As the title says, they suck. We get Ion Missiles and EMP Missiles which are only useful in certain situations, like to knock out shields or try to deplete an enemy's power reserves. The only real choice is the Thermite Torpedo, which has excellent range but a slow lock-on time and the narrowest window to lock on a target by far.

Could we at least score some rocket pods? Something that at the very least, is more practical in terms of dealing damage?

The main issue with the T3 scout and strike fighter secondary weapons is that every single one of them has a 12 sec reload time, with a 3 or 4 sec lock-on time. This means that these weapons can be fired AT MOST every 15 seconds, or 4 times per minute. In practice, with the target flying evasively and breaking LOS or boosting out of range, locks will be achieved a lot less often. Scouts and gunships with distorsion field and barrel roll get 6 lock breaks per minute (distorsion field every 20 sec and barrel roll every 20 sec). Scouts that use a different engine component can break locks even more often, and T1 scouts can also use EMP field to break locks. This means that, unless someone else is also trying to get a lock on your target, these missiles/torpedoes will never actually land against any half-way competent scout or gunship. Every single lock will be broken.

I think that each of those ships should have one secondary weapon option with a shorter CD, for instance rocket pods for the scout and concussion missile for the strike. Right now, when I fly one of those ships, I feel like I might as well not have any secondary weapons, because I so rarely land a hit with them, except against bombers or newbies.

Yeah, WTB Rocket Pods for the T3 Scout and Concussion Missiles for the T3 Strike. They still fit the overall theme of each ship (w/ the Strike being about "eliminating stationary targets and armored objectives") but significantly more practical for general use.

The other options are just IMO too specialized to be practical for ships w/ only 2 weapons. ProTorps, Ion Missiles, and EMP Missiles are ok on the T2 Strike (even if the 2nd is questionably useful and the 3rd is horribly underpowered) because it can still mount a 2nd, more general-purpose secondary weapon (read Clusters or Conc Missiles). Thermites seem interesting, especially after the buff, but again, with all the same drawbacks as ProTorps, they are rather impractical as your *only* secondary weapon.

Also WTB Heavy Lasers for the T3 Strike. They'd even fit in w/ the whole "anti-armored objectives" theme its got going on w/ its secondary weapons.

If the Bloodmark is going to get kills through burst damage like the rest of its scout brethren, it needs rocked pods. Laser cannons and pods are enough to land a kill on a weakened target, and then the Bloodmark would have the option of bringing Targeting Telemetry and pretending it's a Blackbolt.

If it is supposed to sacrifice kills for support, I can understand and agree with the design decision to sacrifice bursty secondary weapons for strong support skills. However, in that case, its support skills need some major work. Currently Tensor Field is as much of a liability as an asset once you leave the spawn point -- it just becomes too easy to overturn and suicide, since there's no warning that you're suddenly playing with ice skates instead of snowshoes. Combat Command, unfortunately, is nearly useless -- +20% accuracy, while strong, is pretty niche, and +7% crit chance and extra power regeneration are going to have a pretty low impact in any situation. Both of these skills also encourage players to ball up, which makes it easier to get hit.

I think, rather than adding rocket pods and turning the Bloodmark into a weirdly slow dogfighter, I'd like to see EMP and ion missiles buffed to usability on all ships. I'd also like to see the command abilities buffed; the Bloodmark sacrifices a lot of burst capability and mobility across four (!) component slots for these things, and they're supposedly a defining feature of the craft. Let's make them definitive, then.

Tensor field is never a disadvantage. That statement blows my mind!

I crashed earlier because of it. Was trying to weave around a satellite, suddenly tensor, suddenly extra speed and turning, suddenly I'm not moving at the rate I've been used to for the past four months, space fin space fin space fin space fin pain.

I crashed earlier because of it. Was trying to weave around a satellite, suddenly tensor, suddenly extra speed and turning, suddenly I'm not moving at the rate I've been used to for the past four months, space fin space fin space fin space fin pain.

I had that problem when I went from a Razorwire to a Blackbolt.

*Spawn*

*Crash*

Trust me, fly with a Bloodmark for a day or two. Yeah it's going to be a system shock, but it's a fun little ship.

And the thermites it carries? They scare the crap out of my bomber.

These weapons are intended to be garbage, as the craft is support. Obviously it would be superior with rocket pods- most ships would!

Yes, but if the ship can't stand on it's own in a one-on-one fight at the very least? Nobody is going to use it because it lacks in direct firepower.

