Strike Fighter... Chasis or Components?

tunewalker · May 5, 2015

I was looking at the different Strike Fighters and started to ask what really was their problem? Did they need new components? Did they need the Components they had already fixed? Or did they need a Chasis Adjustment?

Where the components on their own bad?

If the Strikes had another component would it fix it?

So on and so Forth so I took to examining some of these questions... this is of course my opinion, and I am looking for others thoughts. This may be a bit Ramblie as the ideas are coming on this page as they come to my head.

First I wanted to look at the

star Guard.

Primaries

It has 3 "good" primaries, every one is pretty much in aggreance that Heavies are pretty good "long range" lasers, sure they have a big tracking penalty and arent good up close, but between Armor Pen, good base accuarcy and good range these are a solid weapon. Quads are used on other ships so clearly they are good. And finally the last "good" primary is Ions. Its only issue is you would never want them as your SOLE weapon, but they have super high base accuracy and do really good damage to shields for a good punch. What makes them REALLY good is the Stargaurds ability to swap weapons allowing it to have the solid Heavies for range and the Ions as a good back up in place of a system ability. Ion Lasers thus as a "System" ability I believe to be good.

Secondaries

It has 1 good secondary again used on the Scout the cluster missiles. So with the prior and this we would think it would have a good set of offensive capabilities, and yet it either suffers offensively or defensively... lets look into why.

Shields: Here is has what some would call the "Second Best shield in the game" Directionals. but this is where the Chasis issue comes to be obvious. Clusters and more specifically Ions. 1 is the only good secondary weapon the ship has, and the other is the only unique thing it brings to the table. Both of these things require you to remain close to your target. It requires SCOUT closeness, with out scout mobility.

To gain Scout mobility people pick up the TERRIBLE Guick Charge shields. Why is it considered terrible? because no other ship even considers taking it because of the weaknesses it comes with. Ultimately what does this Shield give to the ship? It tries to trade 1 Chasis Weakness for another, the issue is the "other" chasis weakness it gains on all other ships is mitigated by having the best shields in the game Distortion field which comes with massive evasion and a second missile break. This combined with the weapons range and the Chasis limitations become the aparant weakness of the Type 1 strike. We could continue onto engines but all we would see are the solid choices between Retro and Barrel roll, both of which are decent and used on other ships all the time, thus nothing inherintely wrong with them. Even the minors are pretty good on this ship, thrusters, capacitor, Magazine and Reactor all round things out. The lack of Armor means Charged plating isnt viable, but it truly is not a huge loss.

Potential Fixes

Strike Fighter Chasis adjustment for boost efficiency.

QCS adjusted for SERIOUS strength in shields

Ion Canon Range increased closer to Quads or Heavies range AND Conc Missile, and P Torps turned into more reliable missiles. (Methods of doing this could be CD reduction, Lock time Reduction, Making it so these missiles can not be broken once fired... IE clusters would still be breakable once fired but these would not.... Distortion field losing its missile break)

Pike

This is the ship that the components AND the design become apparent flaws.... but we will see that soon.

Primaries.

Its got 2 good ones again Heavies and Quads, the Quads provide great dps, but the Heavies are much more reliable against hardened targets. Lights are TRULY terrible lasers, to short range, to large of a tracking penalty no one seriously uses these over LC's, QLC's, BLC's or HLC's So if you want ships to have good short range weapons well fix RFLC and LLC please and thank you.

Secondaries:

This is where this ship falls apart. Its only good Secondary is Cluster missiles, and if you have the ability to swap Secondaries then that SECOND secondary needs to be meaning full, but ever single one of the options is just terrible. The ability to bypass Missile Reload times is MEANINGLESS when your opponents have 2 missile breaks. and the length of the lock ons means they have far to much time to react. To fix this ship you have to fix its secondaries first.

Emp Missiles: These are terrible The only advantage missiles have over other secondaries is the ability to fire them while also firing lasers, this thing is so counter to that its rediculous as pretty much anything these things were intended to take out your lasers (especially heavies) could have taken out before you finished the lock. To top it off its usefulness against ACTUAL LIVING opponents, you know the ones that actually have a real threat of killing you, is pretty much non existant. They take it one step further with this awefulness with giving it Conc's Meh Range and lock on time and then compining it with Ptorps GOD AWEFUL reload times, good luck hitting anything with this hunk of junk.... then even better luck capitalizing on the minor anoyance this thing provided when it DID miraculously hit something and you survived more then 1 second later.

Ion Missile: Like the above they are terrible, again the only advantage is shooting missiles and lasers at the same time, and again with these things sole purpose being to strip shields that your lasers should have already stripped before the lock finished these are again some of the most worthless missiles in the game. All the stuff about the aboves lock and reload... ya put it here.

Concussion missile. This one when used in conjunction with Clusters CAN provide a TINY amount of extra damage (300) for DOUBLE the lock on time and Reload time and a little extra range AT THE EXPENSE of firing arc. This is a halfway good choice as a "second secondary" but sure as hell aint worth the system ability in its current state.

Ptorp: Doesnt kill anything unless its already damaged. Doesnt get rid of shields so you can damage them with lasers, attrocious lock on, attrocious arc, attrocious reload. Good luck hitting anything with this. (Yes I know good pilots can, I can, but its no where near remotely considered "Reliable" and dont pretend it is)

Again I can stop right here, shields are the same as before except QCS arent good because with out a Reactor they give up WAY to much and we are getting even less in return from these component options. Charged plating IS an option thanks to armor component, but again lacks the Offensive weapons to take advantage of the only thing Charged plating is good for, eating mines.... Engines Barrel roll is good, but the rest are mostly aweful.

Solution

Only thing to move this ship in the right direction is fix missiles, this isnt a chasis problem this is a concept vs execution problem. Concept is fun and cool, in current practice its terrible.

Suggested Solution:

1. I am just going to do the 1 common one, it really is the easiest solution. Make it to where all missiles except clusters can not be broken once they are in the air.... and FIX those AWEFUL Futility missiles.

