Looking for feedback on aggregated Strike suggestions, and big thread is too crowded

[lwiggles]

Hi Nem. my feedback as follows:

 

1) Make Strike after burner activation/sustain cost equal to Scouts.

Don't like. I'm worried additional mobility for strikes will put too much pressure on gunships

 

2) Give Strikes a flat damage boost to both primaries and secondaries

Half like. Like damage boost to missiles. I'm worried blaster damage buff harsh on scouts.

 

3) Give Strikes a significant Range boost to both primary and secondary weapons

Don't like, I'm worried blaster range buff too harsh all round. Prefer to lower lock-on times and cool-downs of missiles, supporting mid-range.

 

4) Give Strikes a significant Accuracy boost to primary and secondary weapons

Half like. Like damage boost to missiles. As above for blaster changes.

 

5) Remove Charged Plating from the Star Guard and replace it with Feedback Shield.

Like

 

6) Give the Star Guard Burst Laser Cannons.

Like

 

7) Give the Pike Retro Thrusters.

Like

 

8) Give the Pike Interdiction Missile

Like

 

9) Give the Clarion Concussion Missile

Like

 

10) Give the Clarion Heavy Laser Cannons

Like

 

Hope it helps and cheers

Edited June 2, 2015 by lwiggles

[ipikki_oukami]

The Reason i don't choose the strike fighter is because it is easily out maneuvered by the scout and can't enter the combat arena to any objective in fast enough time to engage the enemy when they are taking my teams nodes. Honestly that is why i think so many people go for the gunship so they don't have to make the huge trek to objectives. The scout is the only option in a pinch where your team is dropping and needs you back in the action fast. If we had arenas that played more to the type of combat the Strike needs then we may choose it more often. Fighter combat like battle front 2. Kill static ship deffence points to destroy the ship. ie shields communications, turbo lasers, hanger bay, each one with a buff that the deffending team looses when they get destroyed. basically we want better more realistic star fighter options. There is no point for us to take those current nodes. They really don't help in the long run for any real purpose. If I am playing a star fighter simulator a simple king of the hill style fight is not what I am looking for. I want to feel like i am doing something useful. Take the rail star ship missions add our star fighters to the scene and we now have an interesting battle ground. Defend this station from the waves of enemy fighters(those fighters being the opposing team). Kill that opposing fleet before they jump to hyperspace and escape. maybe involve guild ships vs star fighters or even make a battle front mode where you board guild ships and take them over for the match. honestly it took me 5 minutes to come up with a few ways to make star fighter more engaging and interesting. Bioware I know your a great company but you really need to take our feedback and what we all know you want to see in the game as well to heart and tell EA it needs to happen. For this game to survive we need new exciting content and I for one do not want to loose my beloved Star Wars The Old Republic.

 

~Dezz'Revas~

The Revas Colonial Alliance

Begeren Colony West Coast RP server

[Etrii]

Hmmm...i was really thinking about the t3 strike. Mainly....why many think it`s almoest good.

 

Maybe its the mobility?

 

Yes, only scout than can go places, not constantly be "going places"

 

Maybe its the ability to tank a lot of damage?

 

Both CP and Directional builds offer a lot of utility. From tanking Slug Shoots to eating seismics. A repair probe negates bleedthrough quite well. Actually. IT`S THE ONLY SHIP THAT CAN TANK DAMAGE. T2 bomber or t3 scout, cant do it. Drones can be destroyed and limit mobility. so That is a unique value on that ship.

 

What about killing power?

 

It`s mehish.

 

But it`s the best ship to look at guns without strong secondary missiles.

 

Quads...why are they better on a scout? systems? Speed?

 

TT/BO is riduculsy powerfull with having terrible guns...BUT LC on mobility T1 scout are still good.

 

Sure you can deliver some nice damage if you deliver a thermite first. Which is unlikely.

 

T3 is used often as an example of nagating ion railgun...ok...but so what now?you hide your shilds, powerdived, are ready to kick some ion spaming ***. you even got in to 5-6k range...you shoot...and a GS is running. So you are starting a chase. And you are chasing...and chasing...and chasing. and then you are peeled of target. If you were able to land a kill it depends on Gunships misplay.

 

Ok, so maybe the tankish ability will help vs scouts? pod jousters maybe? You start to joust...and podsters have TT/BO and or pods...more efective dmg in the same range. What about BLC scouts? AH ok i have you now! my weapons better in that 2,5 k range difference frame it`s my window of oportunity....errr where did the window went?

 

Basicly that 2,5k is closed in less then a 2 seconds. less if scouts uses booster. Strikes speed is 740+ m/s and scouts 780+ m/s so its its less then 1,5 second without boosters. With less efective accuracy evasion balance. Even if RNG blessed you can deliver 1401 dmg in that time frime. with only passive evasion scout evasion its 911. It`s not enough do any signifact damage.

 

 

My point is that ability to deliver its damage vs a scout or a gunship is lacking. Not the damage itself, but DAMAGE IN EFECTIVE TIME FRAME.

 

Now lets add some range, some damage, and some accuracy [2km, 10%, 8%]

 

Now that encouter takes almoest 3 seconds so the scout entering its "danger zone" ate on avrage 1850 dmg sure that number could be negated by disto`s time, TT evasion , RI.

 

So what we need is to incressed strike "kill window range/time" But looking at It it`s easy to over tune it.

[havokhead]

Mobility itself for Strikes isn't the issue, it's the fact that strike pilots have to make a choice between mobility and survivability meanwhile scouts get both. Strikes can be very mobile, in fact, they can have equivalent mobility to scouts if Quick Charge Shield, Retro Thrusters & Regen or Power Engines are chosen components. You get virtually unlimited boost this way. The problem now is, you have weaker shields and less maneuvering so getting in and out of fights isn't the problem, it's staying in the fight. If you go the other route and take directional shields, turning thrusters etc then you can fight a lot better but now you're always engine starved and because you can't move then you can't pursue targets to finish them off, you can't escape when pressured, you're much slower in general so you're an easier target for gunships etc. So it's a HUGE trade-off of choices that strikes have to make, which, scouts don't.

