Flash/sting counter

[Verain]

Type 1 bomber, the "minelayer" internally, is the Rampart Mark IV or the Razorwire, nicknamed the "boy bomber".

Type 2 bomber, the "dronecarrier" internally, is the one you have- it's the cartel bomber pair, the Legion, or the Warcarrier, nicknamed the "girl bomber".

Type 3 bomber I think is the "assault variant", and it is the dogfighting bomber variant that came out recently, the Decimus or the Sledgehammer, nicknamed the "baby bomber".

 

Not because it bombs babies, like it is a bomber, and also a baby.

[DamascusAdontise]

The Gunsheep said to the Cattlescout: Silly wabbit don't you know mines are for boys and drones are for girls

 

On a side note, yes the names we use are weird =)

 

So to be clear: Boy Bomber = Minelayer // Girl Bomber = Drone Carrier // Baby Bomber = Multirole - Missile - Drone - Mine Bomber

[Ryuku-sama]

The Gunsheep said to the Cattlescout: Silly wabbit don't you know mines are for boys and drones are for girls

 

On a side note, yes the names we use are weird =)

 

So to be clear: Boy Bomber = Minelayer // Girl Bomber = Drone Carrier // Baby Bomber = Multirole - Missile - Drone - Mine Bomber

 

How would you call a conc - drone carrier T2???

[Crazy-Wolf]

Specifically, I think the strikes need help, at least the type 1 and type 2, as they mostly do the same job as the battlescout, but are worse at it. I think with that addressed the rest would mostly shift around.

 

Although I agree with you on the "need help" part, I don't know if I get you correctly on the second one. A T1 Strike has heavy lasers plus concussion missiles. Both skilled with armor ignorance it is pretty good at cracking an enemy minelayer from a safe distance.

The "Imperium "has proton torps with a 15% rangeincrease, armorignorance already integrated and the "Quell" has....all of it by default.

With a Sting I have to get pretty close and I will get hit by several sources before or even IF I reach my target.

 

So could you explain what you mean by "same job as the battlescout"?

 

I don't run out of engine power. Even if someone hits me with a drain... my entire MO is based on constantly moving at high speeds and using Blizz. Blizz is also my copilot, for hydro spanner. I want people to chase me or try to run away.

 

Well I do when I try to take out a sniper. Even with Blizz and pressing "F3".

 

 

You can not use barrel roll and rotation thrusters at the same time

 

You're right. My mistake. But this is the scenario I wittness most, when I try to kill a sniper. When I made it close enough and if he survives my initial attack (which happens almost....always ) he will bail with barrelroll leaving me far behind. And if he keeps his fingers on his boosters he will often make it to a safe distance where either his friends take care of me or where he can turn around to target me.

Edited September 5, 2014 by Crazy-Wolf

[Gavin_Kelvar]

The net effect means that the Strike Fighters- which advertise big hit points and clearly pay for them- are lacking some core defensive components and I really do feel this hurts their balance. The type 3 strike, while giving up real components to get where it is, at least has these two important ones.

 

Honestly if they ever made a striker variant that was virtually identical to T3s except with a thruster component instead of sensors and added concs and HLCs to it's weapon options I think you'd pretty much have the ideal striker platform. Yes it would make all other strike variants obsolete so I know it will likely never happen. On the other hand having a striker variant that with completely optimized components would probably make the striker class much more competitive in the meta.

 

Although adding concs and HLC to existing T3s probably wouldn't break anything.

[Kuciwalker]

Aside: can I put in a word for BLC + pods? They aren't as synergistic as quads+pods or BLC+clusters, but allow you to cover slightly more bases. You still have amazing burst, you have a ranged option, and you have a melee option. Plus maximal effectiveness against armor. Edited September 5, 2014 by Kuciwalker

[Altheran]

Honestly if they ever made a striker variant that was virtually identical to T3s except with a thruster component instead of sensors and added concs and HLCs to it's weapon options I think you'd pretty much have the ideal striker platform. Yes it would make all other strike variants obsolete so I know it will likely never happen. On the other hand having a striker variant that with completely optimized components would probably make the striker class much more competitive in the meta.

