Ion power drain.

[knittrous]

So much fun to get ionned. might as well walk away from keyboard because you are dead in the water. Only difference is how long your death will take. 5 seconds or 20. love the complete helpless feeling. gets me keen to fly. as soon as i get an acceptable level of acheivements in gsf i won't be putting myself through the hell of it anymore. And i generally live for the rush of pvp. Also, i think gsf needs to be changed so gear is less superior. (bolster somehow). but i expect aces would disagree. they enjoy every advantage of skill practice gear and group quing.

[DakhathKilrathi]

Play something with evasion and you won't get hit by ion so often. That you think gear actually matters that much tells me that you're still pretty new and you probably don't understand much about how the game works. And that's fine! That's perfectly normal; the game doesn't give you very much information in game unless you're really looking for it.

 

If you want to counter a gunship, try playing a scout. Even a low req scout can be effective against even a mastered gunship, provided you know what you're doing.

 

If you have any specific questions that are questions and not simply complaining, feel free to ask. I'm happy to help. I'm a pretty good gunship player (and solid in pretty much anything else as well), so I can tell you what does and doesn't work against me.

Edited January 2, 2017 by DakhathKilrathi

[Zennan]

So much fun to get ionned. might as well walk away from keyboard because you are dead in the water. Only difference is how long your death will take. 5 seconds or 20. love the complete helpless feeling. gets me keen to fly. as soon as i get an acceptable level of acheivements in gsf i won't be putting myself through the hell of it anymore. And i generally live for the rush of pvp. Also, i think gsf needs to be changed so gear is less superior. (bolster somehow). but i expect aces would disagree. they enjoy every advantage of skill practice gear and group quing.

 

Have you checked out PowerDive? It's a ten-seconds-no-engine-cost engine maneuver which allows you to escape getting ioned half the time, and provides you a realiable way of self-destructing the other half.

Edited January 2, 2017 by Zennan

[Nasja]

Have you checked out PowerDive? It's a ten-seconds-no-engine-cost engine maneuver which allows you to escape getting ioned half the time, and provides you a realiable way of self-destructing the other half.

 

Now that is reliable advice. The thing about "get into a scout if you hate gunships" isn't working in a Lost Shipyard TDM where you go up against 4 or 5 gunships and 3 or 4 bombers which happens quiet a few times.

[DakhathKilrathi]

Now that is reliable advice. The thing about "get into a scout if you hate gunships" isn't working in a Lost Shipyard TDM where you go up against 4 or 5 gunships and 3 or 4 bombers which happens quiet a few times.

 

Right, but we're talking about one gunship here. Here's his original post:

 

So much fun to get ionned. might as well walk away from keyboard because you are dead in the water. Only difference is how long your death will take. 5 seconds or 20. love the complete helpless feeling. gets me keen to fly. as soon as i get an acceptable level of acheivements in gsf i won't be putting myself through the hell of it anymore. And i generally live for the rush of pvp. Also, i think gsf needs to be changed so gear is less superior. (bolster somehow). but i expect aces would disagree. they enjoy every advantage of skill practice gear and group quing.

 

I've helpfully highlighted in yellow every instance of the following words: bombers, drones, mines.

 

I also highlighted ion in blue.

 

We're not talking about team comp. He complained about ion's power drain, not bomber + gunship. The correct counter to gunships is to stack evasion. If you're facing more than one gunship, make sure you always start with the gunship farthest back, that way you don't have multiple gunships firing at you.

 

If multiple gunships fire at a single player, they are going to hit him, and they should. That's why you pay attention to where your team is and attack at the same time. Make your minimap larger if this is something you struggle with.

 

And, actually? Yeah, you counter bomber + gunship with gunship + scout. Gunships counter bombers, scouts counter gunships. If they don't run scouts, they lose, provided your team can manage any sort of coordination. Running zero scouts means you give up map control, and that's huge, even in Shipyards TDM.

Edited January 2, 2017 by DakhathKilrathi

[Nasja]

Well, I have seen posts where pilots advice to "use" 8 gunships vs gunship + bomber squad which isn't going to happen on a lot of servers (fortunately I might add). Also, a lot of gs pilots would prefer to stick close to mines and drones to stay safe from scouts.

 

Anyways back to Ion railgun which imo can be overpowered since it also has area effect and the gs pilot(s) would simply spam his/her ion railgun at the defense turret hitting anyone within it's radius. To me, it isn't a problem if the area effect is removed. Not that it will happen but with all the other goodies the T1 gs gets:

• Barrel Roll
  
• Distortion field
  
• Burst Laser Cannon
  
• Slug Railgun
  

It's no surprise that in the records thread 2 ships seem to appear most:

The T1 Gunship

The T2 Scout

Aside from off course the class specific records

[DakhathKilrathi]

Well, I have seen posts where pilots advice to "use" 8 gunships vs gunship + bomber squad which isn't going to happen on a lot of servers (fortunately I might add).

