At Stasie's suggestion, here's a thread for collection of GSF suggestions. I'll run it sort of like the records thread, in that there will be categories and a format to follow in order for suggestions to make it to the front page.

The point is to have an organized, prioritized list of improvements and changes that could be made to GSF all collected in one place. Also as a moderated list subject to community review, it won't be cluttered with really terrible or outright silly recommendations. Feel free to have some of that in the discussion section, just realize it will not be included in the 'official' section of the list.

In general if the suggestion is well thought out, follows the format fairly well, and is considered reasonable by experienced players in discussion in this thread it has a fair chance of making it into the 'official list'. The space will be limited, so there will also be a strong bias toward listing more severe problems before minor ones.

Before posting to the front page, I'd like to have discussion/comments/editing on individual suggestions. In general I'll watch the discussion, try to ask intelligent questions about what the exact intent of the suggestion is, ask about details/side effects that may be missing, then give the original suggestion poster a chance to make any revisions or clarifications they want before I copy accepted suggestions to the front page. I may also make grammar and spelling corrections to 'official' list items. So if you suggest something, please check back after a few days and read any comments, discussion, or editing recommendations, so you can see if you want to revise your suggestion before I post it. Sounds like kind of a lot of work (especially for me), but I think it should help produce ideas good enough for the devs to take seriously when GSF development moves forward.

Suggestion Format.

1. What is the problem?

2. How serious is it? Minor, moderate, or severe?

3. What's the general goal in terms of the fix?

4. Specific suggestion.

5. Supporting arguments for the suggestion. This can include theorycrafting math for balance changes, but math is not mandatory if there are well reasoned arguments.

Here's a frivolous example,

1. There's no hot pepper in my Thai Curry.

2. Severe.

3. The curry should be at least slightly hot.

4. Add 1/4 of a finely diced Thai hot pepper to the curry.

5. That's enough hot pepper to make a bowl of curry moderately hot without overdoing it.

Try to keep things short and concise if possible.

I'm introducing a separate bug report format, as the suggestions format doesn't work that well for them.

Bug Report Format

1. Short description of the bug. Try to keep it to a sentence or two.

2. Severity: minor, moderate, high, or game-breaking.

3. Frequency of bug occurence, if it doesn't always happen what conditions are needed to reproduce it.

4. Bug details, if the above info may not be enough to understand the bug well enough to track it down and correct it.

Categories

Bugs: Things that seem not to match tooltips, or are otherwise broken.

Meta play and Balance: Problems with playability due to game mechanics.

Ship Build: Problems/improvements for specific ships, even if they aren't creating problems in balance.

Components: Can include balance issues or improvements to underperforming components, new components you might like to see too. Includes Crew abilities.

Gameplay: Maps, modes, etc.

New Player recruitment/retention: Getting more players playing GSF.

Revenue $tream: What would make you throw more money at Bioware?

Miscellaneous: What doesn't fit well in other categories.

Bugs

1. Ion Railgun's tier 5 talent (left), "Engine Disruption" causes a snare for 6 seconds. The tooltip claims 12.

2. High. Large discrepancy between the info the game gives the player and what actually happens.

3. Always.

-Verain

1. Ion Cannon does not trigger feedback shield.

2. Moderate.

3. Always.

-Verain

1) Engine ability tooltips don't change to reflect the purchase of upgrades such as reduced cooldown

2) I'd say moderate since it could greatly confuse newbies who are still learning what's going on, overall make the game less accessible to those less familiar with GSF's systems, and just generally gives a bad impression of GSF.

3) apparently always, I'm unaware of a work around that makes the tooltip show the proper values.

-Gavin_Kevlar

1. Ship 2x bonus requisition resets daily, however the icon representing it on individual ships does not refresh until after one game has been played during the current day.

2. Minor. Confusing to new players.

3. Always.

-Verain

1. The term firing arc is used in tooltip descriptions to mean both the angle from the ship's centerline to the edge of the weapons fire cone and in other cases to mean the angle from one edge of the weapons fire cone to the opposite edge. This can be confusing to players, so separate terms should be used for the two meanings.

