Let's talk about Strike Fighters

[Ramalina]

 

In my view strikes should be sturdy fighters specialized on mid range combat but more specialized on keeping pressure on an enemy than to actually deal the killing blow.

 

This sounds nice, but it would require some mighty powerful buffs to survivability to work. Getting killing blows wouldn't be a problem for a pressure/endurance style fighter as scouts and gunships are already both readily shredded by a strike if they can be pressured to the point of running out of cooldowns and running low on engine energy.

 

The thing is, in order to do that a strike would need to be able to survive a cooldown fueled burst cycle with a greater than 50% chance of survival and still have enough health, energy, and ammunition to attack the target during its cooldown off cycle.

 

If you think that endurance is the way for strikes to go instead of parity on burst damage, then they would need to be the most durable ship in the game when mostly out in the open. Meaning that pretty much any strike should be harder to kill than a scout with evasion stacked to 91% or a bomber with charged plating active. That probably applies to boost endurance too. If you want strikes to still take more than twice as long as other ships to kill a target then they need to be able to stay on that target for twice as long without undue difficulty.

 

It sounds a blt like a relentless-evil-villain style of play, say like a Terminator, or the Borg or something like that which may not be that fast but is close to unstoppable and will just wear you down to the point where you're an easy kill when it finally catches up.

 

Unless what you mean by pressure is, "still non-threatening and an easy kill for scouts and gunships," in which case, screw that.

 

Whatever buffs strikes end up with, a highly skilled pilot in a strike should have the same sort of potential to influence game outcome as a highly skilled pilot in any other ship class. So if peak performance is going to remain lower than the other ships then a strike is going to need to able to be continue being productive in the fight after things have gotten so hot that all the other classes have been forced to run for it.

[tunewalker]

a Terminator,

 

I am fine with being this....

[Gavin_Kelvar]

This sounds nice, but it would require some mighty powerful buffs to survivability to work. Getting killing blows wouldn't be a problem for a pressure/endurance style fighter as scouts and gunships are already both readily shredded by a strike if they can be pressured to the point of running out of cooldowns and running low on engine energy.

 

The thing is, in order to do that a strike would need to be able to survive a cooldown fueled burst cycle with a greater than 50% chance of survival and still have enough health, energy, and ammunition to attack the target during its cooldown off cycle.

 

If you think that endurance is the way for strikes to go instead of parity on burst damage, then they would need to be the most durable ship in the game when mostly out in the open. Meaning that pretty much any strike should be harder to kill than a scout with evasion stacked to 91% or a bomber with charged plating active. That probably applies to boost endurance too. If you want strikes to still take more than twice as long as other ships to kill a target then they need to be able to stay on that target for twice as long without undue difficulty.

 

It sounds a blt like a relentless-evil-villain style of play, say like a Terminator, or the Borg or something like that which may not be that fast but is close to unstoppable and will just wear you down to the point where you're an easy kill when it finally catches up.

 

Unless what you mean by pressure is, "still non-threatening and an easy kill for scouts and gunships," in which case, screw that.

 

Whatever buffs strikes end up with, a highly skilled pilot in a strike should have the same sort of potential to influence game outcome as a highly skilled pilot in any other ship class. So if peak performance is going to remain lower than the other ships then a strike is going to need to able to be continue being productive in the fight after things have gotten so hot that all the other classes have been forced to run for it.

 

This idea seems pretty solid and would make strikers unique unlike now where they encounter the problem of being slower, less agile, and less bursty scouts. I still think they need some performance tuning (such as 10% increase to base turning) and making concs/torps reliable weapons to make them more competitive dogfighters. If they're going to have a terminator playstyle they'd still need those performance boosts to keep targets under their guns and use missiles to wear them down. But I do think it's a far better idea than trying to make them "mid-range" fighters which could only meaningfully be achieved by giving them 1) an absurdly high range increase that redefines "mid range" as something in the ballpark of 7,000-13,000km (scouts close the current midrange distance too quickly for it to be a meaningful range without a very, very large buff to a striker's blaster damage) or 2) strip MLC/QLC from scouts and heavily nerf the range of pods. I'm not really sure trying to make strikers just a slower, less agile, scout with competitive burst would be a sufficient change to give them a clear role (it would be better than no change) so this feels like it would really give them a unique playstyle that would also fit with the general concept of being a "strike fighter."

 

The terminator style would also make strikers very newb friendly since they'd have the ability to tank basically anything while they learned how to fly instead of the current situation where they'll easily get melted by a half competent veteran. They still might not tally up lots of kills but they'd at least feel they had a chance to do something other than watch their ship blow up in seconds numerous times. Which I always felt was kind of one of the striker's "roles." Namely being the most forgiving ship since, in my experience in other games, the X-Wing class ship was always the most forgiving of pilot error.

 

T3 Strike is specialized in Support

- Add 2km radius for all beneficial team effects to make them easier to use.

(- I was thinking about something like a reverse seeker mine that locks on to allies and restores their shield, but the T3 strike is in a relatively good position right now and I'm not sure he needs additional buffs when he has the two general strike buffs mentioned above)

 

While I think a radius increase to their support abilities would be good I think we (both us pilots and the devs) need to stop thinking of the T3 as the support striker and think of it as an assault striker. It's system ability alone leaves it largerly an offensive fighter with some support utility (or no true support utility if it takes remote slicing). A lot of it's potential builds are geared more towards a heavy fighter specializing in assaulting heavily defended areas where any support ability is incidental (we all know it can be a very tanky fighter). Without a dramatic reduction in CD time it's system abilities will never have enough up time to make it support first, offense second. And I dislike the idea of the T3 having buffs where there is only one true build reaches the ship's full potential (namely one where only support related components are taken).

 

So overall I think the T3 should also get buffs (HLC, maybe concs, swap the sensor minor component for something more useful) that allow it's existing heavy fighter builds to reach their full potential as well improving the existing support fighter builds.

