Along the lines of 350 bots and how hard everything will be without turbo-tapping:

My opinion is that it is up to us to figure out how to adjust to these difficult situations. If not through piloting skill and strategy, then through teamwork.

For example, despite the number of 350 bots in s16, I still think that if 4 or 5 ragnoraks went in together with two wings of 4 fighters each (a mix of warthogs, valks, hornets) then the frigate could be killed easily within a few minutes. With that many fighters, you could take out the bots (which group in 3's) while leaving the rag's to bomb the crap out of the frigate. I bet most would survive.*

It just takes teamwork. There was no teamwork pre 3.2.7, because one skilled pilot could kill the frigate alone (given enough time). If we nerf the bots and take away the danger, and we've again taken away the need for role-playing.

(*if I had enough credits, I'd buy the ships for everyone to try this... but I'm not that rich)

I find it funny how people accept that turbo tapping should be an absolute essential part of the game. True, it's been in the game for a long time, but was it really the best solution? Think for a second here. What'll happen when sectors are much bigger and exploration will literally take hours instead of minutes? Are you gonna turbo tap your way across a sector for hours nonstop? Don't kid yourself. And what if you decide to use an efficient engine instead? Oh yeaaaah, nothing like having someone turbo tap up behind you and nail you while you've spent hours crossing half of a huge sector. FUN!!!

For those who don't know, turbo tapping involved the usage of ones finger to repeatedly tap the boost key, to keep a constant high speed while squeezing every millimeter of energy outta the battery indicator. Some people could time their tapping better than others, while others had the luxury of turbo tapping on a desktop keyboard as opposed to a laptop keyboard. Ever try turbo tapping on a thin laptop keyboard? It's hard.

So what ended up happening was anyone who had tapping skills would easily be able to outrun everyone else. Would you consider that a skill? Physically, yes. Mentally? Not in the slightest. What we now have to rely on in 3.2.7 is Vendetta's environment and your piloting skills. You'll have to use that brain of yours to get out of sticky situations. In addition to that we also need to decide what engine/battery combo best suits our personal playing style. Not one engine or battery is superior over the others anymore. The efficient engine finally has a use to it, whereas before you'd easily get chased down by a boost tapper and get shot in the back, for example. Imagine all the newbies this would save also.

Anyway, so what we have now is the option to choose the dragster combo, with high acceleration and speed (heavy/heavy or fast). Or we can choose the endurance combo (efficient or medium/fast). If you know you'll be in close combat and you won't be traveling far, go ahead and pick the dragster combo. You'll have the edge in higher speed and higher torque. However, If you need to travel for lengthy periods or you'd like a good chance of escaping in a battle, buy the endurance combo instead.

Each engine and battery offers a more distinct role than ever before. Anyone ever play Gran Turismo 3? Have ever fiddled around with the transmission screen in career mode that would allow you to tweak the gears? You had the option of accelerating really quickly and having a lower max speed, or you could've chosen to accelerate at a slower rate but have a higher max speed over a longer period of time. It's sort of like that. And even though it was a racing game, it still makes a lot of sense when applied to Vendetta. Speed and maneuverability determines whether you'll survive or not.

Now, nobody's saying that the 3.2.7 is perfect. I'm sure this new system could be tweaked even more to provide greater balance. But so far it's definitely an improvement over turbo tapping, where everyone and their dog would use the heavy/fast combo.

I used the Hvy/Hvy combo.
I also have the Icekey from MacAlly, just for fun, it's a very slick keyboard, but yes, turbo tapping sucks on it. That's what my Mircosoft Giant Humongous Would Never Fit On A Normal Desk Ergo Keyboard is for.

Edit: Here is my keyboard in comparison to a can of Squirt.

http://home.attbi.com/~lil_panda/empieofsquirt.jpg

Heavy & Heavy here.
I'll bet now you're going to see nothing but eff + fast. Vendetta has once again done a 180-degree turn from its previous situation...it never seems to do anything but.

Now,you decelerate way too fast...I swear you decereate faster than you accelerate...the engine you choose should have the effect of slowing you down as fast as it speeds you up - no faster.

Side Note:
I *really* don't understand how / why anyone in their right mind plays a (space)flight sim with a keyboard. It's nice that you *can* but why?? Why not just use a joystick? It is more realistic.

The eff has ALWAYS been like that (faster decrease than increase), and has ALWAYS been in constant use. I dunno about you, but I know a large amount of people used eff/fast 100% of the time since 3.2. Nothing's changed except for the boost-tappers. I personally use medium/fast.

PS: Freeman, a keyboard and mouse can actually work better (thanks to the devs' PERFECT system) than a joystick. It's great. Try it. I've used both, and I can maneuver twice as quickly with the keyboard, plus I have a hundred-odd more buttons on my keyboard and mouse than on my joystick. If we wanted realism, we wouldn't play computer games.