Does this solution come with its own problem? yes namely with missiles being unbreakable once they are in the air missile breaks that keep the person largely in place are VERY dangerous, and ones like barrel roll that put you out into space can be equally dangerous. My solution is Snap Turn and Koiogran turn both get their evasion during Maneuver upped to 60% and the Duration of this evasion and inability to lock a missile on them to 5 Seconds instead of 3, thus giving people who use these manuevers (especially Koiogran) a couple extra seconds to move before being locked again. I could also see dropping the CD of Barrel Roll back down to 15 seconds (though keeping the expense) with it putting people out in open with these changes it comes with its own new risks of usage, thus warranting a smaller CD....

Am I expecting people to cheer and go YAAAA these are great... no... I am expecting them to call me an idiot and tell me these are terrible. The other thing I am expecting is them to and say why are you even bothering.... devs dont care about GSF.... and that is why people are quitting. Lets face it new people come here every day with interest in GSF, and just as many leave when they realize it is an unsupported and uncared about portion of hte game by the Devs. The community loves it, but the devs couldnt care less about it...

Luneward · May 5, 2015

Is it secondaries or chasis? A little of column A, a little of column B. The main problem is there aren't any wonderful synergies in components, and they don't specialize at anything. Jack of all trades just don't fare well in a Rock-Paper-Scissors specialization arena. This is why the T3 is the only real strike with a niche because it has secondary systems (and why the t2 gunship and t3 bomber are bad ships. They sacrifice too much of their niche to pick up attributes of other ships)

I think strikes mostly need a chasis change rather than anything specific on their weapon loadouts. It might be nice to have them slightly more sturdy, or inherent damage resistance that can't be pierced. Perhaps even something to make a missile ship viable such as a limited strike-only cooldown to have their missile unaffected by missile breaks.

You have interesting ideas, but tweaking the weapons really isn't going to help them out at all unless it is something only a strike has, and something that people might actually want to use (Ion missile, I'm looking at you... Don't get too cocky there EMP missile you're next)

armpatara · May 5, 2015

This is a rambling, you know? But it is fun and contain many solid points. I absolutely agree that Strike need a fix on boost efficiency especially on Ryzer/Starguard. About Torp, any reliability fix would help. I'm glad you point out the cons of missile range against reaction time. It's a serious flaw in practical (and many new pilot wouldn't realize it until they're really into gsf.) I'm ok with your other proposed change. (But about disable Disto Missile break, You've just aggro almost every scout and gs lover on this forum, you know?)

As a scout lover concerning with ship concept, I feel that Strike should have an edge on a head-on fight with Scout since it's supposed to be more heavily armed and armoured while scout is more maneuverable. Scout shouldn't really win a head-on against strike, not this easy as least. So I'll agree on pretty much any fix/buff on strikes toward this goal.

Altheran · May 5, 2015

Chassis or Components ?

Components for sure. The Chassis is awesome. I'd dare say that 90% of any problems that happen in GSF comes from components.

However, I won't say (again) what I'd change I had enough of arguing with some forum warriors who I know I disagree fundamentally with and are the reason I've been not participating here since months.

ALaggyGrunt · May 5, 2015

It's an issue with both

Chassis strength:

Health.

Chassis problems:

Mobility.

The simplest answer would be to make strikes into distance runners and scouts into sprinters. Power dive would help a lot.

Turning radius.

Evasion.

Shield problems:

It all comes down to a choice between mobility (quick-charge) and tankiness (directional/charged plating). Distortion field isn't a choice.

Evasion is so essential in this game because:

1: The only components which hard-counter it are mines and drones. Missiles would go here, except the evasion shield component also comes with a lock break talent which almost everyone uses. The ability to break a missile lock without disengaging is very useful-especially when the other lock break is kept available. With slow-locking missiles, distortion field would be very useful locking onto things while everything is trying to kill you.

2: Not getting snared/drained is infinitely better than being snared/drained/pierced, and getting snared down to zero isn't fun. If the shield components came with their own anti-snare/drain/pierce paper-scissor-rock game, that wouldn't be as much of an issue.

That's why it's unusual for a ship with DF as an option to not take it and lightweight armor, and why strikers suffer so badly in the missile spam game.

Missile problems:

The short version is: everything except cluster missile spam is too slow to hit something skilled and evasive. The target will usually have nearby cover or the option to fly out of the lock available.

The long verison: A striker has two ways to land heavy missiles on important targets.

1: Fire them point-blank so the target doesn't have time to spend a lock break.

2: Fire them at targets which have burned all their lock breaks, or overconfident ships without lock breaks which come out of cover. All three of these require a target to make a mistake, which good targets tend not to do.

Locking a heavy missile requires the striker to fly pretty straight and level without tabbing, making it an easy target for just about anything which wants to kill it. Retros can often shake someone trying to kill the striker without messing up the lock, but they're only available on the gunfighter T1 striker and don't give the barrel roll mobility boost-and, if whatever is chasing the striker has retros, it can also use retros and follow the striker through the maneuver.

Gun problems:

The close-quarters weapons on the strikers aren't very good unless your target is flying straight and level so these guns can chew through your target. They become totally useless if the striker is snared, because the striker won't be able to boost after the target, even if it's a bomber.

Without systems abilities (BO/TT), all gun options on the striker are going to be weaker than the ones on the scout, except the ones the scout can't fit (HLC). Because burst damage in GSF is king, bursty guns + bursty system ability >>> sustained guns + no bursty system ability, unless the strike has some way to restrict a target's movement.

Ramalina · May 6, 2015

TLDR version:

Swap armor for reactors on T2 strikes, give strikes in general a bit more boost capability, FIX MISSILE BALANCE (involves removing Distortion Field missile break and rivers of tears from Verian).

Chassis is mostly ok I think. A minor increase in boost endurance (probably an increase to efficiency or regen) is pretty much all that the strike arguably needs on that front.

Ship design is also mostly o.k. though the T2 strike really suffers badly from having armor instead of reactors. Honestly, there is no armor currently in GSF that is actually good for strikes, just three flavors of mostly wasted component slot. Clarions have builds that can deal with a poor defensive slot in minors as they still have reactors to rely on. T2 strikes have nothing to fall back on and suffer for it. The T1 strikes would like BLCs or LLCs as upgrades over RFLs, and the T3 would love to have thrusters instead of sensors (or even instead of armor), but the overall ship designs for them are pretty solid.

