Fix for Ion Railgun incoming in 2.7

[Delta_V]

From the 2.7 patch notes:

 

•The amount of weapon and engine Power drained by Ion Railgun hits is now linearly scaled by the current charge level of the Railgun. For example, a Railgun hit at minimum charge (25%) that previously drained 60 units of power, now only drains 15 units

[/Quote]

 

Pretty much what we've been asking for a long time now. This should help rein in the silliness of Ion's CC potential.

[Armonddd]

...60 units? I hope that's just an example, because I don't think that's actually how it works.

 

Anyway, good change. Couldn't have asked for more.

[Delta_V]

...60 units? I hope that's just an example, because I don't think that's actually how it works.

 

Anyway, good change. Couldn't have asked for more.

 

Yeah, just noticed that too. I *hope* they just picked 60 because it happened to divide nicely into 4.

[-Streven-]

Cheers for the change!

[Loc_n_lol]

That's... something, but it's still going to be stupidly strong because AoE damage, no shields, slow. You're stil going to die from the follow-up slug but now at least you may get a chance to boost away or shoot back...

 

Can we put the dev responsible for orbital strike / jarring stirke changes in charge of gunship balance ?

Edited April 8, 2014 by Loc_n_lol

[Gavin_Kelvar]

...60 units? I hope that's just an example, because I don't think that's actually how it works.

 

Anyway, good change. Couldn't have asked for more.

 

Didn't that person who did a test and recorded it conclude that it drained 50-60 units of power per hit?

 

Anyway this is a good change. At least using ions will no longer be as effective a means to cripple an enemy ship (although I'm still iffy of that 6 second block on regen). In theory a 25% love tap could still be used to stunlock an enemy on the 2nd shot if they start trying to boost away after a full charge and the 2nd shot eats up whatever wasn't consumed by boosting (keeping in mind that not all starfighters, especially dogfighters, run at 100% capacity regularly).

[Armonddd]

Didn't that person who did a test and recorded it conclude that it drained 50-60 units of power per hit?

 

I believe the number was 53.

[Verain]

I believe the number was 53.

 

The number displayed was a guess based on the graphics. I'm SURE it's 60 on live, there's simply no way it was ever 53 or 58 or whatever. Everyone was guessing about half for the aoe damage (30), so it's reasonable to assume that it's double the half for the main attribute damage.

 

Regardless, here's what it means- just like live, a full charge hit is 60 to the main target. Unlike live, charges at less than full drain proportionately less energy, greatly reducing the efficacy of the ion tap.

 

 

This is the change we wanted.

[SammyGStatus]

AOE is fine, ESPECIALLY with scaling damage. Gunships are getting nerfed hard this patch :/ At least they made the ion work as intended. Quick pops were still able to be performed, which isn't beneficial. This'll rectify that... Now buff my evasion to make up for the lack of survivability Edited April 8, 2014 by SammyGStatus

[Armonddd]

AOE is fine, ESPECIALLY with scaling damage. Gunships are getting nerfed hard this patch :/

 

And about time. Nothing was ok about 60 energy drain on a 0.675 second charge. Even after this nerf, ion railgun is still the most powerful CC in the game by a long shot.

Edited April 8, 2014 by Armonddd

[Loc_n_lol]

Yeah, it's not like the slow is scaling with charge...

[Verain]

Well, people like to complain about everything with ions. The range, the aoe, the drain, the lesser aoe drain, the engine shutdown.

 

But, you SHOULD be screwed for getting hit with a railgun.

 

The question has always been, how to tune ion railguns without taking away their intended CC role. It's clear it's been too strong. This fix should be very valuable to the game.

[Armonddd]

Well, people like to complain about everything with ions. The range, the aoe, the drain, the lesser aoe drain, the engine shutdown.

 

But, you SHOULD be screwed for getting hit with a railgun.

 

I've always wondered why. Is it because of the short range and thus difficulty of landing the shot? The long cooldown? The way you have to maintain LOS until you're ready to fire? The warning tone the other guy gets? The limiting structure of the weapon (with regards to power drain and specific charge time -- not too much, not too little)? What is it?

[Verain]

Nice sarcasm, but the reason is that you expend a lot of resources and are wildly vulnerable as a literally stationary target in an otherwise poor ship.

 

With railguns, you are limited by enemy evasion, enemy harass (unlike missiles and blasters, you can't railgun while under pressure), the necessity to land a specific shot versus a rapidly moving target, and the fact that you have to charge a shot (and while holding the charge, you continue to deplete). You also have to deal with really low dps and dpe, with a bomber actually taking most of your energy bar and several seconds- miss a shot or have to shoot something else and you will have a hard time even finishing him if he is entirely ignoring you and in open space.

 

Gunships require a lot of skill to play properly, as so much of the ship is wrapped up in the railgun, which requires precision aiming and is not forgiving, as your energy resource is nothing compared to the actual resource- time spent stationary and charging and within danger. This is why railgun shots need to be devastating- if you are playing properly, they won't land on you much, and you have a great deal of control over whether they hit you at all.

 

My big complaint with ion tap is that it evaded one of the big skill tests of a gunship, and one of the more interactive parts from the enemy perspective- the charge up. Eliminating that reduced interactivity with the enemy ships who are there to harass (CC) the gunship.

