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I've been mulling over a few things lately, and I'm curious to see what people think.

 

Laser Cannons: Is there some reason to use these I'm not aware of? Stats-wise they don't seem particularly impressive, and they feel just as lackluster in combat. I can't see why anyone would want to take them over Rapids/Lights or Quads/Heavies. Would a buff of some description be warranted here?

 

Rocket Pods: Kind of a minor thing, but the +10% range increase for the second option choice doesn't strike me as being very useful given the unguided & slightly inaccurate nature of the weapon, especially for a 7500 req upgrade.

So I got to thinking, it might be cool to have some sort of proximity-fuze effect there instead. If a rocket misses the target but still travels within, let's say 50m for argument's sake, it will still detonate and do some damage. Maybe half or so, seeing as it isn't a direct hit.

I feel like they could do with a smidgen more shield or armour pen as well.

 

Sabotage Probe: This could do with a slightly shorter lock time, maybe bring it down from (upgraded) 2.7s to 2.3s or 2.4s and see how that goes. Wouldn't go much shorter than that, otherwise it'd become stupidly powerful. Given the shortish range and the fact you're potentially vulnerable to getting taken out by someone else while you're flying up your target's butt to finish them off once the probe lands, I don't see why it has a longer lock time than other things that have longer range and do more damage, ie protorps.

Doesn't seem to get used very often either, think I've only been grabbed by one maybe 2 or 3 times in all the games I've played, and I'm lucky if I land 1 or 2 in any given match, quite often I won't get any. Having said that, I am playing on 240+ms, so achieving full locks can be a bit of a hassle regardless.

 

Sensor Beacon: Does this have much use? I only see them very rarely, and they don't tend to survive very long either, they're mostly just a nuisance. While I get that the various buffs & debuffs it provides can be handy for defending nodes, even though the sensor range seems a tad short, I can't really see why anyone would take it over EMP or TT or Tensor.

Kinda seems like something a bomber should be carrying around.

 

Booster Recharge: Much like Sensor Beacon, I'm struggling to see why anyone would take this over EMP or TT. Refilling engine power is certainly useful, but is it worth taking up an ability slot? Does it need something else to make it a more attractive pick?

 

Ion Mines/Missiles: General consensus seems to be that these aren't very useful, and while I haven't bothered with the mines much, I do feel like the missiles are a bit lackluster. Especially against anything with a magical shield regen button (ie Strikes), they just shrug it off and continue on their merry way.

Perhaps needs to be more debilitating vs shields, and/or have a more prominent/longer lasting slow effect/engine drain, so following up the Ion shutdown with blasters to finish off the semi-crippled ship would be more viable, because currently it doesn't really seem to be.

 

Interdiction Missiles: Kind of a left-field idea here, but these seem to be a bit wasted by only being present on the T3 gunship, further compounded by the T3 apparently being the least popular of the 3 gunships. So I thought it might be cool to stick them on another ship as well, Scouts being the first thing that came to mind, given that Bombers already have Interdiction stuff available and Strikes are irritating enough as it is. The T1 & 2 already have Sabotage Probe though, so maybe just the T3, which, other than the paltry slow on Ion Missile, has no real way of snaring opponents.

 

Deflection Armour & Charged Plating: Rendered largely useless by the amount of armour-piercing weapons being thrown around. Might be worth bringing blaster AP values down a bit, from 100% to somewhere in the 50% ballpark and see how that goes. I think AP values on missiles are mostly fine. I do have a bone to pick with protorps, though. Is penning 100% of shields and armour on top of having long range and high damage really necessary? Seriously, why? Having high armour pen I can understand, makes for a handy weapon against hardened targets, but why 100% pen on shields as well? Seems excessive. Also really annoying getting one-shotted by them in a Scout, but I digress.

And speaking of torps, it'd be nice if the Thermal Torp DoT was quickened up a bit, 15s seems a tad long, maybe make it 10s or so.

 

Lastly, as a side note, I think 12v12s could stand to be restricted to larger maps (ie Denon) and left out of smaller maps (ie Lost Shipyards), because in my experience thus far, giant blobs of protorp-armed Strikes are pure, unadulterated cancer.

 

Thoughts?

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I've been mulling over a few things lately, and I'm curious to see what people think.

 

Laser Cannons: Is there some reason to use these I'm not aware of? Stats-wise they don't seem particularly impressive, and they feel just as lackluster in combat. I can't see why anyone would want to take them over Rapids/Lights or Quads/Heavies. Would a buff of some description be warranted here?

Yeah not a great option. No reason to take them. Only thing they have over RFL or LLC is range. But Scouts do best up close, so the range isnt needed. LLC and RFL offer far better features like wider arc, improved tracking, higher DPS and armor piecing.

 

Rocket Pods: Kind of a minor thing, but the +10% range increase for the second option choice doesn't strike me as being very useful given the unguided & slightly inaccurate nature of the weapon, especially for a 7500 req upgrade.

So I got to thinking, it might be cool to have some sort of proximity-fuze effect there instead. If a rocket misses the target but still travels within, let's say 50m for argument's sake, it will still detonate and do some damage. Maybe half or so, seeing as it isn't a direct hit.

I feel like they could do with a smidgen more shield or armour pen as well.

Personally, I wouldn't change pods at all. Currently pods sit in that collective of weapons / builds that require a high level of skill to use competently. Giving them proximity detonation would make them easier to use, and i think there has been enough of that already in the game. If someone wants "easy" weapons, there are plenty of them to choose from.

 

Sabotage Probe: This could do with a slightly shorter lock time, maybe bring it down from (upgraded) 2.7s to 2.3s or 2.4s and see how that goes. Wouldn't go much shorter than that, otherwise it'd become stupidly powerful. Given the shortish range and the fact you're potentially vulnerable to getting taken out by someone else while you're flying up your target's butt to finish them off once the probe lands, I don't see why it has a longer lock time than other things that have longer range and do more damage, ie protorps.

Doesn't seem to get used very often either, think I've only been grabbed by one maybe 2 or 3 times in all the games I've played, and I'm lucky if I land 1 or 2 in any given match, quite often I won't get any. Having said that, I am playing on 240+ms, so achieving full locks can be a bit of a hassle regardless.

The question is, do you actually want Sabotage Probe made easier to use? It takes a lot of skill use that build, as you noticed from how many you typically land. It fits in that collective of high skill builds. No one likes being sabo-probed. Just like no one likes being sliced. Both make you feel dead in the water and helpless. But, at least with sabo-probes you have respect the skill of the pilot to land it and get the follow up kill. Of the sabo-probes that land on me, I survive far more than kill me. That's because there are two elements to it, landing the probe, then getting the follow up kill. Even if you learn to do the first, most players are not efficient enough to finish you off before the probe times out. If you make it easier, you will see more of it. Which means you will have more probes landing on you. Do you want that?

 

Sensor Beacon: Does this have much use? I only see them very rarely, and they don't tend to survive very long either, they're mostly just a nuisance. While I get that the various buffs & debuffs it provides can be handy for defending nodes, even though the sensor range seems a tad short, I can't really see why anyone would take it over EMP or TT or Tensor.

Kinda seems like something a bomber should be carrying around.

Yeah its pretty bad.

 

Booster Recharge: Much like Sensor Beacon, I'm struggling to see why anyone would take this over EMP or TT. Refilling engine power is certainly useful, but is it worth taking up an ability slot? Does it need something else to make it a more attractive pick?
Booster Recharge is a funny one. You mostly see lower skill pilots using it to compensate for not being used to the lack of engines on a Scout when they are used to flying Strikes with QCS. But it certainly has value. It can definitely get you out of a pickle, and I have seen some great pilots do very well with it. But its also not a meta choice. It thinks its good to have as a option though. Good for pilots to learn fly scouts.

