Seriously love everything about this little addition except the way they implemented Gunships... THIS IS NOT TO SAY THEY ARE OP ... just fracking stupid. They do not belong in Star Wars, the movies modeled their battlescenes off of WWII aerial battles... not Call of Duty quick scoping. The whole point of Spaceflight is to go ludicrous speed and fly through your enemies debri... and yet there is a whole class of ship who is only doing its job when its SITTING THE FRACK STILL. How pointless is that?

Should have just given people the option to be turret gunners on bombers/capitals/sattelites ... also, the FPS genre needs to be eradicated, its ruining the entire gaming industry.

also, the FPS genre needs to be eradicated, its ruining the entire gaming industry.

Personally, I even agree to that. It has done bad things to the RPG genre, I believe.

However, I kind of disagree if you mean Gunships - I (personally) see a ground version of them in the massive AT-TE's from AOTC. They did similar things on Geonosis. They even managed to bring a Separatist ship down.

More about it here : http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/All_Terrain_Tactical_Enforcer

Gunships are like ... "AT-TEs in space".

I agree with the OP. According to the Star Wars storyline, Gunships are designed to be heavily armored and wield firepower... missiles and blasters. They are flying fortresses, not snipers....

I kind of agree. Railguns do look questionable. I don't really mind them in the picture of game balance, but they do feel weird from the lore standpoint.

I kind of agree. Railguns do look questionable. I don't really mind them in the picture of game balance, but they do feel weird from the lore standpoint.

I DO mind them in the picture of game balance. The whole point of Starfighter is to FLY. If you can't fly, you're dead. Want to sit still and snipe? Play ground PVP. The fact that the Gunship can STOP IN IT'S TRACKS and just sit and snipe is stupid. And it's insulting the players that actually take the time to learn the flight controls and try to become better pilots.

Are we really at the point now where people are calling for things to be removed just because they don't want to counter them? Gunships add some nice variety to the game as will bombers and whatever the stealth ship is too.

In my case it has nothing to do with not wanting to counter them, it's more that it just doesn't feel right for the "Star Wars" setting. The space battles in the movies, the books, the comics and in other games were always big ol' furballs, WW2 style, jinking, turning, boosting in and out. In short, FLYING.

Gunships don't bloody fly, hell, they're not even SHIPS, really, they're defense satellites that can occasionally scoot around.

And from a game play balance point of view, it seems silly to include a ship in a flight combat game that is at it's best when it ISN'T REALLY FLYING. It's a ship in a flight game for players who don't like flying. Is there a ship available in ground PVP for players who don't like fighting on the ground? How would THAT be received?

I don't have any problems with gunships from either a lore or a gameplay perspective. A gunship pilot who doesn't know how to fly is a dead gunship pilot.

If he gets to sit still and snipe for more than a minute then you don't have a single competent scout on your team or any half decent strikers. Gunships glow when they charge their weapons, unless you're the only one preventing a cap at a node, the moment you see a gunship your job is to boost of to it and force feed it its own railgun. If the pilot of said gunship doesn't know how to dogfight he WILL die.

From a lore perspective, who said you couldn't have artillery in space? Maybe the gunship was designed to be exactly that, space artillery. Also those ships are heavy enough that if upgraded for turning they can dogfight and hold nodes, especially if they have burst lasers. Similarly a strike fighter upgraded with proton torpedoes can snipe.

If I had to go out on a limb, I would say that the reason that the devs added gunships in is because they wanted to appeal to as large of an audience as possible with this new game mode. Not everyone can dogfight, not everyone likes dogfighting. Some prefer the more FPS like sniping of the gunship class and honestly I see no problem with that at all. You shouldn't ask for someone else's playstyle to be removed just because you don't like said play style. As long as its balanced properly, the game should include as many different play styles as possible because that invites the largest crowd, increases overall popularity, and increases the amount of overall GSF content were going to get.

From a lore perspective, who said you couldn't have artillery in space? Maybe the gunship was designed to be exactly that, space artillery. Also those ships are heavy enough that if upgraded for turning they can dogfight and hold nodes, especially if they have burst lasers. Similarly a strike fighter upgraded with proton torpedoes can snipe.

Arguably Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds (RTS) introduced space artillery with the Air Cruiser. I'd wager that's what the devs were thinking about when they made the gunship. So it does kinda fit the lore actually.

You shouldn't ask for someone else's playstyle to be removed just because you don't like said play style. As long as its balanced properly, the game should include as many different play styles as possible because that invites the largest crowd, increases overall popularity, and increases the amount of overall GSF content were going to get.

This is a fair point, but is it out of line to say that in a flight combat game, people should be encouraged to FLY, not sit still?

I'll repeat myself...if a "ship" or "air support" or "flying" class was introduced into ground PVP, I imagine you could hear the screeching around the block. Imagine a Bounty Hunter who could boost up on their jetpack and just hover there for minutes, raining down fire at range. Sure, they'd be all sorts of exposed, but in standard PVP combat you don't have to worry about getting killed from "up". People would freak. "Boba and Jango didn't FLY, they just kind of JUMPED!"

Gunships are killable, they aren't invulnerable, but I still say they're just kind of silly. Not OP, just not really appropriate to the overall Starfighter game.