[Verain]

Anyone think we'll get any more comms from devs before the expac, which presumably is where the strike changes will happen? Possibly with a bunch of other meta changing stuff or req changing stuff that remove everything we offered from validity?

[Danalon]

This sounds nice, but it would require some mighty powerful buffs to survivability to work. Getting killing blows wouldn't be a problem for a pressure/endurance style fighter as scouts and gunships are already both readily shredded by a strike if they can be pressured to the point of running out of cooldowns and running low on engine energy.

 

The thing is, in order to do that a strike would need to be able to survive a cooldown fueled burst cycle with a greater than 50% chance of survival and still have enough health, energy, and ammunition to attack the target during its cooldown off cycle.

 

If you think that endurance is the way for strikes to go instead of parity on burst damage, then they would need to be the most durable ship in the game when mostly out in the open. Meaning that pretty much any strike should be harder to kill than a scout with evasion stacked to 91% or a bomber with charged plating active. That probably applies to boost endurance too. If you want strikes to still take more than twice as long as other ships to kill a target then they need to be able to stay on that target for twice as long without undue difficulty.

 

It sounds a blt like a relentless-evil-villain style of play, say like a Terminator, or the Borg or something like that which may not be that fast but is close to unstoppable and will just wear you down to the point where you're an easy kill when it finally catches up.

 

Unless what you mean by pressure is, "still non-threatening and an easy kill for scouts and gunships," in which case, screw that.

 

Whatever buffs strikes end up with, a highly skilled pilot in a strike should have the same sort of potential to influence game outcome as a highly skilled pilot in any other ship class. So if peak performance is going to remain lower than the other ships then a strike is going to need to able to be continue being productive in the fight after things have gotten so hot that all the other classes have been forced to run for it.

 

Just some points:

Strikes are already as durable as charged-plating-bombers. Just use charged plating on the strike.

Nothing survives a full burst with cooldowns if it doesn't run away.

Having influence on a game isn't necesarily the same as having big numbers in the stats screen at the end.

Strikes don't need to be able to stay on target "twice as long" because going after targets that run away is either done by scouts or by gunships. (Also think about it: when you can make someone run away you succeded at defending whatever you were defending, satellite or teammate.)

 

With the changes I proposed I want to make Strikes good at providing cover for a larger area than bombers and also without the disadvantage of being chained to their deployables. After all a 9-10km HLC will be a serious threat - just think about railgun drones (And they're not even intelligent). Also Strikes providing cover that large of an area may be similar to gunship providing railgun cover for each other.

 

 

The reason why I'm so obsessed with Strikes in a support role is because that's what they (should) do now and I want them to be useful at it. Another point is that Strikes are most similar to the playstyle of Rogue Squadron (I loved that game for the N64) and I'd like to see that playstyle surviving the changes. And maybe the increased range makes it easier for beginners to get started.

[Danalon]

Anyone think we'll get any more comms from devs before the expac, which presumably is where the strike changes will happen? Possibly with a bunch of other meta changing stuff or req changing stuff that remove everything we offered from validity?

 

I hop they let us test the changes on PTR.

[Gavin_Kelvar]

T2 Strike is pecialized on secondary weapons.

- Reduce lock on time for all secondary weapons. (I was thinking about reduced cooldown, but this ship already has two secondaries which more or less means reduced cooldowns). Reduction should be around 1 second depending on weapon.

- Add 2 degress lockon arc for all secondary weapons.

 

Just worth pointing out but these need to be changes made to all non-cluster missiles by default (for all ships, including the t2 GS). In their current state they're simply not reliable weapons so you'd be screwing the T1 & T3 strikers leaving them with secondary weapons that are largely ineffective. If the idea is to make them midrange fighters you'd be crippling the T1 by leaving it with only clusters as an reliable secondary which wouldn't synergize at all with the new range of it's blasters forcing it to 1) yield it's new range advantage to get close enough to use it's secondaries 2) rely entirely on blaster weapon damage which, without a massive damage buff, would leave it unable to be meaningfully threatening to scouts/GS that can pop multiple evasion buffs to ignore the striker (much like they can do now) or (in the case of scouts) close the gap rapidly enough to make the damage non-threatening (given how fast a scout can close the gap between a GS firing at 15,000km they'd easily close a 10,000km gap before HLC could do a truly threatening level of damage; if the striker is using QLC they'd only have gained 2-3,000km distance before a quad'n'pod scout was in range, a range advantage that is fairly trivial to close for a competent scout pilot).

 

With the T3 without those missile buffs it'd be left effectively without a secondary weapon leaving it cripplingly behind it's stable mates. You'd risk turning the T3 from a ship with multiple build options (from heavy fighter to support fighter) to a one trick pony that's only taken for a single ability (repair probes) but would lack the offensive punch to have much influence during it's large CD (I'm totally unconvinced that 2-3,000 km extra range on QLC would give it a noticeable buff to it's offensive punch, especially if it's heavy missiles retain their current unreliable performance).

 

Overall for midrange to work you'd need to do more than buff the range of it's primaries. You'd need to buff all strike primary weapons to be doing BLC crit levels of damage at range or else it wouldn't do threatening levels of damage before a scout closed the distance (a few extra km range is not going to change the fact the strikers, in their current form, do not pressure a target with the "flee or die" ultimatum). However, turning them into ultra-durable terminators that can relentlessly pursue might give them an interesting playstyle and might give them a critical role in eliminating bomber balls and bomber ticks when the tactics used in the existing meta fail.

[Verain]

I hop they let us test the changes on PTR.

 

It's never been possible to get a pop on PTR. In the rest of the game, they offer rewards for this sort of testing. Even in WoW, with a zillion billion players and wayyyyyy more ease-of-install for a PTR, it can be hard to test pvp anything. It's vastly less fun, especially given that every change just goes live with no feedback, unless it is in active serious development with a full time team.

