GSF Discussion: Ship Balance

[Pilgrim_Grey]

I feel like bursts never should have been given to scouts, as they're the ones with the speed and maneuverability to get ridiculously close fast and leverage its insane stats at that range. Everything about the combination of the two exacerbates their strengths.

 

But I guess we're here, and removing them entirely from scouts would really change things, probably too much (and create ill will). At the very least I think the armor pen should be removed. Rockets are then the scouts go to for anti-armor or burst on a gunship then. They have clusters for dogfighting. And I dunno, the other missiles would still need a look at (I get a kick out of Sab Prob, but it's bugged STILL and deserves a look at with other missiles). And then there are actual choices people need to make with their builds and even scout type choices, rather than just throw a Type 2 scout at it, because it's able to do everything well.

 

I guess my big contribution to the whole thread would be that EACH ship needs to have a role in the current meta, and missiles and laser types are a part of that meta. Think about how you want each part to fit into the meta, or else you're just going to make things lopsided in some other way. Strikes are the main ship that needs a role or area to shine, so focus on the components and base stats (speed, maneuver, boost usage, etc.) to help it compete.

Edited July 7, 2017 by Pilgrim_Grey

[Darthural]

Railguns:

The problem is the 15000m range with accuracy and decreased tracking penalty. I have two solutions:

1.) decrease range down to 12000m and remove accuracy buffs. As already stated you hit less targets with Plasma Railgun cause of the missing accuracy buff.

2.) Increase Accuracy buffs and remove sniper mode. (I love this idea)

 

 

Do you know how fast scouts can close that so called 12 range?

 

Yes! People choose Sniper cause of the range. So reduce the range of it. With reduced range you are very fast in close combat, but as gunship you can manage your survival. You have just to think of escape route and options and hope that somebody helps you before you are out of defense options. This includes wise use of slow and boost speed, thrusters, drift, maneuvers and shield defense or in short: Fly or die!

 

That most teammates do not care, is a problem, that can not be buffed or nerfed by BW. It is 8 vs. 8 not 1 vs. 1 vs. 2 (premate) vs.1 vs. 1 vs. 1 vs. 1 vs. 8.

[Darthural]

What does this rating represent? If you increased torpedo range to 100km, their mr would be 29,070, and they would still be junk. The issue with missiles is their range, but not only. It's also their lock-on time and reload time (as absolute values, not in comparison to range), and also the reward gained for landing one compared to the difficulty to land one. You should've seen this in your rating when you somehow rated concussions in the same league as EMP and ions.

 

The rating represent the "easiness" to send a hot welcome to your enemy. Higher rating means easy send message.

 

But you forgot the important part:

 

I think, the best way to define sufficient range / lock on time, is given by 3350mr x Lock on time = Missile Range -+ Range (Lock on time) based on Impact Ranking

 

Suggested Missile Ranking by current Impact on target:

 

1. Interdiction Missile: 60% slow and decreased turning rate [+0,1sec or -200m]

2. Sabotage Probe: disable ship controls (straight runner) [+0,1sec or - 200m]

3. Cluster Missile: Short reload [+0 sec or -0 m]

4. Proton Torpedo: Bypassing shield [-0,1 sec or +200m]

5. Thermite Torpedo: Debuff 100% armor penetration [-0,1 sec or +200m]

6. Concussion: 100% armor penetration or 35% slow, but inefficient against shields [-0,2 sec or +400m]

7. EMP: Disable Systems and damage drones, increased mine and drone damage [-0,3 sec or +600m]

8. Ion: slows the target or inhibits energy regeneration (pretty poor in comparison to ion railgun) [-0,4 sec or +800m]

 

Chose a range or lock on time and than you can calculate the range I think is in need for this weapon type

 

Example one: Concussion: 3350mr x 2,6sec = 8710m + 400m (by rank) = 9110m will do. (looks a little bit to well)

 

Example two: Proton Torpedo 11500m / 3350 mr = 3,4sec -0,1sec (by rank) = 3,3sec lock on time will do

[Verain]

I would prefer missiles be determined by their actual in-game role, not some high level spreadsheet formula. That stuff might be useful when doing a first pass on design, but we have a lot of real world play with the missiles now.

 

Missiles fall into three categories in GSF:

 

1- Short range, wide arc, fast lockon, no armor pen, medium damage. The cluster missile is the champion here, and he has a wildly short recharge time. Interdiction is in this world, but his reload time and slightly longer lockon time make him generally a tad worse. Still, the reason this category of missiles is GOOD is because they can actually HIT A TARGET. Because one of the techniques to greatly enhance missile strikes is to release the missile almost point blank (in contrast to a real world missile, whose explosion you want to be nowhere near, lol), these missiles mostly get that for free, and almost always have that going on. You can rip missile breaks out of your opponents with these, and if they fail to break the missile, the effect of the missile mostly feels fair. Of ALL missiles, the only one you could argue is even mildly overpowered is cluster, because if you have a maneuverability advantage over a foe, you can hammer them with clusters.

 

2- Medium range, narrow arc, slow lockon, utility, good versus shielded targets, decent effect or damage. The concussion is the only one of these with a reasonable cooldown. Its utility is a choice between armor pen and snare. The ion missile totally devastates shields, and used to apply a reasonable snare, and now applies a trivial one (another possibly accidental reversion). The EMP missile ignores shields and armor, but deals only a small amount of damage. It offers powerful utilities in exchange for damage, including locking out components and wiping mines and disabling drones that are incidentally close to the target (so, basically it does nothing to mines unless you shot it at a drone or an asleep bomber). If you land an EMP on a target, your allies who also use missiles will have a much easier time striking them.

 

These missiles are all terrible. The reason is simple: no one is ever actually struck by these missiles. Usually you can't even complete a lock. When you can complete a lock, there is usually a missile break involved. In the rare case that the missile strikes, the effects are never truly devastating unless the opponent is in open space and can't take a defensive action. Pretty much anything could be buffed about them: they could have a shorter lockon to fire faster, or a longer range to force defensive actions or flying. A ship flying head-on towards you can almost always cancel this lock by boosting through you, in addition to his options to fly line of sight, press the "3" button, or press the "2" button. Releasing one of these point blank can be somewhat effective, but is stymied by the narrow targeting reticule and even this is no guarantee of a hit.

 

3- Long range, stupidly narrow arc, eternal lockon, utility, good versus shielded targets, good damage.

 

The two torpedoes have no natural targets in the game. They also have no real ties to the weapons that they are trying to model: a proton torpedo should absolutely obliterate ANY starfighter, and a thermite torpedo probably should make one unflyable. Even a small amount of latency will block these from firing, as the issue where you lose the lock when the target is CLOSE to the edge of your targeting reticule (likely because they left it server-side- the targeting reticule appears to cancel if you lose them server side OR client side). This is because the reticule, being very small, is in practice generally even smaller. These missile are simply vastly undertuned: either they should be much easier to lock and fire (longer range and bigger reticule), or if either missile keeps its limitation on those things, it should be a one hit kill against any ship in game- even as a one hit kill, it would probably not be viable.

