Striker:

Getting shot multiple times/Failing to lock onto anything with Proton torps. (These can help with objective based play, but gunships and scouts can achieve the same objective based play and get lots of kills at the same time with less effort expended).

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Stop using proton torps against other ships if they aren't a gunship.

Stop using proton torps against other ships unless you KNOW they have already blown their lock-breaker recently.

They aren't made for ships, they are meant to blast turrets from 11km away so that you can follow up with a blaster shot or a second missile (in the type 2 striker) and down a turret before it ever can even hit you.

If you aren't a Pike - you should not have proton torps. They look great but are not worth it for any other ship - the long lock on and travel time means you're wasting your time using them - dogfighting is for short-range missiles (like cluster missiles) and blasters, NOT proton torps. That isn't to say you will NEVER hit another ship with a proton torp, but in the time you spend trying to lock on with it and the time it takes for it to travel to its target (even with the speed upgrade), you could have done two or three times the damage with heavy cannons + 2 cluster missile volleys.

- Sincerely,

A smart Pike pilot.

I don't think strike fighter needs a buff, the problem is the ship is totaly uninteresting.

 

People that like to stay out of the main fight and sniping use gunboat, people that like speed and dog fights use scout. The fighter is the middle ship and thus have no specialty, making it very bland and boring.

^^this so much

Also I have seen way to many Strikes try to close quarter dogfight and get owned doing so. The good strikes I have seen are the ones trying to get some moderate range on their targets. I see of lot of these using barrel roll for its capacity for instantly creating large gaps that also happen to be about the size of heavy laser cannon's sweet spot range.

well i have played all the ships cepy for the infilltratior and the bomber and i love the pike have it mastered and most

of the componts for alt builds.

the lock on timers vrs just random lock loss is crazy out of 10 lock ons you will lose lock 8 times to lag or evasion abilty with a rediculasly short reuse timer on it im not saying nerf it but the lock on arc especially on protons needs to be increased

with all the shield pierce and armor bypass avable on most ships very early on is un fair to the pikes we get 1 main blaster which is ok and yes 2 missles types but when your not able to use your missles because of lock on problems and bugs that still persist from beta and yes bio wear knows the lock on problems it puts us at a very big disadvantage on pikes even in the best matches with great wing man on winning matchs the best pikes avrage 25k in damage and maybe 7-8 kills wile being out performed on damage doesnt bother me because i go for the win

it would be nice to see the playing field balanced better no matter what they end up doing

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Stop using proton torps against other ships if they aren't a gunship.

 

Stop using proton torps against other ships unless you KNOW they have already blown their lock-breaker recently.

 

They aren't made for ships, they are meant to blast turrets from 11km away so that you can follow up with a blaster shot or a second missile (in the type 2 striker) and down a turret before it ever can even hit you.

 

If you aren't a Pike - you should not have proton torps. They look great but are not worth it for any other ship - the long lock on and travel time means you're wasting your time using them - dogfighting is for short-range missiles (like cluster missiles) and blasters, NOT proton torps. That isn't to say you will NEVER hit another ship with a proton torp, but in the time you spend trying to lock on with it and the time it takes for it to travel to its target (even with the speed upgrade), you could have done two or three times the damage with heavy cannons + 2 cluster missile volleys.

 

- Sincerely,

A smart Pike pilot.

I find boost and quads to be a lot quicker for turrets. Given the reload times there's likely to be a swarm of hostile scouts incoming by the time the second turret goes down if you use torpedoes. Ok, for the first turret before you boost in to take care of the other two though. Not especially fond of using them on gunships either. Smart pilots will hear the lock on and firing tones and evade pretty easily.

I actually find proton torpedoes most useful to pick off scouts and fighters involved in turning dogfights with my allies, watch for an evasive move and then let 'em have a torpedo up the tailpipe. Often a one hit kill if the shields were already damaged. This requires an enemy under pressure with you at ideal range and no pressure though, and that should be a rare occurrence if the other team is flying well.

