"Suicide Spearpoint" and cooldown on spawn

[havokhead]

I think both play styles of suiciding upon tensor or sprinting to the sat have merit and it's a choice (much like range protorp vrs point-blank protorp). I play the same as Shayd, sprint to the sat running an evasion build with tensor/interdiction drive/LLCs for tight quarters & DF for missile break. Get there first and hug the sat waiting for reinforcements.

 

As for who can get to a sat first, a T1/2 or 3 scout it's kinda irrelevant since tensor takes a whole team to a destination not just yourself which is the purpose of the build in the first place. The difference of speed build scouts vrs tensor scout vrs interdiction vrs power dive with speed bonus is incredibly minute., it's within a fraction of a second. One difference is a speed scout arrives with some engine power left so he's able to manoeuvre at the destination whereas the sprinter T3 scout will be drained but hopefully drained with a team behind him.

 

The difference maker is getting a couple of bombers and a gunship on a remote sat (or strategic location in TDM) with enough time to properly deploy defences and probably have a defence turret up before the initial enemy engagement. Sat C in Lost Shipyards and Sat B in Denon Exosphere are especially strategic. That same team, once in place can hold those positions the entire match. It takes considerable effort to dislodge such a defence and allows the rest of the squadron, 4+ ships, to focus on another objective. By the time that initial bomber team is dislodged (if they are) your team probably already has 4-500pts in the bank.

 

Will this initial tactic win a match? No, but it goes a long way in determining how the match will be played. It's a lot like scoring the first goal in a sport.

 

Unfortunately, in my opinion, such tactics are now lost to the majority of GSF players. The game has "devolved" a lot in recent months to players just using T2 scouts, T1 or 3 gunships & T1 or 2 bombers because the general consensus is there's no sense playing anything else (which is false) so I don't see support ships or specialty builds anymore. Out of like 30+ possible builds to field I only see maybe 5 core builds. Even the powerful ion T1 striker and snare bombers have disappeared. Even when someone does use tensor, it's rarely used properly or in some cases 90% of the squad doesn't even know what tensor field is...sad

 

PS - I've written these strategy/tactics out knowing most people who read it know already but in hopes new pilots will read this thread and at least learn something.

[havokhead]

I think both play styles of suiciding upon tensor or sprinting to the sat have merit and it's a choice (much like range protorp vrs point-blank protorp). I play the same as Shayd, sprint to the sat running an evasion build with tensor/interdiction drive/LLCs for tight quarters & DF for missile break. Get there first and hug the sat waiting for reinforcements.

 

As for who can get to a sat first, a T1/2 or 3 scout it's kinda irrelevant since tensor takes a whole team to a destination not just yourself which is the purpose of the build in the first place. The difference of speed build scouts vrs tensor scout vrs interdiction vrs power dive with speed bonus is incredibly minute., it's within a fraction of a second. One difference is a speed scout arrives with some engine power left so he's able to manoeuvre at the destination whereas the sprinter T3 scout will be drained but hopefully drained with a team behind him.

 

The difference maker is getting a couple of bombers and a gunship on a remote sat (or strategic location in TDM) with enough time to properly deploy defences and probably have a defence turret up before the initial enemy engagement. Sat C in Lost Shipyards and Sat B in Denon Exosphere are especially strategic. That same team, once in place can hold those positions the entire match. It takes considerable effort to dislodge such a defence and allows the rest of the squadron, 4+ ships, to focus on another objective. By the time that initial bomber team is dislodged (if they are) your team probably already has 4-500pts in the bank.

 

Will this initial tactic win a match? No, but it goes a long way in determining how the match will be played. It's a lot like scoring the first goal in a sport.

