Nerf Gunships, No seriously, Nerf Them you make game boring.

[RAZIM]

If they fix Strikes, maybe they will/could add a long range strike model or a new long range missile that is limited to strikes. Missiles can be evaded but if gunships have an opponent that can match their range, and give them a bit more to watch out for, it'd make for better games. Right now the only stock choice that will immediately disrupt another gunship's gameplay is another gunship...leading to way too many.

 

Scouts are in the equation but I'm not sure the bursty scouts were the best direction for the game. Sure they deal with gunships pretty well but now everything has to be able to absorb that level of burst damage or deal it out to contend with them.

 

More disruption will make for better games without too much nerfing. Some advantage would still be there for the gunship as they don't have lock alarms. Personally I don't mind the challenge but some balancing is needed to keep the queues from bleeding new pilots.

 

(Suggested long range missile : Czerka AoE warheads featuring some plasma/shrapnel component. I find DoTs are a good way to suggest targets find repairs or hide)

Edited September 8, 2015 by RAZIM

[sartt]

If they fix Strikes, maybe they will/could add a long range strike model or a new long range missile that is limited to strikes. Missiles can be evaded but if gunships have an opponent that can match their range, and give them a bit more to watch out for, it'd make for better games. Right now the only stock choice that will immediately disrupt another gunship's gameplay is another gunship...leading to way too many.

 

Scouts are in the equation but I'm not sure the bursty scouts were the best direction for the game. Sure they deal with gunships pretty well but now everything has to be able to absorb that level of burst damage or deal it out to contend with them.

 

More disruption will make for better games without too much nerfing. Some advantage would still be there for the gunship as they don't have lock alarms. Personally I don't mind the challenge but some balancing is needed to keep the queues from bleeding new pilots.

 

(Suggested long range missile : Czerka AoE warheads featuring some plasma/shrapnel component. I find DoTs are a good way to suggest targets find repairs or hide)

What they need to do is make Proton Torpedoes have a 15000m Range. If gunship scrubs want to sit back and play like cowards 15000m in the back i should be able to shoot them with a torpedo from 15000m away

[Gavin_Kelvar]

What they need to do is make Proton Torpedoes have a 15000m Range. If gunship scrubs want to sit back and play like cowards 15000m in the back i should be able to shoot them with a torpedo from 15000m away

 

That'd honestly be pretty cool if they buffed torps so they could be a counter to GS rails. It'd make for some interesting counter-play.

[Svarthrafn]

I sympathize with your frustration, and it is indeed difficult to break a gunship / bomber formation, but it is hardly impenetrable if you choose the right counter and have pilots capable of pulling it off. The latter requirement is really the root of most of your frustration, because if you were flying on a team full of skilled, experienced pilots, the enemy would not so easily set up and maintain the bomberball. You would have several gunships on your team using ion railgun to clear out the bomber's junk and weaken the enemy gunships, and evasive scouts to go in and mop up the damaged enemies.

 

The number one source of frustration-fuel in GSF is being put into matches where your team is playing against a team that is far more experienced. If nobody on the experienced team flew gunships, and instead flew evasion scouts, your frustrations would be just as powerful and your ability to hit or kill them just as small.

 

My suggestion is to find some more experienced pilots to group with. Ask in your server's GSF channel (usually just /cjoin GSF), and you'll find veterans who are happy to help you. Alternately, watch the scoreboards after matches and learn who your faction's better players are. Send one of them a message, asking to group or for advice.

 

Despon

 

The counter is so much more difficult to pull off than the problem. That is why gunships make for gameplay that isn't fun for a lot of people. Things would be far easier if they would include some sort of in-game teamchat so that pugs could coordinate better. Eve has it, and it worked great when I was playing that game.

 

Though just introduce a ship with a cloaking device already and I think gunship woes will decline sharply.

[ALaggyGrunt]

The counter is so much more difficult to pull off than the problem. That is why gunships make for gameplay that isn't fun for a lot of people. Things would be far easier if they would include some sort of in-game teamchat so that pugs could coordinate better. Eve has it, and it worked great when I was playing that game.

 

Though just introduce a ship with a cloaking device already and I think gunship woes will decline sharply.

 

My impression of EVE's voice chat is nobody uses it. Everyone just uses some third-party program, probably because they've already got the thing set up.

[LordRaeth]

My impression of EVE's voice chat is nobody uses it. Everyone just uses some third-party program, probably because they've already got the thing set up.

 

People use Mechwarrior's inbuilt voice chat quite a bit from my experience though.