 

 

 

The real problem here is, we don't know what the intention is on these weapons. I discussed all those in language that discusses buffing them: a world that has distortion missile break removed instead requires an absolute nerf to clusters instead, and maybe smaller buffs to the other missiles. A world where disto ends up increasing lock-on time instead of breaking missiles probably counters the fast lockon of clusters while not hurting the others as much: in that case, you'd still want to buff the non-cluster missiles. A world with longer cooldowns on engine components also probably needs to nerf clusters and probably doesn't leave the others in a great space.

 

 

Basically, a target flying at you doesn't care if you start to lock a missile, you won't get to fire it. A target flying away from you only cares if he's in open space, and even then, not much if you are locking a torpedo. A target with any mobility component (which is everything anyone plays except girl and boy bombers) only cares if he's being chased around by a crew of other guys that are making him blow abilities. Those are the problems, and we don't know what sort of world we are discussing buffs for.

 

Even though clusters aren't OP in the current meta, they are VASTLY more potent than the other missiles, simply by virtue of the fact that they actually function as intended, and have a really short cooldown that allows them to be hammered out at at target, instead of a once per encounter kind of thing with a long reload time that gives your opponent plenty of time to leave or regain defensives. Any missile buff, or missile-break nerf, needs to consider this huge discrepancy in missile power carefully.

[Verain]

Turrets

 

A lot of parts of the game suggest that a turret is meant to be a hard target to kill for scouts, and to be "struck" by strike fighters.

 

1- The turret has a huge amount of armor- like 70% or whatever.

2- The turret has a generous amount of health- 1000 health.

3- With a couple exceptions, scouts are bad against turrets. Most of their components either don't work against turrets, or have a long cooldown.

4- Unless built maniacally, a strikes has very few problems with turrets.

 

Ignoring the odd man out- burst laser cannon- we can see a lot of commonalities amongst the scout weaponry. The secondaries offer good armor ignore capabilities, but have either a long lockon, long cooldown, or rather sharp targeting restrictions. The lasers all hit for almost nothing, and the shields are very easily fractured by soloing a single one.

 

Meanwhile, in the strike fighter department, there's plenty of access to the concussion missile (it is the default), which ends up locking quickly compared to the torps, and one shotting the target. Heavy lasers are on two of the three strikes, and the remaining strike is meant for fleet support (but still has access to thermite). Solid hull and shield, along with a magazine, mean that blaring away at these targets with quad lasers and the use of the "2" button is a guaranteed turret kill.

 

 

I believe that this sort of setup comes from a very early build that never got close to live, probably from when gunships, bombers, and infiltrators were just a gleam in the eye of the developers. The strikes were meant to be mediocre at dogfighting but very much able to strike hard targets from range, and likely many more types of hard targets were envisioned. This was probably before they were ever designed to be "generalists", or any other thing. And certainly it was before a scout had burst lasers and destroying turrets was boringly simple.

 

 

The role of turrets now seems to be to make a node nontrivial to take- an enemy has to spend a bit of time wiping out the turrets before taking the node. Too much turret health and nodes become impossible to ninja, too little and they become too easy. They also have short range weaponry which discourages scouts from approaching the node and ignoring them for too long, while requiring gunships to wind up a huge part of their power pool to take them out. They succinctly solo drones and mines placed near them. Basically, you can't ignore them, but killing them is totally routine.

 

 

Do we like this? What if not every turret was the same? What if turrets started a little bit weaker than current, and got a little stronger as they lived? What if turrets came in types like, armored turret (today's turret), shielded turret (not as much armor, plenty of shields, more total health), evasion turret (defended by evasion). What if there was a railgun turret that a gunship would have to prioritize or he'd take some weak railshot, but that a scout wouldn't care too much about assuming he could swing some line of sight on it?

 

Basically, do we want turrets to be boring and have the same strategy as being a fundamentally uninteresting and non-pvp part of the game, or do we want different ships to approach turrets in different ways, with different results?

[Greezt]

The rating represent the "easiness" to send a hot welcome to your enemy. Higher rating means easy send message.

 

You did not read my response. I did not forget any important part. Your rating does not mean anything with regards to how easy a missile is to land. Even if torps covered the entire map, they would not land. They would not, because they have a stupidly long lock-on time, an even longer reload time, a small firing arc and slow speed.

 

Your formula does not show that, because it can't. All it shows is an arbitrary ratio between range and lock-on time, completely disregarding things such as DPS, damage, and utility. And I know that in your list you try to balance out utility and damage, but based on what?

Edited July 7, 2017 by Greezt

[Greezt]

As long as this thing is going and people are requesting some strange nerfs and buffs, here are some points:

 

• Nerfing ion railgun without substantially buffing EMP components (missiles and field) will make bombers even more dominant.
  
• Nerfing slug railgun without substantially buffing torpedoes and concussion missiles will make bombers even more dominant.
  

 

To that end, here are my missile fixes from this post:

 

General fixes:

 

Missiles (all weapons that require a lock on their target) are now divided into three categories – short, medium and long range. Short range missiles have 5000m range baseline (before upgrades), take 1.5 seconds to lock on to their target baseline, and have a 3 second cooldown baseline. Medium range missiles have 10,000m range baseline, take 2 seconds to lock onto their target baseline, and have a 6 seconds cooldown baseline. Long range missiles have 15,000m range baseline, take 2.5 seconds to lock onto their target baseline, and have a 9 second cooldown baseline.

 

Additionally, short range missiles all have a 24-degree firing arc and cluster missile speed baseline, medium range missiles have a 20-degree firing arc and concussion missile speed baseline, and long-range missiles have a 16-degree firing arc and torpedo speed baseline.

 

Reasoning:

 

Currently, missiles are underpowered in GSF. The only truly viable missiles are clusters, and only because they can be spammed faster than ships can break them. Even they have trouble with certain builds (powerdive/distortion field scouts can break three volleys in a row). I think increasing the range for medium and long-range missiles will make it harder to escape them, and reducing the cooldown will mean that after one or two misses you will land a hit. At the very least, your opponents will be forced to respect the fact that you can keep them under pressure for as long as needed.

 

Increasing the firing arc for long range missiles should make them more viable against targets more maneuverable than bombers. Due to their long lock on and cooldown, they still won’t be a real threat to scouts and gunships, but they will land on strikes (as well as scouts or gunships who have lost their breaks to other missiles).

 

Cluster missiles:

 

No fixes required.

 

Interdiction missiles:

 

Now considered short range missiles. Baseline interdiction effect reduced to 4 seconds (down from 8 seconds), T2 upgrade (Reduced Reload Speed) reduced to 0.5 seconds (down from 3 seconds), T3 upgrade (Increased Slow Duration) reduced to 1 second (down from 2 seconds).

 

Reasoning:

 

Currently, interdiction missiles are useless. They are very powerful, but only situationally. There are many better and safer ways to slow down a target – ion railgun, interdiction mines/drones, even concussion missiles. For such a short range these missiles are impossible to land on anything more than a bomber, and if you’re getting that close to a bomber you may as well kill it. Side note – another fix would be renaming the T2 upgrade to “Reduced Reload Time”. The current name does not reflect on the upgrade.

 

Ion missiles:

Now considered short range missiles.