 

Although adding concs and HLC to existing T3s probably wouldn't break anything.

In my opinion, HLC -alone- is the only acceptable balance move for Clarion, and Concussion Missile is not.

The reason is that otherwise the ship would be too capable in both attack and defense at the same time. They'd become some kind of Super Strike, just like a Flashfire is currently a Super Scout.

 

HLC would be acceptable because it's just "another cannon" and is approximately equivalent available cannons.

 

However Concussion would not be acceptable, because the ship itself is defensive, and the only mean to hinder the offense of a Clarion is to not allow the use of some kind of all-purpose/general secondary weaponry, but marginal weaponry.

That is even more so important, that the twin weaponry of the offensive Strikes is of limited interest, while the system ability is something very desirable.

If the Clarion gets even one "classic missile" (Cluster/Concussion), the Clarion would be able to make some Starguard/Pike builds obsolete.

 

It's exactly the same thing that is happening with Flashfire. It doesn't follow the pattern of being either offensive or defensive.

It is an offensive Scout, in regards to weaponry and system choices. It is approximately equivalent to a Novadive in this area.

However it has been allowed to have the two defensive perks that Armor and Reactor are. It's the realm of defensive ships, Spearpoint territory.

As a result the Flashfire is at the same time resilient like a Spearpoint, and capable like a Novadive. It retains the strong points of the two types of Scouts, without retaining any of the weaknesses. Its only weakness is the general weakness of Scouts, their low HP.

Without considering the Flashfire (almost) exclusive components inherent strength, a Flashfire will ALWAYS be a superior Scout because of this. Hence why I consider it a Super Scout.

 

It's a design flaw, in my opinion. Considering the weaponry, the system available, I think the Flashfire should never have the reactor component. It should either have received Sensor like every Scout, or Magazine (IMO, it should be Sensor, I think having only combat focused components should be the privilege of those without system - the lack of interest of having twin weapon)

Edited September 5, 2014 by Altheran

[Estiqatsi]

Problem is there's no good reason to not take sting/flashfire to do dogfigthing. Other scouts are clearly inferior, not to talk about strikes

[MaximilianPower]

Not because it bombs babies, like it is a bomber, and also a baby.

 

The bomber nomenclature has always amused me, but this particularly so. A baby bomber could be an interesting sith weapon, perhaps devised by the Dread Masters, carpet bombing enemies with babies. Or perhaps launching baby-seeking missiles at civilians. Either way, truly horrifying.

 

Useless post, I know. Apologies. Carry on.

[XapM]

Also, as a new player i find ship class names confusing - i say Scouts are need to be named Interceptors. With top tier anti-ship armaments they are everything but actual scouts.

[Ryuku-sama]

Also, as a new player i find ship class names confusing - i say Scouts are need to be named Interceptors. With top tier anti-ship armaments they are everything but actual scouts.

 

Actually that would be a good idea!!!

[Gavin_Kelvar]

In my opinion, HLC -alone- is the only acceptable balance move for Clarion, and Concussion Missile is not.

The reason is that otherwise the ship would be too capable in both attack and defense at the same time. They'd become some kind of Super Strike, just like a Flashfire is currently a Super Scout.

 

HLC would be acceptable because it's just "another cannon" and is approximately equivalent available cannons.

 

However Concussion would not be acceptable, because the ship itself is defensive, and the only mean to hinder the offense of a Clarion is to not allow the use of some kind of all-purpose/general secondary weaponry, but marginal weaponry.

That is even more so important, that the twin weaponry of the offensive Strikes is of limited interest, while the system ability is something very desirable.

If the Clarion gets even one "classic missile" (Cluster/Concussion), the Clarion would be able to make some Starguard/Pike builds obsolete.

 

Fair points. Although I think the Starguard's weapon swap suffers more from poor blaster choices than a flaw in the concept. If it had BLC or LLC for example I think the weapon swap would be much more appealing. Not sure what could be done for the Pike as it already has respectable blaster and missile options. Perhaps adding engines like Retros would be a step.

