Just noticed the default scout hull went up to 1050 (originally 950).

At first I thought that would make hydrospanner a default choice on scout since the hydro tick would counter proton tick BUT I just got hit by a proton while hydrospanner was on cooldown and I didn't die. I had a red flaming hull but it wasn't even the rarely seen BLACK/ZERO hull. So that might mean our predicted math of 1050 per proton is incorrect, or maybe the proton damage is somehow rounded down to 1049.

Anyway I think this is a great change and I'm glad that the devs seem to be listening to the legit complaints.

Also the new map is really cool! It seems like there are a lot of LoS opportunities and I don't think gunships will rule that map as much as Lost Gunshipyards.

Just noticed the default scout hull went up to 1050 (originally 950).

 

At first I thought that would make hydrospanner a default choice on scout since the hydro tick would counter proton tick BUT I just got hit by a proton while hydrospanner was on cooldown and I didn't die. I had a red flaming hull but it wasn't even the rarely seen BLACK/ZERO hull. So that might mean our predicted math of 1050 per proton is incorrect, or maybe the proton damage is somehow rounded down to 1049.

 

Anyway I think this is a great change and I'm glad that the devs seem to be listening to the legit complaints.

 

Also the new map is really cool! It seems like there are a lot of LoS opportunities and I don't think gunships will rule that map as much as Lost Gunshipyards.

Great catch on the Scout buff.

If you were bright red but not Black hull I'd say what likely happened is that you were at full 1050, and got him by an unupgraded Proton for 1000 damage, leaving you with 50 health remaining.

That's what I was thinking, but I thought the flaming red hull happens when you are at less than 5% hull? If I was hit by 1000 damage proton I would be at or slightly above 5% hull? I guess another possibility is that I wasn't at exactly 100% hull before the upgraded proton hit me. My hull was green, but recently I've noticed that the color indicators are really vague. With my Clarion I've been popping hydrospanner at lot with a green hull (after being hit with EMP field).

Kinda a moot point now but popping hydrospanner on a 950 hull scout just prior to being hit by a proton would actually keep you alive pre 5.6. Hydro DoT is 308 over 6 seconds which should be 51.3 heals/second (rounded to 51?) and proton is 210 damage over 4 seconds which should be 52.5 damage/second (rounded to 53?)

So if t=0 is when the upgraded proton (840 damage) lands -- scout hull (950) became 110

t=1 second; scout hull is 110-53 proton DoT +51 hydro DoT= 108 hull

t=2 second; scout hull is 108-53 proton + 51 hydro = 106 hull

t=3 second; scout hull is 106-53 proton + 51 hydro = 104 hull

t=4 second; scout hull is 144-53 proton + 51 hydro = 102 hull

t=5 second; scout hull is 102 + 51 hydro = 153 hull

t=6 second; scout hull is 153 + 51 hydro = 204 hull

First, we should at some point test an upgraded proton on a scout to see what happens. We may need a couple tests to get a non-crit case.

If the scout dies, then the 1050 damage from the proton is killing the 1050 hit point scout, which makes sense.

If the scout lives with a very dark hull, then we are seeing floating point shenanigans. 1.05 is rendered as 1.0499999523162841796875 in 32 bit IEEE floating point, so maybe possibly we are seeing scouts surviving with .0001220703125 hit points.

Though kinda silly, that could be intended? I'd assume not, but hey, who knows.

Kinda a moot point now but popping hydrospanner on a 950 hull scout just prior to being hit by a proton would actually keep you alive pre 5.6.

I believe any time before the second tick was fine, and I think the first tick was happening immediately.

That's what I was thinking, but I thought the flaming red hull happens when you are at less than 5% hull? If I was hit by 1000 damage proton I would be at or slightly above 5% hull? I guess another possibility is that I wasn't at exactly 100% hull before the upgraded proton hit me. My hull was green, but recently I've noticed that the color indicators are really vague. With my Clarion I've been popping hydrospanner at lot with a green hull (after being hit with EMP field).

So the other possibily and this one is way more remote is that you got hit by a Proton that had the Crit chance upgrade but not the Damage upgrade and 1 or more of the Ticks on the dot crit you leaving you with even less health but still not enough to kill you.

So the other possibily and this one is way more remote is that you got hit by a Proton that had the Crit chance upgrade but not the Damage upgrade and 1 or more of the Ticks on the dot crit you leaving you with even less health but still not enough to kill you.

Ah yea that makes sense, that's probably it.

