> as for being engaged beforethe moth comes in... I won't be watching the dogfight
> at all, there won't even be a dogfight. you won't get near enough to me to make
> me dogfight you, I'll turbo around you until the moth comes, or go to meet it.
> hitting someone who isn't interested in fighting you is almost impossible.

You're assuming you know the Moth is coming, that may or may not be the case. It's quite likely all the pirate will know is that a Vulture or something warped through the WH, and started firing at the pirate. If the pilot of the Vulture is well known as an escort-for-hire, the pirate may assume that there is a Moth on the way, but if the pirate doesn't know that, most of our pirates (including Alamar, I'd guess) would probably go ahead and engage the ship that started firing at them.

most pirates have ships for hunting traders. if we see a proper fighter in those ships, we usually don't engage, since the ship isn't made for that situation.

this has already happened on a few occasions with BLAKs I know. you see a fighter, you're camping and waiting, he enganges, you warp. you're not interested in fighting with your hunter, you're interested in hunting.

That would still allow the escort jumping ahead to be a viable tactic. Escort warps in, attempts to engage the pirate, pirate warps, escort signals trader that pirate has warped, trader warps. The pirate and trader may even pass by while warping through the WH, and never see each other.

If I were the pirate, I would at least try to stay on one side of the WH, and might or might not engage the escort. Either way, I would still try to keep an eye on the WH, and as soon as I say the Moth, I'd disengage from the escort.

So a fighter jumping to avoid the fighter that you're not setup to fight is acceptable, but a moth jumping to avoid a fighter it's not setup to fight is not acceptable somehow.

It's perfectly acceptable for a Moth to jump to avoid a fighter. What I do not see as acceptable is that it can happen 100% of the time.

You're still ignoring the fact that when the Moth jumps, it's winning the conflict, while when the pirate jumps to avoid the escort, he is not winning, and possibly losing, if it allows the Moth to escape.

Think about it: when you are in a combat scenario, is it acceptable to you for your opponent to voluntarily lose? Is it acceptable that there is nothing you can do to win? I would answer those questions yes, and no, respectively.

Frankly, I don't think that what you consider a victory or loss is relevant to what the game considers a victory or loss. It is niether a victory or loss to flee according to the game (excepting consented duels).

Since you so obviously don't want to deal with game mechanics, I will again point out that it does seem acceptable for a wormhole camper to not fight someone they don't want to and not count it as any kind of loss or victory (since they were just waiting for a trader to come along anyway), yet the person chasing down the wormhole camper might say otherwise. Every time someone running from a fight comes up, it's always the person with the appropriate firepower that complains that they could have killed the person who ran if they hadn't. Resolve THAT issue and you will then be able to determine IF it is indeed the moth that needs any kind of nerf, if at all.

frankly, I don't care if you want badges and trinklets for everything you do in the game. if all you care about is that stuff, stop trading, you don't get anything for it anyway.

if you fail to see the difference between a trader running to complete his mission and a Valk running to avoid dying at this point, I don't think I can explain it to you.

this also makes your comments about how to deal with the moth pretty worthless, sadly enough.

The whole victory/loss thing is a matter of perspective there are no absolutes. And it is posable for both oponents to concider the same outcome a victory for their side.

Here is an example:

M'at has recently made counting coup his primary form of PVP combat. now in order to sucessfully count a coup he has to get in close enough to use his mining beam or repair gun (depending on the ship's load). Then tag his opponent and disengage without being killed. Now, because M'at is flying a combat ship, and is actively engaging his oponent many people would call the fact that he disengaged a victory for themselves. However because M'at was trying to count coup he conciders escaping a victory as well. Additonaly, players who are fermiliar with the practice of counting coup may concider it a loss to have been counted even though M'at disengaged. Situations like this are why there are coded game mechanics to enforce the reasonably arbitrary win loss opinions.

However there are some ponts we can all agree on:

1. If a trader doesn't want to be pirated, then sucesfully escaping a pirat is a victory for the trader (perhaps a small victory compared with killing the pirat but a victory none the less)

2. If a pirat wants to capture a moth and can't the pirat has failed and will count that failyer as a loss.

3. In most duel styal engagments (be they duels or not) both oponents are trying to kill their oponent and failing to do so can be concidered a loss. However may pilots will concider frightening their oponent into retreating a victory as well because running can be interpreted as a forefit.

