The Imbalance of Bombers and Gunships in GSF

[Mallorik]

Ummm I'm a gunship that regularly goes 24+ kills at least twice a night (with under 3 deaths) and, while I can't consistently pull off those numbers on another ship, I'm frequently going 13+ kills and 0-1 deaths in my Quell. You're saying we're jokes, when we look at pilots like you saying "Why does he bother playing?". BUILD YOUR SHIP CORRECTLY and you won't have a problem. If I can't hit you, I can't hurt you. Here's the thing that you're not understanding - Pilot Ability > Ship Upgrades. YOU as the pilot need to become better. There are plenty of scouts that cause me issues, simply by having a group of them harrass me. You don't need to kill a GS to disable it - keeping me occupied does the same thing.

 

If you want to kill someone, increase your weapons abilities, but understand that going purely offensive will hurt your defensive areas as well. You can't expect to just be uber in all fields. If my GS gets hit with 2 ions, I'm stationary and slow. HAVE SOMEONE GET A GUNSHIP ON YOUR TEAM! You're bringing a knife to a gunfight, so stop whinning and get a freakin gun(ship).

 

Where are you getting your statistics from? "Most people... didn't even try gsf because of the... mouse controls"? Uhh, cite your sources, or you're just going to keep seeming like a QQer. I'm growing tired of this. People who complain about GS's and Bombers prolly haven't played them enough to understand how they work properly. Moving around and darting to get close, then following with close-pursuit dogfighting is the best way to take down a GS with a scout / strike.

 

LOL this post is too funny, you must be new.

 

#1) who cares how many kills you get in a gunship, youre still just standing 15km away trying to pick off people who aren't paying attention to you. and my ships are built just fine, Ive never had a problem killing a gunship.

 

#2) I play once a week maybe , and Im still usually at the top of the score board.

 

#3) I get my statistics from knowing a lot of people in the flight game community, and from watching the posts on these boards from people who wont play the game because its a wannabe flight game that doesn't even support sticks or pads. Why don't you ask around and see how many flight game people play this game and how many of the truly good players even play anymore.

Edited March 22, 2014 by Mallorik

[Gavin_Kelvar]

#3) I get my statistics from knowing a lot of people in the flight game community, and from watching the posts on these boards from people who wont play the game because its a wannabe flight game that doesn't even support sticks or pads. Why don't you ask around and see how many flight game people play this game and how many of the truly good players even play anymore.

 

I don't know much about vets leaving but I do recall that pre-2.6 there was at least 1 thread (maybe several?) asking for flight control support where a number of people expressed in the thread that many of their friends flat out refused to play GSF because of the weird FPS hybrid controls. So yeah it's been my impression since day one that the devs shot themselves in the foot and kept the GSF community from being as large as it could be with their decision to not support sticks and pads.

Edited March 22, 2014 by Gavin_Kelvar

[Mallorik]

I don't know much about vets leaving but I do recall that pre-2.6 there was at least 1 thread (maybe several?) asking for flight control support where a number of people expressed in the thread that many of their friends flat out refused to play GSF because of the weird FPS hybrid controls. So yeah it's been my impression since day one that the devs shot themselves in the foot and kept the GSF community from being as large as it could be with their decision to not support sticks and pads.

 

That's been my point since they announced no pad or stick controls, they made a flight game for people who don't like flight games....... and it wasn't a big hit, who could have guessed that?

[-Streven-]

I still can't rap my head around how you'd implement stick support and maintain balance. The current control scheme modifies accuracy based on how far your targeting reticle strays from center. How would a fixed reticle be balanced? You'd always have max accuracy thus stick users would have an advantage.

[Armonddd]

Any one type of Fighter should not be about to compete with multiple ships of of Any other type, if that one ship is foolish enough to take them on alone.

 

You're not asking for Balance, you're asking to be OPed.

 

I think he's saying, neither scouts nor strikes can compete with bombers or gunships 1v1.

 

Of course, that's flat out not true, but at least he's not asking to be OP.

