go and record some footage of me both getting shot as well as shooting people using a mastered ion railgun as well as analysis of the effects of the energy drain. Hopefully my video can help give some insight on the nature of ion railguns in their current state as of 2.6. Edited March 13, 2014 by SpacerSebben Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zoom_VI Posted March 13, 2014 Share Posted March 13, 2014 so its like 50 points of drain?! wow that's not OP in the slightest...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Armonddd Posted March 13, 2014 Share Posted March 13, 2014 That is absolutely ridiculous. No wonder the game stops being fun every time I get hit with ion. (Also, you can zoom out with scroll wheel down, which increases your field of view and the hitbox of your target.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davionix Posted March 13, 2014 Share Posted March 13, 2014 Were targets and you in that video using crew members / thrusters that increase engine power pool ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zoom_VI Posted March 13, 2014 Share Posted March 13, 2014 (edited) Were targets and you in that video using crew members / thrusters that increase engine power pool ? Why does it matter if they where then ion rail is even more OP since that would mean its pulling more like 60 power. However the poster looked like he did a very through evaluation and I would assume he was using regeneration at most. Regeneration of course being useless against gunships since ion blocks all regeneration Edited March 13, 2014 by Zoom_VI Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Altheran Posted March 13, 2014 Share Posted March 13, 2014 (edited) The energy crippler is even stronger than I assumed. By the way, why a weapon has even a built-in companion ability ? (Built-in slicer loop) This is madness. Edited March 13, 2014 by Altheran Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zoom_VI Posted March 13, 2014 Share Posted March 13, 2014 (edited) the energy crippler is even stronger than i assumed. By the way, why a weapon has even a built-in companion ability ? (built-in slicer loop) this is madness. its cc in space! Edited March 13, 2014 by Zoom_VI Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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