 

The second real issue that rolls into the mobility vrs survivability topic is the fact that the T1 & T2 strikes cannot survive sustained pressure because they lack the distortion field crutch which scouts & gunships rely on so heavily to survive and escape OR survive and keep fighting. This is also the main issue with T2 gunships, they cannot survive sustained pressure. Strikes are tough enough to take 2 big hits but because they can't move or have only 1 missile break they're often left floating helplessly in space. The T3 strike can often tank and/or repair this damage and power dive to safety so it survives the sustained pressure.

 

Lately, I've been playing my T1 & T2 strikes more like scouts with more firepower & less survivability & I've been much happier. I can engage and disengage fights at will and kill things regularly, what's still frustrating is the inability to survive while dog-fighting. The minute my strike fighter takes a hit or I feel sustained pressure I have to retreat to safety. That's why so many aces don't /can't use strike fighters, you simply can't survive the focus on you like you could in a T2 scout.

 

Truthfully, the simplest solution to these problems would be to just give T1 & T2 strikes distortion field and power dive (and wouldn't hurt T2 gunships either). Bioware could pop these on and wash their hands of it after that. Personally, I'd love to see some other more imaginative solutions to these problems. As has been stated above, giving Feedback Shield a missile break and giving it to T1/2 Strikes would be a boost. Knocking the shield de-buff off of Quick Charge Shields would make it more viable to strikes while not really affecting scouts as they already have weaker shields. Or take it a step further and turn the right-side tier 3 of Quick Charge Shields into a missile break instead of a cooldown buff which would add 3 buffs to defence - better shields, better mobility and a missile break.

 

I don't think Strike Fighters are really that far off, they are meant to be dog-fighters so give them the tools to engage and stay in the fight. Don't leave' em dead in space. Before some game sweeping changes are made, maybe re-arrange some components that could potentially improve strike fighter play and game-test it for a week or two.

Edited June 2, 2015 by havokhead

[Etrii]

Giving strikes distortion field would just turn them i to quad/cluster scouts with less mobility and less options

[ALaggyGrunt]

A distortion field strike would have the same issue as any other strike: everything could outrun it. About the only thing it would solve is the first rail shot or two thrown at it.

 

Another possibility is a lot more radical: instead of you having to aim at something, the game would aim for you and tell you how strong of a targeting solution you had with any primary-if you're trying to kill something, your job becomes "just try to keep it in your guns' sweet spot." This would buff anything not-BLC by making it possible to chase things and damage them without doing the impossible of being on target for the 0.01 second it takes to fire the weapon and the 0.25 seconds it takes to tell the game you want to fly that way. It would make the game feel way[i/] different, and drop the skill floor hard.

[Verain]

I think that I've reached a stable state on my own personal recommendations (which are largely aggregated from others' suggestions), and though I already posted them in the main thread, I was hoping to get feedback from the other aces on them. And honestly I'm not sure they will get noticed in the main thread anymore.

 

Well everyone was spam refreshing that and commenting, so explicitly making one just for your stuff seems odd.

 

1) Make Strike after burner activation/sustain cost equal to Scouts.

 

Scouts burn at 4, all other ships at 5. I've seriously proposed 4.5 in the past, but 4 is also fine for strikes. I don't feel this would in any way infringe on scouts, who still would turn and move faster.

 

2) Give Strikes a flat damage boost to both primaries and secondaries, to make ignoring a Strike a dangerous proposition, at any range.

3) Give Strikes a significant Range boost to both primary and secondary weapons.

4) Give Strikes a significant Accuracy boost to primary and secondary weapons.

 

This is out of line. Do you have any idea how much damage this makes? Remember, you're already making strikes able to chase down the heavier ships in the same manner scouts currently do.

These things stack mulitplicatively, your values are way too damned strong.

 

A giant +50% damage boost is one thing, but when you combine it with 20% accuracy and 20% range, you end up about with the damage overcharge you were talking about.

 

Drako's suggestion of "extra range" is so solid because it makes the strike actually work at medium range, while also increasing damage per hit AND accuracy at existing ranges. Remember how ranged capacitor is a pretty big damage increase? That's just ranged increase.

 

 

Your suggested numbers are VASTLY OUT OF SCOPE for what you (presumably) want to see. And if you combine all this damage with fundamental changes to how a strike chases enemies, you end up with something that could very easily be vastly too powerful. Not just a bit broken, but way too good.

 

 

 

Your other changes are not really related to strikes specifically, with the exception of the things I trivially disagree with. For instance, pointing out that concussion missile is undertuned, and therefore safe to give to a support strike, is bad logic. Heavies similarly should be forbidden to the clarion. The Clarion is already the best strike. Even if your vastly-too-good buffs to weapons were tuned down (+10% damage, +10% accuracy, +30% range would be a HUGE increase, but arguably balanced), you'd still be greatly buffing the damage output of the Clarion, on top of giving it the one thing it DELIBERATELY doesn't have access too- the top tier strike weaponry.

 

On BLC... I really don't care. In the ideal world, the Starguard has access to ALL THE LASERS, and... and this part is ALSO important- the lasers are given a bit of balance tuning. Right now, if you included BLC on a melee fighter who can switch to heavies or ions, it's a no-brainer- BLC is one of the Starguard weapons, the rest is a trap. If the lasers were tuned, this wouldn't be the case. A correctly balanced world would have you honestly considering rapids and quads, because each gives you something you want. You might decide that bursts and rapids is what you want, because you want a close ranged weapon, but sometimes you need the armor penetration of the burst, and other times you need the sustained damage or anti-evasion or whatever a buffed rapid fire laser would ACTUALLY give you.

 

 

If we can't get laser tuning... I mean, sure, put it on there. But it will destroy the character of that strike until the lasers ARE tuned. Honestly, I'd take that deal just to play the damned ship in a real match, but I'd prefer to see the chassis fix do it.

 

 

 

Reiterating- YOUR DAMAGE, ACCURACY, AND RANGE BUFFS ALL MULTIPLY AND STACK WITH THEMSELVES AND ADD UP TO BEING VASTLY TOO GOOD WITH THE NUMBERS PROVIDED.

 

Your net damage will also increase with extra booster breath, but that's not trivial to model. It's still a real damned increase in damage, however.

 

 

 

]5) Remove Charged Plating from the Star Guard and replace it with Feedback Shield.

 

This idea is absolutely glorious.

 

7) Give the Pike Retro Thrusters.