Components are all over the place, but outside of missiles, the ones that are actually taken are pretty much fine for the most part. As long as they can be combined with reactors I don't really have problems with QCS and Shield Projector.

Missile balance is seriously screwed up, and not just for strikes. Every ship build that takes any missile other than cluster or interdiction suffers for it.

Reload times aren't going to change that much. They act as a hard cap on missile DPS that is just not going to go away.

Lock times for everything other than cluster and interdiction could probably stand to drop at least a little. Really there's no reason to have missile lock times greater than 3-3.5 seconds as the baseline. Drop the 3 second baseline ones to 2.75 s baseline and the 4 s baseline ones to 3.5 and it'd probably be ok

The distortion missile break needs to be removed, and what ever replaces it needs to not mess with missile lock or launch. The ability for all of the most powerful offensive ships in the meta to just sit there and keep DPSing without consequence when under threat from missiles is a brokenly unbalanced mechanic. If you sit and ignore any other class of secondary role weapon you're almost certain to take significant shield and possibly also significant hull damage. Distortion lets you keep DPSing through missile fire safe in the knowledge that with proper use you are guaranteed to pay no penalty whatsoever for being fired on by a missile.

If a ship is being targeted by a missile it really shouldn't have more time than the combined lock and flight time of the missile to either take a defensive action that impairs the ability to continue DPSing a target or to take damage from the missile.

All of the ships that effectively have no secondary weapon (ie rely on missiles or plasma rail) have a huge disadvantage in GSF. Balance wise, that's the biggest issue that needs to be addressed, and fixing it without deleting the missile break upgrade from Distortion Field would be absurdly difficult.

tunewalker · May 6, 2015

to note I did mark another solution other then "take away Disto break" for the long lock/ long reload missiles.... it was "these missiles have masterful guidance systems, once launched they can not be broken" Though that also partained to standard engine maneuvers to

.

Nemarus · May 6, 2015

It's an issue with both

Chassis strength:
Health.

Chassis problems:
Mobility.
The simplest answer would be to make strikes into distance runners and scouts into sprinters. Power dive would help a lot.
Turning radius.
Evasion.

Shield problems:
It all comes down to a choice between mobility (quick-charge) and tankiness (directional/charged plating). Distortion field isn't a choice.

Evasion is so essential in this game because:
1: The only components which hard-counter it are mines and drones. Missiles would go here, except the evasion shield component also comes with a lock break talent which almost everyone uses. The ability to break a missile lock without disengaging is very useful-especially when the other lock break is kept available. With slow-locking missiles, distortion field would be very useful locking onto things while everything is trying to kill you.
2: Not getting snared/drained is infinitely better than being snared/drained/pierced, and getting snared down to zero isn't fun. If the shield components came with their own anti-snare/drain/pierce paper-scissor-rock game, that wouldn't be as much of an issue.
That's why it's unusual for a ship with DF as an option to not take it and lightweight armor, and why strikers suffer so badly in the missile spam game.

Missile problems:
The short version is: everything except cluster missile spam is too slow to hit something skilled and evasive. The target will usually have nearby cover or the option to fly out of the lock available.

The long verison: A striker has two ways to land heavy missiles on important targets.
1: Fire them point-blank so the target doesn't have time to spend a lock break.
2: Fire them at targets which have burned all their lock breaks, or overconfident ships without lock breaks which come out of cover. All three of these require a target to make a mistake, which good targets tend not to do.

Locking a heavy missile requires the striker to fly pretty straight and level without tabbing, making it an easy target for just about anything which wants to kill it. Retros can often shake someone trying to kill the striker without messing up the lock, but they're only available on the gunfighter T1 striker and don't give the barrel roll mobility boost-and, if whatever is chasing the striker has retros, it can also use retros and follow the striker through the maneuver.

Gun problems:
The close-quarters weapons on the strikers aren't very good unless your target is flying straight and level so these guns can chew through your target. They become totally useless if the striker is snared, because the striker won't be able to boost after the target, even if it's a bomber.

Without systems abilities (BO/TT), all gun options on the striker are going to be weaker than the ones on the scout, except the ones the scout can't fit (HLC). Because burst damage in GSF is king, bursty guns + bursty system ability >>> sustained guns + no bursty system ability, unless the strike has some way to restrict a target's movement.

This seems a pretty succinct and accurate summary.

Ramalina · May 7, 2015

to note I did mark another solution other then "take away Disto break" for the long lock/ long reload missiles.... it was "these missiles have masterful guidance systems, once launched they can not be broken" Though that also partained to standard engine maneuvers to .

The problem with this solution is that the GS or scout still gets to sit there and finish killing a target before it has to worry about the missile, and even then it has another break ready to go. Similar problem in a head to head joust, the ship without the missile can use secondaries to pressure and damage in a way that the only counter is to break off and go evasive. The ship with the missile on the other hand, does no damage and exerts no pressure with its secondary.

I mean, I suppose another way you could equalize the disparity in power would be by having strikes gain 75% evasion for 3-5 seconds every time they used a shield ability. That'd give them the ability to safely ignore scouts and GSs for a brief time in the same way that scouts and GSs can safely ignore strikes.

Having the burstiest ships in the game be able to dps from inside something that approaches an immunity bubble while setting up the least bursty ships to only be able to use about half of their weaponry most of the time is some seriously messed up design. For that to work the less bursty ships would have to get huge compensation somewhere else, but they get practically none.

tunewalker · May 7, 2015

The problem with this solution is that the GS or scout still gets to sit there and finish killing a target before it has to worry about the missile, and even then it has another break ready to go. Similar problem in a head to head joust, the ship without the missile can use secondaries to pressure and damage in a way that the only counter is to break off and go evasive. The ship with the missile on the other hand, does no damage and exerts no pressure with its secondary.

I mean, I suppose another way you could equalize the disparity in power would be by having strikes gain 75% evasion for 3-5 seconds every time they used a shield ability. That'd give them the ability to safely ignore scouts and GSs for a brief time in the same way that scouts and GSs can safely ignore strikes.

Having the burstiest ships in the game be able to dps from inside something that approaches an immunity bubble while setting up the least bursty ships to only be able to use about half of their weaponry most of the time is some seriously messed up design. For that to work the less bursty ships would have to get huge compensation somewhere else, but they get practically none.

