C. I don't see why everyone's complaining now that it isn't too hard to get a Promy no matter what your allegience (sp?). I mean, I've been in a Prometheus and gotten taken down easy, and I think they fill a very specialized role. I wanna see the all-rocket configuration used in a massive cap. Just blast through the defenses. I also like the idea of balancing everything else then see what's up.

I am Red, and I fly all sorts of ships and configurations (many of them ill-advised experiments) on a daily basis. The generalization continues to crumble...

its going to be (this is prolly said alot) a key ship in taking down cap ships and providing heavy support during raids of enemy space stations and just wrecking havoc. yeah... i do think if the prom is good as it... you should be able to mod ships to last *a tad* longer than they are now. or give them heavy weapons. or somthing like that.

The specials should be made even more powerful, but require two players to fly.

increase the proms inertia so it handle like a centaur or ragarok and it wont be so incredibly deadly

My only problem with the prom is the fact that it's the only ship I see anymore AND with the same configuration - Advanced turret and 2 rockets.

How to not be killed by pirates while tradeing with that prom set up:

Try to dodge a ship with a better turning rate, and double the health points
Run, and most likely be killed
Don't trade
Log off

I agree with CrazySpence - the Prom handles better than the Atlas!!!

Also, the only ship I see is the Valk... Icarus pilots a Valk, all the golds fly valks..... it's not right!!

b

If I'm counting right, Nalar's vote brings those that wish to see the Prom toned down a bit into the majority.

Oweing to the discovery that the agility of the Prom was misrepresented in the documentation, I no longer think that the primary problem with the Prom is its high hull point total. The Prom's primary problem is that it is actually a medium agility fighter with enormously more hull points than any other medium agility fighter _AND_ more firepower than any other medium agility fighter. If the Prom actually had low agility (like the documentation says) we might not have ever reached this situation because (as everyone knows) high agility translates into fewer shots hitting you and effectively maginifies your hit points. So 26,000 hit points seems to me a little excessive for a medium agility fighter that doesn't seem to sacrifice _anything_ else to get such durability. Besides which, it sorta seems wierd contextually that a vessel which is exceptionally heavily constructed even for a member of the heavy fighter class would also have much lower mass and greater agility.

So at this point, I'm thinking that I have changed my vote from 'd' to 'f'. Let's set the manueverability to something more reasonable before we change anything else.

Don't you mean 22000 or 24000?

A

Bring it down to 2200 or 2400

It can take too meny shots.

Celebrim, technically the Prom would fit with the Serco's background.

"The Serco, once peaceable scientists who pursued their interests for the benefit of all mankind, now a formidable, warlike race, feared throughout the known galaxy."

Thus, it would be in-character for them to have developed less massive, but stronger armor than the other races at some point in the past.

ctishman: I can answer that only by refering you to my armor thread on the suggestions page.

I think you will see that I agree, but my agreement on the RP aspects related to the Serco doesn't change my feelings on the balance aspects of having a medium manuevarability ship with enormously more hit points (+8,000 vs. the Maud, +18000 vs. the Warthog) than any other medium fighter, better firepower than anyother medium fighter (2S + 1L), and more cargo space than any other medium fighter except the Maud. It's just too much. It's bad enough we have the Valk outclassing all of the other light fighters and most of the medium fighters; now we have the Prom outclassing all the rest of the medium fighters and all the heavy fighters. Why not just drop everything but the 'specials' from the game and be done with it? Sometimes it seems like we've got less ship diversity now than we did 3.1.

I would say that the answer would be to drop the cargo capacity of the Prom to 1. it is a battleship, and nothing more. Frankly, the Prometheus problem would not have emerged had all ships not been given to all nations. We Serco are an extremely small and weak faction, despite our legendary warlike nature. Other nations far outstrip us in wealth, membership and amount of Ace players. I believe that to an extent we were given the Prometheus to combat that. When it was given to everyone, and the price point set as the only restricting factor ( and I know your position on price as a restricting factor. It's the same as mine.), the Prometheus became a problem. No longer was it for use in the defense against numerically and strategically superior enemies, instead it became the tool of the aggressor. IMNSHO, Sector 15's universal shipyard MUST be rescinded for the sake of game balance.

Errr... I think you are entirely off base that the Prom was given to Red because they were the 'weak' faction. I'd guess that that decision was made a very long time ago without regard to the current strength of the teams. Moreoever, this is just a test. You've got another 30,000 or so customers to add in the final game, and there is no reason to think that Serco is going to be an unpopular choice especially if they have the best ship.

And I think that what happens in sector 15 has nothing to do with game balance anyway, because in the long run there probably won't be a 'sector 15'.

No no, what I meant was that the Prom may have been balanced the way it was in this release (underscore) because of the Serco's weakness. In the end, everything will change. For now however, the Serco are incredibly weak:

1) All of the truly profitable trade routes (14-15, 7-14 or 15) are in what has informally become Itani or Neutral territory. They have bases pretty much next door to each hidden sector.

2) I need not emphasize the differences in population, and the skill balance issue. Blue's got cheap valks, which counteract through sheer ability much of the skill requirement on the part of the pilot. Gold's hoovered up pretty much every ace in the game, with the exception of a few Itani and Serco die-hards, and even they are abandoning their home for the siren song of their equals.

3) Now what do we have? A cheap Prometheus that costs about 70k to fully outfit. To get it at that price we must backtrack to the point most remote from any of the active sectors (14/7/10/15). We have held on by determination alone, for most else, it seems, has forsaken us.


I know that this has been a bitching session, but damn it feels good to let it out. :)

speaking of teh money issue.... there should be ways to trade stuff with other players, and make money that way. that would be fun.

I'd like to see more cargos only available to certain nations, and trading between nations. We'll probably see this when the number of sectors increase dramatically.