 

Reasoning:

 

Ion missiles are the worst missile in the game currently. They deal low damage compared to their lock on and reload time, it’s never better to use them over your blasters. Their power drain effect is pitiful. If they were to benefit of the shorter reload and lock on that short-range missiles will get, they would be much more useful for a reliable power drain and keeping shields down. In return for this buff they will be sacrificing range.

 

Concussion missiles:

 

Now considered medium range missiles.

 

Reasoning:

 

Concussion missiles are quite close to being perfect in my opinion. They have decent damage, decent lock on time, decent reload time and are highly customizable. Their downfall is that they’re impossible to land and most ships – mostly because most ships have two missile breaks. The extra range will enable them to land even on a ship that has barreled out of range, and if strikes will be more viable they will be an obvious target for these missiles.

 

EMP missiles:

 

Now considered medium range missiles.

 

Reasoning:

 

EMP are meant to clear satellites from bomber spam, but ion railguns are a more reliable tool for that job. The increased range and ability to land them more often should make them better suited for the job. Combined with the fact that they disable systems, this buff will make them almost required in domination, instead of being a slightly amusing missile to be used in lopsided matches.

 

Sabotage probe:

 

Now considered medium range missiles. T5 upgrade (Speed Reduced) no longer removes all other effects of the probe. Base effect duration reduced to 2.5 seconds (down from 6), T3 upgrade (Reduced Cooldown) reduced to 2 seconds (down from 5).

 

Reasoning:

 

The T5 upgrade is a bug, and should be addressed. Making sabo probes medium range would make them an actual counter to scouts – they will be possible to land on them making the evasion reduction worthwhile. The nerfs to duration and cooldown should balance out their viability.

 

Torpedoes (proton + thermite):

 

Now considered long range missiles. Thermite locks no longer randomly break while inside firing arc.

 

Reasoning:

 

Torpedoes are meant to be heavy ordinance. They are, but as they currently are set, they are impossible to and even on bombers without them going AFK. The additional range will allow them to threaten any ship (even if they most probably won’t land on anything but a bomber), giving them additional utility).

[Darthural]

[..]

 

General fixes:

 

Missiles (all weapons that require a lock on their target) are now divided into three categories – short, medium and long range. Short range missiles have 5000m range baseline (before upgrades), take 1.5 seconds to lock on to their target baseline, and have a 3 second cooldown baseline. Medium range missiles have 10,000m range baseline, take 2 seconds to lock onto their target baseline, and have a 6 seconds cooldown baseline. Long range missiles have 15,000m range baseline, take 2.5 seconds to lock onto their target baseline, and have a 9 second cooldown baseline.

 

I disagree that medium range should be 10000m and long range 15000m cause then we get missile wars.

 

7000m to 8000m for medium and 10000m for long range is fine

 

Additionally, short range missiles all have a 24-degree firing arc and cluster missile speed baseline, medium range missiles have a 20-degree firing arc and concussion missile speed baseline, and long-range missiles have a 16-degree firing arc and torpedo speed baseline.

 

That is a point we can take about. You currently suggest a nerf for short and medium missiles and long range stay where they are currently.

 

 

Reasoning:

 

Currently, interdiction missiles are useless. They are very powerful, but only situationally. There are many better and safer ways to slow down a target – ion railgun, interdiction mines/drones, even concussion missiles. For such a short range these missiles are impossible to land on anything more than a bomber, and if you’re getting that close to a bomber you may as well kill it. Side note – another fix would be renaming the T2 upgrade to “Reduced Reload Time”. The current name does not reflect on the upgrade.

 

It is not easy to hit the target, but i get it on more than just bombers. While they have a heavy impact, they should be hard to fire.

 

Ion missiles:

Now considered short range missiles.

 

Reasoning:

 

Ion missiles are the worst missile in the game currently. They deal low damage compared to their lock on and reload time, it’s never better to use them over your blasters. Their power drain effect is pitiful. If they were to benefit of the shorter reload and lock on that short-range missiles will get, they would be much more useful for a reliable power drain and keeping shields down. In return for this buff they will be sacrificing range.

 

With your suggest it stays useless, because primary function is to damage shields. So in close combat I do not need them, when shields are down by laser fire.

 

The additional range will allow them to threaten any ship (even if they most probably won’t land on anything but a bomber), giving them additional utility).

 

Then we have Torpedo Wars. Torpedos are very well on targets, that used their missile defenses. Just a point of force somebody to use them.

[Greezt]

I disagree that medium range should be 10000m and long range 15000m cause then we get missile wars.

 

7000m to 8000m for medium and 10000m for long range is fine

 

How do we get missile wars? Some stats about missiles after the buff:

 

Short-range (clusters, interdiction, ions): lock on + reload = 4.1 seconds optimally. Can be landed on bombers (2 volleys for the Sledgehammer with powerdive), strike fighters (two volleys required), gunships (2-4 volleys required), scouts (3/4 volleys required).

 

Medium-range (Concussions, EMP): lock on + reload = 7.2 seconds optimally. Can be landed on bombers (except for the Sledgehammer with powerdive), strike fighters (2 volleys required, cannot be landed on the Clarion with powerdive), gunships (2/3 volleys required, cannot be landed on the Condor with powerdive), scouts (3/4 volleys required, cannot be landed on scouts with powerdive).

 

Long-range missiles (torpedoes): lock on + reload = 10.4 seconds optimally. Can be landed on bombers (except for the Sledgehammer with powerdive), strike fighters (2 volleys required, cannot be landed on the Clarion with powerdive) gunships with only one break that is not powerdive (2 volleys required), cannot be landed on scouts with two breaks (or only powerdive).

 

So even after this buff, you still need to put in a lot more effort to land a missile than use a railgun, (the comparable long-range weapon), and your DPS will be significantly lower for it. Where do these missile wars come in?

 

That is a point we can take about. You currently suggest a nerf for short and medium missiles and long range stay where they are currently.

 

What nerf? Currently clusters and interdictions have 24 degrees arc, so I'm keeping them where they are. I'm buffing the arc for ion missiles (since they're losing range), and also keeping EMP/concussions where they are (20 degrees). I'm buffing torpedoes so they get the T4 upgrade "increased firing arc" for free. So overall, no nerf and a slight buff to torpedoes.

 

It is not easy to hit the target, but i get it on more than just bombers. While they have a heavy impact, they should be hard to fire.

 

The only targets you're currently landing interdiction missiles on are either players who have wasted their cooldowns against someone else (so in a 2v1) or they're bad players. A full interdiction cycle takes 9.8 seconds, meaning you have 0.4 seconds to land one even on a gunship/scout with barrel roll and disto. On a retros/disto scout they will never land, except if you are 2v1. If you're 2v1 you can do anything, including landing sabo probes. Would you say they are ok too?

 

With your suggest it stays useless, because primary function is to damage shields. So in close combat I do not need them, when shields are down by laser fire.

 

My suggestion is to make them a control missile. They will still drain shields, but their primary use will be keeping a target drained of weapon and engine power, similar to how the ion railgun functions. Not useless at all. Also, at 5500m they will fulfill the same function as clusters, only they will deal more shield damage and less hull.

 

Then we have Torpedo Wars. Torpedos are very well on targets, that used their missile defenses. Just a point of force somebody to use them.

 

So you're saying that torpedoes work as scavenging components? I don't know what to think at this point. It seems as if your line of reasoning is something like "well, all you need is 3 players to kill one and all the junk components are great!".