 

 

As to the rest of the thread, I almost think we should have categories we discuss the potential strike buffs in, just to be clear. I mean, a lot of them are there to carve a role for strikes, some are just to buff the current whatevs-role, etc. Some folks want to give them system components, some make them faster, some turn better, many of them are all about offense, but it's clear that most don't ask for all at once. I'm still convinced that there's just a huge stack of viable buffs in this thread, and even the overpowered chaff could, with some fixing, be reasonable.

[Linuxizer]

This sounds nice, but it would require some mighty powerful buffs to survivability to work. Getting killing blows wouldn't be a problem for a pressure/endurance style fighter as scouts and gunships are already both readily shredded by a strike if they can be pressured to the point of running out of cooldowns and running low on engine energy.

 

The thing is, in order to do that a strike would need to be able to survive a cooldown fueled burst cycle with a greater than 50% chance of survival and still have enough health, energy, and ammunition to attack the target during its cooldown off cycle.

 

If you think that endurance is the way for strikes to go instead of parity on burst damage, then they would need to be the most durable ship in the game when mostly out in the open. Meaning that pretty much any strike should be harder to kill than a scout with evasion stacked to 91% or a bomber with charged plating active. That probably applies to boost endurance too. If you want strikes to still take more than twice as long as other ships to kill a target then they need to be able to stay on that target for twice as long without undue difficulty.

 

It sounds a blt like a relentless-evil-villain style of play, say like a Terminator, or the Borg or something like that which may not be that fast but is close to unstoppable and will just wear you down to the point where you're an easy kill when it finally catches up.

 

Unless what you mean by pressure is, "still non-threatening and an easy kill for scouts and gunships," in which case, screw that.

 

Whatever buffs strikes end up with, a highly skilled pilot in a strike should have the same sort of potential to influence game outcome as a highly skilled pilot in any other ship class. So if peak performance is going to remain lower than the other ships then a strike is going to need to able to be continue being productive in the fight after things have gotten so hot that all the other classes have been forced to run for it.

 

Increasing hull, shields, evasion and/or engine pool would certainly help the Strike Fighter. But, to be able to influence game outcome at any point in the match, increasing burst damage instead would help more. That means either a direct increase to weapon damage, or increases to speed and manoevrability to help the pilot land those QLC or Ion Cannon shots. The T3 Strike is already quite durable, and that just makes it a support ship.

 

Domination matches today can be quite static already. Giving Strikes much more shields and hull than Bombers would mean most matches will be decided in the first 30 seconds.

[Danalon]

Just worth pointing out but these need to be changes made to all non-cluster missiles by default (for all ships, including the t2 GS). In their current state they're simply not reliable weapons so you'd be screwing the T1 & T3 strikers leaving them with secondary weapons that are largely ineffective. If the idea is to make them midrange fighters you'd be crippling the T1 by leaving it with only clusters as an reliable secondary which wouldn't synergize at all with the new range of it's blasters forcing it to 1) yield it's new range advantage to get close enough to use it's secondaries 2) rely entirely on blaster weapon damage which, without a massive damage buff, would leave it unable to be meaningfully threatening to scouts/GS that can pop multiple evasion buffs to ignore the striker (much like they can do now) or (in the case of scouts) close the gap rapidly enough to make the damage non-threatening (given how fast a scout can close the gap between a GS firing at 15,000km they'd easily close a 10,000km gap before HLC could do a truly threatening level of damage; if the striker is using QLC they'd only have gained 2-3,000km distance before a quad'n'pod scout was in range, a range advantage that is fairly trivial to close for a competent scout pilot).

 

With the T3 without those missile buffs it'd be left effectively without a secondary weapon leaving it cripplingly behind it's stable mates. You'd risk turning the T3 from a ship with multiple build options (from heavy fighter to support fighter) to a one trick pony that's only taken for a single ability (repair probes) but would lack the offensive punch to have much influence during it's large CD (I'm totally unconvinced that 2-3,000 km extra range on QLC would give it a noticeable buff to it's offensive punch, especially if it's heavy missiles retain their current unreliable performance).

 

Overall for midrange to work you'd need to do more than buff the range of it's primaries. You'd need to buff all strike primary weapons to be doing BLC crit levels of damage at range or else it wouldn't do threatening levels of damage before a scout closed the distance (a few extra km range is not going to change the fact the strikers, in their current form, do not pressure a target with the "flee or die" ultimatum). However, turning them into ultra-durable terminators that can relentlessly pursue might give them an interesting playstyle and might give them a critical role in eliminating bomber balls and bomber ticks when the tactics used in the existing meta fail.

 

When writing down my suggestions I didn't have joust fights in mind. I try to avoid joust fights because they're a waste of cooldowns. Also you shouldn't try jousting a Scout anyway, especially not a Q&P Scout.

 

 

Increasing hull, shields, evasion and/or engine pool would certainly help the Strike Fighter. But, to be able to influence game outcome at any point in the match, increasing burst damage instead would help more. That means either a direct increase to weapon damage, or increases to speed and manoevrability to help the pilot land those QLC or Ion Cannon shots. The T3 Strike is already quite durable, and that just makes it a support ship.

 

Domination matches today can be quite static already. Giving Strikes much more shields and hull than Bombers would mean most matches will be decided in the first 30 seconds.

 

If you want a ship that has burst, is maneuverable and fast then use a scout. Sure, Strikes would have the same influence as Scouts if they had the same abilities but Strikes wouldn't exist as a class anymore then. They just would become Scouts. Strikes should stay unique.

Edited August 1, 2015 by Danalon

[MiaowZedong]

Also you shouldn't try jousting a Scout anyway, especially not a Q&P Scout.

And that's the crux of the problem. Any suggestion that does not reverse this will fail. Strikes, being less manoeuverable and less able to force the fight on their terms, must be superior in raw power and consistently win jousts. That's not even up for debate, unless you want to consider making strikes able to keep up and turn with the scouts.