I always use eff/fast when I'm not in a bus with the stock engine and battery...

P.S. Panda, lay off the caffeine! :P

"I *really* don't understand how / why anyone in their right mind plays a (space)flight sim with a keyboard. It's nice that you *can* but why?? Why not just use a joystick? It is more realistic. "

I travel for a living. The last thing that I want to do is carry something else around with me all the time.

surely to be physically accurate, you should be able to turbo up to top speed, and then cut engines and turbo and just cruise.

This is space - theres no atmosphere, no drag effect, you'll keep going in the direction you're going until you hit something, you boost in the opposite direction, or gravity pulls you away..........


now theres a challenge for the devs!

The infinite turbo (and backwards turbo) bug was fixed which inadvertantly 'fixed' the boost-tapping. Very interesting.
I could go into detail about how they are related but I won't.

Rabid Panda: your squirt collection rivals my diet mt dew collection. ;)

Joysticks vs. keyboard/mouse: We all at Guild use the keyboard/mouse combo. It seems easier to aim at other ships. However it seems more fun to just fly around with a joystick, it seems more fluid.
We'll see when manuverability becomes more important in the future.

Engine/battery combos: Yes different combos give you different abilities. We're still tweaking that so they are more wekk defined. Not only is there the linear speed differences, there are also rotational differences.

Being able to stop faster than you can speed up is due to the brake feature. Realistically brakes shouldn't be in there, but it was left over from wayyyyyyyy back when brakes are what you needed to slow down. Sure you can slow down faster, but slowing down makes you an easier target. ;)

Animal: that'd be easy, but that ruins the game mechanics a bit.

It's a 100% drag effect right now. You can tell because when you slow down it's equal to the speeed of you slowing down while your ship is turning, so technically, there is no atmosphere, just that this space is really really dense, or something like that.

Ray: I hope you don't make one too teaked so that it's the best in the game and that anything else is just stupid to pick. I know this isn't what you want . Just so that you know, I hope that this game becomes so that players can specialize in weapons, not one god weapon, better then the rest. I imagine the same goes of lots of other players. So get that sniper rifle out here! lol

In my opinion turbo tapping is a lot like bunny hopping in Half-life/counter-strike i.e. It's an exploitation of a flaw in the games physics engine.

Hehe, it's funny that you mention that, Hunter Alpha. I was just about to say that. Vendetta wasn't any different from that problem was it? Ideally no game should require you to constantly tap a single key repeatedly just to move you ahead of everyone, which would ultimately help you survive. It's just silly. Anyway, I hope the devs decide to keep this way of playing.

[Insert plug for custom-tuned engines here]

Ooo... Actually, genin, you just gave me an idea... People should be able to trade with each other. You could get a skill or something to tune up engines, and run an engine tuning shop in a station! Yeah! :P

Heh, not in terms of buying or selling a set of tunings, but actually tweaking things like damper, raw thrust, roll compensation, turbojet aperture and fuel mixtures. Someone really into the game could get some badass speed out of even a traditionally weak engine.

problems with engine tweaking:
Newbie enters game.
Newbie buses for a bit then finally gets the nerve to leave home sectors in a hornet or some basic ship.
newbie gets raped within 2 seconds by those in "souped up" ships that said newbie would need to spend hours developing.
newbie decided to not play again.
Vendetta doesn't grow in size.
Vendetta shirnks as vets grow tired and leave.
game dissapears.

The problem with "souping up" ships is that those with only a little free time simply can not compete with those who spend all day on here.

at least now, you can buy any ship at any point in the game once you decide to leave your home sector.
A pro can loan you money, and show you to 18, Boom, level playing field.

Keep the way ships are bought as is. don't allow upgrades devs, please

uh, actually it's more like.

newbie stays in nicely protected newbie zone(future zone that actually is protected).
Newbie gets good a playing vendetta
newbie leaves newbie sectore
newbie lives to get his own souped up ship
newbie goes around fighting and having fun...
vendetta grows
the message board doesn't get pesimistic posts like that one.

Wombatula, we arn't pesimistic, we are looking at what will\would happe.

Well engine tweaking would never offer an advantage over those who don't know or care to do it. Like I said, the engine will simply respond differently. There's a downside to increasing or decreasing the dampers too much. It's not like you can turn the slider all the way to one end to get the best control or whatever. However you tweak it there will always be an advantage and a disadvantage.

<Well engine tweaking would never offer an advantage over those who don't know or care to do it.>

Then what would be the benefit? Either it's a "tweak" or it's a useless, time-wasting, half-amusing feature of the game.