GSF Discussion: Ship Balance

[cheese_cake]

The two biggest problems are evasion and ignore 100% armour.

 

I just really hate RNG mechanics.With evasion, either the enemy gets lucky and none of the shots damage them, or they get unlucky and get destroyed too quickly. This added mechanic of luck does not gel well with such a skill based mode. Rather than a chance to evade, evasion should be changed to maybe reduce the size of one's hit box. Accuracy on the other hand could increase the targets'' hit box.

 

Also evasion is seen as the best option simply because every other option is terrible. Hull damage reduction could have been a decent choice if only every meta option did not completely negate it. 100% armour reduction is over the top. Perhaps the effectiveness of evasion could be mitigated if there was a persistent/ passive way to reduce evasion by 100% as well.

 

The design decision for these two mechanics are just so out of place.

[Verain]

BLC is mostly fine.

 

I've given this opinion for a long time, and it is still true. I hesitate to even suggest minor tweaks, because I'm concerned they will be taken out of context.

 

The pace of GSF dogfighting is mostly determined by BLC. Not because of the (lowest in game) sustained dps, but because of its ability to actually hit targets that are reasonably evasive. I generally think that the ability to actually shoot weapons in this game is a decent bit less than the ability to avoid those shots, a comment that gets washed over the moment someone holds still and gets totally smoked in moments. Think about how hard it is to kill a good scout of ANY type with light lasers, or heavy lasers. Think about how useless rapid fire lasers is for all purposes. Imagine trying to kill a plating bomber on a scout without burst laser cannon. Now imagine trying to kill a plating bomber on ANYTHING but their natural counter (gunship) without burst laser cannon. Is it even easy with heavy laser? Is it easy with an EMP scout? If you have EMP missiles?

 

All of these approaches suck. I will agree that it is too easy to kill a plating bomber with burst/pod scouts, but given that the alternative is weapons that deal TWO ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE less damage, that is a minor balance point compared to what else is going on.

 

That's why so many pilots bring up the "make them pierce half armor". We don't know if the game is actually capable of halving damage reduction. It is probably capable of subtracting a percentage from their damage reduction, but that's not the same thing. How should great scout kill a bad bomber in a world without BLC? Maybe the case where a great scout kills a great bomber is a bad thing, but it is less concerning than a world where bombers only ever have to concern themselves with gunships (and keep in mind, if you take the armor pen away completely, it's not just gunships, it is specifically gunships AT RANGE CURRENTLY).

 

All time-to-kill has BLC in mind. The entire dogfighting game only resolves correctly because at least one gun does the damage that it feels like it should, often enough to matter.

 

Unless you think dogfighting TTK is way too low in general, you shouldn't be in favor of serious BLC nerfs.

 

 

But the ubiquity of the gun, and the lack of use for other weapons, does mean that you should be in favor of buffing the other stuff.

 

Here's the current state of non-burst lasers:

 

Heavy Lasers- these are chosen on any ship that can take them, almost every time. Heavy lasers compete with lights, mediums, and quads much of the time, and usually win that competition, despite having lower dps than all of them. They benefit from a slow rate of fire, and thus a decent damage per shot, and a reasonable range that feels like you'd expect a dogfighting weapon to feel like- if you can see a target that is able to threaten you, you can probably reach them with heavies with a bit of effort. They also are very bad as you go off center, making them extremely frustrating on a node. Their armor penetration makes them necessary on nodes, which are full of things with free armor (all bombers, turrets) and selected damage reduction (node defense bombers of all types), and as such, they get picked a lot. Heavies feel a little bit too weak- they are poor in a dogfight, and terrible in a strict turn fight.

 

Quad Lasers- Probably intended to be the main trick of the strike fighters, these have bled over to the type 2 strike (of course) and the type 3 gunship. Their dps is exceptional over most of a central cone, and the cone is long enough to get a few shots in. Like heavies they are bad at deflection shots, but not quite as bad, and like most lasers they are useless if the enemy has plating. In general these lasers are capable of the highest lined up burst dps in the game- the quads-n-pods scout, which can vaporize a standing gunship no matter their defensives. They aren't use excessively because they are reasonably poor in a turn fight and hard to get the job done with without a dps cooldown system in a more general dogfight. Quads feel too weak by a small amount outside of their one job of lancing an enemy that is mostly stationary and doesn't have armor. In that situation, they excel.

 

Medium Lasers- ("Laser Cannon") A rarer choice than they should be, the laser cannon is similar to the quads, but weaker undernose and a bit more reasonable outside of the tight cone. Few ships have the choice of both. Medium lasers feel a bit too weak, but it feels possible to land a few hits with them at least, compared to the more trade-offy cannons above. Generally, these are used on the ships where they actually serve as the "extreme" for that ship- for instance, the type 1 and type 3 scout will often use this as they have more synergy with rocket pods than lights or rapids. I will argue that they are still weaker than they should be.

 

Light Lasers- With the highest dps in the game, you'd expect to see these more. They have a very narrow extension from the center that they can really do work in, and their falloff with range and with angle combines a good bit faster than ideal. These lasers are able to chase a gunship around, but seldom score a kill. There are good pilots that swear by these, but I really think that these need help: you won't see many dogfights resolve because of these. These lasers need a bit MORE help than the above lasers, and maybe to be given a damned job.

 

Rapid Fire Lasers- These lasers are awful. You could buff them several ways. You could turn them into a gun with a huge +hit bonus, making evasion very sketchy against them. You could lower or even eliminate their tracking penalty, such that they can deliver their terrible effective dps at anything within their extremely short range. I don't really care, but these weapons need huge buffs, more than any other gun.

[caederon]

I just really hate RNG mechanics.With evasion, either the enemy gets lucky and none of the shots damage them, or they get unlucky and get destroyed too quickly. This added mechanic of luck does not gel well with such a skill based mode.

...

The design decision for these two mechanics are just so out of place.

I think the Evasion mechanic was designed to compensate for the fact that latency in SWTOR is a very real thing and precision accounting for the target's position and timing of shots isn't possible with the game's engine and network code.

 

It probably also was meant to make things more forgiving to new players, because if it really was purely skill based, with no RNG component, they would be at an even bigger disadvantage. I can live with a bit of luck being part of things. There are certainly frustrating moments when you get blasted despite having RI and DF up, or get shot mid-barrel-roll or something, but in the grand scope of things I think Evasion is in a reasonably good place right now. Far better than it was before they rightfully nerfed it back in... was it patch 2.7? I have been firmly on the non-nerf side of things in these threads, but it basically made scouts invincible for long periods of time in those days.