The strike fighter problem isn't really a proton torpedo problem though. What proton torpedoes lack is suitable targets, and really that probably means destructible objectives with strong close range defense guns. To be better suited to strike fighter than gunships they'd also have to be moving targets. Something like heavily armored transports. Basically at the moment proton torps are a PvE weapon, but there's not much E for them to be used v.

Hm, heavily armored slow to moderate speed targets with strong short range guns. Perhaps the plan for buffing strike fighters is to add bombers.

Hm, heavily armored slow to moderate speed targets with strong short range guns. Perhaps the plan for buffing strike fighters is to add bombers.

This is actually a really good point.

I find boost and quads to be a lot quicker for turrets. Given the reload times there's likely to be a swarm of hostile scouts incoming by the time the second turret goes down if you use torpedoes. Ok, for the first turret before you boost in to take care of the other two though. Not especially fond of using them on gunships either. Smart pilots will hear the lock on and firing tones and evade pretty easily.

 

I actually find proton torpedoes most useful to pick off scouts and fighters involved in turning dogfights with my allies, watch for an evasive move and then let 'em have a torpedo up the tailpipe. Often a one hit kill if the shields were already damaged. This requires an enemy under pressure with you at ideal range and no pressure though, and that should be a rare occurrence if the other team is flying well.

Different strokes for different folks, I guess. I like to come in at a turret with a proton, boost in and hit it with 1 blaster shot to kill it, turn and come over the top to the next turret, cluster missle/blaster and it's dead - then get the third one - this is when I might have an incoming bandit because the first 2 turret kills happen 3-4 seconds apart, then I have about 5-10 seconds of maneuvering (a little less now that I'm running a tanky speed build) to get in place to cluster/blaster the 3rd turret. Usually I can down the turret then turn and mess with my enemy for a few seconds, or I fly circles around the satellite till help arrives/they self destruct because they suck

I'm not saying I never fire proton torps at other ships - like I said, sometimes you get a good chance to. I will use a proton lock also as a fake-out, and won't actually fire, I just try to make them blow their evasion ability - a panicky pilot who recognizes the slow tone of the proton lock almost always blows it early, whereas a cool-headed pilot will wait till I actually fire. There are far more panicky pilots than cool-headed ones

Also, I don't think it's just adding bombers that will help the Strike Fighter overall, it will be more game modes - where things like proton torps are used to take out capital ships with their shield piercing. We're working with a very small model of what will eventually be a finished product - this is just a preview. And since I feel like I'm able to hold my own in the preview, i cant wait for the general release

Of course, this is why I fly a Pike - so I can carry both proton torps and cluster missiles, though I changed from quads to heavy blasters and seem to get more overall damage with them, just fyi.

 

As for the defenses, they don't mean that much when everything can punch through shields and armor, while scouts (and even gunships of all things...) get evasion. In the old x-wing games there was no evasion, a hit was a hit, and the only thing that could (very partially) bypass shields were missiles.

Likewise that's why I like the striker. I also truly dislike that they have evasion in this game. accuracy tracking penalties I can deal with (it's really just like having movement/stance penalties to accuracy in an FPS) but I truly hate how evasion adds a penalty to accuracy on top of a weapon's inherent tracking penalty.

I think one possible way to buff strikers would be to remove the shield penetration from all blaster weapons and add a new component type/class that allows strikers to exclusively have the option for a small amount of shield piercing on blasters (so they'd be the only one that could have shield piercing quads for example), that would boost the Star Guard significantly and if added with a component that lowers lock on times that might provide an equal boost to pikes.

As for torps from what I gather they're just like in the old X-Wing games, well suited for attacking stationary targets or capital ships but less than ideal in the ship to ship role. The problem I think is that the only stationary targets in the game are turrets and every ship in the game is equally capable of destroying them rendering torps a good idea on paper but not especially useful in practice (less useful in the sense of being beneficial to the striker class in isolation but not enhancing their capabilities to be vastly superior to other ship classes when it comes to destroying stationary targets - arguably strikers as a class need something other than a single weapon to distinguish them from other ship classes in this role or else Star Guards get the short end of the versatility stick).

