A survey of shield piercing

[Ryuku-sama]

Remember one of Nemarus' main gripes : "you are hit without prior warning, meaning you often have to be hit first to know that a Slug is nearby". (Not repeating word for word)

 

Activated statuses like double Directional or Fortress becomes improbable for the problem he's pointing.

And how many of these can actually eat a full Slug while in Weapon/Engine "stance" which the "stances" the enemies are the most likely to be in ?

 

Average situations, not theory... Average...

 

Overcharged. Directionnal build for shield. Fortress not activated and not build for shield. Shield Pro the Clarion. QC build for shield on a strike. Directionnal on a strike. And I guess there is a few more.... So seriously.. without Shield Pen.. Slug would be far less dangerous...... In fact... My nova would obliterate any gunship with its StE converter without armor pen. At least, if I can avoid the Ion.

[Kuciwalker]

Directionals on a Strike give 2000+ shields, even with power to engines or lasers. That's more than enough to to absorb all of the damage from a Slug Rail if it didn't have shield piercing. And you could reorient your shields to fully cover the hit side before the next rail hits, which would mean that one gets absorbed too.

 

But because Slug has such high shield piercing, even building a ship for high shields and using Directional's active skillfully means nothing--you still take 986 hull damage. Your hull will be red, even though you had 2000+ shields presenting to the Gunship both times you were shot. That's ridiculous.

 

S2E converter on a Scout gives 1755 per arc at normal strength. With power set to engines, and if you've recently used the active to convert shield to engine, you'll be at 1495 per arc. A full Slug Railgun without shield piercing would do 265 hull damage. A Scout hit by that would know it needs to turn around immediately. If it it fails to get to cover in time, it would be hit on the backside, for another 265 hull damage.

 

But in the real world, where Slug Railguns have 28% shield piercing, the Scout instead takes 986 hull damage, regardless of its shields. Unless it specced its Armor for hit points, it's dead, even though it presented double-shields to the Gunship both times it was shot. This, again, is ridiculous.

 

Count me as supremely unconcerned that a scout dies to two fully charged slug railgun shots. In expectation that is a number much larger than two (taking into account evasion).

 

Similarly, the amount of effort and weapon energy a gunship has to invest in doing 986 damage even to a strike is huge. TTK versus strikes using pure slug railgun is very long and is extremely draining on weapon energy.

Edited June 30, 2014 by Kuciwalker

[dancezwithnubz]

Count me as supremely unconcerned that a scout dies to two fully charged slug railgun shots. In expectation that is a number much larger than two (taking into account evasion).

^

this.

 

Many times my warning that a gunship is targeting me is a blue or red flash as they miss due to evasion.

 

scouts are fragile, slug rail guns hit like trucks.

[Nemarus]

Count me as supremely unconcerned that a scout dies to two fully charged slug railgun shots. In expectation that is a number much larger than two (taking into account evasion).

 

Similarly, the amount of effort and weapon energy a gunship has to invest in doing 986 damage even to a strike is huge. TTK versus strikes using pure slug railgun is very long and is extremely draining on weapon energy.

 

Lol. "Effort." Because holding down a mouse button for 6.4 seconds while centering a cursor on someone who is 15km away, who has no idea you are even targeting them, is so difficult and worthy of ~1000 unavoidable, irreducable hull damage.

 

Compared to hitting them with a Proton Torpedo, which requires 3.4 seconds of keeping a target in a 20 degree arc from 11500m away, without them breaking line of sight--during which they are receiving a constant alarm that you are targeting them. And if by some miracle you manage to fire the missile, they still have several seconds to use a missile break, which means you don't get to try again for 12 seconds. And then, finally, if you hit ... you deal ~900 irreducable damage ... and you still don't get to fire again for 12 seconds.

 

And please don't use the lame argument that torpedoes and railguns cannot be compared at all because one requires you to be stationary. Using a proton torpedo requires you to be stationary in the way that matters most--you have to be on a locked course.

 

Why is it that so many people insist on describing weapons from the attacker's perspective? "It takes me so long to blow up Strikes. It takes so much energy." I'm very sad for you, but that doesn't change the fact that, for the target, getting hit by a railgun seems cheap, frustrating, and stupid--and it's a reason a lot of people never give GSF a second chance.

 

There is no reason Slugs need both shield piercing and armor piercing. Not when they already can hit from 15km, have no capacity limit, have no lock on warning, have no indication when one was even fired at you and missed.

 

You want to make people use Damage Reduction? Take Armor Piercing off of Slug Railgun. I would instantly go full DR build on every one of my ships, even my Blackbolt. Because I know that no matter what I do, no matter how good I fly, railguns are always going to hit me. I am always going to be focused by them. Every team I'm up against is always going to fall back on them the moment they begin to lose. And since I know my shields will always be worthless against them no matter what, I might as well get some mitigation besides Evasion, which is far too chancey to be tactically dependable.

[TrinityLyre]

Lol. "Effort." Because holding down a mouse button for 6.4 seconds while centering a cursor on someone who is 15km away, who has no idea you are even targeting them, is so difficult and worthy of ~1000 unavoidable, irreducable hull damage.

The same way that lining up a target, popping cooldowns and holding both mouse buttons down for a near-instant kill (with your favorite ship or the "FotY") takes skill and is difficult? Don't bash Verain for what he says when you turn around and say things like this. It's insulting, whether or not you like to play gunships.

 

Gunships don't need further nerfs short of being incapable of one-shotting full hull & shield players. They are no longer capable of running indefinitely and take great skill to stay alive in. Practically every ship is capable of pulling similar numbers to a gunship. If anything, Railgun Sentry Drones need nerfs for autopiloting huge amounts of damage with practically no opportunity cost. Those don't rely on player skill to aim and they pierce right through evasion (passive or active including engine maneuvers).

 

Compared to hitting them with a Proton Torpedo, which requires 3.4 seconds of keeping a target in a 20 degree arc from 11500m away, without them breaking line of sight--during which they are receiving a constant alarm that you are targeting them.