 

First of all, even if someone used both breaks, in the 3.4 seconds it takes to lock a torpedo you can boost behind a rock easily. Even bombers are rarely hit by torpedoes as they currently stand. Secondly, how do you get someone to waste both their breaks? Apart from ganging up on them? Why would anyone ever take a component that requires help from other players (torpedoes) when there are components that can do the same job without help (railguns)?

Edited July 8, 2017 by Greezt

[kjarnage]

Gun ship way too powerful. Run the end stats and i think you will find in death matches the top 5 are gun ships and do 80% of the kills and damage. While gunships run 40k to 120k damage others are lucky to do 30k.

Not all gun ships are equal and in part I believe that the player and computer reaction time is important for top gun ships. A disadvantage to older players or poorer players that can't afford top of the line computers. although i also wonder if my aiming mechanism is off too.

 

Generally the death matches i have seen are like two armies of musket men lining up to shot as new players that are fools enough to charge.

 

I am not just going to complain but offer suggestions:

Have a targeting mechanism like for all other weapons but increase the reaction time so a slower player/computer actually has an equal to chance to hit. Effectively you are locking the target and ships computer is making the last second targeting adjustment.

Balance this with a 50% reduction to hit moving targets at 10k-15k range and 25% reduction on moving targets at 5k to 10k range. It should be harder to hit at longer ranges.

Give a 5% reduction to hit smaller scouts and fighters.

Reduce the upper limit of damage possible so harder to one off ships.

 

For all ships add an easy readout bar on shields and hull.

[caederon]

Gun ship way too powerful. Run the end stats and i think you will find in death matches the top 5 are gun ships and do 80% of the kills and damage. While gunships run 40k to 120k damage others are lucky to do 30k.

Want to see a scout do 100k+ in TDM while shooting down all ship types? Here,

.

 

Scouts are capable of wreaking tremendous havoc and doing a ton of damage, landing lots of kills, etc etc. They can tear up gunships with great aplomb. They can slice a hot laser through buttery bombers. People just have to learn how to use them. This is a powerful ship class. It is entirely viable.

 

Learn the techniques necessary and you can do it, too. TDM does not have to be all about gunships. If your local server lacks good scout pilots, be the first! Learn how to go about wrecking people in a scout and you can do it. It's a massive misconception that scouts are somehow inferior or incapable. People claim it's 'easier to learn gunship.' So what? Even if it is (and I'd argue it's just as hard to learn how to play a gunship -well-) that doesn't mean you shouldn't try to learn scout. If something is hard to master, do it and reap the rewards of your accomplishment.

 

- Despon

[SilverWolven]

Eric,

 

I am not sure if this falls under the category of ship balance, but I would eventually like to see an option to use a flight stick or gaming controller in GSF and or possibly the regular space missions or both. I also think the option of using GSF to affect your Ground game is a good idea.

[LilSaihah]

I'm just gonna do a very quicko response. Other people know way better than me so I'll let them address how this should be changed but if you're looking at a general idea of how people feel about the game this might help.

 

Red needs buffs and are completely unusable at 'high' levels of play.

Yellow may need buffs, but is on the cusp of being good. You have a reason to slot these ships.

Green is fine as they are. May need nerfs. You can't go wrong slotting these ships.

 

T1 Strike

T2 Strike

T3 Strike

T1 Scout

T2 Scout

T3 Scout

T1 Gunship

T2 Gunship

T3 Gunship

T1 Bomber

T2 Bomber

T3 Bomber

 

I haven't played in a while but this is the feeling that I've had about the game when I last played and I don't think anything's really changed.

 

The only note in particular I want to make is that the T3 scout is at the very bottom of what I'd consider marginal. You have a reason to slot it... But optimal play is to launch your speed aura and then soduko.

Edited July 8, 2017 by LilSaihah

[RaanJassa]

I've enjoyed playing GSF, but I'm an average (maybe even below average) player. I don't have the experience many others have, so I won't talk about components or ships....too many good players have already stated the weakness of strikes or the OPness of gunships/bombers, etc.

 

I'll state my one pet peeve:

 

My experience has been that GSF does not feel like a STAR WARS space battle. Ships stop to fight. Actually stop. I remember scenes in the films where an imperial turret commander says to another naval office "they are coming in too fast in small personal fighters; we can't target them" (paraphrasing) or a rebel yelling 'they're coming in too fast." No one stopped to get a shot or lay a mine, That was death. Although I have mastered my gunship, it doesn't feel right to stop and snipe during a dog fight (even though I'm on the edge of the brawl).

 

Maybe weapon lock-on times could have an inverse ratio to the speed of the target. Slower you go, the quicker the enemy can lock a missile/torpedo or smaller the tracking penalty.

Edited July 8, 2017 by RaanJassa

[Sorrai]

Hey everyone,

 

My sincere thanks goes to Keith and crew for opening up these discussion threads. For various reasons it has become a very difficult subject to broach and I hope that something positive and constructive will come from all of this. Like most people on these forums I am passionate about Starfighter and care very deeply for this aspect of the game. I would like to contribute by offering my input as well as a perspective that may be a little different from others I have read so far.

 

Like many here, I am a dedicated veteran of the game. My favorite ship to fly happens to be the Tier 2 Strike fighter: The Pike and the Quell; a ship some will opine as being one of the worst in the game. After reviewing my stats across various characters and servers I discovered that since launch I have logged in over 3,377 battles on the T2 strike alone. That equates to an astonishing 468 hours, or 19 ½ days, I have spent flying that particular ship class. My intention is neither to brag nor invite criticism and ridicule over my preferred play style. It is simply to lend some credence and merit to what I have to say.

 

When I think about balance issues in GSF I keep drawing an analogy of the process that goes into mixing a song. Most sound engineers operate on the principle of keeping all the components of the music relative to the core of its most essential components. You begin mixing your song while always keeping the median in mind. The more elements there are to a song, the more difficult it becomes to ensure everything is sitting properly in the mix. The ultimate goal is to avoid creating unwanted distortion because too many things are competing for attention. It's this fundamental approach which makes me inclined toward looking at what needs to be scaled down first before deciding when something else needs to be scaled up.

 

 

Are there any ships you feel are over or under powered? Which ship(s) and why?

 

Over-powered

 

Sting/Flashfire. Continuing with my music analogy, I believe the T2 scout is too loud in the mix. Its weapon systems need to be tuned down, specifically Burst Laser Cannons and how it is used in conjunction with Targeting Telemetry or Blaster Overcharge. The destructive power of those weapon systems, combined with popular Co-pilot abilities like Concentrated Fire or Wingman, along with its speed, agility and engine power pool give T2 scouts far too much of an advantage. The extra missile break granted by Distortion Field, the shorter cool-downs afforded by maneuvers like Retro Thrusters and Power Dive on top of the extra Evasion stacked from Lightweight Armor make this particular ship the undisputed Gingerbread Man of GSF, except this Gingerbread Man happens to be armed with a semi-automatic shotgun that fires armor-piercing depleted uranium rounds.