I think that assuming the ability of all ship classes to be equally capable at destroying stationary targets like turrets (as is currently the case) then strikers should probably get a buff to their dogfighting capabilities in terms of offensive firepower and mobility. Currently they feel like they were designed to be far superior to scouts (and slightly/moderately superior to gunships) in the destroying stationary objectives department (currently the only targets of that type being turrets - who knows what future maps will add though) and that capability was balanced out with being not as good as scouts in a dogfight. But the way things work out in practice is they loose out in dogfighting capability to scouts while not having this shortcoming balanced with a noticeable advantage over the other ships in terms of versatility to destroy stationary targets and solo cap sats.

So I think strikers either need a buff to place greater emphasis on the dogfighting aspect of their multirole capabilities or if all ship classes being equally capable at destroying stationary targets like turrets is unintended whatever is causing non-striker class ships to have near equal/equal capability needs to be rebalanced so strikers are the best for destroying said targets/solocapping sats.

I concur with shadow on this one. The striker needs some lovin. I would be happy if the pikes x2 blasters fired together, or "dual wield" If you will. If anyone remembers in JTL the xwing... It was larger and slower than the awing, however, it's ability to fire 3 primary weapons linked together made it worthwhile. As for the quell, maybe the ability to fire two sets of clusters, protons, concussions would up its worthiness.

My two centz

I concur with shadow on this one. The striker needs some lovin. I would be happy if the pikes x2 blasters fired together, or "dual wield" If you will. If anyone remembers in JTL the xwing... It was larger and slower than the awing, however, it's ability to fire 3 primary weapons linked together made it worthwhile. As for the quell, maybe the ability to fire two sets of clusters, protons, concussions would up its worthiness.

 

My two centz

I would love to be able to fire my two blasters simultaneously. Right now I just stick with one or the other throughout an entire engagement so having two is pretty useless...even having two sets of missiles is better because they are fire and forget weapons. Maybe dual fire should only be possible if the Strikefighter is either stationary or traveling at low speed. This may help to balance things out. Two sets of blasters/missiles is powerful attack but you risk becoming an easy target and also missing your target if you can only fire while stationary or at a lower speed. It wouldn't be "sniping" because the attacks would all be medium range. I think Dual Fire would really make things interesting and more exciting.

I concur with shadow on this one. The striker needs some lovin. I would be happy if the pikes x2 blasters fired together, or "dual wield" If you will. If anyone remembers in JTL the xwing... It was larger and slower than the awing, however, it's ability to fire 3 primary weapons linked together made it worthwhile. As for the quell, maybe the ability to fire two sets of clusters, protons, concussions would up its worthiness.

 

My two centz

Firing both primaries at once would be insanely overpowered. Think about it. A heavy laser cannon and Quad laser hitting at the same time. You could one shot a scout without even popping a companion ability, and could probably one shot a strike with a companion ability.

Huge resource cost is no cost at all if your target is instagibbed.

Generally, I agree. The striker needs an ability to set it apart. It suffers from the fact that it doesn't excel at any particular thing. Its role on the battlefield is lost.

agreed. It has the potential to shine as a multirole starfighter, equally capable of dogfighting as it is destroying stationary objectives (currently limited to turrets but I assume a greater variety will be introduced with other maps/modes) and that would give it a distinct role on the battlefield but with the current "balance" it can't do anything offensively that the other ship classes can't do equally well or better (personally I think things should be rebalanced so the striker is the only starfighter capable of being a multirole craft that can both dogfight and destroy stationary objectives the same way there are no abilities or weapons that allow any ship class other than the gunship to be a sniper/have both the range and power of their railguns).

The only good use I've found for my striker is defending, a middlething between scout and gunship.

Concussion missies and heavy laser at 7000m, scouts should be halfway to dead before they even come within reach with their lasers.

The only good use I've found for my striker is defending, a middlething between scout and gunship.

 

Concussion missies and heavy laser at 7000m, scouts should be halfway to dead before they even come within reach with their lasers.

