Personally I thought today's stream was a farce.

Yes I think one issue is that T2/T3 Charged Plating Strikes as an answer to Bombers isn't common enough knowledge yet. Hopefully this video can circulate more. I also want to stress that Charged Plating Bombers can really suck, but also keep in mind that EMP Field, EMP Missile and T3 Strike's new Remote Slicing at the top tier can all be made to disable shield abilities from being used. However, I do think it sucks that it takes 35,500 requisition to pick up and unlock the tier necessary of EMP Field/Missile/Remote Slicing in order to counter the 5000 requisition investment one makes to pick up and upgrade Charged Plating to 20 second duration. And Nemarus, it's also been on my mind as well that I feel like there should be a sense of diminishing return on how many Bombers you throw on a satellite. Like the idea that having one Bomber is good but the more Bombers you throw onto a satellite should ideally become detrimental to the overall team. Like the most extreme example being an 8 Bomber game means 8 T2/T3 Strikes could be their worst nightmare. In theory, this could work but I'm skeptical since I've yet to see it actually happen. I'd LIKE to see it happen though, hah!

Made a video to show visually what I'm talking about.

You can use Charged Plating + Deflection Armor + Companion with Damage Reduction. With all of these in place, popping Charged Plating puts you at 94% damage reduction for 20 seconds and none of the mines have ignore armor. The ships that have this combination of equipment are the Pike/Quell (Tier 2 Strike), Clarion/Imperium (Tier 3 Strike) and the Rampart/Razorwire (Mine Bomber). You will get 20 seconds where you get to eat every bomb thrown at you. So dive right into the satellite and start chasing the bomber. Use light laser or rapid fire and you can track them around the satellite and shred them. If the bomber in question is actually running charged plating as well, EMP Pulse (T1 Scout), EMP Missile (T2/T3 Strike) and Remote Slicing (T3 Strike) can all disable shield abilities at the top tier. Also, any bomber running Charged Plating will actually take MORE damage from anyone who has access to Armor Ignore weapons with Shield Piercing, particularly upgraded Slug Railguns. So coordinate with a partner, you go in and eat the mines and hose the bomber with lasers and if you don't kill it, you can set your gunship partner up for the snipe by flushing out the bomber. Just remember that running Charged Plating also makes you especially susceptible to Slug Railguns as well, so any of those evasion stacking scouts that would explode if they got near the mines on the satellite - they need to harass the enemy gunships instead. Teamwork!

Because the actual numbers aren't given anywhere. Not in the tooltip, the description in the GSF loadout, nor when you mouse over the debuff icon once you apply it on someone. Yes it says how much piercing and armor ignore the torpedo itself has on contact, but it doesn't say anywhere how much the debuffs are applying.

Oooh interesting idea! I approve.

Here we go again. Like I did with the Ion Railguns, I did an analysis video of the EMP Field. In this, you get to see me use Boost and EMP Field to disable Concussion Mines at as close as 900m without triggering a lock-on warning. They normally trigger at 1500m. There is also a clip of me EMP'ing a Seeker Mine at 1900m without a lock-on. They normally trigger at 4000m. There's also other clips in the video like the features of Missile Lock Immunity (insurance for when you DO get lock-ons) and I'm able to get a Repair + Railgun Drone with a Seeker Mine heading towards me in one blast. There's also a clip of the Engine Suppression upgrade in action, as well as some other random clips that may be useful information for people. Enjoy.

At the Tier 4 upgrade, you can choose to either increase your EMP explosion radius by 500m, OR choose Missile Lock Immunity which will actually stop mines (and missiles) as they are coming at you and make them vanish mid-flight. You can boost right into a bomber's nest and as soon as you hear the bleep of the lock-on you can hit EMP and be clear.

Erm wait... I'm looking at Quick Charge Shield right now in game and it says Engine Power Recently Consumed Rate +45%. Did this get changed on PTS or something?

Bump with new updates, Fri/Sat team no longer needs a melee, still needs an off-tank (republic side) 4/5 in DF/DP HM, working on Council HM. Thanks!

I recorded a video of mastered ion railguns in action, both of being hit by them as well as what its like to fire them. Link is here. Included in the video are: -How much energy I lose when getting struck by the AOE drain effect. (18 weapon and energy power, no debuff applied). -How quickly my power can regenerate from the hit without the debuff. -How much energy is lost from a direct shot (approximately 53 weapon and engine power) + re-appliable debuff. -I then fly my own gunship and show the minimum charge up time required to fire a shot (approx. 25% charge or 1.5 seconds). -How much energy is consumed to fire. Finally, you get to see a montage of me using mastered ion railguns with minimal charge up time on various people and can see the time it takes for a target to be fully drained of their weapons and engines. So are ion railguns in their current state balanced or OP? And if they need a change, how?

I'm actually going to make the video and the related ion railgun drain into its own thread since I feel like it derailed the original discussion and also so that other forum browsers can easier find this ion railgun discussion taking place. Also, thank you DroidDreamer for the kind words.

I ran with base 100 weapon and engine power pools so that I'd be able to see for sure if I were losing more than half of my total pool. It's probably a formula of 25 (base) + 10 (tier 3 upgrade) + 18 (tier 4 aoe drain) so that could be each shot doing 53 drain and thus more than half of a stock ship's pool. I actually did have this crazy idea of stacking power pools. Like for both gunship variants, if you take Weapon Power Converter mastered and set it to increase your blaster power pool by +15%, then Power Pool Extender for your Magazine, and then use a companion that increases blaster power pool, you end up with 145 weapon power. However, you give up Barrel Roll and instead require 3 taps before your weapon is empty. Assuming a gunship doesn't think to ion tap you 3 times and only does 2, you -might- be able to shoot back with the 39 blaster energy you'd have left? Unless they pop distortion field when you shoot back. Since this is a scout thread, you can push your engine power pool to 165 in a Blackbolt/Novadive. Booster Recharge (systems) tier 4 adds +10% engine pool, Engine Power Converter (shield) tier 3 has +25% engine pool as an option, then Power Thrusters (thrusters) for another +20% and then take a +10% engine pool companion. You'll still need 3 taps to be shut down and by this time your weapons are already gone, but by the first hit you may have enough in you to either escape or directly engage them and hope you regen in time or at least Barrel Roll (if you have it). If you don't care for Booster Recharge you can still take something else like EMP Field and still have 155 engine power pool. And yes, both types of strikes have similar options available as far as power stacking to 145 goes (at the expense of engine maneuvers). The effectiveness of a power stacking build specifically to counter ion railguns remains to be seen. But hey... it's an idea?

This discussion inspired me to go and record some footage of me both getting shot as well as shooting people using a mastered ion railgun as well as analysis of the effects of the energy drain. Hopefully my video can help give some insight on the nature of ion railguns in their current state as of 2.6.

Yeah it took a lot of effort. Couldn't get one down even with 100% armor piercing, plus the guys who would spawn were right in my face and immediately would dispose of me.