The Ragnarok is mostly useless as is and needs to be fixed.

I just tried to go from Divinia G-6 to Verasi L-14 in a Ragnarok MkIII so that I could hunt Valent A-47 Assault ships in a sector that had only those ships using three Gemini Homing Missile Launchers and two Chaos Swarm Missile Launchers.

I was tired of hunting hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of TyCorp Assault ships using energy weapons, and wanted a change.

I was trying to go from Combat Level 7 to Combat Level 8 in 90 minutes using the advice given by "Person" in the thread "XP tweaking thread" ( see http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/9071 ). He advised approximately this setup for quick combat experience.

However, along the way, one of the station bots at Edras B-11 (Edras Crossroads: UIT Commercial) crashed into me just after I had warped in. The bot lost 50% HP and I lost 25% HP.

The bot then opened fire and started chasing me all through that sector. I got confused and forgot that I was trying to get into the wormhole, and tried to put 3000 m distance between myself and the largest object, and then warp to another sector.

But then I noticed on the navigation map that I was already on my way to Verasi, and was due to jump into the wormhole. By that time, I was already 20000 m away.

So, I turned back toward the wormhole and started trying to get there before the bot got me.

Unfortunately, the Vulture station bot destroyed me well before I could make it back.

I could have easily destroyed the bot with my Chaos Swarms, but that would have cost me massive UIT faction standing. Being a trader and a member of TGFT, a UIT guild, this would have been extremely problematic.

Had I had my Tunguska Centaur Aggresso, I probably could have escaped with the extra maneuverability. But the Ragnarok MkIII has only 425 N Thrust and 10.0 Nm Spin Torque and weighs 16000 kg, against the Aggresso's 500 N Thrust and 15.0 Nm Spin Torque and 15000 kg weight. The Ragnarok handles like a heavy piece of rock.

I had also tried escorting the Itani convoy using both ships. I could easily maintain position about 35 m away from the transports using the Aggresso, but had to struggle to stay within 100 m with the Ragnarok MkIII.

To summarize, the Ragnarok is almost useless for everything. I can't hunt bots effectively in it because it gets hit too often and can't even run away from station bots who ram it by mistake.

I can't use it for CtC because it can't stick close to the transports.

I can't use it for trading because it only holds 16 cu (18 cu for the MkI or MkII).

Again, I can't use it for mining, either, for the same reason.

What exactly is this ship supposed to be useful for? Among all the ships I've used so far, it has proven to be the least useful.

Seriously, this ship needs to be made more maneuverable, or given a larger cargo hold. If you at least gave it 500 N Thrust, lowered the mass to 15000 kg, and assigned, say, 13.0 Nm Spin Torque (against the Aggresso's 15.0 Nm), then it would be useful for botting.

Conversely, if you increased the cargo hold to at least about 48 (to match that of the Centaur MkII), then it would be very useful as is for mining.

Every ship needs to have a clear function. As is, the Ragnarok seems to have no function. It just looks stylish, that's all.

-- DekuDekuplex Ornitier

Maybe I just don't know the difference but I like the Ragnorak. I find it well suited to botting with its heavy weapon load out and high armor. I also find the maneuverability to be adequate.

This could make Rags less useless...
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/9080

Other than that, sorry to say it, but don't blame the devs for your forgetfulness.

Sorry to say that I've never actually gotten a station bot mad at me for his collision with me, though I did have one smash into my hog and I lost 50% health...

In any rate, why didn't you just jump out and jump back? Most likely it was only a temporary KOS anyway, so jumping out would not only have fixed that, but it would have put you back in the sector close to the wormhole faster than if you turned around.

Don't expect the Ragnarok to fly like a Centaur. It's the most heavily armed fighter in the game, and if it were beefed up to Prom-like status, well for one thing, it'd make the Prom worthless, and two, it'd suddenly be the supership of the stars. Don't up the cargo. Don't up the maneuverability. What the Rag needs are good missiles so that it can play long-range fire support, where its low maneuverability has less of an effect.

As for hunting Valent A-47s with a Rag, that's, uh... well no one I know does that. Yea, you might have wanted a change, but a Rag with missiles is hardly the most efficient method. You could have hunted A-47s in a Hog with a Plasma Devastator, and not only are you faster, but when you get good, you can kill far more A-47s when you're not restricted by ammunition.

To tell the truth, I'm getting frustrated about all these complaints about isolated incidents, so I'm going to put this very bluntly:

DON'T COMPLAIN THAT THINGS TO BE FIXED IF THEY ONLY HAPPEN TO ONE PERSON ONCE. AND DON'T COMPLAIN THAT THINGS NEED FIXING WHEN YOU COULD HAVE JUST AS EASILY FIXED THE SITUATION YOURSELF (IE. BY SIMPLY JUMPING OUT OF THE SECTOR).