 

Honestly I think if a way was introduced to modify the base ship stats outside of component options (I think Verain may have suggested it once) you could give ships optimal components without creating Flashfires. Note that I don't mean individual components like concs but rather not having to give ships component classes of little value (such as sensors on T3 strikers) in order to avoid giving them a completely optimal setup that allows them to outclass their stablemates.

[Altheran]

Honestly I think if a way was introduced to modify the base ship stats outside of component options (I think Verain may have suggested it once) you could give ships optimal components without creating Flashfires. Note that I don't mean individual components like concs but rather not having to give ships component classes of little value (such as sensors on T3 strikers) in order to avoid giving them a completely optimal setup that allows them to outclass their stablemates.

 

Can you elaborate on this ? I'm not sure to get what it would be.

Freedom of secondary components ?

Edited September 6, 2014 by Altheran

[Ramalina]

I'll take a guess at what Gavin was talking about and see if I can clarify.

 

Ship performance in GSF comes from several different aspects.

 

Spaceframe: the base stats of the Scout, Strike, Bomber, and Gunship classes. Overall, pretty well balanced.

 

Component type: Blasters, Missiles, Railguns, Systems, Engines, Reactor, Thrusters, etc. Pretty well balanced individually, though sensors are perhaps a bit too weak. Problems can arise though from certain groupings of component types. For example, Blasters + System and Secondary + System are much more potent than Blasters + Blasters or Secondary + Secondary. That sort of component type synergy has produced consistent problems with tuning balance for T1 gunships, T2 scouts, and to an extent minelayers.

 

Component: Some components are very well designed, slug railgun and BLCs spring to mind, and others are, well let's not pull punches here, others like fortress shield and whatever that "turn to face your enemy" one is called are flat out terrible.

 

The problems stem from the fact that since lots of req has been spent on upgrades, they really don't want to subtract individual components from ships, or -even worse- change entire component types on ships. That leaves ALL balance tuning in the realm of individual components. Given the component choices they made for the various ships, that makes tuning balance a total nightmare, because to fix the problems on one ship you're probably going to create problems on several other ships.

 

If they were able to change the class base stats for individual ships, say give T1 strikes a bit more boost efficiency and turn rate, or reduce blaster regen rate on T2 Scouts, they could at least try changing things that would affect a single type of ship instead of having every change also produce problems for several other ships across multiple classes.

 

Personally I'm not sure how much that would help. It would blur lines between classes a bit, and wouldn't undo the problems caused by overtuned components and overly synergistic component types grouped on a single ship.

 

There's a lot of conceptual, "wouldn't that be cool," that went into the design of GSF that never got subjected to a, "Wait a second, that is a cool idea, but how the f*** are we going to balance it?" type of consideration before making it live.

 

On the original topic, distraction and teamwork work nicely. Get assistance, and with your assistant kill the battlescout while it's attention is on trying to kill something else.

 

Works for all ship classes and types, though depending on specific ship build and pilot skill, you might need odds greater than just 2:1 when going after the target battlescout.

 

Failing that work range and positioning in your favor as much as possible.

 

In the close range turning fight and in the burst damage pissing contest there is no counter other than being a better pilot who is also flying a T2 scout. So if that's not you, try to avoid getting into those scenarios vs. a battlescout.

[TheGreatSatan]

There being two Strixes that post here is confusing. Saw a post addressed to "Strix" on the previous page and was like, "...but I haven't posted in this thread..." then remembered that there was another.

 

Hi, other me ^_~

[Gavin_Kelvar]

Ramalina pretty much got it. The idea would be to allow the devs to make adjustments to individual ship's spaceframes without screwing up every ship in that class. Now that's not to suggest replacing nerfs/buffs to overtuned or underpowered individual components. Rather it would allow the devs to add further balance adjustments without having to take the drastic step of completely removing an entire component type on overtuned ships. With a Flashfire for example you could tweak it's defensive stats so it would always be at least 5% less defensive than a Spearpoint with identical component choices.