 

This isn't bad advice either! As long as you have more gunships than they have bombers, you're going to win because gunship > bomber. Bombers can't fight from range. Gunships can. Ideally the other team would swap to scouts to counter your gunships, but too often they go gunship as well and you get gunship chess because no one wants to play scout. That's more a player problem than a meta problem, however; the scout counter does work.

 

Also, a lot of gs pilots would prefer to stick close to mines and drones to stay safe from scouts.

 

That's what ion railgun is good for. See, it has AOE. AOE clears mines and drones. Ion AOE is the best weapon for clearing mines and drones, period.

 

Anyways back to Ion railgun which imo can be overpowered since it also has area effect and the gs pilot(s) would simply spam his/her ion railgun at the defense turret hitting anyone within it's radius. To me, it isn't a problem if the area effect is removed.

 

See above. The AOE is a relatively important part of the meta. Dislodging bombers without it would be a little bit difficult, and it would make bomber stacking more of a problem than it already is. Ion AOE ensures that you can't simply stack bombers as a win button. Any railgun shot also requires a 25% minimum charge before you can fire, as well, which will deplete your weapon power pretty quickly if you're spamming it.

 

If your team is paying attention, they won't let a gunship just spam ion at you.

 

Not that it will happen but with all the other goodies the T1 gs gets:

 

• Barrel Roll
  

 

Uh. You realize that barrel roll got nerfed, right? It's not particularly good anymore.

 

• Distortion field
  
• Burst Laser Cannon
  
• Slug Railgun
  

 

Yes, they get all of these things. But they have pretty bad mobility and although they do have BLC, a scout can win a turn battle. Quickly.

 

It's no surprise that in the records thread 2 ships seem to appear most:

The T1 Gunship

The T2 Scout

Aside from off course the class specific records

 

I don't see how this is a problem. The T1 GS and the T2 scout are the best ships at their role, and they both have offensive roles. The records mostly track easy to quantify contributions. Bombers aren't going to top the charts; they're bombers. Bombers are support ships. The other scouts and gunships aren't as good at being scouts or gunships. Strikes are strikes.

 

You might as well complain that DPS classes are better at DPS than tanks or healers. Of course they are.

 

 

Edit:

Edited January 2, 2017 by DakhathKilrathi

[Nightmaregale]

First to adress the original problem of the threadowner:

In my opinion there are a few ways to fly around Ionrailgun to make it less annoying. It will always stay annoying in my opinion but you can guard yourself a bit:

 

1) precaution

 

If you are AWARE of where the gunships with ionrailguns are located you can either avoid them or jump between rocks and avoid to get in their view. This is also known as Losing. In most of the TDM maps there is a lot of rubble you can use to it. Also Range or Dampening might help you to either located them or hide from them more easily.

 

Another Precuation is looking at your engine bar since a fullcharged Shoz only drains 60 Engine Power. If you use engine power sparingly you are still left with some engine power which you can use to flee, hide, ... If you have more engine power through upgrades or Crew you can stomach Ionrailgun more easily since you have more engine power in total

 

2) Reaction

 

There are various ways you can react to ionrailgun and a few were mentioned already like using evasion to not get hit or use engine abilities to escape (Power dive).

 

Another way to react to Ionrailgun is recharging your enginepower to escape, hide, ...

There are a few components that can help you: Shield to engine (ONLY if you have enough shields legt to use it), Charged Plating (with the upgrade to get engine power when you take damage and the deliberately take damage) and of course the most easiest component Booster Recharge.

 

 

In my opinion switching to gunship or scout to destroy gunships to destroy enemy gunships both work but depend how good you are in the ship. Just ´simply´ switching to scout and every gunship you look at won't simply happen. They just have theoretical adcantage. The same is true for every ship and there are cases where pilots can hande gunships easily in T1 strikes which aren't comonly appraised as strong ships like scouts and gunships.

 

Secondly the aoe of the ionrailgun is sth that is needed in DOM. There are a lot of people unhappy with the bomberclusters on a node (2+ bombers). In my opinion as a somewhat decent bomber pilot the most effective way to do sth against this is Ionspamming to get rid of all the mines so you can get in and get rid of the bombers to get the node. Without it gets a lot harder to dispose of bombers flying to the node equals suicide in most of the cases.

For people on the node as long as you don't get directly hit it doesn't matter that much since you only lose a little bit of shields and co.

[Greezt]

Ion railgun is not OP. It's only devastating if you've already blown your cooldowns or if you were low on engine power to begin with.

 

The first case can be your fault if you needlessly wasted them, but will often happen anyway if you've just killed an enemy. That's fair, you are expected to lose 1v2.