 

Anyway, Evasion and Accuracy are so central to the core of how GSF plays that additional changes ought to be handled very carefully and RNG will always be part of it.

 

Now... I keep arguing for LLC or RFL to get some serious Evasion countering ability (through either massive passive Accuracy bonuses or some kind of Evasion Ignore). I think that could be a very potent way to both improve some bad components and diversify ship loadouts.

 

- Despon

[Greezt]

I think that BLC could use a slight nerf. Verain covered the facts regarding different blasters quite well, but I disagree with the conclusions he draws.

 

HLC pros: good damage per shot, good range, high accuracy at range, armor penetration, shield piercing.

HLC cons: low DPS, very high tracking, low accuracy close-range, low rate of fire.

 

They excel against armored targets, but are weak in turning battles and dogfights (except on the T1 strike where they synergize with retros extremely well). All true, but that's not bad. If someone wants to win turning battles, they should take close-range weapons and not HLC. The design "flaw" is not a flaw, because it means that they cannot do everything. I think they are very well balanced.

 

Quads pros: good damage per shot, decent range, high accuracy close and mid-range, high DPS, high rate of fire.

Quads cons: high tracking, high power draw, no armor penetration.

 

Against any non-armored targets they deal good damage. They lose to close-range blasters (BLC are the only ones seen) and are susceptible to charged plating. Still, they work against gunships and non-armored bombers, and even against scouts at medium range. I think they're well-balanced too.

 

LC pros: decent damage per shot, decent range, high accuracy, decent DPS, decent tracking, high rate of fire, decent power draw.

LC cons: no armor penetration.

 

Perhaps this option could use a slight buff, maybe in the form of better tracking (although this might make them better than close-range blasters). However, they're a solid choice. They can be spammed, they deal damage, they have range, they're even not too bad in turning battles. They will lose to Quads in head-on engagements, to close-range blasters at very close ranges and to HLC at long range, but they can also beat quads by forcing tracking penalty, beat HLC by closing the distance and they have range over the other options. I think they're OK as they are.

 

LLC pros: high DPS, high rate of fire, low power draw.

LLC cons: high tracking comparative to other close-range blasters, low damage per shot, low accuracy at range, short range, no armor penetration.

 

At close-range, where they have good accuracy, tracking is almost always an issue, meaning the actual accuracy will always be lower. At the end of their range (>3000m) their accuracy is bad, meaning they'll be missing still. In any case, 3000m is already medium range blaster territory. It's also much harder to maintain a bead on your target at 1000m than it is at 3000, so the low damage per shot will be much more noticeable on these blasters -- if you only get in two shots at a time, the fact that they only deal ~300 per shot means you won't be able to get through your target's shields before they move. LLC definitely need a buff, probably in the form of accuracy -- if they would be effective at 3000m and beyond, they'd definitely be more useful because at that range maintaining constant fire is much more plausible.

 

RFLC pros: low power draw, high rate of fire, decent tracking, decent DPS.

RFLC cons: very low damage per shot, low accuracy at range, short range, no armor penetration.

 

Everyone knows these blasters are bad, but why? Because close-range, they only barely out-DPS BLC, and for them to actually out-DPS BLC you need to maintain uptime on your target -- again, very hard in close ranges. At longer ranges, their accuracy is even worse than that of LLC and their DPS a lot lower. In fact, at 3000m their accuracy is the lower than that of BLC. That they require a massive buff is obvious, but I think that giving them long range (similar to HLC range) would probably be the best fix. Having three blasters competing for the same slot will always be tough to balance, but two are manageable.

 

BLC pros: very high damage per shot, decent DPS close to mid-range, excellent tracking, armor penetration (or shield piercing), natural crit chance, very high accuracy close range.

BLC cons: short range, take time to learn (?).

 

I think this clears up why BLC do require a slight nerf. They're good at everything. Certainly other blasters require a buff, but as they stand BLC are good at dogfighting, good at turning battles, good against armored targets, good against evasive targets, good in short encounters and also in long ones. They simply have all of the pie for themselves. Their one real con (short range) is shared by all close-range blasters naturally. They are more difficult to master than other blasters, but that is not a real con because once mastered they're still the best. If anything, it creates a larger separation between the good players and the mediocre ones. As I see it, BLC need to give up part of the pie so that LLC can compete with them.

 

------------------------------------------

 

Dividing the pie

 

The three mitigation methods in GSF are damage reduction, evasion, and raw hitpoints. Each of them has their counter -- DR is negated by AP, evasion by accuracy, and hitpoints by DPSh and DPS. Consider what each blaster is good against currently.

 

HLC -- armor, evasion (at range).

Quads: evasion, hitpoints (medium range).

LC: evasion, hitpoints (medium range).

LLC: hitpoints (close-range).

RFLC: hitpoints (only close-range and on lethargic tagets)

BLC: armor, evasion, hitpoints (close-range).

 

BLC take every slice of the pie. Since BLC already counter all three defensives well, even if RFLC and LLC were both buffed to be competitive in another aspect (say, make RFLC completely ignore evasion) why would anyone take them? BLC still kill evasion targets well enough, and they are also capable of dealing with targets that stack armor or shields.

 

That is why I think they need a nerf. Not a big one, just one that would remove one of the pieces of the pie from them so other blasters would have room for their buffs to be effective.

 

As for what the nerf should be -- perhaps forcing a choice between the tracking reduction and armor ignore, meaning BLC will be either good against htipoints and armor, or hitpoints and evasion, but not all three. Another option is completely removing armor penetration from them and giving it to LLC. Thus BLC would be good against hitpoints and evasion, while LLC would be good against hitpoints and armor. BLC would still be good for killing gunships and jousting scouts, but LLC would be good against strikes and bombers.

Edited July 8, 2017 by Greezt

[Verain]

If you put armor pen on LLC, regardless of what you do to BLC, you are making all three scouts good against the plating bomber. You are also making the Clarion pretty good against it, and buffing the Pike against it.

 

That's a massive change. I don't feel it is necessary to make a big old wad of ships good against bombers, least of all scouts. That doesn't mean LLC doesn't need a decent buff (it does), or that BLC should remain as effective against those bombers as it currently is. But right now we have a game where one scout, flown really well, is very good against bombers, and the other two, flown perfectly, aren't. I feel maybe the first one is a bit of a problem, but if all the maneuverable ships should be good against charged plating, why not just nerf charged plating, or redesign it? It's a sweeping meta hit to the ship.

 

In general, the boy bomber should probably not be able to laugh off all scouts but one, which will pop it dramatically without immediate flying and perfect mine placement. That feels odd. But likewise, it doesn't seem like you should just get worked over by lights either.

