How about changing the flechette cannon required levels to something like 2/2 or something very close. As it is now (-/5 & 4/5) the weapon is useless.

By the time you can buy the thing now, there are too many other and MUCH better weapons available. If it were available as I suggest, it could be a very useful botting weapon, for a bold pilot.

Flechettes are useless if you were given them at 0/0/0. bots dodge them and players, well, unless you're using them as well as Nerde, it's not going to work against players either. ;-)

Flak cannon is small gatling cannon. With a slight reduction in energy usage (to allow long-term firing of multiple units) and slight increase in speed, they could be a useful weapon.

terjekv: I've killed you with flechettes too :) True, the Flechettes aren't quite as good as they could be (I think they need 1m prox), but despite how difficult it is to use, it's still pretty good.

roguelazer: I don't think it needs an energy reduction. It's pretty low as it is.

you've killed me with a flechette, yeah. I've been killed by stingrays too. neither of which say much about the weapons themselves. =)

1m prox would probably be nice though. true popcorn!

hey its another Flechette post!

/me points and laughs

Well, we do need a wider variety of low level weapons. Perhaps the flechette would make a good step between the plasma cannon HK and the neutron blaster. 2/2 sounds about right.

[stamp of approval]

May I also recommend lowering the license requirements for iceflares and yellowjackets to 0/0/0? Seriously, who ever uses these things? But I bet newbs would.

Actually, yellowjackets are quite useful against stationary targets. Each missile does almost twice as much damage as a sunflare, and since they have no proximity, they always (if they hit) do 100% damage, unlike sunflares which rarely do 100% damage even if fired straight at a target.

How 'bout the flechette cannon useless, period? Well it's true you know. Has anyone honestly used it for anything besides popping popcorn? No?

It's really cool to see that they've tried to add a new class of weapon into the game. But since its introduction little has been done to really improve it. When I originally heard of the flechette cannon I immediately thought of the flak cannon for UT2K3/UT2K4. Now THERE was a cool shotgun-style gun that fired deadly shards of molten metal. Why can't we have something cool like that for Vendetta?

=(

I was just playing around with weapons as I could get them. The flechette cannon is a good weapon against collectors, which if I remember correctly were good for combat XP thru combat level 3. It would have been nice to actually make use of the weapon for a while instead of just playing around with it, after the fact.

Flechette cannon was introduced immediately following the "Petition for a small-slot gatling cannon". It is almost exactly the same as a gatling cannon, in fact.

The regular Gatling Cannon would've been a better S-port weapon, IMO. Nobody even uses it on heavy ships. What's the point? But I'd take that over the Flechette anyday.

The differences are minimal...

besides, look at Nerde, you can use the flechette as a fearsome weapon.

That's right. Fear the popcorn.

That is all.

--Nerde

popcorn rocks.... now all we need is the gatling cannon to be improved so it's somewhere in between the flechette and the gatling turret. Maybe have something a bit less than Gauss auto aim... and travels faster.

hey I took out a hornet with it... and yes i was also in a hornet :D

its a fun little thingy :D and is awesome if you have bad aim and a big opponent.

Hehe imagine using one of those on a moth and going in turns around it :D. (easier said then done though :D)

Rene, what the heck are you talking about? I can see a hornet taking out a hornet with flechettes, but what are you putting on a moth?

nothing... except cargo :D

just with all the talk about moths needing a nerf I thought lets boost up the comedylevel a bit :D.

but come on it would be funny seeing that happen... its really an example of tickling something to death although maybe I should hav echanged it into HAC.

hehe

PS: to get it back on topic: flechettes suck as a compettetive weapon, but using them is sure funny which is a reason for keeping the licencelevel since its a midlevel goof around weapon (so you give people some reward for actually sticking beyond the 8hours trial). And bumping down the licence won't help a bit since on bots you will always stay outside the actual efficiency 'zone' due to the bots backrolling which defacto keeps the other weapons more effective. And you blast through the early levels anyway very fast that having them just for the purpose of diversity is a waste anyway. Who actually uses the ion blaster mk1 once they have access to the mk3 or to a neut...

PS: to get it back on topic: flechettes suck as a compettetive weapon, but using them is sure funny which is a reason for keeping the licencelevel since its a midlevel goof around weapon (so you give people some reward for actually sticking beyond the 8hours trial). And bumping down the licence won't help a bit since on bots you will always stay outside the actual efficiency 'zone' due to the bots backrolling which defacto keeps the other weapons more effective. And you blast through the early levels anyway very fast that having them just for the purpose of diversity is a waste anyway. Who actually uses the ion blaster mk1 once they have access to the mk3 or to a neut...

So, you're saying yeah it's underpowered for it's current license level but let's not bother to bump down the license level because its a fun little gimmick?

Why on earth not? It may be a fun little gimmick to a vet but it's something a newb may actually get some use out of. Sure it's inaccurate and weak, but it would be the highest velocity weapon the player would have at level 2 (ruling out the railgun).

Try this: take down a collector bot using a plasma cannon HK, then try taking down a collector using a flechette cannon. Which is easier? Now try taking down a collector using a neutron blaster.

The flechette is the perfect weapon to fill the gap between the plasma cannon HK and the neutron blaster imho. There's no good reason to have this weapon become available at a higher license level than the neutron blaster.