I saw this

[Fractalsponge]

Even if they charge approximately together, you can be sure there will be two or so of scouts that will be almost instantly wiped by cross firing.

From there, it's hard to conceive they can win the fight with numerical disadvantage at equal skill levels.

 

I think a more pertinent comparison is between a balanced team vs a gunship wall. A full scout team is unbalanced in its own way.

 

That said, a scout team rushing a wall with dfield+RI is going to get through without much loss assuming any kind of basic competence. The kind of coordinated gunship shooting that will guarantee kills against that kind of evasion stacking doesn't really exist, since teams that good aren't stupid enough to gunship wall. But let's say both sides are crazy good. Have a bloodmark tensor the scout team in, and have coordinated cycling of RI pops. Call the first scout to get focus targeted, that one goes full evasive, while the rest rush the ball.

 

As for numerical disadvantage, again, what? Once scouts are sub 5km, railguns are worthless. At that point, it becomes a slow strike fighter vs scout furball, and the GS formation collapses. Even if the GS's outnumber the scouts in the furball, they're not going to win that kind of a dogfight at equal skill levels. The scouts would have massive thrust, maneuverability, and cooldown advantages up close, which overwhelms a 1-2 ship difference in numbers.

[Bolo_Yeung]

That said, a scout team rushing a wall with dfield+RI is going to get through without much loss assuming any kind of basic competence.

Assuming 'basic competence' on gunship team... Unless thee scouts manage to choose targets like 1 scout - 1 gunship (that require voice coordination... not 'basic competence') , they are pretty much dead. Wingman counters Running Interference with 5% offset and 5 seconds duration; DF has 6 sec duration (unless someone is flying in specialized anti-GS scout, then 9 secs) - that leaves plenty of time to hit. And ion rail AOE energy drain does not respect evasion - so 2-3 hits mean the scouts, with engines already partially depleted are pretty much a sitting ducks. Duck shoot time.

GS that is about to be attacked by battlescout has a warning - big red triangle on HUD means that there is enemy ship is within 5 km range, so it is time to get moving. It isn't so easy to hit evading GS (remember that they can have DF too), especially since scout does not have 'one click stop' ability. While the attacked GS is evading, there are always 2-3 that aren't harassed at this moment - popping WIngman and attack scouts by ion rail. Again, duck shooting.

 

The kind of coordinated gunship shooting that will guarantee kills against that kind of evasion stacking doesn't really exist, since teams that good aren't stupid enough to gunship wall.

 

3 gunships close to each other + 1 T3 strike with Combat Command - accuracy like 140+ 24 seconds per 60 - and 120+ rest of the time. Does not need much skill and can beat 80% evasion pretty well.

 

 

But let's say both sides are crazy good. Have a bloodmark tensor the scout team in, and have coordinated cycling of RI pops. Call the first scout to get focus targeted, that one goes full evasive, while the rest rush the ball.

 

Is there any penalty to change the target while charging railgun? None that I know of. If a gunship pilot with moderate skill see that his target is evading and have other, less mobile targets in range - just switch target (or even don't switch, you can still hit non-targetted ship) and shoot.

 

 

As for numerical disadvantage, again, what? Once scouts are sub 5km, railguns are worthless. At that point, it becomes a slow strike fighter vs scout furball, and the GS formation collapses.

Assuming that gunship wall is a small diameter gunshipball... maybe That rarely happens, unless they are sharing Wingman. Again, pretty good chance that when scouts charge at this formation, they get few good shots.

 

Even if the GS's outnumber the scouts in the furball, they're not going to win that kind of a dogfight at equal skill levels. The scouts would have massive thrust, maneuverability, and cooldown advantages up close, which overwhelms a 1-2 ship difference in numbers.

 

Full turning T3 gunships aren't so easy to outmaneuver . Interdiction missile is much better than cluster, scouts have engines depleted and BLC can be equipped by gunships as well.

Other types? Barrelroll out, good chance that at least one will be without tail. About 10 km range and many targets - time to charge the rail.

 

Finally - I rarely see a team that is switching to 'scout majority' tactic when pushed hard. With gunshipwall it is common.

Edited November 14, 2014 by Bolo_Yeung

[Fractalsponge]

Combat command affects primary weapon only, and we were explicitly talking about gunships vs scouts. Add an actual TEAM into it, on several ships, and it's a different question.

 

If a pilot can't outmaneuver a gunship in a scout, there's a major skill mismatch.

 

As for teams not stacking scouts under pressure, well, that's missing the point a little, which was how scouts would fare vs gunship walls. Gunship walls are easier to set up because it just requires numbers (sort of like bomber balls) - but usually this just prolongs the inevitable - I see this tactic all the time and all it really does is farm scrubs. That *might* be enough to win a TDM, but a decent team that had the advantage such that they "forced" the other side to turtle with gunships will typically win in my experience.

[arkanone]

Hell yes they would. What, you think once the first strategy stops working you're locked in? Are you one of those people that respawns in the same ship with the same tactic that thinks "next time, next time I'll get em!" after getting torn apart by XYZ?

 

Never mind the fact that plenty of gunship aces have incredible results in other ships.

 

LOL that's not strategy. That's hitting the I WIN button because you can't get it done unless you're in a OP ship. And sitting in a group with other OP ships.

[Bolo_Yeung]

Combat command affects primary weapon only, and we were explicitly talking about gunships vs scouts. Add an actual TEAM into it, on several ships, and it's a different question.

Ok, maybe my bad (though I had a situations where I got hit twice in a row during full evasion (DF+RI+retros+TT) by gunship with combat command...

 

If a pilot can't outmaneuver a gunship in a scout, there's a major skill mismatch.