 

Absolutely. It's kind of slap-in-the-face to NOT have it on this ship, being it's whole thing is shooting missiles, and retros are the missile maneuver. Maybe the devs didn't know that at the time, or maybe they were worried about the Pike being too spammy with missiles, but whatever the reason, hook the Pike up with this.

 

8) Give the Pike Interdiction Missile.

 

While meant as a special item for the type 3 gunship, I just really think that the Pike should have this. Alternatively, a NEW missile, with short lockon, could be given to the Pike- it doesn't HAVE to be interdiction missile- just as long as the lockon is between clusters and concussions in length.

 

 

9) Give the Clarion Concussion Missile.

10) Give the Clarion Heavy Laser Cannons.

 

Very opposed. Clarion is a support ship and shouldn't be given these. REMEMBER that with this plan the chassis buffs would already be HUGE- the Clarion's quads would be, even using my numbers instead of yours, dealing a TON of damage compared to live. They don't need to have heavies. Not every strike needs to have heavies. Or concussions.

 

HLC's are the quintessential Strike weapon, and every Strike should have them.

 

Heavy Lasers are a bomber weapon. The two assault based strikes have cross class access, as does the heavy gunship.

 

Heavy Lasers:

All Bombers

Two Strikes

One Gunship

Zero Scouts

 

 

It's fine. It's ok. Clarions are fine with the iconic strike weapon Quad Laser.

[Nemarus]

Well everyone was spam refreshing that and commenting, so explicitly making one just for your stuff seems odd.

 

Scouts burn at 4, all other ships at 5. I've seriously proposed 4.5 in the past, but 4 is also fine for strikes. I don't feel this would in any way infringe on scouts, who still would turn and move faster.

 

This is out of line. Do you have any idea how much damage this makes? Remember, you're already making strikes able to chase down the heavier ships in the same manner scouts currently do.

These things stack mulitplicatively, your values are way too damned strong.

 

A giant +50% damage boost is one thing, but when you combine it with 20% accuracy and 20% range, you end up about with the damage overcharge you were talking about.

 

Drako's suggestion of "extra range" is so solid because it makes the strike actually work at medium range, while also increasing damage per hit AND accuracy at existing ranges. Remember how ranged capacitor is a pretty big damage increase? That's just ranged increase.

 

 

Your suggested numbers are VASTLY OUT OF SCOPE for what you (presumably) want to see. And if you combine all this damage with fundamental changes to how a strike chases enemies, you end up with something that could very easily be vastly too powerful. Not just a bit broken, but way too good.

 

 

 

Your other changes are not really related to strikes specifically, with the exception of the things I trivially disagree with. For instance, pointing out that concussion missile is undertuned, and therefore safe to give to a support strike, is bad logic. Heavies similarly should be forbidden to the clarion. The Clarion is already the best strike. Even if your vastly-too-good buffs to weapons were tuned down (+10% damage, +10% accuracy, +30% range would be a HUGE increase, but arguably balanced), you'd still be greatly buffing the damage output of the Clarion, on top of giving it the one thing it DELIBERATELY doesn't have access too- the top tier strike weaponry.

 

On BLC... I really don't care. In the ideal world, the Starguard has access to ALL THE LASERS, and... and this part is ALSO important- the lasers are given a bit of balance tuning. Right now, if you included BLC on a melee fighter who can switch to heavies or ions, it's a no-brainer- BLC is one of the Starguard weapons, the rest is a trap. If the lasers were tuned, this wouldn't be the case. A correctly balanced world would have you honestly considering rapids and quads, because each gives you something you want. You might decide that bursts and rapids is what you want, because you want a close ranged weapon, but sometimes you need the armor penetration of the burst, and other times you need the sustained damage or anti-evasion or whatever a buffed rapid fire laser would ACTUALLY give you.

 

 

If we can't get laser tuning... I mean, sure, put it on there. But it will destroy the character of that strike until the lasers ARE tuned. Honestly, I'd take that deal just to play the damned ship in a real match, but I'd prefer to see the chassis fix do it.

 

 

 

Reiterating- YOUR DAMAGE, ACCURACY, AND RANGE BUFFS ALL MULTIPLY AND STACK WITH THEMSELVES AND ADD UP TO BEING VASTLY TOO GOOD WITH THE NUMBERS PROVIDED.

 

Your net damage will also increase with extra booster breath, but that's not trivial to model. It's still a real damned increase in damage, however.

 

 

 

 

 

This idea is absolutely glorious.

 

 

 

Absolutely. It's kind of slap-in-the-face to NOT have it on this ship, being it's whole thing is shooting missiles, and retros are the missile maneuver. Maybe the devs didn't know that at the time, or maybe they were worried about the Pike being too spammy with missiles, but whatever the reason, hook the Pike up with this.

 

 

 

While meant as a special item for the type 3 gunship, I just really think that the Pike should have this. Alternatively, a NEW missile, with short lockon, could be given to the Pike- it doesn't HAVE to be interdiction missile- just as long as the lockon is between clusters and concussions in length.

 

 

 

 

Very opposed. Clarion is a support ship and shouldn't be given these. REMEMBER that with this plan the chassis buffs would already be HUGE- the Clarion's quads would be, even using my numbers instead of yours, dealing a TON of damage compared to live. They don't need to have heavies. Not every strike needs to have heavies. Or concussions.

 

 

 

Heavy Lasers are a bomber weapon. The two assault based strikes have cross class access, as does the heavy gunship.

 

Heavy Lasers:

All Bombers

Two Strikes

One Gunship

Zero Scouts

 

 

It's fine. It's ok. Clarions are fine with the iconic strike weapon Quad Laser.

 

All fair points. I still think flat damage is needed more than range, due to satellite fighting. And to make the Strike a threat that has to be urgently pre-empted, instead of just casually reacted to.

 

As for pushback on the Clarion, I still disagree. On the HLC, because the Clarion is > < close to being a great anti-minelayer, but needs something with armor piercing. On Concussion Missiles, because I want the Clarion to have at least one secondary weapon that is actually fun to use. Thermite can be satisfying, but it's just too darn frustrating and really only viable against Bombers. Ion Missile might be fun--even despite its horrid damage--if not for its oppressive cooldown.

 

Still, I'll go ahead and edit my original post to bring down those number ranges a bit.

