Let's talk about Strike Fighters

[JasonSzeremi]

They could just add a 5th action bar button. If the UI code is well written it shouldn't be that hard. Depending on what they were thinking about ship commonality though, adding a 5th action bar button to strikes only might be a nightmare. I suppose they could just leave it empty on other ship classes if that were the case.

 

I agree that getting an extra active ability for strikes is unlikely, but without seeing the code we can't really say what the most practical way to achieve that would be if that's what they decided to do. Extra button is probably a better overall choice than clunky multi-purpose button if you can choose between the two, at least until you start running out of space to put buttons.

 

Honestly, if it can be done, it probably should be for as many craft as can use one.

I also have been floating the idea of adding extra things to the toggle the 1 key flipped through, and letting the right mouse button activate all of them unless it was between primary weapons and system abilities. (that might be dicy if it's an attack ability like TT or BO that's being toggled when you might want your lasers/missiles (t1/t2 strike) ready instantly while firing.

 

Ofcourse.... that runs the risk of giving scouts and bombers a bigger boost, as they might swap numerous system abilities, or between mines and torpedos. (a scout with booster recharge and TT and BO? a bomber with mines, torps, and conc? and T3 strikes with repair, BO, and remote slicing)

[Gavin_Kelvar]

They could just add a 5th action bar button. If the UI code is well written it shouldn't be that hard. Depending on what they were thinking about ship commonality though, adding a 5th action bar button to strikes only might be a nightmare. I suppose they could just leave it empty on other ship classes if that were the case.

 

I agree that getting an extra active ability for strikes is unlikely, but without seeing the code we can't really say what the most practical way to achieve that would be if that's what they decided to do. Extra button is probably a better overall choice than clunky multi-purpose button if you can choose between the two, at least until you start running out of space to put buttons.

 

Something I haven't seen come up yet with this and just occurred to me now: how would strikes handle the requisition for this new trick of theirs? If it's at all like like what we currently have they'd get a 6th major component. Wouldn't it then take a strike longer to reach a comparable level of fighting strength to the ships that only have to distribute req to the current number of component slots? Not that it'd be a bad thing for strikes and it'd certainly be cool to see a T3 able to use 2/3 of it's system abilities.

 

But it just seems you'd be putting strikes at a disadvantage in the leveling up stage since their components would be more likely to be at lower tiers compared to other meta ships. And if you give them a fully upgraded system ability to compensate (or something like a one time 2,500 fleet req purchase) they might be too powerful against opponents of a similar level.

[Ramalina]

A concern for new players, yes, but for a lot of people the full 35 k to master a new major component wouldn't even put a dent in their, "what do I do with it now," pile of ship requisition.

 

It also depends on where critical upgrades are. If they're mostly in the first 3 tiers the barrier is only about 8 k req, which isn't that much. If the component doesn't get good until tier 4 or 5 upgrades are purchased then it's more of an issue.

Edited September 22, 2015 by Ramalina

[JasonSzeremi]

That is a decent question for the delta between leveling up and mastered ships. But I see it as an opportunity to get more people interested in gsf, leveling up new components and testing new abilities. Sometimes a little change encourages more curiosity and interest.

[Bull_Five_Golf]

They could just add a 5th action bar button. If the UI code is well written it shouldn't be that hard. Depending on what they were thinking about ship commonality though, adding a 5th action bar button to strikes only might be a nightmare. I suppose they could just leave it empty on other ship classes if that were the case.

 

I like the idea but I don't believe the devs are going to devote more than a minuscule amount of time if at all to working on strikes. The only way I see strikes getting a buff is if the suggestions don't involve more than editing stats in a batch file or don't require more than about 40 total man hours to accomplish. Tier 1 and 2 strikes aren't going to get access to a system ability or the UI upgrade to support it.

 

All of the changes have to happen within the framework we have now and they must effect all three types of strike.

 

The areas we could make changes:

 

1) Passive buffs to the air frame for blaster damage and range.