 

The second case can be dealt with by simply managing your engine power - make sure you have enough engines to make your escape if you need to before you go in.

 

In addition to all of this, if you're a gunship/bomber, staying near an object is the best counter to ions - if you're shot once, get behind LoS and you're fine. This also works for scouts that aren't in transit to kill a target.

 

A couple of things that bug me here:

 

Anyways back to Ion railgun which imo can be overpowered since it also has area effect and the gs pilot(s) would simply spam his/her ion railgun at the defense turret hitting anyone within it's radius. To me, it isn't a problem if the area effect is removed. Not that it will happen but with all the other goodies the T1 gs gets:

• Barrel Roll
  
• Distortion field
  
• Burst Laser Cannon
  
• Slug Railgun
  

It's no surprise that in the records thread 2 ships seem to appear most:

The T1 Gunship

The T2 Scout

Aside from off course the class specific records

 

It's already been proven that for TDM the T3 gunship is more than viable. Ions have very little against other gunships that positioning can't fix. The other components the T3 has too (barring barrel roll), but it has better engine options, thrusters instead of sensors and some good CQC options.

 

The AoE is the only reason to bring the T1 gunship over the T3 in Dom, without it mines would be unclearble. This has been touched upon so let me only add one thing - when killing bomberspam you're working against the clock. ion AoE is the only way currently in game that allows you to clear the mine clouds fast enough for scouts to be able to finish off bombers. Without it, killing bombers fast enough would be virtually impossible if they stack.

 

 

I don't think this is a fair example. For one thing, they were 8 vs. 7 for the first minute of the match (at least) and the maximum amount of gunships they ever faced was three (or 3 bombers, but never simultaneously). Them being a wall of competent players against what looks like 4 good players definitely doesn't help this example.

 

I do think that the scout counter can work, but it's a high skill, high risk strategy - it's much easier to swap to a gunship and join in the wall building. Not to mention it requires high team coordination.

 

In my opinion switching to gunship or scout to destroy gunships to destroy enemy gunships both work but depend how good you are in the ship. Just ´simply´ switching to scout and every gunship you look at won't simply happen. They just have theoretical adcantage. The same is true for every ship and there are cases where pilots can hande gunships easily in T1 strikes which aren't comonly appraised as strong ships like scouts and gunships.

 

It's not fair to compare different skill levels. Of course someone really good in a Star guard can beat some new player in a sting. Assuming equal (and competent) skill levels, the counters work most of the time. RNG is still a major factor in GSF, and that can always shift the balance.

 

To OP again - I wonder why you even posted this thread. You never bothered trying to find out how to beat ions, did you? Hop in a gunship and prove to everyone that ions are as strong as you say. I only know them to be good for 3 things:

1. clearing bomber poop
   
2. killing enemies foolish enough to stay out in the open without cooldowns
   
3. padding your damage and DPS stats for record threads
   

 

As for the "gear > skill" part - well, I get it. You're frustrated. Calm down and respond again. Any idiot can grind their way to a mastered, min/maxed ship. Do so and prove what a big advantage it gives you.

[Lavaar]

Ion railgun can be one of the most frustrating things to be subjected to in GSF, but being hit by a full charge and being left dead in the water is an entirely avoidable occurrence, and results primarily due to a lack of situational awareness. The most frustrating thing for me when I am left helpless by an ion shot is that I wasn't careful enough to avoid it, and I wasn't smart enough to open myself up without adequate cover nearby.

 

LOSing the enemy gunships is a GSF 101 strategy, as being behind an object is a hard counter to any gunship trying to shoot at you. I believe that BW believed when they created the gunship class that more players would react this way and utilize cover, and engage in winding chases through structures and through asteroid fields, rather than every engagement taking place in open space.

 

There is a reason why in A New Hope, Luke & friends don't just fly directly through open space to the thermal exhaust port. Instead they fly into the trench. Why? To seek cover from the turbolasers (gunships).

 

If you have a ship that is equipped with power dive or a strong evasion cooldown, you can get away with being in the open much more than ships without either. I myself mostly fly a build which does not have any evasion cooldowns, nor is it equipped with power dive. Because of this I rely heavily on cover and range to avoid gunship fire, and that is the choice that I made based on my flying style.

 

Also be aware that pressing SHIFT + W,A,S or D will allow you to STRAFE, (move up, down left, right) which can make it easier to slide behind obstacles, even after being hit by an ion shot.

 

Best of luck!

[Nasja]

To each their own opinion. I see that most people would think that to "clear bombers" from sats you need gunships which imo is false. I also say that I have less problems with T3 gs's then with T1's since the T3 simply doesn't have ion rail.

 

One example which... I didn't record on video but did happen yesterday was a Lost Shipyard TDM which was pretty equal in strenght, our team won with 50-43. There were 3 imp pilots I recognized and I noticed they went into bombers first to which I responded by selecting a clarion to remove the bombers.