Edited June 2, 2015 by Nemarus

[Verain]

Focussing on Satellite Combat just a bit:

 

A rule of thumb* could honestly be that:

10% range is roughly 5% damage (can be more if your weapon falls off faster with range)

10% damage is 10% damage

10% accuracy is 15% damage

 

The point is that accuracy is the big guy on the satellite- and even more specifically, accuracy lost due to tracking penalty. The fact that BLC's net damage on a satellite is so high is due to:

 

1)- Small firing window. This is honestly the biggest contributor.

2)- Very high base accuracy at close ranges.

3)- Very small deflection penalty.

 

If you want better satellite combat, then you would definitely want to talk about reducing the deflection penalty that lasers have, when equipped on a strike. You wouldn't need to pick a very large accuracy buff if you changed this, right? Note that ranged can beat damage for some lasers at many ranges- especially BLC which features a sharp drop off on damage and accuracy with range.

 

 

 

*rule of thumb comes from using a thumb to measure (yes, really), and as such, is not as accurate as using a ruler- the math on ranged capacitor is actually pretty complex. A good visual way to figure out damage is to picture a cone originating from your fighter. The center of the cone, and sticking straight out, is a bright red line that doesn't dim much until the very end. The surface of the cone, extending outward from you, begins much dimmer and falls off faster. So the center of your cone is a very bright red, and it is kind of shaped like an arrowhead in the brightest part, ish. Increasing damage makes the whole cone brighter. Increasing accuracy makes the dimmer parts brighter, but doesn't effect the brightest parts as much. Increasing range makes the cone bigger, meaning that there's more bright parts, and they extend further.

Edited June 2, 2015 by Verain

[Ardaneb]

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showpost.php?p=8225462&postcount=283 (obviously the link is to the first 19)

 

I really like these suggestions. When I sat down to make a list it looked a lot like this. The only differences that I had were:

1. Decrease cooldown on combat command and increase activation area instead of increasing damage (better support role)

2. Buff damage reduction on chasis of all strikes to 15%, which would allow the starguard charged plating to work and allow the other two ships to pick up an additional passive. (Instead of an armor buff)

3. Reduce cooldown to 2 seconds and increase activation area to 7000 on emp missile.

In summary, not really that many differences.

 

It is simply incorrect to say that buffing components is a problem because it will buff other ship types (other than strikes) without considering the magnitude of the buff. For example, if lights and rapids are buffed but not as good as bursts, then type 2 scouts have not received a buff. If they are buffed to be equal in power but qualitatively different from bursts, then type 2 scouts still have not received a buff, only another choice. Having said that, it is likely that tensor crash builds will get a buff with your suggestions, but, according to their name, they need a buff. Really, the only problem comes about if you make a supercomponent to compensate for a weakness, and that component spreads to other ships (as many people believe the move of bursts from gunships to scouts is an example). The goal should be to balance the components.

 

It seems to me that changing existing stats/cooldowns for many components would be easier than creating a new superbuff to the chassis. It certainly should be easy enough to change those constants and if the developers wanted to just ignore the few actual ability changes that you suggested, it would still be good. I prefer this approach. So what if a good ship gets to have access to another component.

[SWCNT]

Focussing on Satellite Combat just a bit:

 

*rule of thumb comes from using a thumb to measure (yes, really), and as such, is not as accurate as using a ruler- the math on ranged capacitor is actually pretty complex. A good visual way to figure out damage is to picture a cone originating from your fighter. The center of the cone, and sticking straight out, is a bright red line that doesn't dim much until the very end. The surface of the cone, extending outward from you, begins much dimmer and falls off faster. So the center of your cone is a very bright red, and it is kind of shaped like an arrowhead in the brightest part, ish. Increasing damage makes the whole cone brighter. Increasing accuracy makes the dimmer parts brighter, but doesn't effect the brightest parts as much. Increasing range makes the cone bigger, meaning that there's more bright parts, and they extend further.

 

This kinda makes sense but its has a few flaws. It's not clear what the significant of the cone base would be, if it's the circle defined by "firing arc angle" as is typically thought, then the range explanation (increasing cone size), doesn't make sense because the "firing arc"--size of circle--isn't a function of range. I think it's better to think of it has a cylinder. First start off with a cone and define the cone angle by the firing arc angle (say 32 degrees). Then make the cone, where the base of the cone, which is what people call the "firing arc", even though it's clearly not an arc then becomes the base of the cylinder. This step is needed so the "firing arc"--read circle diameter-- doesn't change size as the range of a weapon changes. Now make a cylinder using the cone base as the base of the cylinder. The length of the cylinder = Range, the surface of the cylinder is colored to reflect damage as a function of range. The top of the cylinder is colored to reflect tracking accuracy (% per degree) as a function of cursor position within the "firing arc". Note that the top (inner) cylinder gradient would reflect the tracking accuracy at far range, which is constant relative to base accuracy. By base, I mean 90% at range X--the quoted value in the tooltip. As you moved down the cylinder the base accuracy would change which is difficult to depict visually--you'd need a second vertical gradient. I made a drawing to help people:

http://i.imgur.com/O9gK9Sv.jpg

[Nemarus]

The fact that BLC's net damage on a satellite is so high is due to:

 

1)- Small firing window. This is honestly the biggest contributor.

 

 

And this is why I want Strikes to have a flat damage buff. Because they need to have threatening burst damage, just like every other ship in the game.

 

Even off of a satellite, it's not hard to line up a target and pop Wingman and hit it from 5000+ out. The problem is that the target has eons to react without taking any significant damage. Even if you don't attempt a missile lock (in the hopes of doing "quiet" laser damage), it just doesn't put a dent in the target. Not in the < 2 seconds before they casually react to go evasive or turn to slap you in your fool Strike face.

 

And on a satellite, not only are you contending with reactions cutting your sustained damage short, but with cover cutting your sustained damage short, too.

 

A big damage buff fixes this. And it's why I put it as #2 and the other two primary weapon alterations at #3 and #4. If I only get one, I want the damage buff. Because I want anyone who lets a Strike deliver 2 seconds of DPS to pay a price. And I want anyone who lets a Strike deliver 4 seconds of DPS be red-hulled or dead--especially if that someone is using paper-thin shields.

 

Strikes cannot sneak up on anyone. Not even if they could shoot at 10,000 range. My guiding principle is that if you see a Strike on your scanners, you need to pre-empt--otherwise you or your team is going to pay the price. Just as you have to do against Scouts, Gunships, and Bombers..