 

That's why there's so many suggestions of, "could we make BLC only partially pierce armor?" Dealing a 2k crit to a bomber may be a bit too much, but the alternative- dealing a 20 damage crit- is probably not good for the meta either. Certainly changing the ships that hit the bomber for 4 to hitting it for 400 would also make a massive difference, and probably without cause.

 

Still, I like that your approach to BLC only takes away one part of the BLC, and doesn't screw up TTK across the board. That could easily be a smart change as part of a few other changes, such as making EMP actually useful against bombers, restoring the accidental nerf to the EMP range, a broader nerf to plating, etc.

 

I also feel confident that the EMP range nerf (nerfed on live, still the same in the tooltip) is a bug with the component, not the tooltip. This is because the EMP change was hard-fought for by the community, culminating in the blowing up an EMP scout piloted by a dev, with mines, during a livestream, and the welcome EMP buff happened right after- and the change was praised by the community. When the first bugpatch hit, EMP lost the extra range, though the tooltip still says it is there. It seems really unlikely that an uncontroversial change got deliberately reverted without any comment or patchnote, especially after everyone was thrilled with the type 1 scout having a useful job for the first time ever, during that brief window.

Edited July 9, 2017 by Verain

[MaximilianPower]

Posting the following on behalf of tunewalker, a veteran player who hasn't subbed in a while:

I am not really going to give suggestions to fix anything since I feel everyone had done that to a pretty large degree already, but I was going to answer the devs question 1 at a time.

 

So ships that feel underpowered are Strikes, T3 Scout, T3 Bomber and T2 gunship. The REASONS for this could be all kinds of things the strikes could be weak do to lack of engine efficiency thus being unable to keep targets in range and in sight long enough while also needing that engine power to avoid attacks as well, it could also have something to do with how weak lock on options are other then clusters. The T3 scout is weak from lack of reliable armor piercing and weak Secondaries options, The T3 bomber seems like a missile thing again, and the T2 gunship is because it lacks burst lasers and torpedoe weakness again while Plasma railgun not being good for anything really. Dont really feel anything is OP sure the T2 scout has a lot of build option but each one specializes in something Ideally (to me) the T2 scout woud be the best at what ever you built it for but the Strikes would be able to have a greater field thanks to their weapon swap feature (Quad'n'pods scout good at taking out gunships, but struggle against dogfighting vs strike having a primary/secondary combo that was ALMOST as good at taking out gunship but one of the weapons could be swapped to be stronger in dog fight).

 

a good example of the above is if strikes chasis was changed to have just as efficient engines (still slower turning and speed) as scouts and given Rocket pods the T2 strike could have Quads and Pods and in a dog fight swap to Quads and clusters allowing it to be a more "versatile" ship. Similar in respects to maybe a T1 strike but instead it would be something like Quads clusters have nearly the same strength as a T2 scouts quad cluster but then trade out the Quads for Heavies when the enemy has armor, or if it had Burst lasers swap to bursts they lose the Systems ability so their Quads pos or Quads clusters wont be as strong as what they were specialized for but they can swap to handle a wider breadth of enemies without having to swap ships, but again this still requires better engine efficiency because like scouts Strikes have to chase their targets and get them under reticle rather then waiting for the enemy to come to them like a gunship or a bomber.

 

Components could be a very long list of Underpowered, So lets start at Primaries. Rapid Fires, Light Laser canon are definitely underpowered (reason being is accuracy and high rate of fire) Bursts might be over powered by a small amount do to rate of fire. Other then that I think Laser balance is actually quite acceptable.

 

Secondaries. Under powered includes Concussion missiles (lock time mostly) Proton torp (lock time and lack of impact when it does land.) EMP Missile (lock time, reload time, Impact/radius) Ion missiles (Lock time Reload time, impact) Interdiction missiles (reload time), Sab Probe (reload time)

Also Plasma Rail gun

 

Systems abilities Ion mine (weaker shield damage then Concs drain to small), Missile Drone (blaster damage) Sensor Beacon (to small an effect area, core mechanic missing in game), EMP feild (radius), Combat command (impact), Remote Slicing (range, impact)

 

Engine (all engines that do not break missiles) survivability

 

Shields Quick charge (to much detrement to strength, shield regen not a strong enough stat), Shield Projector (same reason lesser degree because lesser drain on overall shield strength), Overcharge shield (not enough bonus strength to compensate for loss in regen, regen bad stat but not that bad....), Overpowered Distortion field (Avoidance is this shields bread and butter avoidance is best survival stat, larger detriment to pure health I think would be required for real draw back to actually exist in taking this shield)

 

Essentially with Distortion field I dont like the idea of taking away its avoidance it is the shield you take for that reason, but to do that you have to have overall weaker shields right now quick charge shield strength is lower when quick charge is still wanting to use health as a stat. further the avoidance is so good that it just outpaces nearly every other shield type I think a little lower making it a little more vulnerable to bombers is actually the way to go, a scout and several gunships still have access to other shield types.

(potentially to weak but dont know in what area, Feedback and Fortress)

 

Reactors (regen reactors) regen stat weak on shields

 

Thrusters (power thrusters, extra engine power is worse then extra engine regen always,) speed ( still usually outshined by Regen thrusters)

 

Magazine (power, same as thrusters) Magazine slot in general feels lack luster.

 

Sensors( all sensor slots feel lackluster)

 

Armor (Reinforced armor extra health rarely competes with avoidance or with DR in certain builds)

 

For crew we again have multiple sections to talk about so :smiley: here we go.

Engineering (power to passives much weaker then efficiency passives), Defensive Shield Regen is weak for same reason as previously mentioned, possible delay to recharge in general is to long.

Actives, UP Slicers loop (duration, maybe range), Lock down (range), Servo Jammer (not enough effect on turning), Hydro spanner (to small impact), Lingering effect (to small impact), In your sights (short range version of Wingman basically)

 

Now again I dont really want to suggest how to fix, and my thoughts as to why they are weak or strong could be way off, this is just an old veteran pilots opinion.

[Pilgrim_Grey]

Watch what quads and pods do to bombers and gunships

.

 

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

 

- Despon

 

I wasn't saying quads and pods wasn't good, I know what they can do. But you have to admit they're weaker than BLCs. BLCs does everything they do in one package and can be used in a rapid turning fight.

 

And if you have a component that does everything well, no matter how you buff the others, they're still going to be a weaker choice in comparison, unless you make them all equally stupid good, by which time you might as well not even have ones to choose from.