Single scout vs single GS - true. In a furyball, thats a different story... most of the time you still have targets before you... lucky shot with close range interdiction missile is pretty much killing the scout

 

As for teams not stacking scouts under pressure, well, that's missing the point a little, which was how scouts would fare vs gunship walls.

There are other ship types than battlescouts and gunships... consider general useability of "scout swarm" and "gunshipball" in TDM

Gunship walls are easier to set up because it just requires numbers (sort of like bomber balls) - but usually this just prolongs the inevitable - I see this tactic all the time and all it really does is farm scrubs. That *might* be enough to win a TDM, but a decent team that had the advantage such that they "forced" the other side to turtle with gunships will typically win in my experience.

 

If we are playing on 'advanced' and above levels, maybe true. However, let's say the score is 35:30, losing team switches to gunshipwall tactic. How will the match end?... With random pug team, there will be people who will press pushing...

Pretty well it will end like 45:50.

Edited November 14, 2014 by Bolo_Yeung

[SammyGStatus]

Assuming 'basic competence' on gunship team... Unless thee scouts manage to choose targets like 1 scout - 1 gunship (that require voice coordination... not 'basic competence') , they are pretty much dead. Wingman counters Running Interference with 5% offset and 5 seconds duration; DF has 6 sec duration (unless someone is flying in specialized anti-GS scout, then 9 secs) - that leaves plenty of time to hit. And ion rail AOE energy drain does not respect evasion - so 2-3 hits mean the scouts, with engines already partially depleted are pretty much a sitting ducks. Duck shoot time.

GS that is about to be attacked by battlescout has a warning - big red triangle on HUD means that there is enemy ship is within 5 km range, so it is time to get moving. It isn't so easy to hit evading GS (remember that they can have DF too), especially since scout does not have 'one click stop' ability. While the attacked GS is evading, there are always 2-3 that aren't harassed at this moment - popping WIngman and attack scouts by ion rail. Again, duck shooting..

 

I'm on my iPad so forgive the wall of quote when I only wanted one section. AOE ion definitely ignores evasion, but a team full of scouts running interference and d field will not be getting hit - the accuracy is not able to reliably hit. Realistically, you're just burning energy and accuracy

[SammyGStatus]

LOL that's not strategy. That's hitting the I WIN button because you can't get it done unless you're in a OP ship. And sitting in a group with other OP ships.

 

QQ Newb much? Watch the video of drake team vs mine in the Tim that ended 49-50. You stop a GS by maintaining pressure. What do you not get...? Calling a ship OP doesn't make it so, but it does show your ignorance quite heavily. The best GS pilots have only a 33% chance AT MOST to walk away from a same skill level scout. Watch scrab and yuuko. Better yet, let's use math.

 

A while ago, yuuko grabbed the damage per second overall and the kills per minute. Surprise surprise, top 2 players were yuuko and scrab. Then there was tsukuyomi and myself in gunships, then the rest (top 10ish) were all scouts. Granted, this didn't pull data from EVERYONE, but a sample reflects the population and if only two GSs are on that list of top 10 in terms of sheer killing ability, how can you say that the class is OP relative to others? It may just be OP to you cuz ur not at the end game level, but Tyler statements don't reflect any sort of fact and just a raging butthurt

[Fractalsponge]

LOL that's not strategy. That's hitting the I WIN button because you can't get it done unless you're in a OP ship. And sitting in a group with other OP ships.

 

Weren't you the one QQing about that 36 kill match? Still don't know who you are. Please leave a note so I can be sure to exit my "OP" ship when we play next, or, you know, so I can see if you do better in gunships than in some other ship "that requires more skill".

[Bolo_Yeung]

QQ Newb much?

Great respect for others, I see...

 

Watch the video of drake team vs mine in the Tim that ended 49-50. You stop a GS by maintaining pressure.

One, two. Three? Not so much, unless you have voice.

 

A while ago, yuuko grabbed the damage per second overall and the kills per minute. Surprise surprise, top 2 players were yuuko and scrab. Then there was tsukuyomi and myself in gunships, then the rest (top 10ish) were all scouts. (...)

"There are lies, damn lies and statistics".

There is one major flaw in those numbers - they are 'best' dps and kps. Now when does those best results happen?... Typically, in heavily uneven games, where better playes are 'farming' kills. Scouts have a serious advantage in this type of games - with enemy team pressed, you can come back faster, you can move between spawnpoints faster, get powerup faster...

Now - a second factor. Gunships are OPed in packs, alone they aren't. While hunting in packs, kills are shared, damage is lessened a little (also, one-shot kills give less damage per kill than 15-seconds joust - shield recharge, repair, second shield arc damage increase this as well.).

[MaximilianPower]

What's telling is when a notorious gunship player tries to fly something else and then hops back in their GS when they start losing. I'm sure an "ace" or two here will be quick to say they never do that.

 

lol, I resemble this remark. I fly everything, but in tough games, I will generally revert to a GS.

 

But it has nothing to do with anything being OP; rather, it's this:

 

And I wouldn't fault any player who knows what ship they can contribute to the team most effectively. Why gimp the team because you want to dick around, ya know?

 

I have thousands of games under my belt in a GS, far more than anything else. Of course I'm going to make a more significant contribution in the ship type I have the most experience with. And I'm not talking GS lines, those who fly with me know I move around a lot and generally try to lone wolf things (sometimes to my detriment). I don't think I'm amazingly skilled, but I know that ship and what it can do like the back of my hand...I can barrel roll at somebody and know exactly when to hit the brakes to end up at 14.9km, I know how to recognize an unwinnable matchup instantly, I know how many slugs/BLCs it will take to melt that bomber sitting under a sat, I know how much weapon pool/engine pool I need for any given encounter, etcetera. These are things that come with experience, not necessarily indications of skill, nor of some innate OP-ness associated with that ship. I'm just not quite this familar or comfortable with any other ship, except possibly the T3 scout, which I use at the beginning of nearly every single dom game.