 

Ion Mines/Missiles: General consensus seems to be that these aren't very useful, and while I haven't bothered with the mines much, I do feel like the missiles are a bit lackluster. Especially against anything with a magical shield regen button (ie Strikes), they just shrug it off and continue on their merry way.

Perhaps needs to be more debilitating vs shields, and/or have a more prominent/longer lasting slow effect/engine drain, so following up the Ion shutdown with blasters to finish off the semi-crippled ship would be more viable, because currently it doesn't really seem to be.

Yep, another pretty useless weapon. Not sure how you wold fix them. Personally I wouldn't like to see more slow / drain effects added. More on that below.

 

Interdiction Missiles: Kind of a left-field idea here, but these seem to be a bit wasted by only being present on the T3 gunship, further compounded by the T3 apparently being the least popular of the 3 gunships
. It should be the 2nd most popular GS, since its actually very good in specific scenarios, where as the T2 is objectivity bad altogether. But that's a different topic.

So I thought it might be cool to stick them on another ship as well, Scouts being the first thing that came to mind, given that Bombers already have Interdiction stuff available and Strikes are irritating enough as it is. The T1 & 2 already have Sabotage Probe though, so maybe just the T3, which, other than the paltry slow on Ion Missile, has no real way of snaring opponents.
Maybe on the T3 due it its role. But not on anything else. I don't feel we should add more slow / drain / interdiction effects to the game. There is enough of that already. It certainly has its place, I just don't think we need more.

 

Deflection Armour & Charged Plating: Rendered largely useless by the amount of armour-piercing weapons being thrown around. Might be worth bringing blaster AP values down a bit, from 100% to somewhere in the 50% ballpark and see how that goes. I think AP values on missiles are mostly fine. I do have a bone to pick with protorps, though. Is penning 100% of shields and armour on top of having long range and high damage really necessary? Seriously, why? Having high armour pen I can understand, makes for a handy weapon against hardened targets, but why 100% pen on shields as well? Seems excessive. Also really annoying getting one-shotted by them in a Scout, but I digress.

And speaking of torps, it'd be nice if the Thermal Torp DoT was quickened up a bit, 15s seems a tad long, maybe make it 10s or so.

Kind of two issues here. Do I think protorps should be nerfed? Yes. Well, actually what I would do is lesave them as is but remove Effcient Taregting from the game, or make ET 5% instead of 10%. There by removing the emphasis on missiles and putting it back on lasers.

 

Reducing Armor pen overall.... hhmm. interesting one. Never considered it. I think the idea could have legs. But that can get quite complex in how it would effect the meta. Needs to be carefully planned and tested.

 

Lastly, as a side note, I think 12v12s could stand to be restricted to larger maps (ie Denon) and left out of smaller maps (ie Lost Shipyards), because in my experience thus far, giant blobs of protorp-armed Strikes are pure, unadulterated cancer.
This is not a problem of 12v12s in smaller maps. This is a problem of the Strike meta. Let me be clear I am not complaining about the meta. Its in a good state and overall I am very happy with it. But what 5.5 did was make Strikes strong. The biggest meta defining aspect of which, is protorps. They are a huge threat because of the sheer number of people using them in any one match. Odds are, a missile hits you, its a Protorp. And sooner or later, one will hit you. One person exclusively trying to lock protorps on you, not such a problem. Even if you are a Scout Ace and an expert at evading them, they still dictate how you fly. Changing the overwhelming number of Strikes in smaller maps, is solved by giving people incentive / reason to fly something else, or to work harder for missile locks and put more emphasis on lasers again. Which again, I think would be achieved by removing or altering Efficient Targeting. Strikes still get all the buffs they got in 5.5, but they now require you to work a little harder, and encourage you to use lasers instead of missiles.

 

Thoughts?

Edited by Ttoilleekul
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I'm always slightly puzzled by people who dislike Laser Cannons but think Quads are fine, given that stats wise Laser Cannons and Quads are basically interchangeable. Laser Cannons = Quads where devs wanted more variety in names and art. They are the baseline cannon. Well balanced, but not interesting in any particular way.

 

Rocket Pods. The extra range lets you start shooting a bit earlier, so you might get in one extra shot, and more importantly since scouts are a bit weak against mines and drones lets you engage them effectively from a bit farther away. The range option does have value. The proximity fuse idea is cool, but the way targeting works in GSF it's very much a "is mouse cursor over dot on UI" sort of thing not a physics based collision detection model, so the game likely wouldn't know if you were within a few meters of the target or not. That's part of why accuracy and range use RNG for miss rates, there's no inherent physics based factor that makes "longer" shots harder in GSF.

 

Sensor Beacon. It's better than it looks under certain conditions. Those conditions being that everyone on both teams has a high degree of skill. Between the missile lock time increase, the evasion debuff and accuracy debuff, it can be a significant advantage if your team knows to use it. Not really a compelling choice, but it does work well enough that failing to destroy them can be a serious tactical error.

 

Booster Recharge is niche, but it has it's uses. In Domination maps, especially Denon, the ability to get from node to node at speed without ever running out of fuel can be useful. Played right it can also offer a scout some utility against long range weapons (railguns, torpedoes) because you can boost all the way in and then back out of range again. Sort of a Run, Hit, and Run, style of fighting. You trade damage output for maneuverability and survivability, and sometimes that trade can be worth it. I have it equipped on a few alts.

 

Ion missile is kind of lackluster. Part of it's problem though is that it competes against components that are really good. All of the pure offensive missiles are better at damage, and EMP is far better at utility. Ion is sort of a compromise in the base design. The upgrades are fairly standard ones that we see on other components, but they don't make it hit hard enough to compete with DPS missiles or have enough utility to compete with utility missiles. Plus the current meta is heavy on shield piercing, which somewhat discounts the value of stripping shields. I equipped it accidentally recently, and it's not really that bad on its own, there's just no reason to choose it over other components aside from careless clicking on the interface.

 

There were requests to spread Interdiction missile around a bit, but the Devs declined to do so. That said, it's not like any ship out there really needs the utility it provides aside from the T3G. It's the helping hand that gives the most maneuverable gunship a fighting chance if it wants to kite or dogfight strikes or scouts in an emergency.

 

Charged plating and deflection armor. Partial armor piercing was requested for the 5.5 balance patch. It's the one thing that I really wanted that didn't make it through. I thought that based on the Thermite Torp debuff that partial piercing should be fairly doable, and offered slightly better balance than binary 100% or 0%, but for whatever reason, difficulty coding or design philosophy they elected not to do it. Result is that bombers and Charged Plating builds aren't really all that viable right now. Overall still better balance than before, but partial piercing would have been the sweet spot I think.

 

On related torpedo based notes, yes the Proton Torp needs full piercing for armor and shields. The reason is that it doesn't do that much DPS due to low rate of fire, and even the damage per hit isn't really all that high. It makes up for those weaknesses by doing damage to where it really matters, the hull. Tuning it would be a matter of lock time changes. In 5.5 they shortened it more than anyone had asked for, and it could probably handle having another .25 seconds or so added back to the lock time. For Thermite Torpedo, especially if they ever implement partial piercing on armor, the long DoT is a desirable feature. One of the major strengths of the Thermite is the debuff it applies to the target that allows blasters without piercing (or hypothetically with low piercing values), to be effective against charged plating builds. You want that debuff, and therefore the DoT to stay on the target as long as possible so you have opportunities to shoot it with blasters, even if the target is doing evasive maneuvers. As a bonus the DoT inhibits shield regeneration while that's happening. I normally pick the DoT extension upgrade instead of the damage increase. It's not as valuable as it used to be, because there aren't that many builds around without generous amounts of piercing, but giving your whole team 100% AP and 20% shield piercing for all weapons on an annoying target for 15 to 18 seconds is pretty good. You take it more for that than because on an unshielded target it does roughly twice as much damage a Proton torpedo.

