Yes, the Sunflares. Have you ever used one? With the det range at 30, they are absolutely useless. One just has to step aside, and even 32 rockets can't be a wide enough spread at 55m/s. The det range needs to be upped to 80m, the explosion radius to 160m and the speed to 80m/s. Thanks.

160m det radius still sounds like a little too much. Maybe 100m or 110m as a compromise. The speed does need to be increased, though not by that much. Again, a compromise of maybe 70m instead of 80m/s or 100m/s. The damage seems fine otherwise.

Err...I'm hoping you are being sarcastic.

I think that sunflares are the most powerful small weapon left in the game.

Incarnate commented the other night that the Sunflares are the same as the level 2 rockets we used to have. I don't recall the stats, but they behave the same as far as I can see.

I completely disagree with this. The only way this would work at all is if there were a fuse otherwise they would be just way too powerful. I also think there should be a safety fuse put on them either way.

I say upgrade the sunflares to:

45m detonation range, and 70m.s speed

then reduce the ammo hold to 14...

then they would balance I think..

Err.. I assure you, the sunflares are fine. If you want to bump speed up by 5-10m/s it won't hurt balance that much, but at present I don't know what weapon they are supposed to be weaker than.

Have you used them? The det range is practically half what it used to be! That makes firing them almost completely useless. In a test yesterday, SF was able to dodge a spread of 32 of them fired in a circular pattern around and at him with almost no effort. I'll admit that maybe 80 is too much, but as they are they are far to non-useful. I don't want to increase damage (which isn't enough to do much damage to anything besides a "light" anyway), and maybe explosion radius should only be 20m more than det radius, but the detonation radius has got to go UP.

its not the detonation range... its the speed which cripples them... I fought Defense Ship 4 (he was in a Prom, i was in a Valk with Tri-Sunflares) , and even at a range of 200m he was able to strafe from my rockets... i've got to be one of the most experienced players at leading rockets, and to see a big heavy prom strafing away as the rockets crawl towards him looks a bit silly...

"I've got to be one of the most experienced players at leading rockets..."

LOL!!! Thanks, Icarus. Made my day.

=)

I think simply increasing the speed would fix it. The proximity detonation will be fine once the speed is fixed. Heck, right now they even seem a little bit on the powerful side. So they might even need to be toned down in damage too. Reason being, I've had Valk pilots boost up to me at point blank range, while another Valk pilot would distract me, and unload two or three sunflares on my back, and I'd of course die in an instant like that. They would simply boost away as if nothing happened. But I can't blame them for doing something like that, especially with the slow speed of the rockets. Unfortunately the high damage value of the sunflare presents a problem similar to that of Prometheus ships being equipped with avalons.

In other words, keep the proximity charge at reasonable levels. Increasing them would be baaaaad. Increasing damage will be baaaaaaad. Speed increase will be gooooooood.

i said "one of"....

I've had the same problem Arolte mentioned, but against Proms equiped with sunflares. It's wierd when you're strafing behind a ship to have the ship explode and do a higher % to you then they do to themselves.

No, Arolte, the Sunflares are nothing like the Avalons...except for the fact that you don't like either and want to see both nerfed.

Up the proximity to 35 m for ALL warheads. Make sure all warheads fly at ship speed + rated speed and never slow down.

Sunflares are basically Type 1 rockets. No, they aren't nearly as powerful as Jackhammers (basically Type 2) but remember how Type 2 rockets dominated 3.1? If you go and cure the problems with Sunflares then you are again watering down the advantage of a large weapon slot.

The biggest weakness with the Sunflares - the limited ammo supply - has already been cured.

I have occassionally used the cheap tactic that Arolte mentions on players (inlcuding him) that I think will do a good job of avoiding the rockets, but I generally don't have to. I killed Peregrin's Vulture with rockets without using an overrun tactic (1v1 he was too smart to let himself be overrun anyway).