 

Right now, if you consider strike versus scout, there is no trade-off. Even if you consider strike versus GS or versus bomber, what you give up to go strike isn't balanced out by what you gain. Strikes aren't unplayable but they're just...not good.

Edited August 1, 2015 by MiaowZedong

[Danalon]

Bombers can't joust Scouts and are good. Gunships can't joust Scouts and are good. Why do you think Strikes need to be able to joust Scouts in order to be good?

[Gavin_Kelvar]

Bombers can't joust Scouts and are good. Gunships can't joust Scouts and are good. Why do you think Strikes need to be able to joust Scouts in order to be good?

 

Bombers are not designed to be dogfighters, they drop pets that do the damage for them. GS are designed to be snipers which is inherently not dogfighting. In either case their weapons require them to neither win a joust with a scout or win a turn fight with a scout. Strikers on the other hand can only produce damage through dogfighting as they have neither drones or mines to do the damage for them or the extreme long range power to engage a target far outside of that target's ability to retaliate. I think we can rule out strikers getting mines/drones or railguns which leaves them with 1) being able to outturn a scout enough to center shots with non-BLC weapons (since BLC is the only weapon that can reliably land deflection shots) and have the damage to makes those shots seriously hurt or 2) outgun a scout in a joust. If it can't do either it will inherently not have the power to threaten a scout enough to force a scout to consider retreating without the scout pilot first committing serious pilot error. To emphasize their jousting nature strikers share all of their primary weapons with one scout version or another and most of their secondaries require them to basically fly in a straight line while obtaining a lock. The primaries force them to compete within the ranges of various scout builds (putting them in the dogfighter category) and the lock-on nature of strike secondaries favor jousting over turn fighting.

 

A strike doesn't have the boost endurance to flee a scout so they have minimal/no ability to withdraw once a scout gets past whatever range advantage they have. Like a GS a striker absolutely have to rely on beating a scout before the scout can close the distance at which point the scout can use it's superior maneuverability to stay out of a striker's sights. For a striker that means winning a joust which they currently can't do. Giving them a range boost (as you suggested) inherently means making them a jouster anyway since range is only useful in a jousting situation (unless you buff it to the point where they have railgun range at which point you might as well just give them railguns instead).

Edited August 2, 2015 by Gavin_Kelvar

[Ramalina]

Just some points:

Strikes are already as durable as charged-plating-bombers. Just use charged plating on the strike.

Nothing survives a full burst with cooldowns if it doesn't run away.

Having influence on a game isn't necesarily the same as having big numbers in the stats screen at the end.

Strikes don't need to be able to stay on target "twice as long" because going after targets that run away is either done by scouts or by gunships. (Also think about it: when you can make someone run away you succeded at defending whatever you were defending, satellite or teammate.)

 

With the changes I proposed I want to make Strikes good at providing cover for a larger area than bombers and also without the disadvantage of being chained to their deployables. After all a 9-10km HLC will be a serious threat - just think about railgun drones (And they're not even intelligent). Also Strikes providing cover that large of an area may be similar to gunship providing railgun cover for each other.

 

A strike doing it's job is nowhere near as durable as a CP bomber that's doing it's job. For the bomber CP is really a secondary defense for when LOS fails, and that's why CP bombers aren't played out in the open very much. It's not a problem for them because hugging LOS obstacles in no way interferes with their role of close area denial. Fly a CP bomber like a strike, and it's more of a piece of dead meat than the strike is. In any case with the exception of the T3 CP on a strike is a gearing mistake, and even on the T3 it's not actually optimal if tanky-ness is what you're after.

 

Arguably a evasion stacked scout can survive a burst cycle, but it's not entirely reliable due to RNG. Strikes need some sort of answer to burst damage from other ships, both offensively and defensively. It can be situational, just as the answers for the other ship classes are situational, but a strike needs to know what to do to have a decent chance of surviving incoming burst and how to create a, "flee or die," level of offensive pressure on its targets.

 

I'm not sure you want me thinking of railgun drones in this context. Unless, "absurdly easy to kill and not a serious threat unless there are at least four of them covering each other," is what you were after.

 

 

Bombers can't joust Scouts and are good. Gunships can't joust Scouts and are good. Why do you think Strikes need to be able to joust Scouts in order to be good?

 

Probably because that's a reasonable answer to getting to the point where we can answer the question, "If I'm flying in GSF why should I be worried about seeing a strike fighter?"

 

That's the core of what's lacking in your set of suggestions. They're very nice quality of life buffs for strikes, and I would certainly be happy to have them. Unfortunately they don't look like enough to make a strike have clear answers to why strikes are dangerous and annoying in GSF play in the way that scouts, gunships, and bombers all have very clear answers to what makes them dangerous and what makes them a pain in the rear to deal with. Get to the point where those answers exist for strikes, and we'll probably have both a clear role for strikes and very close proximity to balance of power between ship classes.

 

That's not a bad idea in terms of evaluating potential changes, since as Verain pointed out any sort of PTS playtest is unlikely.

 

If I'm in a gunship why do strikes scare me?

If I'm in a gunship how are strikes difficult to deal with?

If I'm in a scout why do strikes scare me?

If I'm in a scout how are strikes difficult to deal with?

If I'm in a bomber why do strikes scare me?

If I'm in a bomber how are strikes difficult to deal with?

 

If there are good solid answers to all of those questions there's a good chance that the balance changes are adequate in terms of resulting feel of play.

[JasonSzeremi]

Bombers can't joust Scouts and are good. Gunships can't joust Scouts and are good. Why do you think Strikes need to be able to joust Scouts in order to be good?