The Imp teams bombers got decimated quickly by one of our gs pilots and myself using protorps + quad lasers. After that happened, the imp pilots went into.... gunships.

 

I got killed and switched to a (quad + pod) flashfire. Not many bombers around so a clear field to remove gunships.

Then the imps again switched a bit, there were 2 bombers and 3 gunships while pub side (our team) were far ahead of the imps in score. They tried to get back but when I focussed on the bombers again (I got back into my clarion) some scouts from our team were busy with the gunships and thats when we won with 50-43 because they were too far behind.

 

What I noticed from this match though was pilots with about equal skill was that removing bombers in a tdm weren't the biggest problem and I had little trouble with them when I was in my Clarion.

 

So there we are, if ion rail didn't exist... people would definately complain about bombers here on the forums... like I admit now do about Ion Rail however they would also WIN matches in strikes, yes strikes when faced again multiple bombers.

Since.. let's not forget that Strikes have the best shields AND charged plating which is a very effective defense against mines and the times that a railgun sentry drone killed a strike... in 1 (or even 2) hits are very rare and most likely to happen in a stock strike which isn't what I am talking about here.

 

So here is an idea, 8 strikes vs 8 bombers.. I am counting on the 8 strikes to win that match, especially clarions / imperiums since they are quiet the tank loaded with maybe 1 or 2 emp missiles and the rest with protorps.

 

If you disagree, thats fine but strikes... imo can counter bombers if the strike fighter pilots know what they are doing.

[DakhathKilrathi]

To each their own opinion. I see that most people would think that to "clear bombers" from sats you need gunships which imo is false. I also say that I have less problems with T3 gs's then with T1's since the T3 simply doesn't have ion rail.

 

And you don't need bombers to capture or hold a sat, but since it's their job, you should probably use them.

 

 

One example which... I didn't record on video but did happen yesterday was a Lost Shipyard TDM which was pretty equal in strenght, our team won with 50-43. There were 3 imp pilots I recognized and I noticed they went into bombers first to which I responded by selecting a clarion to remove the bombers.

The Imp teams bombers got decimated quickly by one of our gs pilots and myself using protorps + quad lasers. After that happened, the imp pilots went into.... gunships.

 

I got killed and switched to a (quad + pod) flashfire. Not many bombers around so a clear field to remove gunships.

Then the imps again switched a bit, there were 2 bombers and 3 gunships while pub side (our team) were far ahead of the imps in score. They tried to get back but when I focussed on the bombers again (I got back into my clarion) some scouts from our team were busy with the gunships and thats when we won with 50-43 because they were too far behind.

 

What I noticed from this match though was pilots with about equal skill was that removing bombers in a tdm weren't the biggest problem and I had little trouble with them when I was in my Clarion.

 

That's one match. I could give a ton of anecdotal evidence too, but what's the point? Whatever I say, at this point, you're going to dismiss it as opinion.

 

So there we are, if ion rail didn't exist... people would definately complain about bombers here on the forums... like I admit now do about Ion Rail however they would also WIN matches in strikes, yes strikes when faced again multiple bombers.

Since.. let's not forget that Strikes have the best shields AND charged plating which is a very effective defense against mines and the times that a railgun sentry drone killed a strike... in 1 (or even 2) hits are very rare and most likely to happen in a stock strike which isn't what I am talking about here.

 

Charged plating is only a good idea on ships that can run an armor component, otherwise you don't get enough damage reduction to justify taking it. That leaves the T1 strike unable to use it, and none of them have any particularly good options for killing a bomber that isn't played by someone braindead. A single strike is not going to kill a single bomber on a node, assuming equal skill.

 

And you should always be assuming equal skill when you're talking about what is good at what. I can put up 120k damage in a Warcarrier in TDM, but that doesn't mean you should try chasing stuff down in a serious match in one. Similarly. I can farm new players in a strike, but that doesn't make strikes good.

 

So here is an idea, 8 strikes vs 8 bombers.. I am counting on the 8 strikes to win that match, especially clarions / imperiums since they are quiet the tank loaded with maybe 1 or 2 emp missiles and the rest with protorps.

 

So now that you've got your builds that are specialized to kill bombers, what do they do against BLC scouts or literally anything else with armor piercing? Like slug railgun, for example. And why is either team fielding eight of anything? Real games don't play that way. You can see what your team is playing, and not only can you swap ships, but you should.

 

If you disagree, thats fine but strikes... imo can counter bombers if the strike fighter pilots know what they are doing.

 

That strikes are bad is not a matter of opinion.