 

I was in a good dom game yesterday, which we won 1000-950 (or something like that). Lots of flips, well played on both sides. For a change, I spent the whole match in a T3 bomber, and did ok, though I died a lot. nyghtrunner was on the opposing team, and afterwards we discussed the game a bit. I mentioned that I thought it wouldn't have been as close had I not doggedly insisted on jumping back in the bomber; he floated the idea that perhaps the Sledgehammer was better suited to a dom game, and actually contributed more to the win than I thought.

 

But upon reflection, I don't think that's the case. We won in spite of my insistence to stick with the bomber; I think I managed it competently enough (I wasn't a liability to the team), but had I been in a Quarrel, I'm pretty sure I would have had a much easier time solo capping in a couple situations, plus just generally being way more disruptive, which I think is how I can be most effective in a dom game. I'd like to think that if I spent a couple thousand matches in a Sledgehammer, I'd be comparably effective, albeit in an entirely different way.

[SammyGStatus]

Great respect for others, I see...

 

The Dothraki respect strength. All this guy has are falsehoods and misconceptions distorted into a self fulfilled pretext that Gunships are OP. No, I don't respect him as a pilot and I don't respect his outdated QQs

 

 

One, two. Three? Not so much, unless you have voice.

Yes? You should always assume that voice is active in the game. Why gimp yourselves? If you have voice, use it. Nothing is stopping you, it's not cheating, and it promotes coordination in a team game. If you aren't using voice, you're not going to be able to be optimally effective in intense high level matches.

 

 

"There are lies, damn lies and statistics".

There is one major flaw in those numbers - they are 'best' dps and kps. Now when does those best results happen?... Typically, in heavily uneven games, where better playes are 'farming' kills. Scouts have a serious advantage in this type of games - with enemy team pressed, you can come back faster, you can move between spawnpoints faster, get powerup faster...

Now - a second factor. Gunships are OPed in packs, alone they aren't. While hunting in packs, kills are shared, damage is lessened a little (also, one-shot kills give less damage per kill than 15-seconds joust - shield recharge, repair, second shield arc damage increase this as well.).

 

Hmmmm.... No. These are the optimal conditions for dealing damage, and scouts demonstrate that they produce e most, and that the top players use scouts to achieve the best results. Uninhibited, the highest (legitimate) recorded dps for a GS is 249.9. Two scouts have posted 278 and 279. I, as a gunship with much less ability, a required charge time to shoot, Anna horrible accuracy against evasion scouts, can't compete, especially after 2.6.

 

Gunship walls are easily broken if you move away from them - don't charge the wall. Have your GSs fire from range, and when the enemy team approaches, you still have the ability to LOS or change locations to the area they aren't. The biggest problem is when a strike, bomber, or Newb will get shot wi ions and by being too close to his/her allies, force an AOE ion. If people are playing smart, they move away from their allies when win GS range up until the final approach. I CONSTANTLY top damage and kills for my team whenever there is a GS wall. Unfortunately, more than half the other team has more kills than I do because my teammates keep thinking that flying into the shooting range is a good strategy. Scouts are fast. RNG is a nightmare. RI+d.field = invincibility 9/10 times from GSs.

 

No, your rebuttal doesn't hold up to end game high level play. 1 evasion scout per GS. Done.

Edited November 14, 2014 by SammyGStatus

[Bolo_Yeung]

The Dothraki respect strength.

Are you Dothrataki in real life? ... (sorry, maybe I misunderstood... had to google that name)

All this guy has are falsehoods and misconceptions distorted into a self fulfilled pretext that Gunships are OP.

What about you then? You manipulate statistics to prove that 'scouts are better'... (look below)

 

No, I don't respect him as a pilot and I don't respect his outdated QQs

And as a human?... unless you're so heavy into RP that you do it on forums as well.

 

Yes? You should always assume that voice is active in the game. Why gimp yourselves? If you have voice, use it. Nothing is stopping you, it's not cheating, and it promotes coordination in a team game. If you aren't using voice, you're not going to be able to be optimally effective in intense high level matches.

Give me a ingame voice communication then MAYBE you'll be right. However, you know, not everyone can afford a luxury of always having a ready and coordinated premade. Much people are going with pugs.

Pug GS team and pug scout team? guess who'll win.

Also, assume that BOTH our hypothetical teams - gunships and scouts - have voice communication. Advantage is still on the GS side - warnings about who's targetted, who's in danger will benefit the GS team as well.

 

Hmmmm.... No. These are the optimal conditions for dealing damage, and scouts demonstrate that they produce e most, and that the top players use scouts to achieve the best results. Uninhibited, the highest (legitimate) recorded dps for a GS is 249.9. Two scouts have posted 278 and 279. I, as a gunship with much less ability, a required charge time to shoot, Anna horrible accuracy against evasion scouts, can't compete, especially after 2.6.

 

In "optimal conditions for dealing damage" (in other words duck shooting matches; maybe some people like those matches, I do not) - scouts are better, I agree. However in high level matches, with good pilots on both sides - situation changes.... there are no (or wery few) records beaten in those games though, so they won't make it into statistics.

From my stats though... 2,6 kills per death with scout, 3,7 on T1 GS, >6 on T3. Of course this doesn't say much as well, and I don't plan using this stats as a 'real' proof...

 

Gunship walls are easily broken if you move away from them - don't charge the wall.