 

This is the easy question: which begs a question: what are strike fighters for (their intended function and their role)

and what are scouts for (their intended function and their role) Bombers are tough and have area denial weapons and they usually out perform strike fighters at area denial. Gunships have 1500 burst damage and that's just the slug railgun, if strikes could do that in 10k- I wouldn't complain at all. Scouts.... are recon craft ment to scout the battle field, they are LIGHTER frames with LIGHTER weapons and limited space for electronics and defenses part of that is committed to a sensor package for their named mission: recon. Strikes are HEAVIER frames with HEAVIER weapons and more room for defenses and sensors. What did they do with this space? the strike has 90% copies of weapons used on other craft, not heavier or supported by complex electronics (scouts get that for some reason). They get multiple mountings places for these second best weapons.

Strike fighters are supposed to be the main dog-fighters, failing that the heaviest close range fighters with the best firepower in that bracket. They have the weight to mount the best weapons, best defenses so they should be tanks or dps in their weapon range.

 

What you are asking is for scouts to be best at the strike's role.

The scout with it's more maneuverable frame, better speed, and unique cool downs is well built for surprise attacks it's the craft for a pilot who knows what they are doing and has the reflexes for a high risk high reward pay off. The skilled/smart pilot's dog fighter.

The strike with it's heavier frame and larger payload is built for direct combat, it's either a tank or dps.... but it lacks the turning and speed to keep it's weapons on targets like scouts. If you cede the scout's turning and head to head with a strike, the strike should have the advantage in raw firepower and durability.... a scout that plays the strike fighter game, shouldn't be the better strike fighter.

Scout as light armored dps, they do alot of damage but ideally from behind or the side. They have the speed, turning, and fuel tanks to get anywhere on the map from spawn faster then anyone else. They can choose which direction to attack any unescorted fighter.

Right now, the sting and flash fire are the nastiest dog fighters, both from behind and the side, but also head on. With the max engine bar, fastest engines, best turning, best up-close firepower, best missile defenses, and good laser defenses (evasion and shields). Why would you want to fly a strike fighter?

The strike is supposed to be worth flying, and I'll cede speed and turning to the scout, I quibble over larger fuel tanks, but in combat the strike needs to shine as a damage dealer or damage taker. Strikes that can't beat a scout in a head to head are not the best at turning, at speed, at engine bar, at firepower, at missile defense, at laser defense (their shields and hull are substantial but it doesn't matter if one pass from a flash fire is all it takes). Basically the flash fire and sting are the best dogfighters, best scouts, best damage dealers in the game

 

Strikes need to be best at something, best head to head firepower perhaps best defense vs lasers.... someone suggested best defense vs debuffs. Let the scouts still be the best at turning and dog fighting... give the strikes the firepower to make them wish they didn't go at them head to head.

[Verain]

Bombers can't joust Scouts and are good. Gunships can't joust Scouts and are good. Why do you think Strikes need to be able to joust Scouts in order to be good?

 

Fastest:

Because strikes don't have mines or railguns.

 

More complete:

Because strike fighters are meant to deal frontal damage at about the same ranges as a scout, but lack the ability to turn to fight a scout, or flee from a scout. You could instead give them these, and maintain their ability to lose a joust. Alternatively, you could keep strikes losing jousts, dogfights, and long fights versus scouts, but give them another role, such as gunships and bombers have.

 

 

But it's probably most obvious that the place to fix is the offensive one. A strike fighter doesn't just lose a joust versus a scout- he often deals no damage at all, while taking devastating or lethal damage himself. If his role is to damage targets in front of him, he needs to beat the scout in a joust, and the scout can't just be expected to pop disto (which he didn't have to blow at 12km to dodge railguns) to negate both the long lockon missile and the two seconds of the fight where the medium range lasers could damage him- he needs to actually lose. He needs to be scared to tank the scout. He needs to be scared when he's under the strike's guns, because the scout alone controls that fact, and should have to worry about maneuvering or fleeing.

 

 

If you went with Tune's old suggestion about turning rates, then you wouldn't need to have strikes win jousts. Strikes would dominate turn fights, and scouts would have to leave. If you went with... was it Zask? I don't remember, it was way before this thread, but someone suggested the strikes have extraordinary boost capacity to show that they aren't interceptors. In that case, the scout could be reliably fled from by strikes. Then you wouldn't need to win jousts or turn wars. But you need something, and it's *kind of* safe to say that most players want it to be offensively oriented, because that's where strikes seem to not have any kind of job at all. Even strikes with wacko high dps builds, such as the Starguard, can't beat a scout in a joust, because the scout can immune the strike with cooldowns way more often than a strike can get a scout under nose.

[BlackflameSeven]

I can't face reading the whole post, so I might be duplicating something already said.

 

Right now I translate the roles in my head as :

Scouts - dogfighter

Gunship - sniper

Bomber - area control

Strike - jack of all trades, master of none, and consequently losing when forced to engage anything else

 

So to me, the strike needs an entirely different role. What's left seems to be missile boat. Make them better at using the one weapon that doesn't really function against most pilots who know how to use their cool downs and line of sight tricks. I can see a number of ways for this to help, the exact effects would need balance, but right now, missiles struggle because of lock on times and missile breaks. So add some nice blurb to the strikes descriptions that they can carry more powerful targeting systems, and for them , the lock on times are less for missiles. Maybe not for torpedoes, they are the bigger threats, can't make my mind up on that.

 

So a cluster fires almost instantly, a concussion can be fired by a strike like a scout fires a cluster (ok, I'm picking changes at random somewhat, times may vary, but you get the idea), allowing them to spray missiles so fast that cool downs can stop some but not all. Reduce the actual cool down on reload as well perhaps.

 

Add a shield component that releases a burst that shields missiles for a few seconds so their lock can't be broken or disables the missile break effect of nearby enemies' cool downs. Give the strikes something that's unique at least in part to them.

 

Obvious the type two would gain most from this. I still think the ion lasers need a nudge, at least to out range the heavies to make them worth using first all the time, but both the type 1 and 3 would gain from better weaponry in their secondary slots.