This is a fair comparison because clearly you aren't able to fire your primary weapon and remain mobile while doing so. If you want to preach skill, use Tab to find gunships and kill them early and often. I don't think an entire class needs to suffer because players are too dumb and/or incapable of being aware of their surroundings. Just like in Star Wars media, simulators and other flight games, spatial awareness is a large and important part of the game.

 

And please don't use the lame argument that torpedoes and railguns cannot be compared at all because one requires you to be stationary. Using a proton torpedo requires you to be stationary in the way that matters most--you have to be on a locked course.

Translated: "Don't use an argument that makes sense." Moving in a straight line is still vastly preferable to being stationary. Most of the time, you're still making course corrections to keep them in your firing arc anyway.

 

getting hit by a railgun seems cheap, frustrating, and stupid--and it's a reason a lot of people never give GSF a second chance.

Well in the case of strikes it's getting hit by 2-3 full-powered railgun shots, which is hardly "cheap." I do agree that Slug Railgun crits that one-shot opposing scouts are a little silly, but there's nothing "cheap" or "frustrating" about being hit otherwise. Don't fly out in the open, have cover nearby and make sure your team picks on enemy gunships. These are fairly basic rules and if players can't be bothered to play tactically or even try, why should they be coddled? There's enough guides (and you can even count mine out - I link to plenty of others) giving general tips on gameplay.

 

All that aside, enemy players demonstrating superior skill should frustrate the opposition. In a strike fighter, gunship, bomber or scout. It doesn't matter. There needs to be incentive to become better at GSF, just like any other (competitive, online, multiplayer, team) game.

 

You want to make people use Damage Reduction? Take Armor Piercing off of Slug Railgun.

The damage it deals would probably have to go up to compensate unless you're looking for a direct nerf. I don't think Slug needs a direct nerf, but that's me.

 

no matter what I do, no matter how good I fly, railguns are always going to hit me.

I'm going to be nice here and skip the obvious insult. Pilots are capable of flying well enough to dodge railgun shots and maintain spatial awareness enough so that they can recognize gunship threats before they are hit. This is part of what might be called "skill" in this game, and I'd rather see that stay than have this game go the way of WoW - dumbed down to the point that it's incredibly boring and lacking depth of any kind.

 

mitigation besides Evasion, which is far too chancey to be tactically dependable.

Stack more evasion or approach gunships from somewhere other than the direct center of their firing arc? Why should destroying gunships be an absolute joke?

Edited July 1, 2014 by TrinityLyre

[Altheran]

Well, I won't say you're wrong Nemarus, you're not... But it's like when we debated mines piercing, I think you tend to focus too much on your builds, who focus on extreme shields.

There are the regenerative ones, and if those are still overwhelmed, while the large ones get it easier, there will be even less incentives to play risky regen... And there is already almost no incentive at the moment.

 

I welcome shield piercing for this very reason : regenerative shield (or anything with lower shield than another build) can shine only when the player can end prematurely incoming damage... But there are things that will be overwhelming, no matter what like Concussion Missile or Slug Railgun. No chance that the risk taken, gives profits.

If no artifice is used so that the "sure way" is also punished, then the "risky way" becomes subpar.

The artifice used in the matter at hand is shield piercing.

And what's fantastic about this artifice, is that it can be used to also ensure that the "risky way" is not too rewarding (shield piercing put on quick and lower hits like HLC)

 

The lack of shield piercing on heavy hits, would be like extreme burst -poisonous to GSF- not only because of TTK but also because they can make some "risky play" obsolete.

If the shield piercing on a heavy hitter becomes too high -for anyone-, it doesn't necessarily means that the shield piercing is too much, it can also mean that the heavy hit was already "too bursty" (and so already poisonous) in the first place.

(Not sure if my sentence is clear...)

 

Similarly, the amount of effort and weapon energy a gunship has to invest in doing 986 damage even to a strike is huge. TTK versus strikes using pure slug railgun is very long and is extremely draining on weapon energy.

Like if the conditional extra 90 damage of Ion or 40 of Plasma (over time) was actually significant...

And like if Strikes weren't actually much easier to hit...

[Nemarus]

 

 

I'm going to be nice here and skip the obvious insult. Pilots are capable of flying well enough to dodge railgun shots and maintain spatial awareness enough so that they can recognize gunship threats before they are hit. This is part of what might be called "skill" in this game, and I'd rather see that stay than have this game go the way of WoW - dumbed down to the point that it's incredibly boring and lacking depth of any kind.

 

 

Stack more evasion or approach gunships from somewhere other than the direct center of their firing arc? Why should destroying gunships be an absolute joke?

 

At 10km-15km, any evasive action I take, no matter how inspired or skillful, is very easy to track by a Gunship that is zoomed out. It's purely a function of the range, and the fact that the hitbox of my ship does not become smaller depending on how far away you are. That's true of every weapon in the game--the farther a target is, the easier it is to track. Yes, farther range means a small Accuracy penalty, but it's not enough to simulate real apparent size shrinkage over range that the game should have but doesn't. And while every weapon in the game benefits from it, railguns benefit from the most because they are the longest range.

 

Railguns also have an easier time of target tracking because, unlike cannons which must follow a lead indicator, railguns only need follow the actual ship. And the actual ship moves much less erratically than a lead indicator can be made to move. If I turn my ship 90 degrees, its lead indicator moves in a giant arc that can be tricky to follow. But my actual ship won't move much at all, translationally speaking.

 

The only really effective way to make yourself hard to hit is to boost laterally across a Gunship's view. Few pilots realize this, which is why so many new pilots get killed by railguns so easily.

 

As for my own difficulties against Gunships, I'm mainly referring to their ability to double-focus me.

 

If two people in Strikes or Scouts decide to focus me, they have to pursue me and keep up with me. They have to match my turns, avoid obstacles, deal with my allies who I'm dragging them toward, etc. And during that time, I can still be dealing damage and even scoring some kills on the run.