2) Replace an existing copilot ability with a new one that favors strikes, probably something involving missiles.

3) Play with missile lock timers, firing arcs and reload times of concs and torps.

4) Buff range and/or damage on blasters that scouts don't have (heavies and ions)

5) Give strikes access to every blaster and missile type including rocket pods.

6) Give strikes access to every shield type.

7) Give strikes access to every engine type.

8) Buff the strike's stats: engine pool, shield pool, turn rate etc.

9) Nerf other abilities like the distortion field missile lock break. This would be a last resort IMO.

[Gavin_Kelvar]

3) Play with missile lock timers, firing arcs and reload times of concs and torps.

 

Personally I think that needs to be done to make torps usable. When it's hard to get a lock on a bomber that doesn't even have breaks there's something horribly wrong.

 

8) Buff the strike's stats: engine pool, shield pool, turn rate etc.

 

I'd go with giving the current 10% stat buff of the various thruster minor components to strikes. That'd really up their mobility while still keeping it below scout performance levels. Add additional tweaks such as boost efficiency if required.

 

I'd also make their base shields be what you currently get with directionals combined with large reactor + crew passive and decrease the regen rate to 4 seconds (the 1.2 second regen rate hard cap would still be in play so with the T3 regen delay upgrade directionals wouldn't have a lower regen delay than now). Directionals would then (I think) have the shield strength of what you currently get with CP stacking all available shield power pool boosts. Overall it'd just make strikes have shields that could be much more tanky than now regardless of shield taken and their defense wouldn't be at such a disadvantage to evasion (since if they could very rapidly regen the damage they take it wouldn't be as bad that they have to take the damage than avoid it outright).

[NeverEvar]

That is a very interesting point....however ti would give them base shields of it will get them to 2520(base) from 1944 a flat 486 boost. so with companion, directionals and Large it would give: bout 3006, this bonus Dosent really help vs BLC/scouts/Seismic mines/ Ion Rail. This boost would be negated by a bit over 1/4 of rail slug, one BLC shoot. It would help only versus cluster spam.

 

That boost will them vs Quad/Cluster scouts(rare sight), T2 and T3 GS`s and vs T3 GS. Other then that it still leaves them the same. VS the APEX predators, like T1 GS and T2 scout.

[Gavin_Kelvar]

That is a very interesting point....however ti would give them base shields of it will get them to 2520(base) from 1944 a flat 486 boost. so with companion, directionals and Large it would give: bout 3006, this bonus Dosent really help vs BLC/scouts/Seismic mines/ Ion Rail. This boost would be negated by a bit over 1/4 of rail slug, one BLC shoot. It would help only versus cluster spam.

 

Honestly if I could do anything I'd give them a base shield strength at least as high as what they get with CP + large reactor + crew passive. Which would be a base of around 3,000. But I figured that people wouldn't agree with that strong a base shield.

 

My idea wasn't to nullify things like Ion rail (that vulnerability can only really be solved through a mobility buff) but rather give them a better chance to absorb a scout's burst through a combo of regen speed and base shield strength.

[NeverEvar]

That would be only 3060. Still Imo, it`s not enough. So you were not very far off.

 

My "Perfect" Strike would have such bonuses

 

Regen +20%

 

Pool + 15%

 

Accuracy + 15%

 

Range + 20%

 

Shields + 15%

 

Hull + 10%

 

Evasion + 15%

 

Imo that would make them competitive, but not over powered.

[Gavin_Kelvar]

That would be only 3060. Still Imo, it`s not enough. So you were not very far off.

 

I mean with my proposed defense buff (my second, the ideal world version) directionals + large reactor + crew passive would have a shield strength of about 4,208 with a 1.2 regen (if you take the T3 left; my buff includes lowering the base regen rate to 4 seconds with the hard cap of 1.2 regen still in place). That'd be almost 2,000 more shield than directionals currently get.