 

Unfortunately, in my opinion, such tactics are now lost to the majority of GSF players. The game has "devolved" a lot in recent months to players just using T2 scouts, T1 or 3 gunships & T1 or 2 bombers because the general consensus is there's no sense playing anything else (which is false) so I don't see support ships or specialty builds anymore. Out of like 30+ possible builds to field I only see maybe 5 core builds. Even the powerful ion T1 striker and snare bombers have disappeared. Even when someone does use tensor, it's rarely used properly or in some cases 90% of the squad doesn't even know what tensor field is...sad

 

PS - I've written these strategy/tactics out knowing most people who read it know already but in hopes new pilots will read this thread and at least learn something.

[JonnyRay]

Another tactic occurred to me just now...

 

Start of match, 1 scout doesn't "Ready up". A Rampart/Razorwire boosts toward A or C, dropping their beacon about halfway there. Then the scout that held back uses that to spawn from and sprints the rest of the way to the sat.

 

Not sure if the delay waiting on the bomber to drop their beacon would be worth it in the end. Might be interesting, though. Could even work if they waited to drop it until their boost was out and 2 or 3 ships used the forward spawn location.

 

Imagine it one is a gunship. You're the opposing scout thinking you won the race and suddenly a gunship (or two) spawn already in range.

[Drakkolich]

Another tactic occurred to me just now...

 

Start of match, 1 scout doesn't "Ready up". A Rampart/Razorwire boosts toward A or C, dropping their beacon about halfway there. Then the scout that held back uses that to spawn from and sprints the rest of the way to the sat.

 

Not sure if the delay waiting on the bomber to drop their beacon would be worth it in the end. Might be interesting, though. Could even work if they waited to drop it until their boost was out and 2 or 3 ships used the forward spawn location.

 

Imagine it one is a gunship. You're the opposing scout thinking you won the race and suddenly a gunship (or two) spawn already in range.

 

That's what were talking about with the Bomber hop. It isn't worth it on Scout's however, especially if your team is bringing tensor. On Denon it can be useful as you get to your sniping area with a bit more engine power but you do get there later.

 

It's only really useful for getting your other Bombers to nodes faster then the enemies.

 

I guess we should have been more clear on what we meant by "Beacon hopping", sorry about that.

[Ramalina]

The tensor scout races go me curious about the underlying math.

 

Of course you could potentially code all sorts of weird variations, but I looked at three potential methods of building the algorithm:

 

Traditional GSF: Base value * modifier = upgrade effect, all upgrade effects summed with base to arrive at final value.

 

"MMO math": Modifier percentages summed, summed modifier multiplied by base value to get final value.

 

Multiplicative: Standard mathematical approach to percent increases.

 

Base speeds were 936 for speed scout, 780 for tensor scout.

Modifiers used were: tensor field 0.3, power to engines 0.2, boost 4.2, interdiction drive 0.6

 

Results for boost speed.

 

Traditional GSF: Does not match test results. The tensor scout would be slower than the speed scout.

4.4 km/s vs 4.1 km/s.

 

"MMO Math": Could match test results, the tensor scout is faster. SpeedNova travels at 5.9 km/s and the spearpoint travels at 6.9 km/s. So it would be making up 1 km/s, which seems like it might be enough to close the gap opened up by barrel roll.

 

Mutliplicative: Could match the test results. In this case the SpeedNova would boost at 6.1 km/s but the tensor-interdiction scout would be zipping along at 8.17 km/s.

 

I don't know exactly how much distance Barrel Roll covers, but with that number you could look at the video and from the timeline figure out about how fast the tensor scout was gaining.

[Verain]

Well, we could also do it entirely without barrel roll if we were trying to figure out how fast tensor + interdiction ACTUALLY makes you. In this case, we'd do it as "time trials".

 

 

Our concern was practical as well- hence picking B on Denon from spawn, and also picking a much shorter race (the interdiction / tensor scout runs out of breath getting to B, does not run out getting to A, as such it loses on the way to B and seems to be on par on the way to A). Given that the interdiction scout only has 9 seconds of interdiction, and pays for it in boost power, it will obviously lose a long enough race. The short and practical races were more interesting.

