Quell vs Sting?

[Verain]

Huge fan of all those changes. The 20% lockon on Pike is a more substantial buff than the others, but that ship is in worse shape. It would definitely be a brutal missile boat there.

 

Outside of the Starguard, I don't really want to see a bunch more BLC ships. I would definitely like to see rapids get buffed to be competitive, and even a mild buff for lights would not be out of line at all.

[RickDagles]

I don't think Strikes are nearly as bad as people think. Each of the ships is only a few upgrades away from being viable in the meta. You could easily make them competitive without even having to do any real programming. All three share the problem that they don't have an answer to BLC scouts. The T1 and T2 share the problem that they get owned by ion railgun. Otherwise, they are great ships. Fix those problems and they serve the purpose of being useful against everything but not amazing at any one specific role. Giving them power dive helps them against both scouts and ion. Then give them a little sharper teeth against scouts and they're suddenly viable.

 

T1 Strike

- BLC and LLC

- power dive

 

T2 Strike

- interdiction missile, thermite torp, sab probe

- power dive, retro

- MAYBE add in ability to swap EMP field or Remote Slicing for 2nd missile

 

T3 Strike

- concussion missiles

 

 

It's simply ludicrous that the T1 strike doesn't have access to every available laser and the T2 strike doesn't have access to every available missile. I mean, you're giving up a system ability, you better get some damn good synergy or utility from swapping. As it stands, the T3 GS and T1 GS are the only ships that benefit from weapon swapping.

 

If that's not enough maybe boost their baseline shield, engines, and turning a bit.

Edited April 25, 2015 by RickDagles

[tunewalker]

Lock-on Bonus is MUCH more needed then Reduction bonus, simply because the way a T2 Strikes Missiles work, the TRICK with the missiles is being able to fire them back to back, thanks to 2 seperate reload times, reducing Reloads doesnt really help that much with it, but Lock-on.... Yes please....

[Ryuku-sama]

I'd give the T1 a Tracking reduction and a passive accuracy buff (-10° tracking, +10% accuracy), the T2 a lock-on reduction and extra ammo (-20% lock-on time, +25% ammo) and the T3 extra DR and shield (5% DR and 10-20% shield).

 

This would emphasize the intended strenght of every strike.

 

I'd also give BLC and LLC to the T1, Thermite and Interdiction to the T2.

 

I'd also delete RFL from the game

[Nemarus]

Reply to Verain--

 

I wasn't proposing those as actual changes that I'd implement now. I was responding to Despon's "if I was designing GSF, I'd allocate primary weapons this way..." I don't believe just adding BLC's to Strikes would really have much of an effect.

 

I know that a lot of people have said "Fix Strikes by giving them BLC's". I probably said it at some point myself. But while BLC's would certainly make Strikes better, it won't by any stretch make them a better choice than Scouts, Gunships, so long as those ships also have BLC's.

 

A Scout with BLC will always utilize them better than any Strike with BLC's, due to superior turning and closing ability, and TT/BO.

 

A Gunship with BLC will always be better than a Strike with BLC, because the Gunship has a Railgun. Verain, you've said yourself that, despite having a horrible mismatch of components with no synergy, the Dustmaker is still superior to a Quell simply because it has a railgun. I agree with that. Thus a Gunship with BLC is still better than a Strike with BLC.

 

I think a place we do disagree is the inherent crappiness of the Gunship chassis. Sure, it's vastly inferior to a Scout, but ultimately it is fairly similar to a Strike chassis. The key differences are: Gunship has 94% the base shields of the Strike, 86% the hull of a Strike, 94% the base speed of a Strike, and 95% the base turn rate of a Strike, and 5% less Evasion than a Strike. Everything else of consequence is equal (though Gunships have superior sensor stats).

 

But then take exclusive components into account. Gunships get access to Distortion Field and Feedback Shield, both of which are great anti-Scout components that would be great on a Strike.

 

This is all without even taking the Slug Railgun into consideration, which itself is enough to fly the ship. Then take the combo of Ion/Slug into account--the best weapon combination available on any ship.

