At the moment, the TPG test pilot mission and the Raptor are both worthless. Although a Raptor can pace a Hog 2 if the Raptor has a heavy battery, the Raptor is nontheless at a disadvantage due to lack of infiniboost. And there's no reason to do the TPG test pilot mission when you can buy the Raptor without doing the actual mission.

My proposal to restore purpose to both the mission and the ship is to simply make it so you cannot buy any Raptor variant without completing TPG test pilot (which would give an actual reason to do the mission), and give all Raptor variants infiniboost.

If the Raptor were infiniboost, its massive advantage in acceleration and its storm radar would make it a useful chase ship. This would give it a purpose, instead of having a light fighter that is larger than a Centaur and no compensation for that huge disadvantage.

Thoughts?

We already have plenty of infiniboost ships. I'd prefer to make the Raptors high drain and high speed. That would give them a unique role and would provide balance against ships like the greyhound. Look at these threads.

http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/21043
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/21010

The idea of an ultra fast sprint ship makes a lot of sense, but the problem with that idea is the 225mps speed limit. The devs do not seem to want to break it.

Then they should reduce every other ship's top speed by 10-15 m/s and make the Raptor 225 m/s with 62 drain.

I was kind of looking for a solution that would be easy to implement and wouldn't cause the devs any grief. Making two ships infiniboost and tying their availability to the mission is a quick and easy solution. I doubt anyone is going to be happy about a pan-galactic speed loss, though, and it wouldn't be implemented quickly or easily. You know what I mean?

Then they should reduce every other ship's top speed by 10-15 m/s and make the Raptor 225 m/s with 62 drain.

No, what they should do is go back, look at how things were set up speed-wise before the cap was imposed, and then reduce proportionately across the board, such that all ships maintain the same ratio to each other...but that no ship tops 225.

They've been told they fucked up the balance by just capping everything, and they don't seem to care (or a few simple ratios are out of their league). I've always found this cap's effects to be funny, given what a hard on everyone here seems to have about not implementing anything "unbalancing."

What was the rationale for capping all of the max turbo speeds anyway? I've never quite understood that.

Lecter, getting ahold of and using the old data is not that simple. I've looked into this at a couple of points. I still think it's possible to do, but it'll take more than just me, and I haven't wanted to soak up everyone's time on it as of yet. If it were as simple as you say, I would have done it a few years ago.

Ladron: We exceeded those speeds at one point, and combat became effectively too fast for anyone who did not have broadband in north america. Ping times in our game will always be a major factor, but I did not want to make it the only factor.

Do I really have to go back and find the first time a proportional reduction was suggested? It was years ago, literally as soon as the cap was implemented. I find it difficult to believe the requisite data wasn't available then.

In any event, I'm glad to hear it's somewhere in the mix. This is the first time I've heard that in a response to the suggestion.

Inc, sorry to say so but that explanation makes just about no sense at all.
Turbo speeds have *very little* impact on combat, since you generally don't turbo, almost at all, and if you do then either the other party follows you and thus is right behind you so relative velocity is low or doesn't and then fight is over.

maq, this was abundantly unclear to me as well, but I think Inc. actually explained it in a way that made some sort of sense during a prior "Let's bash the Devs for being really stupid and making no sense" thread.

I tried to find it using search, but no dice. There is some way it affects combat, apparently. Just not how we'd think.

Would love to hear that.
I certainly don't remember seeing any difference and I'm one of those supposedly affected.
Still, i assume devs had *some* sensible reason.
[edit]
After some searching i only found a thread about the update that apparently introduced this change: http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/1/13288?page=4
i only see the 'combat became too fast' explanation
and one comment about flares not registering hits due to moving too fast (which could possibly make some sense)

Broader issues aside, the specific issue that I'm trying to address is that the ship with the highest top speed in the game also has the lowest drain in the game. I've never been big on the idea that everything in this game needs to be perfectly balanced, but this strikes me as a major blunder. Ships with endurance should be a bit slower. Ships with awesome speed should be limited by drain. The combo of the best of both in a single ship is boring.

Um, you're forgetting--or rather, ignoring with the intent to mislead--the fact that the fastest ship in the game has shit armor, 80,000 credit repair costs for even nominal damage, and so little spin torque as to be worthless in combat.

Which is to say, it's an effective interceptor of ships that won't turn and fight, and nothing else. Period.

I have no "intent to mislead". Everyone knows the greyhound is nerfed in almost every other category other than speed. That's the only reason it was put in the game to begin with. However, that still doesn't change the fact that I believe a ship with higher speed and high drain to balance against it would make gameplay more interesting. I don't mind the greyhound. It serves it's purpose against trade ships. Introducing a fighter that has enough speed to have the potential to catch up with the greyhound over short distances wouldn't destroy the relationship between the greyhound and the trade ships it was designed to catch.

And yet you know such a fighter, having as it must a top speed over 225 m/s, cannot be implemented.

So, what exactly is it that you are proposing?

If you want to catch a 'Hound, do so when it slows down to engage its prey.

I haven't actually read this thread except Incarnate's post.

But we do have old speed data. It's all in the vo-wiki history. For example, http://vo-wiki.com/w/index.php?title=Centurion&oldid=469. Only going back to '05, but that should be far enough for these purposes.

I remember how mint the warthog TD used to be...

I worked so hard to get it to then we discovered going over 225m/s caused rips in space time and everyone was put on a turbo limit to save the universe

Or something equally as ridiculous...

Getting back to the original topic of the Raptor (since I too am unsure of the 225m/s thing)

I think the Raptor should be increased to something akin to the Corvus Vulturius in terms of stats at the least. The current large profile of the Raptor and it's relatively slow top speed makes it a much easier target than the Vulture and it's variants, so it needs a redeeming quality other than Storm Radar.

If the Raptor had a top standard speed of 70m/s, with Top Turbo speed of 215m/s with a light drain of say 60/s (up from 57 on the Mk2), then you would have a decently high speed interceptor with a moderate turbo speed (matches the Mk2 variant) and doesn't compromise duel missions against the Vulture, Warthog or Greyound.

I think that the Raptor could also be introduced more to fill the lagging "Escort Fighter" role. Take her and give her an "Escort Variant" with 2 S-Ports, a top speed of 60m/s and turbo of 225m/s with a 65/s drain she'd be an excellent convoy escort ship. The prohibitive drain would keep her from being a mainstay fighter, and would really only be enough for running in sector interference for a convoy. Her armor would also need to be knocked down to balance her out, taking her from 8500 (Mk2) to 7800 (Escort).

Actually, the problem with the Raptor is NOT that it isn't fast or whatnot, it's that the ship structure is a hit magnet. It's got all these protruding structures that cause it to get hit a lot, especially by flares.

If we could get rid of the "rails" on the back and maybe reduce the overall size to be that of an Atlas, it might be a viable combat ship.