 

It needs to be this--you see a Strike...

 

If you're a Scout, you need to flank or flee. Jousting cannot be an option if you want to escape the confrontation without damage. Maybe if you blow all of your cooldowns, you can win, but you will come away smoking.

 

If you're a Gunship, you need to kite the Strike. Ion Railgun helps with this. Even with improved mobility, a Strike is still only two Ion Railguns shots from being dead in space.

 

If you're a Bomber, you need to get to cover and build a defensive nest.

 

Right now, none of the above are true. You can ignore the Strike until it is convenient to deal with him. At worst, the Strike might make you peel or move in some way you would rather not. But even then, that's still a reaction.

 

The Strike needs a pre-emption mechanic, so that its potential influence on the battlefield extends beyond the range of its weapons--just like every other ship.

Edited June 2, 2015 by Nemarus

[Verain]

It's not clear what the significant of the cone base would be, if it's the circle defined by "firing arc angle" as is typically thought, then the range explanation (increasing cone size), doesn't make sense because the "firing arc"--size of circle--isn't a function of range.

 

Trust me, it's a cone. If you are hung up on the point of the cone, don't be- just chop off the little cone part.

 

Picture your ship flying level. Now picture an opponent who is above you by a bit, and he's at 4km. That means that between your ship and his is 4km, and put him such that he's at just the edge of your firing circle.

 

Now make him closer. You can't hit him any more, because he's outside of your cone.

 

 

The firing arc describes how the cone spreads out from you. It's assuredly not a cylinder. Put your mind's eye outside the ship entirely.

[Delta_V]

This kinda makes sense but its has a few flaws. It's not clear what the significant of the cone base would be, if it's the circle defined by "firing arc angle" as is typically thought, then the range explanation (increasing cone size), doesn't make sense because the "firing arc"--size of circle--isn't a function of range. I think it's better to think of it has a cylinder. First start off with a cone and define the cone angle by the firing arc angle (say 32 degrees). Then make the cone, where the base of the cone, which is what people call the "firing arc", even though it's clearly not an arc then becomes the base of the cylinder. This step is needed so the "firing arc"--read circle diameter-- doesn't change size as the range of a weapon changes. Now make a cylinder using the cone base as the base of the cylinder. The length of the cylinder = Range, the surface of the cylinder is colored to reflect damage as a function of range. The top of the cylinder is colored to reflect tracking accuracy (% per degree) as a function of cursor position within the "firing arc". Note that the top (inner) cylinder gradient would reflect the tracking accuracy at far range, which is constant relative to base accuracy. By base, I mean 90% at range X--the quoted value in the tooltip. As you moved down the cylinder the base accuracy would change which is difficult to depict visually--you'd need a second vertical gradient. I made a drawing to help people:

http://i.imgur.com/O9gK9Sv.jpg

 

The size of the circle (the base of the cone) does depend on range. On your screen, the firing arc represents the base of the cone, as seen from its peak. How big it appears on your screen depends on the angle of the firing arc, which is the angle between the centerline of the cone and the outer surface. If Weapons A and B both have the same firing arc, but A has a shorter range than B, the circle will appear to be the same size on your screen. In reality, the circle for Weapon A is smaller, but it is closer to you, so your perspective makes them appear the same.

 

So if you take a weapon, keep its firing arc the same, but extend its range, you make the height of the cone taller, while keeping the angle the same. Thus you end up with a larger base, and more total volume that is threatened by the weapon.

[Verain]

Nem, I agree with your points, and importantly, I completely agree that strikes need to be scary when they fly at you. The only annoying thing about strikes right now, on live, is that you need a higher than normal amount of mana to klil them.

 

I am in favor of a flat damage magnitude buff- it was my first post in that thread. I've only taken issue with the magnitude being too big, when combined with other percentage increases.

[Nemarus]

Nem, I agree with your points

 

http://i.imgur.com/U2WwUw5.png

 

 

I am in favor of a flat damage magnitude buff- it was my first post in that thread. I've only taken issue with the magnitude being too big, when combined with other percentage increases.

 

Understood. I guess that's the tricky part. I feel compelled to say, "The damage buff needs to be really high!" because it does. That's the only way to give the Strike threatening burst.

 

I know Drakolich's general range improvement is popular, and I certainly would welcome it ... but not if it would result in less burst damage. The Strike already has great long-range weapons, and they are still largely worthless due to sustained damage being junk and cover being plentiful. I worry that increasing Range will just make the Strike a more apt newb farmer, but not much better in competitive matches.

 

Accuracy is welcome, and yes does translate to a damage buff ... but if the Accuracy buff means the outright damage buff is smaller, then I'm still not sure I want it--because the biggest problem is simply targets' ability to get out of the way. No amount of Accuracy will let a Strike shoot through walls, nor will improved Accuracy help much against a sniping Gunship with Feedback Shield or a ticked Bomber.

 

At the end of the day, raw damage output is the biggest Strike problem I think.

[Zharik]

A flat accuracy increase makes more shots hit, especially vs evasion builds which are certainly common enough to warrant a counter in the meta. The actual percentage increase could be debated/tweaked to achieve the desired amount of additional threat that strikes can generate when firing at anyone. This should be enough to get them in a good place overall with the exceptions of T2 strikes. I love the idea of reduced lock-on/reload times for missiles most as that also gives the strike a more credible threat, especially the T2.

 

This also does not affect other ships in any way when not facing a strike, which is a goal of most of the population.

 

I was thinking:

T1 +25% (ish) primary weapons accuracy.

T2 -25% lock-on and reload times for missiles.

T3 10-12% to both

[Ramalina]

This is out of line. Do you have any idea how much damage this makes? Remember, you're already making strikes able to chase down the heavier ships in the same manner scouts currently do.

These things stack mulitplicatively, your values are way too damned strong.

 

A giant +50% damage boost is one thing, but when you combine it with 20% accuracy and 20% range, you end up about with the damage overcharge you were talking about.

 

Drako's suggestion of "extra range" is so solid because it makes the strike actually work at medium range, while also increasing damage per hit AND accuracy at existing ranges. Remember how ranged capacitor is a pretty big damage increase? That's just ranged increase.