2. Minor

-Atheran

Game Balance and Meta

1. Strikers, as the other dogfighter class in GSF, lag noticeably behind scouts in this capacity

2. Moderate

3. Improve the striker class as a whole in dog fighting and ability to respond to threats

4. Increase turning/agility by 6-10%, increase speed by 2%

5. By increasing the turning/agility it gives strikers a much better capability to engage enemy fighters and scouts in a dogfight. Because strikers weapons typically carry high tracking penalties and have smaller firing cones this improves their ability to position an enemy fighter to either achieve a missile lock or minimize the tracking penalty. It also improves their defense by making it harder for an enemy, especially more maneuverable scouts, to keep them in their sights. The increase in speed will help strikers respond to threats at other areas of the map faster. These buffs improve their usefulness to a squadron several ways: they can rush to the assistance of allies faster, reinforce a position sooner, more rapidly assault enemy positions, and once they reach a position are more capable of holding their own against enemy fighters they encounter. Since the beta/early access scouts were dominant in this capacity because they were the only ships with the speed to rapidly respond to threats and had the agility to engage the enemy once they got to the trouble area. Scouts will remain at the top in terms of agility and mobility making them ideal first responders but with this buff strikers, with their superior shields/hull, will fare much better as the dogfighter of choice in drawn out slugfests.

-Gavin_Kevlar

Components

1. The improved firing arc from crew members is generally hard to ignore due to the substantial increase in ease of hitting targets that it offers. This increases offensive power on ships in GSF to the point that most experienced pilots consider a crew member with this passive to be mandatory on ALL ships and ALL builds.

2. Moderate

3. Making the upgrade less gamechanging, while not changing the final result.

4. Improve all weapons' firing arc by 2 degree while reducing the crew passive upgrade to give 2 extra degrees.

5. The passive bonus is incredibly more desirable than some other passive, in one hand because other choices are underwhelming, and in an other hand because some weapons are quite hard to use without it, and so is/can be extremely gamechanging. This change would flatten the gap of utility between this passive and widely unsued ones, while leaving room for improvements for the latter. Firing arc would still be considered mandatory after this change, but it would make future balancing easier by decreasing the amount of change competing crew passives would need to be equalized with improved firing arc.

-Atheran

New Players

1. The current GSF tutorial is inadequate.

2. Severe.

3. Create a GSF learning environment that at a minimum:

Has a prominent and labelled control on the hangar UI.

Allows use of all of the ships the player has unlocked.

Can teach detailed blaster, missile, and railgun aim and employment.

Can teach missile breaks and defensive LOSing.

Can teach capturing and defending nodes.

4. A) Do this by creating a dueling or practice map where two players can practice without the pressure of a competitive environment.

B) Create PvE tutorials that cover every ship class and the major weapon and defense components. A ring based flight course with targets that shoot back similar to those from the old X-wing and TIE fighter series has been suggested by multiple posters.

5. One of the principles of good game design is that new players should have an experience where they feel that they are making noticable progress in getting better at the game. If this feeling of progress is not present, there is a high likelyhood that they will decide that they do not like the game and quit playing it. The introductory GSF experience does a terrible job of this right now, and it shows both in the comments of new players and in the number of people in GSF queues.

-Zen

-ALaggyGrunt

-DamascusAdontise

Revenue

1. Once a character has fully mastered the ships they are interested in on the characters that they play GSF on there's little further use to earning ship requisition.

2. Minor (only affects a few players right now, may become Moderate after 3.0 requisition gains)

3. Let players use surplus ship requisition to gear ships on other characters.

3. Provide a way for players to use Cartel Coins to convert ship requisition into a tradeable item that grants fleet requisition so that alts on their legacy or characters on other accounts can be geared with the surplus ship requisition. Done well this will also allow them to get credits by selling the items on the GTN and it will encourage players to spend and buy CCs, helping GSF create revenue for Bioware. Possibly the fleet certificates could even grant requisition legacy wide.

-Fractalsponge

Create Cartel Market Ship Requisition and Fleet Requisition boosters that can be purchased to increase requisition gain similar to the Cartel Market XP boosters.

-DamascusAdontise

Add CM items (CM ships, paint jobs, engine colors etc.) to collections. I would happily spend CC to unlock these things in collections. For cosmetic things like paint jobs its not like this is even affected by ship/fleet req since you pretty much have to buy it on the GTN since they're mostly gamble pack exclusives.

-Gavin_Kevlar

Ok, open for comments on organization, format, review process, thread setup in general.

For suggestions too of course.

I'tll clean up the format a bit more this evening probably.

New player retention.