 

I’ll be blunt. Strike Fighters need lots of love. The original design is that they are the Jack-of-All and Master-of-None but they have filled out this role too well and because of it are rarely a compelling option. We want to talk about how Strike Fighters can be made into a good option to bring in any match, by any skill level.

 

Again assuming equal skill, no single strike is going to dislodge a bomber from a sat on his own. No single strike is going to keep the node clear enough of mines for a scout with BLC to actually come kill the bomber.

 

When it comes to strikes, whatever you want to do with one can be done better by some other ship that actually specializes in that thing. (There is, after all, a reason that you don't see many aces regularly bothering with a Clarion/Imperium.) Use that ship instead of a strike if it's a serious match. If it's not, then it doesn't really matter what you're playing. The OP, however, was complaining about ion rail's energy drain. Instead of suggesting that he play a strike, or starting a crusade against bomber/gunship, why not give him tips that might actually help him?

 

 

Edit: And since I forgot to respond:

I don't think this is a fair example. For one thing, they were 8 vs. 7 for the first minute of the match (at least) and the maximum amount of gunships they ever faced was three (or 3 bombers, but never simultaneously). Them being a wall of competent players against what looks like 4 good players definitely doesn't help this example.

 

I do think that the scout counter can work, but it's a high skill, high risk strategy - it's much easier to swap to a gunship and join in the wall building. Not to mention it requires high team coordination.

 

That's absolutely fair. I was mostly just looking for a video to prove it could be done, since people often dismiss the idea that scouts do, in fact, counter gunships.

Edited January 2, 2017 by DakhathKilrathi

[Greezt]

I'm sorry, but this isn't opinion related. Assuming you're a CP strike flying against a repair drone bomber with HLC, railgun sentry and seekers, the only reason the bomber should ever lose to you is because he didn't fire back. I'm not even talking about him actually flying as a bomber should (i.e using LoS and evading you while the railgun + seekers finish you off).

 

If you don't eat a single seeker, by the time you've manage to lock a torp on your hull is down to 325 HP, and your shields down to 340. This is assuming max range, which is unrealistic because you're going to want to fire your blasters too. A more realistic number is ~250 hull, and ~220 shields.

 

If you eat a single seeker during this timeframe, you're just plain dead to either the bomber shots or the railgun sentry drone. Your heals won't save you either, and the bomber has stronger heals anyway.

 

A better build would be a directionals/lightweight/combat command/running interference (if you really want to kill a bomber with a strike). CP is killing you faster, the T2 bomber can get armor pen on both the railgun and HLC. Effectively, your shields are killing you with bleed through and your armor component is all but useless. But I digress.

 

Even if you could kill bombers in strikes exclusively (which you can't, bombers have similar/better offensive output and are tankier) it takes too much time in strikes. In TDM, you might win such a match (provided they don't decide to swap to scouts or gunships and decimate you) but in Dom it's absolutely necessary to kill bombers as fast as possible to prevent them from reaching the node again before you cap it. As mentioned, even scouts have a hard job doing that, and their offensive output is a lot higher than that of strikes.

 

Even if you disable their systems and engines/shields with EMP, they can still kite you on the node and you lack the close range offense to finish them off. Gunships can do a better job ironically, due to their possession of BLC.

 

I don't think anyone said ions are a must for clearing bombers from nodes; they are needed for it to be done in a short enough time as to allow node capping, though. EMP would be viable if it could actually clear mines. As it stands, clearing mines every 13.6 seconds (assuming you're sharp with your timers) is not nearly enough. A bomber who staggers his mines will have a mine up already, two bombers will have two, et cetera. Ions are the only weapon which can reliably prevent mines for a long enough window that a kill can be had.

[Nasja]

Well, we could go on and on and I stick to my point while you stick to yours. All I say, IMO you don't need gunships if the other team isn't using gunships, we are talking ion spam railgun here which is what the OP posted about.

What I notice a lot is people don't leave their "comfort zone" and if everyone tells these people to use gunships to counter bombers, then some will not leave it either. And I agree using gunships vs bombers is the easiest way to do it.

 

But if anyone wants a little harder but definately doable, then grab that strike and hunt down a bomber even if some discourage you to do that.

[Ramalina]

Strikes have enough mechanical balance problems that the Ion Railgun drain is hardly a dealbreaker. It would be nicer at 45 than at 60, but with careful energy management, use of LOS, and paying very close attention to which gunships are consistently using Ion Railgun, you can cope with it. To the extent that strikes can cope with anything in GSF. Power dive is a tremendous help if you happen to be on a ship that has it.

 

A somewhat niche trick in a 1 v 1 situation is to use directional shields, and shift the shields away from the gunship if it is charging an Ion shot, but then toward the gunship if it switches to charging a Slug shot. The Ion shot only does splash damage to the rear shield, so it takes quite a few shots to get the shield low enough so that it won't be effective against a Slug shot from the front. Of course, if there are two gunships in your forward arc this doesn't work nearly as well.