 

To be clear that's just what I'd do with defenses, I'd also fold in all of the thruster minor component's buffs into base stats to improve it's mobility significantly. The 10% buff to turning would bring it closer to a scout's base but the scout would still turn tighter and retain it's advantages in a turn fight. While the strike would have a higher base top speed and engine power pool compared to scouts it would retain it's less efficient boost for balance; this would give it better ability to flee and reposition when a scout attacks it (resolving the current problem where once a scout closes the strike has no chance to disengage due to inferior mobility stats across the board). This would also make engaging strikes more threatening to scouts since it would be harder for them to flee (as a bonus it might encourage using booster recharge and might make the T1 scout's S2E build more appealing).

 

Offensively I'd give basically a permanent DO boost (the balanced version of DO rather than the older "kills everything muhahah" version) along with a 30% accuracy buff. The accuracy would help both counter the high tracking penalties inherent in strike weapons (making them better under stats) along with countering most of a scout's passive evasion when firing a centered shot. Evasion would still be ideal for defense against railguns leaving scouts as the ideal GS hunters (I would keep the strike's current base evasion). Like with the mobility the T1's S2E build (and similar builds) might become more appealing in the meta since stacking evasion would no longer be as powerful. As a bonus if the S2E T1 (or non-DField T2s) became more prevalent it would solve the double missile break problem without requiring direct tweaking to address it. It might also reduce the prevalence of TT/BO if increased strike mobility greatly encouraged scouts to take booster recharge to maintain their mobility advantage over strikes (thus also addressing the power of a scout's burst without requiring direct nerfing to their components). I don't know if I'd give a buff to range too but if that wouldn't be totally overpowered I'd add a moderate range buff too (maybe only 10%)

 

I'd also buff torps since they're currently poorly designed but that's more fixing a bad component than a strike buff per se.

Edited September 23, 2015 by Gavin_Kelvar

[JasonSzeremi]

If we wanted to talk about torpedoes. Would it take dropping the lockon time by 1 second... or to 1.5 seconds for them to be useable.... and if it does go to 1.5 seconds, would we need to _increase_ the cool down time to compensate.... make them easier to use, but give them longer reload times?... would they need increased damage if so?

 

or would giving the prot a dot, and increasing the durration of the thermite dot compensate them for lost dps time?

Edited September 23, 2015 by JasonSzeremi

[NeverEvar]

What Torps need , except lock on, and cooldown times need to 2x up their flight speed as well. How many times you boosted away from the torp just to regain disto, or engine maneuver? That makes them laughable

[Gavin_Kelvar]

If we wanted to talk about torpedoes. Would it take dropping the lockon time by 1 second... or to 1.5 seconds for them to be useable.... and if it does go to 1.5 seconds, would we need to _increase_ the cool down time to compensate.... make them easier to use, but give them longer reload times?... would they need increased damage if so?

 

I think you could give them the lock-on stats of interdiction 1.7 lockon (after upgrades) and 9 second reload and be fine. There'd still be 10.7 seconds between shots so it'd be slower firing than concs which come in at 8.6 seconds between shots. But it would be the lock-on speed necessary to tag a bomber doing the LOS dance around a sat. I think even with a base firing arc of 16 (which I think it needs since 12 seems too vulnerable to ninja lock loss) the combination of slow travel speed, narrow fire arc, and slowest firing would keep it from being too powerful in melee. It would mean scouts would be more threatened if they strayed under a strike's guns but I think that should happen since a T2 scout would in all likelihood still have the advantage in a turn fight (even if the strike is built for turning and the scout is built for speed the strike will have to deal with high tracking penalties and the T2 can have BLC; a T1 MLC/pod build probably wouldn't want to stay in a turn fight so if they do so I don't see a problem with a strike built to have good performance in a turn fight having an advantage). Because of how double breaks can be chained together to be available every 10 seconds I think the changes to torps would be balanced since a break would be available as often as a new missile is chambered (so really a torp landing in melee means the pilot firing them did everything right and/or the target pilot committed an error; I don't see a problem with torp connecting in melee when that occurs). This also be big buff to the T2 strike in melee since they could use clusters to burn through CDs and then tag their enemy with a point blank torp.