1. The tutorial is TERRIBLE and there is no sandbox alternative where players can test things for themselves.

2. This is a very serious issue as the learning curve for GSF is pretty steep and players new to the game are thrown in at the deep end.

3. The goal would be to better equip players new to the game with the skills required to not be food.

4. (Hard) Improve the tutorial so it covers all ship types and teaches things like tracking, firing arcs, missile locks and evasive flying or (easy) implement a sandbox environment where 2 players can duel and test things out.

5. Supporting arguments? It's a good idea?

~Zen

New player retention.

 

1. The tutorial is TERRIBLE and there is no sandbox alternative where players can test things for themselves.

2. This is a very serious issue as the learning curve for GSF is pretty steep and players new to the game are thrown in at the deep end.

3. The goal would be to better equip players new to the game with the skills required to not be food.

4. (Hard) Improve the tutorial so it covers all ship types and teaches things like tracking, firing arcs, missile locks and evasive flying or (easy) implement a sandbox environment where 2 players can duel and test things out.

5. Supporting arguments? It's a good idea?

 

~Zen

Perhaps for supporting arguments something like: With a learning experience where the new player feels like they're making noticeable progress they're much less likely to be discouraged and quit, compared to a GSF match where they might have a score of all zeros for several matches in a row.

As an editor, I'm inclined to suggest splitting this into two separate suggestions, one for a PvE tutorial, and another for a sandbox dueling environment.

Let me know what you think and I'll get this set up in the new players section.

Also grabbed and posted the bugs that Verain listed in the Zen and Drako do the Science thread. In general though, I'm not going to go trawling through every thread to collect suggestions. Confirmed bugs are probably the only exception I'll make.

So just randomly thought of a way that they could help teach weapon tracking / aim without using moving targets:

Part of the tutorial could consist of large rings and trails of stationary small orbs (about the size of the targeting reticule or smaller) the object of the tutorial would be to fly through the rings and fire at these stationary orbs as you go. The trails could simulate the rolling swooping maneuvers of a typical dogfight, requiring the pilot to fly around objects while shooting at the targets.

It would be important for their spacing to vary so that the pilot would have to decelerate at times in order to nail the maneuver / shot.

If the tutorial tracked hits (accuracy) people could easily use this to test out weapons / build choices to see what they like best. Two birds with 1 stone. Anyways this is just a bare bones thought, feel free to elaborate (or tell me it sucks)

/////

Things for improvement besides tutorial:

New Players

Fighter/scout training: Anyone remember the tunnels from TIE Fighter? Something like that would be nice for teaching killing stationary things. It wouldn't be too hard to make a bomber AI which flies through cover to show you how to get a missile lock under those kinds of conditions, though it would get a bit predictable, and a later one which dropped mines as it flew. To be real, you'd also need one which knows how to hide in a crack. The type 3 bomber would also get this mission, because it's more striker than bomber. The script would include some way-off-center shots which a newbie would likely miss because of tracking penalty.

Gunship training: Things which fly around 10-15km out through waypoints. Add even a simple AI for a scout which tries to rush you, and circle back around if it survived and failed to kill you the first time. The sim would detect if that happened, and tell you: careful, it's not done with you yet! You have to either lead it into a convenient nearby minefield, or kill it. All the AI would have to do is fly toward you, fire when it got in maximum/optimum range, and steer toward you if you let it fly through/past you. Early difficulties would be stock Nova with quick charge, later ones would be a quads-and-pods or BLC/cluster scout like everyone's afraid of.

Bomber training: Hmm. That would be a little harder to code. OF course, it could always teach the latest "pro" bomber move by checking to see if you managed to fly your bomber into one of those tiny cracks, point it outward, and drop mines/drones, and see how long you lasted as stuff flew by (couple of free shots!), "figured out what you were doing", and came back to kill you. This could also include something which tries to chase you through the tunnels obstacle course, and you'd have to learn about mine and drone placement because the AI would target your mines as the mission progressed. Oh, and stationary targets along the way, because bombers can shoot things too.

You would access each training mission by selecting the ship you wanted to train, and click the tutorial button, and a correct voice actor would tell you what was going on. Pricey version: your copilot. Cheaper version:The admirals. Destitute version: Anyone who can manage a pub/imp accent. This would also give a newbie a limited test-new-builds battlefield.

We are already off to a poor start.

Ex:

"Bugs

Tooltip Errors

Ion Railgun's tier 5 talent (left), "Engine Disruption" causes a snare for 6 seconds. The tooltip claims 12.