[Nemarus]

Well, we could also do it entirely without barrel roll if we were trying to figure out how fast tensor + interdiction ACTUALLY makes you. In this case, we'd do it as "time trials".

 

 

Our concern was practical as well- hence picking B on Denon from spawn, and also picking a much shorter race (the interdiction / tensor scout runs out of breath getting to B, does not run out getting to A, as such it loses on the way to B and seems to be on par on the way to A). Given that the interdiction scout only has 9 seconds of interdiction, and pays for it in boost power, it will obviously lose a long enough race. The short and practical races were more interesting.

 

The key here isn't whether the TF+ID Scout is faster than any other Scout. The key here is that if your team is going to have one ship use TF, it might as well also use ID so that it can compete with other Scouts in terms of being a body on a node at the start of a match.

 

So let's say there is a theoretical ideal 8 ships to use in a given Domination match. Both teams will field those ships if they are able. A T3 Scout is not one of those ships.

 

But each team also knows it needs Tensor Field at the start in order to be competitive.

 

Team A uses 7 of the "ideal" ships plus a single TF+ID Bloodmark . That Bloodmark will race to a node and stay alive as long as possible to block capture of that node. If it captures that node and adequate defenses arrive to keep it secure, then it can self-destruct to switch to the missing 8th "ideal" ship.

 

Team B uses a TF+whatever Spearpoint that will immediately self-destruct after launching and using TF, to be replaced by the 8th "ideal" ship.

 

The match begins. All of Team A's ships reach a node as fast as they possibly can. Team A's Bloodmark gets to its node as fast as possible for any ship (give or take sub-second differences).

 

7 of Team B's ships reach the node as fast as they possibly can. The 8th will only "catch up" to the rest with the aid of a beacon. That can be assumed if we're talking "ideal" ship makeups here.

 

However, no matter what, unless one of Team B's 7 launch ships is a BR Scout with speed thrusters/upgrade, it's going to be late to the Bloodmark's node--and it has a 1:3 chance of guessing the wrong node. And if it doesn't guess which node the Bloodmark is going for, the Bloodmark will most assuredly cap the node, because no one else will be there to stop it. That means turrets and potentially new spawn points. Team A immediately has an advantage.

 

So only way to guarantee the Bloodmark doesn't cap a node is to send a Scout to every node. And even then, unless those Scouts are built for speed, the Bloodmark is going to steal some green before it is contested.

 

So Team B is pressured to have at least three Scouts in their "ideal 8"--ideally speedy Scouts--while Team A could bring 7 ships of any sort. And Team A knows that those three Scouts on Team B are going to split across all three nodes, to hedge their bets against the threat of the Bloodmark.

 

In short, Team A has converted what should be a tax (having to waste a ship on Tensor Field) into significant pressure that dictates some of Team B's makeup and node distribution.

 

Of course, if we assume that the "ideal 8" for Domination always should contain 3 Scouts (but speed Scouts?), then Team A doesn't really have much of an advantage. But they still get to know where those Scouts are going.

 

Now, I know you are probably rolling your eyes at this point. It's very rare anyone gets to dictate an entire team of 8. And it's even rarer that teams are made up of pilots of even skill.

 

But in my experience, all that "real world chaos" works in the TF+ID Scout's favor, because it increases the chance that his opponents will not choose ships and distribution appropriately to counter him. In that way he is very much like a Charged Plating Minelayer.

 

In the vast majority of cases, it takes multiple enemy ships to uncap or peel my Bloodmark off a node--and my only advantage was that I got there first and have a ton of Evasion.

Edited March 11, 2015 by Nemarus

[DamascusAdontise]

in my opinion the question of delaying abilities is out the window right off the bat, there are abilities that serve a good function at the beginning of a match (and IMO this is intended and working properly). There is no real reason to take this away, and only serves to hurt the diversity of the game. The real issue is not instant ability use, but people purposely suiciding so they can have the best of both worlds IE team support and then seconds later a "real" ship to fly.