 

Specifically, bombers hard counter BLC scouts, but scouts with quads (or "medium" laser cannons) can handle them. Strikes of almost any configuration can handle bombers fairly well; the only builds that have trouble with them are rapids/ions/clusters strikes, but if you're running that you're bad and should feel bad. Scouts (both type 1 and type 2) have the burst capabilities and mobility to take down a gunship and/or chase it until it dies, and while strikes have a harder time in that department it's far from impossible to land a kill.

 

In fact, the only ship I have even a remote chance of surviving a 4 on 1 encounter with is, in fact, a scout.

 

It obviously depends on who's piloting what, but there's another thread discussing a situation where a gunship used ion railguns and terrain advantages to win an 8v1.

 

If you can't do a 150 damage to a stationary target (All that's needed to take out a mine), or drop a drone, maybe you should go back to angry birds, GSF just isn't the game for you.

 

Also, if you can't latch on to a big slow, lumbering Bomber's six, and blast him with BLC and cluster, until he goes boom, you've got zero business flying a scout.

 

That's... really not how you handle bombers. Getting on their six and hitting them with BLC is a great way to rush into your own death. All the bomber has to do is fart a mine on you, and you're screwed -- either you don't shoot it and it blows up by proximity, or you shoot it and it hits you anyway.

 

LOL!

 

>implying that the will of the majority is a good way to balance things

 

TWEAK YOUR LOADOUTS (be an evasion scout),

 

The fact that there's one superior build is a balance problem, though admittedly much more minor than what the OP is suggesting. (I'd rather scouts have one viable build than gunships slaughter everything they look at. Fortunately, neither is true.)

 

If I'm bringing a tiger and you bring a poodle, who do you think will win? Here's one solution: BRING A TIGER (or a gunship / bomber).

 

As both a player and a game designer, I really, really don't like that the response to "they have bombers/gunships" is "we need our own bombers/gunships". It's frankly degenerate -- it creates one strategy that wins and a lot of strategies that don't. It's simply not (as much) fun to win by employing a strategy you don't enjoy playing, which means that anyone who doesn't enjoy playing a gunship or bomber (such as myself and a number of others I could name) gets to choose between winning and having fun. Games shouldn't create those situations.

 

There's also the problem that two ships are tigers/tanks/guns and two are poodles/riflemen/knives... I mean, I don't really agree with that analogy (the power delta isn't that bad), but the fact that you feel you have to make it implies that you think there's a balance issue somewhere in there.

 

Last note, group que with someone who knows what they're doing. I usually have a wingman because I usually get targetted by at least 3 people at a time, so having someone right their helps.

 

Definitely agree here! I have huge friends lists full of quality pilots on all my GSF characters, so I can usually find one or two people to fly with.

 

The core issue is that the game is about class balance. That's most of the lived experience of people getting owned by gunships and bombers. You are intended to need the other classes to win.

 

I think you could make an argument that you shouldn't have to play a class you don't enjoy in order to have an equal/optimal/etc chance of winning.

 

But type 2 battle scout is clearly the height of good game play, with ludicrous burst, top speed, and top turning.

 

Well, as silly as some of those numbers are, at least you have to aim to hit things, unlike, say, railgunning a turret or dropping aimbots behind you.

 

BUILD YOUR SHIP CORRECTLY and you won't have a problem. If I can't hit you, I can't hurt you. Here's the thing that you're not understanding - Pilot Ability > Ship Upgrades.

 

Wait... which is it?

 

Or are we suddenly not discussing mastered ships? Cause if so, that changes a lot of my points.

 

You don't need to kill a GS to disable it - keeping me occupied does the same thing.

 

This is something I learned early on (I was forced to -- I played against Shock), but I don't think enough people have picked up on.

 

If two players are removed from the fight because they're running a high-speed chase scene across the map, the worse player has the advantage because his team is losing less.

 

People who complain about GS's and Bombers prolly haven't played them enough to understand how they work properly.

 

That's true in most cases, but definitely not all of them.