 

Weakening BLCs strength against armor is the most obvious choice, since scouts have other options in that category, and it makes that choice more valid. Bringing up the other lasers to be a viable option in other areas is then more valid as well.

 

You have other ideas you've thrown out about the other lasers, but how would any of those buffs be a valid option against BLCs? Making any of them better against shields isn't going to stop BLCs walking all over that ability still, and being good against armor, and being better in a dogfight/turning battle, etc. Unless you start arguing for those other lasers to do everything BLCs can, any development time put in is pointless.

 

Nerfs are never popular, but when you have something with absolute zero weaknesses blowing away the competition, a good developer should acknowledge the issue. I'm arguing for a pretty minor change, too, not some mammoth nerf. If there's some other minor tweak that would help make other lasers a viable option even after some buffs, I'd be cool talking about it.

[KnightTyler]

Buff Strike Fighter's...

 

remember it was an X-Wing that took out the first Death Star.

[Ramalina]

I feel maybe the first one is a bit of a problem, but if all the maneuverable ships should be good against charged plating, why not just nerf charged plating, or redesign it? It's a sweeping meta hit to the ship.

 

It's not that all maneuverable ships need to be good against CP. It's that there are a limited number of mechanics on the combat table and if you're using a Rock-Paper-Scissors style of balance, which for better or worse GSF very much does, then two of the biggest balance sins are being good at too many things and being good at nothing.

 

BLC's are the, "turning close range dogfight," blasters. You need the wide arc for shot opportunities, you need the big chunks of damage because those opportunities are brief, you need the accuracy because of tracking penalties and the fact that more than half of the ships that can credibly be called passable dogfighters tend to stack evasion as their primary defense. The target set is all scouts, all strikes, the T3 gunship, and maybe if you're being generous the Decimus/Sledgehammer. Those are the targets where the blaster needs to give you a helping hand in a turning fight. Two of the strikes can bring out CP, but as long as AP is around in significant amounts somewhere, CP is going to be situational for them.

 

BLCs do not need AP to do their job.

 

They also don't really leave a job for the other 4 km blasters to do, aside from Ion Cannons which live in their own very strange parallel universe.

 

Personally, I'd give the AP, possibly not at 100% to RFLs. The firing cone is forgiving enough that if you want to get in the face of a CP bomber you can actually hold on target pretty well. I think it wouldn't be amazing against a CP bomber, but bombers are supposed to terrorize everything else up close and at least the bomber wouldn't be able to sit there and just shrug it off. They'd die if they didn't react, but have a moderately favorable chance to get away if they react well, which is probably where bombers should be vs scouts when on cover.

 

LLCs are sort of an orphan, in that I don't see them as really being a good candidate for bonus shield or drain effects, but just buffing output to the point where LLC & Pods is just as viable as Quads and Pods might be reasonable.

 

 

This principle is also why I made a case for pulling AP entirely from Slug Railgun and giving it to Plasma Railgun complete with a not-quite-Thermite debuff attached to the DOT.

 

The choice of railguns, if you have a choice, is always Slug and Ion. Ion followed by Slug is slightly stronger than two slugs on a full shields target (Ion could maybe do a bit more there) but mostly Ion comes into it's own in terms of clearing mines and drones with the AOE.

 

Slug takes care of targets with evasion well, takes care of targets with armor well, and takes care of targets with strong shields almost as well as Ion. If bombers couldn't pop out mines so fast there would never be any reason to ever take any other railgun.

 

Plasma, well, it glows red. Oh, it does damage too, but mostly it glows red.

 

Now steal AP from Slug and give it to Plasma. What happens?

 

Well in a bomber heavy Domination match the obvious choice is Ion and Plasma. Team support anti-bomber to the hilt.

 

But wait, what if they start fielding scouts to chase you off? Now you're sort of hosed. It'd be better to have Slug and Ion. Hey, fancy that, now you have a reason to have that CM gunship reskin with a different build.

 

When rock paper scissors is working well you always have an interesting and meaningful choice of options. It goes deeper than that though, if it's working well the meta never settles in one place and stays there. If they pick A, you can counter by picking C, which they'll try to counter by switching to B, which you'll counter by switching to A, which keeps on going around until the end of the game. The balance is dynamic, and with the flight style mechanics of the ship classes multiplied across the combat table attributes, there are enough options that the meta of component and ship choice can be pretty deep. Or at least it could be if it weren't for things like "always pick Slug" and "never pick weapon power converter."

 

Where things need to be nerfed, and I think the whole list is pretty much: BLCs' AP, Slug's AP, Distortion's missile break, and Cluster's reload time, it's not that they need to have their jobs taken away. They just need to have their ability to do everyone else's jobs taken away.

 

The needed buff list is much, much longer and most of it is components that have clear jobs they're meant to do, but have problems that prevent them from doing those jobs effectively at all, never mind being the best.

 

Best of course is a bit of a loose term here. If you ask a CP bomber pilot whether they hate the AP railgun most or the AP torpedoes the most the correct answer from a balance perspective would be, "yes, all of those things." Sharing bests across categories is ok if there are enough differences to make the bests significantly different.

Best AP has room to be in: Railgun, Missile, Short range blaster, Long range blaster, Mine, and Drone. It even has room to show up on Pods as "miscellaneous scout secondary weapon."

 

It's just that in various functional categories there should be compelling choices for either picking best at this or best at that, if there's a best at just about everything then things don't work anymore. For that matter, even being best at more than one thing may be enough to cause problems if the other options are best at only one thing.

 

 

There are a lot of traces of systematic planning for that sort of balance, when it comes to execution they made it almost halfway on the ship types and considerably less than that on the components.

[SkyEye]

No Gunships, no Bombers and it will be fun again.

[caederon]

It's just that in various functional categories there should be compelling choices for either picking best at this or best at that, if there's a best at just about everything then things don't work anymore. For that matter, even being best at more than one thing may be enough to cause problems if the other options are best at only one thing.

 

 

There are a lot of traces of systematic planning for that sort of balance, when it comes to execution they made it almost halfway on the ship types and considerably less than that on the components.

I still think a lot of this stems from their failing to launch the Infiltrator ship class. There are so many 'useless' components that have no function now which would be vital if that ship class existed, and from what is known of how the class would have operated, it would have addressed some of the more common complaints, particularl---

 

No Gunships, no Bombers and it will be fun again.

 

Yeah that. Or maybe that sort of erudite, thoughtful analysis would also lump Interdictors in there, because people want to watch whichever scout gets to a node do loops around it for fifteen minutes while nobody can pick it off. Or maybe the logical endpoint of that is to eventually remove scouts, too, so people can have their Strike Fighter Dogfighting Nirvana.