 

I think this could be addressed much easier by adding a longer respawn timer at the beginning of a match to discourage this type of play. There is the added bonus of it stopping would be team suiciders even if only for a short time.

 

In this way people could still give their team a boost, but at the cost of their play time (if they suicide). It might even work out that people actually learn to fly the ship rather than just dog it for tensor. I fly my bloodmark frequently throughout a match and it is no slouch. No its not meant to face off against battle scouts directly but it is a match for most other ships in the game, perhaps its time people put their big boy learning pants on eh

[Archonitek]

Do the aces have particular paths they take at first spawn to shave down travel time?

[RickDagles]

Tensor field is an awesome addition to the game, and I'd hate to see its current utility be removed.

 

It's hard to say whether suiciding or staying and taking the far node is a better call. I think it's completely dependant on what the other team is flying as well as who's on your team (skill-wise) and what ships they are flying. I like that it's a choice because it can reward smart thinking. I think oftentimes it's best to suicide after the initial rush to the satellites and things have settled down a bit. And by suicide I mean play stupid aggressive and not worry about dieing.

 

Spearpoint with rocket pods would be awesome! That would give the laser/pod lovers a really cool 3rd option to use. A T3 scout with TT/Reg Lasers/Pods/Repair drone would be a very fun solo-carry build. The T2 scout quad/pod will always initially be the strongest (mostly because of retro thruster imo), but it's not super fun or scary powerful when you run out of those pods. Also Tensorfield set to evasion/Reg Laser/Pod/DF/Powerdive would be very strong against Gunships and could be considered as another real option. It would be similar to the Booster recharge build that some people run with Quad/Pod -- except you'd trade a moderate amount of engines for group utility and some minor boosts in evasion/speed/turning.

Edited March 12, 2015 by RickDagles

[Verain]

in my opinion the question of delaying abilities is out the window right off the bat, there are abilities that serve a good function at the beginning of a match (and IMO this is intended and working properly). ]/quote]

 

It is intended and working properly. It is probably also poor game rules.

 

There is no real reason to take this away, and only serves to hurt the diversity of the game.

 

I think I've said this in almost every post: you would definitely need to address the issue where the scout is generally weak outside of that, because not doing that would delete it. I've been begging everyone to look past this very weak counterargument. Obviously, just removing the incentivization of this behavior and making no other adjustments would bury the type 3.

 

The real issue is not instant ability use, but people purposely suiciding so they can have the best of both worlds IE team support and then seconds later a "real" ship to fly.

 

Yes, that's the issue. A short spawn ability lockdown would solve this entirely. It would also solve the fact that tensor is so damned valuable at the start. Doesn't that all by itself seem odd? I mean, tensor midgame is good, but maybe could be stronger. Tensor out of the gate is amazing.

 

I think this could be addressed much easier by adding a longer respawn timer at the beginning of a match to discourage this type of play.

 

The problem with this is, its' a very specific fix that would hurt new or bad players. It also wouldn't address the problem- we'd find out what the minimum effective time to live is and just play around that (aka, if dying in the first thirty seconds gives you a forty second respawn, then wait thirty seconds before suicide).

 

In this way people could still give their team a boost, but at the cost of their play time (if they suicide). It might even work out that people actually learn to fly the ship rather than just dog it for tensor.

 

You think the problem is that people don't know how to fly type 3 scout?

 

I fly my bloodmark frequently throughout a match and it is no slouch.

 

You don't fly it the whole match versus hard teams. And you know you are vastly more effective in your battle scout.

 

perhaps its time people put their big boy learning pants on eh

 

Get off your high horse. You are much stronger in a battle scout than a type 3 scout, and you make your ingame choices accordingly. It's a ship balance issue- it's not like you gain or lose Pilot Points when you switch. Furthermore, this is correct play to choose the powerful ship. Don't pretend that players doing this can't or won't play type 3 scout. That's ludicrous.