 

So I was not advocating actually taking BLC's away from Gunships and Scouts--not at this point. I'm just saying that BLC's on Strikes would not fix them so long as they are also available on Scouts and Gunships, too.

 

That being said, claiming that removing BLC from Quarrels would "delete them" is absurd. Any ship that can combo Ion/Slug together is always going to be able to fulfill its primary role and be worth flying. If the Dustmaker just had access to Ion/Slug, it would be a totally B-tier viable (though still inferior to the T1 due to lack of BLC's).

 

Your suggested changes to the Strike chassis, giving it a variety of powers, might help--but it's all pretty unprecedented in the current codebase.

 

A final word on Charged Plating--if we were "designing GSF", I would never, ever include that component in anything representing its current state. It's just too absolute, and presents a significant obstacle to any sensible balance changes.

Edited April 26, 2015 by Nemarus

[Ramalina]

I decided to spend some time in the "super serious" Pike tonight, and though I was a bit short on req on some of the components I went with

HLC

Cluster

Concussion

Barrel

Directional

Lightweight

Regeneration thrusters

Range

Regeneration Extender.

 

Fairly standard crew, switched between Bypass and RI. Wingman normally would have been better, but I was in a somewhat anti-bomber mood.

 

Aside from pilot choice QCS vs. Directionals I'm pretty sure the above build is as good as the T2 gets in the current meta. I only got one game with decent opposition in the Pike, and we got crushed, but it served as an ok check-up for my sense of, "what happens if you throw the T2 into a serious meta game?"

 

Answer: Get shot at with Ion rail by Verain a lot. More seriously, I managed to provide some cover for friendly gunships being hunted by scouts, to put a little bit of pressure on a couple of gunships, and spend a lot of time making sure asteroids were between me and Verain. Not that different from any other ship, especially other strikes, but less productive at whatever you're trying to do and much more vulnerable.

 

I was reminded that evasion as a survival element for strikes is not a thing, even with RI and Lightweight armor combined. Being in a, "just tank the extra damage," class of ship does not combine well with having a defensive component that lets you choose from three options that are all pretty much worthless given the rest of ship's build options. A strike without a reactor is deficient, they're too shield based for small amounts of evasion, health, or DR to be viable substitutes. I'd actually award the, "worst defenses in GSF," to the T2 at this point. The T2 GS is in a world of defensive misery too, but with clever piloting the range on slug lets it come out just a tiny bit better than the strike.

 

The one decent thing about the T2 was that the combination of Cluster and Concussion actually served as a decent secondary weapon, provided that if the target had double breaks another ship was helping you pressure it.

 

I think that the Conc +Cluster combo is roughly where every medium to long range missile needs to be on its own in terms of power, at least as long as double break ships are as common and missile resistant as they currently are.

 

 

1)- Strikes have +30% to hit.

2)- Strikes take half weapon tracking penalty.

3)- Strikes deal 20% more damage with all weapons.

4)- Strikes get their engine cooldowns back 25% faster.

5)- Strikes reload missiles THREE TIMES as fast as other ship type.

6)- Strikes have a passive hull heal of 20 every 10 seconds.

7)- Strikes have "shield hardness" that grants "negative bleedthrough" of 10% (less impactful than the rest of list, would need more than just this)

8)- Debuffs last only 2/3rds as long on strikes.

9)- Strikes lock on missiles 20% faster

10)- Strikes have an excellent turning radius, slighty better than the scout baseline.

11)- Strikes have triple the engine capacity that they do now.

 

 

Each of these would be game altering, and a few of them partially present and patched together would be as well. I believe the game would be better if you saw some of these in play. These are all massive buffs. They would result in strikes being in the meta and having SOME role. I'm not particularly partial as to what that role is.

 

Interesting suggestions.