So, pirats believ that they have a right to be able to catch moths because the setting of the game is one in which some region s are described as dangerous because of pirats. Therefor pirats should have a chance at winning (read catching traders and plundering their cargo)

now, if this were real life i'd just sit back and laugh at the pirats because of how slickly built the moth is that it can't be caught. However the moth's uncatchability isn't based on reality but on an araficial set of stats. So given that there should be somethin that can catch the moth.

Without adding more stuff along the lines of player run capitle ships, beam merauders, gravity mines, etc. The best way to allow pirats to have a chance at pirating the moth is to nerf the moth.

Beolach,

What i ment when i said we were on the same page is you have admited that reducing the armor may be nesesary, and i have admited that reducing the speed may be nesesary. To me this means that a compromize could be reached. In the same way you think reducint the speed could solve the problem more esily than i care to admit, i also thik reducint the armor can solve the problem more esily than you care to admit.

As for escorting, i'm not qualified to rant about escorting tactics, but i do think that effective tactics could be found to allow the moth to be protectable even with a high speed an lower armor. The key will probably be in good planing and communication between the trader and escort, but with howe many anti-pirat guilds there are standard tactics and effective means of communication should be easy enough te establish (and eventualy adapt once the pirats figure out how to thwart the escort's tactics).

...thread I command thee, rise... RISE...!

After playing with the Moth for a couple weeks with its speed and thrust toned down a little, I think it's safe to say that it still needs to be nerfed somewhat. How about shaving off another 10 m/s from its turbo top speed and seeing where that gets us?

we tried the speed reduction and it did just what i predicted, it's still uber. why doesn't anyone believ me when i say there is more room for adjustment in the moth's armor than in it's speed?

heh, i'd like to see one of you puny fighters attack my moth, ooooh! a few of you have recently, and eaten rockets :)

I've given up chasing moths, its just as boring as actually doing the trading :P

moth nerfing is evil...

...that being said, I think we should abolish evil for the week.

I escaped in a moth from Mad Dog in his Orion Hornet Convoy Guardian w/quad flares the other day... he chased me across 3 systems and I didn't take a single hit, however Mad Dog ate at least 4 mines.

I still say the Moth's top speed should be toned down to 160 m/s. The armor is fine as long as the ship's speed corrosponds.

i dont know, Yoda had me to 24% the other day, he was in a valk. I think, if 1 player can do this kind of damage, its pretty on spot how it should be. 2 of them would have gotten my 120 luxeries for sure.

hmm i'd actually like to see some more long term form of test data on it arash, phaser.

trying to balance the moth on a 1 by 1 case method basis is hard to do. Actually we just dont have enough players right now to generate any truly meaningful data about how balanced/unbalanced ANY ships truly are. the volume of raw data is just too small to fine tune any of them with as many variables as we have. We can locate glaring problems, like the way the prom was, or the way the moth was before its thrust cut, but for finer tuning we just dont have enough real data.

I'm personally for cutting the speed of ALL infiniturbo ships down to 180 or less, but my views on balance are much different anyhow. I'm more inclined to give ships specific roles, i've discussed it in many threads, not gonna link any here tho.

ArAsH, more people don't always help in hunting a runner. the simple reason for this is the logic on how people come out of WHs -- you're spread as far apart as possible. there is, in all my experience hunting traders, little correlation beteween the number of attackers and the total damage done, with a few exceptions:

*) in the first camped sector, the attackers benefit from several attackers.

*) when going for the station kill, attackers benefit as well from numbers.

when the chase is on however, it doesn't help much at all.

the speed reduction helped a bit, and the armor makes it possible to still defend and protect the moth for anyone who wants to do that. removing armor removes a lot of the possible options for defending the moth.

at this point lets just wate for cap ships. they will undoutedly alter moth balance, and thus nerfing it further now is foolish.

and by the way, the armor is the problem not the speed. you will all see that one day.

leik omg this was a dead thread!

*iBump*

...because the moth is just too uber.... still. I shouldn't be able to beat up fighter ships with a moth.

...and where are the varients?

I actually think the moth is ok right now, try hunting em with a hog, with megaposi + axia posi + Heavy Battery

I've been able to take em down solo with that setup, and it only takes one more of those ships to make it nearly impossible for the Moth to get away