 

That's my ideal world change. Probably a more balanced change would be giving torps the current lock-on of concs and interdiction reload speed (11 second reload is stupidly slow). Before I commit to saying that's the best choice however I'd have to try concs out against a bomber on a sat, I'm not totally convinced 2.6 seconds (upgraded) is a fast enough lock-on time to tag a bomber on a sat. Based on my experience with torps though I suspect interdiction lock-on speed would be required to make them reliably threatening to a skilled bomber pilot on a sat (which isn't that really the point of torps? to be threatening to bombers?)

 

And yes I'm aware of how my proposed mobility chances would greatly diminish the advantage scouts have over strikes in both a turn fight and fleeing with boost and that this in turn will impact the power of buffed torps. But I honestly think that's a good thing since scouts should feel threatened engaging a strike and not feel that they have all the advantages to attack a strike with impunity. The fact that scouts might actually want to take booster recharge or S2E over offensive CDs and DField I think would overall be a good change to the meta since it would shift things away from the T2 scout being the best scout and give the T1 a more prominent place (due to it having components better suited to hit and run). I think taking those components plus building for boost distance (instead of turning) would allow scouts to retain a mobility advantage over strikes, even those built for speed (although I will differ to the theory crafters on this). But the scout would have to sacrifice some of their offensive power (and possibly defensive if using S2E) against a strike which I think would balance things out since my defense boost (especially my ideal world version) would provide good protection against a speed scout's burst (and conversely a scout built for offense would not be as capable in chasing a speed strike that opts to flee). We already know the T1 with S2E + booster recharge is a viable meta build so my changes would just make the build more appealing and possibly more prominent in the meta. With torp changes it might also make the T3 scout a force to be reckoned with since it has one of the best mobility buffs and the very powerful thermite torp. Overall I think the changes to torps would combine with my proposed buffs to strikes to make straying into a strike's firing arc very threatening and not something to be blithely dismissed (as is the case now) but the buffs would not make them unkillable gods.

 

What Torps need , except lock on, and cooldown times need to 2x up their flight speed as well. How many times you boosted away from the torp just to regain disto, or engine maneuver? That makes them laughable

 

Honestly I think that slow speed could be balanced IF the firing arc upgrade wasn't so essential to overcome the ninja lock loss bug. If for example it had a base arc of 16 the crew passive should be enough to give it a generous firing arc in most cases. Which would make the T4 options pilot preference rather than a bug making the choice for you. It would also keep torps from becoming better than concs in almost every way (if the only real difference was reload speed the 100% pierce everything would be preferable in most cases to what a conc can bring to the table). Also if you keep the slow travel speed it helps balance the buffed torp out against speed scout builds that may be using S2E since they'd have a better ability to boost until the engine break is ready.

Edited September 24, 2015 by Gavin_Kelvar

[RJMazz]

I think Torpedoes should be unavoidable once launched. Seriously if all that time you didn't avoid it by cover or by noticing it's a torpedo from the long lock-on time, you had it coming. Also, to make it even better: They should have torpedoes give a way a different kind of lock-on warning. Like a yellow signal or a more intense warning beep.

[Gavin_Kelvar]

I think Torpedoes should be unavoidable once launched. Seriously if all that time you didn't avoid it by cover or by noticing it's a torpedo from the long lock-on time, you had it coming. Also, to make it even better: They should have torpedoes give a way a different kind of lock-on warning. Like a yellow signal or a more intense warning beep.

 

That would certainly help against double lock breaks. The problem is that it would do nothing to help it against bombers which are the main reason you'd take torps over concs or clusters (the latter two being better for dogfights).

[JasonSzeremi]

I think Torpedoes should be unavoidable once launched. Seriously if all that time you didn't avoid it by cover or by noticing it's a torpedo from the long lock-on time, you had it coming. Also, to make it even better: They should have torpedoes give a way a different kind of lock-on warning. Like a yellow signal or a more intense warning beep.