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I've been mulling over a few things lately, and I'm curious to see what people think.

 

Laser Cannons: Is there some reason to use these I'm not aware of? Stats-wise they don't seem particularly impressive, and they feel just as lackluster in combat. I can't see why anyone would want to take them over Rapids/Lights or Quads/Heavies. Would a buff of some description be warranted here?

 

I mean not really, it's got a little bit of shield penetration that was supposed to be it's new identity, but it wasn't enough so it kind of got left behind.

 

Rocket Pods: Kind of a minor thing, but the +10% range increase for the second option choice doesn't strike me as being very useful given the unguided & slightly inaccurate nature of the weapon, especially for a 7500 req upgrade.

So I got to thinking, it might be cool to have some sort of proximity-fuze effect there instead. If a rocket misses the target but still travels within, let's say 50m for argument's sake, it will still detonate and do some damage. Maybe half or so, seeing as it isn't a direct hit.

I feel like they could do with a smidgen more shield or armour pen as well.

 

So this one is a little harder to unpack because I have to go into really indepth mecanics of GSF.

 

However range is actually the superior DPS choice on Rocket pods much of the time. The reason for that is that the range upgrade actually provides accuracy not just range and because rocket pods have such a high tracking penalty, you want as much accuracy on them as possible. Also the Damage over Time effect lasts 6 seconds and when you hit someone with a second Rocket pod, you actually only refresh the DoT, and since Rocket pods fire faster then one second, if you hit with them consecutively you only get 1 tick of each dot for each rocket pod, which comes out to about a 2.14% damage increase.

 

But let's go back to why range adds DPS. So in GSF different ranges have different accuracies, and those accuracies are linear when you're in between them. For example if something has 50% accuracy at range 500 and 100% accuracy at range 1000. Then when you're at range 750, you'd have 75% accuracy.

 

Rocket pods has a 20% difference between close range and maximum range, which means as long as you're above 500 range you're going to be adding 2% accuracy on average to all your shots.

 

Now you might be saying 2% is lower then the damage the DoT proves even if it's just the first tick, however Rockets pods has a high tracking penalty and you usually near the end of the maximum range and it only has 86% accuracy there. So if you add the enemies evasion into the mix you're usually adding 2% to like a 50-80% shot, which ends up being a much bigger increase since it's going to make you hit roughly 4-5% more shots.

 

Sabotage Probe: This could do with a slightly shorter lock time, maybe bring it down from (upgraded) 2.7s to 2.3s or 2.4s and see how that goes. Wouldn't go much shorter than that, otherwise it'd become stupidly powerful. Given the shortish range and the fact you're potentially vulnerable to getting taken out by someone else while you're flying up your target's butt to finish them off once the probe lands, I don't see why it has a longer lock time than other things that have longer range and do more damage, ie protorps.

Doesn't seem to get used very often either, think I've only been grabbed by one maybe 2 or 3 times in all the games I've played, and I'm lucky if I land 1 or 2 in any given match, quite often I won't get any. Having said that, I am playing on 240+ms, so achieving full locks can be a bit of a hassle regardless.

 

I hear this one a lot, honestly we don't want Sabotage Probe to become meta, this move being as popular as Protons are now would make the game very miserable, not only because you lose control of your ship, but because of just how fast the projectile on Sabo Probe is. You have so little time to react to it once it's fired, that's one of it's greatest strenghts. Having it stay as it is, makes it more of a component people use to have a good time and I think it's good to have some components in the game that hit that sweet spot, fun but not super competitive.

 

Sensor Beacon: Does this have much use? I only see them very rarely, and they don't tend to survive very long either, they're mostly just a nuisance. While I get that the various buffs & debuffs it provides can be handy for defending nodes, even though the sensor range seems a tad short, I can't really see why anyone would take it over EMP or TT or Tensor.

Kinda seems like something a bomber should be carrying around.

 

So Sensor Beacon is in a weird spot, it's actually very useful if you use it in a group setup, but the ships that have access to it, can't do much else once they take it. So it becomes more of a custom match component, where you have a dedicated Sensor Beacon guy in high end 8v8's.

 

Booster Recharge: Much like Sensor Beacon, I'm struggling to see why anyone would take this over EMP or TT. Refilling engine power is certainly useful, but is it worth taking up an ability slot? Does it need something else to make it a more attractive pick?

 

Booster Recharge was used as a straight Remote Slicing counter, you would activate it right before they sliced you to maintain your engine power. After the recent Remote slicing nerf, I'm not sure if Booster Recharge has an identity anymore, might only be a 1v1 tool now, which isn't really a thing lol.

 

Ion Mines/Missiles: General consensus seems to be that these aren't very useful, and while I haven't bothered with the mines much, I do feel like the missiles are a bit lackluster. Especially against anything with a magical shield regen button (ie Strikes), they just shrug it off and continue on their merry way.

Perhaps needs to be more debilitating vs shields, and/or have a more prominent/longer lasting slow effect/engine drain, so following up the Ion shutdown with blasters to finish off the semi-crippled ship would be more viable, because currently it doesn't really seem to be.

 

Yeah no these components need some love, they're still very underpowered.

 

Interdiction Missiles: Kind of a left-field idea here, but these seem to be a bit wasted by only being present on the T3 gunship, further compounded by the T3 apparently being the least popular of the 3 gunships. So I thought it might be cool to stick them on another ship as well, Scouts being the first thing that came to mind, given that Bombers already have Interdiction stuff available and Strikes are irritating enough as it is. The T1 & 2 already have Sabotage Probe though, so maybe just the T3, which, other than the paltry slow on Ion Missile, has no real way of snaring opponents.

 

Interdiction Missile is one of the most powerful missiles in the game, you'd have to be very careful what ships you put this on. In group play, calling out someone your Interdicting with that thing is almost always nets a kill.

 

The T3 Gunship is definitely the second best Gunship btw, the T2 is super far behind it.

 

Deflection Armour & Charged Plating: Rendered largely useless by the amount of armour-piercing weapons being thrown around. Might be worth bringing blaster AP values down a bit, from 100% to somewhere in the 50% ballpark and see how that goes. I think AP values on missiles are mostly fine. I do have a bone to pick with protorps, though. Is penning 100% of shields and armour on top of having long range and high damage really necessary? Seriously, why? Having high armour pen I can understand, makes for a handy weapon against hardened targets, but why 100% pen on shields as well? Seems excessive. Also really annoying getting one-shotted by them in a Scout, but I digress.

And speaking of torps, it'd be nice if the Thermal Torp DoT was quickened up a bit, 15s seems a tad long, maybe make it 10s or so.

 

Lots to unpack here.

 

AP values sadly can't be adjusted in this game, it's basically a toggle, it's 100% or 0.

 

Protons having both armor and shield penetration has kind of been it's whole identity since launch, what I'd rather see is a small addition to it's lockon time bringing the other missiles into the mix.

 

As for Thermals DoT you actually want it long, because as long as the DoT is on someone ALL weapons get 100% AP on the target and extra shield piercing. So if anything you'd want that thing to be even longer. ^^

 

Lastly, as a side note, I think 12v12s could stand to be restricted to larger maps (ie Denon) and left out of smaller maps (ie Lost Shipyards), because in my experience thus far, giant blobs of protorp-armed Strikes are pure, unadulterated cancer.