 

If two people in Gunships decide to focus me, all they have to do is park such that I'm at the edge of their range. At that distance, all my fancy flying is just a slight wiggling on their screen. Then they each hit me with a slug and I die, with no warning.

 

Sure, sometimes I can get my team to go and hunt those Gunships down (we have to hunt them in packs--otherwise they cover each other). But if I'm flying solo, that really doesn't work. I basically have to resign myself to not having any fun that round.

 

It's especially frustrating when it happens to me and I'm not even flying a threatening ship. Just trying to master my new Decimus, or my Bloodmark, is almost impossible in TDM, because my name gets me double or triple railgun focused.

 

Being focused by any other ships, of any number, does not cripple my fun in the same way. Basically, railguns punish me for being good at GSF--they do not incentivize me to get better, unless it is to get better at flying a Gunship myself.

Edited July 1, 2014 by Nemarus

[tunewalker]

Just a reminder to everyone, from Bioware's pattern with buffs or nerfs, function of things are likely not to change likely only numbers.

 

IE Lock-on times amount of shield piercing amount of armor amount of armor peircing so on and so forth. Something is not likely to be removed all together, but the numbers are likely to be changed.

 

Several things can be done to help balance, shield piercing I dont know is one of them. But if its done it wouldnt help strikes as much as it would hurt GS which are actually in a good spot right now in my opinion.

 

They have a decent kill time, as well as being easy to threaten 1v1. They may stack to well, but I am not certain a group of coordinated scouts couldnt break the line.

 

I personally would love the idea of Strikes being a counter to multiple gunships with the idea that they would be able to take enough hits move fast enough and dish out enough damage that a strike could threaten a GS gaurded by another GS, but if said GS was gaurded by another strike or a Scout (Which I think SHOULD be physically very vulnerable but able to dish out a good burst of pain more so then the GS or the Strike) that strike would need pack-up of his own.

 

Right now its just hard to pin down anything a strike can do and so far most of the suggestions I see that change anything save for the Strike itself seems to change the meta around other ships as well, potentially in harmful ways that dont actually accomplish the intended goal.

 

I mean if we did this, it wouldnt neccisarrily make strikes any better because it would essentially buff Scouts and Bombers as well. It would just make GS worse, GS which are not what is making strikes bad as far as I can tell. GS that have probably recieved the most amount of nerfs of any ship class thus far. Gunships which are in my humble belief well balanced. They can attrition you down or a group can burst you down just like any other ship (Save Strikes) while still being vulnerable outside their comfort zone.

 

Nem you talked about how you could have multiple strikes and scouts on your tail and still avoid them and even threaten other people and kill other people. A GS with either of those on their tail on the other hand has a conciderably larger difficulty threatening people while left alone has an easier chance to threaten thanks to range. That to me is the pay off and the trade off. I personally think that Trade off is fairly well balanced right now, and in games where my team has 4 gunships and enemy team has 4 or more I still occassionally fly the strike or the scout as peel support for anything that tries to break that line or even to threaten the enemies gunship that makes a mistake and then get out of their with a nice barrel roll.

 

On a strike I still find myself using my engine manuevers more for the maneuverability they provide more then a missile break especially in games with GS's since I dont need to worry about those missiles any way and since its so easy to just break LoS with normal maneuvers.

 

Truthfully we could have only 1 missile break in the game on all the ships and I highly doubt it would change anything. People would just fly more defensive missiles would still be next to impossible to land on good pilots.

 

Maybe thats the intention strikes are supposed to be for new pilots to ease themselves into and for both veteran and new pilots to use against new pilots who arent quite aware of how to avoid missiles yet.

 

Ultimately Shield Piercing I doubt has much at all to do with strike effectiveness, and part of me thinks it would probably just benifit Bombers more in the end any way since they have shields almost as strong as a strikes but have massively more hull meaning any damage to hull is neccisary to win the long war of attrition that is killing a bomber.

 

If a weapon has armor piercing or a missile break or what ever they are highly unlikely to remove or touch that in any way. After all they are known for adjusting numbers not for changing the functionality of a thing. So asking for something to be removed or added to something else is largely a waste of time as that is very unlikely to happen.

[Nemarus]

Just a reminder to everyone, from Bioware's pattern with buffs or nerfs, function of things are likely not to change likely only numbers.

 

IE Lock-on times amount of shield piercing amount of armor amount of armor peircing so on and so forth. Something is not likely to be removed all together, but the numbers are likely to be changed.

 

Several things can be done to help balance, shield piercing I dont know is one of them. But if its done it wouldnt help strikes as much as it would hurt GS which are actually in a good spot right now in my opinion.

 

They have a decent kill time, as well as being easy to threaten 1v1. They may stack to well, but I am not certain a group of coordinated scouts couldnt break the line.

 

I personally would love the idea of Strikes being a counter to multiple gunships with the idea that they would be able to take enough hits move fast enough and dish out enough damage that a strike could threaten a GS gaurded by another GS, but if said GS was gaurded by another strike or a Scout (Which I think SHOULD be physically very vulnerable but able to dish out a good burst of pain more so then the GS or the Strike) that strike would need pack-up of his own.

 

Right now its just hard to pin down anything a strike can do and so far most of the suggestions I see that change anything save for the Strike itself seems to change the meta around other ships as well, potentially in harmful ways that dont actually accomplish the intended goal.

 

I mean if we did this, it wouldnt neccisarrily make strikes any better because it would essentially buff Scouts and Bombers as well. It would just make GS worse, GS which are not what is making strikes bad as far as I can tell. GS that have probably recieved the most amount of nerfs of any ship class thus far. Gunships which are in my humble belief well balanced. They can attrition you down or a group can burst you down just like any other ship (Save Strikes) while still being vulnerable outside their comfort zone.

