Let's talk about Strike Fighters

Howdy Flygirls and Flyboys!

I’ll be blunt. Strike Fighters need lots of love. The original design is that they are the Jack-of-All and Master-of-None but they have filled out this role too well and because of it are rarely a compelling option. We want to talk about how Strike Fighters can be made into a good option to bring in any match, by any skill level. We have some ideas of what we want to do with them but because this community is always very impressive with communication and feedback we want to get your thoughts on what you think is the best course of action. We know there are some fantastic threads and posts aplenty that already covered this information but we want to consolidate and create a focused discussion.

We want to set expectations though. This is just about gathering feedback and creating a focused discussion on which to possibly make changes based off of. Just a heads up and Musco made me say it

So! What are your pet peeves about Strike Fighters? If you could only pick one section to buff would you choose to improve their Maneuverability, Secondary Weapons, Primary Weapons or Defense? Or something different? What would make them more effective in both game modes?

Looking forward to hearing everyone’s thoughts!

One of the issues is that at long distances Strike Fighters are destroyed by Gunships and at short distances Strike Fighters are out-turned and obliterated by Scouts. What you may have to look into is maneuverability increases or the ability to survive the Gunship ion spam.

Just to throw something out there, why not give a buff to ion defense for Strike Fighters. They still won't be as maneuverable as Scouts but they will have some added defense to be able to close the gap on Gunships. This could be added to the major component category of Shields, or just make it an inherent bonus to the class.

Oh... and I am glad to see interest from the Devs in our community again.

EDIT: Hmmm in my thought process of writing this post, I guess I thought that the 'strike fighter' mentioned in this post meant GSF as a whole, rather than what looks to be as in the class itself... OPPS! I'll leave my original post as is though, if it's worth anything

As for the strike fighter class, last time I played them they felt fine, but still felt outclassed by the Bomber class.
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I haven't played GSF in a while. Mostly due to interest woes and balance issues.

Because I haven't played in a while, my information could be incorrect, so I apologize.

When GSF first launched, I got really into playing the scout class, and was doing fairly good with it. I had prior commitments with regular pvp though, so I'd not be able to play it all the time. With that being said, and its waning popularity, when I got back into GSF after a major update and addition, and nerf to the scout class, it didn't have the same appeal to me.

The new update brought the new Bomber class, and it was pretty much that if you weren't playing this class, you shouldn't be playing at all.

My appeal for playing the scout class, was its speed over fire power, and I don't think I was getting that. I mean, perhaps I'm not the best player to make those calls, since I'm not the best flight sim player, but I figure I'd be alright. I suppose, if anything, I'd like to have a much longer boost to speed, even if it means at the cost of damage. And make a bigger usage of the rockets that have no lock on to encourage the use of that weapon as it is high risk to use (misses often) but can be devastating on hit.

My other bigger pet peeve would have to be the lock on system, which I think gets affected by latency. Someone will be in pursuit of me, and I get the lock on warning, I'll boost away or use LoS, but it seems like more often than not, I'll still get caught by the missile - can't outrun it or anything. That was always a bit frustrating.

Anywho, sorry for being a bit vague, it's been a while since I've played it.

I am really glad you guys are communicating on this and it feels amazing to see you guys here.

So to answer your questions I am going to hit them one at a time.


1. What are your pet peeves about Strike Fighters? Kill times are SO SLOW, every other ship has so many ways to avoid our burst its not even funny.

2.If you could only pick one section to buff would you choose to improve their Maneuverability, Secondary Weapons, Primary Weapons or Defense? Secondaries, not only would it help the strikes, but it would help the poor unfortunate ships like the T3 scout,the T2 Gunship, and the T3 Bomber that share some of these missile problems The missiles have the range for strike maneuvering to be good, they have the damage to make good burst, they just need to reliably hit targets like Scouts and Gunships, and if they CANT reliably hit them, they need to reliably hit Bombers with enough pain to warant bringing the strike. If I had to pick a number 2, it would be maneuverability. Short range weapons like Ion Laser canon and cluster missiles are good, if you can get in range to USE them, with out the engine efficiency its kind of hard to do that. If I had to pick a 3rd it would be defenses, better quick charge shield that doesnt feel like I am wearing a paper towel would mean I would have a way around the Poor maneuverability by taking that shield . Finally Primaries, they have good primary options but as most know, Lights and Rapids are particularly weak close range weapons, though that isnt a strike only problem even though 1 or both are on every strike.