 

Variants of 5 and 9 are really called for on pretty much all missiles other than Cluster and Interdiciton. I think the 20% lock on reduction is an excellent number, 67% reload reduction is too much because reload is the hard cap mechanic for missile dps. I think 20-33% might be ok though. Every ship with the ability to use medium to long range missiles either doesn't use them in serious games, or is heavily punished by being given no other options, so making those global buffs rather than strike specific would probably be fine.

 

For 11 I think I'd take a similar intent, but change it to an increase in engine pool recharge rate, possibly including an extra dose of recently consumed regen rate increase. I don't mind if a strike can't run as fast or as far as a scout with a similar build (and probably they shouldn't), but if strikes are going to get out of breath quicker, it'd be nice to get it back quicker as well. Depending on what numbers you used in terms of regen/recently consumed regen it would also give a bit more resilience against Ion rail. Maybe fold in a reduction in regen delay if pure rate increases at reasonable magnitudes weren't doing the trick. Say 6.5 energy/s, 4/s recently consumed, regen delay of 1 second or something like that. Not too much better than a QCS + Regen strike on live, and enough to allow a few km of boost before a gunship has time to fully charge a second shot.

 

Getting into the ones that involve more than just adjusting existing numerical values:

 

For defenses 4 looks interesting, and might even be enough, it'd close the gap a bit with the double break ships and would be important if missiles got buffed into being serious secondary weapons.

 

For increasing sustained strike DPS, any one of them would be fine, or even half of any one of them. Personally I'd probably bias to option that increased hit chance.

Edited April 26, 2015 by Ramalina

[Verain]

I don't think Strikes are nearly as bad as people think. Each of the ships is only a few upgrades away from being viable in the meta.

 

Maybe, but it just seems unlikely. Strikes are punished at range by gunships and punished close up by scouts, and either both of those power deltas need to shrink, or they need to get some cool tricks.

 

I don't think just adding components is that amazing. It could work- certainly, a type 2 strike with interdiction and cluster would at least be best at something- but for ships intended to be defined by their choice of components, it seems like the goal with all of that is mostly just to give them components the community considers mandatory (for good reason) that they could equip instead of all the OTHER components that they already have.

 

Wouldn't it be nicer to just make them playable with the components they already have?

 

T1 Strike

- BLC and LLC

- power dive

 

I really like the type 1 strike having all guns (so I would add laser cannon), in concept. Given their choice of switching between guns, and their status as a starter ship, it would allow a newer player to try out every gun, and there would likely be some good combinations in there. The choice of RFL is the most crippling, and that's because RFL is so bad- if this gun were fixed, maybe we wouldn't thirst for LLC, or the top short firing choice BLC. BLC is meant to be "too large to fit" on most frames, but given its presence on a scout, kind of who cares.

 

Power dive... I mean, the ship has barrel and retros. Every strike is meant to be on a continuum with "movement" engine abilities and "other" engine abilities. Stacking it like a scout in this regard would definitely improve it.

 

Pretend these changes did happen. Now, pretend you are facing a reasonable team of enemies, with a reasonable team of friendlies. Under which circumstances would you choose the type 1 strike?

 

T2 Strike

- interdiction missile, thermite torp, sab probe

- power dive, retro

- MAYBE add in ability to swap EMP field or Remote Slicing for 2nd missile

 

Adding all the missiles seems a little bit odd. Unlike railguns or even blasters, there sure are a LOT of missile types, and many of them could use buffs. Interdiction is the one I could really get behind, thermite would be fun, but sab probe seems out of place on a strike. Adding retro pretty much NEEDS to happen, given its power in landing missiles, but I think power dive just shouldn't be on every ship. It's already on too many!

 

Still, I get that you want power dive as an option to escape from ion.

 

 

Should we really be asking for K-Turn and Snap Turn to have a 0 engine cost?

 

 

Again, lets pretend that this ship exists. It seems like the existing missiles on it would mostly go unselected, meaning the ship now gets shoe-horned into a narrow build set... but does it at least get a spot in the meta out of that? Versus which opponents would you want to bring this?

 

 

It's simply ludicrous that the T1 strike doesn't have access to every available laser and the T2 strike doesn't have access to every available missile. I mean, you're giving up a system ability, you better get some damn good synergy or utility from swapping.