-Verain"

Simply by categorizing this as a "tooltip error" you absolutely miss the mark.

It could be an error WITH THE RAILGUN. It could be a DATA ERROR and the tooltip could be INTENDED. Would you say:

Tooltip error:

Sabotage probe's tier 5 talent (left), "Speed reduction", when selected, makes the sabotage probe no longer disable maneuvering. The toolip does not state this.

In fact- and I cannot stress this enough- we have had NO PATCH NOTES on any of these things. It's not reasonable to assume ANY DEV INTENT, nor, for a thread intended to be neutral, is it fair to assume that, for instance, any nerf is intentional or unintentional.

Also, you miss like, ALL the bugs. Here's from the thread:

Outstanding GSF bugs:

1- Sabotage Probe, when talented to tier 5-right ("Speed Reduced") CEASES TO FUNCTION. The probe still locks and targets and debuffs, but NOTHING HAPPENS. Our workaround is to pick the tier 5-left, which does not disable the ability completely, but many players do not know this.

2- The last patch that changed stuff didn't make patch notes. We are entirely clueless as to dev intent. The changes were:

2A: Ion Missile tier-5 talent changed from a 12 second snare to a 6 second snare. The tooltip changed to match. This appears to be a nerf, but was not in the patch notes. The general opinion is that this nerf was accidental, as this is a weak missile without much presence in the meta, but we just don't know.

2B: Ion Railgun still claims to have a 12 second snare (on tooltip), but has a 6 second snare. Was this ninja nerf intended? Please update the tooltip if it was, or buff the ability back if it was not.

2C: EMP Field had the VALUE change but the DESCRIPTION left unchanged. This field used to be a 4500 radius baseline. It still claims to be, but it is now 3000m. If this nerf was deliberate, please update the tooltip. If not, fix the ability.

2D: Description values broken by changing of numeric text to "<<1", especially as regards duration. This effects:

> Sabotage probe (280 damage over 0 seconds)

> Plasma railgun ("an additional 900 damage over" (text terminates ) )

> EMP missile ("will disable mines and drones for" (text terminates ) )

(the "text terminates" appears to be the game engine not wanting to draw whatever character is in there- this means that "dealing 335 damage to hull" and "railgun fails to fire below 25% charge" is all truncated away)

Do you see the difference? Don't read dev intent when there is none. We really have no idea what they were thinking when they merged in some broken XML that can't even be written to screen properly.

The only thing up there that might not be a bug is the ion missile. Both the tooltip AND the value got updated, so it could be intentional.

It still makes the list because there's no patch notes though.

Also, you list ion cannon skipping feedback shield as "broken mechanic". Again, don't judge. It may be intended, though I agree that is unlikely. Certainly that seems not very interesting in comparison with the actual bugs- I'd personally count it as a feature

Also, if you want to list bugs, remember to list the game engine based bugs as well. For instance, far enemies you don't get the debuff on, near enemies you do. While it would be great if this was based on "sensor radius", I suspect it's based on nothing at all. Sometimes I can see debuffs at 10k, normally below 5k, but I ionned a guy at 3.5k yesterday while testing the ion raligun debuff, and it just didn't appear at all. He was visible slow, but it didn't draw. That's a bug for sure.

Or the fact that when you wake up and check your ships, the x2 display icon is only present on the ships that were available for requisition double the PREVIOUS night- it updates overnight like it should, but the display is wrong until you play a game.

Or the thing where that Euro server spawns everyone into a the devil's butthole and makes them bounce around until they leave battle, but stays like that for until reboot, so any time you queue GSF it's right back to the same thing.

Or the thing where if you have plasma and slug railguns, the firing arc is improper (and normally both use slug's smaller arc, instead of each using their own). Also related is probably the thing where sometimes triggering a copilot ability will snap your railgun aiming arc to the width of your primary weapon. That's definitely a bug.

 

Simply by categorizing this as a "tooltip error" you absolutely miss the mark.

The tooltip error category is free of assement of intent, or is supposed to be. It's just a question of whether the text matches the function or not. The function can need all sorts of other help in addition to tooltip correction.

If what happens in the game is different than what the tooltip says should happen, it get's classified as a tooltip error. At least that's what I was thinking. If you can't put an equals sign between the tooltip and what happens in game.