 

Many attest the strike fighter is under-powered, but I believe that consensus is based largely upon how it compares to the offensive output of the T2 scout. Strikes are the median ship in GSF. Like a rhythm guitar in music they provide the infrastructure for which every other ship is based upon. To me, that's a big deal. You don't want to mess around too much with ground zero because in doing so it may end up compromising the entire game design as a whole.

 

I love strike fighters and I understand their limitations better than most anybody out there. Despite all this if I had to choose a plan of action I would first try leaving the median ship class alone and instead focus on toning down T2 scouts. This idea will undoubtedly sound absurd and outrageous to all the Flashfire/Sting aficionados out there. I would not blame them. Nobody likes the idea of their favorite ship getting nerfed, but as a seasoned scout pilot myself I readily concede that the T2 Scout is simply over-powered. Liquifying a bomber with maximum hull and maximum shields in less than 3 seconds isn't something that should happen as often as it does. That being said I know ultra-hardcore scout pilots will not be very pleased at the notion of relinquishing the power they have glommed on to to for the past 3 years. If players insist on leaving T2 scouts as they are, then strike fighters need to be bolstered to better compete against them. Here are some suggestions that shouldn't break the game:

 

 

• Un-nerf Barrel Roll for strike fighters only. Restore its original cool-down back to 20 seconds. Barrel Roll cool-downs for Gunships and Scouts should remain at the present cool-down of 30 seconds.
  
• 
  
• Add Interdiction Missiles to secondary weapons.
   
  
• A 5-8% increase to their base evasion.
   
  
• A 5-10% increase to their engine power pool.
   
  
• A 5-10% increase to their hull.
  

 

 

 

Are there any ship components that you feel are over or under powered? Which components and why?

Over-powered

 

Burst Laser Cannons. I can think of no other weapon system that is more destructive, destabilizing and in need of re-tooling than BLCs. This is the primary reason why T2 scouts have become so notorious. It needs to be scaled back and I think if this was done it would allow other ships more opportunity to shine. Proponents of BLCs will argue that they are necessary in order to stop gunships and bombers from dominating the game. I disagree with that. Dilute some of the venom in BLCs, assess how the new changes play out, then do some additional tweaking as needed until they sit better in the overall scope of the game. If doing something like reducing Ignore Armor from 100% to 50% ensures that a ship can survive a BLC assault for longer than 3 seconds that will be a big help.

 

Under-powered

 

Proton and Thermite Torpedoes. Decrease their lock-on time from 3.4 seconds to 3.2 or perhaps even 3.0 seconds. Also reduce their reload time from 11 seconds to 9 seconds.

 

Concussion Missles. Decrease its lock-on time from 2.6 seconds to 2.4 seconds. Also reduce their reload time from 5.5 seconds to 5.2 seconds--maybe even 5 seconds flat.

 

Quick Charge Shield. Against BLCs it's like trying to protect yourself with a kleenex. Perhaps increase its instant charge from 30% to 40%.

 

Ion Cannons. They could use a boost in range. Increase it to somewhere between 4,500 5,000k.

 

Rapid Fire Lasers. They are extremely weak even when used to their maximum efficacy.

 

Fortress Shield. A defense system that requires a gunship to be rooted in one spot in order to work might as well be a death sentence.

 

Rotational Thrusters. Essentially the same fundamental problems as Fortress Shield. The value of Distortion Field and its extra missile break is simply to crucial to give up.

 

 

Are there any crew members that you feel are over or under powered? Which crew members and why?

What most comes to mind when I think about crew members is that their general composition is different for each faction. For the sake of fairness and balance I would like to see each faction's crew member options be identical.

 

As far as active Co-pilot abilities are concerned I think Slicer's Loop, Lingering Effect, Servo Jammer should be reviewed for additional tweaking.

 

 

Thank you for reading. I don't intend to engage too heavily in debating with others here. I really just want the devs to have some additonal points of view to consider that may differ from others who post more frequently than I do. I appreciate how thoughtful the community is in offering their input. It is a testament to the love and enthusiasm many of us share for GSF. My hope is that we continue to offer the devs some great insight and solid feedback they can use to better improve this awesome little mini-game.

 

 

~Elaeis~

[caederon]

• Un-nerf Barrel Roll for strike fighters only. Restore its original cool-down back to 20 seconds. Barrel Roll cool-downs for Gunships and Scouts should remain at the present cool-down of 30 seconds.
  
• 
  
• Add Interdiction Missiles to secondary weapons.
  
• A 5-8% increase to their base evasion.
  
• A 5-10% increase to their engine power pool.
  
• A 5-10% increase to their hull.
  

It's interesting that a bunch of us were discussing your first point there just the other night, remembering the days when the T2F could get around the battlefield with reasonable alacrity instead of its current state. You might remember I flew that thing a lot when I was on BC. I'd like to see it restored to a place of usefulness in the arsenal. I'm on board with your other suggestions, too. I'd even give it rocket pods as a secondary weapon option on top of that and a base reduction to missile lock-on times. And Power Dive as an engine option for T1F and T2F.

 

I agree with pretty much all of your other component suggestions, though I am not in favor of nerfing things. I'd much rather see other components made relevant to increase the diversity of choice rather than have things that are already relevant diminished to match the standards of the weaker selections.

 

Speaking of BLC specifically, I think the correct play is not to nerf it but to make other lasers more desirable for use in particular situations so there is a meaningful choice to be made. Quad/pod T2S is very dangerous as-is, and melts bombers and gunships very well. I'd like to see RFL given a real purpose. I mentioned before that if it ignored Evasion entirely, it would be a legitimate threat to scouts (and the other classes) that would be a viable choice. It might need some other minor tweaks but the point is that more variety is better. I'd like to see LLC get a bit of a boost as well with either greater Accuracy or less tracking penalty. These attrition-based lasers need to land more frequently to be at all useful.

 

Reducing the overall damage dealt to bombers through a BLC nerf would just make bomber spam strategies proliferate even more and become even harder to dislodge. They're bad enough as-is right now. Improved EMP missiles and more powerful strike fighters could actually put things back in closer balance and add to ship diversity.

 

- Despon

Edited July 8, 2017 by caederon

[Storm-Cutter]

Personally I'd increase the chance of a hit with rocket pods.

Reduce lock on times for the bigger missiles. - Holding a lock for ~3 seconds before they either fly away, evade, LoS or gap close is a Loooong time.

 

Reduce GS range or power just a little. - 1 shotting people is never fun for the victim. - It puts a lot of new players off, when they select a stock ship, run into the fray and get downed in 1 - I know we warn them to keep back and support our own side... but the thrill of SW ship-to-ship is very strong. - However I'd give GS a tiny bit more engine or shields or DCD buff.

 

I'd stop bombers ticking by revolving the satellites. It'd stop them sitting for the whole match spewing blobs waiting for a skilled pilot to dislodge them. Since they're surrounded by LoS of the sat and the sat turrets + whatever ordinance they spew and repair, Rail drones interdiction or missile drones. - So many times we see bomber stacking - 3 on each sat great minefields of stuff surrounding them... And if your team hasn't the counters you're basically screwed.

 

 

I'd give Strikes a boost to engine pool, shields and DPS. - The clarion/ imperium is a fine ship but is so damn slow to get anywhere to support the team. The other strikes are okay for a veteran, but for newbies they're just slow and ponderous and toothless for scouts to feed upon like piranhas.