 

 

Your suggested numbers are VASTLY OUT OF SCOPE for what you (presumably) want to see. And if you combine all this damage with fundamental changes to how a strike chases enemies, you end up with something that could very easily be vastly too powerful. Not just a bit broken, but way too good.

 

Verain, strikes need to have enough burst damage, or if missiles are involved enough prospect of burst if you don't bother to defend, to at the very least be able to peel.

 

Accuracy and range both have a very limited contribution to the actual burst. Accuracy just makes it so that you're a bit more likely to connect with your sustained DPS. Range gives you more time to do sustained dps, and if your weapons have slow damage decay with range adds a very small amount of damage.

 

Pretty much what happens with the buffs Nemarus is suggesting is that HLCs at 6 km become equivalent to LLCs or Quads at 2 km, but with the option of armor piercing. How frightening is that level of burst?

 

LLCs and Quads on the other hand get to become more like Ion Cannons that are just as effective on hulls as they are on shields, and that is indeed a fairly scary level of burst. Still not as much as burst as a Quads and Pods or BLC scout with TT up can put out though. In this case I think it's reasonable to compare Strike primaries only vs a scouts full stack of burst, because with that set of buffs you'd be making a huge misplay to close enough to use clusters with a strike, and every other missile has close enough to 0 DPS in practice to not really matter much.

 

Looking at my little bit of number crunching though, the main effect is that strikes that wanted AP would have heavies, and still would struggle to peel or win jousts, and every other strike would have Quads, because you'd be completely nuts to think of taking anything else. So it'd flatten the meta for strikes a fair bit, because every strike would become a Quads strike, though T1's would keep HLCs for bomber killing. Burst would be about 90% of what the meta scouts have without lucky strings of crits, at least on targets with no tracking penalites and no evasion cooldowns. With penalties to accuracy Quads strikes would pull ahead of Quads and Pods scouts by a modest margin in terms of burst.

 

The most interesting side effect of a flat buff to strike primaries that's enough to make them scary is that it simplifies the cannon choice to Quads or HLCs, Ions are no longer worth taking unless you buff their hull damage up to around 800-1000 DPS because with a large damage buff the normal blasters are so effective at shield damage that Ions are no longer advantageous.

 

Another side effect is that I think the better pilots would set a whole new crop of records in terms of the ability to farm noobs, and the battlescouts and gunships might be pushed entirely to the "ships" section of the record thread. Strike burst would still be a bit behind, but since it would be the same as strike sustained DPS the 100% uptime would be a boon to farming efficiency. You might even see weapon power converter show up if someone wanted a dedicated farming build.

 

This is sad, I liked the flat buff idea better before I saw the unpleasant side effects. Mind you there might be other nasty side effects, these are just the obvious ones that jumped out of the results from the spreadsheet I did when I got curious about what these changes to strike output would look like compared to what scouts have for burst on live.

 

Of course, if all the noob complaint threads stop mentioning scouts, gunships, and bombers to cry about how fast Mega-upgraded strikes melt face from 6-8 km, then I suppose that's a sign of a certain type of balance progress.

Edited June 3, 2015 by Ramalina

[Verain]

Verain, strikes need to have enough burst damage,

"Burst damage" is one thing. "Sustained damage greater than TT" is quite another.

 

Accuracy and range both have a very limited contribution to the actual burst.

This is very much not true. TT means that many accurately aimed shots that would have missed, instead hit. Yes, the crit piece is a part- but that's certainly not required for TT to do solid burst.

 

Accuracy just makes it so that you're a bit more likely to connect with your sustained DPS.

Again, this is patently false. Accuracy is a massive part of all damage. If you are shooting at a target whose net chance to be hit is 50/50- not even unlikely with a scout or gunship target anywhere but right under the nose- we can say that adding 20% accuracy to this is a 40% increase in damage, and you can brush that off as sustained.

But the odds of hitting with three shots in a row rise from 12.5% to 34%.

The odds of hitting with two of the three shots rise from 37.5% to 44%

The odds of hitting with one of the three shots falls from 37.5% to 19%

The odds of missing fall from 12.5% to 2.5%

 

The first case is ABSOLUTELY a burst case. Going from two to three shots is essentially a crit, after all, and the odds over DOUBLE of landing all three shots. No one is getting one shot by burst laser cannon, but lots of ships explode because of it- and the accuracy IS big part of that.

 

The odds of hitting with two shots don't go up much, but the odds of only landing one shot fall by quite a bit, and the odds of missing entirely generally disappear.

 

 

No one would argue that crit isn't burst. Accuracy rates in most dogfighting situations are low enough that accuracy essentially is a better version of crit. Further evidence: TT and wingman are both very common and effective cooldowns.

 

Range gives you more time to do sustained dps, and if your weapons have slow damage decay with range adds a very small amount of damage.

 

For a given range, extra range on your weapon increases your damage AND your accuracy. You are correct that for roughly equal numbers, ranged buffs are less impactful- but we are discussing much bigger range increases than we are damage or accuracy.

 

There's a lot of reasons to extend strike ranges of primary and secondary weapons:

 

1)- Intuitive play. The mating cry of the foodship is the rapid fire laser at 6km. They can see the target, they can move their mouse over the target, but they haven't learned what the range indicator means. Importantly, they EXPECT, from a bunch of other games, that they would be in range at several ship lengths with their laser. Having strikes actually DO this would be nice, right? Assuming it was balanced, which, I really think it would be.

 

2)- Threaten gunships with missiles. Be in a dangerous range much faster. Right now, a strike that is on approach essentially needs to close to scout distances. If you have midrange weapons instead of close range weapons, you would expect that, if you start boosting at 15km, you'll be in range to deal damage faster with a mid range craft flying a bit slower, than you would with a faster craft with short range weaponry. This would absolutely fix that, as well as minimize the giant deadzone before you can even make a gunship hear a stupid beeping-noise (the primary weapon of the strike fighter is the beeping-noise).

 

3)- Better attacks at nodes. A strike approaching a node has to close to scout distances to do anything, at which point, he can't aim, because there's a bunch of invincible solar panels in the way. With greater distance, he could threaten earlier. The flipside to extra range is that the 1km distant medium deflection shots will be vastly better with a large range boost.

 

4)- Actually unique. Seems to go with the design of the class.