 

Yeah Lost Shipyards TDM feels much smaller because it has a lot less cover for line of sighting then the other maps even though it's about the same size. Denon is bigger but because you have the Satelittes for cover you feel it less. I personally am not a huge fan of 12's in GSF, I'm one of the guys that lobbied to get the amount that pops changed. (Which we got by the way!)

 

12's now only pop 50% of the time instead of 90% of the time. (Man was the 90% 12's era miserable to play in...)

 

Hope that helped! Let me know if you have questions about my explanations or want to chat about other components :)

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Yeah not a great option. No reason to take them. Only thing they have over RFL or LLC is range. But Scouts do best up close, so the range isnt needed. LLC and RFL offer far better features like wider arc, improved tracking, higher DPS and armor piecing.

 

That's what I figured. I get the impression they're supposed to fill some sort of middle ground between the shorter range Rapids/Lights and the longer range Quads/Heavies, but they don't do a good job of it, and I can't come up with any sort of other niche they could fill. I'd suggest they need their power draw reduced slightly at the very least, I think they cost about as much as Quads/Heavies to use and don't have the performance to warrant it.

 

Personally, I wouldn't change pods at all. Currently pods sit in that collective of weapons / builds that require a high level of skill to use competently. Giving them proximity detonation would make them easier to use, and i think there has been enough of that already in the game. If someone wants "easy" weapons, there are plenty of them to choose from

 

Fair enough, though I disagree. I still think that 10% range option needs to be changed to something else or buffed, taking the +damage of the other option is a no-brainer.

 

The question is, do you actually want Sabotage Probe made easier to use? It takes a lot of skill use that build, as you noticed from how many you typically land. It fits in that collective of high skill builds. No one likes being sabo-probed. Just like no one likes being sliced. Both make you feel dead in the water and helpless. But, at least with sabo-probes you have respect the skill of the pilot to land it and get the follow up kill. Of the sabo-probes that land on me, I survive far more than kill me. That's because there are two elements to it, landing the probe, then getting the follow up kill. Even if you learn to do the first, most players are not efficient enough to finish you off before the probe times out. If you make it easier, you will see more of it. Which means you will have more probes landing on you. Do you want that?

 

I agree that being Sabo'd is a particularly irritating thing, and that's part of the reason I suggested only a very small decrease in lock time as a starting point. Plus the snare effect can always be brought down slightly if it's too strong. Even if it is made marginally easier to use, the ships equipped with them still require higher-than-average skill to use effectively, and if hordes of people decide to start flying scouts for Sabo Probes all of a sudden, I'd wager the vast majority of them will get eaten up by Strikes in a hurry.

I'm not worried about there being more of them, because there's hardly any around as it is. If a weapon is seeing very little use, what purpose does it serve? If no-one is using it, it might as well not be there, just a waste of a missile option, may as well swap it out for something else entirely. I make a point of staying away from battlescouts unless they're already engaged anyway. And as you pointed out, it is possible to get away if the attacker isn't sharp enough, a decrease in lock time won't change that.

Just personally, as much it sucks, I'd rather get killed by a more skilled pilot using Sabo Probe than someone parked 10 or 15k away, I find getting killed from long range far more annoying.

 

Yep, another pretty useless weapon. Not sure how you wold fix them. Personally I wouldn't like to see more slow / drain effects added. More on that below.

Maybe on the T3 due it its role. But not on anything else. I don't feel we should add more slow / drain / interdiction effects to the game. There is enough of that already. It certainly has its place, I just don't think we need more.

Kind of two issues here. Do I think protorps should be nerfed? Yes. Well, actually what I would do is lesave them as is but remove Effcient Taregting from the game, or make ET 5% instead of 10%. There by removing the emphasis on missiles and putting it back on lasers.

 

I can agree on not having more slows, that's a fair call. As someone who primarily flies Scouts, having my legs taken out from underneath me is never a fun time, and getting slowed as a Bomber is Alt+F4 inducing. So for Ion Missiles, perhaps they could lock out the shield ability for a few seconds in addition to stripping shields? Or maybe lock out the co-pilot ability as well, I can't think of anything which does that, for what little it's worth.

I really like the idea of having Interdiction Missiles on the T3 Scout, would give it some utility beyond just Tensoring. Currently, apart from Tensoring, it doesn't really do anything you can't already do better with a T1 Scout or a T3 Strike.

The idea of encouraging people to use blasters more is a good one, which is also why I'm advocating for things like Sabo Probe/Ion Missile/Interdiction Missiles to be more useful, I much prefer the idea of smacking something with some manner of missile debuff then following up with blasters for the kill. That's the main reason I use Thermite Torps a lot, I really like that shield bleedthrough debuff they provide.

I don't mind the Efficient Targeting nerf, trouble is that doesn't affect everyone, and it could effect non-problematic ships/missiles in the process. If Protorps are the issue (and in my opinion they certainly are), they need to be addressed directly, I think messing with ancillary systems will only cause further issues.

 

Reducing Armor pen overall.... hhmm. interesting one. Never considered it. I think the idea could have legs. But that can get quite complex in how it would effect the meta. Needs to be carefully planned and tested.

 

Just goes to show how people can perceive things differently I guess, reducing it from a flat 100% on blasters was the first thing I thought of. I'd be inclined to leave railguns and missiles alone, I think they're mostly fine, and I wouldn't go overboard nerfing Rapids/Bursts either, 'cause surgical strikes on hardened targets is kind of what Scouts are for, but I would absolutely bring Heavies down, they're quite powerful as is and combined with being mounted on lots of Strikes and Bombers, I feel they're too common to have as much AP as they do.

 

This is not a problem of 12v12s in smaller maps. This is a problem of the Strike meta. Let me be clear I am not complaining about the meta. Its in a good state and overall I am very happy with it. But what 5.5 did was make Strikes strong. The biggest meta defining aspect of which, is protorps. They are a huge threat because of the sheer number of people using them in any one match. Odds are, a missile hits you, its a Protorp. And sooner or later, one will hit you. One person exclusively trying to lock protorps on you, not such a problem. Even if you are a Scout Ace and an expert at evading them, they still dictate how you fly. Changing the overwhelming number of Strikes in smaller maps, is solved by giving people incentive / reason to fly something else, or to work harder for missile locks and put more emphasis on lasers again. Which again, I think would be achieved by removing or altering Efficient Targeting. Strikes still get all the buffs they got in 5.5, but they now require you to work a little harder, and encourage you to use lasers instead of missiles.

 

I have to disagree somewhat here, 12v12 in Lost Shipyards is just too many people in too small a space, more so in Domination than Tedious Derp Match. Denon is largely fine because it's huge, and even Kuat and Iokath aren't as bad 'cause there's still some room to avoid the crowd, but LS is horrendously bad.

Having said that though, I agree that there's too many people with too much range flying around, and fixing that first before messing with other things is something I'd be happy with, there's certainly plenty of merit in it.

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I'm always slightly puzzled by people who dislike Laser Cannons but think Quads are fine, given that stats wise Laser Cannons and Quads are basically interchangeable. Laser Cannons = Quads where devs wanted more variety in names and art. They are the baseline cannon. Well balanced, but not interesting in any particular way.

 

Maybe it's just me, but Laser's feel like I'm hitting the target with a wet noodle. I haven't used them recently though, so I might have to try them out some more. I do feel they're a tad expensive to fire for what they do, though.