It wouldnt be as Immune as it is now....

Example

Proton Torp Lock Time 4 seconds.... The disto user would have to break it some time in that 4 seconds, they ALSO dont know this missile ISNT a Concussion missile so if they gamble it is a Torp and NOT a conc and they are wrong then the Conc is going to Launch at 2.7-3 seconds and will be Unbreakable by any means... of course if they gamble and they are right, then they break the Torp at 3.9 seconds with a Power Dive and can not be locked for 3 more seconds (Power dive has 3 seconds into its CD 7 seconds remaining) you lock another 3.9 missile, they break with disto... disto does not put any kind of lock out on Lock times... so immediate relock 3.9 Seconds (this is broken again by Power dive and another 3 seconds are added for you to be unable to lock) Total time since disto 11.8 seconds apon Proton Launch, meaning they have to dodge for a total of 8.2 seconds before they get their missile breaks refreshed and this is WITH power dive... AND WITH OUT the Lock time Reduction on Ptorp AND with them perfectly assuming you have Torps and NOT conc missile....

The fact that this scenario allows a PTORP to be POSSIBLE on a scout with Disto AND power dive says a lot about the "loss" of "immunity bubble" by making these missile unbreakable once in the air.

Something to also note, the "speed upgrade" would be useless on the missiles that get it that become like this, thus it would probably be better if they put some sort of Lock time reduction, or Reload time reduction to replace it, either would be cool, but I would prefer to drop Lock times of Ptrops another .4 seconds if I could choose to and this was the case.... (3.2 second lock times once upgraded.... Conc would still be faster at 2.7 seconds but ya "immunity bubble" I believe is solved if they cant break once its in the air as reload times become limiting for DPS rather then Limiting effectiveness).

I still think there needs to be SOME way to avoid missiles entirely. Pods can be evaded to a degree have terrible tracking AND a near non existent arc, Mines can be destroyed and stayed out of range, Rail guns cant be used on the move and can be evaded, Drones can be destroyed and dont do huge amount of damage any way. Missiles cant be evaded and with my proposition they cant be broken once launched, the only way to avoid now is to break before the lock finishes AND to fly evasively... and thats all we really want to force people to do isnt it? if they dont they get punished bad by missiles...

Ramalina · May 7, 2015

I think you're misinterpreting what I meant by "immunity bubble."

There are two sub-issues within disto's extra break problem.

One is that combined with engine maneuvers the break cooldowns come up so fast that if the lock is broken while in flight, reload times for everything other than cluster are so long that competent defensive play can prevent any missile other than cluster from landing, purely by timing cooldowns correctly. Your solution does fix that problem. I think skilled pilots would still be pretty much impossible to hit with torps, but it would take flying skill in addition to just timing cooldowns.

The other part of the issue is that if both ships are DPSing each other at the same time, the ship with disto is able to put out and probably connect with maximum burst DPS, while the ship without disto is going to find one of its weapons systems useless for the first 5 or so seconds of the fight. Your solution does absolutely nothing to address this aspect.

If a GS or scout is on you, the optimal action is usually to get out of the line of fire immediately. Peel or die.

In a disto build if a strike is on you, the optimal action is usually to keep on DPSing your target using the grace period of protection that disto's break provides against the only burst damage capability strikes have.

This difference, where a scout or GS can force a strike on the defensive right from the start, but the strike can't force the scout or GS on the defensive until enough time has gone by that the scout or GS has had about enough time to kill the strike is a significant problem for strikes, or possibly for the teammates of the strike depending on who the scout or gunship is targeting.

Neither of our solutions is really perfect. I aim more at threatening on demand burst damage if a target doesn't counter with an engine maneuver. That gives either burst or a peel, but you'd still be able to hold off the slower missiles indefinitely with skill and a short cooldown engine maneuver. Your solution makes the slower missiles reliable sustained DPS against all but the most skilled opponents, but doesn't do anything to improve a strike's ability to peel or create peak damage on demand.

In an ideal solution I'd like to see missile be fairly reliable dps and force a target to either peel or take some burst damage, and of course to do all of this without missiles becoming overpowered in the process.

ALaggyGrunt · May 8, 2015

The other problem with protorps is the aren't very good for killing bombers on sats. Before you get a lock, the bomber can usually LoS it. The protorp needs 3.4 seconds for a lock, where a railgun only needs to be charged and ready for when the bomber appears for 0.1 seconds.

Enurrsha · May 9, 2015

Slightly-on, slightly-off topic thought that popped into my head...

What if, as a "reward" for the long lock/reload times, line of sight was irrelevant to torpedoes...

As long as you have the ship targeted & in range, and it does not use a break, you can lock-on, fire, and hit without any consideration at all towards LoS.

This would certainly change things for sat-humping "tick" bombers, and it would be rather cool to watch a torp steer itself around a sat to smack the bomber on the other side.

Danalon · May 9, 2015

Slightly-on, slightly-off topic thought that popped into my head...

What if, as a "reward" for the long lock/reload times, line of sight was irrelevant to torpedoes...

As long as you have the ship targeted & in range, and it does not use a break, you can lock-on, fire, and hit without any consideration at all towards LoS.

This would certainly change things for sat-humping "tick" bombers, and it would be rather cool to watch a torp steer itself around a sat to smack the bomber on the other side.

And it would make bombers nearly completely useless in their main role - defense.

Edited May 9, 2015 by Danalon

Luneward · May 10, 2015

And it would make bombers nearly completely useless in their main role - defense.

Yeah, I'd much rather have some kind of ability that makes a torpedo unavoidable once it is airborne rather than one that allows you to lock regardless of LoS. Any ship without a missile break would be toast. While stacking bombers needs some kind of counter, that's way to arbitrary and harsh of implementation.

Verain · May 12, 2015

It's a chassis problem.

Yes, yes, if you handed strikes all the good components (or more than the few they have now), they'd be good. I don't think that's a real debate. The issue is, then the strike would JUST be those components. Plus, the chassis makes the components worse.