 

 

I'd like more than just the range boost, of course. But a range boost is a really damned solid idea, and don't dismiss range and accuracy as sustained only- flashfires with two accuracy boosting buttons and ranged capacitor are arguably the standard build, and they certainly aren't picking those for their effects on sustained damage.

 

 

Pretty much what happens with the buffs Nemarus is suggesting is that HLCs at 6 km become equivalent to LLCs or Quads at 2 km, but with the option of armor piercing. How frightening is that level of burst?

 

Uh, do you mean the edited values, or the original? The current ones might be a bit on the high side, but they are definitely not out of line. The original ones were a lot more.

 

But as an aside- It's a lot easier to hold a target between 4 and 6km with heavies, than it is to hold a target at 1km with lights. In fact, at 1km, lights will tear up anything without charged plating. The reason you don't see this much in practice is because doing that generally requires a skill differential or an out of breath opponent. If you like, I'll run some math later.

 

 

Of course, if all the noob complaint threads stop mentioning scouts, gunships, and bombers to cry about how fast Mega-upgraded strikes melt face from 6-8 km, then I suppose that's a sign of a certain type of balance progress.

 

 

I actually do feel that strikes need to be "broken" at something to compete, but that's sort of opposed to the generalist argument. In general, if you are engaging a ship at their forte and it is not yours, it is supposed to kind of feel unfair. Also, you'll see people complaining about anything that works in pvp, and we just don't see enough people complaining about strikes. That's not to say that an overbuff is a good thing- merely that "no one complains about THIS, but they do complain about EVERYTHING ELSE" is a pretty damning statement that THIS needs buffs.

[tunewalker]

You got to admit verain... that beeping noise can be a REALLY effective weapon... so many deaths caused by that beeping noise alone.... I dont even need to shoot the enemy ship hears it and does the work for me. They suicide out of sheer anoyance at the beeping.

[Delta_V]

*snip*

 

As far as range, also note that it indirectly buffs accuracy. By allowing you to engage from longer ranges, it makes it easier to keep the target centered, thereby reducing tracking penalties.

 

As you said, accuracy is huge, and against high-evasion targets, a modest buff to accuracy can lead to a huge boost to dps, both sustained and burst, and just as importantly, improve the *reliability* of that damage. Allowing Strikes to significantly reduce the benefit of enemy evasion could also have an interesting impact on the meta. D-Field would still be favored for avoiding enemy railguns, but if you've got enemy Strikes (who would now be a dangerous part of the meta) running around who can basically pop Wingman and not give a damn about some silly "evasion" stat, well, that might push some Scouts and Gunships to use other shield choices. And each ship that doesn't take D-Field means one less double-break ship in play, which would be a boost for lock-on missiles.

 

 

Finally, yeah, the lack of complaints about Strikes, when you see them about literally every other class, is a sign that something isn't right. A Jack-of-All-Stats lacks a decisive strength to play to, so they have to be the best *overall* ship. Let's say you grade each ship out of 10 in each category. If you have a Jack-of-All-Stats, it might look like 7/10 Maneuverability, 7/10 Mobility, 7/10 Defense, 7/10 Firepower, and 7/10 Range. Then your sniper might look like 10/10 Range, 10/10 Firepower, but only 3/10 Maneuverability, 3/10 Defense, and 5/10 Mobility. Meanwhile, a fragile speedster might look like 10/10 Maneuverability, 10/10 Mobility, but only 2/10 Defense, 4/10 Firepower, and 5/10 Range. Point is, if you add up all the stats, the specialized classes come out behind the general-purpose one. The reason for this is that there will be times where you really, really need the range of the sniper, or really, really need the speed of the speedster, so there will still be roles for those classes to fill even if they are not the best overall. The Jack-of-All-Stats, meanwhile, lacks a decisive strength that makes you go "This is why I need to use this ship" so it simply needs to be the best overall sum of stats.

[SWCNT]

Trust me, it's a cone. If you are hung up on the point of the cone, don't be- just chop off the little cone part.

 

Picture your ship flying level. Now picture an opponent who is above you by a bit, and he's at 4km. That means that between your ship and his is 4km, and put him such that he's at just the edge of your firing circle.

 

Now make him closer. You can't hit him any more, because he's outside of your cone.

 

 

The firing arc describes how the cone spreads out from you. It's assuredly not a cylinder. Put your mind's eye outside the ship entirely.

 

I'm not saying it's not a cone, I'm saying your analogy didn't define the meaning of the cone base, firing arc's or tracking penalties. Therefore, the cylinder conveyed what you wanted to convey--at least my interpretation of it-- in what I thought was an easier, more colorful approach. You're totally correct about the cone.

 

If Weapons A and B both have the same firing arc, but A has a shorter range than B, the circle will appear to be the same size on your screen. In reality, the circle for Weapon A is smaller, but it is closer to you, so your perspective makes them appear the same.

So if you take a weapon, keep its firing arc the same, but extend its range, you make the height of the cone taller, while keeping the angle the same. Thus you end up with a larger base, and more total volume that is threatened by the weapon.

 

With your later explanations and Ramalina's diagram I agree with what you're saying. Thanks to both of you for clarify that, I enjoyed those posts.

Edited June 3, 2015 by SWCNT

[Ramalina]

"Burst damage" is one thing. "Sustained damage greater than TT" is quite another.

 

TT doesn't do any damage at all, it just buffs the damage of other things.

 

Partly I'm a bit sleepy and not wording things well.

 

I was looking mostly at maximum burst potential, not a the probability of being able to land that potential. Both are important of course. The damage increase is where the potential comes from, the accuracy (and to a much smaller extent the range) are where the reasonable probability landing the burst come from.

 

So the following numbers were all from the 50% damage, 20% accuracy, 20% range proposal. Gargantuan buff, but still not enough to surpass the peak output of meta scouts on live.

 

HLCs under Nem's scenario are not that impressive. I calculated for dead center shots at 1.5 s and 2.25 s burst windows for comparison. I was generous to the "new strike" weapons a bit, they're all using short range values, the scout values assuming closing from range but not opening fire until you hit the medium range breakpoint. All baseline mastered components, with no complications from capacitors, crew etc.

 

Just the blasters for the "new strike" weapons, 2 BLC shots + 1 double volley cluster + TT for the BLC battlescout comparison at 1.5 sec, one additional BLC shot for the 2.25 second comparison. Quads and pods scout was assumed to be using Quads, Pods, and TT. I took average damages for the TT effect, so values were about 1.15 times non-crit values, but of course would be substantially higher with one or more crits.