Of course, you can have issues where there is a broken mechanic AND a tooltip error AND a balance/poor design issue all on one component or mechanic. Brings up a point. Should those be handled as single suggestions, or split up into each individual category? Easier in some ways to split them up in terms of preserving clarity and format of posts, but in terms of a dev who has time for some bug squashing, a unified suggestion would probably be better so I'm thinking I should go in that direction.

As an example, if the tooltip said, "this is now a broken heap of junk, don't take it," and slug railgun were nerfed to 2 DPS, there would be a heap of issues to be fixed, but tooltip would not be one of them.

Just to be clear, I took the bugs from your 'science' post cause it was front page and easy to find and I was positive that the bugs were accurate as of the current patch. Plus they were easy to format.

I won't have time to clean up and post your full buglist until Sat or Sun night. That's when I'll do my first weekly largish update to the front page list.

I'm also happy to have suggestions for corrections if you think I've listed things in inappropriate categories, it's not that hard to move them around.

What about some joint suggestions which goal is to address multiple "issues", but where separating the issues according to the format, will make them look uncredibly stupid by overnerfing/overbuffing some side aspects ?

I don't know if I'm clear...

Let's say I want to adress "issue A", and "issue B" and maybe more issues, but I'm doing it with joint changes.

If I'm going to just explain the part about "issue A" I'll bring "suggestion A" which is the related part. But "suggestion A" is grossly overnerfing if taken alone, but may not be in the context where it's aplied with "suggestion B". And this "suggestion B" is aimed to solve "issue B" but would be overbuffing if taken alone.

Without even accounting the case I may try to solve "issue C" by the joint addition of "suggestion A" and "suggestion B", how would I be able to propose these kind of suggestions, and pass the "not dumb" pre-requisite ?

(Seriously asking, my take on balance implies such highly intricated solution and side effects)

Tooltip:

Engine ability tooltips don't change to reflect the purchase of upgrades such as reduced cooldown

Ship:

1. Strikers, as the other dogfighter class in GSF, lag noticeably behind scouts in this capacity

2. Moderate

3. Improve the striker class as a whole in dog fighting and ability to respond to threats

4. Increase turning/agility by 6-10%, increase speed by 2%

5. By increasing the turning/agility it gives strikers a much better capability to engage enemy fighters and scouts in a dogfight. Because strikers weapons typically carry high tracking penalties and have smaller firing cones this improves their ability to position an enemy fighter to either achieve a missile lock or minimize the tracking penalty. It also improves their defense by making it harder for an enemy, especially more maneuverable scouts, to keep them in their sights. The increase in speed will help strikers respond to threats at other areas of the map faster. These buffs improve their usefulness to a squadron several ways: they can rush to the assistance of allies faster, reinforce a position sooner, more rapidly assault enemy positions, and once they reach a position are more capable of holding their own against enemy fighters they encounter. Since the beta/early access scouts were dominant in this capacity because they were the only ships with the speed to rapidly respond to threats and had the agility to engage the enemy once they got to the trouble area. Scouts will remain at the top in terms of agility and mobility making them ideal first responders but with this buff strikers, with their superior shields/hull, will fair much better as the dogfighter of choice in drawn out slugfests.

Components:

Sensor types:

IFF: provides shield/hull information of allies within comm range, upgrades provide slight buff to comm range albeit at a lower value than what is gained from the comm sensor component (assumption here is that it would be difficult/impossible to make the upgrades provide increased precision in relaying shield/hull values of allies). Intended for ships like the T3 striker, scout, and dronecarrier which have repair drones/probes. This gives pilots intending to fly a pure support build better ability to identify friendly ships in need of assistance without requiring the friendly ship to have taken critical damage and be on fire.

Weapon calibration: provides 4% additional accuracy to weapons when fully upgraded (1% per upgrade level). Intended as a T3 striker/scout exclusive component to give some useful purpose to having that component type (in the case of strikers) or distinguish them from their stablemates (scouts).

Precision targeting: provides a 10-15% reduction in missile lock on times. Intended as a T3 striker/scout and T2 gunship exclusive component. As these ships are limited to thermites and protorps when it comes to hull damaging missile options this makes them more viable in dogfights and provides a meaningful alternative to the weapon calibration sensor. In the case of T3 strikers/scouts this further refines their ability to have a heavy fighter/assault fighter build instead of support build. For T2 gunships this makes their missile options more than an interesting gimmick.

