I think that there's a bit too much CC.

It's still pretty early in this patch, and I don't think that the meta that this is crafting is unhealthy, but I think there are too many lockouts, too frequently, and for too long. I'll go into the three CCs we are seeing quite a bit of:

1- EMP Field

EMP Field seems to do a great job of making a node safer to assault. It does good job of buffing allies and debuffing enemies and clearing mines, all of which are its jobs. I think that its duration of 13 and its cooldown of 25 represent too much lockout. The prior version of this was too weak, with range bugs and a 45 second cooldown. Because EMP field gets stronger the more frequently you press it (a version with halved cooldown and duration would be stronger), I think the cooldown should come up a bit, to like 30 or even 35 seconds. I'm not sure what the correct number is, but we moved into a mode where you never really recover from the first EMP before the second hits you.

2- EMP Missile

This has a pending aoe player damage nerf, which should help anyone who spends time on nodes, especially bombers. I think it could also use an aoe control nerf, such as halving the lockout durations aoe player targets. EMP Missile serves as a "priming missile", an easier to land missile that makes locks easier on your target, and that seems fine, but the penalty for being caught in the aoe feels overly punishing for being near an objective or ally who couldn't avoid the missile. Unlike EMP field, where you have data available to you about what is going on (the EMP field ship moving into range), EMP missile only gives you a warning when you are the target.

3- Remote Slicing

Unlike the other two, this move only seems to come out in TDM. Like EMP field, you can see it coming, and unlike both of the EMP effects, it deals no damage at all and is always single target. I think its uptime is a bit too high though, and its engine drain also seems to be really aggressive. I think the duration of the debuffs should probably come down by a couple seconds- to 9 or 10 from 12. I also think that the 60 engine power drain could be less as well, because it is pretty punishing as so much engine is hard to recover from. The addition of an engine power drain, however, is a big part of why the move is useful compared to its old, useless format.

Of the three, EMP Missile and EMP Field seem to have reasonable common usage on all maps, whereas Remote Slicing does not have such universal application- plenty of TDMs will have no remote slicers at all, and it is a rare build in domination.

I think that the CC in the game is good, but I do think you get more of it sort of incidentally. The direct CC ability of remote slicing requiring giving up more is fine, but it is still a move with a lot of synergy as long as it keeps its low cooldown and engine lockout, which I think it should.

My disclaimer is that we are all still early enough into the patch that we don't have a mature meta yet under this ruleset, so my ideas could be out of place.

At first, there was the ion rail spamming gun which people (including you) defended. Now there are more options to kinda like the same effect which we all now use and some would say it's overpowered.

The chance that the devs will nerf this as you suggested may be (hopefully) minimal because you can't get everyone satisfied.

Suggestion: Hold back when you are ahead + when you have what you think to be overpowered equipment but use it to fuil extend when you are behind and are carrying the fight.

At first, there was the ion rail spamming gun which people (including you) defended.

I was in favor of mild nerfs to ion railgun for quite awhile. I like the current version of ion railgun better than the last.

Now there are more options to kinda like the same effect which we all now use and some would say it's overpowered.

To be meaningfully controlled by an ion rail required someone to succeed at a hit roll on top of aiming at you. The EMP control effects are aoe in nature.

The chance that the devs will nerf this as you suggested may be (hopefully) minimal because you can't get everyone satisfied.

I have no idea what the chances of a nerf are. Do you like the current levels of control in the game? Do you think it's still too early to call for a nerf? I think these effects are spread too easily and force players to respond right away, and your play can be impacted by an allied player nearby who doesn't know how to avoid a missile, for instance.

Suggestion: Hold back when you are ahead + when you have what you think to be overpowered equipment but use it to fuil extend when you are behind and are carrying the fight.

I don't understand this at all. Why would you hold back? How would holding back help you win?

At first, there was the ion rail spamming gun which people (including you) defended. Now there are more options to kinda like the same effect which we all now use and some would say it's overpowered.