 

I think not having everything can be ok. I think the problem is that the omitted ones are generally too important. Rapid Fire Lasers is crap, but the scouts just ignore it. The type 1 strike has it as its only close range laser. RFL being too weak becomes a type 1 strike problem. Not having interdiction missile is a big deal on the Pike, given that it only has one close range weapon (though at least a decent one), as is not having retros. Not having thermites means that you would want proton if you were going for that, and that isn't the end of the world. Having EMP and Ion seem like a joke, though.

 

I wouldn't be opposed to every blaster on a type 1 strike and every missile on a type 2 strike. But I think that would result in a lot FEWER ship combinations (at least for the type 2 strike), and I don't think alone those would win it a spot in the meta- hence why I think substantial class buffs should be the go-to buff point. Still, I do really feel that the four blasters on the type 1 strike very much limit it. Lights or Bursts would be so sweet on that thing.

Edited April 26, 2015 by Verain

[caederon]

Should we really be asking for K-Turn and Snap Turn to have a 0 engine cost?

That would certainly make those more appealing. The thing that would still keep me from choosing them is that they have no travel utility (BR, PD) and much less offensive utility than retros. They wouldn't really get you out of railgun range easily unless you were at the very edge of it to begin with, and wouldn't reposition you drastically enough that it would mess up a gunship's aim. But making them cost 0 engine power would give them some appeal.

 

How about turning Weapon Power Converter (which is strike-specific, isn't it?) into something worth using. Has anyone ever chosen this and been pleased with their decision?

 

- Despon

[Ramalina]

For the T1 an Ion-BLC-Cluster build would be a nice close up dogfighter.**

 

**For a strike. It'd basically play like a weaker T2 scout, though with some more resilience against bombers. You'd finally have a good answer to the question, "what blaster should I pair with Ion Cannon?"

 

So that's a new niche in playstyle for the T1, but I think it would be pretty much a neutral sidegrade in terms of ship power in the meta.

 

 

For the T2 strikes, adding Retros, Interdiction, and Thermite would be a significant upgrade. I think they'd still be a bit behind the T1 strike in terms of power, but the gap would be much smaller. It would also give them a clear close range build, and anti-bomber builds that actually work better than T3 scout and strike anti-bomber builds. I'd definitely pull the Pike out in more games if these components were added.

 

Yeah, that'd be a lot of missile options on the T2 strike, but as far as I'm concerned the futility missiles don't count (and I wish I had thought of calling them futility missiles back when the devs were still developing GSF and reading this forum regularly).

[tunewalker]

I am actually kind of wondering what the "Futility" missiles are.... Proton.... Ion... EMP... Conc to a lesser degree....Thermite on anything not bomber.

 

Basically any missile that ISNT Clusters is a "Futility" missile against every ship in the meta.

 

 

Honestly I know Verain HATES the Idea of losing the Missile break on Disto, but honestly I see it as one of the few ways to actually "FIX" missiles, I also know he doesnt like the Idea of replacing it with "Give DR from missiles" because so many Missiles can ignore the DR (Conc, Proton, and Thermite) but when you LOOK at the ones that can ignore DR... guess what they DESERVE to ignore DR, even with ONE missile break on every ship if some one lands a Proton on you, they deserved it, that is a LONG lock, LONG CD, Starts with a LONG travel speed, If Bombers can avoid half of the Proton Torps being locked on them, then BOTH GS's and Scouts have 0 room to complain from my stand point.

 

 

 

Edit: and lets face it the ONLY issue we had when the Glitch with Disto Missile break wasnt working was Gunships vs CLUSTER spam, a DR fixes that just fine, since Clusters DONT have Armor Pen....

Edited April 26, 2015 by tunewalker

[Ramalina]

Well interdiction missiles are cluster like enough to not be futility missiles, and concussions are ok-ish against single break ships or in combination with clusters against double break ships.