Thanks to the genius "contribution" system, I don't have that luxury in any ship other than GS itself. Of course I can play a GS myself (and against a GS wall I am often forced to do it), but again, other types of ships needs a fair chance too...

 

Have your GSs fire from range, and when the enemy team approaches, you still have the ability to LOS or change locations to the area they aren't.

 

With a little coordination (and as you said earlier, always assume there is a voice premade) GS wall can advance, withdraw when our team is charging rails while others advance too - since only gunships can fight at this range (and potential attack by other ships will be stopped - second line of gunshipwall will fire on them) which side has more gunships, that side has an advantage

 

The biggest problem is when a strike, bomber, or Newb will get shot wi ions and by being too close to his/her allies, force an AOE ion. If people are playing smart, they move away from their allies when win GS range up until the final approach.

 

It is a little hard to do, especially with no indicators where friendly ships are other than your sight.

 

I CONSTANTLY top damage and kills for my team whenever there is a GS wall. Unfortunately, more than half the other team has more kills than I do because my teammates keep thinking that flying into the shooting range is a good strategy.

Ok... so if I understand corectly... you have most kills for your team but at least 5 players on other side have more kills than you. It means that practically everytime you face GS wall in 8 vs 8, you lose miserably...

A little match: Assume you have 8 kills, all other people from your team have 6 (so total is 50). More than half of the other team (at least 5) have more than you (at least 9 then). So the best scenario is the win to 45... but now, how high are the chances that no one else from other team will score a kill - and everyone from your team get 6 kills?... Chances are rather slim, even getting selfies into consideration ...

 

Scouts are fast. RNG is a nightmare. RI+d.field = invincibility 9/10 times from GSs.

Then apparently you need to work on your aim... because 109% upgraded slug accuracy + 20 from Wingman +6 % crew member = 135%. How much evasion can scout stack? With TT evasion buff and Tensor (that forces one T3 scout, so only 7 battlescouts) - about 100% . Plain DF +RI - 83%, Chance to hit is much greater than 10%... even taking tracking penalty into account (T4 slug buff can reduce tracking pen).

 

No, your rebuttal doesn't hold up to end game high level play. 1 evasion scout per GS. Done.

Assuming GS pilots does not know how to react.... because if they know, they will spread. And I can assure you, good GS pilot can do a few tricks (scout on tail - abrupt stop, fast slug into another scout that is attacking friend... maybe popping DF (yes, some gunships can have it too) to survive few more seconds and fire another rail.

[StrixHiraeth]

I'm not sure what you all are still debating. The conversation seems to be going in circles... the subject of the OP, whether gunships promote "Counter Play" and increase meaningful choices to both their pilots and their enemies has been addressed. As you can see, gunships do indeed allow for "Counter Play" and do indeed increase the number of meaningful choices everyone in the match can make.

 

Most of what has been said about gunships can just as easily be said about any type of ship.

 

So... how bout we let this thread go, hm?

[ALaggyGrunt]

QQ Newb much? Watch the video of drake team vs mine in the Tim that ended 49-50. You stop a GS by maintaining pressure. What do you not get...? Calling a ship OP doesn't make it so, but it does show your ignorance quite heavily. The best GS pilots have only a 33% chance AT MOST to walk away from a same skill level scout. Watch scrab and yuuko. Better yet, let's use math.

 

A while ago, yuuko grabbed the damage per second overall and the kills per minute. Surprise surprise, top 2 players were yuuko and scrab. Then there was tsukuyomi and myself in gunships, then the rest (top 10ish) were all scouts. Granted, this didn't pull data from EVERYONE, but a sample reflects the population and if only two GSs are on that list of top 10 in terms of sheer killing ability, how can you say that the class is OP relative to others? It may just be OP to you cuz ur not at the end game level, but Tyler statements don't reflect any sort of fact and just a raging butthurt

My group and another group of pubs also flew against your group + 4 2-shippers. We had six gunships. I was tabbing while firing, which basically meant the scouts didn't get to sneak up on me. Whenever your scout buddies approached me and I moved, they ignored me in favor of a gunship that didn't move. Chasing an evasive gunship in a gunship wall is a waste: some won't evade (easier targets), and others will be after you really fast.

[MDVZ]

Observing the discussion for the last couple of pages, a couple of notes:

 

1: The answer to an ad hoc GS wall with no VOIP is a VOIP-coordinated group of expertly piloted evasion build scouts.

 

2: The scouts need to VOIP-coordinate their RI in particular. Wingman is the best offensive cp ability against your typical GS, given that they will probably be running light armour and disto. The scout team has to be built in anticipation of GS wall to either evade their fire and gimp their ability to kill them, or increase their ability to kill them and gimp their ability to survive them. (coordinated VOIP scouts VS GS wall happens once in a blue moon in general play, end of story, and even then, it cant be anticipated that you're going against a wall of GS, so quad n'pod T2 scouts with a mix of RI and WM + VOIP and a expert pilots are not what the ad-hoc GS wall are going to fight).

 

3. **** strikes.

 

4. **** bombers unless they're defending your GS from scouts.

 

5. If bombers are guarding the GS, **** your scouts.

 

6. if you haven't flown at least 1000 GS games you don't get to have an opinion.

 

I've hunted more solo gunships than I can possibly count in my battlescouts. When they're alone, its easy, unless they are superbly piloted or they get help to distract me. In my GSs I've sat and slaughtered with stupefyingly dull impunity, and been chased by what I know to be some of the best pilots on the server. I know both how easy and hard a GS can have it. All ended mostly as it should. Single-GS is balanced if at least one good pilot knows how unbalanced they are if left un-molested, but this is a team game, and massed GS are not balanced.