Vendetta is not like Disneyland. It is not a perfect world designed to protect you wherever you are. People run near the pool, they don't necessarily share, and they definitely are going to hit you from time to time.

It's not the end of the world, DekuDekuplex. YOU LOST A SINGLE RAGNAROK. It's not something that the devs need to fix.

I still think that the Ragnarok needs at least a little more maneuverability. Not quite so much as a Tunguska Centaur Aggresso, but at least enough to evade a single station bot Vulture through a single sector. At least it should have a Thrust of 475 N, and, most importantly, a Spin Torque of at least 12.0 Nm.

The idea that a slightly more maneuverable Ragnarok would "make the Prom worthless" is, IMHO, rather preposterous. Look at the statistics:

Serco SkyCommand Prometheus
Cargo: 18
Mass: 10000 kg
Thrust: 640 N
Max Speed: 65 m/s
Spin Torque: 15.0 Nm
Turbo Speed: 220 m/s
Turbo Energy: 60/s

Ragnarok III
Cargo: 16
Mass: 16000 kg
Thrust: 425 N
Max Speed: 65 m/s
Spin Torque: 10.0 Nm
Turbo Speed: 200 m/s
Turbo Energy: 50/s

> What the Rag needs are good missiles so that it can play long-range fire
> support, where its low maneuverability has less of an effect.

First off, almost nobody uses missiles these days, even when fighting robots, and creating "good missiles" would de-emphasize combat skill. The whole reason that most people don't fly in Ragnaroks these days is that these ships don't have any clear use. The moment that missiles started becoming effective, there would be an immediate outcry from experienced players complaining that they don't require enough skill. That's the main reason that Chaos Swarms were recently downgraded.

Therefore, creating more powerful missiles only to have them immediately downgraded from immediate player outcry isn't going to solve anything.

How about this idea: Create a special variant of the Ragnarok, say, a "Tunguska Ragnarok Aggresso," take away infiniboost from it, and make it available to any player with at least 975 Tunguska standing and Combat Level 6. Give it the same cargo hold, but increase the Thrust to 500 N (hey, the Serco SkyCommand Prometheus already has 640 N!), and be sure to assign a Spin Torque of at least 13.0 Nm. Increase the Mass to 18000 kg, and the Cargo hold to 25 cu.

The proposed variant would appear as follows:

Tunguska Ragnarok Aggresso
Cargo: 25
Mass: 18000 kg
Thrust: 500 N
Max Speed: 65 m/s
Spin Torque: 15.0 Nm
Turbo Speed: 200 m/s
Turbo Energy: 55/s

This would be a suitable Ragnarok missile-wielding botting counterpart variant to the current Tunguska Centaur Aggresso, which, IMHO, has proven overall to be an excellent ship for TyCorp Assault ship botting and collecting the robots' dropped cargo. It would be useful for players who prefer using missiles to using energy weapons when hunting non-TyCorp Assault robots. It would be useful almost exclusively for botting heavy robots and successfully evading accidentally rammed station bots.

[Edit: To CrippledPidgeon:

Actually, I had also lost another Ragnarok III just before it to a Valent A-47 Assault ship. I was using a Diamond Dodge key binding, but because of the Ragnarok's low maneuverability, it got destroyed, despite having 19000 armor.

Before that, on another occasion, I had gotten cut down to 8% armor in about 5 seconds, and had barely survived before docking.

I had destroyed about 300 TyCorp Assault ships before that in a Tunguska Centaur Aggresso, and had never been destroyed even once by a robot (although, admittedly, I had been destroyed in it three times by pirates).

If the Ragnarok isn't going to be useful for botting, I have no idea what it's supposed to be useful for. With relatively little maneuverability and two large weapons slots, it appears to be suited for firing large quantities of missiles at long range. But most experienced players can dodge most missiles (and would complain vehemently if they couldn't, so improving missiles isn't going to work).

At least make the Ragnarok a special-purpose missile botting vehicle. Missiles are really useful only against robots (and newbies), and if the Ragnarok can't even evade a station bot, then it's of little use to anybody.
[/Edit]

-- DekuDekuplex

One thing that you should probably do is drop the dodging bind. It's probably set up for light fighters, so the duration that it's trying to maneuver isn't enough to get the rag moving.

crippled then why does it work for the centaur agresso?

just a small remark.

i'm sorry, I have no sympathy for you deku,

"_I was using a Diamond Dodge key binding, but because of the Ragnarok's low maneuverability, it got destroyed, despite having 19000 armor._"

you complain that your dodge bind didnt work, yet farther up the post you are complaining that changing missiles would take skill out of the game?