In the case of T3 strikers/scouts weapon calibration and precision targeting sensors are intended for pilots looking for a more combat specific builds rather than support build. For an heavy fighter/assault fighter build using thermites/protorps the precision targeting sensor reduces time spent on attack runs against slow targets like bombers and makes them more viable in a dogfight. Weapon calibration is for pilots using Ion/EMP missiles who may find the decreased lock-on time less useful than improving their ability to land shots in high deflection shooting. The key is that the precision targeting has to offer a meaningful lock-on reduction in order to be a viable alternative to any component that buffs accuracy.

EDIT:

Revenue:

Add CM items (CM ships, paint jobs, engine colors etc.) to collections. I would happily spend CC to unlock these things in collections. For cosmetic things like paint jobs its not like this is even affected by ship/fleet req since you pretty much have to buy it on the GTN since they're mostly gamble pack exclusives.

Here is a collection of the things I've been talking about for a year.

Starfighter Simulator (Training)

Title says it all. From February

@ChrisSchmidt

A thread asking if we did a threat like this one, would they actually read it and answer, from April.

Renewed Call For Flight Training

Asking for a trainer, end of April.

New Player Experience Chanllenge

External tool to get the community to treat the new players better since our requests for a trainer have fell on deaf ears. End of August (currently in development)

[Devs] Intermentent Bug Report: Sabotage Probe Issues

Thread looking into the sabprobe issues and a *fix* to get them to work, sorta. September

@devs [WANTED]: An Outlaws Den, In SPPPPAAAAAAACCCCCEEEE

First request for a simple arena to practice in, really a stripped down trainer from February with the community in place of content.

Matchmaking: How Does It Work?

A thread talking about how the matchmaker can be gamed by groups and how experienced pilots get boned.

What about some joint suggestions which goal is to address multiple "issues", but where separating the issues according to the format, will make them look uncredibly stupid by overnerfing/overbuffing some side aspects ?

 

I don't know if I'm clear...

Let's say I want to adress "issue A", and "issue B" and maybe more issues, but I'm doing it with joint changes.

If I'm going to just explain the part about "issue A" I'll bring "suggestion A" which is the related part. But "suggestion A" is grossly overnerfing if taken alone, but may not be in the context where it's aplied with "suggestion B". And this "suggestion B" is aimed to solve "issue B" but would be overbuffing if taken alone.

 

Without even accounting the case I may try to solve "issue C" by the joint addition of "suggestion A" and "suggestion B", how would I be able to propose these kind of suggestions, and pass the "not dumb" pre-requisite ?

 

(Seriously asking, my take on balance implies such highly intricated solution and side effects)

So for balance related things, the suggestion would be filed under the primary balance issue. Then under the proposed changes, you could have the joint A & B changes, with the reason for a linked change in the supporting arguments section. If that doesn't work well we can consider other options for making a nice clear concise suggestion. I'm basically trying to be an editor (in the professional writing sense) for this thread. So I'll try to help get suggestions in good shape for posting. I won't do all the work, but I want to see really good stuff posted here from the community, so if there are things the format just can't handle we'll figure out some sort of workaround.

So for balance related things, the suggestion would be filed under the primary balance issue. Then under the proposed changes, you could have the joint A & B changes, with the reason for a linked change in the supporting arguments section. If that doesn't work well we can consider other options for making a nice clear concise suggestion. I'm basically trying to be an editor (in the professional writing sense) for this thread. So I'll try to help get suggestions in good shape for posting. I won't do all the work, but I want to see really good stuff posted here from the community, so if there are things the format just can't handle we'll figure out some sort of workaround.

Okay I'll try to find a good way to write them down. (The most complex change I have in mind is about Gunships, so I have to be very careful with what I'll write...)

For instance I'll go with two relatively minor ideas I also had and are easier to write down :

Components

1. The +4 degree of firing arc upgrade of Torpedoes is generally too good to be ignored, mostly because of the base firing arc being too restrictive, making the alternate upgrade (speed) subpar.

2. Moderate

3. Making the upgrade less gamechanging, while not changing the final result.

4. Improve said weapons' firing arc by 2 degree while restricting the upgrade to give only 2 extra degrees.

5. This should not "weaken" the choice of improving the firing arc as the result would be unchanged, but shifting half of its effect into baseline properties should reduce the overall interest toward the upgrade, as the overall improvement would be less significant, and so increase the interest towards the alternate upgrade.