 

By the way, here's how you know OP is a type 2 battle scout:

 

can we keep the ad hominem in the irl discussions

 

For bombers : Use the EMP Luke !

 

EMP is, generally speaking, ****.

 

For gunships : I dont know... Fly casual !

 

What's that supposed to mean, exactly?

 

I mean, there's definitely approach and fade tactics that can work, and work well, but you're not helping describe any of them.

 

There will always be 1 build that's better than the others. That's the law of nature, regardless on how much time the devs sync into balance. Players learning to play the optimum build, do better. Just how it is

 

It is literally the dev's job to make that not happen. It's not even all that hard -- take a look at 7 Wonders, which is pretty much perfectly balanced, or WoW, where the devs at least make an effort to balance the joke they call PvP. By comparison, BioWare just doesn't seem to give a damn.

 

Think about what you just said here. I believe if you look hard enough at that statement you might understand why people want gunships balanced.

 

In fairness, there's nothing wrong with doing significantly better with the build you're most comfortable with than with any other build. I've had TDM games where I personally scored 25+ kills, but that was due more to my familiarity with my build than it was the build itself.

 

A scout will win in dogfights because its the only ship that can dogfight, all the other ships are for people who cant dogfight. If they could they would fly scouts.

 

Or strikes.

 

I still can't rap my head around how you'd implement stick support and maintain balance. The current control scheme modifies accuracy based on how far your targeting reticle strays from center. How would a fixed reticle be balanced? You'd always have max accuracy thus stick users would have an advantage.

 

You'd be at the massive disadvantage of always flying in the direction of the guy you're aiming at. A lot of the power from slow-firing weapons (such as BLCs) comes from the fact that you can swing your mouse over, fire off a shot, and return to your previous flight course. Fast locking missiles, such as clusters, can do this to a lesser extent (but more when dodging through asteroids than when circling satellites). Using a stick, you couldn't do that without risking a crash.

Edited March 22, 2014 by Armonddd

[Verain]

Lol. This thread keeps getting worse. Now gunships can 8v1.

 

What that guy said was, the enemy team chased and chased him. He couldn't just escape them like he could if he played a battle scout- they could keep up with him. Eventually, he hid in a hangar and the worst of them died to him.

 

So again- a whole team chased him to a capital ship, something they couldn't have done if he was in a scout, because he could just escape.

 

I have enraged bads chase me all the time, man. It doesn't matter what ship I'm on, but if I'm on a battlescout they eventually can't keep up with me.

[Altheran]

Lol. This thread keeps getting worse. Now gunships can 8v1.

 

What that guy said was, the enemy team chased and chased him. He couldn't just escape them like he could if he played a battle scout- they could keep up with him. Eventually, he hid in a hangar and the worst of them died to him.

 

So again- a whole team chased him to a capital ship, something they couldn't have done if he was in a scout, because he could just escape.

 

I have enraged bads chase me all the time, man. It doesn't matter what ship I'm on, but if I'm on a battlescout they eventually can't keep up with me.

You're mistaking threads, I think.

 

It's not the one about the mighty 8vs1.

[NotThatOne]

I t

Snipped debate society quotes

 

 

I can say I survived and 8v1 on my Gunship, too, doesn't make it true, however I did intentionally bait an opposing team into chasing my gunship so their backsides were pointed at my teammates, and it worked quite well, until they figured out what I was doing, so, Technically, I survived a Teamv1 encounter on my gunship. Of course, My goal never was KILL THEM ALL!!!11one! in that instance, it was "How can I best aid my teammates...only gunship, going against an opposing team that knows me...I know! I'll lead them on a merry chase!

 

I did this with the knowledge, I was facing Black Squadron, (at least 6 of them) a group that knows how dangerous I am in a gunship, on my Imperial toon, They know my Imp, and I was in the Mangler.. Hell, in the same situation, I'd PT me. So I went full evasive, not just meaning cooldowns, and abilties, but an unpredictable flight path, and using terrain to frustrate targeting attempts, and dove straight through their push.