RFL is much better on a scout than on a strike. Not only can the scout buff its greatest weakness (poor accuracy), it can also fly close enough and turn quick enough to make this work. Plus, a regen magazine doesn't help with this dumb infinite ammo gun. So while the gun sucks for EVERYONE, it sucks super hard on a strike.

LLC is much better on a scout than on a strike. The scout can partially mitigate the lack of accuracy, but the big deal is that LLC is a high dps laser that rewards setting up for a shot sequence, something the scout's better maneuvering can manage with great ease, and something with great synergy with dps cooldowns.

Quads are an iconic strike weapon, but the one scout that can use them, uses them better than the strike. While you can actually run out of energy with these, there's more than enough pain in a full battery of these, plus all the buffs work very well for setting up a mid range strike with quad lasers and rocket pods.

Who wears it better? The scout. In every situation, the scout. Yes, giving bursts to strikes would help, because burst is great. But the problem is the strike chassis.

You spend time complaining about EMP and Ion, and you are right to do so. These missiles started weak and then got weaker with bugs and other issues. But these aren't a Pike problem- every ship that has these missiles tends to mostly avoid using them. You want to combine them, I'd just like to see them not be terrible. That's all. Personally, I think the problem is that these are ultimately debuff missiles. Shields are a kind of health, but not the real kind, and I honestly feel both having a greater opportunity cost than concussion (same lock on, same arc, slower but similar flight times, much worse reload times) is really unfair, given that concussion is actually pretty good and does damage. If it requires X effort to land a concussion, landing an EMP or Ion should be less than X. Super fast flight, much bigger targeting, much faster reload, longer range- any of these.

But, again, that's a different issue. If you fixed EMP and Ion, you wouldn't fix the Pike (though you might give it a real build). The type 3 gunship has an EMP missile, it's not a crap ship, right? The type 3 scout isn't as bad as the Pike, and it can use both of these. So can the Clarion. Yes, they should be buffed. No, that's not a strike problem.

Make it to where all missiles except clusters can not be broken once they are in the air

I would add interdiction to this list. I'll tell you why this won't happen- it removes the "interactability" of the missile system for most players. Long lockon missiles and both torps are tuned very poorly, and this probably WOULD fix it. I think the system where missiles are binary is frustrating- a system where breaking a missile in the air halves its damage (really halves it, not some armor crap) instead of eliminating it would work ok too. But it's way to harsh to have to hope that you can point blank a missile on a target sitting on a keyboard of buttons that will break it, and your only hope is to launch sub 800m and hope he can't respond in time. It's also way too harsh to loose a missile with a giant cooldown and have it immediately negated.

Anyway, I really like that idea, and it actually WOULD help strikes. But I'll point out- the last change to buff missiles was to increase the cooldown on missile breaks. It really did buff missiles, but did it help strikes? The Pike had a place in the 10 second barrel roll world, and now it doesn't. That was BECAUSE of that change, to a great degree.

This is why I think, buff the strike chassis first. Yes, you could give them disto, and targeting telemtry, and rocket pods, and burst lasers, and then you'd have a battle scout that is slower but with thicker health- but that homogenization would really not help. If you instead fixed the base strike stats or whatever, they would be able to perform correctly with the weapons they have. You could also buff the legitimately weak commonish options (RFL, EMP, Ion definitely, LLC and torps and QCC probably, LC and QLC maybe a dash) and that would help all ships have more builds, but you need more than that to fix the strike.

tunewalker · May 12, 2015

Verain, while you make good points, and honestly your points are EXACTLY why the title is as it is. The post was rambly, because when I created it, I DIDNT know what I was going to say, only that all this "give them Burst LAZORS" and "Give them Disto" were all ATTEMPTED bandaid fixes that would ultimately do jack squat. They HAVE good components Especially on the T1... Heavies, Ions, Clusters, Directionals, Retros...... these are good weapons, shields engines.... whats the issue then? Well they cant get into RANGE to use their weapons and not be neutered instantly by opponents.... my solution fix the mid range missile (conc) and increase Ion's range. The other solution as you suggested is a chasis Adjustment, which I also suggested....

The issue with the Chasis Adjustment fix though came from the Pike.... what Chasis adjustment is going to fix that flying hunk of junk?.... With the way missiles, and missile breaks work in this game, the Pike is bad on a conceptual level. The entire point of its system ability is to bypass Reload times, but that doesnt help when people have a way to break 2 missiles back to back and the ship has to wait for reloads any way. Reducing Reloads, as I said, doesnt really help either as that just makes OTHER strike fighters better and still leaves it with no place.

I guess what I am asking is, if you think a Chasis adjustment would fix ALL strikes, with out giving them something on their chasis that doesnt exist any where else in the game (negative Shield pierce, Passive Damage, Passive Accuracy Chasis boosts... no other ship has anything like these are their Chasis....) what would you do to fix the PIKE specifically, and would it really fix the Pike or would it just fix the Star Gaurd and the Clarion and still leave the Pike in the dust.

Making Torps better for ships like the T2 Gunship, and Ions and Emp's better for the T3 scout would help these ships... which truthfully need help any way, so whats so wrong with making bad ships better with component changes, but that's my attempt at multi solution 1 stoning again.... but as you so often point out.... Stones are cheap, throw more stones.

Any way all of this is basically theorectical any way, we both know that Bioware has given up on GSF and wont ever do anything with it again.

Edit: after re-reading your post a bit further, I am seeing that you seem to be suggesting Chasis Adjustment FIRST, AND THEN component adjustment. IE it ultimately wont be 1 adjustment needed to make ALL strikes work (and really not ALL of any ship work, we have 2 working bombers, GS, and Scouts... why should all 3 strikes work when all 3 of the others dont work to) but a chasis adjustment to get 2 to work and then components to get all the rest of the ships (the 1 missing strike, scout, GS, and Bomber at that point) would be the way to go.... and I can get behind that.

Edited May 12, 2015 by tunewalker

Verain · May 13, 2015

What if, as a "reward" for the long lock/reload times, line of sight was irrelevant to torpedoes...

LoS is the most fair way to break locks (you need a thing near you), and the only reason breakless ships are in the meta. This would make the game much worse, and push the meta very far towards distortion. You would see more type 3 bombers, at the expense of type 1 and type 2. It's a really bad idea.

