snip

Well see the thing with BLC is at the baseline level they are not actually that strong. A close range BLC hit with increased shield damage that doesn't crit against a shielded target tops out at 900-1k. Which is pretty hefty however you have to remember BLC also has a very low RoF and again <500m.

A target caught unawares by that could still easily have time to respond, evade, and counter. Where BLC begin to get excessive is when you start throwing in crits which can go upwards of 1500, crits are what allow targets to be killed before they can evade. Crits are also what makes BLC so potent with TT compared to other weapons because TT takes BLC's already large crits and makes them even more insane. That's also why CF is extremely potent with BLC as well.

As for TT and quad'n'pods, the simple solution would be to make TT not effect secondaries,

Perhaps rather than doing sweeping damage nerfs to BLC, would be to first remove the passive crit chance inherent in BLC, and then more importantly cut down the base crit multiplier for BLC. So instead of BLC having base 50% crit multiplier it would have say a 20% multiplier. That way even if your stacking crit cooldowns you won't be able to reach the crazy burst numbers.

There are a few other things that could be looked at such as armor pen. I wouldn't remove the armor pen entirely from BLC but BLC should not exceed 50% armor pen imo.

Now Blaster Overcharge is a whole different beast. I would argue that BO is by itself overpowered and needs a direct nerf. (I've done 90k damage/20 kills with BO and RFL)

The premise for my reasoning is that BLC are not by themselves overpowered, what makes scouts overpowered is that BLC/quad'n'pods+ OCD allow the scout to kill a target before the target is humanly able to react. After all when you are aware you are fighting against a BLC scout it is not that hard to defend against, keeping the scout from attaining a clear shot at <500m is easy to do even in a strike. However if you die before you realize the scout is there, that is where the unbalance begins.

As for nerfing the cattlescout's defensive capability, lets balance the burst build first and then see where the cattlescouts stands before anything drastic is done.

Wow! You know the drill. XD

No sh*t its insansely good with offensive cooldowns, me and several other posters have already stated that the issue with cattlescout's potency is directly linked to the available offensive cooldowns, not with the primaries themselves. Congrats?

 

 

No sh*t again. Congrats again, then!

 

 

Ok lesion on shooting since you really don't have a clue. When tracking a moving target, it becomes more difficult to hit the closer the target is, because you have to turn faster in order to track smaller movements. At longer ranges such a 5k a target that moves around 1k laterally, is about a inch movement across my screen, at <500m a 1k movement puts the target completely off of my screen. The reaction time required to track an opponent who is trying to evade or hell moving at all isn't humanly possible at <500m. The only time targets are hit at <500m are on very lucky shots or on extremely slow targets like bombers, stationary and oblivious gunships, and targets flying in a straight line.

 

So you want to make them even worse? Look, if I can do it, it can't be THAT difficult.

 

 

ok so you want to make it so a weapon that is only effective at close ranges, unable to hit things at close ranges. Right now it has the highest accuracy of anything >500m available to the cattlescout. It also has a potentially huge tracking pattern. If I nick someone with a side-blast from those BLCs, it counts for full damage. That wouldn't be the case with an actual shotgun-style blaster if it follows a combat shotgun's blueprint. If the engine can't handle a scaling blast cone, it stands to reason to dial down close-range accuracy a smidge (which can be gained back with TT, might I add - try other components sometime! They're interesting!)GENIUS I try to impress. Anything further? This was fun! -bp

Wow! You know the drill. XD

For the love of god, is separating a quote into blocks to damn hard for people?

Right now it has the highest accuracy of anything >500m available to the cattlescout.

wat

BLC at <500m is 123% accuracy, at 500m to 3000m it has 93% accuracy and at 3000 to 4000m it has a staggering 78% accuracy.

Every single primary weapon in the game has better accuracy than BLC at ranges >500m, the only exception is RFL and that's only for 500m to 3000m.

It also has a potentially huge tracking pattern. If I nick someone with a side-blast from those BLCs, it counts for full damage. That wouldn't be the case with an actual shotgun-style blaster if it follows a combat shotgun's blueprint. If the engine can't handle a scaling blast cone, it stands to reason to dial down close-range accuracy a smidge

Again WTH are you talking about. Every weapon in the game counts as a full hit no matter if its a graze or not. I will also point out the extreme accuracy is the only way you can hit anything at close ranges because of the weird tracking penalty behaviors that occur at extreme close range.