 

The "new strike" Quads are almost identical in performance to what a Quads & Pods scout on live does now. The BLC scout burst is ahead by about 700 dmg at 1.5 sec, by about 400 at 2.25, and continues the trend of falling DPS, though by the time it gets as low as the "new HLCs" it's not really a burst damage situation anymore. It's the natural consequence of reload times impacting the contribution of Clusters to the burst.

 

So scouts keep the absolute instantaneous burst crown, and for cases of good aim rule sustained damage with quads and pods until they run out of rockets.

                                        1.5 sec max burst             2.25 sec max burst
BLC scout                                    3026                               3810
Quads & Pods                              2323                               3484
"New Quads"                                2306                               3459
"New HLCs"                                 1773                                2411

 

 

Here's the Nem version weapon stats

New HLC               525 m       3150 m       7560 m
Shield dps             1182         1059            993
Hull DPS                1277         1143           1071
Accuracy                125            120            115


New Quads            525 m       3150 m        6300 m
Shield DPS          1441          1340            1085
Hull DPS              1672          1554            1259
Accuracy               130            115              105

 

The main points I was trying to make, were that the peak burst of this monster of a primary weapons buff is not actually any higher than scout burst is on live right now, that it does undesirable things to strike gearing and gameplay by simplifying it pretty much to, "equip Quads and shoot stuff unless you want to kill bombers, in which case equip HLCs and shoot stuff," and that while strike burst that's close to scout burst is probably a very good thing having that burst be strike sustained damage (because apparently even when suggesting buffs strikes can't have nice things like functional secondary weapons mechanics for creating burst, which is what the damn things are supposedly for) **** where was I, oh, right, just making strike sustained DPS high enough to do the job of a properly functioning set of burst mechanics turns out to have unpleasant side effects.

 

The range increase is nice, but it's quality of life stuff. They offer a second or so of extra DPS time and with ranged capacitors actually make opening fire on a GS with HLCs less of an ordeal of stalking through LOS cover and hoping that the GS pilot isn't paying any attention to red arrows on their mini-map. The range is definitely what you'd need to turn strikes into really functional mid range ships, as they'd have enough mid-range to get some work done before having to reposition or fight in an unfavorable range bracket. I like the range idea, it's just that it doesn't really do much for strike burst unless strikes are getting BLCs, because the good blasters that strikes have don't have a sharp enough damage and accuracy fall-off with range for an increase in range to increase damage at a given range that much (aside from the previously non-existent range which is where the extra DPS time comes from, but that doesn't increase your damage/unit time it just starts your output time period earlier).

 

It seems like workable burst damage is on the order of 1500 - 2000 DPS, over a period of 1.5 to 3 seconds, but usually with a substantial chance of not all of it landing under normal combat conditions. Enough of a chance to all hit though, to motivate potential targets to get out of the way before the burst window is over, or better yet before it begins.

 

There's a terrible outburst of whining if it's suggested that missile be fixed enough to combine with primaries for decent burst, buffing primaries apparently doesn't bother people as much even though it'd be about 30% or so more potent than the sort of burst that functional missiles would put out but causes undesirable side effects, so what's left?

 

Add a fifth button, for a system slot for strikes on top of the components they already have? Combat command for all?

 

Too tired to think about it any more right now. Maybe tomorrow.

 

Edit: Very too tired. So yeah, I think I'm agreeing on range being nice, the primaries buff being too big, disagreeing on it being more bursty than what scouts have right now (cause it's not), and disagreeing on how much the range and accuracy create increased max burst at medium and long ranges for medium and long range weapons that have very small fall-offs of damage and accuracy between the medium and max range breakpoints (they're both amazing for sustained and overall dps though, the hit chances at the edge of the firing arc in particular).

Edited June 3, 2015 by Ramalina

[Ramalina]

@yallia

 

I think you're confusing the circle defining the base of cone which defines the volume of the valid weapon firing envelope and the firing arc circle, which is a projection onto a reference plane used as an angular reference relative to the ships longitudinal axis.

 

It's basically supposed to work like surveying or HUD optics, where a circle inscribed (or projected onto) a plate of clear material like glass defines the edge of a cone if you look through the glass with your eye at a specific reference location. So if you have a longitudinal axis through the center of your circle, that you line up your eye with, if the plate is at the reference distance from your eye you can tell if objects seen past the plate are within a set number of degrees of that axis. The 'base' of the weapon envelope is very large and very far away, the circle is measured in centimeters and would be projected onto the fighter's HUD or the pilot's helmet mounted display. Or in the case of GSF, drawn on your computer's monitor. That's why the circle size doesn't change. It's on the glass plate in your cockpit and the distance from you eye to that plate isn't changing when the weapon range changes, if it did, the reference angle would no longer be the same.

 

The GSF implementation is a bit fake and things don't move around when you move your head, and the circle is not lined up with the axis of you ship, instead is above it like the scope of a rifle. Not to mention that it's all a projection onto a 2D screen, so certain perspective effects aren't possible to recreate without input from a head tracking device like TrackIR. SWTOR isn't into high fidelity simulation, so they made a simple UI instead of working out some fairly complicated optics problems to make it more realistic. It's good enough to fool people without much experience with that sort of thing, and works perfectly well at doing what is supposed to do as a UI element, which is answer the question, "do I need to turn my ship more before I can take a shot?"

Edited June 3, 2015 by Ramalina

[SWCNT]

@Ramalina

Thanks for your suggestion. It possible I'm wrong in all of this, but I'm not nuts about your suggestion because you're invoking ever higher levels of abstraction--nearly impossible to test--to explain away the data. If what you're saying is true, how do you reconcile a player seeing a noticeable change in the arc size in Situation C vs A and B? The diameter (volume) increase is nearly the same, so if A and B are too small to notice, why isn't C? That just doesn't make sense. The cone edge change would be about the same. So either some really funny business is going on here, or that cone isn't changing with range as so many think. I'm drawing my conclusions on what I can test, it's possible it's wrong, but I think it's better than eliciting ad hoc ideas. I would like for what people think (cone increases with range) to be true since it "feels" nice and is consistent with how the cone should work. I just haven't found any empirical evidence to support it.

Edited June 3, 2015 by SWCNT