 

At one point this tactic gave my team a 10 point lead...until they figured out that I was doing to them.

 

final score was 38-36, pubs. Which is not all that bad, given what Black Squadron usually does to the Imps on POT5, and I say this with no intent of slight toward My guild or the Imps I was flying with at the time. Black Squadron is a coordinated group of pilots ranging in skill from average to excellent, and we all work very well together.

 

But I used their knowledge of me and my knowledge of them, to my team' s advantage. and it worked...for a little bit.

 

So yeah, if you're not concerned about scoring points for your team, a mastered gunship can survive overwhelming odds, to a point, and it doesn't happen very often.

 

As for the BLC scout vs bomber argument, I will proudly claim the title as the worst Mastered Scout pilot on POT5, I hate those ships...they're squirrelly, delicate and have far too short a range for my liking. In fact, I only managed to master them through patience, teamwork and, I'm not ashamed to admit, spending some cartel coins, Yet, I've managed to latch onto bombers and burn them down with BLC and Clusters, as long as you keep a decent range, the BLC will knock out any active mines and/or drones until those outside of the shotgun blast of the BLC are removed because the Bomber exploded.

Edited March 22, 2014 by NotThatOne
typos

[Armonddd]

Lol. This thread keeps getting worse. Now gunships can 8v1.

 

Did I not specifically say it depends on who's flying what?

 

Enraged bads can be evaded, yes. Animal's comment implied that he could only evade that many on his scout. My counterexample showed that it's entirely possible on a gunship. It's theoretically doable on a strike, too, though I'd be surprised if anyone could pull it off on a bomber.

 

Also, you do realize that all battle scout builds aren't alike, right? Sure, you can outrun anyone with barrel roll and booster recharge, but very few people run that. Further, the blackbolt/novadive can do the same thing with S-E converter (and do it better, since they can afford to pick speed thrusters). In my experience, a fair number of battle scout pilots (far from a majority, but significant nonetheless) pick retro thrusters, which put you at a significant disadvantage when being chased.

 

Your anti-battle scout campaign doesn't add anything to that discussion, and in fact does little but derail the thread. Since you're apparently so concerned about duplicate threads and worthless posters, I'm not sure why you decided to hit the submit button.

 

Besides, one comment in the whole thread doesn't mean we're suddenly talking about that one thing, unless someone decides to completely ignore the surrounding discussion. Specifically, I had thought we were talking about mastered ships versus mastered ships, with teams composed of a fairly regular spread of players -- some bad, some decent, maybe two or three aces across both sides -- not pushover matches where an entire team has fewer matches under their collective belts than a single non-ace opponent.

 

You're mistaking threads, I think.

 

It's not the one about the mighty 8vs1.

 

I brought it up in the middle of my gigantic post.

Edited March 22, 2014 by Armonddd

[Armonddd]

Yet, I've managed to latch onto bombers and burn them down with BLC and Clusters, as long as you keep a decent range, the BLC will knock out any active mines and/or drones until those outside of the shotgun blast of the BLC are removed because the Bomber exploded.

 

There's something funny going on, then, because when Crin and I shoot mines with BLCs, they blow up in our faces. If you're not getting that, well, trade you accounts?

Edited March 22, 2014 by Armonddd

[Verain]

You're mistaking threads, I think.

 

It's not the one about the mighty 8vs1.

 

I know it isn't but Armondd doesn't. That was what he took out of that thread, instead of what was stated.

 

Yet, I've managed to latch onto bombers and burn them down with BLC and Clusters, as long as you keep a decent range, the BLC will knock out any active mines and/or drones until those outside of the shotgun blast of the BLC are removed because the Bomber exploded.

 

The experience can be pretty different on a node though. Bombers ramp up dramatically when they can LOS just a little bit here and there.

[NotThatOne]

There's something funny going on, then, because when Crin and I shoot mines with BLCs, they blow up in our faces. If you're not getting that, well, I'll trade you accounts.

