For the love of god, what were you think when you upped the speed of flares? The prom is no longer unbalanced. Its now insanely unbalanced. You just turbo at your target and press a button. Instant-kill. Its like the old avalon, but with proxy trigger. Come on.

heh, that only works if you have the element of surprise... try hitting a gaus cent with a flare in a prom.. it doesnt work too well.

Just turbo at it. The -50N thrust are not enough to escape a ramming skyprom. The jackhammer hits you first, spinning you around, and then the sunflares get you and its all over.

andreas, it's quite dodgeable. They can't turn if they're turboing. The prom was far more unbalanced before. Your right that a prom with flares is better now than a prom with flares before... but that's cause flares utterly sucked before and proms were MUCH better with out them (as were any other ships).

Try using flares AGAINST a prom. I almost killed Martin in a dual flar valk and I haven't touched flares in a month. With some practice I think they'll be quite the anti-prom weapon.

Also, if someone is ramming you, you already can't dodge because they're too close. The speed has nothing to do with it.

yeah i agree with spellcast. the new flares offer a greater relative advantage to ships other than the prom, although the skycommand is still very hard to kill.

i tried dueling with the new flachettes. they still aren't that useful at least in my hands. three of them on a valk/maud or 4 of them on a hornet might have some utility though, since they don't suck as much battery as before. ultimately i think they're too inaccurate to use except maybe en masse.

Do I sense a Flechette Bus Assault League in the offing?

I dont know. I was using flares against Lin when she was in a prom and i didnt seem to do very well at all. Although maybe thats just cause i suck with flares... which i do...

The added speed of the flares is far more useful AGAINST the skycommand than it is on it. I got quite handily taken apart by a corvus vulture with flares last night after we dueled andreas.

I was using a SCP prom w AGT/Flare, and i couldnt hit the vulture with the flares... the 50N thrust reduction is extremely noticable with the extra 2000Kg for the flares on the SCP(i always went AGT only), and every time i would start a run, he'd just pop a few flares in my face and dodge up out of the way... add in his buddy in the orion cent with a single gauss (mk2 maybe?) and my prom was in big trouble. Trying to go after the cent meant i was a target for the flares because i couldnt see them coming. Going after the vulture left me open to gauss shots.
I only won by turboing right into the vulture as he launched a set of flares and ensuring that he took the double splash from his own flares...

Which brings me to the double splash damage... I'm not sure its needed with the faster rocket speed, I would much rathar see a safety fuse that wont detonate for .75 or 1 second; altho, with the high speed of the cents... you would probably never hit one except by accident, but thats kind of the way fights with them go as it is now.

me thinks flares rule, although me thinks if niki had not had them today, me would have got out of that damn storm, hehe....

Having had them shot at me, and shooting them at people, I think it IS a dodgable weapon, he chased me from Sedina b8 to helios. (I would have usually turned round to die, but alas I had important cargo's)

His nt3/2 (me thinks 3) did more damage though...

I was dodging his flares by radar, as he was behind me, it was sweet.

Well, I personally think that rockets are a little too fast.

Sure flares work well AGAINST a prom with flares. But if the only way to beat those weps is to employ them yourself, then you lose the value of other weps.

Why else does a Rag mk III with triflares, jacks, and screamers actually work? And well!

Considering the fact that my rocket-aim is not that good. Its scary how easily I've been destroying fighters.

the flares got a 30 m/s boost, I think they should take a 10-15 m/s cut

me slaps shape, see you ingame.

[edit]

It wont be in b8 though... *frown*

I spent about two or three hours dueling Andy with various rocket configurations, on Monday night (before we released). Mostly him in a Prom, me in a Vulture or something else light. I may be a bit better than him, but even taking that into consideration, I didn't find it too unbalanced. I do think people will have to change tactics, move their combat distance back a bit, and pay that much closer attention to radar when alone. It's been awhile since rockets have really been useful, so everyone's a bit out of practice (and some have never really used them), but I don't think the rockets are too out of whack.

Of course, rockets were also always my favorite weapon (and not in a ramming sense, I loved the elegant dancing battles from before the original double-damage bugfix), so I may be a little biased, but I'm happy to see them be useful again.

Also of note, being spun by splash impact can be disorienting, but in a light ship your turbo acceleration is pretty high. If you sit in one place (or predictably continue in any given direction for more than a few seconds), you're obviously doomed.. turboing while spinning basically means you're randomly picking a turbo direction, but it does lock you in that direction and keep you moving that way, regardless of further splash impact. Sometimes the direction you end up with is not so good, but most of the time it's not bad, and it's always better than sitting there, trying to re-orient yourself. I usually turbo and worry about figuring out which way I'm going later. It's a last-ditch technique.. but.. for what it's worth..

"I may be a bit better than him"

pshaw. what-EVER.

*chants*
DEV-Fight...DEV-Fight...DEV-Fight...DEV-Fight...DEV-Fight...

lol.

Hmmmmm a special pay-per-view event? :)

Come on a1k0n we all know you guys code too much to practice at your own game, that's ok, dev-gods have no need for shame...

Moving back to the topic at hand..

well, if we move the effective distance back, then the blasters are just worthless. They're too easy to dodge at range.

Well, try this combo. You fight someone and an all-flare rag fires a full load of flares at you from behind. There is no dodging or thinking involved, as the large flares cover the 100m distance in 1s plus the trigger radius is huge. There is only one way to prevent instant death, and thats never allowing your valk to go below 80% hull. From this day forward, I shall always repair whenever I drop below 80%. Please do not whine if you see me doing so.