Do we still need turrets in Domination ?

[Altheran]

"Do we still need turrets in Domination ?" it's a question that comes to my mind relatively often lately.

 

Why, would you say ? Because I'm not sure that we need turrets to slow down the assault of a satellite now that we have ships with a load-out dedicated to hinder access to areas.

 

Even when those ships aren't implied, do we need this additional defense when we are guarding the satellites ? Isn't it already possible the hold the ennemy offensive off for a respectable amount of time with mere flying ?

 

Is it alright to be able to defend a satellite because turrets take time to destroy although it has been left unchecked ?

Is it alright to see unchecked satellites been attacked by new pilots, and not lost because the inexperimented opponent lost to the turrets ?

 

Is it alright that this attacker is destroyed by turrets although he'd been able to destroy the guarding defender while turrets where helping him ?

 

I don't know about you, but when these situations occur, I think my team didn't deserve keeping the control of the satellite, I feel bad.

 

In addition, in some discussions about damage reducers and armor penetration, we can sometimes see "DR isn't viable defense because armor pen is mandatory because of turrets"... I don't feel it's right that an upgrade or weapon is seen mandatory because of reason that is not ship-to-ship related.

 

I know it may seem unimportant, given that nowadays topics are rather about ship and component balance because of the late metagame, but personally, I am not happy with turrets.

 

I can understand it may be necessary for satellites to not be contested immediately, but I think that slowing down the process with damaging devices isn't great given their current damage/resistance ratio.

 

I personally think that turrets don't fit this kind of capturing mechanic and that this mechanic could have some little tweakings*, but I'm open on the matter.

*see spoiler at the end

 

 

So, what's your take about turrets ?

- Turrets are fine

- Turrets need changes

- Turrets need to go

 

 

 

Possible capturing mechanic change :

- Dominance changes not effective until reaching 0 or full.

- Longer time to cap needed

...

 

 

Edited May 19, 2014 by Altheran

[Fractalsponge]

Turrets are fine as a concept. They provide advanced warning of a node under attack, and add a little of challenge to the capping process. What I don't like about them is mostly to do with the fact that the armor on turrets effectively prevent certain ships types, or less-upgraded ships, from rapidly clearing a node.

 

I would dramatically up the hp on the turrets and remove the extra armor, so ships without very specific loadouts aren't completely pointless for attempting to flip a node. T3 support ships, non HLC strikes, non-BLC/non-pods scouts for example.

 

As for them taking kills - I don't really care at all. Giving the node-taking process a small chance of killing people who try is what they are there for, after all. I was also fine with the TDM capital ship turrets as well. If a pilot can't be bothered to realize the danger they pose and act accordingly, then tough.

[Altheran]

Turrets are fine as a concept. They provide advanced warning of a node under attack, and add a little of challenge to the capping process. What I don't like about them is mostly to do with the fact that the armor on turrets effectively prevent certain ships types, or less-upgraded ships, from rapidly clearing a node.

 

I would dramatically up the hp on the turrets and remove the extra armor, so ships without very specific loadouts aren't completely pointless for attempting to flip a node. T3 support ships, non HLC strikes, non-BLC/non-pods scouts for example.

 

As for them taking kills - I don't really care at all. Giving the node-taking process a small chance of killing people who try is what they are there for, after all. I was also fine with the TDM capital ship turrets as well. If a pilot can't be bothered to realize the danger they pose and act accordingly, then tough.

I also thought of something in those lines, although I'd also reduce their damage.

 

I don't mind them getting the kill occasionally, it's more related to the amount of protection they give to allies around them.

When I'm on guarding duty, I feel like they're making my guarding too easy.

I think that their damage, in the case we keep turrets as a slowing down mechanic, should be more symbolic than actually threatening.

Edited May 19, 2014 by Altheran

[Drakkolich]

To sum it up fast, I like the turrets, but take away the armor and add hp to them

[General_Brass]

Use turrets as part of a balancing mechanism. If someone wants to bring a premade in and the other side doesn't have one they get stronger turrets that do more damage.

[ptwonline]

Bombers have so unbalanced Domination that any balance tweaks one way or another are pretty much irrelevant.

[General_Brass]

Bombers have so unbalanced Domination that any balance tweaks one way or another are pretty much irrelevant.

 

I can't get behind that. About an hour ago I was on the winning side of a domination where we had no bombers and the other fielded three. If people play using their heads it's very easy to deal with bombers on satellites

 

Edit: Note that is assuming a level playing field, and the bombers aren't equipped with ansible communication systems that let them relay their tactical situation instantly.

Edited May 19, 2014 by General_Brass

[Gavin_Kelvar]

I would dramatically up the hp on the turrets and remove the extra armor, so ships without very specific loadouts aren't completely pointless for attempting to flip a node. T3 support ships, non HLC strikes, non-BLC/non-pods scouts for example.

 

I would actually disagree. The armor is one of the things that gives value to the heavy weaponry of strikers (for record I use the quads on my T3 striker to kill turrets just fine when combining with thermites to take out a second, HLC aren't the only heavy weapons strikers have). Take the armor of turrets away and it would shift the meta towards scouts being the dominant node takers (again, technically). Back in 2.5 when they had nearly the same effective HP as a striker thanks to evasion because it combined with the armor piercing weaponry scouts had (pods & BLC, no one used thermites back then) it rendered strikers superfluous. The amount of damage turrets do also servers to give strikers a role since their shields allow them to tank the damage the turrets dish out whereas a scout can't.

 

Non-pod/BLC scouts absolutely should not be as good as a striker carrying heavy weaponry at flipping a node. Otherwise you're basically creating something where a striker's heavy ordinance with armor penetration is pretty much there for the sole purpose of busting bombers (and basically ensure DR remains a niche stat that's worthless otherwise). Likewise reducing the damage turrets do only serves to shift the meta in favor of scouts and away from giving strikers a valuable role to fill.

 

Overall I think we need turrets in Domination. The removal or nerfing of turrets would set the meta back towards 2.5 days where strikers didn't have much of a role (and lets be honest back then a scout could clear turrets so fast that they'd take minimal or no damage from them so turrets really only served a symbolic role and had no practical defensive purpose in 2.5). Strikers aren't going to be taking the title of space superiority and interceptor from the scout class any time soon and bombers have effectively taken the node holding title from them (in 2.5 being a sat tick was one of the few things a striker could do better than a scout) so reducing the number of heavily armored things out there only serves to reduce the purpose of having strikers to encourage a GS, scout, bomber focused meta.

Edited May 19, 2014 by Gavin_Kelvar