BLC have (roughly) a 4000m range right? Most mines can only damage to about 3k, correct? latch at 3.5k and BLC away.

 

Of course, I tend to fly my Battle Scouts like cruise missiles anyway, so i don't care if I die, so long as someone else dies first.

 

As for the LOS around the sat, that's why you don't play ring around the node with Bombers, Porpoise in and out, (get above, get below, pew pew pew.)

Edited March 22, 2014 by NotThatOne

[Mallorik]

I still can't rap my head around how you'd implement stick support and maintain balance. The current control scheme modifies accuracy based on how far your targeting reticle strays from center. How would a fixed reticle be balanced? You'd always have max accuracy thus stick users would have an advantage.

 

Why would a fixed reticule need an accuracy penalty? The penalty is there because its too easy to just follow a ship with your mouse cursor, the targeting arc penalty makes you line up your ship better to get better accuracy.

 

With a fixed reticule and a pad or joystick directly controlling the ship you need to line up your ship to hit the target at all , with a mouse you just put your cursor on it.

 

If they wanted firing arc stats to effect people using a pad or stick they could just make it effect inertia on cannons or reticle size.

Edited March 22, 2014 by Mallorik

[Zoom_VI]

BLC have (roughly) a 4000m range right? Most mines can only damage to about 3k, correct? latch at 3.5k and BLC away.

 

The problem with that is that the accuracy of BLC drops off horrendously at range. 3-4 km range and you are lucky to hit anything, add that onto the fact that you only have a second before you end up with the 3km kill envelope, you get the picture.

 

As someone who recently played a match against a team field at least four minelayers, I can't tell you how many times I had to blow retros just to jump back from 3km to gain a few more shots on the mine.

[Armonddd]

BLC have (roughly) a 4000m range right? Most mines can only damage to about 3k, correct? latch at 3.5k and BLC away.

 

miss miss miss miss miss

 

70% accuracy sucks, man -- the effective max range of BLCs is like 2.5 km, not 4 km. Beyond that, you're just throwing spitwads. And, of course, if you spend too much time on the bomber's tail, his buddies take you out (same as attacking any other ship).

 

Maintaining that 3.5 km distance is pretty hard, too -- there's nothing stopping the bomber from killing thrusters and dropping mines, and there really isn't much you can do about it. And, of course, even if they don't do that, you need to pop the mines before they get within 3 km of you, not before you close the distance between yourself and the bomber to 3 km -- and mines shoot out pretty fast.

 

You can theoretically take out a bomber by tailing him, counting his cooldowns, and having amazing accuracy, but it's really not practical to do so in a lot of situations. In addition to all the above, you can only really count cooldowns after you see a mine fly out the first time, and if you're watching him for that long someone's probably taking you out.

 

The best solution is to simply not attack from the side where they're strongest, that is, attack from any angle but behind. Even against heavy lasers you can distortion field and grit your teeth; against mines, you really have no defense. Attacking from above, below, or the sides is best, because they can't simply boost past you and drop a mine as they go. Having increased range from literally any other laser choice also makes things a lot easier.

Edited March 22, 2014 by Armonddd

[NotThatOne]

The problem with that is that the accuracy of BLC drops off horrendously at range. 3-4 km range and you are lucky to hit anything, add that onto the fact that you only have a second before you end up with the 3km kill envelope, you get the picture.

 

As someone who recently played a match against a team field at least four minelayers, I can't tell you how many times I had to blow retros just to jump back from 3km to gain a few more shots on the mine.

 

Wow.. I must be better with that thing than I thought.

[Zoom_VI]

Wow.. I must be better with that thing than I thought.

 

Also add in the fact that for some reason the hitbox on mines its a little dot in the >< symbol. Trust me its annoying as crap to pop mines and is a often suicidal attempt, its just better to not use BLC against bombers, and if you are stuck with them, go find another target.

 

Also see armondd's post on the last page.