VThey HAVE good components Especially on the T1... Heavies, Ions, Clusters, Directionals, Retros...... these are good weapons, shields engines.... whats the issue then?

Well, they don't have the BEST components in all slots. I mean, clusters, pods, seismics and slug railgun are generally your best in slot secondary weapons, and strikes get clusters of that pool- without the same tricks a scout has to land said clusters. Distortion, etc etc.

But I agree that's not the right way.

The other solution as you suggested is a chasis Adjustment, which I also suggested....

In the threads where we talk about this, we don't limit ourselves to "10% extra health". We say stuff like "15% faster lockon, 20% more damage with all blasters" or "all weapons get 50% increased range" or something. In one thread you suggested giving them crazy fast turning. Yes, things like this would fix the Pike. The Pike's core concept is correct, and people run double breaks because otherwise they WOULD get toasted by missiles. That speaks to a problem in the implementation of missiles, which you also seek to change, but I don't think you would need to go all the way to that.

My big reason for not talking about all that stuff is this: a giant meta shake up could easily leave you with two viable ships instead of three to six. Even if one of them was a strike for a change, that would be a much worse game. Meanwhile, we know that scouts are doing the strike job because the strike's can't.

tunewalker · May 13, 2015

LoS is the most fair way to break locks (you need a thing near you), and the only reason breakless ships are in the meta. This would make the game much worse, and push the meta very far towards distortion. You would see more type 3 bombers, at the expense of type 1 and type 2. It's a really bad idea.

Well, they don't have the BEST components in all slots. I mean, clusters, pods, seismics and slug railgun are generally your best in slot secondary weapons, and strikes get clusters of that pool- without the same tricks a scout has to land said clusters. Distortion, etc etc.

But I agree that's not the right way.

In the threads where we talk about this, we don't limit ourselves to "10% extra health". We say stuff like "15% faster lockon, 20% more damage with all blasters" or "all weapons get 50% increased range" or something. In one thread you suggested giving them crazy fast turning. Yes, things like this would fix the Pike. The Pike's core concept is correct, and people run double breaks because otherwise they WOULD get toasted by missiles. That speaks to a problem in the implementation of missiles, which you also seek to change, but I don't think you would need to go all the way to that.

My big reason for not talking about all that stuff is this: a giant meta shake up could easily leave you with two viable ships instead of three to six. Even if one of them was a strike for a change, that would be a much worse game. Meanwhile, we know that scouts are doing the strike job because the strike's can't.

Again look at chasis in game. Increasing Health, increasing Turning, increasing speed, increasing engine Efficiency, changes to even Sensor stuff, regen speeds these are on Chasis. Increased Range, Accuracy, Damage, lock on times, reload times.... that is a component thing. In short, if you think their problem is Health, Mobility, regen, or efficiency then it is Chasis adjustment needed. If you think their problem is Range, Accuracy, Damage, Lock-on Times, Reload Times, the it is a component Adjustment needed.

Double missile breaks are needed to keep people from getting wrecked BY CLUSTERS... and that is all, it is not neccisary for those longer lock missiles... Look at bombers 0 missile breaks, usually do just fine in avoiding Torps... and even if they DONT it takes THREE P. Torps to take them down, lock time + reload....= 4+12+4+12+4=36 Seconds, not including travel time on the final torp, and assuming the bomber DOESNT LoS any of these missiles, which they often do.

Edit: Fear is NEVER a good reason for not doing something. Sure it could end up worse, but it could end up better, you dont know till you do it, and fear of the worst case scenario prevents you from the progress that could lead to the best case scenario. Honestly any "Shake up" will FEEL for a little while like Scouts, gunships and bombers arent "viable" but that's only because of how complacent pilots have gotten with their abilities to kill any one that dares jump in a strike (be it a new alt that only has a couple ships or the person just really likes the ship) now finding they have to be careful on their Approach to every ship type. A change to strikes would hopefully be enough that approaching one is considered dangerous, or one approaching you is considered dangerous, but with proper flight, or with the drop on it, they are still able to be brought down, just like every other ship in the meta.

Edited May 13, 2015 by tunewalker

Ramalina · May 13, 2015

The balance issues really stem from the mechanics and numbers tuning in GSF supporting some ship and component concepts very well, but supporting other ship and component concepts very poorly. Take offensive design for strikes vs the meta scouts and GS as an example.

In terms of offensive function the T1 and T2 strikes are conceptually built around having very different specialized options for either primary weapon DPS or secondary weapon DPS. With Ion-Quads, Ion-Heavies or Quads-Heavies the T1s sort of have that, though in practice it works in a fashion that wringing any advantage out of those specializations compared to just a single blaster is extremely difficult. With the T2 strike the cluster is a nice short range option, and it is a great contrast with the medium and long range options that come in a variety of flavors of uselessness. The problem is that the combination of good short range missile and mediocre to terrible any-other-range missile doesn't really do anything useful for the strike in game play.

A T1 gunship with slug and ion has the same sort of specialized weapon swap design, but in it's case the different specialized components are both great in their specific fields and can be easily combined to become much more powerful than they are in isolation. The design as executed in game supports the concept well.

Scouts have the same sort of concept support in their common DPS builds. Quads (or Laser cannons) & Pods is a mid range burst DPS build that requires good aim and is can be countered by reducing accuracy, BLC + Cluster builds are very short range, strongly resistant to being countered by accuracy reductions, but make the scout much more at risk from things like mines. The components work when it comes time to execute the functions assigned in the design concept.

From a competitive standpoint, the only ships worth getting are: a T2 BLC scout, a T2 quads & pods scout (or T1 pods clone), a T1 Slug-Ion GS, a Seismic-Beacon Minelayer, and a Tensor-Repair T3 scout.

They work in the meta because their components are effective at supporting the ship concept in most or all relevant aspects of gameplay.**

**The tensor scout isn't really a good ship in the same sense as the other 4, but tensor is so incredibly powerful at the start of a competitive domination match that it can make the list purely on the strength of a single component that supports the buffing concept fantastically well in a particular and frequently occurring circumstance.

There are a few instances of outright poor concept design, for instance giving the T2 strike armor. You can't have armor be an adequate defense for the T2 and not be overly powerful on other ships with armor, unless you come up with a new armor type that really only works well on the T2 strike.