 

Rocket Pods. The extra range lets you start shooting a bit earlier, so you might get in one extra shot, and more importantly since scouts are a bit weak against mines and drones lets you engage them effectively from a bit farther away. The range option does have value. The proximity fuse idea is cool, but the way targeting works in GSF it's very much a "is mouse cursor over dot on UI" sort of thing not a physics based collision detection model, so the game likely wouldn't know if you were within a few meters of the target or not. That's part of why accuracy and range use RNG for miss rates, there's no inherent physics based factor that makes "longer" shots harder in GSF.

 

I had a feeling the game engine might be a limiting factor in the proxy fuse idea, bit of a shame but oh well.

Actually, that reminds of another bugbear I have, missiles clipping through solid objects once they've been fired. Not very common, but rather annoying. Though I guess if the engine doesn't support proper collision detection there isn't much that can be done about it.

 

Sensor Beacon. It's better than it looks under certain conditions. Those conditions being that everyone on both teams has a high degree of skill. Between the missile lock time increase, the evasion debuff and accuracy debuff, it can be a significant advantage if your team knows to use it. Not really a compelling choice, but it does work well enough that failing to destroy them can be a serious tactical error.

 

Yeah, I've only seen the SB hang around for any length of time once or twice before, and it certainly made a noticeable difference, until our team made a concerted effort to root the damn thing out. Every other time I've seen one they get destroyed just as soon they get placed. I'd like to try them out some more, but they aren't all that useful in TDM and I really don't like giving up EMP/TT/Tensor.

 

Booster Recharge is niche, but it has it's uses. In Domination maps, especially Denon, the ability to get from node to node at speed without ever running out of fuel can be useful. Played right it can also offer a scout some utility against long range weapons (railguns, torpedoes) because you can boost all the way in and then back out of range again. Sort of a Run, Hit, and Run, style of fighting. You trade damage output for maneuverability and survivability, and sometimes that trade can be worth it. I have it equipped on a few alts.

 

Good to know, that's something else I might have to test out. I am partial to sneaking around the backlines in TDM, and running either Speed or Regen on the thrusters is good, but not always quite sufficient for running away from the inevitable gaggle of Strikes which aren't very happy to see me attacking their gunships. Pox on them, I say!

 

Ion missile is kind of lackluster. Part of it's problem though is that it competes against components that are really good. All of the pure offensive missiles are better at damage, and EMP is far better at utility. Ion is sort of a compromise in the base design. The upgrades are fairly standard ones that we see on other components, but they don't make it hit hard enough to compete with DPS missiles or have enough utility to compete with utility missiles. Plus the current meta is heavy on shield piercing, which somewhat discounts the value of stripping shields. I equipped it accidentally recently, and it's not really that bad on its own, there's just no reason to choose it over other components aside from careless clicking on the interface.

 

I've used it a few times as well, and came to a similar conclusion; it's not terrible, but doesn't do anything spectacular either. If you can catch whoever you just hit with it, there's the potential to trash them with blasters before they run off, but as I mentioned, more often than not they have their Magical Shield Regen button ready and the whole exercise is rendered moot. Thus I think a shield ability lockout might be worthwhile as an addition of some kind.

 

There were requests to spread Interdiction missile around a bit, but the Devs declined to do so. That said, it's not like any ship out there really needs the utility it provides aside from the T3G. It's the helping hand that gives the most maneuverable gunship a fighting chance if it wants to kite or dogfight strikes or scouts in an emergency.

 

That's a shame, I quite like the IM's but I'm not a massive fan of flying gunships, the playstyle doesn't suit me. Had some good success with the IM's the few times I have flown the T3G, though. Was amusing watching people come charging in at me only to turn around and run once they realized the error they had just made when I started locking them, nailed quite a few with my Bursts that way. Though at that point I might as well just be playing a Scout.

 

Charged plating and deflection armor. Partial armor piercing was requested for the 5.5 balance patch. It's the one thing that I really wanted that didn't make it through. I thought that based on the Thermite Torp debuff that partial piercing should be fairly doable, and offered slightly better balance than binary 100% or 0%, but for whatever reason, difficulty coding or design philosophy they elected not to do it. Result is that bombers and Charged Plating builds aren't really all that viable right now. Overall still better balance than before, but partial piercing would have been the sweet spot I think.

 

Agreed, partial AP would be much better to work with 0 or 100. Seems kind of odd they went with that, especially seeing as various other weapons (ie mines/Concussion Missile) have partial AP. The Spaghetti Code monster strikes again, I guess. As a very roundabout and probably-not-worth-the-effort way of solving this, would it be worth turfing the 100% AP options entirely, and dropping armour values to suit? That way armour could still be useful and the existing low-AP options would continue to function just fine.

 

On related torpedo based notes, yes the Proton Torp needs full piercing for armor and shields. The reason is that it doesn't do that much DPS due to low rate of fire, and even the damage per hit isn't really all that high. It makes up for those weaknesses by doing damage to where it really matters, the hull. Tuning it would be a matter of lock time changes. In 5.5 they shortened it more than anyone had asked for, and it could probably handle having another .25 seconds or so added back to the lock time. For Thermite Torpedo, especially if they ever implement partial piercing on armor, the long DoT is a desirable feature. One of the major strengths of the Thermite is the debuff it applies to the target that allows blasters without piercing (or hypothetically with low piercing values), to be effective against charged plating builds. You want that debuff, and therefore the DoT to stay on the target as long as possible so you have opportunities to shoot it with blasters, even if the target is doing evasive maneuvers. As a bonus the DoT inhibits shield regeneration while that's happening. I normally pick the DoT extension upgrade instead of the damage increase. It's not as valuable as it used to be, because there aren't that many builds around without generous amounts of piercing, but giving your whole team 100% AP and 20% shield piercing for all weapons on an annoying target for 15 to 18 seconds is pretty good. You take it more for that than because on an unshielded target it does roughly twice as much damage a Proton torpedo.

 

I get where you're coming from re the Protorp, but considering it can one-shot Scouts and and severely damage any other ship, is low dps/rate of fire really an issue? The AP I don't mind, but I'm not sold on that 100% shield pen, seems excessive. I wouldn't be unhappy with a lock time increase, as you say to something like 2.6 or 2.7. Maybe a small reduction in firing angle? I'd also suggest that 15% range increase on option 2 could come down as well, 10k is already plenty, 11.5k seems, again, excessive. Or maybe the 100% speed boost could be reduced to 70 or 80. Just some thoughts. Truth be told I don't use Protorps all that often, I prefer Thermals.

Speaking of which, I should clarify, when I suggested reducing the dot time I was refering to the damage part, not the debuff. Though I suppose using 2 different timers doesn't make a huge amount of sense, and knowing Bioware the damage & debuff are probably intrinsically linked anyway. I do agree the debuff is fantastic to have though, that's mainly why I use Thermals.

I'm not keen on the extra 3s debuff though, I take the extra damage. This might just be me, but I find that once the torp has landed, either I/someone else will finish the target off before the 15s is up or (particularly if I've fired from long range) the target will bugger off somewhere before I can get hold of them, at which point the debuff is useless. I solo queue though, so I'd imagine it's a bit different if you're flying with a team.

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I mean not really, it's got a little bit of shield penetration that was supposed to be it's new identity, but it wasn't enough so it kind of got left behind

 

Bit of a shame, that. Hopefully they get jazzed up a bit if Bioware ever do another GSF balance pass.

 

So this one is a little harder to unpack because I have to go into really indepth mecanics of GSF.