These are not comparable scenarios. It is not useful to attempt to relate them.

Pre 5.5, Ion Railgun was the only thing in the game capable of sufficiently disrupting Bomber spam, and even then it was only effective at beating it with adequate team support. In the absence of any other changes to the pre-5.5 environment, diminishing Ion Railgun would have led to what was largely in place anyway which was Bomber Spam: The Game.

Post 5.5, Ion Railgun is not an issue that anyone has to complain about. Few people are even bothering to run it, because with better Strikes, Gunships cannot stay in position to maintain fire nearly as long and the ships that are coming to get them are tougher and more potent offensively. It's almost as if it wasn't an Ion Railgun problem at all, and was actually a problem with underpowered Strike Fighters. Not that the GS didn't have a natural predator in the T2S anyway, but somehow as Bomber Spam proliferated people lost the will and/or drive to excel in T2S aside from the handful of people who stuck with the ship and could kill Gunships quite effectively.

Incidentally there are actual counters that clear Ion Railgun debuffs now, too, which few people use because it's really not so much a problem anymore. And even pre-5.5, Power Dive was a direct counter to Ion snares.

The lockout issue stems from bad design in that it removes people's agency without a counter other than 'don't get caught in AoE and/or don't let someone get close enough to land RS.'

Suggestion: Hold back when you are ahead + when you have what you think to be overpowered equipment but use it to fuil extend when you are behind and are carrying the fight.

Let's say they do this.

Let's also say that some other group who does not frequent the forums and does not care to engage in GSF Chat or interact with players outside their group figures out 'hey this stuff is powerful' and they go on to use it very effectively. The same problem still exists.

Trying to get players to 'hold back,' 'play nice,' or self-regulate in any way is doomed to failure and really has no place in a competitive game. These are issues that need to be addressed on a game design level. If you are playing a game where the goal is to win, serious players will pursue that goal to the best of their abilities, and will use any tools they have available to do so. In my opinion, it's not sensible to ask them to do otherwise or expect that they will.

- Despon

I agree that part of the problem lies in simultaneous lockouts, and the ease of applying/re-applying. I am not sure what the best answer is, but I think perhaps an increase in the cooldown (or in the case of ordnance, reload time) might help give some windows for counterplay. I'd also like to toss out the idea of removing the shield ability lockout and engine ability lockout from EMPF and EMPM, which going forward I'll just abbreviate the two as EMP. I think system lockout is pretty crippling as is. I would rather see the shield lockout switched to ion missile to help differentiate it from other types of missiles and give ships a meaningful choice between systems or shield abilities. Alternatively, engine dis-ability could be a choice with shield dis-ability for the ion missile. Finally, it could make for some interesting Pike/Quell builds for players who opted to take both control missiles.

I would agree with other posters that EMP is worse than RS in the sense that you can be victim to an AOE effect (perhaps even one originally centered on a deployables or turret) as opposed to being directly targeted. But I think it probably needs to be toned down a bit.

Honestly though, I like this scenario better... where we have multiple components slightly overpowered that need to be nerfed, rather than a handful of good components and the rest junk. Don't nerf these previously junk components back into oblivion, just a sensible nerf.

EMP missiles (and, to a degree, fields) can be countered by flying away from the sat when something hostile with an EMP weapon is approaching. Missile flies/field goes off, and you can get back on the sat without a debuff. Sometimes.

In TDM there are no sats to be distracting targets for EMP.

Just got out of a 50-5 TDM against Drako's premade, and yeah, the EMP/Slicing spam is ridiculous. Pretty much locked down immediately by one person or another and then missile spammed to death. The lockouts at least should not stack.

If we went 50-5 in a match, I don't think there's a lot of component balance details you can get out of that. In a match that onesided, you'll get lit up by pretty much anything.

The effects don't really "stack". Stacking is like "50% turning reduction" and "50% turning reduction" becoming either 100% turning reduction or 25% turning reduction. With EMP effects, each one just causes a lockout independent from the others. If ones are from the same source, the newer will overwrite the older.