 

Mobility etc would still limit them, and need a look at, but a bit of different firepower can at least make them interesting.

[Danalon]

As stated I try to make suggestions that do not include nerfing other classes. I was a bit too narrow minded with that and in my head I was really thinking "Strikes aren't allowed to be good at anything that already exists". After reading the answers to my question I gave it some more thought. Strikes basically have the same weaponry as Scouts, but are inferior in almost every aspect. The main traits of Scouts are maneuverabilty/agility and burst damage and therefore hit and run capabilities; they should stay best at those. So, what to give Strikes to make them better at something. I disagree with giving them maneuverability and burst damage because that would just make them Scouts. What can be given to Strikes that doesn't take away too much from Scouts?

 

How about this idea:

Strikes could be the "joust class". Making them capable of going in face to face against everything.

• Increased range for primary weapons. Should be a value that leaves HLC around 10km range with range capacitor.
  
• Increased accuracy for primary weapons. Should scale with range. Small bonus on long ranges to help land shots. Huge bonus at short range, up to the point of nullifying DF.
  
• Faster lock on time for all secondary weapons.
  
• Some resistance against energy-related negative effects. Jousting gunships should be possible without getting completely disabled by ion rails. (Instead of or additionaly to this maybe bigger engine/weapon energy pools.)
  
• Stronger forward shields by default. Literally being able to facetank. Maybe at cost of weaker aft shields.
  

 

Thoughts on those suggestions:

The reason to go for jousting with Strikes with these suggestions is simple. Imho jousting is not a core part of scout gameplay. personally I try to avoid jousting whenever possible and only use it as the last option when I can't win a fight in any other manner (or get forced into it). Mostly this is the case when either a 1v1 situation arises and I can't get a better firing angle than a joust. Another point is that as mentioned above, maneuverability is a Dcout thing and buffing Strikes to Scout levels would be somewhat weird. (Maybe a small buff to pitch/yaw for strikes would be ok.)

Increasing the range of primaries will help attacking satellites, including defending bombers and especially ticks.

Increasing the accuracy will help land shots on higher range, against Gunships for example. It also should help jousting if the bonus increases the shorter the range, especially against scouts, because it would strip them of their main defense. Another good thing about higher accuracy on short range is a buff to close quarters capabilites - a Strike wouldn't be as maneuverable, but if he manages to get a target in front of him, he will hit. (Might be too powerful, if necessary it should be combined with higher tracking penalty.)

Faster lock on time (around 1s less time for all missiles) is helpful when jousting but it's also a huge QoL improvement in other situations. It also will help to force targets to use their cooldowns instead of flying evasive manually.

Additionaly, range, accuracy and lockon time don't increase burst damage but increase sustained damage. Burst damage without having a mechanic like charging railguns or without having to close in like burst lasers isn't a good way to go imho.

Stronger forward shields are an obvious addition to a ship that should mainly be used for jousting. It makes the Strike able to facetank for awhile but then the shield arc needs to refill, more or less working like a facetank-cooldown. One could argue it will not help, because fortress shield also doesn't help but the difference is that fortress shield makes someone immobile and the cooldown is gone after making the decisione; a Strike can at any moment decide to either joust or run away and will only have lost the part of his shield arc he lost untile he makes the decision. Maybe aft shields need to be reduced as compensation but what do I know without testing. Also I'm relatively sure directional shields will be extremely useful then. Another option would be instead of a bigger forward shield give Strike an evasion buff but only if shot in the face.

The resistance against energy related negative effects (ion rail drain, ion rail regeneration debuff and whatever else there is) is mainly for being able to joust gunships and start firing at max range instead of having to close in to melee range first. Maybe it should be combined with bigger weapon and engine pools. Or there should just be bigger pools without the resistance - big enough to make a strike be able to joust a gunship and also bigger pools would make a nice addition in every other.

These changes may have additional advantages for newer players. Trying to facetank every situation is commonly seen when observing newer players, maybe they will get an easier start with the game. The increased accuracy should provide better feedback if a target was hit or not. Higher range is also helpful, considering how many new players start shooting as soon as they see a red marker.

Edited August 3, 2015 by Danalon

[Ramalina]

A more solid set of suggestions.

 

I might be inclined to also recommend a reload time reduction for everything that's slower firing than Concussions, as being able to lock more times per minute is of questionable utility if the targets being locked can still potentially have almost two breaks come off of cooldown for every missile that comes off of cooldown.

 

The Quads & Pods scouts are very much, "natural jousters," in terms of playstyle, but if jousting becomes a strike role then having strikes be better at it than scouts would be a very desirable outcome.

 

I also have mixed feelings about the accuracy curve you suggest. If strikes are going to be dominant at mid range, then having scouts be better at close range accuracy is probably ok, but I also find it hard to object to the prospect of HLCs being easier to use at point blank range given how often I already use them in that way. My initial inclination though would be for strikes to hit more often and hard at the outer end of their range, but maybe not gain much at the inner end. Being able to get blaster damage through a DF cooldown does have an awful lot of appeal if strikes aren't going to be able to run down scouts when their DF is on cooldown. Sounds perhaps a bit overpowered as a flat buff, but it's not like strikes have an available button to put it on as a cooldown.

Edited August 3, 2015 by Ramalina

[Danalon]

Faster reloads aren't in my list because of two reasons. First, the T2 Strike already has a "reload time reduction" built in because of the two secondary weapons. The other reason is, I fear the number of lock ons becomes too high, which also could lead to ships with more breaks gaining an even bigger advantage than they have now. On the other hand, Strikes would for sure profit from being the only ships with faster lock on and reload times because they're the only ones using the big missiles anyway.

 

The Quads & Pods Scout would probably be the biggest loser, if Strikes became the main jousters. But they would still be the best for hit and run situations.

 

I suggested the accuracy thing because if Strikes became jousters it needs to be made sure, they have an advantage over Scouts (or T3 Gunships) in close range jousts too. Maybe completely nullifying DF is a bit too much, it's impossible to say without being able to test it.