 

However range is actually the superior DPS choice on Rocket pods much of the time. The reason for that is that the range upgrade actually provides accuracy not just range and because rocket pods have such a high tracking penalty, you want as much accuracy on them as possible. Also the Damage over Time effect lasts 6 seconds and when you hit someone with a second Rocket pod, you actually only refresh the DoT, and since Rocket pods fire faster then one second, if you hit with them consecutively you only get 1 tick of each dot for each rocket pod, which comes out to about a 2.14% damage increase.

 

But let's go back to why range adds DPS. So in GSF different ranges have different accuracies, and those accuracies are linear when you're in between them. For example if something has 50% accuracy at range 500 and 100% accuracy at range 1000. Then when you're at range 750, you'd have 75% accuracy.

 

Rocket pods has a 20% difference between close range and maximum range, which means as long as you're above 500 range you're going to be adding 2% accuracy on average to all your shots.

 

Now you might be saying 2% is lower then the damage the DoT proves even if it's just the first tick, however Rockets pods has a high tracking penalty and you usually near the end of the maximum range and it only has 86% accuracy there. So if you add the enemies evasion into the mix you're usually adding 2% to like a 50-80% shot, which ends up being a much bigger increase since it's going to make you hit roughly 4-5% more shots.

 

Now this is quite interesting, I didn't realize the rocket dot functioned that way, I'd never looked very closely at it. Makes sense though now that I think about it, given that player dots in this game generally don't stack.

I hadn't really considered accuracy in regards to the range increase either, that's quite a good point, gives me a few things to think about. Cheers for posting that, good stuff.

 

I hear this one a lot, honestly we don't want Sabotage Probe to become meta, this move being as popular as Protons are now would make the game very miserable, not only because you lose control of your ship, but because of just how fast the projectile on Sabo Probe is. You have so little time to react to it once it's fired, that's one of it's greatest strenghts. Having it stay as it is, makes it more of a component people use to have a good time and I think it's good to have some components in the game that hit that sweet spot, fun but not super competitive.

 

I agree on not wanting it to become meta/replacing Protorps, and I still think a small lock decrease wouldn't push it that far given the skill required to land it and finish off the target, but fair enough, if people aren't keen on changing it I'm cool with that.

 

So Sensor Beacon is in a weird spot, it's actually very useful if you use it in a group setup, but the ships that have access to it, can't do much else once they take it. So it becomes more of a custom match component, where you have a dedicated Sensor Beacon guy in high end 8v8's

 

Yeah, that's my main issue with it, the ship carrying it loses a tad too much ability to contribute much else, not very ideal for Scouts. That's why I was thinking a Bomber instead, they're parked on nodes anyway and they generally don't have much in the way of missile breakers either (depending on what exactly they're equipped with), so the increased lock time debuff would benefit them. The T2&3's are typically carrying around Hyperspace Beacons/Repair Drones, but the T1 doesn't have anything particularly special, so maybe it could carry SB's?

 

Booster Recharge was used as a straight Remote Slicing counter, you would activate it right before they sliced you to maintain your engine power. After the recent Remote slicing nerf, I'm not sure if Booster Recharge has an identity anymore, might only be a 1v1 tool now, which isn't really a thing lol.

 

Yep, kinda seems like an answer in search of a question. I do like Rama's take on it, though.

 

Yeah no these components need some love, they're still very underpowered.

 

Agreed, the question is how? Adding more slows is a bit oppressive, and while I like inhibiting shields further + locking out the shield ability for a bit, or even locking the co-pilot ability just for giggles, I can't really come up with much else. I might have to play around with them for a bit.

 

Interdiction Missile is one of the most powerful missiles in the game, you'd have to be very careful what ships you put this on. In group play, calling out someone your Interdicting with that thing is almost always nets a kill.

 

Agreed, which is why I settled on the T3 Scout. Would give it some more utility than just Tensor, and Scouts aren't always the easiest things to fly either, so I think that would help keep it in check.

 

Lots to unpack here.

 

AP values sadly can't be adjusted in this game, it's basically a toggle, it's 100% or 0.

 

Protons having both armor and shield penetration has kind of been it's whole identity since launch, what I'd rather see is a small addition to it's lockon time bringing the other missiles into the mix.

 

As for Thermals DoT you actually want it long, because as long as the DoT is on someone ALL weapons get 100% AP on the target and extra shield piercing. So if anything you'd want that thing to be even longer.

 

Well that's a bummer, making AP all or nothing is a very odd design choice. My reply to Rama's post covered the torp bits.

 

I personally am not a huge fan of 12's in GSF, I'm one of the guys that lobbied to get the amount that pops changed. (Which we got by the way!)

 

12's now only pop 50% of the time instead of 90% of the time. (Man was the 90% 12's era miserable to play in...)

 

You are now my new best friend, I despise 12v12's, I'm very glad they've been toned down. I generally don't get them very often on Satele Shan, but they do appear quite a lot on Star Forge, which I'm guessing is just a combination of Galactic Seasons + higher server pop.

 

Hope that helped! Let me know if you have questions about my explanations or want to chat about other components

 

Certainly did, thank you kindly. I can't think of much else to discuss at the moment, those were all the components that really stood out to me when I was flicking through them, but I'm always up for these kind of discussions. I've been working on personal mods in various games for many years now, so picking through all the assorted info for weapons/armour/abilities/effects etc. is almost always interesting.

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The idea of encouraging people to use blasters more is a good one, which is also why I'm advocating for things like Sabo Probe/Ion Missile/Interdiction Missiles to be more useful, I much prefer the idea of smacking something with some manner of missile debuff then following up with blasters for the kill.

I definitely understand where you're coming from, but I feel quite certain that making CC easier just creates another slicing situation. Literally the only people who like slicing are few that use it. It needed nerfing and we got it done. Its "okay" now. If we make other CC's easier, we just substitute something else back in its place. Encouraging people to want to be good enough to hit a moving target, with lasers, is the real goal. Not encouraging them to CC someone first. But I also appreciate not everyone shares my view. CC needs to be finely balanced. I lean toward not liking too much of it.

 

I have to disagree somewhat here, 12v12 in Lost Shipyards is just too many people in too small a space
Again, I definitely respect and appreciate how you feel on this. Personally, I kind of like it. It provides a different dynamic. A Kuat DOM 8v8 plays very differently to a 12v12, and I like that difference and the challenge it provides. You're really unlucky if you eat a Protorp at B at Kuat. A Scout in there is quite impervious to protorps, even if means you have to kite a lot. Edited by Ttoilleekul
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I definitely understand where you're coming from, but I feel quite certain that making CC easier just creates another slicing situation. Literally the only people who like slicing are few that use it. It needed nerfing and we got it done. Its "okay" now. If we make other CC's easier, we just substitute something else back in its place. Encouraging people to want to be good enough to hit a moving target, with lasers, is the real goal. Not encouraging them to CC someone first. But I also appreciate not everyone shares my view. CC needs to be finely balanced. I lean toward not liking too much of it.

 

Fair call, I can appreciate not wanting more CC, don't want GSF going the way of ground PVP with slows/stuns all over the place. Great when cc's are on your target, not so great when they're on you every 5 seconds.

 

Again, I definitely respect and appreciate how you feel on this. Personally, I kind of like it. It provides a different dynamic. A Kuat DOM 8v8 plays very differently to a 12v12, and I like that difference and the challenge it provides. You're really unlucky if you eat a Protorp at B at Kuat. A Scout in there is quite impervious to protorps, even if means you have to kite a lot.