 

Nem you talked about how you could have multiple strikes and scouts on your tail and still avoid them and even threaten other people and kill other people. A GS with either of those on their tail on the other hand has a conciderably larger difficulty threatening people while left alone has an easier chance to threaten thanks to range. That to me is the pay off and the trade off. I personally think that Trade off is fairly well balanced right now, and in games where my team has 4 gunships and enemy team has 4 or more I still occassionally fly the strike or the scout as peel support for anything that tries to break that line or even to threaten the enemies gunship that makes a mistake and then get out of their with a nice barrel roll.

 

On a strike I still find myself using my engine manuevers more for the maneuverability they provide more then a missile break especially in games with GS's since I dont need to worry about those missiles any way and since its so easy to just break LoS with normal maneuvers.

 

Truthfully we could have only 1 missile break in the game on all the ships and I highly doubt it would change anything. People would just fly more defensive missiles would still be next to impossible to land on good pilots.

 

Maybe thats the intention strikes are supposed to be for new pilots to ease themselves into and for both veteran and new pilots to use against new pilots who arent quite aware of how to avoid missiles yet.

 

Ultimately Shield Piercing I doubt has much at all to do with strike effectiveness, and part of me thinks it would probably just benifit Bombers more in the end any way since they have shields almost as strong as a strikes but have massively more hull meaning any damage to hull is neccisary to win the long war of attrition that is killing a bomber.

 

If a weapon has armor piercing or a missile break or what ever they are highly unlikely to remove or touch that in any way. After all they are known for adjusting numbers not for changing the functionality of a thing. So asking for something to be removed or added to something else is largely a waste of time as that is very unlikely to happen.

 

Great reply. Would read again! Though I would remind that we just saw shield piercing completely removed from Interdiction Mine.

 

It's definitely a good point you make that many ships would not enjoy the "on the go" damage dealing ability of my Blackbolt. I suppose fragility is the price I pay for that--though shield piercing would not be required for that agility.

 

And to Kuci and Trinity, I apologize if I got a snooty with my "effort" line. I was cranky for other RL reasons at the time. I still think that simply connecting with a target from close range is markedly more difficult than connecting at long range, and I do think it's a little absurd how many perks the Slug Railgun gets.

 

As for skill/effort whatever... I think the Gunship just has an inverted profile from other ships. For a Gunship, the skill comes from positioning and being able to escape death when under pressure--but as tunewalker notes, when unmolested, a Gunship has a pretty easy job, offensively.

 

For every other class, the skill/effort is balanced much more across offense and defense. Scoring kills and not being killed are both part of a single, fluid mode of operation.

 

As for shield piercing, I do not think its removal or reduction would be a cure-all for Strikes, by any means. I think nerfing shield piercing (and adjusting total damage upward where appropriate) would increase the accessibility of the game a little bit, and it'd let the shield part of the power trinity play a little more prominently.

Edited July 1, 2014 by Nemarus

[tunewalker]

I will say with the mine the way the thing was always worded, it didnt feel like "shield Piercing" to me if you catch my meaning. It just did hull damage and they swapped that to shield damage and changed the numbers.

 

I feel thats slightly different honestly, still I find it highly unlikely they will change function before adjusting numbers as numbers seem much easier to adjust and i feel doing so would probably be all they need to do.

 

I am not sure how they can balance strikes because I am not even sure what Strikes are supposed to be intended to do over other ships to even truly begin suggesting things. I just know they are weak, and its because they telegraph their kills like its going out of style while also not being all that fast or efficient and being ultimately not much more surviable then a GS or a Scout.

 

Its just weak on every front and until we really understand what their function is intended to be its hard to truly suggest buffs for them.

[Kuciwalker]

Lol. "Effort." Because holding down a mouse button for 6.4 seconds while centering a cursor on someone who is 15km away, who has no idea you are even targeting them, is so difficult and worthy of ~1000 unavoidable, irreducable hull damage.

 

Don't make stuff up. 450-500 is "unavoidable". If you get hit a second time it's your own fault.

 

Compared to hitting them with a Proton Torpedo, which requires 3.4 seconds of keeping a target in a 20 degree arc from 11500m away, without them breaking line of sight--during which they are receiving a constant alarm that you are targeting them. And if by some miracle you manage to fire the missile, they still have several seconds to use a missile break, which means you don't get to try again for 12 seconds. And then, finally, if you hit ... you deal ~900 irreducable damage ... and you still don't get to fire again for 12 seconds.

 

And please don't use the lame argument that torpedoes and railguns cannot be compared at all because one requires you to be stationary. Using a proton torpedo requires you to be stationary in the way that matters most--you have to be on a locked course.

 

Blah blah blah except they CAN'T be compared. Protons don't *********** root you and the don't clip your FOV and you actually CAN continue locking them up to blaster range and they are not the fundamental purpose of the ship AND they are probably a little bit underpowered.

 

Why is it that so many people insist on describing weapons from the attacker's perspective? "It takes me so long to blow up Strikes. It takes so much energy." I'm very sad for you, but that doesn't change the fact that, for the target, getting hit by a railgun seems cheap, frustrating, and stupid--and it's a reason a lot of people never give GSF a second chance.

 

"It doesn't give me warm fuzzies" does not a balance argument make.

 

There is no reason Slugs need both shield piercing and armor piercing.

 

This is true but not for the reasons you think. It's not because armor piercing is the cruel thing that makes other ships helpless. It's because slugs should specialize in killing scouts so that plasma can have a niche it killing strikes/bombers.

 

have no indication when one was even fired at you and missed.

 

I notice missed shots wizzing by me all the time.

 

You want to make people use Damage Reduction? Take Armor Piercing off of Slug Railgun.

 

Thank you for proposing a minor variation of something I've been lobbying for for months. In fact the only reason I hadn't explicitly said slugs should have 0 pen is because I figured that would be a useful second round of changes intended to make plasma useful.

 

I would instantly go full DR build on every one of my ships, even my Blackbolt.

 

Wrong.

 

Because I know that no matter what I do, no matter how good I fly, railguns are always going to hit me.