Really the Bloodmark has teeth and it feels more like a timing thing to me. I only have the tier 1 upgrades for most components on my Bloodmark and am having a blast with the Ion Missile. It is amazing how many people seem to see my little scout as nothing more than another kill waiting to happen and fly right at me. I start targeting with my Ion missile and pop distortion field for the extra miss chance as they approach and release just before they hit range for my light lasers. The missile hits and they lose the facing shield and my lasers peel paint and hull. And just in case they go evasive late I pop the crew ability that ticks that small damage for hitting them once within 30 seconds and no shield regen for a while for them. If they don't bug out my allies, the turrets or I kill them. Oh and if they try hiding on the satellite I pop Tensor field so my allies and I can continue to harass and kill them.

Could the missile be faster locking or do a little more of something? Yes.

Is it going to change my loadout? No. Otherwise I can't laugh at the strike who is suddenly eating lasers and watching his hull change colour thinking I was an easy target.

Does it make me any less squishy? Not really though I think I fly better knowing that I can't burst down a target without setting things up to my advantage.

Biggest thing I had to change when flying my Bloodmark was to rely/stick with my allies more. Less kills but more assists and it is easier to hold a sat. I use my Blackbolt to take sats and to hunt the unwary gunships.

I am curious as to how it would work with Sabotage Probes though...

I'm quite sure that once I decently upgrade my Ions and Thermites (somehow playing with both, can't decide which to take), it will be pretty cool. Still, having Pods or at least Clusters or Concs on Spearpoint, that would be awesome!

Also I don't really get Armond's hate for Tensor Field. I have died earlier because I was trying to aim too hard with Bursts, when I had them for the first time. That doesn't make them a bad weapon.

On the other hand, I was once (yeah, only once so far ) buffed by someone's Tensor while flying my Nova, and it was... The best 20 seconds of flying my Nova, ever. Fighting boring satellite fight, and suddenly I am blessed with HUGE mobility, so I could kill that bomber and relocate to another satellite in a very swift manner. I wish more people were buffing around when I don't play my Spearpoint.

Also I don't really get Armond's hate for Tensor Field. I have died earlier because I was trying to aim too hard with Bursts, when I had them for the first time. That doesn't make them a bad weapon.

I have four months of practice perfecting certain fairly precise movements, which has included adjusting a number of settings to be GSF-specific (the most notable of which is adjusting my mouse down from 1000 DPI to 500 DPI). Those four months of training have turned into instinct and muscle memory what the majority of pilots struggle to remember in the first place. Therefore, I am at an enormous disadvantage compared to a new player when one of my allies decides to suddenly and drastically change how I need to fly.

When I get snared by an ion railgun or a sabotage probe or an interdiction mine, my screen warns me with a giant flash or a bot eating my hull or the like. When I'm hit with Tensor Field, there's no warning outside a tiny box that's easily overlooked -- it's just, you're suddenly working with ~1000 DPI, better hope you didn't crash finding it out, and have fun aiming until the "buff" wears off.

It's not a problem every pilot has, but for me, it's as devastating as if I were holding a node white and an allied bomber's mines started hitting me.

You only fly one ship?

I understand that the notification for getting buffed is kinda non-existant and we sure could use one. (maybe a glow similar, but not the same, as when engine overcharge pickup is active?)

But why don't abuse it? Even though you have your sharp trained moves, suddenly being able to make some tighter-than-usual cornering faster than usual, that should give an experienced Flashfire (I assume) pilot a nice edge.

To me, you sound a bit like you'd avoid damage overcharge pickup because you are used to hitting enemy four times, not two times. (just joking around and exaggerating here, don't get offended please)

Anyways, same as you hate the buff, I love it. We balance ourselves out and since the rest is not as radical as we are, I hope devs will not follow any advice and won't make hasty changes! (unless they'd want to up the speed and turn rate bonus even more, hehe)

I'm quite sure that once I decently upgrade my Ions and Thermites (somehow playing with both, can't decide which to take), it will be pretty cool. Still, having Pods or at least Clusters or Concs on Spearpoint, that would be awesome!

I asked BioWare during yesterday GSF livestream why they don't have Pods or Concussion...

I didn't understand everything they said because English is not my native language and the audio was a bit crappy, but it seems its something they're rather firm about : for them, they do more damage and are more deadly, and they don't want these ships to be able to have as much killing potential.

Personally I think they're overthinking about it. Proton and Thermite have nothing to be ashamed of Concussion, they're just slightly different, and the ship would never outperform the damage focused ones... The Flashfire would still be the only one with overcharge and clusters, the strikes would still have more fire power through multiple weapons...

You only fly one ship?

Nah. I heavily favor my favorite ship, though.

But why don't abuse it? Even though you have your sharp trained moves, suddenly being able to make some tighter-than-usual cornering faster than usual, that should give an experienced Flashfire (I assume) pilot a nice edge.