 

You know, people always reference the movies when they cite how this or that is so awful and the devs didn't watch them or whatever... what do they think Y-Wings are? They didn't dogfight. What were B-Wings? They didn't dogfight. TiE Bombers didn't dogfight. There were other ship classes represented in these battles. If people want thought-free tactically shallow but beautiful movie-style combat, go play Battlefront. GSF is its own thing.

 

Regarding balance, I still believe the proper course is to leave what works alone, to make the bad components into viable choices that have a reason for existing, test that out, then see if something still needs nerfing or further adjustment.

 

Maybe a reworking of Damage Reduction or Charged Plating makes Armor Ignore less of a must-have ability and more situational. If Armor Ignore wasn't so essential to deal with literally one ship type (T1 Bomber) it would still be very nice to have in Domination matches to pick off turrets, but that might not be enough to sway you to take it on BLC over a revamped LLC or RFL, if they had interesting things to do.

 

Elevate the awful stuff first before chipping away at the known quantity of what does work.

 

- Despon

Edited July 9, 2017 by caederon

[Pilgrim_Grey]

I don't really see weakening armor as much of an option, particularly since you're still going to have turrets, and why weaken armor options when you can just focus on giving each of the lasers a clear cut job to do?

 

Meh, forget it. I don't care if or how they tweak damage reduction armor, etc., or the various lasers. I just want them to take some good time and thought and give each component a place, and the same with each ship type. It's doable. Remember how poor of a choice alacrity used to be in the ground game, or how crit and surge used to be separate? Just do the same with GSF so we can stop having the noticeable disparities currently in place.

[Ramalina]

Regarding balance, I still believe the proper course is to leave what works alone, to make the bad components into viable choices that have a reason for existing, test that out, then see if something still needs nerfing or further adjustment.

 

Reasonable, but you have to define what "works" is. If BLCs, Slug, Disto, and Clusters "work" from a balance perspective, then every other component in the game basically either needs to be buffed hard or buffed stupendously hard.

 

If Quads "work" from a balance perspective, then the 4 components above need mild nerfs, and maybe 65% of the components need to be buffed moderately or buffed hard.

 

There are so many components that aren't functioning properly that it's a lot of work either way.

 

Situational, definitely good enough, but practically no one thinks it's OP is a pretty good place for balance to be.

 

So good that it's always good is nice if you're using it, but the probability that something that fits that description is at least moderately broken balance-wise is pretty high.

 

I would balance to a Quads level. Less work, and in theory the slightly greater TTK and more situational nature of builds might help out noobs, though almost certainly not enough for them to even notice it, never mind appreciate it.

 

Sure, balancing to BLC level could work, but the more things you buff and the harder you buff them, the more likely it is that you get wild unintended consequences. Given how full of unintended consequences GSF and SWTOR mechanics in general are, that's not exactly an encouraging thought.

 

 

Though honestly in terms of extent of actual changes, I'd be pretty pleased if they corrected the erroneous tooltips, made sure the component unequip bug is permanently fixed, and fixed the tier 5 upgrade on Sabotage Probe.

[Pilgrim_Grey]

Well said, Ramalina, I completely agree. Pretty much everything I've been trying to say.

[Zennan]

My main problem with suggesting nerfs is this: The current meta works decently well considering that NOTHING has been done since 2.8, albeit slightly restrictive. Now the devs that abandoned the game to its fate (well not exactly the same devs) come along and say "HEY COOKIES AND CAKES". Obviously my first reaction is, "Is the cake a lie?".

 

Assume the cake is a lie -> This entire thread doesn't get acted upon, GSF resumes its normal duties of surviving until the game goes down.

 

Assume the cake is not a lie -> What is to say we'll get more cakes? The problem with nerfs is that they immediately impact the meta whereas buffs do not have the same far-reaching effects unless they are wildly broken. The hope of a buff is always to introduce new options to a meta whereas the point of a nerf is to remove something's impact on the meta. In the case of a game with rock-paper-scissors, I would rather introduce lizard and spock by making them more powerful than reduce the usability of paper.

 

Bottom line: nerfs introduce the possibility of wildly shifting the meta to the point of unplayability and there's no more cake until two and a half years later.

[caederon]

Bottom line: nerfs introduce the possibility of wildly shifting the meta to the point of unplayability and there's no more cake until two and a half years later.

^ This.

 

If I had carte blanche and an unlimited budget to rework GSF...

... strikes would have the offensive potential of the current scouts

... scouts would be fast, light-hitting scouts with great sensors and useful utility tools

... there'd be something that required sensors to detect and deal with (ie Infiltrators)

... gunships would still be gunships, but plasma rail would be viable

... bombers would be tough but wouldn't have CP invincibility

... Armor Ignore would only work against turrets

... dogs and cats living together

... mass hysteria

 

anyway.

 

The meta that exists now is playable, and unless they have the budget to start from the ground up, I think keeping it largely intact is sensible.

 

If the meta changed drastically, the people who are good at the game will still find the best way to optimize and take advantage of any area that is 'best.' And something would eventually show itself to be the best. With active development that might get shuffled around and new things would be the best for a while, but we just don't know what we're going to get in terms of ongoing commitment or active development time.

 

Taking the stuff that doesn't work now and making it better will alter the meta to an extent but the main rock-paper-scissors will still exist and that's ok by me.

 

Making strikes into a viable tool to use in various situations would diversify the game experience and give people a chance to have fun flying the thing that looks like an X-Wing.

 

I always wonder, though... if you took the Flashfire and swapped its model with the Starguard, and called it a strike fighter... would people complain about it? If that ship was exactly the same except it looked like a strike and was called a strike...

 

- Despon

[phalczen]

... there'd be something that required sensors to detect and deal with (ie Infiltrators)

... gunships would still be gunships, but plasma rail would be viable

... bombers would be tough but wouldn't have CP invincibility

... Armor Ignore would only work against turrets

 

I just wonder, would bombers need to have the kind of 99% damage reduction they have now to maintain a node, if we lived in a world where TT and sensor beacon decloaked ships? Would ion rail, or anything else, need to be as powerful as it is if we had infiltrators that were intended to allow a skilled team to ninja a node?

[Verain]

As to the "if the starguard looked like..." question, not for me. I want a slower ship whose attack cone can be escaped by many ships to have some kind of threat it can put out if you don't escape that cone. Basically, I feel that being less agile than the scout shouldn't mean, bring railguns or mines or go home.

 

But I don't really care THAT much how they decide how to buff the strikes.