 

Then you're a bad pilot. Try using power dive. It is amazing at throwing gunships off of you. Or try running interference.

[Kuciwalker]

Nemarus, did your parents get killed by a slug railgun the other day or something?

[Kuciwalker]

And to Kuci and Trinity, I apologize if I got a snooty with my "effort" line. I was cranky for other RL reasons at the time. I still think that simply connecting with a target from close range is markedly more difficult than connecting at long range, and I do think it's a little absurd how many perks the Slug Railgun gets.

 

As for skill/effort whatever... I think the Gunship just has an inverted profile from other ships. For a Gunship, the skill comes from positioning and being able to escape death when under pressure--but as tunewalker notes, when unmolested, a Gunship has a pretty easy job, offensively.

 

Have you actually really seriously tried using only slugs, against targets that aren't scouts? Slug railgun has the lowest DPS in the game of any "primary" weapon and cannot be supplemented by any secondary. It takes a LOT of shots to kill things like Clarions or bombers if you aren't using ion in conjunction.

[Verain]

Part of this turned into "gunship cry thread #32432423" rather quickly.

 

 

Gunships don't "strike without warning". In fact, they have the whole "stationary plus charge time" thing to consider.

 

 

 

If you get shot by a gunship, at some level, that's your fault.

 

 

"But new players..."

 

One of the things I keep seeing over and over is the "financial threat". "Change this or everyone will quit". This isn't true, and it's a pretty open ransom attempts. Of course gunships are good against new players- they don't know how the UI works yet, etc.

 

 

But this doesn't mean that they should be nerfed. I'm in favor of mild nerfs to slug railgun, and MAYBE ion- but the key is MILD. I don't think shield piercing needs to go away, and if it hurts a scout, good.

 

A type 1 scout has 1170 shields with shield crewman and distortion. With 28% shield piercing, the scout will be hit (but not that frequently) for 1152 to the shield and 448 to hull. If the weapon had 0% shield piercing, instead these numbers would be 1170 to shield and 430.

 

So against this very common build, shield pen buys 18 points of damage. In F4, which no one is in.

 

In F1 or F3, it buys nothing.

If the gunship crits, then it buys nothing.

If the gunship has 10% extra damage, then it buys nothing.

 

But wait! What about shield to engine?

This has 1755 in F4, so in F1 and F3 it has 1625.

 

If the gunship hits for 1600, you save 448 hull damage.

If the gunship crits, it makes no difference.

If the gunship has 10% extra damage, then it buys 492

 

So this change would buff a scout by allowing a type 1 scout with shield to engine to take a single hit without taking hull damage.

 

 

That seems like an unwarranted buff to a very specific scout build that is has effectively unlimited boost.

[Verain]

Nemarus, did your parents get killed by a slug railgun the other day or something?

 

Nailed it! And they had their shields double front, too!

Edited July 1, 2014 by Verain

[Verain]

Now I'll do a slightly more detailed response to the part where you call us without skill.

 

Lol. "Effort." Because holding down a mouse button for 6.4 seconds while centering a cursor on someone who is 15km away, who has no idea you are even targeting them, is so difficult and worthy of ~1000 unavoidable, irreducable hull damage.

 

I mean, you were on your gunship just minutes ago against our premade and had an accuracy of 38%, right? You certainly didn't deal 968 hull damage to us that many times. And pretending that the first shot is like totally out of the blue is silly. You certainly didn't get your damage for free, or without effort, nor was your first shot always allowed to charge without being answered. You even got a kill through distortion at least once, meaning that you are up against resisting opponents who took risks while knowing you were out there charging your railgun and hoping that the coin would come up in their favor.

 

That you get to 1000 hull damage by pretending that the first hit is magical and free is silly. You just lived that game, and that wasn't what happened.

 

 

Compared to hitting them with a Proton Torpedo

 

Why is this a reasonable compare? Those things aren't the same. Gunships don't have the turning or speed of a strike fighter, and railguns require being rooted.

 

For what it is worth, in all my "hey lets buff stuff" thread, I do mention that the torpedoes are on the weak side. I definitely feel that the reload is longer than it should be, etc.

 

Gunships "pay" to have railguns attached. Strikes don't "pay" as much. And proton torpedo is a weak component. It's not trashbin, there's some tricks, it has a purpose, but it's generally not great. Concussion is almost wholly better. Thermite seems a bit stronger too, but both of those torps are hard to connect with.

 

But comparing a torp to a railgun is silly. Comparing one of the weakest missiles (it is fair to say that cluster, concussion, interdiction and thermite are stronger, with only EMP far behind and ion being up for debate) with the generally strongest railgun is also not fair. If there were five railguns, with the two new ones both worse than plasma, then that compare...

 

Would still be apples to dark matter.

 

And please don't use the lame argument that torpedoes and railguns cannot be compared at all because one requires you to be stationary.

 

Because that comparison melts before the truth?

 

Why is it that so many people insist on describing weapons from the attacker's perspective?

 

Because it matters a whole lot. The gunship needs to setup and charge, all of which makes him vulnerable. Again, this just happened to you. Your perspective seems to be "this railslug was created in flight, aimed directly at my engine". In fact, that railslug had to pay the same costs as everything else- that gunship had to roost, acquire, charge.

 

"It takes me so long to blow up Strikes. It takes so much energy."

 

It's very true. The gunship's resource is very much time, and the railgun is rightfully a low dps weapon.

 

--and it's a reason a lot of people never give GSF a second chance.

 

Sigh. The ransom argument.

 

Certainly people don't like getting sniped. But they don't like dying. Your claim doesn't really have an evidence attached though- why wouldn't it be long queues, or lack of cross server, or the fact that they have to install SWTOR, or the fact that there's not much integration with the rest of the game, or the lack of pve GSF, or the fact that a quads and pods scout can score a subsecond kill? Just last patch it was bombers, take away those node defenders and we'll see more players. Now it's gunships. Why isn't it scouts? TT/BO need redesign way before that potential mild slug nerf. Strikes need buffs, and have since the start. Why isn't that the issue? That actually MIGHT be an issue, by the way- new players start with a scout and a strike, and the strike is really really bad for a whole lot of requisition.