Again WTH are you talking about. Every weapon in the game counts as a full hit no matter if its a graze or not. I will also point out the extreme accuracy is the only way you can hit anything at close ranges because of the weird tracking penalty behaviors that occur at extreme close range.

What he wants to say -I believe- is that an actual shotgun in a game shouldn't be single target with accuracy checks. It should be an AoE with diminished damage according to both range and how much of centered the target his (the grazing thing).

Personally, I think we can't make an actual shotgun in this game. However I think we can make a kind of one, but it would need some limitations that BLC has not. I think that if shotguns should be in the game, it should be a weapon category with its own limitations and tactics, not a cannon with approximately similar damage capacity.

It's true that BLC upgrades are too strong, there's not even an upgrade that is not really offensive, and the higher crit chances are a direct consequence... But IMO, cannons should be cannons. They all should similar, only differentiating with range, and whether its better centered or off-centered.

BLC here is too particular in my opinion. It has its own conditions and counters clearly different from other cannons.

The conditions aren't that hard, and since the way to counter is different (not turning but maintaining respectable distance when possible), how to say it... The level of reactivity and "cleverness" needed to counteract are not at a regular level, even without systems abilities, and result in take your much bigger damage or die... Well, it's stepping in the world of "potentially OP" on its own, when just accounting its damage profile.

I think the simplest solution that would take care of both offensive (not directly) and defensive (directly) problems on a cattlescout would be to add something that reduces defensive capabalities to BO and TT. Something like -50% shield power pool or -50% evasion. Lore description for that could be "Ship cannons are drawing more power than usual resulting in reduced shield power pool".

Goal: let them have the offensive power, but if someone looks at them funny while they're using it... bubye cattlescout. I believe that would make them think much better when they're going to use those CDs.

I think the simplest solution that would take care of both offensive (not directly) and defensive (directly) problems on a cattlescout would be to add something that reduces defensive capabalities to BO and TT. Something like -50% shield power pool or -50% evasion. Lore description for that could be "Ship cannons are drawing more power than usual resulting in reduced shield power pool".

 

Goal: let them have the offensive power, but if someone looks at them funny while they're using it... bubye cattlescout. I believe that would make them think much better when they're going to use those CDs.

The purpose of a system ability is to have a "plus" when using it. Adding such a drawback so that it's neutral completely defeats the initial purpose.

I think it's a terrible idea.

 

The purpose of a system ability is to have a "plus" when using it. Adding such a drawback so that it's neutral completely defeats the initial purpose.

It is a plus, such a huge plus that requires a minus or we end up with a discussion like this 1 (and many more across the board). I think a change like this would cause players to actually plan and think about the usage of those abilities instead of just "oh look, enemy player... pop CD -> pew pew -> move on like nothing happened"

What he wants to say -I believe- is that an actual shotgun in a game shouldn't be single target with accuracy checks. It should be an AoE with diminished damage according to both range and how much of centered the target his (the grazing thing).

I wish people would stop putting any stock into what the game descriptions read. The BLC description was probably written by the exact same person that decided to call scouts "scouts" despite the fact that out of all three sub-types not one of they actually behaves as a scout, and probably the same guy that decided to cast the strike as the best dogfighter in the game. The written descriptions are only there to create lore continuity and have literally no bearing on how the components are designed.

I wish people would stop putting any stock into what the game descriptions read. The BLC description was probably written by the exact same person that decided to call scouts "scouts" despite the fact that out of all three sub-types not one of they actually behaves as a scout, and probably the same guy that decided to cast the strike as the best dogfighter in the game. The written descriptions are only there to create lore continuity and have literally no bearing on how the components are designed.

False. The BLC is very clearly supposed to be GSF's statistical approximation of an FPS shotgun.

The burst laser cannon is clearly supposed to be shotgun like, yes.

Also I dispute that "lore continuity" means nothing. Railguns have long range, scouts have really good maneuvering, and strike fighters have access to weapons with longer ranges. They clearly were informed by "lore" when designing. Where things got hairy is development, and in that phase they introduced some troubling balance issues that we still see today.

Many of the posts in this thread are really not useful. We have worthless crap such as "remove burst laser cannon" and calls to delete the cattlescout.