 

With strikers you could do as Ramalina said: buff Star Guards base spaceframe stats to actually have greater agility over other strikers at the cost of being slightly weaker defensively than a Pike (assuming here that the Pike would largely remain the same since it's description indicates it's supposed to be a generalist and thus be the baseline of all striker stats). Right now however a Starguard and Pike can achieve the exact same agility and the only thing keeping them from being carbon copies is which weapon they swap and that one has the armor component while the other has the reactor component.

 

Basically it'd allow the devs to tune the individual ships to reflect the intent of their performance in the description without having to rely on component types to do so. If for example a Starguard was granted a 5% boost to agility over other strikers and given LLCs (or RFLs balanced to be half decent) it's weapon swap might become more valuable to people looking for a dogfighter that isn't a scout. You could likewise make tweaks to Pikes and Clarions so all three striker variants would be competitive in the meta and either 1) have better synergy with it's existing components (for example adjusting a Clarion's sensor related base stats to make the sensor component more worthwhile) or 2) make adjustments to base stats so, for example, you could replace a Pike's armor component with a reactor component that would synergize better with it's existing shield options.

Edited September 7, 2014 by Gavin_Kelvar

[tommmsunb]

The truth of the matter is that the game is quite a lot more balanced than people realize, but there is the illusion of imbalance due to certain ships being more intuitive to learn and to be successful with than others. Mixed support roles have been and always will be harder to figure out than damage roles, it's a simple rule of gaming and life at that matter.

 

When you're learning too many concepts at once it's going to lead to frustration, learning to aim isn't easy, learning how to evade isn't easy, however trying to do both at once when you're learning is exponentially more difficult. Add another difficult concept (like maximizing repair drone/tensor field value) or shield management (Which is very important on T1 strike fighters) and power management it can make the difference feel insurmountable.

 

Truly, I do know strike fighter pilots who are so good at shield management that in my burst oriented scout(quads/pods with TT/wingman) I'm unable to take them down and they can beat me in 1 v 1. One of those players comes to mind who I've legitimately had my 30k medal from only damaging this one person before I even got any kills. He was just that good. Now, when that's possible, would it be fair in any sense for those who can't tank that much damage and need to use other means to survive, for them to do significantly less damage?

 

And I have seen strike fighters pull comparable numbers to top scout numbers even when heavily pressured.

 

Moving on to gunships, they can hit you from across the map and remove your ability to gap close when played well. They rely on sitting back and remaining unnoticed and providing firing support to close-range damage roles (T1 strikes/T2 scouts) and even though they're a long-range damage support build, they can still potentially pull better numbers than scouts, though are admittedly easier to disrupt than scouts. Currently they're pretty much paper, but played in the hands of a good pilot that can be nullified by careful play and fast fingers.

 

As a scout pilot what I find baffling is how many gunships will notice I'm shooting at them, move 3000m and just keep shooting, completely ignoring me, and the same people who do this then cry nerf when really a root starch like a potato would be better at this game than they are.

 

Moving on to bombers, admittedly I don't play as much bomber so I may be wrong here, but I know a good bomber pilot when I see one. Right now anybody who tells me the bomber is underpowered will be answered by a quizzical expression because they are the single best noob killing ship assuming that everybody is a noob(including the bomber pilot.) A bad scout pilot is just as likely to kill a bad strike fighter pilot because potatoes are all effected by gravity similarly regardless of size (when everybody has a 15% accuracy rating, they're hitting each other more based on luck than skill.). However, those same potatoes can be falling down a hill and end up in a hole, and that's essentially how mines work as far as potatoes are concerned. Not to mention, in order to kill a bomber it requires consistent shooting, which I can't imagine is really possible when you have a 20% or below accuracy per match. Moving up to high level play, I have to say, considering how many parts of the bomber are automatic, you can't tell me skill has as much impact on effectiveness as well-thought out plans will have. All that being said, bombers serve an important role and that is choke-point management and support, limiting enemy team's movement is just as important as having a damage role.