Don't need concussion missiles, one single upgraded heavy laser hit will drop a scout to half dead.

Personally I think the strengths of the Strike fighters will become more evident as more content is added.

Bombers and new game modes requiring actually attacking objectives will definitely make things more interesting for the Striker, where their heavier _base_ firepower and staying power will become more useful (and I write _base_ because scouts get better firepower with their systems like blaster overcharge... not counting Burst Lasers, which are the best lasers at short range in the game).

Not that I'd be adverse to a buff, but given how well I do in my Pike already I'm not sure it's necessary.

Personally I think the strengths of the Strike fighters will become more evident as more content is added.

This may be quite true, but balancing classes by match type doesn't make for great pvp.

this went pretty well ^^

(except the one selfdestruct)

http://i40.tinypic.com/i6wokj.jpg

This may be quite true, but balancing classes by match type doesn't make for great pvp.

Good point.

I agree with the op. I play mainly scouts and I always see strike fighters as easy targets compared to other scouts. Even gunships are easy pickings if they aren't backed up by a second gunship.

Statement: Thank you! Someone with something intelligent to say rather than the typical "QQ moar".

this went pretty well ^^

(except the one selfdestruct)

 

http://i40.tinypic.com/i6wokj.jpg

If that's the best you can do in a strike, I don't feel bad comparing it to a stock Novadive.

Note the "Mae'thon has reached level 2" toast. There's literally no way I could be playing anything other than a stock ship, and lol strikes.

Yes, we lost, and yes, I did a lot of damage for comparatively few kills and assists. Keep in mind that a lot of that damage was to turrets (which the game doesn't really count outside of requisition earned) and that our team wasn't super organized, so a lot of my damage to shields was simply regenerated by the guy going evasive for a few seconds with no one to punish him for doing so.

Naming is important. I think folks may have expectations that don't fit the role here.

A Strike Fighter is a multirole combat vehicle, designed to engage emplacements and targets of opportunity (strike), and be moderately survivable against other aircraft (fighter). It's primary role is striking. Modifying my playstyle with that in mind has improved my SF effectiveness and enjoyment tenfold.

Ideally, staying on the perimeter of the furball and supporting team mates with longer range cannons and missiles is the way to go. Will you get forced into the thick of things? Absolutely. But it's your choice what to do there. You can waste time chasing tails with scouts, or you can change targets and go after what's most opportune. Target fixation, and the idea that you must be dog-fighting are the enemies of the SF, and they're both in your mind.

If you want to play more of a superiority role, the heavy scout is admirable at that. The SF is admirable at providing close combat support. It's an A-10 Warthog... just... ya know, with shields and laser cannons.

It's hard to figure out which are problems with individual components, which are problems with the strike class and which are problems with the strikes we have.

Burst Laser Cannon- This is probably too good. If it was available on a Starguard, I think everyone would take it. It likely needs nerfed some.

Distortion Field- the most potent defense, denied the strike fighter. This invincibility bubble allows a gunship to finish a railshot to kill your friend, allows a flashfire to stay on his target whilst blaster overcharged with F1. And yet, this is denied to the strike fighter. This abiility is so present that I would say that it would actually be appropriate to buff the other shields. Fortress shields should not reduce your shields by 30%. Do Quick Charge need to? Could directionals buff the value by something? Feedback shield likely needs to give a passive defensive bonus as well, such as a damage debuff on the struck target. It's hard to nerf this ability- taking away the 15% passive evasion would work, but it would make the ships a lot less fun to fly, as EVERYTHING would be in the bubble. Reducing the bubble's evasion percent would work, but then it becomes a crapshoot. Turning it into damage reduction wouldn't work, because everything in the whole game ignores that (another issue).

Those component fixes would help, but even given that, there needs to be something like a ship specific component that would allow them to deliver stats to a novadive beyond a flashfire. Ex: "Starguard Engineering" appears beneath your secondary components, and explains to you the buffs you get to your turn radius etc compared to the base strike fighter stats. "Pike Engineering" could be different.