 

I suppose it's probably possible to balance missiles in a version of GSF that retains the second missile break, at least to a better state than they are currently in, but it would be much easier to do a good job on a missile balance pass if they ditched the Disto break and replaced it with something else.

 

If the Disto break stays, then it is very difficult for missiles to be decent secondary weapons against double break ships without being too powerful against single break and no break ships.

 

In any case, if a hostile scout or strike is getting within 5 km of a GS that they're targeting and managing to stick at that range, the GS pilot should probably be at least as miserable as the dogfighting ship's pilot was while being Ion Railgun spammed at 14 km.

 

Really, any strike, "fixes," that don't have droves of GS and Battlescout pilots coming to the forums to whine about the changes probably aren't adequate in terms of balancing.

[RickDagles]

Pretend these changes did happen. Now, pretend you are facing a reasonable team of enemies, with a reasonable team of friendlies. Under which circumstances would you choose the type 1 strike?

 

I think it could be a bit more valuable than a scout at attacking an entrenched node. On your team, a T1 GS could shoot ion at the node to clear a path for your T1 bomber. Meanwhile the T1 strike (with HLC and maybe concussions) could shoot at the enemy's T1 bomber from about 6200+m off the node rather than dieing to mines like a T2 BLC scout that's maximum 4400m off the node. If the Strike got hit by ion railgun, it could power dive away and regenerate shields or it could power dive toward the gunship and shoot it with missiles and maybe a few remaining blaster shots. If the Strike got attacked by a T2 BLC scout without cooldowns, it could have a chance to win (directionals + BLC + maybe clusters). If the T2 scout popped his cooldowns, the Strike could run away with power dive and directionals to rear, then turn and fight after the cooldowns were finished. Basically it could become the true multirole ship it was meant to be. Hell, it could even serve the purpose of finishing a killing blow on a T1 CP bomber by rushing in with BLC. I really do think having access to HLC and BLC on one ship is super dangerous to CP bombers.

 

 

Adding all the missiles seems a little bit odd.

 

Why? It's intended to be the premiere missile boat. Why not give it all the options? And Cluster + sab probe would be a lot of fun. I don't see how sab probe feels out of place on a Strike at all. If the game launched with T2 Strike sab probe, would it feel out of place?

 

 

...but I think power dive just shouldn't be on every ship. It's already on too many!

 

I think either power dive or booster recharge should be an option on every ship. Or give us a co-pilot that gives us 40 engines (similar to lockdown). Any ship without these options is broken because it can be controlled by ion railgun among other things (you said it yourself). The only exception to this would be high evasion retro scouts and T1/T2 bombers (which use LoS).

 

 

Should we really be asking for K-Turn and Snap Turn to have a 0 engine cost?

 

Snap turn could be useful on 0 energy cost, actually. I think it gives mobility almost as much as in imperfect powerdive. K-turn's use would still be limited to an on-node missile break.

 

 

 

Again, lets pretend that this ship exists. It seems like the existing missiles on it would mostly go unselected, meaning the ship now gets shoe-horned into a narrow build set... but does it at least get a spot in the meta out of that? Versus which opponents would you want to bring this?

 

I don't know, I think there would be a lot of cool options with synergy:

 

Clusters + sab probe - Draw missile breaks with the clusters, then follow up with sab

 

Interdiction + thermite - Slow down enemies so that you can actually land a thermite. This could be especially valuable in CP bomber wars when an enemy bomber has been hit by an interdiction mine. Quickly follow up with a interdiction missile and then easily land a thermite.

 

Clusters + interdiction - It works well on the T3 GS, so it could work even better here.

 

Thermite + concussion - If you can land a thermite on a bomber, this will make your concussions quite deadly.

 

 

A final word on Charged Plating--if we were "designing GSF", I would never, ever include that component in anything representing its current state. It's just too absolute, and presents a significant obstacle to any sensible balance changes.

 

I agree, but I think there is an easy solution. Give us a co-pilot ability that lets us ignore armor for 15 seconds. Or switch Bypass into ignoring armor instead of piercing shields.

Edited April 27, 2015 by RickDagles