 

On the subject of testing. I still hope we can test GSF changes on PTR before they come life, which would require the community to actively partake in testing them. I'm not expecting 24/7 queues on PTR but I hope it would be possible to make an event like super serious night on PTR to test things, if GSF changes are to be tested on the PTR. I also wouldn't have a problem if we were to test changes on live servers for a week or so. It would be easier to get pops there but has the huge disadvantage of being very confusing to non-veterans aside from the fact that a lot of players probably don't want to test on live.

Edited August 3, 2015 by Danalon

[tunewalker]

Just reducing the Lock time of missiles allows it to be more reasonable to take the CD reduction along with the 6% accuracy from crew talents. I feel reload times arent Hugely needed for reduction beyond Ion and EMP missile (same range as Conc but with reloads like Torps is foolish to me and makes no sense for how Meh these missiles are)

[Gavin_Kelvar]

As stated I try to make suggestions that do not include nerfing other classes. I was a bit too narrow minded with that and in my head I was really thinking "Strikes aren't allowed to be good at anything that already exists". After reading the answers to my question I gave it some more thought. Strikes basically have the same weaponry as Scouts, but are inferior in almost every aspect. The main traits of Scouts are maneuverabilty/agility and burst damage and therefore hit and run capabilities; they should stay best at those. So, what to give Strikes to make them better at something. I disagree with giving them maneuverability and burst damage because that would just make them Scouts. What can be given to Strikes that doesn't take away too much from Scouts?

 

How about this idea:

Strikes could be the "joust class". Making them capable of going in face to face against everything.

• Increased range for primary weapons. Should be a value that leaves HLC around 10km range with range capacitor.
  
• Increased accuracy for primary weapons. Should scale with range. Small bonus on long ranges to help land shots. Huge bonus at short range, up to the point of nullifying DF.
  
• Faster lock on time for all secondary weapons.
  
• Some resistance against energy-related negative effects. Jousting gunships should be possible without getting completely disabled by ion rails. (Instead of or additionaly to this maybe bigger engine/weapon energy pools.)
  
• Stronger forward shields by default. Literally being able to facetank. Maybe at cost of weaker aft shields.
  

 

Thoughts on those suggestions:

The reason to go for jousting with Strikes with these suggestions is simple. Imho jousting is not a core part of scout gameplay. personally I try to avoid jousting whenever possible and only use it as the last option when I can't win a fight in any other manner (or get forced into it). Mostly this is the case when either a 1v1 situation arises and I can't get a better firing angle than a joust. Another point is that as mentioned above, maneuverability is a Dcout thing and buffing Strikes to Scout levels would be somewhat weird. (Maybe a small buff to pitch/yaw for strikes would be ok.)

Increasing the range of primaries will help attacking satellites, including defending bombers and especially ticks.

Increasing the accuracy will help land shots on higher range, against Gunships for example. It also should help jousting if the bonus increases the shorter the range, especially against scouts, because it would strip them of their main defense. Another good thing about higher accuracy on short range is a buff to close quarters capabilites - a Strike wouldn't be as maneuverable, but if he manages to get a target in front of him, he will hit. (Might be too powerful, if necessary it should be combined with higher tracking penalty.)

Faster lock on time (around 1s less time for all missiles) is helpful when jousting but it's also a huge QoL improvement in other situations. It also will help to force targets to use their cooldowns instead of flying evasive manually.

Additionaly, range, accuracy and lockon time don't increase burst damage but increase sustained damage. Burst damage without having a mechanic like charging railguns or without having to close in like burst lasers isn't a good way to go imho.

Stronger forward shields are an obvious addition to a ship that should mainly be used for jousting. It makes the Strike able to facetank for awhile but then the shield arc needs to refill, more or less working like a facetank-cooldown. One could argue it will not help, because fortress shield also doesn't help but the difference is that fortress shield makes someone immobile and the cooldown is gone after making the decisione; a Strike can at any moment decide to either joust or run away and will only have lost the part of his shield arc he lost untile he makes the decision. Maybe aft shields need to be reduced as compensation but what do I know without testing. Also I'm relatively sure directional shields will be extremely useful then. Another option would be instead of a bigger forward shield give Strike an evasion buff but only if shot in the face.

The resistance against energy related negative effects (ion rail drain, ion rail regeneration debuff and whatever else there is) is mainly for being able to joust gunships and start firing at max range instead of having to close in to melee range first. Maybe it should be combined with bigger weapon and engine pools. Or there should just be bigger pools without the resistance - big enough to make a strike be able to joust a gunship and also bigger pools would make a nice addition in every other.

These changes may have additional advantages for newer players. Trying to facetank every situation is commonly seen when observing newer players, maybe they will get an easier start with the game. The increased accuracy should provide better feedback if a target was hit or not. Higher range is also helpful, considering how many new players start shooting as soon as they see a red marker.

 

I really like the suggestions overall but I just have a thought: if strikers have the majority of their accuracy buff at close range it will still leave them more vulnerable to evasion CDs at their ideal range. So maybe instead of giving the biggest buff at close range give the biggest buff at long range. (basically for strikers instead of having damage and accuracy fall off the further out you go inverse it so it falls off the closer you get; ideally at point-blank the fall-off would be no lower than it currently is at extreme range). I'm mainly concerned that if the buff for strikers weapons is biggest at close range evasion CDs will still be too powerful at nullifying a striker's advantage over scouts at mid range (if you're proposed suggestions were paired with damage buffs so DField ignoring point blank shots did enough damage to a scout to make them sweat then I think it'd be okay as you propose; my main concern is that while they might have such crazy accuracy that they ignore DField that they might not do enough damage to make those shots feel threatening to a scout). But I do think you have solid ideas overall.