 

My stats earlier were my actual stats for my condor, btw. I've never bothered flying my T2 and my T1 has about the same stats but with 1 hour in space rather than two. I ran a game to test after I was challenged, my aim was 56% against a fairly even mix of opposing ships. Most of my misses were LOS. I don't have T4 slug on either of them. I was more aware of the 'dead on' misses after this threads discussion, but I missed less than I usually do with blasters. My mean aim with a GS is about the same as with a battllescout (~50%) and that's with FAR less practice with them. As I said, I know I'm not a good GS pilot (I'm not in the 'it takes no skill' camp, it just takes less). When I go against a 'me' that hunts GS, knowing how they can dominate left unchecked it's 50/50 at best that I live.

 

Conversely, against a wall of GS, especially when they have a couple of bombers and you are without any teamspeak, you're basically screwed unless your GS are better...perhaps you have to understand bolo and I's view on this; TRE is VERY, VERY GS heavy. We see GS-walls protected by bombers quite often, even against 2-shippers. Sometimes I like to bash my head against that wall in a scout, just for the occasional times I can break it, but as Sammy The Dothraki says, why play a ship you're worse in? I'm best in a battlescout, and that's still true against walls of mastered/high level GS.

 

And then were does that leave stikes if the main defence against GS is evasion build scouts?

 

ALL STILL BESIDE THE POINT.

 

What we're talking about, really, is the community, and people feeling like they can even make it to a high level without getting just hammered down along the way. I've played GS against 2-shippers and taken no damage and got mid and high teen kills. Some will scoff that this is too low. Realise that that doesn't help your case in this discussion, it in fact erodes it. I don't think I've ever taken no damage in a scout, even in 0-death matches (and my 'best' match in my best ship was 23--14-0, which I know is not among the best, but it's capable, if you call slaughtering new players capable. I put 'best' in inverted commas because there are matches I'm far more proud of where I killed far fewer people). Crits, by their nature, are unlucky most of the time. Very few people complain about scouts hammering them and ruining their entry to the game, because they have to be at least partially mastered, and lucky with crits to get the damage that the GS apologists are saying is normal. My question to the elitists and 'its all for the endgame' types

 

How do you plan to bring new players to this corner of the game that you love with that attitude?

Edited November 15, 2014 by MDVZ

[Verain]

How do you plan to bring new players to this corner of the game that you love with that attitude?

 

I love how this is always the argument. If there really WAS a no-skill ship for bads, wouldn't that actually BE how you get new players in? Just tell them to play the broken ship, there's your strategy guide.

 

 

Anyway, everything that SammyGStatus is saying is 100% valid, and the arguing with his points has gotten kind of silly. Someone in the thread claims gunships are the highest damage, he proves that is wrong. Ok, hold up, damage doesn't matter, it's all about an impossible to beat strategy, then he shows that he's both beaten that impossible to beat strategy, and lost while using it, making it, you know, just a strategy. Oh, ok, it's possible to beat, but only if you have voice, without voice it can't be beat. Noobs can't beat other noobs using it, because as we all know, a stack of coordinating ships is probably a bunch of noobs that some other noobs are having a hard time with because of ship choice.

 

You move the goal post with every brick of text. You must, because this is just another gunship cry thread.

 

 

I don't like dying. Please remove things that make me die. I don't like not getting a kill. Please remove things that make me not able to get a kill. I don't like better players than me. Please make it so they never get to play against me, especially if that means that they never get to play again. I don't like games where anything happens that is bad. I don't like dying when I don't see what's coming, because that is cheap. I don't like dying when I see what is coming, because that is inevitable and frustrating. I don't like circling satellites because that is boring. I don't like dying in open space because that is not good design. I don't like things that deny area. I don't like not having safe spaces to run to and do interesting things in. I don't like ranged because I can't catch them. I don't like melee because I can't run away. I don't like losing to players more organized and skilled than me. Please make it so that I never get grouped with players more organized and skilled than me. I should only be placed with players less organized and skilled than me, because if I ever lose that means that did not happen. I need to be faster than everyone, burstier than everyone, have the best defensive cooldowns.

 

Somehow remove voice, and nerf gunships!

 

 

Gunships are a healthy part of GSF. So are scouts, and even battle scouts, and that doesn't mean that they are balanced- but any large swingy recommendations would hurt much more than help. No, the game can't be balanced for everyone, at every skill level, but I really hope they don't balance it at some derp level. The deepest meta is the best, and a lot of changes will get us there. Begging for more railgun nerfs and saying ANYTHING AT ALL to try to talk the devs and the playerbase into being on that side is just pig disgusting.

 

There's no point to most of these threads. We have great threads where we discuss game balance, and with a link to extra credits this could have been one- but instead it just devolved into the same nerfbeggers begging nerfs.

Edited November 15, 2014 by Verain

[Zoom_VI]

The purpose of this thread was not to claim gunships are overpowered, underpowered, diagonalpowered, or any other powered. The purpose of this thread was to point out how the railgun mechanic is a mechanic that isn't very fun for anyone not using said railgun. This is about the nature of the mechanic, not the meta.

[Verain]

The purpose of this thread was not to claim gunships are overpowered, underpowered, diagonalpowered, or any other powered. The purpose of this thread was to point out how the railgun mechanic is a mechanic that isn't very fun for anyone not using said railgun. This is about the nature of the mechanic, not the meta.

 

 

Except that we had that discussion, and it's just not true. Comparing a railgun to a sniper just isn't fair. The gunship has a piss poor range compared to a proper sniper in any other game, and a large charge time on the railgun in lieu of whatever other crap other games do (such as repositioning the screen slightly).