[Svarthrafn]

My impression of EVE's voice chat is nobody uses it. Everyone just uses some third-party program, probably because they've already got the thing set up.

 

I was in RvB...pretty much constant PvP with pick-up fleets. We used the heck out of it, and it worked great. Lots of people used it. The only times I used TS or Mmble were basically when everyone was sitting around shooting the breeze. Eve voice was easy to set up with different channels, mutes, broadcasts, etc. I'm surprised more people didn't use it. Made running fleets a breeze.

Edited September 11, 2015 by Svarthrafn

[LordRaeth]

Does evasion do anything against gunship shots?

[Ryuku-sama]

Does evasion do anything against gunship shots?

 

It does.

[LordRaeth]

Then why am I hit so easily even when I manually jink and stuff I still get owned. My flashfire can't even get near before it's owned. Edited September 11, 2015 by LordRaeth

[Ryuku-sama]

Then why am I hit so easily even when I manually jink and stuff I still get owned. My flashfire can't even get near before it's owned.

 

Because you're bad. Alternatively, if you see a gunship with Wingman up, you may wanna hide and attack later instead of trying to charge in when your only way to not be hit would be to ALWAYS be at the edge of his arc and with DField up. If you end upin the 10° arc, you will get hit without DField. And good gunships can pull off sub 3 km shots, which are quite hard due to the targeting reticule becoming bigger without changing the actual target size.

[Drakkolich]

Then why am I hit so easily even when I manually jink and stuff I still get owned. My flashfire can't even get near before it's owned.

 

One of the big things with Evasion is most players don't see it when it's working on Railguns. Do you ever notice when a Railgun is fired at you and misses? If you aren't actively looking for Gunships until after they shoot you, you have no idea how many times they have shot at you before it hit you. Evasion is amazing vs Railguns in fact it's the best counter in the game to them. This is also why every top Gunship stacks Accuracy as hard as possible to counter it.

 

 

I'd also like to point out that Evasion has nothing to do with your flying. If your sitting still or flying at top speed their Accuracy vs Evasion roll will be exactly the same. The only thing "manually jinking and stuff" would do is it might make them physical miss their shot. This is still very important to do I just want to explain the difference between them.

 

If you really want to see Evasion at work use 3 Evasion cooldowns all at the same time while a Gunship is aiming at you. Watch as this miss 3/4 of their shots.

 

 

Because you're bad.

 

This really isn't helpful Ryuku, yes he's probably less experienced but explaining what he's missing would be much more useful than this.

[LordRaeth]

Because you're bad. Alternatively, if you see a gunship with Wingman up, you may wanna hide and attack later instead of trying to charge in when your only way to not be hit would be to ALWAYS be at the edge of his arc and with DField up. If you end upin the 10° arc, you will get hit without DField. And good gunships can pull off sub 3 km shots, which are quite hard due to the targeting reticule becoming bigger without changing the actual target size.

 

With that attitude I dunno why I bother, seeing it so often already in game can't be asked to deal with it on the forums as well, may as well give up on it.

Edited September 11, 2015 by LordRaeth

[Ryuku-sama]

With that attitude I dunno why I bother, seeing it so often already in game can't be asked to deal with it on the forums as well, may as well give up on it.

 

Sorry to be coming across as an ******e but with a nerf gunship thread every other thread, I sometime lose my patience. It's getting really annoying to see people whining about one of the easiest ship to destroy.

Gunships are super easy to destroy as long as you are aware they exist and actually look out for the little difference in how a ship actually fly to detect gunships without even having to target them. Then actually search for them and hunt them.

It's easy as long as you don't fly at them in their line of sight before about 5km... Or when you can get to them in less than 1s.

They are easy kills if they flee as long as you don,t become BLC bait by flying in super close range without destroying your target faster than BLC can fire twice.

And if they flee, they are either easy to follow.. And if you can't, you still kept him from killing someone.

Add how many people play a gunship but lack situationnal awereness and try to tank **** they shouldn't.. And killing gunships is actually easier than killing anything else on average. Only very good pilot can fly gunships without being easy kills.

Edited September 12, 2015 by Ryuku-sama

[Danalon]

Then why am I hit so easily even when I manually jink and stuff I still get owned. My flashfire can't even get near before it's owned.

