I often wonder who the devs secret charactors might be...

Belive it or not the centurion IBG is INSANELY improved, it's low profile from behind makes it hard to hit while beinc chases. It is pretty damn good for ctc if you can manage to not get hit too much! Thanks devs I! am VERY thankful for this update and being a learning begginer programmer(real basic to be excat, just learning it, next year is java :) ) I know how hard it is to program and the mental problem solving that goes into it. So for thoese of you complaining about something, chill and think about it. This is some MAJOR stuff they are programming here, and it takes INSANE problem solving skills.

On a lighter note.............

Have a nice holiday everybody!

Thank you for that explanation, Incarnate. That definitely puts my mind at ease about these recent changes. The crashes were a real shocker to me, as this game has never given me problems, which made me overreact about the other errors. I respect that you were honest about the mapping problems, and I apologize for kicking up a stink on the public forums.

As an act of contrition, I will now /explode. :D

- David -

Okay, Perhaps I overreacted with too little information. I thought that the ships had been rebalanced, and once again, the Prom hadn't been 'fixed'. Anyhow...

What I meant by my statement was not an accusation of intended bias, but merely of simple oversight. Your choice of character color has little to nothing to do with it. :)

I'm not sure that Vendetta's backstory was written specifically as the background for an MMORPG. It reads (imho) as the background for a universe in which the player takes the role of an Itani, fighting a hostile, Non-player Serco. In this light, the continued improvements made to the Valkyrie (5 varieties and continual tweaking) make sense, as better ships are needed to kill Serco more efficiently as the player progresses.

However, the Prometheus has lived most of its 'adult' life as a fish out of water, a bomber with nothing to bomb. Over a year of patches have failed to provide a niche for this ship. The frigate made an appearance, but even then, the Valkyrie (or hell, even the civilian-level Ragnarok) was better at destroying it than the Prometheus.

The reemergence of a capship mission promises to improve this somewhat, but again, where does the Prom fit in? A big, heavy ship struggling to defend a bigger, heavier ship (the Serco Warship) against hordes of tiny super-maneuverable fighters? Once again, it is denied a niche, a reason to exist. I'm not going to complain without suggestions, so here goes:

1) Protect the Prometheus.
As it stands, there is little to keep a maneuverable fighter from getting right up in a bomber's face and kicking ass. To counteract this, atmospheric bombers use air-to-air machine guns on turrets, operated by someone other than the pilot. I suggest something to ward off the reckless is in order. Give us a portable lightning mine, intrinsic to the ship's hull, that draws little to no energy and does heavy damage. Fighter gets within 100m of the Prom (or 200m of the Frigate)'s hull, fighter gets zapped good. Thus, a fighter pilot must work to stay clear while pounding shots into us from a distance. The Prometheus pilot would then be justified in taking an extremely aggressive stance, attempting to close on the fighter enough to let the zapper do its thing. Best of all, no new graphics are needed to make this work.

2) Something to bomb
Really, though. If you wish to placate the Serco, give us a situation where our baby can really shine. A group mission to mount a raid on an Itani listening post (destructible Station component, big bada boom graphic required) would be a good place to start. Heck, make three of them and put them in sectors near the Geira-Deneb gate. Our objective is to knock them offline and get home safely, the Itani's purpose is to protect them. Announcements are made in 201 and 202 when the repairmen bring the stations back online after a raid, signifying that they are ready to be attacked again.

I'm really excited about the Centurion. That's been my fave since the Mk III came out and I fly it all the time - often to my great peril because there's little room for error when playing against better armed and armored ships. Maybe with the improved speed and agility I can actually do more than scratch my opponent's paint before dying.

Lets give it a few days and see what really happens. I mean, hey, remember when the new bounty system ruined the game and we all stopped playing forever? ;)

As an aside, partially in response to ku genin, Waylon and I were talking last night about how our available Large Port assault weaponry is really pretty pathetic. The Advanced Gatling is worthwhile, but the rest are kind of.. useless. Interesting, but not entirely justified. More developments here would hopefully improve the role of larger ships in the galaxy, as well as (obviously) targets for them to attack. Some of you remember the Avalon Torpedo.. I'm sure you know where I wanted to go with that kind of weapon, what I wanted it to be doing, but we didn't have much of a use for it at the time. Somewhere between a pea shooter and an Avalon is an assortment of Large weapons that would probably have a useful role, even in standard escort/attack/defense scenarios.

Player-controllable turrets are something that will have to be added sometime between Now and Whenever We Add Player-Controlled Cap Ships. For what it's worth, the Atlas, at the very least, was designed for a rearward turret, and I think most of the large ships (especially the Prom) should probably have this capability. I've been excited by the idea of multiplayer ships for a disappointingly long time, but hopefully we'll see it soon. (and not Soon(tm)).

Regarding the mission suggestion, we've been kicking around ideas like this since early in the year. It's a sound idea.

Cool! I look forward to seeing the result!

Ok, after messing with various Vulture setups (my primary ship choice), I think the energy drain for the Vults is a bit too high , especially for the Corvus and SGV. Yes they have excellent speed but what good is it when you get to your target and cannot shoot and cannot maintain a chase? If rockets were lighter then at least you could catch a target and make a strike before they get away, but as it is rockets weigh the ship down too much (not so much acceleration but the pitch/yaw and strafing).

Personally I'd love to see a Serco Elite Guard Vulture (only available to +1000 Serco.. hint hint..) with no cargo capacity, lighter armour (than the SGV), but higher spin torque and thrust. Perhaps then we could have a Serco FIGHTER that can rival the best the Itani have.

regarding the lack of cool large weapons, and everyone's complaints about the prom:

some kind of shotgun that fires proximity-detonating ammo might be useful. It wouldn't be effective at long range (the shot would disperse too much), would weigh a great deal, wouldn't require great agility to use (aiming is easy). It would make proms and rags very dangerous at close range.

just a thought.

Incarnate: I haven't played around with the ship flight characterstics changes yet, but I have used the augmented navigation system with the new shift-click route planning capability. Awesome. This addition has made longer-distance travel much more pleasurable! Thank you.

Now, if only I could double click on a system wormhole sector and have that system display just as if I were pressing the "zoom to system" button when in the universe view.

Best of luck figuring out the ship balancing stuff.

hey i wanted to say that the new ships have really really made
trading more interesting. the pirates actually have a chance to
catch the traders now. there is an actual reason to carry mines.
heck i might even have to start hiring escorts. i think its great
so far... much more interesting than it was.

I'd say that with the changes, the large port weapons are even more useless than before. The light ships that everyone uses are that much faster, and even though the medium ships do gain some speed, it's far more impossible to hit people with the gatling turret than before. And it does less damage than the neutron I, II, or III, so a hog mounting a gatling turret has a very difficult time against a fighter mounting multiple neutrons. The hog may hit his target with three shots, but if he gets hit by a single linked shot by a vulture, he comes out behind. Course this means that in many respects, a good hog pilot is a much better pilot than a vult pilot because the hog actually can't be hit as many times as the vulture if you're taking into account that most of the time, the vult hits with both weapons.

Will we have some more adjustments soon? What's the plan?

I'd hazard a guess and say sometime after the holidays.