 

Gunships aren't actually snipers. They can't stealth or hide, and their name, position, and identity is even fully visible behind rocks. Their range is short as well. Meanwhile, they have powerful melee weapons should you let yourself be in front of them. Unlike snipers in FPS games, who share an infinite turning radius with everyone else, gunships don't have that.

 

 

 

So yes, there's counterplay. Yes, it's fun to fight gunships. Yes, the railgun is very interactive. If you see him glowing and are only thinking about you taking damage, step back- he's got to be aiming in one direction. You know his cone of sight, and if it isn't at you, you can trivially deroost him on any ship. When he starts glowing he's not a threat for about a whole second, and past about five seconds he has to release or be oom soon. What shall he do if you LOS him, or boost out of his cone?

 

There's TONS of counterplay. Yes, you don't get all that on your first game. When you first walk into a game you are new to, you don't DESERVE depth yet, because in any new game, you haven't yet learned how the depth works. That doesn't mean make everything some trivial experience because heaven help if GSF doesn't hook every noob that queues a full pvp game that is all about skill and experience and team play.

Edited November 15, 2014 by Verain

[ALaggyGrunt]

We've been over that in this thread, too. There's lots of counterplay to a gunship or two. Against a whole lot of them in deathmatches, even the best battlescouts have a hard time with mediocre (not totally green) GS. You don't sneak up on the good ones because they tab, unless they're being stupid and sniping stuff from inside a dogfight. Sure, that gunship is going to move, but its buddies are going to be pointed right at you and likely hit. If you aren't running a full evasion scout, make that "definitely hit." The scout's DF is only good for 6 or 9 seconds, and after that, the best you have is RI if you want to try to stay in the fight-or to try to disengage, preferably with BR or PD.

 

Which means: the best counter to a lot of gunships is another gunship.

 

My best balance solution to that is another armor component: one which gives crazy good evasion, but only against railguns. Heh, even give it an evasion penalty against not-a-gunship weapons. Meaning, if someone is flying with that armor component, they have sacrificed DR/evasion against not-a-gunship weapons.

[WiseStranger]

Except that we had that discussion, and it's just not true. Comparing a railgun to a sniper just isn't fair. The gunship has a piss poor range compared to a proper sniper in any other game, and a large charge time on the railgun in lieu of whatever other crap other games do (such as repositioning the screen slightly).

 

Gunships aren't actually snipers. They can't stealth or hide, and their name, position, and identity is even fully visible behind rocks. Their range is short as well. Meanwhile, they have powerful melee weapons should you let yourself be in front of them. Unlike snipers in FPS games, who share an infinite turning radius with everyone else, gunships don't have that.

 

 

 

So yes, there's counterplay. Yes, it's fun to fight gunships. Yes, the railgun is very interactive. If you see him glowing and are only thinking about you taking damage, step back- he's got to be aiming in one direction. You know his cone of sight, and if it isn't at you, you can trivially deroost him on any ship. When he starts glowing he's not a threat for about a whole second, and past about five seconds he has to release or be oom soon. What shall he do if you LOS him, or boost out of his cone?

 

There's TONS of counterplay. Yes, you don't get all that on your first game. When you first walk into a game you are new to, you don't DESERVE depth yet, because in any new game, you haven't yet learned how the depth works. That doesn't mean make everything some trivial experience because heaven help if GSF doesn't hook every noob that queues a full pvp game that is all about skill and experience and team play.

 

 

So very true... too bad most people in this thread refuse to understand.

 

 

/ranton

 

They want to be noobs that walk into an unknown game and be just as good as people who spent months in that game. It's never going to happen. Noobs are called noobs because they lack experience. Those who try and learn - eventually become pros, those who QQ and don't try and don't learn - become farmable trash.

 

People in this thread who cry about gunship walls should learn about proper assumptions for the scenarios they describe:

Right now people complain about gunship walls while assuming perfectly tuned and upgraded gunships against poorly upgraded scouts/strikes/bombers. Why don't they assume poorly upgraded gunships against poorly upgraded opposition. Or if they assume perfectly tuned and upgraded gunships, then why can't they assume the same level of tuning and perfection for opposition? Bias much?

 

Gunships that aren't tuned and upgraded well, don't have high shield penetration nor armor ignore, they don't have any crit chance at all (meaning they can't one shot anything), no Ion AoE or slow, they don't have good primary weapons (and even if they get BLC's, those don't have armor ignore until T4), they have poorer accuracy and hugely suffer from tracking penalties and slow turning rates, they don't have 2 missile breaks nor high evasion. In other words, gunships aren't good as is.

 

2 good scout pilots can shut down 2 good gunship pilots. So can 3 vs 3 and so on. Sometimes there is even no need to kill a gunship, just chase it and keep it in check. As soon as that gunship dies you have to find them and approach them and they might kills someone before that, so why bother, just chase them. There is no other ship in the game that is this useless while under pressure. All of the "they can pop DF and release a quick shot" is BS in high end play. A gunship that poped DF won't last against equally skilled chaser if they stop. That minimal 0.675 second stop can be lethal and let's face it... no gunship can reliably release a well aimed shot that will hit in 0.675 and even if they occasionally can manage it - that shot is far from lethal. No good gunship will dare to spend full 2.7 seconds charging the shot when they have a good chaser.

 

If you want to argue about gunship walls - assume equal skill for both sides. Nobody wants to hear "gunship walls are OP, because they are all aces fighting noobs" because Ace > Noob in any ship. I don't think I recall ever seeing gunship wall strategy during fly-a-stock-ship-nights. There is probably a reason for that.