 

It usually needs at least two gunships focussing on me to stop me, when I'm in my Flashfire. It depends a lot on situational awareness and position of the gunships as well as the angle from which I'm attacking them. Generally speaking, a lot of gunships are easy targets because they tend to tunnel vision on a single target and don't keep an eye on others. Only few pay attention and those need to be attacked carefully. Don't attack them from the front, except there's no other way. Try to flank them or get behind them. If you have to attack while in their field of view, don't fly straight at them, aim for a spot around 5km away from them and while you're flying there make some erratic movements vertical to the line between them and the spot you're aiming for. For example, if you go for a spot above them, move to the left and right; if you go for a spot to one of their sides, move up and down. You also can use the A or D key to roll around while you're flying. The rolling itself doesn't change your path, but when you try to aim at a certain point while rolling the adjustments you need to do to keep that point under your corsshair will make you harder to hit. Always check your engine energy before approaching a gunship; you need to boost until you're in firing range and you may have to chase it - you also may need to retreat after a failed attempt. When attacking more than one gunship attack those who are least covered by their teammates. For example if attacking two gunships, attack the one that's behind the other, there's a good chance the gunship in front won't notice you. Use DF and your maneuvers (I prefer Retros) wisely - when you slow down to shoot, at least one of them should be active to not get hit by your target or another gunship.

 

Your two best defenses against gunships are evasion and speed. Speed will make you harder to hit manually, because the gunship pilot needs to adjust. Also speed increases the chance to be further away from the center of a gunships firing arc when a shot is fired which increases its tracking penalty. A gunships tracking penalty and your passive evasion combined make a lot of railgun shots miss even if they were aimed exactly.

 

However, there can be a point where you won't stand a chance against gunships. If there are too many gunships focused on you, you will get shot down. This usually happens if a huge part of your team is either inexperienced or bad. If a huge part of a team doesn't pose a threat to gunships (because they're inexperienced or bad aka flying straight lines without boosing and not paying attention) those gunships will have an easy time to spot the only threat there is and focus on it.

 

Because you're bad.

 

I'd call it he's not experienced enough and experience is king in GSF.

Edited September 12, 2015 by Danalon

[Crazy-Wolf]

Then why am I hit so easily even when I manually jink and stuff I still get owned. My flashfire can't even get near before it's owned.

 

Additionally to Danalon's and Draks tips, try to use a co-pilot who gives you "Running Interference" (Kendra Novar or Treek, if I'm correct). You trade in the offensive potential of "Wingman" but increase your survivability.

 

When I fly a Sting with "Wingman" I hit enemies a lot more, especially scouts. When I hunt gunships, however, especially when they are stacked, I need more survivability and there is nothing more frustrating than chasing one sniper and get ionized by his buddy. I have the (subjective) impression that this happens a lot less, when using "Running Interference".

[Telos]

if you main in gunships and/or bombers, you are automatically just bad.

 

gunships and bombers are how people with little skill can still be relevant. unfortunately, gunships and bombers are so OP in the current state of the meta, that nerfing them at this point would cost half the active gsf players... the fact that getting rid of these two wastes of ships would mean more players jumping in to gsf games to actually dogfight (what star wars is all about) hasn't occurred to anyone.

Edited September 14, 2015 by Telos

[RickDagles]

I'd also like to point out that Evasion has nothing to do with your flying. If your sitting still or flying at top speed their Accuracy vs Evasion roll will be exactly the same. The only thing "manually jinking and stuff" would do is it might make them physical miss their shot. This is still very important to do I just want to explain the difference between them.

.

 

Eh, I think this statement is a bit misleading. Manual juking and changing speed and direction quickly can be very important against gunships because it forces them to shoot at higher deflection. Higher deflection means less accuracy, which is essentially the same as higher evasion. For this reason (IMO) Booster Recharge is actually a more 'evasive' component than Targeting Telemetry's 8% evasion boost. I think the reason to take TT is to give a nice offensive boost, but the BR really increases chance of survival.

[Danalon]

if you main in gunships and/or bombers, you are automatically just bad.

 

gunships and bombers are how people with little skill can still be relevant. unfortunately, gunships and bombers are so OP in the current state of the meta, that nerfing them at this point would cost half the active gsf players... the fact that getting rid of these two wastes of ships would mean more players jumping in to gsf games to actually dogfight (what star wars is all about) hasn't occurred to anyone.

 

I've played mostly Gunships and Bombers throughout the last 9-10 months. Before that I played T2 Scout almost exclusively. The reason is simple; I play on a lot of characters and they all had their T2 Scout mastered and bought every upgrade to every component. I wanted to master other ships than the T2 Scout. I don't think I've suddenly become a bad pilot when deciding to master Bombers and Gunships.