 

 

But overall I'd tweak it a little and check first that you're stepping in the right direction- nerfs and buffs should be a gentle tap not a massive sledgehammer.

 

And I'd paint Tricky's notch a new colour on Kuat Mesas 'Imp' side. In my honour.

Edited July 8, 2017 by Storm-Cutter

[Shiyoni]

Maybe it's not as eloquent as everyone else's respones, but in my opinion most of the new players starting with GSF, are discouraged by the "1 shot kills" from gunships and S-13 Sting/Flashfire. I've heard many complaints about not having enough time to practice flying/dogfighting - tutorial is simply annoying and doesn't teach you much. Solution to that would be like a "practice match" that when 1 experienced player could invite their friend to practice chasing eachother all over the map, and shooting at a moving target. Or simply improve the tutorial with fast moving targets, more drones. Something like a obstacle course.

 

Here's my take on the gunships:

 

I think you should make gunships a little bit more realistic, meaning... unlimited "metal slugs" on railgun in gunships is a bit unrealistic to me. Maybe try to change it, so it has similarity to ammo system just like missles, and coming back to capital ship would "restock" the ammo, same with other ammo systems. 15.000m is a little bit to much (I would aim for 10-11), and it gets very frustrating when in deathmatch you have literally no other option that to take part in sniper/bomber only match. Maybe try to decrease the weapon power pool, so overall dps of the GS will be much lower, thus discouraging a lot of lazy players. It's just super annoying to be 1 scout against 5 gunships being near eachother.

 

Here's my take on the scouts:

 

I think lots of players literally HATE S-13 Stings/Flashfires. They are ridiculously overpowered. They can kill you very fast, have a lot of speed and engine power, can break missles locks whenever they want (distortion field + their engine ability). Personally I would greatly increase the weapon power cost of Burst lasers, so the scout would really have to get close to a target and not be this "bully" that thinks that he's capable of everything in the match.

 

Here's my take on the bombers:

 

Give mines/probes ammo system - refill mines at capital ship. It would force the bombers that hide underneath the satelites or whenever to move. It's really annoying to see a domination match with a couple of "tensor scouts" with full team of bombers. It's annoying to a new players. Well I assume you could always fly down under the satelite to avoid the mines, and then kill the bombers but still they are hard to kill.

 

Here's my take on strike fighters:

 

I'm not very knowledgeable about those types of ships, but I feel like they should have much bigger weapon power pool, and better shields. I think that scouts naturally should be more fast, have much less damage, more agile, hard to hit. And Strike fighters, should be something between the scout and the bomber. So bigger weapon power, more shields, engine capacity is fine (altough it takes a loooot of time to go with strike fighter from point A to point B on any map).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I think more maps would be nice to have. And apart of all of those things I would like to finally get red lasers for imperial ships, please lol... I don't know; but the look of the ship I am flying is very important to me and my friends. We love our stuff to be matchy-matchy - minimalistic. As in the concept art or cutscenes "Bloodmark" scouts have red engine color and red lasers. It just looks nice. Also I would get rid of red lights on some of the imperial ships because it's just looks bad with any dye (it's like ugly mix of metal, green dye, red lights, whatever colors you have everywhere on engines/blasters - IT LOOKS UGLY .

Edited July 8, 2017 by Shiyoni

[caederon]

I've heard many complaints about not having enough time to practice flying/dogfighting - tutorial is simply annoying and doesn't teach you much.

This is 100% correct and there needs to be a suite of better tutorial resources in-game for players to have a venue where they can practice and learn the game mechanics. Even longtime veterans (especially longtime veterans!) have been asking for this literally for years now. Presently, at least, you can check out GSF School.

 

...and it gets very frustrating when in deathmatch you have literally no other option that to take part in sniper/bomber only match.

You always, always have other options.

 

I think lots of players literally HATE S-13 Stings/Flashfires. They are ridiculously overpowered. They can kill you very fast, have a lot of speed and engine power, can break missles locks whenever they want (distortion field + their engine ability).

^ option #1

 

If scouts are so OP and ridiculous, why can't they take on those gunships and bombers? Are the gunships OP? Are the bombers OP?! IS EVERYTHING OP?!

 

Gun ship way too powerful.

Ah, crap, so scouts ~and~ gunships are OP, way too powerful.

 

Bombers get to many shields and armor and the damage of their mines is really huge: when you play bomber, just hide under the satellite, in the middle of your minefileds: scouts and strike fighters can't come without taking huge damage, and at least 2 gunships are required to disturb you...

In the satellite map, the team with the most bombers win.

Oh no... bombers are OP too!

 

So we'd better nerf bombers, gunships and scouts, right?

 

Here's the thing: all these elements of the game people cite as being OP have counters. The fact that so few people know about and can execute these counters says that there is a lack of knowledge spreading out to the players who are most affected.

 

People complain about 'gear gap' and the 'grind' needed to gear your ships up... well, Bioware dished out massive help on that front in 5.2.2 . If you are level 10 and can get the Intro To Starfighter quest, you can have enough requisition after ~one single match, win or lose~ to purchase and upgrade a single ship of your choice to a competitive level with all its key upgrades... if you know what you're doing.

 

So again, we come to the issue of knowledge not being disseminated properly.

 

Even simple tactical concerns like:

"Don't fly in a straight line through open space directly at your target and think you'll live"

or

"Don't fire your short range lasers when your enemy is 10k away and think they'll hit"

 

...are non-obvious to beginners. This is a knowledge problem, not a ship balance problem. There are techniques to deal with all of these OP ships, most of which revolve around "being on a team that can hit targets and doesn't throw itself into terrible situations that they don't know how to get out of."

 

If half of your team can't land more than 5% of their shots, you are likely to lose no matter what the other side is flying, and no matter what you are flying. This is not reflective of ship balance issues, it is reflective of knowledge deficit issues. Your teammates are not flying perfectly, maximizing their ships abilities, and still failing because of OP enemy compositions or broken, super-powerful components. They are losing because most of they probably do not know what they are doing.

 

There absolutely needs to be better in-game tutorial resources. People also need to approach the game with some level of seriousness and adopt a mindset that they can improve their play by learning what is going on and how to approach dangerous enemies. What seems OP at first often has a very clear counter that can be learned through study and practice.

 

- Despon

Edited July 8, 2017 by caederon

[AlrikFassbauer]

Here's the thing: all these elements of the game people cite as being OP have counters. The fact that so few people know about and can execute these counters says that there is a lack of knowledge spreading out to the players who are most affected.

 

I agree. But to me it is a design flaw to let people find it out the hard way - or, in other words, the devs were showing a special kind of view of man in which the basis is "learning by doing", but a level over that there is just "sink or swim". In the end, this is like war : People either survive the battery, or not. Those who survive it might develop a certain mind set which enables them to survive - either through evasion, or through sheer counter-battery.

 

"Sink or swim" is very anti-social in my opinion. It is nothing but a sheer survival of the fittest. Nothing more.

Where competition is also "survival of the fittest", it might also evoke aberrations - like curbstomping.

 

Plus, GSF is meant to be a GAME. And a game is meant to emanate some sort of FUN.