 

I think you'll see queue times go way up tomorrow, because the req bonus is over. I think that determines a lot of the players, not the fact that snipers can snipe!

Edited July 1, 2014 by Verain

[Nemarus]

And like I said, when I was on an almost brand new T3 Gunship vs. you guys, I got 4 kills which I shouldn't have gotten. All of those kills came right after I spawned, sought one of you out, caught you while you were distracted, and got a "free" shot.

 

I killed Gunsheep twice like that. I killed Verain once like that. And I forget who the fourth one was--Dementia I think. In each one of them, I got a kill only because you had no idea you were engaged in combat with me. And several of those kills came after I missed you several times (because I'm very out of practice with a railgun)--and still you had no idea I was shooting at you.

 

Every time you knew I was there, you destroyed me utterly. Every time you didn't, I got a kill. I'm not saying that is unbalanced--but like I said, the "skill" part of Gunship piloting is heavily skewed toward defense and escape. The offense is fairly easy--because sniping distant targets who aren't aware of you is fairly easy.

 

Now compare to chasing someone through a superstructure, trying to connect with lasers at short range, or succeeding in completing a missile lock against a target whose evasive maneuver you've drawn out. Yes, Scout cooldowns need to be nerfed. Yes, BLC needs to be adjusted. But shooting an unaware target from 15km out will always be much, much easier than shooting someone at 4000m who knows you are chasing them.

Edited July 1, 2014 by Nemarus

[tunewalker]

And like I said, when I was on an almost brand new T3 Gunship vs. you guys, I got 4 kills which I shouldn't have gotten. All of those kills came right after I spawned, sought one of you out, caught you while you were distracted, and got a "free" shot.

 

I killed Gunsheep twice like that. I killed Verain once like that. And I forget who the fourth one was--Dementia I think. In each one of them, I got a kill only because you had no idea you were engaged in combat with me. And several of those kills came after I missed you several times (because I'm very out of practice with a railgun)--and still you had no idea I was shooting at you.

 

Every time you knew I was there, you destroyed me utterly. Every time you didn't, I got a kill. I'm not saying that is unbalanced--but like I said, the "skill" part of Gunship piloting is heavily skewed toward defense and escape. The offense is fairly easy--because sniping distant targets who aren't aware of you is fairly easy.

 

Now compare to chasing someone through a superstructure, trying to connect with lasers at short range, or succeeding in completing a missile lock against a target whose evasive maneuver you've drawn out. Yes, Scout cooldowns need to be nerfed. Yes, BLC needs to be adjusted. But shooting an unaware target from 15km out will always be much, much easier than shooting someone at 4000m who knows you are chasing them.

 

what about shooting someone at under 4k that doesnt know you are chasing them. Say they are chasing some one else in a slow burn, and you come screaming in on thrusters till under 4K hit cooldowns and light up the strike, bomber or other scout bringing them down to red hull before they can even move their ship a few centimeters off center.

 

Obviously its still the persons fault for not paying attention to the scout that came screaming in from far out, but both are just as unexpected from what I have been able to tell. (this could just be my personal failing honestly and likely is my personal failing especially when you are dogfighting in close combat with more then 1 guy)

[Verain]

And like I said, when I was on an almost brand new T3 Gunship vs. you guys, I got 4 kills which I shouldn't have gotten. All of those kills came right after I spawned, sought one of you out, caught you while you were distracted, and got a "free" shot.

 

1- You just made a post about how you wondered what would happen if people only had three ships in their hangar. Right after your 16-50 loss, you made a point to log over and make sure we knew that you had picked five ungeared ships to queue with.

 

No. That's on you. You flew that ship because it was the best you had. You don't get to shield your ego behind "I couldn't be arsed to actually put my real ships on my bar, so I didn't really lose." You got destroyed, in the best you could bring.

 

2- You SHOULD have gotten those kills. One of them was on me. I saw you charging, and I put up distortion. It didn't save me that time. It sure did plenty of others. I can recall two of your kills, I heard "Nemarus on X" call, but THOSE times we couldn't get to you in time. Your eight deaths prove that the OTHER times, we had no such issue.

 

I killed Gunsheep twice like that. I killed Verain once like that. And I forget who the fourth one was--Dementia I think. In each one of them, I got a kill only because you had no idea you were engaged in combat with me.

 

You came over and said this, and everyone was like "no, it was np". Again, I even saw you charging like the sun.. I took a risk- actually, I took plenty. You just remember that ONE kill on me (my only death) because that time it actually worked. Do you remember all eight of your deaths?

 

And several of those kills came after I missed you several times (because I'm very out of practice with a railgun)--and still you had no idea I was shooting at you.

 

Dude, your whole team was shooting at us. Besides us four, the rest of our team was (mostly) new players. Of those four, their total combine scores were:

 

1 kill, 10 deaths, 18k damage. Two of them were sub 2k damage. You weren't some kind of sneaky ninja we couldn't comprehend. We called you, called your target, but sometimes we got peeled and couldn't stop you. That was very much the exception, not the rule, mind you, but it doesn't represent a design flaw.

 

So of course there are going to be some safe shots. Your resource was time, and we try to make it worth less with pressure and LOS, same as your team was trying.

 

That game didn't prove your point. None of us thought that what you did was unfair or odd in any way. You came over and were like "I didn't feel like I earned those kills". I thought you meant because you shot through distortion, or because we had to carry so hard. I thought you were being a sportsman, not just coming up with your latest "nerf gunship" political angle.

 

Now compare to chasing someone through a superstructure,

 

Funny story, that silly scout who glues himself to my butt every game on TEH actually managed to fail his flight check trying to chase me through one. Sadly, I didn't get credit for that "kill", heh!

 

 

But shooting an unaware target from 15km out will always be much, much easier than shooting someone at 4000m who knows you are chasing them.