For the most part though, the concepts are ok, but execution in terms of mechanics and appropriate values on a lot of components are stuck in a limbo between alpha and beta stages of completion. If they would just finish balancing the GSF components that aren't done yet a lot of the current balance problems would vanish, and the meta would be vastly deeper.

Problem is that there are a lot of components that need a lot of work, and the chances of the bulk of them ever getting it are low enough to be indistinguishable from zero.

So I'd settle for missile break balance (even if the utility missiles remain futility missiles when they hit, as long as the DPS ones work it's good enough), and a bit more boost endurance for strikes.

Anyway, I really like that idea, and it actually WOULD help strikes. But I'll point out- the last change to buff missiles was to increase the cooldown on missile breaks. It really did buff missiles, but did it help strikes? The Pike had a place in the 10 second barrel roll world, and now it doesn't. That was BECAUSE of that change, to a great degree.

Yes it did help strikes, though not that much. As a class strikes picked up a little bit more offensive power from cluster and concussion missiles, and gained a significant mobility advantage against both gunships and scouts. The T2's problem is that is was heavily reliant on being above a certain threshold of mobility, and the Barrel Roll nerf dropped it below that threshold. The other strikes can pick up Power Dive or Retro and get some compensation for Barrel's loss in mobility, but the T2 doesn't have those options.

Edited May 13, 2015 by Ramalina

Verain · May 13, 2015

TWith Ion-Quads, Ion-Heavies or Quads-Heavies the T1s sort of have that, though in practice it works in a fashion that wringing any advantage out of those specializations compared to just a single blaster is extremely difficult.

Right, but they don't have ion-blc, ion-light, or "long range ion/ heavy". Ions have more synergy with cluster missiles than any they do any blaster the ship has. That's a pretty big issue. In practice, the starguard deals mad dps with ion stripping shields instantly... to targets that can opt out of that struggle, kill you before you get in range, or vastly out turn you. In the type 1 strike's case, the problem is that you can't *meaningfully* switch weapons, and a big part of that is that the weapons are set up the way they are, and on the chassis that they are.

With the T2 strike the cluster is a nice short range option, and it is a great contrast with the medium and long range options that come in a variety of flavors of uselessness. The problem is that the combination of good short range missile and mediocre to terrible any-other-range missile doesn't really do anything useful for the strike in game play.

I mean, it does *something*. It doesn't do enough. It's also wild that you can't choose interdiction, and that so many of the options on the Pike's menu were pulled from the "undertuned or bad" missile category. Yes, it's an issue with missiles in general, but still.

A T1 gunship with slug and ion has the same sort of specialized weapon swap design, but in it's case the different specialized components are both great in their specific fields and can be easily combined to become much more powerful than they are in isolation. The design as executed in game supports the concept well.

But lets be real here: There's ten possible secondary combinations on a type 2 strike. The cluster is the most potent, and the others, as you say, don't add a huge amount. The ones that are meant to add synergistically have too many restrictions to do that, and the medium range ones are all "concussion" or "bad concussion". Of these 10 combinations, about three of them could be argued to be "best"- cluster / proton, cluster / concussion, concussion / proton. Then you have a couple support builds that basically fly a generic strike fighter (heavies or quads combined with concussion or cluster), except with a utility missile. But of that lot, all ultimately ask the type 2 strike pilot to strike, and strike repeatedly, the same target. It's too much reliance on missiles, and the missile gameplay requires you to commit to a target both in position and with resources. Of the Pike's builds, of which they are many, all are rather poor. If you made chassis changes, you could suddenly bring a BUNCH of Pike tricks into the meta, especially if you fixed the way-too-weak missiles (which would also give you more options on other ships too). But as it is, it's simply not reasonable to expect a type 2 strike pilot to strike a target with like four lockons to score a kill.

Gunship has only THREE possibiltities, less than a third of the Pike. Of these, one is actually good. This is actually less deep selection that the Pike- the game really does need more railguns. In addition, it's reasonable to ask a railgunner to strike a target 2-3 times, especially with the ability to change to another target when one gets too close, gets too far, LOSes, or uses an immunity- there's often another target to use the charge on, or at least a zone to threaten, and even if you are totally negated by opponents scattering, you still don't necessarily have bad position- you used up mana to charge the gun, but you aren't out of breath in enemy territory just for trying to do your job.

The type 1 gunship needs more valid railguns added, and that will make play much deeper. Maybe buffs for plasma.

The type 1 strike could use a chassis buff or missile rule change to make their existing weapons threatening. Ion cannon being so short range remains frustrating a year in, and adding light lasers to the ship would do just so very much for it, especially in combination with something that makes the strike actually threatening. Ideally, you'd want all the weapon combinations to be good for something, and we are pretty far from that- but the couple main builds for the ship are at least good at some things on live, so the ship has a clear path to viability.

The type 2 strike needs a chassis buff, and likely some more components. The weak missiles need to be fixed (a game wide issue), but this alone won't give the attack strike a role. We would also need some baseline buffs as well, or rule changes similar to what tune has proposed. It's far enough from viability that multiple paths get there, because they all mean "cut through the forest of weak ship".

Yes it did help strikes, though not that much.

No way, it hurt strikes. Before that nerf, strikes were mostly as able to get around the map as scouts, were mostly able to break missiles as scouts. Certainly, playing AS a Pike became a much more defensive game after that, and everyone was sort of under the impression that the opposite would be true. Distortion muted the effects of the nerf for scouts. It ended up being a giant scout buff, a mild gunship nerf, and a huge strike nerf. Strikes weren't great before it, but it really punished them- specifically the type 2 strike, who has to live or die by barrel roll.

My summary is unchanged: moderate to large buffs to the strike fighters, specifically the type 1 and type 2 strikes, of almost any sort, will greatly improve the meta.

Edited May 13, 2015 by Verain

Ramalina · May 14, 2015

Right, but they don't have ion-blc, ion-light, or "long range ion/ heavy". Ions have more synergy with cluster missiles than any they do any blaster the ship has. That's a pretty big issue. In practice, the starguard deals mad dps with ion stripping shields instantly... to targets that can opt out of that struggle, kill you before you get in range, or vastly out turn you. In the type 1 strike's case, the problem is that you can't *meaningfully* switch weapons, and a big part of that is that the weapons are set up the way they are, and on the chassis that they are.