 

/rantoff

[WiseStranger]

My best balance solution to that is another armor component: one which gives crazy good evasion, but only against railguns. Heh, even give it an evasion penalty against not-a-gunship weapons. Meaning, if someone is flying with that armor component, they have sacrificed DR/evasion against not-a-gunship weapons.

 

Can you please try thinking about implications of your proposals before you post them?

 

Tell me how will this Crazy_Anti_Railgun_Evasion_Armoring affect current balance of a gunship vs anything that has this armoring? Even right now evasion stacking counters railguns well enough. Do you want to give gunships an armoring that gives crazy good evasion against regular blaster fire? That would seem only fair but won't resolve the problem... now that your logic has awakened I'll leave you to figure out why the problem will still exist.

[Verain]

My group and another group of pubs also flew against your group + 4 2-shippers.

 

By the way, I assume this is from super serious night a couple weeks back. I want to point out that that night was a whole lot of scouts (battle scouts mostly). Certainly there were other ships, especially gunships (mostly type 1, but also somet type 3), but we spent plenty of time working out how to counter scouts, and not nearly as much for gunships and bombers.

 

You might point out some game with a bunch of gunships, but MOST games had some balance of scouts, gunships, and bombers, versus that same thing (sometimes with a support Clarion). On my team (of four), we could field from three scouts and one support gunship or bomber all the way up to three gunships and one scout or three bombers and one scout, and we would change what we brought based on opponents and allies, because we wanted a balanced team, not a gunship wall.

 

Why didn't we want a gunship wall? Because it wouldn't have been the winning strategy, and on the stomp games, it wouldn't have been the winningest.

 

 

You want to glean something from that night, you might want to address these facts:

 

1) The winningest teams ran 0-1 strike fighters all night long. Of the four classes, this one was almost absent. This is your actual game balance issue, and if you even open your mouth on "gunships" without having first made at least one long "please buff strikes" post, you don't want GSF to be good, you just want to beat people up with your OP ship while trying to remove any ship that can knock you down.

2) The skies were absolutely lousy with battle scouts (and a couple really solid type 1 scouts running their versions of those same builds). Battle scouts are reliable and useful everywhere, the only call being how many to use. If they got this way just by being good against gunships, that would probably be fine, but they are just the best at dogfighting in general, and they are VERY hard to tun off even briefly, and impossible to turn off long term. It's too many niches, and while you could absolutely fix this with exclusive buffs to other classes, some mild nerfs or even moderate nerf/buff combinations to burst could really help.

 

After those two things are addressed, then you can move on to type 1/3 gunships, or tensor->self destruct, lack of type 2 gunships, general lack of type 3 bombers, etc. You obviously don't want to nerf scouts so much that gunships become a dominant strategy, of course.

 

 

Tell me how will this Crazy_Anti_Railgun_Evasion_Armoring affect current balance of a gunship vs anything that has this armoring?

 

As stated it wasn't perfect, but he IS on to something. When a player says something like that, they are mostly saying "this mechanic really ticks me off and makes me lose a lot, I would pay a lot of player power and sacrifice viability in other areas to reduce the viability of this against me." It would be easy to turn that into rock-paper-scissors, which is probably not the goal in a game where you respawn and get rock because your paper lost to scissors, but it wouldn't be a bad area to explore.

 

Evasion honestly seems a bit too good against gunships as it is, and is also the best defense versus enemy scouts. None of the defenses except a full-out charged plating build are decent versus mines, and "don't stand in the red glowy mines" also works for them. This means most ships who can do a decent job of it go for evasion, with scouts getting the most out of it because of how it stacks greater than linearly (every point of evasion is worth more than the previous point).

 

A component that, instead of 9% evasion versus all targets was 20% evasion versus railguns only (+11%) and -2% evasion (-11%) versus other targets, or something like that, could actually be an interesting component- but the additive nature of evasion makes that only interesting for scouts optimized at avoiding gunship fire- who are already overrepped drastically. And obviously it couldn't be much MORE defense than this- railguns are the primary weapons of the gunship class, and it's already a multi-shot escapade to land a single hit on a scout under competitive scenarios, so you can't just allow an opt out of them.

 

But regardless, making a build choice for defenses against railguns is interesting. I'd just like to see it not be something that is on an battle scout. I would also argue that health armor and repair drone is a pretty moderate meta call versus gunships defensively, and we don't see a lot of players switch to those ships.

 

 

Against a whole lot of them in deathmatches, even the best battlescouts have a hard time with mediocre (not totally green) GS.

 

No, there's been some claims about this that haven't been substantiated. The fact of the matter is, "just a giant stack of gunships" isn't what we see in practice.

 

 

 

 

I want to point this out too: as you increase the absolute skill of teams in GSF, the game changes. The balance changes too. At low absolute skill, it's interesting to see which things work best by watching new players. But they age out of being terrible so fast, it's hard to GET that data. As you move to the skill level that most pilots are at, you have some set of ship powers and builds, and as you move further right to more absolute skill, this changes some. If you hypothesize something we don't have- something like a "World Championship"- played with the same degree of membership, passion and purse as a Starcraft championship- you would imagine it would change even more. In fact, without a huge player base and a ranking system, it doesn't even get all the way up to the level of "competitiveness" you see in WoW rated battlegrounds- you don't have a huge group of hundreds to thousands of players acting as free agents, showing up in skype, queuing up with addons and multiple websites, and judging people harshly and crap talking them because it made their rating drop that time... you see none of that here.

 

 

So, where do you balance it for? For the two shippers? I hope not. For the rare events that involve a bunch of players from across all of GSF logging on, grouping, and voice coordinating? Somewhere in between?