 

 

As for infiltrators, I really want them too. But I kinda get why they didn't add them. The skill difference is already immense, and I think the lack of three-space awareness would cause issues at lower skill levels; if the ships are powerful enough to do their jobs, new players will cry like crazy. We sorta had the idea that they didn't have a rogue-like stealth, where they could go invisible and stay that way indefinitely (at the cost of speed, or whatever), but rather, the stealth types were more cooldown based.

 

 

I mean, this forum has had so many ideas, about so many topics.

We've seen:

 

-Threads to make companions MUCH more of a choice.

-Threads to fix some of the odd bits of play on certain maps.

-Threads addressing the NUMEROUS bugs, which the devs haven't even brought up yet despite several components and tooltips being just outright broken by the change to put snares into two specific categories (I believe that was an undocumented change, but it definitely seemed deliberate, and it did get rid of a very snarey meta, so it was probably on purpose and wise).

-Threads asking for strike buffs, to put at least one more dogfighter in the meta

-Threads proposing buffs and nerfs to try to get almost all ships to viability, and to try to get more components as valid and good choices.

 

We've also seen more pie-in-the-sky ideas like:

 

-New map modes that would emphasize other playstyles than the ones emphasized by the current maps

-Ideas for training

-Ideas for UI improvements

 

We've just... seen so damned MANY ideas. We've had player input on everything related to ships for so long. The community started out having ideas in all directions, and we've gradually and slowly moved almost to a consensus on some topics.

 

Devs have been very active without actually having to touch the GSF codebase. Adding GSF to CXP was great. Buffing component gains by a large amount was great. I just want to know, will we be getting more dev communication? If we get some changes, will it be all we see for awhile, or will we be able to maybe get a bit of iteration? I feeling nailing balance in one go will be really hard.

[Verain]

I just wonder, would bombers need to have the kind of 99% damage reduction they have now to maintain a node, if we lived in a world where TT and sensor beacon decloaked ships?

 

Maybe. To be honest, I'm not 100% sure that plating needs to work the way it does today. I feel there needs to be some way for a bomber to ignore mines, and to pay a cost versus at least some other ships with that power. I don't think that stealthers would make that much easier.

 

Would ion rail, or anything else, need to be as powerful as it is if we had infiltrators that were intended to allow a skilled team to ninja a node?

 

Like... probably? Stealthers would certainly be able to punish gunships, if nothing else. Railgun power wouldn't be as big of a concern if you could walk past an area guarded by three gunships, but not by two gunships and some kind of sensor based defender.

 

 

Devs are probably not talking about the infiltrators yet. But maybe soon. Man, if we get devs back for real, that's gonna be so damned sweet lol.

[sentawan]

Here are my balance suggestions. It has been written to balance components and not to change what components are on each ship. I feel that simply balancing components would make ships more balanced without adding components to underperforming ships.

 

1) Lasers: As someone who has flown hundreds of hours using ships without BLC, I believe these adjustments would make the lasers more balanced.

 

• a) BLC: I suggest making it third lowest tracking penalty (third highest reticle size), with rapid first and light lasers second. 100% armor ignore should be replaced/eliminated. This would make it less deadly in dogfights with strikes and bombers, but still allow for burst on GS.

  
  

• b) Ion: Max range needs to be at least 7K with all weapon range utility increases.

  
  

• c) Rapid: Must have largest tracking. Increase damage, crit chance, and/or percent to shields/hull on highest tier. With better tracking and higher damage output, they would make better bomber killers on nodes for some T1 strike builds, but these would still be niche and not useful for most ships.

  
  

• d) Laser: These are pretty standard for ships without quads, heavies, or BLC. Their main problem is weapon power usage. They would be better if the weapon power reduction in the tree was native and it got the ability to use another damage choice in that slot.

  
  

• e) Light Laser: Again, as someone who has hundreds of hours flying ships without BLC, I find utility in every other laser except this one. It is offered on ships that have the regular laser. Even though it has less of a weapon power problem than the regular laser, I always take regular laser because it has longer distance and requires less tracking time to hit for same damage. If you balance as I suggest above, I do not know how to make this laser attractive as an option on scouts and bombers that may decide to take them. Rapids would be better on nodes when BLCs are not an option, and with changes above, they may be preferred on some builds. Light laser lack the distance and suffer from prolonged tracking that make them bad for open area dogfigting. If they had the second largest tracking reticle/ second lowest penalty, it would make it more of an option for killing things in close quarters and on nodes, while giving more of an option than rapid for open fighting. While I think these changes to rapid, light, and blc does a better job balancing them, I do not know what else should be done to light to make them useful on ships that have regular cannons and not blc.

  
  

• f) HLC: I feel that heavies are in a good spot. I use them all the time on the T1 strike and T3 bomber, and with maxed weapon distance, they do really well. Their only problem is hitting things in close range. They glitch and miss at close range in the center of the targeting reticle. IDK if this is intentional or a glitch, but it is frustrating, especially when accuracy is supposed to be better at close range.

  
  

2) Missiles:

 

• a) Clusters: need no nerf or buff.

  
  

• b) Pods: need no nerf or buff.

  
  

• c) Ion: As with the ion lasers, the problem is distance. These should be at 8K without a tracking penalty/reduction or other nerfs to make them more viable. HLC max at 6900 distance. At 8K, there would be some reason to lock on and use them, while closing into HLC or other laser range.

  
  

• d) EMP: I use these on a T3 strike-tank solo-clearing-bombers-on-node build. They need to be reworked. In order to be useful on a node with entrenched bombers, they should be 10K distance and have a shorter lock on timer. Without a nerf to tracking, the shorter lock on would make them still useable in dogfights. The miniscule damage would not make them good for dogfights, but that is not their purpose. Extending the range and shortening the lockon would make them actually useful on nodes with bombers.

  
  

• e) Concussion: I don't think they need a nerf or buff.

  
  

• f) Thermite: These are not useful. They have a long range, which means you can get them off at range, but if you are engaging, the target most likely has full shields. Without changing anything else, I would like to see these tested with native 100% shield bypass and reduce to a relatively high bypass to balance them if they are OP. A high shield bypass may make them useful to take as a T3 scout.

  
  

• g) Protons: These are ok in TDM when backing up ships focusing on someone who has used all their missile breaks, but that is rare. I believe they would be more useful if their range was extended to 15K, without any other changes or nerfs. This would make them useful on bombers and strikes, particularly those that have directional shields and can eat a couple rail shots from GS. The GS would have to decided to move, shoot fast enough to kill the strike, or potentially eat a proton. If they use an engine ability to break the missile, the strike has moved the GS out of position, which can help the team focus on another GS or objective. Adding additional things to get GS to move besides scouts risking flying into a GS wall is a very good thing.