 

Which isn't really the comparison, is it? I mean, if you know the guy is at 15km, you are in a much better place. The ability to get some ranged kills on unsuspecting targets is of course a possibility. But much of our time was spent LOS of enemy gunships.

 

You even saw, in that game, the effect of peels. Pressuring a gunship was effective. Gunsheep was all over your artillery in his battlescout, and he locked them down. He died thrice for his efforts, but they were invaluable.

 

 

 

I'm shocked that your opinion, after getting shut down on your gunship, is that gunships need nerfs, or are all about the element of surprise, or something something everyone will quit and go play Wildstar if the devs don't immediately get rid of the next ship in line that can actually make scouts bleed their own blood. But definitely don't get behind my buff strikes threads.

Edited July 1, 2014 by Verain

[Ryuku-sama]

Funny story, that silly scout who glues himself to my butt every game on TEH actually managed to fail his flight check trying to chase me through one. Sadly, I didn't get credit for that "kill", heh!

 

Is it me??? I don't ever remember chasing you through a superstructure... Ok... I don't even know your name on TEH. But I often chase people through those superstructures. And lately I died once to that... A bomber turned on me before I could smoke him.. Was that you?

[Verain]

No, it wasn't you. I was on a gunship on my TEH alt (Vailx) and this guy had boosted across the map. I mentioned needing peels in a few, and weaved in and out of a superstructure to buy time on barrel so I could barrel to an ally, but instead he just creamed himself into a beam.

 

I just remembered it because he spends so much of every game trying to flashfire me that I lolled at his welcome demise

[Nemarus]

 

No. That's on you. You flew that ship because it was the best you had. You don't get to shield your ego behind "I couldn't be arsed to actually put my real ships on my bar, so I didn't really lose." You got destroyed, in the best you could bring.

 

 

I didn't give a crap about winning or losing any individual match last night. I'm not you guys. That's not always my priority. I got over obsessing over my W/L ratio months ago. Pretty much the only reason I'm playing GSF anymore is for completionism and experimentation. You may not be able to comprehend that, but it's a well-understood fact of gaming that different gamers are motivated by different aspects of gameplay, and even for an individual motivation may change over time.

 

My entire point of logging in last night was to use the last of the double requisition to try and get Nemarus' ships mastered, since my Imp characters have mastered everything but the two new ships. With that goal in mind, there's no point in me putting my best ships on the bar, because they don't need any more requisition.

 

I also had no idea you guys were even flying. When you guys aren't online, there often isn't anyone on the Imperial side that requires my best ships (especially on Strike Night)--and [Gsf] on pub side was talking about how Pubs had dominated all night. So that's why I cleared my bar of anything that wasn't mastered. If someone had said, "Watch out for Dementia's crew," I would've kept my NovaDrive on my bar so as to give you guys a slight challenge.

 

Anyway, as soon as I saw I was facing you guys, I knew we would lose, because I knew that despite the weak half of your team, you would be on voice, and you're all very good, and our team was a mix of moderately skilled pilots who were not on voice. And I had crap for ships.

 

So I decided that I'd use the match as a chance to test my own ideas about Gunship kills. The only Gunship I had on my bar was my fairly new T3. I expected to not get a single kill, because of the crappy nature of my ship, because you guys would be focusing me, and because I haven't used a railgun in 4 months.

 

Half the match I spent doing dumb crap like mixing up my railgun and cluster missiles and using the wrong one. It was a terrible match for me. With that ship, and that performance, I don't feel like I deserved to kill any of you--let alone actually top my team's kills. In fact, even if I had been in my Nova, I still wonder if I would've been able to make a dent in you guys.

 

And yet, somehow I still got the most kills of my entire team. You guys shut them down completely, but I still got four kills, on four of the best pilots on any server in a barely geared ship that I suck at. Why? Because all I needed was to die, respawn, and snipe you before you noticed me.

 

This is precisely what every scrub does to me when I'm the one outmatching the other side. I kill them over and over, until they all just start flying Gunships. Every time they respawn, they tab target to me, close to 13km or so, and then start focusing me with Slugs while I'm attacking their allies. And there's nothing I can do to stop them except constantly tab target and try and stay out of their range. Yes, I could counter any one of them individually, but as soon as multiple ones come out, they create huge areas of denial where I simply can't fly anymore--not because of any skill they have, but because they have a 15km gun that does not warn me I'm being shot at.

 

On Kuat, I can stay low in the canyons and that helps a lot. In Lost Shipyards, it's a lot harder to take pre-emptive action.

 

2- You SHOULD have gotten those kills. One of them was on me. I saw you charging, and I put up distortion. It didn't save me that time. It sure did plenty of others. I can recall two of your kills, I heard "Nemarus on X" call, but THOSE times we couldn't get to you in time. Your eight deaths prove that the OTHER times, we had no such issue.

 

 

And what I'm saying is that I shouldn't have gotten any of those kills. All of them occurred right after I respawned, because you guys weren't even given the opportunity to counter me.

 

 

I'm shocked that your opinion, after getting shut down on your gunship, is that gunships need nerfs, or are all about the element of surprise, or something something everyone will quit and go play Wildstar if the devs don't immediately get rid of the next ship in line that can actually make scouts bleed their own blood. But definitely don't get behind my buff strikes threads.

 

That's the thing--you didn't shut me down. Not compared to what you did to the rest of my team, and not compared to what I expected. I expected to get 0-1 kills in an ungeared, unpracticed ship against four best-of-the-best aces (at least two of whom really dislike me personally and would enjoy focusing me).

 

And honestly, I wonder if I could've gotten even 4 kills in my mastered NovaDrive. I suspect not. I suspect the moment I started shooting at any of you (which requires me to get within 5750km of the furball), you would've called it and I'd be double-slugged to death.