"_and creating "good missiles" would de-emphasize combat skill. _"

As to station bots, those are supposed to be the hardest bots in the game to avoid, they are the police force, realistically you should have never MADE it to 20,000 meters. and as crippled said, a simple jump out of the sector and back in would have gotten it to stop chasing you, and it is hardly the fault of the rangarok that you forgot you were going to the wormhole.

Finally the rangarok has quite a few very good uses. I use one in CtC as a defense ship. Equipped with a repair gun and a missile load, it makes a superb last line of defense for the transports. Aditionally in a team, the rangarok makes an excellent support ship, with a couple of light fighters flying as escort it can get in close enough to use its missiles where they are effective.

There is skill to the missiles as they are now, and repeatedly launching all of them at long range isnt the way to do it. If you wait and fire them at the right time, you can catch your opponent when s/he is behind on the power curve and cant just turbo away.

I think on a certain axis, the ragnarok might have better maneuverability than the centaur, since it's mass is distributed differently around its center of gravity. Could be my imagination though.

I almost killed a semi decent pilot in a centurion while I was in a Rag, and this was close-in dogfighting. Secret: hold down e and a at the same time. or d and q, and carry big guns. I'm not that good.

I also like to bot arklan guardians in a Rag III. Much easier than prosus for me since I have no aim. I hold down 'r', do some 'qsa' rolls every few seconds, and blast with 5 energy weapons. I'm not gonna tell u which weapons though.. let me just say you can take down an arklan in 4 bursts if you do everything just right. Here's a hint: use the most energy-efficient weapons, not the ones with the biggest damage. Another hint: turn off mouselook, that makes a very large difference.

There is also a fun little trick where you can hold down w e and a at the same time, and actually close in on a single arklan within 100m, without being hit by their gatling, except maybe once or twice.

--

In your situation i would say that with a modified strategy, the tragedy would have been averted.

You could have jumped out to a different station at 20000.. repaired, then gone back to wormhole.

Furthermore i think the station bot was at fault here, they slammed into you! I would like to point out that a 'traffic incident fault detection' system could be valuable for vendetta. Or maybe change the station bots so they dont slam into people.

--

Crippled: I was going to read your post, but I saw that 3 lines of all-caps and I didnt bother.

Rags are heavy bombers and weapons platforms. Basically, they should handle like shit but be able to put out as much weapons fire as several other ships combined. You don't know it know, but rags are really quite fun against capital ships.

They don't need any more maneuverability.

I love the rag. You can spot me quite often in one. The biggest advantage the rag has is, people underestimate it, and then they die. With the right load out, you can take out a hog in 2 shots. But I must say, I would be happy too if it would get just a little bit more thrust. Oh, and have I mentioned that it's the best looking ship in the game ;p

You can take a hog out in two shots from my Death Hornet, too. :D

I love the Ragnorok III. It's perfect for defending the Itani convoy. Once you infiniboost to the transport and then match speeds, you can fire swarms at any closing attacker and distract them from their goal. If you run out of ammo, you still have 3x small port energy weapons.

A few other points:

-The mediocre handling is more than made up for by the 19000 armor IMO. Take the hits and continue closing with the enemy.

-Don't bother trying to run from a fight. The Rag is a glory or death ship.

-What other ship are you going to use for queen hunting?

regardless of all the flaming and bitching, i think the stat comparison of the rag and prom pretty much speak for itself, the rag has one more large and one more small weapon slot than the prom, but is horribly deficient in comparison in every other area.

The rag is fine as it is, and anyone who thinks it needs to be made super-maneuverable and super-high-speed and super-high-armor needs to step back and take a look at its place in the grand scheme of things.

It doesn't need to be supermaneuverable, or super high armor, but the fact that a tunguska centaur makes a better bomber in just about every area is a bit odd.

I like the rag, and disagree that it is completely useless. It's not *great* on its own, but as a support ship it's really good. It might be a nice thing to have when attacking an NPC cap ship. It could be fitted with scads of missiles and rockets, with room to spare for a repair module.

Perhaps there just isnt a role for the rag currently, but against anything faster than a fresh turd fightin its way uphill, the rag is a sitting duck, it cant run, it cant dodge, it cant track, it CAN spam a buncha missles and rockets, but unless they are in a rag or have bad luck they can just do a bit of fancy flying to ditch them, and then go hunt down and slaughter the insolent ragnarok.

How do you like this idea, leave the rag how it is, but give it a lot more thrust when turboing.

more thrust would definitely be a good thing, if nothing else.