3. Or something different? For now I am going to leave this to other people

4. What would make them more effective in both game modes? I honestly believe they just need an offensive punch to get them their, they are pretty beefy and do all right for sitting on a node and trying not to die for a few moments, but they cant pressure on that node, and in TDM they just kill WAY to slowly at any range for them to be effective against the burst damage the other meta ships can do right now.

The best ships in the meta right now have 1 thing in common. "threat range" IE how much area is threatened by their presence. A gunship doesnt need to move to threaten people with in 15km. A scout has enough engine efficiency and speed to allow its short range to not be a deterent for its threat range as it can close those gaps quickly enough to threaten a fairly large area. Finally the bomber is all about Area denial, its threat range isnt as large but its still very good at threatening those that come into its area.

Strikes would need something to increase their "threat range" be that increased maneuverability, or making those longer range missiles actually reliable.

Make progression faction wide, if you have more than one alt on imp or rep side you have to choose which one will be GSF, or level all of them. Share progression and you might get more people.

The main reasons I quit playing GSF mainly have to do with the UI before going into a match and the incredibly uneven teams, but I do remember trying out a few different ships when I did play.

The strike fighter is basically outclassed by all other ships because it's not good at anything. Sometimes something can be the best of both worlds, sometimes it's neither. In this case all other ships can either outmanoeuver or outgun the strike fighter as mentioned above already.

Some things that might make strike fighters interesting is having a ton of fire power on shorter range but enough to kill quickly and the ability to soak up a lot of damage, albeit for a short time to have a chance to survive bombs and long range shots. This would make the strike fighter dangerous to get close to or to allow them to get close to you.

Just some ideas but for me that's what would make a strike fighter better cause in the current status you can easily kill them before they have a chance or as a scout you can get away from them or kite them and slowly kill them just the same. The strike fighter needs to have something that makes it dangerous, not invincible but dangerous enough for people to worry about.

Basically, well, everything.

The problem "IS" that it's a jack of all trades master of none in a game where specialization is king.

What would help is an all around boost to: speed, maneuverability, shields and hit points (keep damage as is if you're boosting the rest).

Not a huge buff mind you, but enough to make them viable.

They should be only a step behind in maneuverability and speed if built for such against scouts (rather then limp way behind) and be much sturdier if built for long range combat.

But if we are talking a single place to buff: defenses, it's what makes them fit somewhere between Bombers and scouts, their ability to take a hit and keep going is their saving grace and I would go as far as say their calling card.

On the subject of defenses, keep in mind that armor is not viable for them, nor is dodge and shields can be bypassed so increasing hit points is my suggestion.

Hey Alex, I'm really glad to see a dev asking these questions. I'm a die hard strike pilot, always will be (hey I'm an X-wing fanboy. )

but boy is it dischouraging to be in my starguard a lot of the time. and I'd never even wanna touch the pike. right now missiles are just not so hot, and really they're one of the big things about strikes. honestly any attempt to address strike fighters is gonna need to address missiles. of which can be summed up as "they're harder to get a lock on with, and deal less damage at less range then rail guns." not sure how you'd address em without making em stupid OP or highly irritating though.

moving away from that there are a few other issues strike fighters have. I think what they need is a boost to speed and durability. not manuverability but SPEED. the gap between scouts and strikes in this regard is too great. ideally if I was redesinging GSF I'd give strikes a greater afterburn endurance, and give scouts better manuverability.

forcing people to choose a dogfighter or an energy fighter

Finally!