 

 

Anyway, all this being said I'll move on to the biggest reason I think this thread exists. When damage/kill based scoreboards are present, people are more willing to switch to DPS roles, to feel like they're definitely doing something for their team and to have visible progress. In my past few 210-275 DPS games most of my high numbers can be explained by somebody constantly feeding me ammo or something along those lines. The pilots in most of those games were pretty good on either side. Those people don't really get credit, even though they're just as responsible for that level of effectiveness as I was in creating it. If they did get to see stats like "space created" or "ammo dispensed which was then used." alongside stats like kills/assists/accuracy more people would be inclined to improve themselves on support roles because they'll actually get an idea of how effective they're being. If you feel useless because you have low damage that doesn't really encourage you to get better at a support role which can be described as invisible in current after-battle scores.

 

This is why somebody may feel that there's no reason to fly anything other than a T2 scout, because perceived effectiveness specific to role is higher even though the effectiveness for this role can and will be raised with sufficient support.

Edited September 7, 2014 by tommmsunb

[tommmsunb]

As for why somebody might want to fly each individual ship?

 

T1 Strike, Superior bomber clearing at long range, while it takes a little bit longer than a scout it can be done at a safer distance and totally avoid any armor.

If you know you don't have very good reflexes this is a better option as you are much less likely to be killed in a fraction of a second. (Though it is still possible with lucky crits.)

Ability to regen shield power even when being shot.

Compared to other strikes, retro thrust.

Compared to other strikes really high ammo capacity. (Only really takes effect at high levels of play.)

T2 Strike

Of the three strikes I personally think this one is the most useless, however:

You can more strategically place your heavy hitting missiles by wasting your targets missile breaks with clusters and going in for the kill with protons or concussions. In my opinion not really the best strategy but I have been told on several occasions by people who like missiles more than I do that its good.

All in all just a different flight experience than T1 but with the same tankiness. Good if you want some variety, but personally I don't like it.

T3 Strike

Arguably the best of the three because it's possible to make kills as well as help your teammates out with support skills. Though weaker on the armament side it is still a very effective ship.

 

 

T1 Scout

Honestly I think this thing is glorious if you're a "named" pilot on your server, because of sensor dampening. When you're considered the only person to go after on your team, having others not know you're there is pretty fantastic.

The potential damage output is the same as the T2 scout with LLC/Pods/TT/Wingman. The only downside being the range reduction, though in most cases with pods you don't want to be shooting until you're within 3K anyway to guarantee everything hits.

So in short, high damage, low profile.

T2 Scout

Burst lasers, really good in the hands of somebody who's bad at predicting but good at aiming individual shots. Whereas with Quads you have to think about 2 seconds in advance, with bursts you can get away with only thinking about 2/3 of a second ahead. Typically I think pods are really bad with this build but some people swear by it.

 

Retro thrust. This skill is huge, being able to suddenly put distance between you and your target effectively nullifies tracking accuracy in turn fights.

 

Quads are pretty good but it is arguable that in certain flight styles they are interchangeable with LLC for their purpose.

 

T3 Scout

If you can't see the value of tensor field I have a feeling you may have been born as a potato.

I need say no more. This ship is just overall fantastic at what it should be able to do. If you're looking to get really high damage numbers, you're in the wrong part of town friend, but if you're interested in every other scout doing lots of damage then look no further.

 

 

T1 Gunship

Very effective zone control and satisfying kills in the form of slug crits. Possible to be negated by evasion due to infrequency of shots.

A different experience than the scout, which still offers very high kill/damage numbers.

Ideal for people with slow reflexes or motion sickness issues.

 

T2 Gunship

There's no reason to fly this. Moving on.

 

T3 Gunship

Kind of a hybrid scout/gunship

In my opinion I'd hate to be a jack of all trades and master of none, but this ship seems like fun. It's entirely possible to fly this ship like a scout when somebody closes in on you and like a gunship when they're far away. Overall a gunship that feels pressure a lot less than the T1 counterpart.

 

 

Bombers - I'm going to leave this off because to this day I have no idea why people find that fun.

 

 

As for my personal reason that I fly a T2 scout?

I hate seeing anybody else's name higher than mine on a scoreboard. I can move between targets fastest with the T2 scout, simple as that. I have the same TTK in both the T1 SF And the T2 scout, but I'm not as good at moving between targets when I'm also concerned with shield power. As simple as that.