I think I just noticed another ninja buff. Slug railgun accuracy appears to have been adjusted. I'm getting 118.5-113.5-108.5 at min-med-max range now. It was never a fraction before...

According to 5.5 patch notes:

Slug Railgun:

Base accuracy increased by 5% at medium and long range to 110.0-105.0-100.0 (up from 110.0-100.0-95.0)

With pinpointing that should become 116.0-111.0-106.0. Did we get a 2.5% accuracy buff to slugs?

At first glance it looks like slugs are more accurate than ion now. But I think due to lag it's impossible to perfectly center a shot, so that means the tracking upgrade on plasma and ion is worth another 5% accuracy over slug. Realistically then, slug is 5% lower accuracy than advertised. Still, the realistic accuracy of slug is really close to ion railgun.

Slug:

Actual: 118.5-113.5-108.5

Realistic: 113.5-108.5-103.5

Ion:

119-109-104

Plasma:

124-114-109

I always appreciate every % of accuracy I can get, I wonder why no note of this was made. It's a change to a very substantial and meaningful meta component

Yeah I agree, I think these two undocumented buffs are huge.

Solo queuing with a scout in TDM still doesn't feel as strong at using T1 strike, but I like how T2 scout doesn't feel fragile while fighting on a node. Gunships now sometimes feel strong enough to field in solo Q TDM.

It would be really good for patch notes to include serious balance changes. The slug one at least is reasonably minor, but still impactful, but the scout one is a pretty big deal.

In the space of medium to long range, slug has a base accuracy 7.5% higher than ion now, but ion has 3-8% extra accuracy (many shots gaining the full 8%) from accuracy and tracking. In the space from short to medium range, this bonus is further reduced.

I actually wonder if the slug buff is to partially compensate for the scout hull buff? I can only speculate.

Either way, interesting.

I actually wonder if the slug buff is to partially compensate for the scout hull buff? I can only speculate.

Seems unlikely. Accuracy is a very binary stat in terms of effects of hit/miss. If it were aimed at compensating for a higher raw health then adding higher raw damage would be more logical.

I'd be more inclined to go with making T3 GS use a bit more viable for pilots lower on the railgun user skill curve. The ship got a lot more difficult to fly as a viable option with 5.5.

These seem like QoL/feel changes as much as anything. Not making big waves or changing rankings in terms of relative power in the meta, but maybe giving ships that were just barely clinging to their places in the hands of aces a bit more breathing room to work for pilots that aren't quite to that level yet.

The only recent change I dislike is the slug accuracy buff. They didn't need it, it makes gunship stacking trivial once again and I'd argue that slugs are better than ever now. You don't even need WM as bad as you did before.

Other than that, it's good.

Personally speaking I think the changes are good. Not everyone can fly a strike or scout, so having the GS as a viable option again is a lifesaver - for me at least. It still takes 3-4 hits to take out other ships and a decent pilot is out of the area before they're fully dead. It isn't like before where a GS could take out a scout or strike with one Ion and one Slug, or a Slug then Plasma hit. Plus the GS is still at a disadvantage as once you've taken the shot they'll be on you quickly and an EMP/Proton combo kills you - even in a fully upgraded GS.

IMO it just makes all ships viable to play again and almost every match I've been in has been mostly Strikes with one GS and Bomber. It's nowhere close to where it had been with bomber stacks and GS hiding behind them - and if that does happen, the other team just runs a few scouts with the EMP field and they learn fast that tactic isn't going to work any longer.

Yea I think Greetz is right. I was in one of the games he is referring to here. It was a Iotkath TDM game with myself and Choque against Greetz (Closeshave) and Ianir. They were winning by about 35-20ish until myself and Choque swapped to T1 GS. I think some of our pugs switched to gunship as well and we ended up winning the game.

Gunships already felt OP in Lost shipyards TDM prior to the ninja slug railgun buff, but now they feel OP in Iokath too. They seem ok in Kuat Mesas. You really do need to stack a few of them to get the full effect though. They can still be really tricky to fly when solo queuing.

In TDM, we're back to the old meta. I've seen teams pull back from over ten points deficit by swapping to gunships. An ion/slug combo will kill most strikes (or bring them close enough to death that it doesn't matter), except specific builds. Also, the issue isn't a single gunship against a single strike, it's that gunships once again stack too well. 4 GS will decimate 4 strikes.

True, but I still see most of the matches using Strikes or even some Scouts to counter-balance. Today in fact I was harassed by no less than 4 Strikes and a Scout in both a Dom and TDM. Needless to say, I didn't last very long. After those matches I switched characters in the hope that I could fly and not be singled out so easily. It lasted for 5 minutes into the next match when the Strikes decided I had to go and swarmed me again. Unfortunately the Strikes I had backing me up were too far away to keep me alive, but did retaliate on my behalf, so those that did me wrong, didn't last long either.