[Verain]

Further, since there some confusion:

 

Beacon Hopping works like this: You coordinate with at least one boy bomber on your team who arranges a beacon. The beacon is normally placed near the end of the bomber's full breath bar, and is usually placed on the way to a node or to a spot sort of between nodes. The moment the beacon goes live, you spawn normally in a bomber. The reason you spawn in a bomber normally is because if you had wanted to be a gunship or scout, you would probably have been better off taking the spawn initially- there's a lot of lag time between when the bomber drops the beacon and you appear at it. Appearing close to the action with a full set of purple makes a difference in a bomber, and the second spawned bomber will beat the first bomber to the node.

 

This has been a standard technique for a very long time. You can also hold off on the spawn and choose a ship based on what the enemies actually chose, though this is seldom worth it. In any event, no self destructs are involved here.

 

Suicide Spearpoint is what's being discussed. In this case, you blow yourself up shortly after delivering the buff, then appear at the beacon above as another ship- normally a bomber, because if you wanted to be a gunship or scout, someone who wanted to be a bomber should have done the tensor/SD. You don't HAVE to pick bomber or anything, but regardless you are in the action at about the same pace as if you had been something else, except that your whole team got to nodes faster.

[Nemarus]

 

 

I think I've said this in almost every post: you would definitely need to address the issue where the scout is generally weak outside of that, because not doing that would delete it. I've been begging everyone to look past this very weak counterargument. Obviously, just removing the incentivization of this behavior and making no other adjustments would bury the type 3.

 

 

Sure is difficult to have a reasonable discussion when people don't take the time to read and acknowledge your disclaimers and preconditions for said discussion, isn't it?

Edited March 12, 2015 by Nemarus

[doggwa]

I play a t3 scout for nearly every Dom match at start. And I agree that I'll change to something else on first death against a good team due to the lack of firepower the t3 brings.

 

What if tensor was cooler though? Maybe mixing in hold the line, cleansing interdiction and ion slows for 10sec? Would give more mid game value...

[Nemarus]

I play a t3 scout for nearly every Dom match at start. And I agree that I'll change to something else on first death against a good team due to the lack of firepower the t3 brings.

 

What if tensor was cooler though? Maybe mixing in hold the line, cleansing interdiction and ion slows for 10sec? Would give more mid game value...

 

That's a really nice idea. I mean, it already acts as a sort of anti-Ion effect, since it recharges your engine. But making it cleanse / grant immunity to interdiction effects would make it more useful without being too disruptive.

 

I do worry it would make the last holdouts using Interdiction Mine switch to Concussion Mine though.

[DamascusAdontise]

On topic: IMO a reasonable respawn delay at the start of the match would be a better choice than a blanket ability use block. I have read and understand your reasoning but don't agree. I feel that blocking abilities would serve to hurt the diversity of the game by removing small benefits that niche builds provide at the start of the match. Tensor Field and interdiction drive being obvious examples, with booster recharge following close behind.

 

Where a blanket ability hold would hurt diversity, a small respawn bump would completely nullify the benefit of tensor suicide without affecting any other part of the game makeup or balance. Saying that it hurts new players isnt entirely accurate, at some point they have to learn not to auto destruct 3 seconds into the match and if they do then they have to wait a "little bit" longer.

 

Early suicide is easy to avoid, even for a novice player and a small respawn addition would help to enforce the lesson without unduly affecting player experience, new or old.

 

 

long winded slightly on topic bloodmark discussion and response to personal attacks about elitism

 

 

 

First off, I did read everything in the post both you and others wrote regarding the pre-conditions set-up. Given all of that I disagree with the vast bulk of it (Which I think im allowed my own opinion despite rigorous anti response planning). Yes it is very telling that the ships value would be decreased many fold if tensor were somehow blocked until 30 seconds into the match, but that in and of itself is not evidence that the talent needs to be tweaked.