 

For ships other than strikes, there are options in terms of evasion, engine recharge cooldowns, or spending most games near LOS cover as a normal part of flying.

 

 

Happily, in 1 v 1 situations Ion Railgun followed by Slug Railgun provides a small enough advantage over two Slug Railgun shots in a row that most gunship pilots don't consistently use Ion Railgun except when clearing mines.

 

You just have to learn to keep track of the gunship pilots that use Ion Railgun well. Typically those are gunships that you want to be keeping track of all the time in any case.

 

The Ion Railgun is meant to balance against the strengths of bombers and scouts. Evasion and boost efficiency work well enough against it so that it's a pretty weak counter against skilled scout pilots. Against bombers, it's a very effective hard counter to mines and drones once the AOE splash upgrade to Ion Railgun has been acquired.

 

 

For the strike vs bomber thread derail topic I do have a few comments.

 

First, the Clarion/Imperium T3 and the T3 scout are pretty much tied as the least effective ships in GSF when it comes to killing bombers. Their secondary weapons aren't very effective against a bomber using LOS, their primaries don't have armor piercing or great stand-off range, and their systems abilities don't make up for the weaknesses of their primaries and secondaries.

 

The T3 strike is pretty good at delaying a bomber from taking a friendly or neutral satellite. While this can be quite useful in some cases, it is a very different task than killing a bomber effectively. Killing is based on getting damage through the bomber's defenses, delaying is based on being able to survive the damage that the bomber is putting out.

 

The T1 and T2 strikes do have the tools to kill bombers 1 v1, though not especially quickly and the ideal positioning vs the bomber usually involves increasing their already excessive vulnerabilities to gunships and scouts.

 

A strike pilot not confident in their ability to destroy a railgun drone before it gets off even a single shot at them, keep repair drone uptime to less than 10 s/min, and fly around the trigger range of seeker mines (or destroy them from outside detonation range) probably shouldn't be trying to 1 v 1 a minelayer. Once you can do all that, the bomber's teammates are far more of an issue than the bomber is.

 

 

The thing is, bombers aren't meant to be defeated in a 1 v 1 battle. A skilled bomber pilot can force any ship class to take long enough to score the kill that there's time for reinforcements to arrive, in which case the bomber has effectively won the encounter.

 

What's important in evaluating counter bomber options is how well a team of ships can counter a team of bombers.

 

I think possibly the strongest option for countering up to 3, and maybe even 4 bombers, would be a T1 gunship providing Ion Railgun support (and using slug to pop at least 2/3 turrets in Dom) so that a BLC-TT-Pods scout can run in and demolish the bombers in relative safety. A scout or gunship to watch the Ion gunship's back so that it can sit in place and spam Ion shots in relative peace is also nice. The combo gives you suppression of mines and drones, rapid stripping of shields, and massive armor piercing burst damage that can be delivered to a bomber trying to break LOS. Everything you need to get rid of the bomber(s) quickly.

 

Gunship ion + gunship slug and gunship ion + bomber are also potent combinations of ship types when dealing with bombers. Together the ships become much more powerful against the bombers than they would be if separated into two 1 v 1 battles. The problem with strikes as a counter bomber choice is not that their 1 v 1 performance vs bombers is mediocre, it's that combining a strike + another ship into an anti-bomber team does not offer significant benefits over the strike + another ship taking on bombers as separate 1 v 1s. Against bombers it's a race against time, and that means that multiplication of your effective force is vastly superior to addition to your force, and strikes at present just do not do force multiplication.

[RickDagles]

Well, we could go on and on and I stick to my point while you stick to yours. All I say, IMO you don't need gunships if the other team isn't using gunships, we are talking ion spam railgun here which is what the OP posted about.

What I notice a lot is people don't leave their "comfort zone" and if everyone tells these people to use gunships to counter bombers, then some will not leave it either. And I agree using gunships vs bombers is the easiest way to do it.

 

But if anyone wants a little harder but definately doable, then grab that strike and hunt down a bomber even if some discourage you to do that.

 

 

It's not an opinion, it's fact. Closeshave and Dak already explained that.

 

It has nothing to do with comfort zone. Most of us have played all the ships hundreds to thousands of matches. I have around 1000 matches in both the T3 and T1 Strikes. Yes Strikes can be fun, and yes Strikes can sometimes counter bombers in the right situation. However, Strikes are super garbage against BLC scouts and T1 GS, which happen to be the 2 most common ships. So whatever it is the Strikes can do offensively in TDM, it is irrelevant because they can't survive against anyone good. In terms of offensive power in domination, the T3 Strike is horrible at producing offense while actually holding a node, and the T1 Strike is only mildly better due to retro and clusters. You will usually lose to a CP bomber under a node, and you will always lose to a BLC scout under a node. You will lose against an equal team playing meta ships. If you succeeded with your Strike, it's because your team was better, not because it's a good ship.

