Let's say TDM wasn't first to 50, but instead was an arena mode with 3 rounds and no respawns. You cannot see what ships your opposition is choosing.

 

If you were queuing solo and couldn't see what your team was going to fly, what ship/build would you fly?

 

If you were queuing in a group of 4, what would you fly and what would you want your 3 teammates to fly? Note you have no control over the other four teammates.

 

Try and answer before reading everyone else's replies

Edited March 18, 2015 by Nemarus

Solo: Burst/cluster Evasion Sting

 

Group of 4: Railgun Drone/Seeker mine Legion, 2 Manglers, 1 Quads/Pods or Quads/cluster Sting

We need a Proper matchmaking system and ranking system for this game. I love the idea of being able to play different game modes as well. Team deathmatch battles where you only get one life, and theres multiple rounds or whatever. Capture the flag in space? Huttball, but the hutball is a bomb? having to fly through tight tunnels and corridors with obsticles to get to the drop off or something to that effect? hypothetical scenario #3 what if there was a ranking system so the matches werent so lopsided all the time?

I think the meta would be different. I don't think it's an easy answer like "I'd always run type 1 gunship" any more than the current game has one. I think heals would be a lot more important. I think that the Clarion would be a lot better, because it could supply solid heals and also run pretty hard. I really can't speculate much beyond that- that game mode would be as different as domination is from TDM.

In my opinion, Last Man Standing mode would work much better than typical TDM, where 2-3 bad (or plain sabotaging) pilots can really spoil the results... though, due to the fact that death in GSF come much faster than ground PvP - I'd give 3-4 respawns instead of 3-4 rounds.

 

Would probably work with 4 vs 4 ship battles as well...

Yet another interesting scenario.

I think I'd probably opt for my long time favorite Novadive with LC+Pods, BR and Booster recharge. I think I'd make one change though and run a Bypass copilot instead of using one of the more 'normal' copilot abilities on it since the hull attrition would put a lot more pressure on the enemy than normal.

That build still won't kill as well as a more offensive build, but I find I usually can survive longer flying that build than I can in most other ships while still being an annoyance to the other team.

 

As for the group pick that's harder since I only really solo que (have no VOIP)... But if I had to choose I'd probably pick to fly the Clarion though I think I might pick a slightly different loadout than I normally do on it: I'm thinking maybe something like PD; RFL; Repair Probe; Shield Projector; and EMP Missile (*maybe* protorps but I feel like siesmic/conc mines will be *much* more significant in such a match than they are now so some EMP support for my teammates might go a long way). I'd probably prefer a T2 scout with BLC and Clusters, a T3 Gunship and a dronelayer with repair probes and railgun drone as my companion ships in such a case.

I love the concept but I'd be worried that games would simply degenerate into battlescouts vrs battlescouts because everyone would be scared to die. So in essence it would just end up with whole matches of battlescouts trying to outmaneuver each other, frankly, I'd find that incredibly boring. You can't really argue that the game wouldn't just end up battlescouts or at the very least gunships since the vast majority of aces I see already lean on these ships as their "go-to" when things get ugly. How often do you see a good player having a bad match suddenly appear in their prized t2 scout or t1 GS. I call it "beating them back into their battlescout" 😀 Then you could always get a guy trolling in an evasion build scout simply out fly the team that's ahead into a stalemate assuming the match is on a timer, if it wasn't then the matches could turn into monopoly games - rolling on and on forever til someone gives in and "flips the board". If it was a hybrid of Domination or something it might work but simply last man standing imo wouldn't.

In hindsight I guess you could alleviate this problem by having a 1 ship type per team pool. Once a particular ship is picked it is removed from the pool so team-mates would have to pick something else. So technically you could have limited options not six t1 GS and/or six t2 scouts all on both teams. At most you could have 2 of each. I don't know I'm just spit-balling now

If you were queuing solo and couldn't see what your team was going to fly, what ship/build would you fly?

I wish I could say T1 Strike, because those can actually be pretty durable. But... no. T1 gunship, with DF for shield in place of my usual Feedback shield. It'd be an interesting choice between Wingman and Running Interference in this case, though. A T2 scout using RI and maybe even Booster Overcharge would also be a strong choice.

 

If you were queuing in a group of 4, what would you fly and what would you want your 3 teammates to fly? Note you have no control over the other four teammates.

Me.. T1 GS with Wingman. One teammate would be in a T2 Bomber with railgun drone, repair drone, and RI. The other two I think I would want at least one T2 scout with rockets and lots of evasion, and maybe a T3 Strike, actually. Seems like it might be a little light on offense. That fourth ship could be a T1 scout, with EMP field set to disable engine components, rockets, and lots of evasion. There are probably a bunch of good alternatives to that team though.

 

- Despon

Type 3 strike for sure. A T1 or T2 Laser/Quads & Pods scout would also be a good option.

 

For a team I'd probably go with the T3 healing strike, two scouts, and one T1 gunship for ion-rail support.

 

Gunship responsible for bomber suppression and making strikes miserable, Strike to heal, refill ammo and help in the event of excess bombers. Scouts to counter scouts and gunships.

 

It'd fall to an all scout comp, but I think mini-bomber balls would tend to thin those out of the meta.

 

The reason I don't favor the dronelayer is that it has powerful utility that is far too easy for anything with a long or medium range gun to shoot down. I'd expect its team to be without offensive and repair drones for about 80% of the match, and without them it's not that impressive as a support ship. I'd even think of taking a T3 scout over one.

 

Depending on the distribution of cover on the map something like 2 T1 gunships and 2 T3 gunships might be pretty fearsome.

I've thought about this all day, but I think I still have to go with the Jurgoran with BLC/Slug/Feedback/Power Dive/Wingman. It has the right mix of lethal burst and slippery defense.

 

Railgun gives you a good chance to score an early kill or at least significant hull attrition against a foe, and to outgun any Bombers. Power Dive gives you frequent enough missile breaks (though I think missile pressure will be light in this meta), and the mobility to run from a pursuer long enough for your allies to peel. BLC and Feedback make you threatening to Scouts.

 

For a group, if I wanted to be creative, I'd go with:

1 Legion with HLC, Seeker Mines, Interdiction Drone, Repair Drone, E2S, Wingman.

1 Decimus with LLC's, Clusters, Interdiction Drone, Directional, Power Dive, Wingman

1 Mangler with BLC, Slug, Ion, Feedback, Barrel Roll, Wingman

1 Jurgoran with BLC, Slug, Clusters, Feedback, Barrel Roll, Wingman

 

The strategy here is to build a fortification which is simply impossible to go near. All four ships will sit in a nest of Interdiction Drones and Mines. The Decimus and Jurgoran are there to make sure that anyone caught in the web melts quickly from BLC/LLC/Cluster death. Even if a Scout gets close enough to damage either Gunship, the Feedback shield hit leaves them vulnerable to the Seeker Mines, Drone fire, and Clusters.

 

It's definitely a turtle squad, but I'm not sure what could stand up against it. Anyone who needs to get close to deal damage is just going to get shut down by the Interdiction Drones (which unlike the other two drones, can affect more multiple targets at a time) and accompanying short-range weapons.

 

The biggest threat is a foursome Gunship squad. They could focus fire to pick off each ship one-by-one. I think they could do this against any group though, and could only really be countered by 4 Scouts who are also focus-firing.

Edited March 19, 2015 by Nemarus