 

if they get 1.7/2 second lock-on time and 10-lockontime cool down, they might not need it. that would make torps viable against bombers (their primary target) and useful, if not perfect against strikes. Against scouts it would require more effort or error, but I've used them currently against inexpirienced pilots or pilots who never suspected it was a torp lock. If the torps work, they don't need a special lock-on. If they don't then an unavoidable lock-on might make sense... but somehow it strikes me as unfair

[NeverEvar]

Hmmm...fun idea...What if Strike Afterburner buff was higher?

 

It would have some interesting game play consequences.

 

A strike would need less turbo to close a gap towards the GS.

 

It would need less turbo to get out of Ion range/LOS

 

With proper engine power management it would make it a bit more resilient to ion snare/slow

 

The bigger speed difference between normal flight and turbo would give them some ability to stay in the "optimal range" vs BLC scouts

 

It would allow them to "hit and run incoming bombers to node"

 

Thanks to better regen, and bigger engine pool scouts and higher base speed would still have better overall mobility and would stil triumph in a knife fight

[Gavin_Kelvar]

Hmmm...fun idea...What if Strike Afterburner buff was higher?

 

It would have some interesting game play consequences.

 

A strike would need less turbo to close a gap towards the GS.

 

It would need less turbo to get out of Ion range/LOS

 

With proper engine power management it would make it a bit more resilient to ion snare/slow

 

The bigger speed difference between normal flight and turbo would give them some ability to stay in the "optimal range" vs BLC scouts

 

It would allow them to "hit and run incoming bombers to node"

 

Thanks to better regen, and bigger engine pool scouts and higher base speed would still have better overall mobility and would stil triumph in a knife fight

 

I personally would like to see across the board engine buffs to strikes. Basically give them the base stats to be better distance runners and scouts better at turn fights. T1 scouts could still (in theory) boost longer and further than a strike if the scout took booster recharge and S2E but otherwise a strike would be better able to both chase down a fleeing scout or flee from a scout. (conversely a strike that builds to be a turn fighter might be more easily chased down by a speed scout).

 

I think your tensor/CC experiments are indicating strikes could be very lethal with just mobility and accuracy buffs. I'm thinking maybe just buffing accuracy to very high levels like in your test (to the order of 40% or higher) and just tweak torps to be reliable against a bomber on a sat and you could leave the double break system alone until the devs have the time to address it in detail. Scouts would retain the ability to basically ignore strike secondaries but they wouldn't be able to simultaneously ignore strike primaries. Which I think would be good since it'd make attacking a strike always threatening and not the current case where strikes are only threatening when a scout commits an error in CD management.

[JasonSzeremi]

Ok here's an out of left field idea, (no pun intended) that might not even be on topic.

Distortion field, as force cloak. A power that lasts until the user fires a weapon, and which has a 2 min or 90 second cd. Because as submarine commanders can attest, nothing reveals your stealthy ship's location like a flaming/blazin energy trail pointing right back to the exact point of your weapons.

 

Downside.... is if there's a missile break in there, you're not going to get a missile off before they get their clusters off.

Edited September 30, 2015 by JasonSzeremi

[JasonSzeremi]

Ok here's an out of left field idea, (no pun intended) that might not even be on topic.

Distortion field, as force cloak. A power that lasts until the user fires a weapon, and which has a 2 min or 90 second cd. Because as submarine commanders can attest, nothing reveals your stealthy ship's location like a flaming/blazin energy trail pointing right back to the exact point of your weapons.

 

Downside.... is if there's a missile break in there, you're not going to get a missile off before they get their clusters off.

 

On second thought, locking missiles should cause the DF to drop.... active sensor scanning tends to blow a cloak too...

[Gavin_Kelvar]

Ok here's an out of left field idea, (no pun intended) that might not even be on topic.