[Danalon]

I really like the suggestions overall but I just have a thought: if strikers have the majority of their accuracy buff at close range it will still leave them more vulnerable to evasion CDs at their ideal range. So maybe instead of giving the biggest buff at close range give the biggest buff at long range. (basically for strikers instead of having damage and accuracy fall off the further out you go inverse it so it falls off the closer you get; ideally at point-blank the fall-off would be no lower than it currently is at extreme range). I'm mainly concerned that if the buff for strikers weapons is biggest at close range evasion CDs will still be too powerful at nullifying a striker's advantage over scouts at mid range (if you're proposed suggestions were paired with damage buffs so DField ignoring point blank shots did enough damage to a scout to make them sweat then I think it'd be okay as you propose; my main concern is that while they might have such crazy accuracy that they ignore DField that they might not do enough damage to make those shots feel threatening to a scout). But I do think you have solid ideas overall.

 

The set of suggestions you quoted were centered around a jousting role for strikes. Better mid-range combat is a nice perk of the longer range and faster lock on changes. Accuracy needs to be higher the closer the jousting target is, or scouts would just close the gap, use cooldowns and it's the same as before. I don't see the point in very high accuracy at higher ranges, because if the target pulls DF at a relatively high range it basically makes itself more vulnerable to lock ons - remember, they have reduced time. The idea behind the accuracy buff is to make jousting at all range possible. This means a scout should get hit very likely in close range even when he's using DF and also a gunship should get hit reliably (but not 100%) at max range (as mentioned, something about 10km) even when the gunship is using DF - repeat: the buff is mainly for jousting.

I'm not sure how threatening exactly an accuracy buff will be, but scouts aren't that durable if their main defense is taken away. Also the range will help because the scout probably will have taken a few hits before he comes close.

[JasonSzeremi]

Roles:Brief

Scout: Reconnaissance and smart fighter (hit and run, sneak attack, ambush) Primary targets: Gunships, secondary targets: strike fighters, other scouts. Biggest threat: bomber deployables

Bomber: area denial, 'utility', 'tank' Primary targets: scouts, biggest threat: currently gunships but ideally strikes with enough firepower to take on a hard target and enough shields and hull to survive a few mines

Gunship: Artillery/anti aircraft guns Primary targets: strike fighters, other gunships. Secondary targets: bombers Biggest threats: scouts and other gunships... why else would they arm them with burst lasers? it's those pesky little scouts that zip in and take out the artillery pieces.

Strike: Main combat, 'dumb' fighter (direct dps, some tanking, up close face to face combat) Primary targets: bombers (ideally, something larger, slower and more heavily armored... and the strike has enough shield, hull, and ideally firepower.... heck bombers chronicly are unable to dodge missiles and strikes specialize in missile use) other strikes. secondary targets: scouts that come head on and gunships that let one get too close.... biggest threats: scouts that fly smart and gunships at 15k...

 

Roles: Verbose

Scouts.... people forget are meant to be smart fighters that do a good amount of damage, high _RISK_ high reward, there's supposed to be a risk flying a scout which is when they get caught in the gunsights of something with bigger guns... at the moment nothing actually has bigger guns then a point blank range burst laser charged by a cool down granted that seems to require certain skills and a net/computer with minimal lag to pull off (to date I don't seem to have the latter and upgrades are outside of my price range currently). Scouts are core to the game and should remain so.

Does this mean we have to nerf the scout to make it vulernable to the strike? no.... the strike simply needs enough dumb firepower to make coming at one head on at-least as unpleasant as coming at a gunship that is charging it's one hit wonder gun. Without the added pain that another gunship within 15k can nail you while you are making your hero charge.

PS nothing wrong with using quads and pods at the rear, or side of a target, especially one that's flying stright as it's doing a joust and/or missile lock.... a common tactic of strike fighters.

Bombers: these work rather nice in the meta as is, frankly I see them as being anti-scout since, the smart fighters have to contend with deployable ordinance from the bomber that is ultra dumb and not something a nimble, fast, and moving target wants to deal with.

Gunships: Where did they find weapons longer ranged then the ones on cap ships? I kid you not, a group of friends and I thought 'destroy turrets' meant on the cap ships and took our gunships and just went picking them off one of the three imperial dreadnaughts on the other side of the map... we blew up four or more without getting in their range. Gunships are artillery pieces in most ways that make sense... having to stop to fire, slow reloading, high damage, and even aoe object skipping damage, albiet from a non-lethal round. Gunships are undoubtedly the most hated ships in gsf, but without them some pilots would be looking for new roles, Evasion on scouts is largly an anti-gunship measure. Combining gunships with bomber makes for trench warfare ala WWI, a successful tactic, that turns dog-fighting into suicide within 15k of any such nest. Perhaps buffed strikes could do something about this trend?

Strikes:intended as the primary dog-fighters, their role has been forgotten as others received their gifts. Strikes were envisioned as something like the X-wing, a highly destructive and agile interceptor with more durability then it's attrition-based imperial counter part. They seem to be rounding out towards the Y-wing, a versatile fighter craft with greater durability and versatility. Higher then average weapon payload for attacking stubborn targets and enough agility to compete with the lighter more nimble fighters. With some more firepower they could be a force to be reckoned with.... not the x-wing of the battle field (that's the sting and flash fire currently) but as hard hitting 'strike' fighters they could possibly break up bomber nests and keep the battle field moving where scouts can enjoy their role more, and where gunships would be more indecisive over gunning down a strike or a scout in their range.

There's a role to play for every fighter type in my view, and nobody should just be 'cannon fodder' if they know what they are doing. Heck... if scouts have to rely on strikes to take out bombers, they would be doing their 'recon' role!

[Laiov]

So! What are your pet peeves about Strike Fighters? If you could only pick one section to buff would you choose to improve their Maneuverability, Secondary Weapons, Primary Weapons or Defense? Or something different?

feels slow

can't turn

missile locks take too long

Edited August 6, 2015 by Laiov