  
  

 

3) Systems: Most of the systems are fine. Others may suggest minor changes. I'll mention a few.

• a) EMP: This is on a scout. There is no purpose for them on a scout because it is dead once it gets close enough to use it on a node with entrenched bombers. This system ability should be completely reworked to target ships. It could completely disable regeneration rates to ships in its aoe. It would have no damage output, so it would not destroy bombs but could still disable drones. Making it negate all regeneration would make it useful to take on a T3 and T1 scout, but forcing its use within the current EMP radius would keep it from being OP because it would take skill to be used correctly.

  
  

• b) Command and sensor: I have not used these because I prefer other options on the ships that have them. While I can make no suggestions for balance, I recommend putting in many more CM ships that mirror the other ships. This would allow us to try multiple configurations and have multiple on our bar, like we can do currently with the T2 scout.

  
  

 

4) Ships: The above changes to lasers, missiles, and systems would go a long way to balancing ships. Unlike some posters, I do not have a problem with power transfer and the defensive abilities. I use engine to shield on a couple builds, and I would not like to see its effect buffed to have the CD nerfed. I'm ok with a flatout buff, but as someone who uses it all the time, it may be fine where its at. It essentially negates clusters against shields, which is the missile used the most, and I can use the transfer ability more often than the missile drop from an engine ability. For me, it is more useful in many situations and builds than a regular engine ability. I use a variety of defensives, and they are relatively balanced. Albeit, distortion field is the best. I believe all defensives have the same CD. If so, defensives with a similar or longer CD to distortion field could be balanced by adding a missile drop. Other than the extra missile drop on ships with distortion field, the problem with the ship balance is primarily BLC being used with other CDs causing 3-hit kills. With elimination of 100% armor bypass and greater tracking penalties, BLCs would be more balanced.

 

• b) Ship Stacking: If the above changes to weapons, missiles, and adding a missile break to all defensive abilities were implemented, the ships would be much more balanced and useful. The problem with ship balance is ship stacking, particularly GS. Two bombers can be cleared with a T3 strike with the above changes to EMP missile or a GS with ION, particularly with help from a strike or scout buddy. The above changes make stacking T2 scout less attractive, but they will still have the advantage in dogfights flown by good pilots. T2 scouts would be less useful on bombers without 100% armor bypass, which killing bombers should be the job of the strike, with or without GS backup. Since the above changes make ships more balanced against the T2 scout, I do not know what can be done to make people take fewer GS in TDM and reducing the occurrence of GS wall. Having proton be 15k provides an option for more strategy against multiple GS, but does not reduce the use of GS. I think the cloaking ships that were originally intended could harass GS enough to make people use them less and prevent GS walls, but since the meta would be changed enough with the above suggestions, they need to be played out before adding a new type of ship. However, I do want to see them added at some point.

  
  

Edited July 10, 2017 by sentawan
Changed "ion" systems to "emp" systems (typo)

[txbrumley]

^ This.

 

If I had carte blanche and an unlimited budget to rework GSF...

... strikes would have the offensive potential of the current scouts

... scouts would be fast, light-hitting scouts with great sensors and useful utility tools

... there'd be something that required sensors to detect and deal with (ie Infiltrators)

... gunships would still be gunships, but plasma rail would be viable

... bombers would be tough but wouldn't have CP invincibility

... Armor Ignore would only work against turrets

... dogs and cats living together

... mass hysteria

 

*** snip ***

 

- Despon

 

If I take out a bomber with damage reduction armor, it gets shredded. Several maxed out abilities/stats on all ships are too powerful. The ability to ignore DR/armor renders DR and DR enhancing crew useless. Despon lists some of these issues. I'm sure there are others.

 

In addition to asking the experts, I recommend that BW do a data dive of matches, especially where the top pilots outperform in the match by a factor of 2 or more, and see what said pilots kit for and what they ignore.

[TRFWesVos]

Hey folks,

 

This week, we are creating three separate forum threads for GSF discussion. You can head to this thread to get links to each of them.

 

For this thread let's focus on ship balance and how you feel about it. Let us know your thoughts below, here are a few questions to get you started:

• Are there any ships you feel are over or under powered? Which ship(s) and why?
  
• Are there any ship components that you feel are over or under powered? Which components and why?
  
• Are there any crew members that you feel are over or under powered? Which crew members and why?

 

Note that this discussion is not about the addition of new ships, components, or crew members. Just about the balance of existing ones.

 

Let us know your thoughts!

 

-eric

 

I agree with those who have said that no ship is truly overpowered. If you start nerfing ships, it could have very unpredictable results. Instead, I would suggest buffing strikes (particularly the T2 strike) and buffing certain components.

 

In particular, missiles (except clusters) need a huge buff. Others can give specifics, but right now missiles are far too easy to evade and too hard to land a lock with. They're basically useless

[caederon]

In addition to asking the experts, I recommend that BW do a data dive of matches, especially where the top pilots outperform in the match by a factor of 2 or more, and see what said pilots kit for and what they ignore.

It'll be largely what you'd expect it to be. The meta has been static for the last few years. I'd be interested to see the data myself, but I wouldn't expect any surprises.

 

Let's assume the data plays out in the most probable fashion. The pilots who are vastly outperforming their opposition are probably going to be T1 Gunships, T2 Scouts and T3 Gunships, roughly in that order. The former two will probably be using BLC and Distortion Field, the latter has a few more loadouts rolling around that they choose from.

 

Statistically, the T1G will produce the most damage (Ion Railgun AoE splash generally guarantees this) though in certain circumstances the T2S can push into that category. The T1G will likely have the most total points (kills + assists) per match again because of ion AoE. The T2S is likely to score the most kills, because it has the highest potential for swift, encounter-ending bursts of damage. Since it lacks the support role, the T3G will usually land a lot of kills as well, and can get out of trouble because of strong shield and engine maneuver choices.

 

The ships that suffer the most are ones where damage can only be delivered in a long process of attrition, or by the currently very unreliable vehicle of missiles. Adding to the trouble, these ships also suffer from a lack of mobility or in the case of the T3S, no viable secondary weapon and no system to augment their offensive output.

 

So, the question is are the T1G, T2S, and T3G all overpowered? Or are the remaining non-bombers all junk?

 

The problem, as always, comes when you consider what those good ships are needed for. Without them, as they are right now, bomber control becomes a near impossible task. Go play a Denon match against a team that runs 7B + 1 of whatever. Or even 5B, 3G. Any bomber overload strategy. Remove the T1G, T2S, and T3G from all of your teammate's bars. What are you going to do to counter that?