 

Once again I don't think the problem is with tensor field, its with people abusing game mechanics to get the best of both worlds. It seems silly to neuter a useful ability (of which we have so few) to fight something that a minority of players think they have to do in order to be successful.

 

Also just for the record, I would never suggest something so large as 40 seconds. That is a punishment, and thats not what I am looking for. A "dis-incentive" would be 20 seconds, just enough to put you a little behind the rest of the team if you choose to use this tactic.

 

Also I wanted to respond to the High Horse comment. I am not sitting on high lording over everyone wagging an all powerful finger and offering tepid advice. I honestly believe that most people discount the T3's effectiveness due to its lack of offensive abilities and damage. My argument is this: In a domination match team support, speed, engine regen, positioning, and coordination are all more important than pure damage.

 

People try to fly the T3 scout like its a battle scout, and thats flat out wrong. Thats not what its built for. Its used to get on nodes first, its meant to harass off nodes, hold caps, harass bombers, play interceptor when necessary, buff teammates, and be literally anywhere on the map in a very short time. If you have to fly it offensively, do it conservatively and use your maneuverability / endurance to your advantage to outrun your opponents (or drag them into protracted chases)

 

When flown properly the bloodmark continues to be a boon to the team long after the initial start of the match.

 

For evidence of this I direct you to last nights domination match where you, drako, sanic, and another pilot im not familiar with flew against a team made up of a three 5 shippers and assorted new and novice players (in a non coordinated team). At the start of the match we went up two nodes to one, due in part to the fact that you were down 1 pilot for a short time due to tensor suicide.

 

We quickly lost the initial nodes, but throughout the match due to loose coordination, good team movement, and well planted tensor buffs we were able to out maneuver a coordinated team to make it a close game where we stood a real chance of winning. I stayed in the bloodmark the entire match, by choice not by some high horse sentiment. i surely would have loved the extra damage, but we didnt need that. We needed to be faster than your team since it was undeniably better suited to capping and holding (being made up of bombers, scouts, and GS)

 

This match was a perfect example of how to fly a bloodmark properly. I was non committal in direct confrontation, I harassed off nodes, I buffed my teammates pre-emptively with tensor when i knew we had to get somewhere fast, I used EMP to harass bombers, and my personal speed I used to effectively be everywhere at once (or a least wherever I needed to be)

 

One notworthy move which only a bloodmark can do (mid match) was this. I tensored to A and got a cap against 0 opponents. Defended the sat from 2 would be attackers for a few minutes, then noticed that C was flipping. I saw that we had teammates on the node (thus it would take a while and draw attention) After clearing A I tensored and headed to B, since your team was in the middle of assaulting C I capped B with literally no opposition just seconds before reinforcements arrived.

 

Our team noticed what was happening reinforced B. Your team realized and sent drako our way in a bomber. I held the node as long as I could, almost got a kill on drak and died to a mine as my team managed to get there. At this point B and C are capped and A is gray. I got back into the game, tensored and headed to A. I got there in time to stop the cap, and managed to sat hump until a friendly GS cleared the node. We almost managed to get a 3 cap, and this was all due to the speed and maneuverability that the bloodmark offered.

 

In comp matches seconds matter, and the bloodmark has a bag full of seconds to hand everyone in range.

 

If I had decided instead to run my battle scout, our team would have lost by a much larger margin. The speed of the T3 allowed me and my team a chance to win despite being outgunned, by being faster and more maneuverable.

 

(on a side note in that match I managed 11 / 3 and respectable damage, 2nd place I think. And I was playing objectives. No the T3 is not a damage monster, but it does have offensive capability, more than most people would expect )

 

My biggest gripe about the T3 scout is that its other abilities like combat command and sensor beacon are not well thought out, thus allowing few options. You can either be a subpar battle scout or a support ship thats fast but has little offensive capability. I would love to see them address these other options so that there could be value in fielding more than one T3 scout in a given game. (currently 1 is good 2 is overkill / useless)

 

Despite that though I will continue to insist to anyone that will listen, that a bloodmark flown properly is a force to be reckoned with, and that it has a clear place in comp play.