 

Gunships and Bombers are how people with little skill can be important against other people with little skill. In a low-skill environment these ships are easier to fly than Scouts. Additionally, most low-skilled pilots either don't have mastered ships or they have the wrong components equiped. With wrong components or crew members or when crucial upgrades are missing, it's extremely difficult to succeed in a lot of situations.

[Linuxizer]

The Ultimate Star Wars Space Sim (TUSWSS)

 

1. Variety of locations:

- Deep space

- Asteroid field

- Nebula

- Hyperspace

- Around space station

- Inside space station

- In planetary atmosphere, high altitude

- In planetary atmosphere, low altitude, with different terrains, stationary and moving ground and sea targets, landing fields, anti-aircraft turrets, different weathers, birds, day/night, seasons

- Ability to fly from one location to another in real time

 

2. Choice of historical eras:

- Trilogy

- Prequels

- SWKOTOR

- SWTOR

3. Multiple game modes:

- Tutorials

- Single-player single missions

- Multi-player co-operative single missions

- Multi-player co-operative and competitive single missions

- Single-player linear/branching campaigns with well-written story and well-acted cut-scenes

- Single-player dynamic campaigns

- Multi-player co-operative dynamic campaigns

- Multi-player co-operative and competitive dynamic campaigns

- Mission editor

- Campaign editor

- Flight recorder viewer for the built-in flight recorder

4. Comprehensive support of input devices:

- Mouse

- Keyboard

- Joystick

- Programmable HOTAS

- Throttle with separate axes for left and right engines

- Rudder pedals

- Steering wheel

- Flight yoke

- Trackball

- Track IR

- Occulus Rift

- Touchscreen

- Voice recognition

- No lag whatsoever with hundreds of players from all continents in the same mission

5. Cross-platform support:

- Windows XP, 2000, 7, 8, 10, 11

- Linux

- Mac

- ipod

- iphone

- Xbox

- Playstation

6. Flyable ship classes:

- Starfighters

- Unarmed transports

- Armed transports

- Small capital ships

- Large capital ships

- Death Star (or equivalent)

- etc.

 

 

Galactic Starfighter (GSF)

 

Given not limitless resources, Bioware had to prioritize certain TUSWSS features in creating GSF. In terms of flyable ship classes, transports, capital ships and Death Star (or equivalent) did not make it into the game. What Bioward did instead was to create specialized starfighters called Bombers and Gunships for variety and tactical depth, and they compensate the lack of those other TUSWSS ships.

 

Could Bioware have just given us capital ships instead? They can work well in single-player games but they pose some balance problems in a multi-player starfighter game. A capital ship must be far more powerful than a starfighter (otherwise can you imagine Darth Vader's Star Destroyer armed with nothing more than a pair of Rapid Laser Cannons and a Sabotage Probe Launcher?). Such a powerful ship, if crewed by many players, would require... many players... and bandwidth. If crewed by a single player, it would give such disproportional power to that player... can you imagine the volume of whining? If crewed by AI, it would diminish the effect of player skill.

 

Transports like the Millenium Falcon, Ebon Hawk or Slave I could work well in GSF. Actually, the Bomber in GSF is like a less pretty version of these ships, modified somewhat for the satellite defence role and for balance with the other classes.

 

The Gunship in GSF is like the Death Star scaled down to starfighter size and power.

 

Anyone who calls for removal of Gunship or Bomber should suggest a replacement ship that plays differently than the other classes and that adds to depth. If GSF had nothing but Scouts and Strikes, it would be refreshing for one match and fun for five matches before it got repetitive.

 

Is the Gunship or the Bomber OP? The Sting / Flashfire is arguably the best all-around ship.

[Svarthrafn]

I'd like to see gunships with their 15km range, but with a "sustained support fire" role. So these dudes hang back and pepper targets to soften them up for their wingmen who are doing the knife fighting.

 

Instead we have gunships executing dudes with little warning from 15k out. They aren't so bad stock. Once upgrades are paid for though, things can get nuts, especially when teams stack them.

 

Sting/Flashfire shouldn't even exist. No ship has done more to obsolete strike fighters (and arguably even other scouts) than that pair.

Edited September 15, 2015 by Svarthrafn

[Danalon]

Sting/Flashfire shouldn't even exist. No ship has done more to obsolete strike fighters (and arguably even other scouts) than that pair.

 

Every class has at least one type/build that's better at performing Strike's tasks than a Strike.

Edited September 15, 2015 by Danalon

[Svarthrafn]

Every class has at least one type/build that's better at performing Strike's tasks than a Strike.

 

True, but those two do it without even trying.