Edited September 7, 2014 by tommmsunb

[MaximilianPower]

T2 Gunship

There's no reason to fly this. Moving on.

 

I love your post overall, just have to take issue with this one statement. I see it a lot. Yes, the T2 GS is a bit of an odd duck, offering neither the long-range cc ability of ion nor the close range weaponry/maneuverability of the T3. But personally, I find it a damn fun ship to fly. Plasma/slug with directionals can be a pretty lethal - if situational - combo. Plasma in general is amusing, at least to me. Few enemies are expecting it, since it's so rarely used (relative to the two other railguns).

 

And the double torp build is hilarious, if perhaps a little suicidal in nature.

[tommmsunb]

I love your post overall, just have to take issue with this one statement. I see it a lot. Yes, the T2 GS is a bit of an odd duck, offering neither the long-range cc ability of ion nor the close range weaponry/maneuverability of the T3. But personally, I find it a damn fun ship to fly. Plasma/slug with directionals can be a pretty lethal - if situational - combo. Plasma in general is amusing, at least to me. Few enemies are expecting it, since it's so rarely used (relative to the two other railguns).

 

And the double torp build is hilarious, if perhaps a little suicidal in nature.

 

Plasma is a funny weapon because it's really easily countered, but only if you know how. Basically the DoT is applied on the side facing the gunship, for those who don't know why. So what you can do is either shoot past the gunship (if you're hit in the front) or turn around and hit retro thrust to keep moving in the original direction. It honestly makes the target even more unpredictable.

 

If I can use a reference to another game, in the game dota 2, an ARTS for those who don't know. There's a hero called bloodseeker, and his ultimate ability is considered by many bad players unfair, because it turns distance travelled after it's applied into damage. But if you stand still it doesn't do very much damage. This ability earns Dota 2 a lot of negative attention because it's built in noob shaming. Not that it'll ever change because Dota's not about being fair. That being said I feel like plasma just doesn't seem to fit in with the rest of the games mindset the way it currently works.

 

And honestly dude, in my experience, when I hear situational it usually means "usually bad, but really good in this one way."

 

Also double torp build sounds like quite possibly the worst thing I've heard of in my life, and I hang out with @SammyGStatus. So that's saying something.

Edited September 7, 2014 by tommmsunb

[Ryuku-sama]

Also double torp build sounds like quite possibly the worst thing I've heard of in my life, and I hang out with @SammyGStatus. So that's saying something.

 

I thought the worst thing you ever heard was my

build

 

P.S. I couldn't find an original of it.. so I used one of Snave movie...

Edited September 7, 2014 by Ryuku-sama

[tommmsunb]

I thought the worst thing you ever heard was my

build

 

Listen I hear a lot of bad ideas on a daily basis. Sometimes they all just happen to be the worst thing I've ever heard.

 

No the worst idea I've ever heard was somebody who thought that in order to get brighter (smarter) she needed to have as many lights on as possible in every room and to shine lights in her eyes while she was studying. I didn't know her for long.

Edited September 7, 2014 by tommmsunb

[Ryuku-sama]

Listen I hear a lot of bad ideas on a daily basis. Sometimes they all just happen to be the worst thing I've ever heard.

 

No the worst idea I've ever heard was somebody who thought that in order to get brighter (smarter) she needed to have as many lights on as possible in every room and to shine lights in her eyes while she was studying. I didn't know her for long.

 

lol.. Seriously??? rofl

And at least my build is working well. You will never catch me.. It's more likely I'll end up crashing in something with PDie

[Verain]

I actually do run plasma/slug on my type 2 gunship pretty often. It is so limited though.

 

It's better than slug if the enemy is both evasive and under attack by your allies. Wingman + plasma can land more damage on them then the slug can, but if you math it out, the accuracy penalty normally removes that- but if they are under fire from allies, the -evasion debuff quickly turns the math to your favor.

 

Still, this is very situational- your opponent needs to be under attack by allies.