Edited March 22, 2014 by Zoom_VI

[NotThatOne]

Also add in the fact that for some reason the hitbox on mines its a little dot in the >< symbol. Trust me its annoying as crap to pop mines and is a often suicidal attempt, its just better to not use BLC against bombers, and if you are stuck with them, go find another target.

 

I dunno if it's the fact that I learned the mechanics of this game playing Gunship or not, but I have very little trouble hitting a stationary target. In fact, if a mine/drone leaves my sight picture without exploding, I didn't want to shoot it.

Edited March 22, 2014 by NotThatOne

[Armonddd]

I dunno if it's the fact that I learn the mechanics of this game playing Gunship or not, but I have very little trouble hitting a stationary target. In fact, if a mine/drone leaves my sight picture without exploding, I didn't want to shoot it.

 

Shock once told me he started playing his Sting because he wanted something different for a few matches and kept playing it because it helped him get better at gunship. I imagine the reverse can also be true.

[NotThatOne]

Shock once told me he started playing his Sting because he wanted something different for a few matches and kept playing it because it helped him get better at gunship. I imagine the reverse can also be true.

 

Well, I've always been an accurate shooter, video game, real world, doesn't matter, of course I was also taught from an early to to assess a situation, before acting. So when I bust off three kills on damaged opponents in short order, blame my dad.

 

Off Topic: When I was still loading diapers, my dad took us home on leave, he went to the gun club with my grandfather. A trophy winning competition pistol marksman bet my dad $100 (in 1981 money) that he could clear a table of bottles and cans faster than my dad could. This trophy winner broke every bottle and knocked every can off that table in 9 seconds, using only 8 rounds.

 

 

.....My dad shot a leg off the table....

[RabidFox]

A scout will win in dogfights because its the only ship that can dogfight, all the other ships are for people who cant dogfight. If they could they would fly scouts.

 

Disagree on this. I find strike fighters to be more than capable dogfighters, particularly if you are trying to hold "ground". While they don't have the same flat out sustained speed as a scout does, their turning radius can almost be as tight and their firepower is higher--particularly against shielded targets.

 

I prefer the Blackbolt because of its raw speed and ability to evade, but I do just fine with a Rycer in a dogfight. It's just a matter of flying it differently.

[-Streven-]

You can dogfight in any ship and if the other player doesn't understand their strengths and weaknesses you will win. Edited March 22, 2014 by -Streven-

[Verain]

You can dogfight in any ship and if the other player doesn't understand their strengths and weaknesses you will when.

 

I had a kill yesterday versus a strike fighter who decided to fly directly against my bomber slowly and shoot. This is a pretty easy bead to hit with heavy lasers, and since I actually have a shield boost, I won easily, taking barely any hull damage. I was trapped in the open, though- he should have just come around and started locking missiles, and shooting at me from where I couldn't chase.

 

 

When we discuss the maneuverability of ships, it's not in a vacuum. Most of us are pretty good, so we are kind of comparing the performance of how WE fly different ships. My ability to dogfight in a bomber is much reduced from my ability to dogfight in a flashfire, and versus a good pilot I would not have been given a head to head that I could easily win.

[-Streven-]

I had a kill yesterday versus a strike fighter who decided to fly directly against my bomber slowly and shoot. This is a pretty easy bead to hit with heavy lasers, and since I actually have a shield boost, I won easily, taking barely any hull damage. I was trapped in the open, though- he should have just come around and started locking missiles, and shooting at me from where I couldn't chase.

 

 

When we discuss the maneuverability of ships, it's not in a vacuum. Most of us are pretty good, so we are kind of comparing the performance of how WE fly different ships. My ability to dogfight in a bomber is much reduced from my ability to dogfight in a flashfire, and versus a good pilot I would not have been given a head to head that I could easily win.

 

Let me restate this because what I was trying to get at was a state of mind that I think you might agree with. Whenever I'm in a fight with another pilot, no matter who it is and no matter what I'm flying, I always feel like I've got a good chance at winning.

 

I was trying to address the guy who said the only ship that can dogfight is the scout. That's a defeatist attitude and it's wrong.