Way I see it, the type of ship classes are broken down like this:

Scouts: Maneuverability and Speed. They are meant to cap satellites fast and be the first to spot the enemy. Their light armor is balanced by it's firepower in close quarters and its ability to be difficult to shoot down.

Gunships: Range and Tactical. With its powerful cannon types, it can pick off enemies from afar as it guards a location or disable a ship for their allies to take out. It's like a moderate glass cannon, but with a bit more armor than the scout. Great when the enemy is hundreds of meters away, not so great in a dogfight.

Bombers: Defense and Support. When a bomber starts fortifying a satellite or an area, that's a clear sign that you either take it down before it can finish setting up its mines and turrets or get the heck out of there. Personally, I think it's a bit OP, since the mines and turrets stay spawned even after we vape the bomber. Now, I don't know if you guys have changed that since last I played GSF, but if it still is that way, you might want to make where all mines and turrets spawned by the bomber are automatically destroyed upon the ships destruction or a shortened spawn period. You literally need a third of your squadron to take out all the mines from a afar and focus fire on the bomber. It's difficult to take out a bomber in a dogfight, since it can deploy turrets or mines to blow us up. I'm sure many would agree that Bombers are the heart of the problem in terms of balanced game play in GSF.

Strikers: Balanced all around. Honestly, when I play on my striker on the Republic side, I think of it as an X-Wing. Meaning good shields, good armor, and impressive maneuverability (but not as good as an A-wing). Problem here is exactly what you said-- it's too well rounded. When I think of Strikers as a ratio of what ships players use in the squadron, I think of it as being close to a majority; with Scouts and Gunships tying second, while Bombers should come last.

I say, increase it's weapon and engine power pool and decrease the lock on time on proton torpedoes for that particular starfighter. The problem is that the power pool for weapons and engines are consumed too quickly and makes the Striker become a dead duck in space/air. Scouts run circles around them and make it difficult to lock on to them; Gunships just pick them off unless you find good cover to get closer (Scouts are actually better at doing that, because of their speed); Bombers make a joke of them when in a dogfight. The bombers just lay a mine or turret and then blows the Striker out of the sky.

Strikers need to be the bulk of a squadron. If anything, increasing the weapon and engine power pool, significantly, will help. Adding the decreased lock-on time on the proton torpedoes would be a plus. They should be the muscle that can take out a bomber and not the other way around.

That's just my opinion.


So you all know where I'm coming from, I play on my Scout (Flashfire) and Striker the most, but if I had to choose which of the two to go into a dogfight with, I'd choose my Scout, because it packs a decent punch and can duck out of a losing fight like no other. That and it's the only class that can have a shotgun-like laser cannon and fast lock-on cluster missiles.

I use my Scout for taking out Gunships, but I completely avoid Bombers, because they're the hardest starfighters to take down unless you're using a Gunship from afar. Scouts and Strikers get owned unless it's a 2v1 against the Bomber. And I'm saying that because of those blasted mines and turrets that can be spawned in mid-fight. Maybe if there was a channeling for those deployables that you can interrupt by shooting at the bomber, that would make it an even fight. Otherwise, the Bomber has the tactical advantage for any average player in a 1v1 fight, unless you're a Gunship shooting from afar.

I loved my strike fighter when GSF first came out but its a completely pointless ship now. In all honesty there is nothing you can do with the current setup to make it a more attractive option than what you already have. My Scout has burst lazers (so more burst damage, funny that), better evasion to avoid getting hit by ion cans etc, what do you think my fighter is going to do better than that in a dog fight. In a real match most are people getting three shot by fully upgraded gunships so whats the point of flying them back into the fight.

The best thing you could do to make strike fighters viable is to have strike fighter only matches were everyone is flying equally naff ships.

Is GSF going to get anything more than a possible but in no way confirmed look at Strike Fighters? While strike fighters are junk that its taken a year to realise this makes it seem a little late in the day. GSF seems to be finished with and no more time is going to be wasted on new ships or maps.