Forums » General

I've got new toys...

Mar 14, 2005 Spider link
...and they hurt as hell up close.

After a few days of trial, I can say that the rockets have improved drastically. Up to the point where they might actually be usable if they weren't so heavy / Vultures weren't so weak.

The main problem with them is the high falloff rate of the damage. Ie, the blast radius is rather ok (a bit too tight on the screamers) but due to the high falloff rate, they tend to only just scrape the paint of ships at times.

My suggestion isn't that they are increased in damage, thats quite ok, unless you try to take out a behemoth, however, the falloff rate on the rockets should be brought down.

Perhaps if they caused 100% damage in the center of the blast, and fell down to 33% damage in the outer ring, rather than 0% damage? That, or a bell-curve falloff might make them a bit more useful when applied on larger ships that move.

This would also make the ram a bit more dreaded, up to the point where you could probably remove the 2x penalty for hitting yourself.
Mar 14, 2005 Ghost link
Arent most people already upset about the ram being too effective with the new flares?
Mar 14, 2005 Starfisher link
If you do it right you can ram while only barely touching the outside radius of the blast. It's still a ram technically, since the other guy can't get away, but you get off scot free. This way you'd have to be totally clear of the blast to avoid killing yourself.
Mar 14, 2005 Spider link
Starfisher got the idea here, Ghost.

As for rams, I want to differ the two. When engaging in a duel, 1 vs 1 and your opponent -consiously- moves their ship up inside the blastradius in order to both get a better hit area, and get the protection of the blastradius.... Serves them well ;)

Otherwise its a tactic thats mostly unpleasant. Takes a while to readjust to the larger blasts of screamers though :/
Mar 14, 2005 Ghost link
Ah, my mistake then.