The most popular tactic involving Avalons seems to be approach the enemy to within 70m or so and launch the Avalon knowing that you are both most likely to be immediately destroyed. Like most suicide tactics, the net effect is rarely positive, but it is awfully darn annoying as a tactic because it is so easy to pull of. Virtually any bot 'equiped' with such a tactic could destroy any player in the game.

As a big opponent 'dumb tactics', especially 'dumb tactics that work', I strongly encourage this tactic to be discouraged by giving a 2 second arming reutine to the Avalon. That is to say, a newly launched avalon will not explode within 2 seconds of being launched. This also would allow greater time for the launcher to get away from the blast.

Good idea. I second that.

Doesn't make any difference, though. Since they're not homing and do not make "beeps" when fired, you'd have to be pretty astute to notice one incoming and get 245m away in 2 seconds. Not only that, but if you failed to move, at their leisurely speed, the 2 seconds wouldnt take the torpedo out of detonation range from the target from your position 70m away.

You don't have to be 245m in 2 seconds. You just have to be greater than 70m away from where the torpedo is in 2 seconds. So it is going to take a pretty astute dive bomber to figure out to within 70m where a fighter is going to be.

Ok, launcher is 70m away. Detonation radius is 80m. Travel is 50m/s. That means in 2 seconds it has traveled 100m. That brings it to 30m past where the target was. That is within the detonation radius of 80m. If the target turned 1s after launch and managed to move away at 55m/s, it would still have a good chance of being destroyed. Only instant boosting would help it.

But the point is that there would at least be something you could do. At present, if the pilot wants to commit suicide, you just have to pray he does the wrong things and you can get just outside of the kill zone and fly off with 1% - and thats if you are in a Valk.

While we are on the subject, does anyone have a good solution to the uber-mine problem? The only thing I can think of is a time out after 20 seconds or so.

The main reason for this tactic is that the avalon is so ludicrously slow under its own power that you have to use you own vehicle as a delivery system. It is a silly weapon that deserves the silly tactics people have employed. Either make it a real weapon by speeding it up, or get rid of it... How about giving it no velocity of its own, but having it keep the current velocity of the ship? Make a real divebomb weapon out of it. That would be a fun weapon :)

Well, I thought everyone realized it was a weapon intended primarily for hunting capital ships and other large vechicals with much slower passing speed than a 15m fighter. At least, that was my impression of something called a 'torpedo'.

To my knowledge all non-homing weapons maintain the currect velocity of the ship + thier own velocity. So an Avalon fired at 150 m/s moves at 185 m/s, and an Avalon fired at 55 m/s moves at 90 m/s. In fact, to the best of my knowledge a rocket fired while strafing will itself strafe. At least that is the way it has always appeared to me and I try to adjust my aim accordingly.

I was assuming it was this fact that was being used to exploit the Avalon to make 'uber-mines'. I'm guessing the time out is based on distance traveled, and as such they don't time out.

I would be willing to bump the torp speed up to 45 m/s provided that the proximity radius was reduced.

Bumping this thread so Arolte will actually read it rather than just fuming with indignation.