And I'm not slamming your opinion here, I really can see how the devs want to include as many players as possible, even ones who don't normally like or play flight games, and that's fair enough. I just think the Gunship is a goofy way of trying to lure people. How about a missile boat with super-tough armor but bad maneuverability, and missiles that just have regular Strike Fighter range? Then you don't have to be a "hot dog" pilot or super-duper gunner, but you still have to get in and mix it up.

I DO mind them in the picture of game balance. The whole point of Starfighter is to FLY. If you can't fly, you're dead. Want to sit still and snipe? Play ground PVP. The fact that the Gunship can STOP IN IT'S TRACKS and just sit and snipe is stupid. And it's insulting the players that actually take the time to learn the flight controls and try to become better pilots.

They do stimulate flying on the part of their enemies

At first I didn't mind gunships but that was before 90% of games had 6 or more gunships in them. I understand they need a ship that people who cant fly can play but now they are just getting in the way of starfighter gameplay.

I actually quit playing starfighter because of them, its just not fun to go dog fight around a satellite and get one shot within 6 seconds no matter how many gunships I kill first because theres so many you can never get rid of them.

They do stimulate flying on the part of their enemies

I have found that they stimulate the very opposite when in large numbers. As area-denial units, they stimulate parking behind objects and not venturing out into the open. Once you start seeing four, five, six, or even seven gunships in a match, flying is largely inhibited and the mission becomes hide 'n strike.

And I'm not slamming your opinion here, I really can see how the devs want to include as many players as possible, even ones who don't normally like or play flight games, and that's fair enough. I just think the Gunship is a goofy way of trying to lure people. How about a missile boat with super-tough armor but bad maneuverability, and missiles that just have regular Strike Fighter range? Then you don't have to be a "hot dog" pilot or super-duper gunner, but you still have to get in and mix it up.

I will say I was kinda hoping for a missile boat type ship that pretty much has no blasters to speak of and relies almost entirely on missiles for kills. I think though that because this isn't an X-Wing game with ample capital ship attack missions such a ship wouldn't fit in well since that kind of design would only be truly useful against sat turrets (the Pike as a multirole fighter would probably surpass it in performance since it would have both superior maneuverability while carrying a comparable missile payload).

All things considered I think the railgun is really the best option since the only real alternative would result in missile spam (and require coding alternate ways beyond abilities to evade missiles). They should add some sort of "rail gun 'lock'" warning though.

Its impossible to 'call of duty quickscope' with a gunship, because all the railguns have a 2 or 3 second charging time.

You're also ignoring the fact that gunships are relatively helpless at close range, move much slower than the other ships when not boosting, have poor armor and shields (unless sitting in Fortress shield which makes you immobile), less hull HP, an abysmal turn rate, poor blaster pool and regen meaning you can only fire 3 shots maximum before you have to wait to recharge, and if your target goes behind an asteroid you're screwed.

Gunships have strong sniping abilities because that is literally their only strength. The entire point of the ship is to sit nearby nodes and pop strike fighters and scouts attacking the objective.

The only thing I would say should be nerfed on gunships is their speed while boosting.

I understand what the OP is getting at, and I understand that there is frustration because of the fact that gunships can cause it to become difficult for those in scouts and fighters to play.

I would like to bring up a few opinions from my perspective at least;

First, gunships help increase my skill personally, because not only do I have to worry about fighting scouts and fighters, but I also have to find new ways to maneuver out of the gunships range while still being able to be an effective pilot in either capturing the cap point or destroying enemy ships.

Second, as many of you have said gunship pilots will often hide behind or near an asteroid or debris and this makes it difficult to kill them because you have to shoot them at the right angle. To me, this is a good thing, because again, it increases my ability as a pilot because it makes me be creative and find ways to sneak up behind the gunship and shoot it down, as well as allows me to learn how to better maneuver myself around asteroids and debris.

In my opinion, I believe that having a gunship in the game really helps make it interesting, of course the best thing about space PvP is dog-fighting with another skilled pilot, but I believe without gunships even that would eventually get boring.

Just my two cents,

~ GamerSoul

I agree that gunships the way they are don't thematically fit the "starfighter" aspect. I imagined them more as long range, heavy weapons platforms rather than all-out snipers. Lumbering, lots of shields and armor, with long-range heavy weapons and short range light turrets or something for self-defense (short range and low damage but huge arc of fire and computer-assisted targeting requiring less precision, or maybe "flak" style small AoE bursts).

I'm not against gunships or anything, I will try them out myself when I can get my hands on them as I resubbed after Nov 1. But I'd have preferred a different style to them is all.

Tbh, the only issue I have with gunships (lone gunships) is the ability to instant-kill you from max HP with the aid of that companion ability.

Other than that though, I have no problem with them. They are easy enough to take out with a scout.

However I will say that a group of gunships is damn near unbeatable.

In my opinion, I believe that having a gunship in the game really helps make it interesting, of course the best thing about space PvP is dog-fighting with another skilled pilot, but I believe without gunships even that would eventually get boring.

 

Just my two cents,

~ GamerSoul

Lol thats like two skilled boxers going at eachother then BLAM someone from the public just shoot one of the boxers omg how interesting it becomes

Nothing wrong with rail guns in space it's the perfect weapon for it

I only fly scout and have no issue with the gunships yes if I'm sloppy they will 2shot me

But that's all part of the fun.