In a nutshell, T0-T3 Torpedoes would become usable more easily (at the moment they're barely usable in this state), upgrading the firing arc would result in what we already have, and upgrading the speed would become better

Components and Bug

1. The improved firing arc from crew members is generally hard to ignore, mostly because of it improving firing arcs by 4 degree instead of 2, and base firing arcs also being rather restrictive in general.

2. Moderate

3. Making the upgrade less gamechanging, while not changing the final result.

4. Improve all weapons' firing arc by 2 degree while fixing the upgrade to properly give 2 extra degrees.

5. The passive bonus gives an improper amount of extra firing arc compared to its tooltip that a given...

...but it is also incredibly more desirable than some other passive, in one hand because other choices are underwhelming, and in an other hand because some weapons are quite hard to use without it, and so is/can be extremely gamechanging.

It has also to be noted that firing arcs using improper values thanks to this crew passive are now probably considered as "basic and normal", so reducing the passive to match the indicated value would probably be "not so well received", and probably not desirable (mainly hinders weapons with mildly to highly narrowed firing arcs, which usually aren't OP in the current state - heavy missiles/torpedoes)

Also, simply updating the tooltip will not make the upgrade less gamechanging, and so even if other passive were to be more interesting, this crew passive would be barely less desirable, and would probably still be on the top of players' choices... unless they are improved by a lot. It flattens the gap of utility between this passive and widely unsued ones, while leaving room for improvements for the latter.

I think I probably have one or two sentences that are not clear, so if you need clarifications, tell me.

Okay I'll try to find a good way to write them down. (The most complex change I have in mind is about Gunships, so I have to be very careful with what I'll write...)

 

For instance I'll go with two relatively minor ideas I also had and are easier to write down :

 

Components

 

1. The +4 degree of firing arc upgrade of Torpedoes is generally too good to be ignored, mostly because of the base firing arc being too restrictive, making the alternate upgrade (speed) subpar.

2. Moderate

3. Making the upgrade less gamechanging, while not changing the final result.

4. Improve said weapons' firing arc by 2 degree while restricting the upgrade to give only 2 extra degrees.

5. This should not "weaken" the choice of improving the firing arc as the result would be unchanged, but shifting half of its effect into baseline properties should reduce the overall interest toward the upgrade, as the overall improvement would be less significant, and so increase the interest towards the alternate upgrade.

In a nutshell, T0-T3 Torpedoes would become usable more easily (at the moment they're barely usable in this state), upgrading the firing arc would result in what we already have, and upgrading the speed would become better

 

 

Components and Bug

 

1. The improved firing arc from crew members is generally hard to ignore, mostly because of it improving firing arcs by 4 degree instead of 2, and base firing arcs also being rather restrictive in general.

2. Moderate

3. Making the upgrade less gamechanging, while not changing the final result.

4. Improve all weapons' firing arc by 2 degree while fixing the upgrade to properly give 2 extra degrees.

5. The passive bonus gives an improper amount of extra firing arc compared to its tooltip that a given...

...but it is also incredibly more desirable than some other passive, in one hand because other choices are underwhelming, and in an other hand because some weapons are quite hard to use without it, and so is/can be extremely gamechanging.

It has also to be noted that firing arcs using improper values thanks to this crew passive are now probably considered as "basic and normal", so reducing the passive to match the indicated value would probably be "not so well received", and probably not desirable (mainly hinders weapons with mildly to highly narrowed firing arcs, which usually aren't OP in the current state - heavy missiles/torpedoes)

Also, simply updating the tooltip will not make the upgrade less gamechanging, and so even if other passive were to be more interesting, this crew passive would be barely less desirable, and would probably still be on the top of players' choices... unless they are improved by a lot. It flattens the gap of utility between this passive and widely unsued ones, while leaving room for improvements for the latter.

 

 

I think I probably have one or two sentences that are not clear, so if you need clarifications, tell me.

Hooray for proper formatting!

So for the first, I'll change it from "torpedoes", to "Proton Torpedoes and Thermite Torpedoes," just for a bit of extra clarity, if you're ok with that. Personally I take a firing arc crew passive and the speed upgrade, but they certainly are challenging to land for beginners, especially with no firing arc upgrades at all. I can also say from the stats for my Pike and Clarion that if you're good at landing them on target torpedoes are very deadly.