I was being careful in terminology with, "wringing any advantage out of." You can do meaningful switches. Having HLC and Ion on the same ship lets you do good damage in a much larger set of conditions than would be possible with just one or the other. They just don't really stack. So the set of [can do decent DPS] is expanded, but the peak rate of lethal DPS is pretty much unchanged. The thing is, GSF is designed so that peak rate is a lot more valuable than adaptability to more conditions.

I mean, it does *something*. It doesn't do enough. It's also wild that you can't choose interdiction, and that so many of the options on the Pike's menu were pulled from the "undertuned or bad" missile category. Yes, it's an issue with missiles in general, but still.

Well, yes. Making more beeping noises is something, just not something especially relevant to balance.

... stuff about relative numbers of tricks for Pikes and T1 gunships . . . .

Well, in terms of balance, the total number of possible tricks is completely irrelevant. What counts is the number of tricks that are reliably about as good as every else's favorite tricks. A buff to the strike chassis isn't really a trick in itself, it's just a way to get to and from the stage that you want to perform on.

The Pike's problem is that even with a free pass to the stage it doesn't have any tricks that work. Fix missile break balance, and it gets 3 or so tricks, throw in interdiction and thermite (or make utility missiles useful) and it has a big bag of working tricks.

It would be great for plasma to be improved enough for gunships to have a few more useful tricks. Other things like a short range AOE or cone AOE type railguns could also be neat (flechette railgun?), and more working diversity would be great. As of right now though, having one trick that works is a lot better than having many that don't.

The type 1 strike could use a chassis buff or missile rule change to make their existing weapons threatening. Ion cannon being so short range remains frustrating a year in, and adding light lasers to the ship would do just so very much for it, especially in combination with something that makes the strike actually threatening. Ideally, you'd want all the weapon combinations to be good for something, and we are pretty far from that- but the couple main builds for the ship are at least good at some things on live, so the ship has a clear path to viability.

The type 2 strike needs a chassis buff, and likely some more components. The weak missiles need to be fixed (a game wide issue), but this alone won't give the attack strike a role. We would also need some baseline buffs as well, or rule changes similar to what tune has proposed. It's far enough from viability that multiple paths get there, because they all mean "cut through the forest of weak ship".

I think that missile balance affects so many of the weakest ships in GSF that it really needs to be addressed. That's why it crops up as complaint number one when I'm harping on balance. Strikes are the class as a whole that needs that worked on, but I think every single one of the underperforming ships would benefit from getting missiles balanced correctly.

A few days ago I made a list of what I consider "meta-level powered" components, and then made a little chart of ship types by how many "meta" components could be equipped at the same time on each ship type. All of the dominant ships can take five meta-level majors. The competitive but not quite dominant ships can take four meta level major components, of which at least two will synergize well. The non-competitive ships have meta-level components available in 2-4 of the major component slots, and typically none of them synergize well.

To bring the underperforming ships up to par, they can't stay behind by both number of slots with good components available and behind on beneficial interaction between the good components.

No way, it hurt strikes. Before that nerf, strikes were mostly as able to get around the map as scouts, were mostly able to break missiles as scouts. Certainly, playing AS a Pike became a much more defensive game after that, and everyone was sort of under the impression that the opposite would be true. Distortion muted the effects of the nerf for scouts. It ended up being a giant scout buff, a mild gunship nerf, and a huge strike nerf. Strikes weren't great before it, but it really punished them- specifically the type 2 strike, who has to live or die by barrel roll.

With the old BR strikes were a lot better at running away, but that was pretty much all that they were good for, and running away doesn't count for much in GSF if it's the only thing you're capable of. Yeah, Pikes went from having what was effectively the only meta worthy engine maneuver to having a barely meta worthy engine maneuver after the change. It still reaped a lot of the benefits of the change though.

Practical missile dps increased substantially, windows for sustained DPS on most targets go a lot longer (important when you pretty much don't have a source of burst damage), it became possible to outrun gunships, and a lot of scouts dropped BR for other engine maneuvers.

Strikes as a class got a lot out of the change, unfortunately the T2 went from having 25% of its engine options being suitable for its builds to having 0% percent of the options being suitable. The T2 has far more than its fair share of crappy components, and given the effort involved in fixing them (and the miserable record the devs have when it comes to balancing components that involve regeneration, endurance, or debuffs) it probably makes more sense to add or swap some things instead of fixing the really trashy stuff. Give the Pike: Retros, Power Dive, Interdiction, and turn the armor slot into a reactor slot and you're getting pretty close to Starguard level power. Would it be cool if shield and weapon converters were worthwhile, if they combined well with primary weapons or armor? Sure, but I don't see that happening.

My summary is unchanged: moderate to large buffs to the strike fighters, specifically the type 1 and type 2 strikes, of almost any sort, will greatly improve the meta.

No argument there, I just hope that there's still a strike feel and flying style to them afterwards.

Hm, I hadn't meant to get very specific about particular fixes in this post, it was supposed to be more in the nature of balance philosophy.

The fundamental points being:

GSF got built on a, "cool concept first, worry about balance later," basis. That made good balancing a large and difficult task, especially in some areas where the devs just aren't that good at getting balance right (regen, endurance, debuffs).

The ships that are least competitive in GSF all share the traits of not being able to equip as many well designed components at the same time as the competitive ships can, and their components don't gain as much from interaction between components as the ones on competitive ships do. Unless those gaps get addressed balance probably isn't going to change much. Fixing broken stuff would be the best solution from a gameplay standpoint, but from a practical standpoint homogenizing by spreading the existing good components to ships that don't have them is probably more doable.

Verain · May 14, 2015

I mean, I mostly agree. I just dispute that they don't have synergy. Ion missile has a lot of synergy with concussion missile... but that's not effective, right? Ion blaster has a lot of synergy with cluster missiles, but that dps doesn't make the ship good. Being able to target close and far by swapping between heavies and rapid fires is synergy, but as you point out, that's not a big enough advantage in any way.

Strike Fighter... Chasis or Components?

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