 

And I think THAT is the real question we should be keeping in mind when we communicate. I can bet you anything that at a low enough skill level, strikes are the best, because they have the best combination of maneuvering (not too much!), speed (not too fast!), shields (lots!) and hull (plenty!). But is that the level we want it balanced at? Obviously not, because we cry about that all the time.

 

Another thing to remember when communicating is that there are five maps and the ship choices change a lot on each one. Lost Shipyards Team Death Match is, without question, the most gunshippy map around, and that SHOULD always be the case on a map like that. Meanwhile, Kuat Mesas TDM has ways to traverse large distances without ever exposing yourself to snipes and swaps, and the Dominations are totally different anyway. So that's another big part of it- if you walk onto Lost Shipyards TDM and have little to no gunships because they were nerfed to be rare, they will be not present at all on other maps, etc.

Edited November 15, 2014 by Verain

[Zoom_VI]

The point of "counterplay" as related to the OP, is that mechanic is supposed to give both players a sense that they have agency in their own fate. Stacking evasion doesn't give me agency in my fate, it just gives the agency to a RNG.

[WiseStranger]

As stated it wasn't perfect, but he IS on to something. When a player says something like that, they are mostly saying "this mechanic really ticks me off and makes me lose a lot, I would pay a lot of player power and sacrifice viability in other areas to reduce the viability of this against me." It would be easy to turn that into rock-paper-scissors, which is probably not the goal in a game where you respawn and get rock because your paper lost to scissors, but it wouldn't be a bad area to explore.

 

Evasion honestly seems a bit too good against gunships as it is, and is also the best defense versus enemy scouts. None of the defenses except a full-out charged plating build are decent versus mines, and "don't stand in the red glowy mines" also works for them. This means most ships who can do a decent job of it go for evasion, with scouts getting the most out of it because of how it stacks greater than linearly (every point of evasion is worth more than the previous point).

 

A component that, instead of 9% evasion versus all targets was 20% evasion versus railguns only (+11%) and -2% evasion (-11%) versus other targets, or something like that, could actually be an interesting component- but the additive nature of evasion makes that only interesting for scouts optimized at avoiding gunship fire- who are already overrepped drastically. And obviously it couldn't be much MORE defense than this- railguns are the primary weapons of the gunship class, and it's already a multi-shot escapade to land a single hit on a scout under competitive scenarios, so you can't just allow an opt out of them.

 

But regardless, making a build choice for defenses against railguns is interesting. I'd just like to see it not be something that is on an battle scout. I would also argue that health armor and repair drone is a pretty moderate meta call versus gunships defensively, and we don't see a lot of players switch to those ships.

 

Verain, you've been around long enough, you should realize that introduction of a component that practically invalidates one class of ships won't help the game. And you're also intelligent enough to realize that devs are not going to do a complete "discipline style" overhaul of GSF. (it took them years to do it for the main game, even though it was pretty much obvious that tree system they went with at launch was garbage and impossible to balance due to too many player controlled outcomes)

 

I think I talked about this before, but in my eyes, ideal GSF system would have no RNG and horizontal progression where each upgrade buffs something and sacrifices something in return. (i.e. you got longer range for your weapons - you do less shots per minute, you got better accuracy for your weapon - you lost damage per shot, etc). In this system you can balance for stock ships that are good middle ground and adjust buffs/debuffs on the components each ship gets to eliminate combinations that are too powerful.

 

If you want to address the issue of stacking of a certain class - the easiest slap a patch fix would be introduction of a buff (let's call it "counter tactic") where if opposing team has too many ships of the same type/class, all members of your team get a buff that reduces damage taken from that class of ships and increasing damage dealt to that type of ship. Pick an arbitrary number after which buff applies and scale with each additional ship. (i.e. enemy team has 2 battle scouts/bombers/gunships/etc in 8 vs 8 - no buff, they get 3 - you get a buff decreasing damage received from that ship type/class and damage dealt to those ships). You can even scale the buff to 100% DR when all opposing ships are of the same type/class to force people bring a balanced team instead of all bombers/gunships/scouts/etc.

 

Of course there would have to be some form of an exception for 2 stock ships everyone starts with since if it's a game where 8 noobs picked the same ship and you don't want them to deal no damage and get blown up from a single blaster bolt.

 

The reason why evasion is the best defensive stat right now is because of the number of weapons that completely ignore armor. Cut it to something reasonable on gunships/strikes so armor stacking is a valid choice. Remove armor ignore from scout weapons such as pods and BLC (scouts should not be better than strikes against armored opponents). Make it impossible to get 100% DR builds. This will enable a different defense against scouts, it will give strikes their jobs back, this will make gunships less valid against strikes since DR will block some damage from railguns. I can go on and on, but I think you get the idea.

[Crazy-Wolf]

But regardless, making a build choice for defenses against railguns is interesting. I'd just like to see it not be something that is on an battle scout. I would also argue that health armor and repair drone is a pretty moderate meta call versus gunships defensively, and we don't see a lot of players switch to those ships.

 

Directional shields are pretty effective, too. Making Strikes and even the Decimus/Sledgehammer pretty good at harassing, chasing and killing gunships. Yes, I know...the T2-Scout can also equip those, but I guess most of us/them won't give up DF for it.

 

I used to ride the "GS-are-for-nobrainers"-train a couple of months ago, but after I started focusing on hunting them down, they lost a lot of their "boogiemantouch". And when you start making "hunting GS" the basic point of your existence, you will find a lot of tactics, strategies, builds or whatever you want to call it, with which you can hunt them and most of the time kill them.

 

Yes, they still surprise me, and yes, they still manage to wipe me of the map. But when 2 or more gunships can focus me without beeing attacked, than it's not because of their "op-ness", it is because my team's inability to see them as the major threat when left unchecked. And that happens quite a lot to my disappointment.