 

Yeah, that's true, I get where you're coming from. I could probably come to enjoy 12v12 more, or dislike it less, if I put some time into flying ships more suited to it, but those tend to be ships I'm not fond of. As I mentioned further up somewhere I mostly fly Scouts, which generally isn't so bad in objectives, but I find trying to fly a Scout into a giant blob/wall of Strikes and Gunships backed up by a couple of Bombers is just an exercise in futility. Can't get anywhere near the Gunships or Bombers without being chased around by the half-dozen Strikes that are always nearby, and trying to dogfight with the Strikes is equally pointless. Or maybe I just need some more practice, dunno.

I'm with you on the Kuat B thing, that's always a fun place for a dogfight, zipping around all the beams and girders.

 

 

Got a question for Drak while I'm thinking of it. I was a reading some threads a few pages back, and one about testing sensor ranges in custom maps caught my eye. You mentioned there that all ships have a minimum sensor range of 15000 they can always see at regardless of dampening, and that the Sensor Focus passive actually gives +5000 instead of the listed +3500. Do both of these still hold true?

If so, I'm slightly miffed that dampening is getting shafted by that 15000 min range. I usually run full damp on my ships that can run it, but I may swap out the +sensor range/+dampening crew member I normally use for +sensor focus/+comm range instead, and just keep dampening on the sensor component.

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Got a question for Drak while I'm thinking of it. I was a reading some threads a few pages back, and one about testing sensor ranges in custom maps caught my eye. You mentioned there that all ships have a minimum sensor range of 15000 they can always see at regardless of dampening, and that the Sensor Focus passive actually gives +5000 instead of the listed +3500. Do both of these still hold true?

If so, I'm slightly miffed that dampening is getting shafted by that 15000 min range. I usually run full damp on my ships that can run it, but I may swap out the +sensor range/+dampening crew member I normally use for +sensor focus/+comm range instead, and just keep dampening on the sensor component.

 

Yeah nothing has changed about sensors since then, that's all still accurate.

 

I still use dampening on some ships to make it so Gunships can't see me past 15000, so that they can't line up shots on me just as I'm coming into their range. However if you're within 15k of someone they can ALWAYS see you.

 

But yeah since that realization I've used way more sensor range/focus stuff then dampening. I don't really use comm range stuff much, since they're additive with your teammates comm ranges so it's already really far.

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As I mentioned further up somewhere I mostly fly Scouts, which generally isn't so bad in objectives, but I find trying to fly a Scout into a giant blob/wall of Strikes and Gunships backed up by a couple of Bombers is just an exercise in futility. Can't get anywhere near the Gunships or Bombers without being chased around by the half-dozen Strikes that are always nearby, and trying to dogfight with the Strikes is equally pointless. Or maybe I just need some more practice, dunno.

Ship adaptability is one of the most important skills in the game. The ability to fly Strikes, Gunships and Scouts all to an equal level, and knowing when to switch ships and what to. That said, Scouts are not as bad as conventional wisdom has always said they are. For sure, there are some situations Scouts just don't work. But, the same can be said of Strikes and Gunships. In my recent 100 try hard Scout games, my Domination and TDM win ratios were very similar. A friend of mine also did the Scout 100 Challenge after I did it, and as well as having a higher win ratio than I achieved, he likewise had very similar win ratios for TDM and DOM. Conclusion; If Scouts were as bad in TDM as people say, then it would have shown.

 

My gut feeling is that there wouldn't be much difference in the results from 8v8s to 12v12s either, though I never logged that data, so I couldn't say for certain. Something to do one day maybe...

Edited by Ttoilleekul
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  • 1 month later...

Some more thoughts.

 

Been playing around with Laser Cannons and Ion Missiles a bit, and I think Rama is right about them not being terrible, but not particularly good either. They do the job, but why take them over anything else?

I'd suggest reducing the LC's tracking penalty slightly, but I can't come up with much else that doesn't turn them into something that already exists.

As for Ion's, I keep coming back to the idea of locking the shield ability/severely inhibiting shield regen for a few seconds, or maybe marginally increasing their firing angle/decreasing their lock time to make them more useful within blaster range. Other than that, I don't know.

 

Bursts: The shield piercing choice seems too low to be useful in contrast to the other option's reduced tracking penalty. Though I know making it higher would be a bit absurd given a) how much damage Burst's can potentially do and b) they already have AP, so I don't think I'd advocate buffing it. Is there something more useful that could go here instead, or am I missing something? Guess it might work in conjunction with Bypass, but Wingman has better uptime.

 

Rocket Pods: So obviously I was wrong with my earlier post about choice 2 being a no-brainer, but now choice 1 is bugging me. A firing arc buff to a weapon with massive tracking penalties seems very out of place (though I suppose it could have some niche use against sat turrets), and extra ammo is quite handy considering how fast you can go through the stuff. Would the firing arc option be better off turfed for something else, or massively buffed so it actually does something?

 

Blaster Overcharge: Nothing inherently wrong with this one, and I do use it sometimes for something different, but the higher uptime + accuracy of TT seems to pretty well relegate BO to second place. Worth tweaking a bit, or leave it the way it is?

 

Quick-charge Shields: The combo of strong shield regen + decent uptime/low cooldown makes QCS very useful, but I wonder is it maybe a bit too good? Also, am I correct in assuming the 'engine power recently used' bit is a bug and shouldn't be there?

 

Directional Shields: How useful is DS? I've tried it out a few times on Bombers, and it hasn't really blown me away. The cycling trick to even out shields after one side has gone down can be handy, and it does a reasonable job of facetanking most blaster fire set fore in F2 mode, but beyond that, it seems a tad underwhelming. Also annoying that it cycles even > aft > fore instead of even > fore > aft, but that might just be me.

 

Overcharge Shield: Pretty rare that I see anyone using this, and I recall seeing a couple of posts around here somewhere alluding to it not being that great as well. Ran it on one of my Bombers for a while and it did feel a bit average. Strong damage will still bring shields down, piledriving T1F's especially, and yet it takes forever to regen it again. Does have decent uptime in it's favour, but with slow as molasses regen, what's the point?

 

Drones: The survivability buffs don't strike me as being all that good, in my experience if someone is shooting at a drone it's going to die regardless. I wouldn't advocate for huge buffs or anything, especially on the longer range drones, but it'd be nice if the extra DR/health/shields did more than just delay the drone's death by 1 second. It's a choice on the Interdiction Drone, but why take a small amount of extra DR/health when you can take the option for 2 drones instead? Similar story with the Hyperspace Beacon, why take survivability for something that should be out of the way and not getting shot at over a speed boost?

 

Copilot Abilities: The idea of unhitching copilots from abilities was mentioned in thread recently, which I'm all for. Would be nice to have the copilot & ability of choice rather than taking/not taking certain crew members with the passives you want to get whichever copilot you need. So that got me thinking, do the copilot skills need looking at? Wingman is an obvious standout, it's very very useful, and probably Running Interference as well. Hydrospanner is also quite handy, of course. The others all have varying degrees of usefulness, depending on what you're trying to accomplish. Lingering Effect seems a bit weak though, 200 dmg over a long-ish time period seems a bit pointless, unless it serves some other purpose I'm not aware of, and Nullify is relegated to the bottom of the barrel by AP proliferation.

 

Lastly, a battlescout question. Is there much use for Quad's + Pods apart from jousting & popping Gunships? I tried it out for a bit and didn't really like it, although I did manage to nail Roland with them in a Lost Shipyards Dom match while he was in a Gunship, which I was very pleased with. The smaller (relative to Burst's & Light's) firing arc plus the higher tracking penalty feels quite restrictive when it comes to dogfighting around Sats, which is what I mostly do in the battlescout, I'm not a big fan of jousting.