Gunships already felt OP in Lost shipyards TDM prior to the ninja slug railgun buff, but now they feel OP in Iokath too. They seem ok in Kuat Mesas. You really do need to stack a few of them to get the full effect though. They can still be really tricky to fly when solo queuing.

The changes to Slug never really dented their power much, it mostly reduced ease of use. So if you undo some of that by giving back more accuracy then Slug ends up not really nerfed with respect to pre-5.5 balance. That includes stacking really well with large numbers of ships.

I kind of wonder if some of this is a matter of Plasma Railgun being pretty hard hit with the cooldown changes that pretty much killed DOT stacking. During the brief window of DOT stacking Plasma had a really solid place in the meta, and it was a bit stronger against evasion builds than the other railguns and a bit weaker against shields and damage reduction. I haven't been playing gunships much lately, but if the fire I'm receiving is anything to go by most pilots are feeling that Plasma is once again not worth the bother. I'm not sure that Slug-Ion is really any weaker against evasion targets than Plasma-Ion, and it's sure a lot stronger than Plasma-Ion at everything that's not evasion.

So I think there's some natural push toward Slug-Ion to deal with strikes now having a place in the meta and bombers making a bit of a recovery with EMP tuning, but I'm also thinking that any countervailing push to run Plasma-Ion has sort of been squelched by the Plasma CD increase.

I'm not sure I object that much to the current state of Slug though. It's not an entirely bad thing if you don't have to be an expert level GS pilot to get good use out of it. If it's staying though, the ecosystem as a whole does need adequate deterrence to just parking a batch of gunships on top of a pair of bombers all match every match. It's a bit of a delicate balance to get that dialed in perfectly.

True, but I still see most of the matches using Strikes or even some Scouts to counter-balance. Today in fact I was harassed by no less than 4 Strikes and a Scout in both a Dom and TDM. Needless to say, I didn't last very long. After those matches I switched characters in the hope that I could fly and not be singled out so easily. It lasted for 5 minutes into the next match when the Strikes decided I had to go and swarmed me again. Unfortunately the Strikes I had backing me up were too far away to keep me alive, but did retaliate on my behalf, so those that did me wrong, didn't last long either.

That's player preference. You'd see some players stick to strikes even before the changes, and they were definitely more inferior back then. Ask yourself this -- were these 4 strikes + 1 scout in 5 GS, would you have survived for a longer time? Or a shorter time?

The slug accuracy buff is unwarranted. The whole point of reducing the accuracy + tracking in the first place was making it less effective against evasive targets, no? So we went from 104% accuracy at max range and centered to 108.5%. At deflection you now lose only 0.5% accuracy compared to pre-patch... and in return you gained 6% hull damage. Slugs are better than ever for good players, and to me they seem to be better even for mediocre players who don't understand tracking.

I dislike this change, as it means that any matchups between even and skilled teams will invariably end up as gunship walls. There's no way around that.

I definitely feel like flying a Strike feels better than it did.

...at the same time, I totally understand complaints of missile spam. Sometimes, flying scout or strike, I'll spend more time trying to LOS or ability-break missile locks than actually finding and attacking targets. Especially with a Scout, where there's not a lot of tolerance (I can take one hit, and maybe some blaster fire, before I'm dead, unless I"m unlucky). And that can be a super frustrating way to fly... and as a solo player, I'm not really filling a niche.

If I'm getting frustrated, a Gunship seems to be my go-to. I've got better range, and I hit real hard... I'm probably going to wreck some sucker's ride before I get missile mobbed.

I found claims that gunships died after 5.5 exaggerated as do I find claims that we are back to the old meta after 5.6.1 exaggerated.

To get the same number of Kills and assist I need about three times as much damage on a gunship than I do on a Protorp equiped strike fighter. I blame the shield piercing of the Protorp for that, because with the gunship I have to break through the shield by dealing damage, which give them the chance to regenerate the shield when they are able to break LOS, while I don't have to do that on a Protorp equiped strike.

Both ships have advantages and disadvantages something we couldn't say before 5.5.

The only small complain I have about that is that the Protorp created "Hull-Meta" even further reduced the TTK. While many including myself like the fast paced style of GSF it can't be denied that an even lower TTK is even more punishing for new players still learning the game. If we could get the new balance with the old TTK I wouldn't complain about that.