 

Gunships could still have a bit too much damage from the railguns, but if they do, it's not by much.

Edited April 8, 2014 by Verain

[Armonddd]

Nice sarcasm, but the reason is that you expend a lot of resources and are wildly vulnerable as a literally stationary target in an otherwise poor ship.

 

That's really silly justification (and doesn't account for several factors), but this isn't the thread for it.

[Verain]

You asked why railguns hit hard, I told you.

[-Streven-]

Here's what I'd like to see for gunships. Decreased engine pool similar to bombers and increased turn radius on par with strikes. Reduced range to 10k for railguns along with 50% reduction to damage and 35% reduction to charge up time. Then tune the rest of the components around the concept of being a slower moving yet maneuverable dogfighter with significant range advantage. Remove ion rails and replace with ion missiles. This would make them gunships instead of snipers. My numbers are rough guestimates but the concept is all about bringing them into the realm of dogfighting while maintaining the uniqueness of having the longest range weapons.

 

I am 99% positive this will never ever happen because it is too radical a change but it's nice to dream about.

Edited April 8, 2014 by -Streven-

[MCaliban]

But I already used full charges? It's two seconds between the minimum you have to have for ion and the maximum charge.

 

Here's what I'd like to see for gunships. Decreased engine pool similar to bombers and increased turn radius on par with strikes. Reduced range to 10k for railguns along with 50% reduction to damage and 35% reduction to charge up time. Then tune the rest of the components around the concept of being a slower moving yet maneuverable dogfighter with significant range advantage. Remove ion rails and replace with ion missiles. This would make them gunships instead of snipers. My numbers are rough guestimates but the concept is all about bringing them into the realm of dogfighting while maintaining the uniqueness of having the longest range weapons.

 

I am 99% positive this will never ever happen because it is too radical a change but it's nice to dream about.

 

That's not a gunship change. That another striker variant.

 

Gunships are not dogfighters.

Edited April 8, 2014 by MCaliban

[Verain]

@Streven

They do not need a smaller engine pool. Bombers do not have a smaller engine pool. This is just more "deleet gunships mad cuz can't win" nonsense.

 

You also ask for a railgun reduction to 10k. Your nerf requests are absurd, and just derail the thread with your tears of class hate.

Edited April 8, 2014 by Verain

[Armonddd]

Man, there goes another thread, derailed by people who continue to aggressively support poorly designed classes without offering any justification as to why people are wrong for wanting them to be changed, all while raging about derailed threads.

[DresG]

The only real problem with this weapon is how ridiculously effective GS stacking is. Problems start when you have 3 and more GSs sniping and crossfiring when they are attacked.

 

It's use as CC was not the real problem. (This is coming from a person that prefers matches without GSs on either side)

[Verain]

Man, there goes another thread, derailed by people who continue to aggressively support poorly designed classes without offering any justification as to why people are wrong for wanting them to be changed, all while raging about derailed threads.

 

Here comes the battle scout brigade, because this is the battle scout class forums and they can't even discuss a railgun nerf with anything but GUNSHIP GUNSHIP GUNSHIP DELETE GUNSHIP CAN'T HELP BUT CHASE TO CAP SHIP RANGE SO HARD SHOULD NOT NEED TO LOS ANYTHING OR HAVE SITAWARE

 

 

I'm not derailing the thread. You asking why railguns do damage? Streven asking for gunships to be deleted? You claiming the class is "poorly designed" because it has a focus of ranged combat?

 

That's derailing.

 

 

Gunship gunshippppppp

[Morgrid]

Gunship nerfs?

 

Excuse me while I put on my dancing shoes...

[Gavin_Kelvar]

Yeah, it's not like the slow is scaling with charge...

 

That is my main concern now. It basically means whatever you have left is all you have to work with for 6 seconds and attempting to flee could very easily result in making the next shot not have to be fully charged to stunlock you. Particularly for strikers that aren't super efficient with engines. I think they still need to change that block on energy regen to a 50% slower regen like ion missiles (although I think considering the power of the drain it would be best to remove the energy regen block and replace it with something else; it confuses the heck out of me why ion missiles that have no chance for a follow up shot for 11 seconds only slow regen by 50% whereas railguns which can have a follow up shot in 1-3 seconds block regen entirely). By making ions primarily there for stripping away shields (like other ion weapons) and power drain as a secondary bonus it might help eventually balancing railguns so plasma railguns are a worthwhile choice (and so the type 2 GS isn't deemed so worthless for not having ions).

 

That all being said maybe this is exactly what was needed and things will be fine after 2.7. Overall I do approve of the devs choice to proceed slowly rather than using the nerf bat to carpet bomb things into oblivion.

Edited April 8, 2014 by Gavin_Kelvar

[DamascusAdontise]

Really excited about this change, its basically exactly what sounded right to me. Low Power Drain IMO is the one part of ion that is overpowered (id like to see something done about the regen as well, but we will have to see how this plays out first)

 

Being dependent on charge up allows people to still get the full effect, but requires a lengthy/costly process. Small charges will still be effective at draining, but not enough to stop any target dead in their tracks until death. Quick gunship pilots will still be able to capitalize off ion / slug combos, but this is okay (people tend to lump weapons together but in reality were talking Ion Railgun Balance on a single ship, not weapons combination or force multipliers)

Edited April 8, 2014 by DamascusAdontise