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Bursts: The shield piercing choice seems too low to be useful in contrast to the other option's reduced tracking penalty. Though I know making it higher would be a bit absurd given a) how much damage Burst's can potentially do and b) they already have AP, so I don't think I'd advocate buffing it. Is there something more useful that could go here instead, or am I missing something? Guess it might work in conjunction with Bypass, but Wingman has better uptime.

Bypass + shield piercing + hull damage on BLC is brutal. I ran that build for a while for lulz. You can still hit stuff on turns with it. Its a jousting monster. Itsnot bad, its just not the meta choice, because arc and tracking + wingman does so much more.

 

Rocket Pods: So obviously I was wrong with my earlier post about choice 2 being a no-brainer, but now choice 1 is bugging me. A firing arc buff to a weapon with massive tracking penalties seems very out of place (though I suppose it could have some niche use against sat turrets), and extra ammo is quite handy considering how fast you can go through the stuff. Would the firing arc option be better off turfed for something else, or massively buffed so it actually does something?
Pods have more in common with a lasers than they do missiles. I could definitely get behind improving their arc and tracking, so that they have more synergy with BLC. Its still a very high skill build, so its not like you nerf the game by doing this.

 

Blaster Overcharge: Nothing inherently wrong with this one, and I do use it sometimes for something different, but the higher uptime + accuracy of TT seems to pretty well relegate BO to second place. Worth tweaking a bit, or leave it the way it is?
Blaster Overcharge is like CC on the T3F. Its a good component, but the other options are better, in most applications. You tend to find a lot of people trying to get to grips with BLC use BO to start with, and then eventually switch to TT. The increased range and rate of fire are like stabilizers on a kid's bicycle when learning how to use BLC. I think it serves this purpose of "training wheels" well.

 

Quick-charge Shields: The combo of strong shield regen + decent uptime/low cooldown makes QCS very useful, but I wonder is it maybe a bit too good? Also, am I correct in assuming the 'engine power recently used' bit is a bug and shouldn't be there?
QCS is perfect as is. The shield regen and cooldown are not enough to stop being killed to any large degree, it just makes you a bit more tanky. The engine regen is an absolute necessity in a game that has a multitude of slow / disabling debuffs. One counters the other.

 

Directional Shields: How useful is DS? I've tried it out a few times on Bombers, and it hasn't really blown me away. The cycling trick to even out shields after one side has gone down can be handy, and it does a reasonable job of facetanking most blaster fire set fore in F2 mode, but beyond that, it seems a tad underwhelming. Also annoying that it cycles even > aft > fore instead of even > fore > aft, but that might just be me.
Extremely good. But its a very high skill ability. Most pilots will not appreciate its full potential. Maybe I should do a Demo video about this.

 

Overcharge Shield: Pretty rare that I see anyone using this, and I recall seeing a couple of posts around here somewhere alluding to it not being that great as well. Ran it on one of my Bombers for a while and it did feel a bit average. Strong damage will still bring shields down, piledriving T1F's especially, and yet it takes forever to regen it again. Does have decent uptime in it's favour, but with slow as molasses regen, what's the point
I think this is the meta choice actually. Its what I use. With so many armor piercing weapons. Over charges shield is a better option than charged plating.

 

Drones: The survivability buffs don't strike me as being all that good, in my experience if someone is shooting at a drone it's going to die regardless. I wouldn't advocate for huge buffs or anything, especially on the longer range drones, but it'd be nice if the extra DR/health/shields did more than just delay the drone's death by 1 second. It's a choice on the Interdiction Drone, but why take a small amount of extra DR/health when you can take the option for 2 drones instead? Similar story with the Hyperspace Beacon, why take survivability for something that should be out of the way and not getting shot at over a speed boost?
The prevalence of low skill players forming Bomber spams, and area controlling a map, is enough of a problem as it is. If you buff Bombers any amount at all, this will get worse. These days only Aces know how to clear bomber spams. 99% of people just feed straight into them.

 

Copilot Abilities: The idea of unhitching copilots from abilities was mentioned in thread recently, which I'm all for. Would be nice to have the copilot & ability of choice rather than taking/not taking certain crew members with the passives you want to get whichever copilot you need. So that got me thinking, do the copilot skills need looking at? Wingman is an obvious standout, it's very very useful, and probably Running Interference as well. Hydrospanner is also quite handy, of course. The others all have varying degrees of usefulness, depending on what you're trying to accomplish. Lingering Effect seems a bit weak though, 200 dmg over a long-ish time period seems a bit pointless, unless it serves some other purpose I'm not aware of, and Nullify is relegated to the bottom of the barrel by AP proliferation.
There are a select few meta choice co-pilot abilities, the rest fall somewhere between limited usefulness and utterly pointless. A re-think would not go amiss.

 

Lastly, a battlescout question. Is there much use for Quad's + Pods apart from jousting & popping Gunships? I tried it out for a bit and didn't really like it, although I did manage to nail Roland with them in a Lost Shipyards Dom match while he was in a Gunship, which I was very pleased with. The smaller (relative to Burst's & Light's) firing arc plus the higher tracking penalty feels quite restrictive when it comes to dogfighting around Sats, which is what I mostly do in the battlescout, I'm not a big fan of jousting.
No quads are not a good option here. I think the only good choice for Quads is when Piledriving, but even then, Rapids are better. Don't get me wrong an Ace with Quads will still wreck, but its still not the meta choice. As for Quads on the Battle Scout, pre5.5 that was the pre-eminent jousting build. If you want to build a jousting Scout now, I think you are better off using BLC with shield piercing and hull damage, Bypass, maybe even CF, and frequency capacitor. Maybe even Blaster Overcharge.With BO and Frequency cap you can get BLC to fire very quickly and do tonnes of damage. A jousting dream. Which all nicely pertains to your first question :)
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Bypass + shield piercing + hull damage on BLC is brutal. I ran that build for a while for lulz. You can still hit stuff on turns with it. Its a jousting monster. Itsnot bad, its just not the meta choice, because arc and tracking + wingman does so much more.

 

Yeah, I've been trying out the Bypass/shield piercing/hull damage combo over the last few days, and I'd agree, it's quite good, but Wingman edges it out. I'll probably stick with Bypass Pub-side though, and run Wingman Imp-side. just because of Crew choices.

 

Blaster Overcharge is like CC on the T3F. Its a good component, but the other options are better, in most applications. You tend to find a lot of people trying to get to grips with BLC use BO to start with, and then eventually switch to TT. The increased range and rate of fire are like stabilizers on a kid's bicycle when learning how to use BLC. I think it serves this purpose of "training wheels" well.

 

I've discovered in recent times that I quite like running BO with Light's, can do some horrific damage in a hurry if kept on target. Using Light's kinda defeats the point of playing battlescout in the first place, but I tend to get more consistent results out of Light's compared to Burst's anyway, so it doesn't worry me.

 

No quads are not a good option here. I think the only good choice for Quads is when Piledriving, but even then, Rapids are better. Don't get me wrong an Ace with Quads will still wreck, but its still not the meta choice. As for Quads on the Battle Scout, pre5.5 that was the pre-eminent jousting build. If you want to build a jousting Scout now, I think you are better off using BLC with shield piercing and hull damage, Bypass, maybe even CF, and frequency capacitor. Maybe even Blaster Overcharge.With BO and Frequency cap you can get BLC to fire very quickly and do tonnes of damage. A jousting dream. Which all nicely pertains to your first question

 

After playing with Quad's and Pods a bit more I have to agree, not worth the hassle, feels too restricted in what it can do. Think I'll stick with Burst's + TT or Light's + BO.

 

Cheers for your input, 'tis appreciated

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