 

Strikes are fun but please stop suggesting that new players use them.

 

 

 

 

 

Ion has no counters and it OP etc etc

 

 

Just to reiterate what's already been said.

 

Hard counters to ion - booster recharge or tensorfield

Available on the following ships: Flashfire/Sting, Novadive/Blackbolt, Spearpoint/Bloodmark

 

Soft counter to ion - powerdive engine move

Available on the following ships: Flashfire/Sting, Novadive/Blackbolt, Spearpoint/Bloodmark, Condor/Jurgoran, Clarion/Imperium, Sledgehammer/Decimus

 

Passive counters to ion - stacking evasion

Available on the following ships: Flashfire/Sting, Novadive/Blackbolt, Spearpoint/Bloodmark, Quarrel/Mangler

 

 

You'll notice that all three scouts have all three counters to ion. I hope that helps. I also used to hate ion, but I fly almost all of my ships with powerdive now and it rarely ever bothers me. When you get zapped by ion just direct your ship away from the source, put the nose of your ship in the air, and press '3'. Your ship will be propelled out of range and into safety. It takes some practice but it's super effective. Another nice bonus to powerdive is that you can use your distortion field cooldown more liberally because you don't have to worry about saving a break for cluster missiles or seeker mines (powerdive has a super short cooldown).

Edited January 3, 2017 by RickDagles

[Nasja]

It's not an opinion, it's fact. Closeshave and Dak already explained that.

 

I am kinda pissed at this kind of behaviour. To me, players aren't stating "facts", to each their own opinion and if my opinion is different, then it will normally stay different. Simple as that.

 

It has nothing to do with comfort zone. Most of us have played all the ships hundreds to thousands of matches. I have around 1000 matches in both the T3 and T1 Strikes. Yes Strikes can be fun, and yes Strikes can sometimes counter bombers in the right situation.

 

Well, in most situations from my pov. The thing is, I don't fly gs's. Never really did, probably never will. Except if it is for some kind of event or so. And if you don't fly gs's... then you have less choice and I predict that your "most of us" fly both strikes and gunships.

And I have seen a couple pilots who from pov just sucked in all kinds of strikes but are good pilots in their gunships.

 

However, Strikes are super garbage against BLC scouts and T1 GS, which happen to be the 2 most common ships.

Yeah thats just it, the most common ships, basically the FOTM ships.

All I was saying is you don't need gunships if the other side isn't using gunships. And blc scouts... let's keep that out of this thread, except that we may agree that bombers can counter them. Nothing to do with strikes.

 

So whatever it is the Strikes can do offensively in TDM, it is irrelevant because they can't survive against anyone good. In terms of offensive power in domination, the T3 Strike is horrible at producing offense while actually holding a node, and the T1 Strike is only mildly better due to retro and clusters.

 

Well, it depends on the server you fly at. Fortunately, thanks to galactic command I presume most servers have frequent gsf pops, even if there isn't a bonus and who can be considered "good" on server A can be average on server B, again, like I mentioned.. imo you don't need gs's if you aren't facing any gs's.

 

You will usually lose to a CP bomber under a node, and you will always lose to a BLC scout under a node. You will lose against an equal team playing meta ships.

 

A CP Bomber "under a node" is from my pov going to loose from a strike if the strike fighter pilot knows what he/she is doing. A proton torpedo has a max range of 10.5k (I think), thats outside the range of a rampart/razorwire and the RSD from the warcarrier / legion is (obviously) taken out first and has a lllooooonnnnnggg cooldown. I thought you would know that.

The blc scout... I just say that this thread isn't about the blc scout but they can be countered by mine bombers.

 

If you succeeded with your Strike, it's because your team was better, not because it's a good ship.

Strikes are fun but please stop suggesting that new players use them.

 

I never said a strike was such a good ship. But, if more people would step out of their gunships, never pop it in their hangar then they need to get experience in the strikes and they will get better at it.

[RickDagles]

If the developers publicly admitting Strikes are underpowered isn't enough fact for you then I don't know what else I can say?

 

 

When I was speaking of fighting under a node, that includes your ship staying on the node. Imagine the node is blue or you're the only ship left on the node. Are you going to dive down 10k, turn around, and land 3 protorps before the other team takes it? No.

 

 

To be fair, if you're part of a good team then you shouldn't have to hold nodes, that's the bomber's job. But in reality there are times where you need to do it, and failing to do so will lose you the game.

Edited January 4, 2017 by RickDagles

[Linuxizer]

To say the Clarion/Imperium is good at killing bombers is like saying the Pike is good at dogfighting a battlescout.