 

Also wanted to point out that while we used to fly together a lot, for the last few months we have had few matches where we flew against or with one another. In domination matches I fly my bloodmark, and I do it most match unless I get hard focused and we can afford to lose the speed. If not I grit my teeth and play the T3 throughout. Its not fair to generalize about my play when for the last few months we haven't played together.

 

You might have been right 6 months ago, but for now your dead wrong. I frequently fly a T3 for the duration of the match and I feel like my team is better off than with my battle scout (at least in dom) and this is comp match or otherwise.

 

 

[Akoga]

Tensor Field, and possibly other player controlled buffs like Combat Command, should be channeled and require a minimum distance.

 

Obviously dying would negate the channeling and the buff would drop. Flying too far from the group would negate the minimum distance and the buff would drop.

 

This would require the skill to stay close to the ships you wish to buff, require you to stay alive and provide a minor drawback in that you are more open to AOE threats.

Edited March 13, 2015 by Akoga

[Nemarus]

Tensor Field, and possibly other player controlled buffs like Combat Command, should be channeled and require a minimum distance.

 

Obviously dying would negate the channeling and the buff would drop. Flying too far from the group would negate the minimum distance and the buff would drop.

 

This would require the skill to stay close to the ships you wish to buff, require you to stay alive and provide a minor drawback in that you are more open to AOE threats.

 

Except knowing where your allies are is very, very difficult. Also all the ships in your Tensor'd group would have to go the same speed as the Bomber in the group.

[Akoga]

Except knowing where your allies are is very, very difficult. Also all the ships in your Tensor'd group would have to go the same speed as the Bomber in the group.

 

Knowing where your allies are, and foes, is part of the challenge of the game. The mini map would give you a good idea of those near by.

 

The Spearpoint has a 4500 meter range for Tensor Field. So the fastest ship could be 4500 meters in front and the slowest 4500 meters behind. Perhaps raising the range from 4500 to 6000 would balance it.

[doggwa]

I hope you don't mean channeled like on ground, as in no other ability use / blasters / middle locking... Cause if you want to super neuter a ship, that'd be it. I'm not sure this helps the original intent of minimising a suicide rate. It would just move it out 20sec.

[Akoga]

I hope you don't mean channeled like on ground, as in no other ability use / blasters / middle locking... Cause if you want to super neuter a ship, that'd be it. I'm not sure this helps the original intent of minimising a suicide rate. It would just move it out 20sec.

 

No, I don't mean that it would lock out other abilities. Just that you would need to be alive for the buff to apply and if you die the buff goes away.

[Bolo_Yeung]

It will still render the ship practically useless.

First - you can;t buff a large group, only that going to one sat (huge nerf already).

Second - you will have to go at lowest ship pace in mentioned group , and since it is impossible to target friendlies and see their distance, the group will have to be as close as possible to each other.

It will retain much of i's walue in near sat defense,,, assuming people won't crash into satellites after sudden agility increase. But again, that isn't much.

Also, in TDM, the value of TF will be rendered to zero...

Edited March 14, 2015 by Bolo_Yeung

[Akoga]

It will still render the ship practically useless.

First - you can;t buff a large group, only that going to one sat (huge nerf already).

Second - you will have to go at lowest ship pace in mentioned group , and since it is impossible to target friendlies and see their distance, the group will have to be as close as possible to each other.

It will retain much of i's walue in near sat defense,,, assuming people won't crash into satellites after sudden agility increase. But again, that isn't much.

Also, in TDM, the value of TF will be rendered to zero...

 

Only if the range is too low. Make the range 15,000 meters or 800 miles for all I care. I'm more concerned with a solution to Tensor suicide.

[Bolo_Yeung]

I have suggested it earlier - if the buffer dies, his buffs die as well.