Imagine you run for your school's cross-country and/or track teams. (Yeah, I know, we both might have to go back in time a fair bit for this to be relevant. Bear with me.) One of the biggest things I had to do on those teams was get into a rhythm with my running. It's so much easier to run several miles when you have your rhythm, and so much harder when you have to think about how to run (or anything, really). I used to have a habit of lifting my feet up fairly high as I ran in an attempt to avoid nonexistent stones; fixing that took around two straight weeks of practice as I tried to find a new rhythm. After that, I was better on flat ground (thanks to longer strides), but once I had to run up an unkempt hill or some such, I had to try to get back that old rhythm, and it slowed me down.

Have you ever tried running along railroad tracks? The wood slats are spaced terribly -- you can't land on every one, and you can't land on every other one. If you try to land one foot on the slat and one foot on the dirt, it's just going to be confusing and possibly dangerous if your brain expects wood and gets dirt (and brains are scum, they'll mix that up even when there's no reason to).

Tensor Field, to me, is less "there's some cool things you could do with this, if you practiced" and more "your rhythm is now disrupted, and you need to practice to make that less disrupting". It's like I'm suddenly running on railroad tracks instead of flat ground.

Except, in either case, I can't really practice it -- it's completely out of my control when a pug throws Tensor Field on me, and I don't know anyone who enjoys playing a T3 scout. It's easier and less frustrating for me to simply take note of who has Tensor Field and avoid them.

Hehe well explained

I, on the other hand, got addicted to it. Like, if I was running mid-distances the whole time, and once I tried short track to find that it suits me even better!

I also used to have problems with getting used to things (flying one ship, in this situation) maybe too much, but somehow, I don't know how, they vanished. I used to fly NovaDive exclusively and was horrible with anything else (including Flashfire!), but recently I picked the Spearpoint as my new main ship (here I am, the one who enjoys flying it), found that the rythm-changing figures out well for me (maybe because it is me who controls it), and somehow I can successfully fly my Nova, my Spear and also my Clarion with good success.

So now, I am flying the mid-distances, counting down for my favourite Tensor short dash.

But back to the thread. Today I had quite a success with Thermites. I am not sure if I should go for the speed upgrade or the aiming cone upgrade at T4. I was quite inclined to go for speed, naturally, but it is quite hard to successfully lock a Thermite against anyone but a newbie, so I dunno now. Wider cone would help with locking, but it takes eternity to travel to 5k or longer, so enemy has enough time to recharge their lock-breaker...

Also, what bugs me, is that the tooltip description for Thermite (and possibly more things) is very... vague. It shows all the damages, range, piercing and stuff, but in practice, there is a shield bleedthrough debuff (without an icon, btw, why?), there is DoT, and there is no mention about these anywhere but the last tier upgrade. Can I somewhere get informed on what magnitudes are these things? How strong is the bleedthrough, how long does it last? I already figured that the DoT is kinda strong, but still, some clarification? Length, strength? And what about the T5 upgrades? The second one says that the DoT makes "additional 15% damage every 15 seconds" - ***? Does it put up a 60s DoT or what? Shouldn't it be, more like, "additional 15% damage over 15 seconds"? And is it 15% of the DoT, or the rocket itself? So many questions about Thermites....

I dig Tensor field. Using it at the start is an obvious use, but I like it in other situations as well.

-It gives a significant advantage to your team if a group of people are clustered up in numerous dogfights.

-You can use when you and/or team mates are transfering from one node to another in domination, allowing you to provide backup or invade an opponent's sat more quickly.

-You can get use it to escape situations where the fire/missiles are too thick for comfort. Snap turn + Tensor field = Bye! You can then hide behind an asteroid and let your repair probe patch your sorry *** up.

It's a pain in the *** to land a kill in a bloodmark sometimes, but it's not really meant to be a superior dogfighter. You can dog fight with it, it's just not going to get kills as quickly as a blackbolt or a sting. Also, to be fair, I'm comparing a bloodmark with minimal upgrades to a mastered sting and blackbolt, so I'm sure its killing ability will compare slightly more favorably once its upgrades are on par with my other scouts.

The missile options aren't the most impressive, but I do enjoy ion missiles. Ripping someone' shields off then lighting them up with LLC is pretty fun.

EMP is fantastic for rooting bombers out of satellite camping.

If only that were true.

If only that were true.

It's not terrible and it helps a little, but yeah... it's not great. Long lockon time and not a big enough explosion radius to take care of mines and drones all over a satellite... which is kind of what you should be doing on a bomber.

I have used it to help clear a satellite, don't get me wrong, but the decent bomber pilots keep moving and circling and doing what the worse ones can do... sit in a corner and pop out more mines and drones (well, the latter part of that, anyway), yay.

EMP is fantastic for rooting bombers out of satellite camping.

lol, if only saying it made it true.

lol, if only saying it made it true.

I bet the guy saying that is a dev smurf account! Those guys probably believe it snerk snerk

EMP is good at locking people's engine components down so they can't escape and for a second/third missile break and temporary immunity from lock-ons.

It's pretty crap against bombers.