Okay, curbstomping others might be fun for some - but not for all, and that's when the queue dies : When there is no more fun to get.

[catsi]

For the most part this has been covered well by others but Ill echo a few sentiments and reinforce and add my own.

 

Strikes:

 

Strikes need several buffs, while a competent strike pilot can and have put up tremendous numbers even against skilled opposition, this is quite honestly an exception not the rule. Right now the only advantage strikes have is their durability and even that can be quickly compromised by the built in firepower of burst scouts or gunships.

 

Boost to engine power, and or maneuverability wouldn't hurt at all.

 

Increased firepower, strikes a should be a LETHAL frontal fire enemy. Boosts to range and base damage wouldn't hurt here at all.

 

A further increase to strike hull and shield bases wouldn't hurt either making them naturally tanky and able to survive dogfights longer.

 

The T1 in specific is the most in need of buffs, the T1 by design is a jack of all trades, and again this must be emphasized -- In the hands of a competent experienced pilot-- can do nearly anything well.

 

In a rookies hands the T1 strike is very forgiving of mistakes for the most part, and is good for learning fundamentals but again if one doesn't improve fast or have the experience or natural talent of others they may find themselves falling behind the curve.

 

On the whole the T1 should be the default starter ship it needs some boosts to unsure that a rookie pilot learns quickly and is able to graduate to other ships while always having a good old standby in the T1 available to them.

 

T2-3 enough has been written about these elsewhere that I wont repeat here suffice to say they have their niches which need expanding.

 

Scouts

 

T1 scouts are pretty well done as they stand however they tend to have an ability to deliver a much larger punch then they should at times imo. Especially given their near impossibility of being hit due to high evasion. while their low hull pool means they can be taken down hard if hit hitting them is nearly impossible.

 

T2 scouts I'm of a mixed thought process on this one honestly. These are clearly broken in game play they have evasion nearly equal to t1 scouts making them damned near impossible to hit with better shield options in some cases.

 

Combined with their absurd burst fire power potential its a crap shoot trying to dogfigjht with them. The addition of burst cannons on this model is a mistake in my opinion, its boosts the ships firepower far beyond any other ship in the game quite frankly and renders other ships basically ireelevant.

 

T3 scouts have an odd problem in that unlike T1 strikes they cant even claim to be jacks of all trades. T3 scouts seem to have one use tensor field then die for a switch to a better ship. The t3 should have more options then that.

 

Gunships.

 

T1s pretty much the top ship in the game right now. In the hands of a competent pilot it can dominate the field As our very own Sriia has on more then one occasion shown. its only real drawbacks are that if you can keep it moving it cant hit with its biggest punches, but it still has a nasty jab in a knife fight thanks to BLCs which imo it should have exclusive access too.

 

No real changes that I can think of at this time save maybe making the energy draw on Ion rail a bit costlier to avoid Ion spam. Also Plasma rail needs a serious boost, either a direct boost to damage making its DOT component even more lethal and or an AOE option to spread its DOT and Evasion Debuff around.

 

while this admittedly runs the risk of making for Troll builds, it still has potential for bomber spam sweeps given the preponderance of these lately.

 

The T2 needs a massive overhaul as its pretty much the worst ship in the game. Missiles really only have a place on a ship if you have the maneuverability to keep lock on. The t2 simply doesn't have this and by the time it gets in missile range its already in trouble as it lacks the in close capability to engage in a knife fight.

 

The T3 is on the whole balanced roughly though it like the T2 scout has been stepping on the t1 strikes toes for certain things. On the whole though I don't believe any real changes are needed here.

 

Bombers.

 

So as some have known I'm pretty much one of Bombers loudest detractors. I despise them with a passion. which is why I took to flying them in 5.2 when the freebees were introduced. I still despise them especially ticks who pretty much abuse the very notion of them imo but that's a different can of worms.

 

On the whole Bombers do excel at area denial. the issue lies when 3 or more drop spam on a sat it becomes nearly impossible for anything shy of an ion gunship to clear them. And EVEN THEN, it requires the gunship to be left in peace to spam away. If any harassment occurs the gunship cant fire and the mines just reappear.

 

I think bombers need to be made vulnerable to their own ordinance specifically mines. I want to clarify that. THEIR OWN ordinance not others. This should be done to force Bombers to ranger a little further a field and to keep on the move. By making the bombers wary of their mines AOEs and keeping them on the move this I feel would balance them and make sure they do not just park in a hole on a sat while sitting on a mine all match.

 

Which brings me to another bomber fix. Bombers need better collision. bomber should not be able to simply drop a drone or mine and just sit on it. this leads to an issue where inspite of targeting the BOMBER one cant hit it.

 

for example. Bomber drops rail drone and sits on drone in its hole. A classic tick. the strike sneaks up under the bomber and fires into the bomber while targeting it. inspite of targeting the bomber the rail drone which is INSIDE the bombers hull is actually the first thing destroyed. this literally gives the bombers a this set of shields and hit points.

 

Finding some way to mitigate this or make the bombers the primary target would be advisable here insuring that bombers again cant just sit there laughing at the puny ships while the ordinance does all the work.

 

Beyond that I am not as experienced in bomber piloting as others so Ill leave them alone for the most part. they are slow and easy targets for the most part if a skilled pilot knows how to get behind them. My main concerns for bombers is how they are becoming a bit of a default setting for any DOM match. to the point where everyone is stacking 4-6 bombers per match. while an experienced and coordinated team can handle this, a less experienced team will have nightmares for weeks after one of these matches and experienced pilot with that newer team will get handed a slice of frustration pie to eat.

 

Overall I think GSF holds a fairly decent balance with only Strikes needing any serious form of care. For the most part minor fixes to this and that should relieve most issues.

[Triquetrum]

Personally I find the ships to be good balances, the strike fighter is probably the least used for reasons I don't understand.

 

But I can kill just as much in a scout or gunship of bomber any other type of ships, so for me I don't really have any issues this way.

[Pilgrim_Grey]

Speaking of BLC specifically, I think the correct play is not to nerf it but to make other lasers more desirable for use in particular situations so there is a meaningful choice to be made. Quad/pod T2S is very dangerous as-is, and melts bombers and gunships very well. I'd like to see RFL given a real purpose. I mentioned before that if it ignored Evasion entirely, it would be a legitimate threat to scouts (and the other classes) that would be a viable choice. It might need some other minor tweaks but the point is that more variety is better. I'd like to see LLC get a bit of a boost as well with either greater Accuracy or less tracking penalty. These attrition-based lasers need to land more frequently to be at all useful.

 

Reducing the overall damage dealt to bombers through a BLC nerf would just make bomber spam strategies proliferate even more and become even harder to dislodge. They're bad enough as-is right now. Improved EMP missiles and more powerful strike fighters could actually put things back in closer balance and add to ship diversity.

 

- Despon

 

The problem is BLC is so good, it becomes almost silly to make any other choice. I far prefer Quads with pods or clusters, as that just fits my play style a lot better. I just don't like the shotgun style and feel of bursts. But even so, BLCs are so good they're better than the quads and pods combo for bombers and gunships. You don't even need to bother with a secondary, just maneuver in, pop a CD or two and lay on that primary key.