For the second, I get the intent of equalizing the benefits of crew passives a bit, but the bug part isn't really a bug. It's just very unclear wording where they use the same term for two different things.

There's firing arc in the sense of defection from ship centerline. That's what's used for tracking penalty calculations, and where the 2 degrees comes from.

There's also firing arc in the sense of the angle formed by the apex of the cone in which the weapon can fire, which is 2 times the maximum deflection from centerline.

Possibly we should suggest using more mathematically correct terms for these two aspects of what's currently lumped under a single term, "firing arc"? Basically split this into two components suggestions and one Miscellaneous for renaming the different parts of, "firing arc."

I get how the firing arc boost can be nice, but I don't know that it is an automatic choice over speed. That speed boost is a noticeable change and often makes it a more likely hit for me--part of the problem for protorps is that they can take so long to get to the target without the boost.

Still, an adjustment to the base firing arc would make them a little less difficult to use (and make them less hostage to the inevitable server lag if you have target on the rim of the arc)... I'd definitely argue for that change. So I guess I'm on board anyway?

I get how the firing arc boost can be nice, but I don't know that it is an automatic choice over speed. That speed boost is a noticeable change and often makes it a more likely hit for me--part of the problem for protorps is that they can take so long to get to the target without the boost.

 

Still, an adjustment to the base firing arc would make them a little less difficult to use (and make them less hostage to the inevitable server lag if you have target on the rim of the arc)... I'd definitely argue for that change. So I guess I'm on board anyway?

It may just be me but lately I've noticed a lot more dropped locks (you know the ones where the target is still within the firing arc and the lock drops anyway) when I'm not using the firing arc boost and achieving a lock is much more consistent with the boost. Which I think kinda sucks since I greatly prefer the speed boost and would use it if I was having better luck with achieving locks. So to some degree I guess I agree that it's an automatic choice, not because it's better per se but because the reality of server lag makes it better and, depending on personal experience, sometimes essential.

Hooray for proper formatting!

 

So for the first, I'll change it from "torpedoes", to "Proton Torpedoes and Thermite Torpedoes," just for a bit of extra clarity, if you're ok with that. Personally I take a firing arc crew passive and the speed upgrade, but they certainly are challenging to land for beginners, especially with no firing arc upgrades at all. I can also say from the stats for my Pike and Clarion that if you're good at landing them on target torpedoes are very deadly.

 

For the second, I get the intent of equalizing the benefits of crew passives a bit, but the bug part isn't really a bug. It's just very unclear wording where they use the same term for two different things.

 

There's firing arc in the sense of defection from ship centerline. That's what's used for tracking penalty calculations, and where the 2 degrees comes from.

 

There's also firing arc in the sense of the angle formed by the apex of the cone in which the weapon can fire, which is 2 times the maximum deflection from centerline.

 

Possibly we should suggest using more mathematically correct terms for these two aspects of what's currently lumped under a single term, "firing arc"? Basically split this into two components suggestions and one Miscellaneous for renaming the different parts of, "firing arc."

Sorry for the time waiting.

Yes, "Proton Torpedoes and Thermite Torpedoes" is probably clearer than just Torpedoes.

I don't doubt that it may be possible to play with speed instead of firing arc, but I feel there's a lot of weight put on the need for improved firing arc. That's why I put it at "moderate issue" and not "severe issue". Maybe I should have chosen a lower qualificative ?

That aside, I did not want to make a joint suggestion, since I thought the crew one was more generalistic, but I think we can safely say that if the crew passive is not taken, then the speed upgrade is hardly viable. And that's a bit of an underlying reason why I'd redistribute both passives (upgrade and crew) into baseline, so that the choice of speed is not conditionned to having already improved the firing arc.

As for calling the crew thing "a bug", yes maybe it's not a bug. It has never been clear if degree were the angle of the cone, or angle of "half-cone" starting from center.

It's possible that the crew is 2° "half-cone", and the weapons give the arc of the "full cone", explaining why crew's 2° becomes 4° on weapons. But it's also possible that it actuallly is intended to be the same definition of "arc", and that actual value doesn't match the tooltip.

For instance, all we can say is that it's misleading.

About the tooltip thing, I'm not sure that it's good to separate it into a clear distinct suggestion, because applying the functionnal one basically means they do not have to update the tooltip, in the way I envionned this. Maybe we should just say that they should not update the tooltip so that it's not misleading anymore ?