Which is a shame, because the OP has solid ideas. I agree with him that the core issue is the burst abilities, and I will DISAGREE with the common assumption that Targeting Telemetry is not causing issues on the type 1 scout. It's certainly true that most type 1 scouts are terrible, as a result of it being one of the two ships that twoshippers ship with, but a variant on the quads and pods build of the type 2 scout is still capable of subsecond kills- lasers (or LLC if you are crazy) plus pods plus TT plus concentrated fire is still enough damage to warrant consideration of the power of these abilities.

I would prefer to see these abilities designed to be a bit more interesting than just "click to kill" anyway. The idea where BO needs to be pooled to work is fine, but I'd go the otherway- make it very good at letting you hold down the button but without as much of a benefit to the shots. The 33% haste, 8% crit, and 10% damage all stack together multiplicatively- your blaster damage goes up by over 50% during this, and if you run CF it's like almost an 80% increase in blaster damage. TT is less of a boost BUT also applies to pod hits and crits and is very very fatal as well.

What if these numbers were just... smaller? You could compensate in other ways to keep systems interesting, but I just think that the whole power of this button is too great.

Wow, you really ARE upset about this! Let's keep this trainwreck going, shall we?

For the love of god, is separating a quote into blocks to damn hard for people? "Too". And at this point, I'm just replying in this format to further agitate you! Besides,

.

 

 

wat

BLC at <500m is 123% accuracy, at 500m to 3000m it has 93% accuracy and at 3000 to 4000m it has a staggering 78% accuracy.

Every single primary weapon in the game has better accuracy than BLC at ranges >500m, the only exception is RFL and that's only for 500m to 3000m. Reading comprehension, my friend. Reading comprehension. At 115% base, BLC is the most accurate at close range by 5%.

 

 

 

Again WTH are you talking about. Every weapon in the game counts as a full hit no matter if its a graze or not. I will also point out the extreme accuracy is the only way you can hit anything at close ranges because of the weird tracking penalty behaviors that occur at extreme close range.Cite them. What do you believe is happening? Perhaps a profound lack of understanding is the cause of your pain? -bp

I will DISAGREE with the common assumption that Targeting Telemetry is not causing issues on the type 1 scout. It's certainly true that most type 1 scouts are terrible, as a result of it being one of the two ships that twoshippers ship with, but a variant on the quads and pods build of the type 2 scout is still capable of subsecond kills- lasers (or LLC if you are crazy) plus pods plus TT plus concentrated fire is still enough damage to warrant consideration of the power of these abilities.

I accept this hypothesis as plausible.

Many of the posts in this thread are really not useful. We have worthless crap such as "remove burst laser cannon" and calls to delete the cattlescout.

 

I agree with him that the core issue is the burst abilities, and I will DISAGREE with the common assumption that Targeting Telemetry is not causing issues on the type 1 scout. It's certainly true that most type 1 scouts are terrible, as a result of it being one of the two ships that twoshippers ship with, but a variant on the quads and pods build of the type 2 scout is still capable of subsecond kills- lasers (or LLC if you are crazy) plus pods plus TT plus concentrated fire is still enough damage to warrant consideration of the power of these abilities.

I can accept this theory.

But, do you disagree that the weapon supposedly asked to be removed (BLC) is too much currently ?

Depending on your opinion :

1 - In the case you're agreeing, wouldn't it be better to first consider the cannon that is especially too good compared to other and then see if the premise still stands after putting it in line with others ?

2 - In the case you're disagreeing, don't you fear that, even if reduced to account QLC and LLC with pods, the burst system abilities will still make BLC too bursty, since you agree that burst is the core of the problem ?

Which is a shame, because the OP has solid ideas. I agree with him that the core issue is the burst abilities, and I will DISAGREE with the common assumption that Targeting Telemetry is not causing issues on the type 1 scout. It's certainly true that most type 1 scouts are terrible, as a result of it being one of the two ships that twoshippers ship with, but a variant on the quads and pods build of the type 2 scout is still capable of subsecond kills- lasers (or LLC if you are crazy) plus pods plus TT plus concentrated fire is still enough damage to warrant consideration of the power of these abilities.

Do I look that way. Rather, it is such that Blackbolt by the Engine Power Converter has more mobility and is faster and more often at the opponent.

I fly my Blackbolt with lasers, pods, TT and CF and make significantly more kills than with my Sting with almost the same setting. (Quads instead of lasers)

Even Sting with burst laser and cluster is clearly inferior.

The problem is the combination of TT and CF, I think, and as more CF than TT.