 

Maybe, you say, run a whole bunch of EMP stuff. Good luck with that. EMP is woefully underpowered in all of its various flavors. It would be awesome if it wasn't, because it would add to ship diversity and viable build choices. The T1S with EMP field, Power Dive, Pods and Laser Cannon is a fun build to fly and play. Too bad it is mostly useless.

 

Maybe then you think 'well, a whole bunch of strike fighters could slowly advance on that entrenched position, carefully pick off the mines and drones, and eventually somehow .... um... proton torpedo the bombers to death. Good luck with that. If the other side fields even a gunship or two... even the T2G... the strikes are going to get picked apart, because they are too slow and by the time they get to the node trying to find a firing position on the bombers and hold lock to launch torpedoes, they will be weakened and taken out. Meanwhile any bombers that die will be hopping on beacons dropped by their pals and back in their insectile hidey-holes where they are difficult to get a firing angle on.

 

So we have the meta that exists, because all the ships with great components are vital to taking out the game's immovable object, the bomber nest / tick.

 

Get rid of bombers, then, right? Well, if you do that, you'll have Evasion scouts flying donuts around satellites all match in an unhittable loop-a-thon. Or, in TDM, you will have a pack of T2S buzzing like bees around a hive, except the hive is your spawn point.

 

It's worth noting that organized teams can afford to run more esoteric builds on a few ships because they know they will have backup and people to rely on to handle the threats that the more unusual builds might struggle with. But premades are made up of evil, lazy, hacking cheaters who just wan to farm noobs right? Lots of people seem to think that and vilify them. Knowing you are guaranteed several people in a given match that you can reasonably count on to do a job is good incentive to make a premade.

 

There are many ways to make the currently undesirable ships more viable choices that have interesting roles on a team. It doesn't require scrapping the current meta's balance, but can expand it beyond the T1G, T3G, T2S, T1B, T2B without drastically (or even minorly) altering the stuff those ships have.

 

- Despon

[Stellarcrusade]

I like the gameplay of scouts, strike fighters and gunships but I dislike bombers.

 

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.

 

Bombers should normaly be protected by strike fighters, but right now, they don't need help

 

The reason you see good bomber pilots using LoS tactics is that they are basically a flying garbage scow. They have armor but low manuverability and range, if they get stuck in open space they are sitting ducks. Newer players tick more until they learn the other mechanics, but its still just LoS. You'll never get strike fighters to fly around and protect bombers.

[Verain]

A lot of the hatred of bombers ignores exactly how niche their use is. In an open fight, a bomber is trash. Their only survival is line of sight, their only offense is deploying defensives around themselves and hoping that they can make the fight slow enough around themselves personally in a way that is beneficial to their team. Bombers are a meta ship, but it is a close thing.

 

In domination, the type 1 bomber has two possible jobs, both around nodes. He can focus on having a great deal of health, or he can focus on being immune to enemy mines and blasters that aren't meant to harm bombers (which is all of them but burst and heavies). In the first case, he will lose a war of attrition against a bomber configured more for node defense, and gunships and scouts hurt him, with his defense against scouts is to have enough active mines and a line of sight that a scout can't trivially erase. In the second case, half of every slug goes to his hull no matter how much shields he has, and he can be destroyed in a couple volleys from a burst/pods scout, but he can win a slow game versus other bombers. For all these vulnerabilities, both bombers still have a lot of health, and still have the best node defense deployables. This is the only mode in which this bomber has a real job.

 

In TDM, the type 1 bomber has basically no job. A beacon is a huge risk in Domination, and the rewards for getting your team to spawn somewhere novel are small (and can even mess up your other allies, who expect reinforcements to come from one direction of the map and will position appropriately). Enemies can entirely ignore you unless you are set up to defend a type 2 bomber, in which case, you are still pretty ignorable. Your only weapon with actual range is proton torpedo, which is generally very bad, and which you are the worst suited to actually use.

 

 

The type 2 bomber, by contrast, is a secondary bomber in Domination. Without the option to take plating, and without access to seismic mines, your best bet is interdiction and very rarely railgun drones, near a node defended by a type 1 bomber. Reasonably painless access to repair drone with ammo refill is your best feature, and you only get to play this ship during a reasonably bomber-heavy match on both sides.

 

The secondary bomber shines by being able to build a nest in TDM. Unlike in domination, you can abandon your position if it is pressed, and your railgun drone, if deployed behind cover, can help defend the nest against invaders. It can provide a somewhat safe spot for a gunship to retreat to if deroosted, and offering heals in TDM is much more useful than in domination. Even doing this requires some of your team to be invested in the nest: if they aren't interested in defending you, you will be hunted down by scouts quickly, or surrounded by gunships slowly. It's even easy to get non-contributor if enemies aren't messing with your nest.

 

The type 3 bomber, by contrast offers limited to support to other bombers and can sorta participate in a dogfight where he can contribute supportive fire, but without the ability to execute fleeing enemies or meaningfully deroost enemy gunships. He's a hybrid without much of a home.

 

 

The first two bombers (with jobs) are both quite focused. If you deviate much from the normal builds- for instance, if you pick the terrible (and buff-needing) ion mine, or you select from any of the actually poor components (concussion, proton), you have little to no job anywhere. In general, any component a bomber has is worst on a bomber versus other ships, because you can't turn or boost to shoot an enemy, lock an enemy, etc. You can take risks if you have heals waiting for you, but you can absolutely be punished for that by a good scout, gunship, or even bomber. You have less blaster power than other ships, and you can't even joust very well versus strikes and scouts despite all your health. If you play a type 1 bomber without a beacon, you generally hurt your team. If you play a type 2 bomber without repairs, you generally hurt your team.

 

The bombers are entirely defined by their support role. This role could be modified some, but you can't take away much of it and still let them have a useful job.

 

I really like the bombers, and they got rid of all manner of really degenerate play. Evasion scouts orbiting satellites indefinitely was one of the stupidest things about the game's launch, and the addition of bombers was going to fix that- and it did. I definitely feel that strikes were meant to be better at bombers than they are- a bomber in open space is pretty much food for any strike, and they serve as one of the ships that can both tank a missile, and not trivially ignore it in open space.

 

But their jobs are still very constrained. That's probably fine for a ship that provides utility, but it does mean if the meta shifts to take those jobs away, you risk destroying the class- and if the meta shifts to make them any harder to kill, you risk games with over half of the fleet being bombers (and being effective at it).

Edited July 11, 2017 by Verain