 

So why shouldn't something that is really good across the board not have some downward tweaks? How can other types of lasers compete when BLC does everything they could do already? It's best for dogfighting and hard targets and also deals with any accuracy issues the game throws your way (as long as you can aim, of course). It's got to have some weakness if anything else is going to get a place.

 

I've said elsewhere that removing the armor penetration (and even swapping out for increased damage to armor for that tier) would make quads and pods have a clear role, and allow other lasers to get a tweak and have a role as well.

Should it be done with other tweaks to the game to help define roles? Sure. Strikes need some more capability in taking out bombers, etc. They definitely have missiles that are supposed to be worrisome like a gunship with ion aoe taking out bomber gear.

 

But it's never good design to have multiple choices for a weapon and make one best at everything you need a weapon to do. You might as well remove the rest, then.

[caederon]

BLCs are so good they're better than the quads and pods combo for bombers and gunships.

Watch what quads and pods do to bombers and gunships

.

 

So why shouldn't something that is really good across the board not have some downward tweaks?

Because making something worse does not make other things better, it just makes all of your choices unpalatable.

 

How can other types of lasers compete when BLC does everything they could do already?

By making the other types of lasers better, and giving them a niche. I actually just had a big discussion about this over on the GSF Discord that I won't rehash in its entirety, but the gist of it was: give the other short range lasers a thing they are the best choice for. LLC and RFL are bad right now. What if one of them got an enormous passive boost to Accuracy? What if one got a large boost to Shield Piercing? This or other tweaks could be made to give someone a legitimate reason to choose one of those other lasers for a good reason, not because 'eh these all kind of suck so I'll pick the least bad one for my build.' Lift up, don't nerf down... at least not until it's the last resort.

 

I'd prefer to leave the stuff that actually works well as-is and elevate the junk components before I looked at nerfing something down. At the very least, improve the bad choices and test how they then compete prior to breaking things that do work.

 

- Despon

[JediBoadicea]

then strike fighters need to be bolstered to better compete against them. Here are some suggestions that shouldn't break the game:

 

• Un-nerf Barrel Roll for strike fighters only. Restore its original cool-down back to 20 seconds. Barrel Roll cool-downs for Gunships and Scouts should remain at the present cool-down of 30 seconds.
  
• 
  
• Add Interdiction Missiles to secondary weapons.
   
  
• A 5-8% increase to their base evasion.
   
  
• A 5-10% increase to their engine power pool.
   
  
• A 5-10% increase to their hull.
  

 

I like all of these suggestions for Strikes, but I especially like the first one on Barrel Roll. This improves some of the Strike's mobility issues in a way that would be unique to their ship class (although some improvement to their engine pool is still warranted on top of it), and has the added positive of being a utility benefit, particularly if it is applied in conjunction with other tweaks (such as to weapon ranges) to help the Strike become the true mid-range fighter.

 

Speaking of BLC specifically, I think the correct play is not to nerf it but to make other lasers more desirable for use in particular situations so there is a meaningful choice to be made. Quad/pod T2S is very dangerous as-is, and melts bombers and gunships very well. I'd like to see RFL given a real purpose. I mentioned before that if it ignored Evasion entirely, it would be a legitimate threat to scouts (and the other classes) that would be a viable choice. It might need some other minor tweaks but the point is that more variety is better. I'd like to see LLC get a bit of a boost as well with either greater Accuracy or less tracking penalty. These attrition-based lasers need to land more frequently to be at all useful.

 

Reducing the overall damage dealt to bombers through a BLC nerf would just make bomber spam strategies proliferate even more and become even harder to dislodge. They're bad enough as-is right now. Improved EMP missiles and more powerful strike fighters could actually put things back in closer balance and add to ship diversity.

 

Before I get into responding to the BLC portion of this, I just have to second the idea of having RFL ignore Evasion entirely! That would instantly make it something I equip on some of my ships rather than immediately deselect and ignore, and it would provide a new and really interesting counter to scouts, as well as make it a more viable option for hunting Gunships who rely on Distortion Field as part of their escape plan once they've been targeted.

 

But back to BLC, the argument here about nerfing BLCs having a negative knock-on effect to bomber proliferation is probably the only one that makes me back off from my position a little, because there's real truth to it. Unfortunately that dilemma is just not easily solved, because I feel it's less about component balance and more about bombers having high effectiveness at a low skill floor so that they become something more inexperienced players will rely on / stack. And when bomber stacking is being confronted by even more inexperienced players on the other side, sometimes the only thing that's going to help is some brave soul with BLCs getting in there and going to work (since too many people don't seem to know that Ion Railgun AOE is a thing). So the word of caution on a BLC nerf is worth taking into consideration, I agree.

 

But I'm also of the opinion that if you boost other components for increased effectiveness, as Despon is also suggesting, that it's not only good in and of itself, but that it also means you could bring BLCs down on the AP a little at the same time. But it's probably a very valid point that you would need to do both sides of that balancing act together.

 

I think that serious boosts to EMP Missiles and EMP Field (radius especially for both, but base damage too wouldn't hurt) would instantly introduce more genuinely viable bomber counters (in addition to just being fun as heck). So would increasing Strike fighter weapon ranges, so that they could more effectively work to dislodge bombers from outside a mine field's perimeter. Strike are already OK at this when going up against tick bombers who refuse to move even when they're being shot at, but some buffs could make them a more viable threat against more experienced and maneuverable bomber pilots as well.

 

I think you should make gunships a little bit more realistic, meaning... unlimited "metal slugs" on railgun in gunships is a bit unrealistic to me. Maybe try to change it, so it has similarity to ammo system just like missles, and coming back to capital ship would "restock" the ammo, same with other ammo systems.

 

Normally I would strongly reject any call to nerf gunships, because I like many others feel that gunships have very clear and effective counters and sit well balanced in the grand scheme of things. (The fact that too many gunship pilots seem to think they don't have counters just makes it all the more satisfying when you destroy them. ) But jesting aside, I won't deny that stacked gunships, especially when they're being fielded by a team of experienced pilots who really shouldn't need to overkill in such a fashion, can be over-powering and seriously daunting to newer pilots. And the above suggestion is the only one I've ever seen that doesn't immediately make me want to shake my head with a no-no-no-no.

 

Giving railguns a finite ammo supply that would need to be reloaded could potentially be interesting. It would force those gunship lines to occasionally break up for resupply or to begin different types of maneuvers once their ammo was depleted, and that would give the opposing team a chance to shake up the battle lines. It would also add even more importance to the synergistic team play with Bombers, T3 Scouts, and T3 Strikes, making ammo reload utilities even more vital. (The T3 Strike was already something of the brave but hopelessly outclassed medic, lumbering between ship to ship hoping to slap small bandages on. Making it so that they brave no-man's land with their cumbersome stretcher for the purpose of reloading their perched snipers creates an image that entertains me immensely.)

 

Of course, there are other complications with the idea, such as: the railgun still requires being charged, which means you still need a power pool, so how does the ammo tick down? On each released shot? And what about 25%/50%/75% charges? Does it still count as just one shot?

 

It might be that converting railguns to ammo is just not feasible. And there's probably a bunch of knock-on balancing effects I'm not thinking of at the moment. But still - an interesting suggestion!

Edited July 8, 2017 by JediBoadicea