To be meaningfully controlled by an ion rail required someone to succeed at a hit roll on top of aiming at you. The EMP control effects are aoe in nature.

I have been hit in a lot of matches by ion spam while sitting behind a sat and the gs pilot spamming on a defense turret.

I have no idea what the chances of a nerf are. Do you like the current levels of control in the game? Do you think it's still too early to call for a nerf? I think these effects are spread too easily and force players to respond right away, and your play can be impacted by an allied player nearby who doesn't know how to avoid a missile, for instance.

I never said "things are fine", what worries me most however is when things are being nerfed so soon while we just got a new update after several years of getting nothing. I rather have the devs think about how to make gsf more fun which I think is done by making every ship competative.

About "my play can be impacted by an allied player nearby who doesn't know how to avoid a missile", I assume you mean the aoe effect will then hit me like it does to the pilots who didn't know how to avoid a missile. Well, the fun thing is... if the same pilot doesn't know how emp field works and surprisingly he hits it while I am in the area... then my play is impacted in a positive way

Other then that, the defense turret doesn't avoid a missile anyways, nor does the bomber deployed drone

I don't understand this at all. Why would you hold back? How would holding back help you win?

Well, for example... if you want to continue playing this game. Remember that a large portion of players who do gsf play it incidentally. They don't know the difference between a t1 and t2 scout but they do make gsf possible because they queue.

If you crush gsf for these people by not holding back a bit and make your goal to win 50-0 or 1000-0, guess what happens? Yep, they don't queue again and the waiting time will be long.

I have been hit in a lot of matches by ion spam while sitting behind a sat and the gs pilot spamming on a defense turret.

Which costs you a small amount of engine energy. That's a control, but it definitely doesn't compare to the massive drain a full charge does, nor the serious control debuff applied from T5. It is DEFINITELY not comparable to taking all the EMP debuffs on your ship.

I never said "things are fine", what worries me most however is when things are being nerfed so soon while we just got a new update after several years of getting nothing.

Eh, I share that concern too. I wouldn't argue for nerfs that I thought would delete these components.

About "my play can be impacted by an allied player nearby who doesn't know how to avoid a missile", I assume you mean the aoe effect will then hit me like it does to the pilots who didn't know how to avoid a missile.

Yes, exactly. It's frustrating that the presence of an incompetent ally can be worse than if that ally were dead and waiting for respawn. I don't think that can never be the case or anything, I just think it is too much right now.

Well, the fun thing is... if the same pilot doesn't know how emp field works and surprisingly he hits it while I am in the area... then my play is impacted in a positive way

He's less likely to buff you if he doesn't know it buffs you though.

Other then that, the defense turret doesn't avoid a missile anyways, nor does the bomber deployed drone

True, but you can at least observe those and know that they will serve as EMP bait. You are at least taking that risk.

If you crush gsf for these people by not holding back a bit and make your goal to win 50-0 or 1000-0, guess what happens? Yep, they don't queue again and the waiting time will be long.

I mean, I'm not going to trick them into queuing by pretending that they have a shot when they don't. I'm just going to shoot them with as many blasters as I can and stuff.

The whole Carebears vs. Griefers debate does not belong here.

I feel EMP offers too much control for too little effort. Ions, when they were the go-to control weapon, needed aim and only significantly controlled their primary target. Getting AoE ioned on a node was never a huge threat, the issue was always the follow-up -- scouts with BLC chewing your bombers up because they were devoid of mines. With EMP, that's still a risk, but there's more; EMP also deals significant damage which is unavoidable, delivers AoE controls (also unavoidable), and is spammable. Less spammable than ions are even now, but even more hard to avoid considering all the effects are AoE and have no maximum target cap.

I would like to see the T5 upgrade removed from the AoE completely. This makes sense to me for two reasons:

1. it behaves like ion railgun in that only your primary target is significantly controlled, and thus has a counter (missile breaks).
   
2. it forces you to lock onto a significant target in order to control them, instead of a drone or turret as is currently the norm.
   

The second reason is the main one for me. If EMP missiles didn't offer such powerful AoE controls, they would still fulfill their primary role -- clearing bombers and preventing bomberspam. They wouldn't trivialize shutting down players who are just PTFO, and that's my main issue with them. We know EMP AoE damage is borked, but if that's getting fixed next patch, then changing the T5 control to single-target would probably make me ok with them.

EMP field and Remote Slicing are different animals. I am not at all convinced that Remote slicing is actually a viable move for serious matches, and we're not asking for balance around farms or stacked ones (I hope). I would like to see RS as a useful ability for all matches, so here's my fix: remove the drain completely, give it 7.5km range, and make it very clear that you have been sliced. Possibly by adding a noise that you hear for as long as you're sliced. Perhaps also make the ability delayed by a second or something similar, although I'm not sure that's neccesary. To my mind this would make the T3 strike a ship I'd use offensively too, but it would give other players a chance at escaping (because they'd still have engines to boost away with). Also, reduce the control duration to 6 seconds base (9 mastered). It still hurts, and you can possibly increase the shield drain to compensate (if anyone even cares about that aspect of the move, which I doubt anyone does).

EMP field could go many ways, but my thoughts on it: reduce the base debuff time to 7 seconds (10 mastered), change the missile break so it only breaks missiles (no immunity, like EtS and EtW converters do). Also, reduce the damage to 1 vs. enemy players. The damage is there for assists, fine. I don't get why a ship deserves high evasion (EMP evasion buff + accuracy debuff + standard evasion stuff), the most missile immunity (DF + engines + EMP field) and a ton of team utility. This ability has too much packed into one, both offensively and defensively.

My long 2¢.

The EMP components are designed to mess up bomber stacks. Specifically to temporarily turn off the area denial effects of bomber deployables and interfere with the tankiness of bombers when the bomber has defensive CDs available.

The problem with the EMP components are:

The utility effects are strong enough for them to stand as pure utility components, but they now have a generous helping of DPS against player targets (some of which is a bug, but even with the bug fixed could be dialed down even more.)

The three sorts of disables are of vastly different power in the current meta against the generic GSF ship. System disables are fairly weak. The ship can still do it's job, just not as quickly and efficiently as normal. Shields disables are modestly dangerous, but really only highly potent against CP builds and Directional builds with their shields in the wrong direction. Engine disables aren't a certain death sentence, but they come close and are always a disaster. This makes balancing the three of them really troublesome when linked together.

It's partly a product of the other meta changes. When all non-cluster missiles sucked horribly, they didn't really get that much better with an engine disable, but now with really good missiles an engine disable is quite potent. At the same time shield disables were greatly weakened when CP minelayer stacking was weakened. The mine/drone clearing on the EMPs is now quite good, and AP has been spread so widely that things that were valued for getting around CP, such as shield disables or the Thermite debuff, are no longer worth very much.

EMP Field and EMP Missile got all the buffs they needed to work in the pre-5.5 meta, but the 5.5 meta has changed enough other things so that not all of the power of the new EMPs is needed in the current meta.

I'd go at adjustments by:

• Harshly nerfing damage done to players by EMP components to less than 100 damage per use. That would be the maximum, really anywhere between 1 and 100 would be fine.
  
• Looking at buffs to Charged Plating. The shield disables should be generally favored by the EMP components if they're targeted at bombers. If nothing else works, I'd even look at making the T5 options for them a choice between system disable and shield disable (even though that's not much of a choice) and just dropping the engine disable from those components.
  
• Another alternative of similar scale would be to make the engine or shield disable target only the current target, though that significantly weakens the EMP components if stacked CP bombers ever make a comeback (stacked bombers being why all the effects were AOE in the first place).
  

Currently the EMPs are specialist utility components that aren't giving up much generic dogfighting power for that utility. The utility is good and needed, so nerfs should be aimed at weakening the dogfighting strength while doing as little damage as possible to the anti-stacking utility.

Remote slicing I think is basically ok as is. It could perhaps even use some buffs, given that its tier 2 and tier 4 upgrade options are all pretty much worthless, and the tier 1 and 3 upgrades just alter the CD and duration of the tier 5 disables. The component as a whole looks like a control/utility component should look. It gives up basically all generic offensive and defensive power in exchange for a very narrow and specific utility, and that utility is quite strong in its specialty. Bordering on too specific perhaps. If the tier 2 and 4 upgrades did something useful that might be a good trade for making the CD on RS a bit longer. RS also very much depends on torpedoes being easy to land. Even very mild nerfs to torp user friendliness would sink RS as a component.

Everyone knows that when game developers buff something they drastically overdo it... and after a while, once the metrics are in, they nerf things up a bit. Hopefully where things like Strike Fighters and EMPs land is still a good place.

I'm probably not experienced enough a flyer to get too indepth in my opinions, but when I realized I was going to be flying again (Begeron Colony; Dogfighter's Graveyard) I dusted off my ships and looked at my components. When I saw all the stuff EMP did for me, I was a firm believer. It's real, real, good now.

...I mean, mostly I just use it when I blow through a Satellite and want to clear the mines. But, it's also a missile break, and who doesn't love those?

In terms of damage, I think I'd like to see about 100 damage, and anything that gets through shields is halved against the hull.

Here's my thoughts:

1. I think the AOE field on EMP Missile and EMP field is needed, and I think its effects are needed. Prior to the update they were rather useless except on one-trick pony builds. The problem is frequency of use. It needs a longer cooldown, IMO, which will also make it easier to dodge with engine abilities.

It may also be possible to change the number of ships it effects, but keep the AOE.

2. Remote Slicing: I really see no problem with this. The only ship that can use it is the Clarion/Imperium, which isn't meta except in Domination. I don't see it being used at all, except by Traesha. It's really not that effective because if you use it then combining it with the missile option where its range is actually effective (EMP Missile) isn't exactly advangageous. Thermite and Proton you're using usually at a 10km range making remote slicing ineffective except in a joust or a pursuit where you have a major acceleration advantage. That requires skill to time and hold a proton lock, use remote slicing, and then release.

Here's my thoughts:

 

1. I think the AOE field on EMP Missile and EMP field is needed, and I think its effects are needed. Prior to the update they were rather useless except on one-trick pony builds. The problem is frequency of use. It needs a longer cooldown, IMO, which will also make it easier to dodge with engine abilities.

 

It may also be possible to change the number of ships it effects, but keep the AOE.

 

2. Remote Slicing: I really see no problem with this. The only ship that can use it is the Clarion/Imperium, which isn't meta except in Domination. I don't see it being used at all, except by Traesha. It's really not that effective because if you use it then combining it with the missile option where its range is actually effective (EMP Missile) isn't exactly advangageous. Thermite and Proton you're using usually at a 10km range making remote slicing ineffective except in a joust or a pursuit where you have a major acceleration advantage. That requires skill to time and hold a proton lock, use remote slicing, and then release.

I've played around with the build a couple of times.

Yes, it requires a bit of skill to lock -> slice. If your target is in the open and missing some engine power, you can slice it and have all day to lock because it can't:

Boost (slicing made most of it disappear)

Use its engine ability (locked out)

Booster recharge -> boost out of it (locked out)

EMP field to break the lock (locked out)

About the only options left are:

Kill the strike before it can fire (requires team support usually, meaning srs match)

DF out of it (buys about a second to get away)

S2E (because slicing can only affect engines or shields) and hope you've got enough power to get out of the strike's missile lock cone and into cover

Tank the hit (reinforced armor strike or bomber and usually hydro spanner/friend with repair probes or drone)

Which reminds me I ought to switch my Clarion to Hydrospanner.

But yeah something needs to be done about EMP missile field, because getting hit by five of them in a meta domination match is really not great.