 

The other situation is versus a low evasion opponent with plenty of shields, such as a bomber with overcharged shields. In that case, it can be beneficial to hit with the plasma first, as the plasma will likely be able to tick nearly full and do solid damage. Even then, it is predicated on actually LANDING the subsequent slug- if you cannot, it would have been better to just slug from the start, as you would have dealt solid hull damage.

 

 

Plasma is definitely situational. I do feel it needs buffs, though not large ones, to compete with ion and slug. It's fun to use and a nice play difference, but it should reward those situations where it is correct a bit more than it does.

[StrixHiraeth]

Crazy-Wolf:

 

If you are running out of engine power, I would ask--are you using Regeneration Thrusters and the systems ability Booster Recharge? These, combined with Blizz and F3, ensure that I never run out of boost. Only getting hit by multiple ions can run me out of power, and then only for a second or two. A very dangerous second or two. I'm like a shark... I die if I stop moving. The only ships that have a chance of keeping up with me are other scouts with similar setups.

 

Strix, put 20 games each on the BLC/clusters and the quads/pods. At your skill level, you'll master both p. quick.

 

Rapids are extraordinarily pleasing to look at and listen to, and playing them properly requires a great deal of skill. The reason I'm so acidic on this topic- constantly- is for the coolest component that ALSO is the hardest to use to give no reward is just so offensive.

 

Plasma warhead is a fine choice for clusters. You can point blank a plasma (or the first shot of the double volley), but the second volley has enough delay that even at point blank it can be immuned or escaped. Plus you don't take the -10 to it. I prefer double volley because it's more damage and I normally go for attrition of cooldowns with my hits, not guaranteed hits, and I count on refills from allies. The lesser damage from plasma has a lot to recommend it, and I actually think that tier choice is a lot more solid than most.

 

However, I can't believe you:

1)- Can listen to Blizz. Erglglglgl. On Empire side, I personally find it hard to choose any pilot except for Scorpio, whose voice actress is apparently Robot Murderess Aphrodite. But there's several excellent choices on empire side, but any of the chitter-squeek guys can eat sand.

2)- Use hydrospanner. I think anyone using hydrospanner outside of type 1 bombers is PROBABLY acting on a meme (in the actual sense) about not wanting to be powerless versus attrition. With hydrospanner, you can tell yourself that even if the rest of your team is morons, you can eventually heal back to full. But the healing is so insubstantial and infrequent, and the other options so important and meaningful, that I always pretty much hound on people who use it. The real healing options, such as repair probes and repair drone, outheal a whole match worth of hydrospanners in a couple ticks. Hydrospanner could be safely doubled, or the total healing could be tripled and spread over the whole cooldown (aka, fully passive). As it is, it's a huge trap, but I know why you, who are often solo and carrying, like it.

 

As a note, hydrospanner is pretty expensive for Republicans, but it's an easy grab for Imperials.

 

Verain... thank you thank you for the feedback. I have been wanting some real feedback on my preferences for a while now, but it's hard to get because most skilled pilots on Jung Ma don't fly scouts or aren't accessible to me. I've been using Quad lasers since someone made me painfully aware that RFL are available to the Blackbolt (the second ship I have mastered) and that if I'm going to use Blackbolt weapons I may as well just fly a Blackbolt... anyway, I'm liking Quads so far--especially with the Booster Recharge blaster refill. I...can't handle Bursts. They just look too damn stupid on a Sting.

 

I actually like Blizz's chittering... it's cute! Especially the way he snickers when one of my missiles connects. And hydro spanner definitely keeps me alive. I disengage extremely quickly if I am forced into a direct confrontation (most of the time that only happens when I'm targetted by 2+ ships). Hydro doesn't heal me a whole lot, it's true, but if I can hit it, avoid dying for 60 seconds, and hit it again, that's half of my health back--and I can go back in for the kill.

 

Verain, have you flown with me? You seem to know me pretty well. That last sentence--that I am solo and often carrying--describes me well.

 

There being two Strixes that post here is confusing. Saw a post addressed to "Strix" on the previous page and was like, "...but I haven't posted in this thread..." then remembered that there was another.

 

Hi, other me ^_~

 

Me, is that you? Good to see me! How have I been? Might I add, you are looking lovely tonight.