Distortion field, as force cloak. A power that lasts until the user fires a weapon, and which has a 2 min or 90 second cd. Because as submarine commanders can attest, nothing reveals your stealthy ship's location like a flaming/blazin energy trail pointing right back to the exact point of your weapons.

 

Downside.... is if there's a missile break in there, you're not going to get a missile off before they get their clusters off.

 

I'm not sure how you're figuring this would benefit strikes? Would it be that the missile break wouldn't be ready until the fight was well under way? I can see how that might be beneficial but I'm not sure the length of the CD would be much better than outright removing the break altogether. 60 seconds is a long time in a dogfight.

 

Also having been through the beta where scouts basically could stack 100% evasion (or maybe even higher?) I'm not sure this would ultimately be helpful to the meta since you'd basically get it set up where a GS could never hit a scout (since passive + active evasion is something in the order of 60%) until the scout shot at someone or until it got tagged by a missile.

 

The most simple solution to DField being able to negate both sources of strike damage is probably to just give strikes a 40% accuracy buff and permanent DO. That will basically negate DField's evasion so a scout can ignore one, but not both, sources of strike damage. Which would be far better than it is right now where DField allows scouts to basically treat strikes like they have RFLs and nothing else.

Edited September 30, 2015 by Gavin_Kelvar

[JasonSzeremi]

I'm not sure how you're figuring this would benefit strikes? Would it be that the missile break wouldn't be ready until the fight was well under way? I can see how that might be beneficial but I'm not sure the length of the CD would be much better than outright removing the break altogether. 60 seconds is a long time in a dogfight.

 

Also having been through the beta where scouts basically could stack 100% evasion (or maybe even higher?) I'm not sure this would ultimately be helpful to the meta since you'd basically get it set up where a GS could never hit a scout (since passive + active evasion is something in the order of 60%) until the scout shot at someone or until it got tagged by a missile.

 

The most simple solution to DField being able to negate both sources of strike damage is probably to just give strikes a 40% accuracy buff and permanent DO. That will basically negate DField's evasion so a scout can ignore one, but not both, sources of strike damage. Which would be far better than it is right now where DField allows scouts to basically treat strikes like they have RFLs and nothing else.

 

You're right that is better.... although I wish these problems could be solved by creating a strike-specific set of weapon systems, things like a Gatling version of quad lasers(or HLC) , too heavy for scouts and too demanding of the power source for gunships to mount. I know... I'm dreaming.

[Verain]

Well, I think the idea that strikes should have really good blasters recurs in the thread. How to make them better changes from point to point, but I think there's more "lets make the blasters awesome" requests than there are others. Most of my suggestions are incremental buffs, because strikes just feel alllllmost good at stuff, and we've had other suggestions that would totally work and don't involve the guns (and sometimes not even the missiles) at all. But I think that the idea of them having good primary weapons that you aren't happy to tank ever is a common and good one.

[JasonSzeremi]

Well, I think the idea that strikes should have really good blasters recurs in the thread. How to make them better changes from point to point, but I think there's more "lets make the blasters awesome" requests than there are others. Most of my suggestions are incremental buffs, because strikes just feel alllllmost good at stuff, and we've had other suggestions that would totally work and don't involve the guns (and sometimes not even the missiles) at all. But I think that the idea of them having good primary weapons that you aren't happy to tank ever is a common and good one.

 

If you ask me... "General Purpose" is a good design concept, in the modern military it usually means high explosive ammo that will damage or destroy almost anything. Although star wars is anti-slug thrower, weapons that will damage or destroy almost anything are a good start for any fighting craft, and if it's your basic primary weapons then you have something that can contribute if it can get into range. Your suggestions are also good, and could help a strike get where it needs to be to 'strike'.

[Gavin_Kelvar]

Give strikes primaries that no one ever wants to tank and the shields to tank whatever's thrown at them and I'll be very happy. I really want it to be that when a strike sees an enemy the strike goes "Hulk Smash"