 

When scrubs without VOIP can do that to me, I have no doubt that you could've 100% shut my Nova down. And when it's 4 of you against 1 of me, that's totally what should happen, regardless of what I'm flying. So unless you guys just arbitrarily decided to be nice to me (which I doubt), all I can say is that it was my railgun that killed you, not any skill on my part.

 

What I wish is that Gunships just had a higher skill floor and ceiling. As it stands, I feel that the extreme range and lack of warning of the railgun just gives too much power to scrubs to kill someone who is much better than they are. It's not quite as bad as a Railgun Sentry Drone, but it's still pretty bad.

 

If I call for railgun nerfs, it's not to nerf Gunship aces like you. It's to nerf the Gunship scrubs and moderates who use the ship as a crutch.

[phoenixjon]

And like I said, when I was on an almost brand new T3 Gunship vs. you guys, I got 4 kills which I shouldn't have gotten. All of those kills came right after I spawned, sought one of you out, caught you while you were distracted, and got a "free" shot.

 

Any kills that you got were deserved. You want to know how I know? B/c you hit the little reticle that the ship was in with your lasers and your ship went "pew pew" and theirs went "boom boom". The reason you got them right after you spawned is because people (me) were overextended killing one of your team's gunships (you had 3). Killing someone while they are "distracted" is just taking the opportunity to kill someone. There is nothing wrong with it. There is no "honor" or whatever. The idea of GSF is to fight the opposing team and do your objective, which in TDM is to kill them. So, kill people however you need to, to obtain that W.

 

I killed Gunsheep twice like that. I killed Verain once like that. And I forget who the fourth one was--Dementia I think. In each one of them, I got a kill only because you had no idea you were engaged in combat with me. And several of those kills came after I missed you several times (because I'm very out of prarctice with a railgun)--and still you had no idea I was shooting at you.

 

I consider myself engaged in combat with anyone on the enemy team, so 8 or 12 people at time. This is because there is no such thing as a formal engagement in GSF. It's not like you mentally nod at each other and engage. You attack whoever your tab or e take you to. Just because you missed someone with a railshot doesn't mean they'll engage you. Honestly, if I'm fighting against multiple targets and evading missile locks or blasters, I may not have time to run 15k away and I choose to just accept the inevitable railshot. If I can keep 2-3 players occupied by running around, I am essentially shutting down those players. I'm not going to try to run away from a railgun and die to a missile in the middle of nowhere. I'll keep people distracted for my team to reap the fruits of my labor.

 

Every time you knew I was there, you destroyed me utterly. Every time you didn't, I got a kill. I'm not saying that is unbalanced--but like I said, the "skill" part of Gunship piloting is heavily skewed toward defense and escape. The offense is fairly easy--because sniping distant targets who aren't aware of you is fairly easy.

 

If offense is so easy why did you say you missed many shots because you were out of practice? Anyway, any "skilled" pilot will tell you that being a veteran is about defensive flying. I don't care if you get 10 kills, if you die 8 times to do it I'll take a person that gets 4 kills and dies 2 times doing it. Being able to survive is by far the most important thing in GSF. Whether it be in domination or TDM. Your ability to survive will be significantly more helpful for your team than killing people. If distant targets were unaware of you then your team was doing their job by keeping pressure off of you. But, you still managed a horrid K/D ratio which means that even with little pressure sometimes you chose to die instad of fly defensively and it ultimately was a determent to your team.

 

Now compare to chasing someone through a superstructure, trying to connect with lasers at short range, or succeeding in completing a missile lock against a target whose evasive maneuver you've drawn out. Yes, Scout cooldowns need to be nerfed. Yes, BLC needs to be adjusted. But shooting an unaware target from 15km out will always be much, much easier than shooting someone at 4000m who knows you are chasing them.

 

I don't see how hitting a lead reticle is different from hitting a target reticle. You can fly evasively no matter what is shooting at you. You talk about chasing through a superstructure? Well, LOS a gunship through that superstructure. This argument has no basis to compare to. I mean missile locking is just keeping a target in the firing arc while holding the right click down. Isn't that the same as charging a shot with a rail? But, the rail user stands still while the missile user can move. But, that's the mechanic. They are 2 different mechanics and therefore should not be compared. Basically, what you need to take away from this is saying that flying through a superstructure and using the environment as cover can be said for both blasters and railguns.

 

Anyway... Let's take a moment to stop complaining about slug railgun and remember pods have a 28% Shield Pierce too... "But, let's not complain about that because I use that; even though this thread is supposed to be about shield piercing in it's entirety." (That was my impersonation of Nemrus). Anyway, happy to derail. Come back when you are worthy.

Edited July 1, 2014 by phoenixjon

[FridgeLM]

I expected to not get a single kill, because of the crappy nature of my ship, because you guys would be focusing me, and because I haven't used a railgun in 4 months.

 

This is a completely unreasonable expectation if you're any good at this game at all.

 

Even in my worst games ever, using nearly-stock ships that themselves aren't very good alone on a team of 2 shippers against double premades, I expect to at least break the 10k damage threshold and one or more kills. No amount of shutdown outside of the entire team focusing me to the exclusion of all else will prevent the potshots necessary to cross that threshold.

 

On-topic: Armor penetration is a way bigger problem than shield pen, which was already nerfed. I actually think shield pen is fine as is currently, but armor pen makes multiple components into a beginner's trap.

Edited July 1, 2014 by FridgeLM

[Nemarus]

 

Anyway... Let's take a moment to stop complaining about slug railgun and remember pods have a 28% Shield Pierce too... "But, let's not complain about that because I use that; even though this thread is supposed to be about shield piercing in it's entirety." (That was my impersonation of Nemrus). Anyway, happy to derail. Come back when you are worthy.

 

I said earlier that I didn't understand why Rocket Pods have shield piercing either.

 

I'd say even Rocket Pods and HLC's can do quite a bit of hull damage before the target can reasonably react ... honestly I'm not sure why Rocket Pods, whose stated purpose was "objective destruction" have shield piercing at all. Turrets don't have shields. And I say this as someone who mains a Blackbolt in TDM.