[Zennan]

What I notice a lot is people don't leave their "comfort zone"

 

Well, in most situations from my pov. The thing is, I don't fly gs's. Never really did, probably never will.

 

Wait first say people aren't leaving their comfort zone, then you state something that isn't your comfort zone and you don't want to venture into it "unless it's for an event"?

 

I am kinda pissed at this kind of behaviour. To me, players aren't stating "facts", to each their own opinion and if my opinion is different, then it will normally stay different. Simple as that.

As for fact versus opinions, check the galactic starfighter records thread (you brought it up yourself in one of your posts too). Siraka has already mentioned this already but there's a reason the Scout and the Gunship way out-dps T<any> Strike. And their offensive power makes them useful for taking out high-hull low-mobility ships.

 

In addition, if the OP is having problems with Ion railgun I think the OP should first focus on the "easy counters" as you claim. The King's Gambit Defense is a fun weapon and all, but it's rarely used in Grandmaster level games for a reason -- that does not mean none of the Grandmasters know how to play them. And if you're a beginner chess player, your coach isn't going to teach you KGD as one of your starter openings. No, he's going to tell you to practice your tactics, and play a solid and safe opening.

 

Likewise, if one is a novice flier, one should grasp the basics first -- LOS, using engine abilities that are less punishing with ion drain, use abilities that allow you to counter ion drain, before adding another unnecessarily layer of difficulty to an already challenging learning curve.

[Storm-Cutter]

I think a lot of you have valid points, but over and over I see a lot of new pilots ignoring basic advice - especially in TDM - and that is to stay on their side of the map. Bombers and GS take a long time to get into range if you stick close-ish to your spawns, thus denying them kills while your more experienced pilots can draw one or two chasers toward friendly lines, or scrap it out among the debris, mesas and such.

 

The biggest kicker is that if you don't have power to engines boost or PD, your ship is going nowhere trying to regen engine power at the same time as the charge for another Ion shot is building.

 

Good communication is also helpful. If the first to get fried with ions calls it, at least the rest of the team can be wary, and take down the GS that's using them.

 

GS and bomber spam has always been a hard nut to crack for a scratch team. unfortunately a lot of new pilots gravitate to these two ships hoping it'll be an easy ride. - especially those just in it for the CXP and not caring much whether they win or lose.

Edited January 4, 2017 by Storm-Cutter

[Nasja]

Just to clarify, I bring up Strike fighters vs bombers is a strategy that mostly works.

I do that because a lot of times when a gs-thread pops up, people defend the gs and say if it didn't exist, then bombers would be overpowered which from my pov isn't true.

Strikes may need a boost but they can allready be a pain for bombers.

[Drakkolich]

Just to clarify, I bring up Strike fighters vs bombers is a strategy that mostly works.

I do that because a lot of times when a gs-thread pops up, people defend the gs and say if it didn't exist, then bombers would be overpowered which from my pov isn't true.

Strikes may need a boost but they can allready be a pain for bombers.

 

That's pretty easy to test to be honest, we just organize a No Gunship night and you'll have your answer.

 

As for Strikes being a pain for Bombers in my many games it's just never happened.

 

I think the big problem with saying one Class works against another and what not in this game is that the skill from player to player in this game varies so wildly that you can suddenly think stuff works even though all that's happening is you or they are just far superior of a player.

 

I played some Strike Fighter only games recently on stream and I did very well vs almost every ship type until I met a player that could keep up with me, then it all just seemed futile.

[Nasja]

That's pretty easy to test to be honest, we just organize a No Gunship night and you'll have your answer.

 

As for Strikes being a pain for Bombers in my many games it's just never happened.

 

I think the big problem with saying one Class works against another and what not in this game is that the skill from player to player in this game varies so wildly that you can suddenly think stuff works even though all that's happening is you or they are just far superior of a player.

 

I played some Strike Fighter only games recently on stream and I did very well vs almost every ship type until I met a player that could keep up with me, then it all just seemed futile.

 

A no GS event looks indeed pretty cool and I'll be on the lookout for results / where it takes place.

Other then that I agree that player skill is a big factor.

[MaximilianPower]

Just to clarify, I bring up Strike fighters vs bombers is a strategy that mostly works.

I do that because a lot of times when a gs-thread pops up, people defend the gs and say if it didn't exist, then bombers would be overpowered which from my pov isn't true.

Strikes may need a boost but they can allready be a pain for bombers.

 

I don't doubt your experience Traesha, but I haven't seen a lot of strikes taking out bombers unless said bombers are particularly inept. The good ones (like you) will LoS around a sat, and only the help of teammates will afford a strike the time & window it needs to lock a protorp.

 

I'd be down for a no-GS night. One of the few theme nights I've never participated in. I already shudder at the inevitable bomber-stacking but I'd give it a shot. Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised.