Let's just take it to the limit, right now. Solve it.

 

Like this?

Like this?

 

Well done

Like this?

 

You made me laugh at work. Also this..

Let's just take it to the limit, right now.

...

Okay. Four S/I Minelayers coming toward each node. Solve it.

 

First let me say that I completely agree with you, Nemarus. But I want to try this puzzle anyway.

 

My first assumption is perfect organization, which nearly never exists.

 

3x fast Scouts (t1, emp, ect) -Barrelroll

3x protorp Strikers (HLC, armor) -Barrelroll

3x ion Gunships -Barrelroll

3x rail drone Bombers

 

launch:

1 each scout, strike, gunship head to each Satellite (Barrelroll for travel). All three Bombers heat to the nearest Sat together.

 

Scouts arrive at Sat, begin Cap.

 

Strikes arrive at Sat, begin Cap. Scout leave Sat to harass incoming Bombers (eventually dies)

 

Gunships arrive at Sat (Yes AT the Sat), holds Cap, shoots Bombers. Strike leave Sat, shoots (missiles) Bombers. Coordination should pop some bombers before they arrive on site at Sat.

 

Bombers arrive at B (not on the new map, but whatevs) Droners drop their loads outside of Sat zone to cover top/bottom and approach.

 

Dead scouts switch to Strikers and wolfpack to pop respawned bombers away from Sats

 

One would hope that B is now ours (doubt it, but dreams are made)

 

Wolfpack keeps respawning bombers respawning. Gun and Srike from B go to weakest of A & C and free it (I ask a lot don't I)

 

Once we 2Cap the original 3 Strikes form a second wolfpack to keep bombers off the Sats.

 

One Gunship stays at the enemies Sat to keep them honest (and an ace/elite such as Aimbot would keep them Very honest/busy)

 

After that? Fog of War, who knows. Would this plan work? I think doubtful. But what do I know?

 

Meh, it was a challenge. I had to try.

 

Next?

I have followed this thread all day and it has been interesting to be sure, but I just haven't seen this problem on TEH, except perhaps rarely. When a domination match comes up I usually pick a nearly mastered type 1 strike. At the beginning of the match I can usally fend off most bomber capping. If I succeed in that and cap the node I can hold it unless heavy reinforcments come. I can do this because fully upgraded ion cannons turn the nodes turrets into teammates. Turrents are quite good at backing you up when the enemy has no shields. Edited April 15, 2014 by dailus

10 mastered gunships, 2 scouts (or the ship with tensor field for the inc to crit, regardless how small). Rush two nodes with your scouts and take them quick. You'll get the initial points at least. A hallow victory at best should you lose the contest, but it's better than getting shut out.

 

Next, fly all 10 GSs to one satellite. Ion cannon's with AOEs and Energy Regens galore. Every hit those ions do (full charged) will clear the mines as well as damage shields. You'll be doing around 10k a shot (assuming there are 4 bombers & your shots are hitting between 1800-2200 for the hits to bombers + mines, which there will be). Once the minelayers have been crippled, you can then switch to slug and, given your awesome ability to LOS, pop them with a few slugs each (with 10 gunships, this should take mere seconds).

 

Now, head to the next node with 9 gunships. Repeat the formula. During this point and time, the bombers will have respawned and come back to your original node (Lord knows wth happened to those 2 scout pilots, but just imagine them flying around). The one GS remaining at the node transforms into Paul Revere "The bombers are coming, the bombers are coming". Hopefully the next sat is cleared so the gunships can come back (thanks BR nerf - effectiveness squashed again). While this chaos is going on, the one GS at the node will fire Ion rails to slow them to a crawl, at which point gives the GSs enough time to recover and prevent the B-squad from dominating.

 

This seems like it works in my mind, but you would prolly need some elite GS pilots, and there aren't many *true* elite GS pilots who still play GS after the nerf

One Gunship stays at the enemies Sat to keep them honest (and an ace/elite such as Aimbot would keep them Very honest/busy)

 

How the hell am I not on that damn thread list yet lol

>burst aoe hull

 

That should really be "pick one".

 

qft, cf ion rail

 

As someone who uses something very similar to the linked minelayer, I say just remove shield piercing entirely from interdiction and seismic.

I see the type 2 battle scout class forums have isolated the next problem: a bomber on a node cannot be trivially soloed with skill laser cannons alone.

 

Oh come on.

The interesting thing is that the complaint is really composed of multiple parts. Part one basically goes, there's a ship that can kill my type 2 scout if I'm too lazy to fly around mines instead of through them. Part two goes, I can't burst down a bomber with BLCs on my type 2 scout, boo hoo, whine, gripe, etc.

 

Actually, it's a balance issue that BLCs are ALSO the best weapon to bring against bombers because armor pen!

What about the part where my favored class gets hard countered the moment a bomber sets up on a node?

 

My favored class gets hard countered the moment a scout closes to within 5km.

My favored class gets hard countered the moment a scout closes to within 5km.

 

Also bull, as I've told you before.

Great. Now all those herp derp fotm idiots on my server are starting to use this build, too.

 

I'm asking myself again, why i still play GSF. It has become a complete joke in the past months and the majority of matches are pure bullsh*t and completely unfun. Maybe, i should finally call it quits. -.-

Also bull, as I've told you before.

 

Not really, post 2.7 gunships are at a loss when something closes with them.

 

But ofc by bioware's balance that's fine since scouts are countered by bombers.

 

R/P/S balance sucks don't it?

Not really, post 2.7 gunships are at a loss when something closes with them.

 

Yeah, exactly. It's bull that they can't really defend themselves.

Great. Now all those herp derp fotm idiots on my server are starting to use this build, too.

 

I'm asking myself again, why i still play GSF. It has become a complete joke in the past months and the majority of matches are pure bullsh*t and completely unfun. Maybe, i should finally call it quits. -.-

 

Adjust your flying patterns and kill those FOTM noobs, simple.

Not really, post 2.7 gunships are at a loss when something closes with them.

 

But ofc by bioware's balance that's fine since scouts are countered by bombers.

 

R/P/S balance sucks don't it?

 

Yup. Jousted maybe 5 back and forths (in one joust) against Tsukoyomi only to need to peel off before he killed me (surprisingly, I didn't take much damage thanks to disto field + R.E.) It's definitely tricky to manage "Do I stay" vs, "I'm blowing him up!" post 2.7. I still thoroughly love my GS, but I'm definitely going to need support against Alex.

Great. Now all those herp derp fotm idiots on my server are starting to use this build, too.

 

I'm asking myself again, why i still play GSF. It has become a complete joke in the past months and the majority of matches are pure bullsh*t and completely unfun. Maybe, i should finally call it quits. -.-

 

I think TDM can still always be fun. Any ship can contribute something there. Bomberballs protecting Gunships can be a bit nasty and frustrating, but are far from invincible.

I think TDM can still always be fun. Any ship can contribute something there. Bomberballs protecting Gunships can be a bit nasty and frustrating, but are far from invincible.

 

Not if there isn't someone to keep you in check. If you're farming newbs, the 5 minute game is just an expedition of arthritus

Adjust your flying patterns and kill those FOTM noobs, simple.

 

"Hey, look! I didn't read this thread but i want to post something."

 

I think TDM can still always be fun. Any ship can contribute something there. Bomberballs protecting Gunships can be a bit nasty and frustrating, but are far from invincible.

 

But the problem here on my server is, you either fly against noobs, which is plain boring (even though, some premades seem to enjoy this), or you fly against premades who play the fotm-bomber-gunship-furball game. There's rarely a balanced match, here.

And our GSF-community is rapidly declining.

So thinking about the solve it, 12 minelayers, it largely comes down to a rolling zerg strategy that makes liberal use of gunship ion aoe spam. Probably at least 4 gunships worth at a minimum. It's complicated a bit by the nodes with cover being fairly inaccessible to railguns and the heavier missile class weapons. So it's not going to be 4 minelayers per node, it's going to be 5 or 6 on 2, and 1 or 2 on the easy to defend one.

 

Anyhow, general strat would be 4+ GS worth of ion rail spam to drain shields and engines. Maybe some EMPs in some form, and just generally a lot of shield piercing and or armor ignore long range weaponry.

 

Possibly hull healing + DR pair or two of dronecarrier and type 3 strikes, to try holding a sat that the zerg has taken.

 

So whole team to clear one sat. Leave 2-4 there to hold and call incomings, remainder of team swarms the other open sat, then tries to hold after it's cleared. Might then split up a bit so reinforcing is a bit easier.

 

Kuat is going to be a really bad map, because the node with good cover is in the middle. Shipyards and Denon are more favorable.

 

The complication, is that if the minelayer team starts switching to other ships, the anti-bomber builds are going to have a drastic reduction in offensive power and in survivability (well, except for the gunships, they'll still do ok, but the strikes, and scouts if any, will be hosed).

 

On interesting thing is that on a dogfighting strike build I used to love the close cover nodes because they mostly neutralized a scout's advantages in speed and range. Now though, one minelayer is enough to turn a node with cover into an exclusion zone for just about every other ship type.

Edited April 15, 2014 by Ramalina

Now though, one minelayer is enough to turn a node with cover into an exclusion zone for just about every other ship type.

 

Exactly.

 

Whereas if the mines didn't ignore shields, then everyone could enter the zone, but the duration they could survive there would vary from class to class and shield component.

 

T1 Scouts would have the hardest time, due to weaker shields. T2 and T3 Scouts could last a little longer due to their Reactor.

 

Strikes, with the highest base shield capacity/regen would last the longest (especially T1 and T3), and would have the best set of weapons for countering individual Bombers. Gunships would fair pretty well also.

 

Bombers of all kinds would still be the best equipped to enter the exclusion zone, due to powerful shield components (even though base shields are low), hull and armor. But without being able to drop hull-damage mines, Minelayers couldn't instantly destroy all drones, nor could they put an ultimatum on Strikes and Gunships saying, "Leave the node or die within 15 seconds" like they can now.

Edited April 15, 2014 by Nemarus

While I do agree that bombers are really good at holding satelites, I dont see the reason to cry.

 

Their mines hurt? Indeed. But if you would moan "I'm going straight to gs and he railshots me instantly" nobody would tell that there is a problem with gunships, they would tell you to change tactics. Same goes for bombers. If you want to kill them you send your own bomber. Or gunship to tap all their mines. Or even to go under satelite and hit bombers before they even know from where are they hit. Not scout. And crying how "scout cant kill bombers" isn't going to help you in the long run. Yes, under satelite bombers are kings, but guess what? After you kill him once, he needs to come back and then he is big fat soft target for scout.

 

Solution? Fly all ships. Have 5 ships ready for any scenario. I'm flying mostly 2 new ships now but I have always equiped mine bomber, type one gs and type 2 scout. So i'm ready for anything, esp if enemy team is really good (which rarely is but that is different story). And if I see opposition team full of bombers I'm not gonna take Sting/FF, fly in, take 2 mines and "f*** this, I'm done".

While I do agree that bombers are really good at holding satelites, I dont see the reason to cry.

 

All of your suggestions have been discussed so far. None of them are valid.

Whatever the new patch did about hiding mines in asteroids, I ran into plenty of bombers hiding in a corner of a satellite so their heavy lasers are pointing out and they still toss out mines every 20 seconds with impunity. I think there are counters to bombers and that it really does help to target these guys as they're incoming, but you don't always have the choice. And with the slight changes to gunships, it's clear the new fotm is even more bomber heavy than it was before.

 

I'm already of the position that ships should lose some kind of defensive capability by coming to a full stop... this dogfighting game somehow makes it so you can do well by becoming a turret. It's mystifying, to be honest. I love that STO has a defense rating that goes down and disappears if you go full stop, and I would honestly like something similar here. Even halving defense would be nice if you come to a full stop... I don't know if that would need some balancing with gunships since they're supposed to stand still while firing, but it would be nice to have some penalty even there (nothing like missing 3 shots with your centered and maxxed out heavy lasers because the gunship that is sitting still hit distortion field).