I'm sorry, but the fact that a highly experienced player can dodge rockets fired from nearly zero relative motion from around 200m does not indicate the weapon is nerfed. Rockets have always benifited from strafing runs because rockets carry your speed with you. A rocket fired while you are moving at 60m/s is alot slow than one fired while you are moving at 140m/s, and consequently alot easier to strafe around. If you try firing rockets at an experienced player using physics mode while not boosting at him from 200m or so, yes I can gaurantee you he can dodge them all day long. Heck, I once fired a spread of 7 type II's at Panda in 3.1 and watched him waltz between them.

I've been killing a slightly lower quality of Vets than SF and DF4 consistantly with Sunflares since late 3.0.0, and of course the n00bs are meat.

I was doing strafing runs to up the speed.... (i'm not THAT dumb you know!) I'm not asking they do more damage or increase the detonation distance, just up the speed a tiny, tiny amount...

I'd say 70m/second would be a good speed, and that that be the ONLY upgrade to them.

Allthough u can make the rockets go 110/ms if u have a med engine at full speed, or make them go 125/ms if u have heavy engine...

I can usually hit targets 150-300m away..

The comment wan't directed so much at you as at rougelazer's 'test'.

There reallys isn't such a thing as a circular 'spread' of 32 rockets, unless perhaps if you were using a hornet. Thirty-two rockets is a 'volley', not a 'spread'. I mount two sunflares on my Valk. Firing continiously, I empty the chambers in eight seconds. That's plently of time to coast to a stop and for the target to move out of the way of rockets in the rear. For one thing, the rear rockets are going to be separated by several hundred meters from the ones in the rear of the volloy. Even a Hornet takes four seconds to unleash that many rockets.

Moreover, I got the impression that his test was just that. One person just held down the trigger and rolled the joystick about (incidently killing his speed at the same time) while SF some relatively large distance away hit reverse and barrel rolled as need to avoid the oncoming rockets (each, especially the latter ones, going ~55 m/s relative to SF's motion). Several quick oblique passes under turbo with 2-3 groups of rockets fired from under 100m are a much more realistic test, and while a good player can dodge that by barrel rolling or straffing as needed a good player can dodge just about anything with a properly chosen barrel roll and sufficient distance keeping.

After such a test, roguelazer concluded that the weapons needed to be roughly 2.5 times as powerful as the rockets in 3.1 (75% of the prox radius of an Avalon, and more than 50% of its blast radius) in order to be balanced.

Freeman, you seem to be fixated on thinking that I'm trying to nerf every weapon out there. I can tell you right now that that's not the case. As I said before, I'm just doing my job as a beta tester to get the weapons balanced. I don't like being insta-killed or having people doing suicide runs on me with little to no repercussions. It's not something other people will enjoy either. This is the reason why I suggest these types of changes. The devs have stated before that they want to avoid insta-kill weapons. I'm trying to help them do that.

If you don't like my suggestions because you won't be able to get instant kills anymore, then that's something YOU have to get adjusted to. The problem isn't on my end. Want examples? Did you not notice how the proximity detonation of the avalons were reduced in 3.2.2, as I had suggested? You know why? Because people were using the weapon incorrectly and it ruined the balance of gameplay.

I'm not saying I'm always right with my suggestions. Nor do I expect to be. We all make mistakes. In fact I've backpeddled on some of my suggestions before. I'm just trying my best to get these things fixed in the short term. Now, you can either continue to bitch and moan about the suggestions I'm offering, or you can provide solutions of your own and offer an explanation to JUSTIFY yourself. Because right now you're NOT helping the discussion at all.

I never said you're trying to nerf every weapon out there, Arolte - just the ones that kill you on a regular basis...you think you're so 1337 that any weapon that causes you any trouble on a regular basis is automatically way out of balance.

Yes, I am making suggestions...why do you think I said set proximity fuses to 35m for everything (that's just one example)?
Don't worry - I'm not going to be able to nuke you like earlier...I never manage to get that close to anything but bots. I don't think I've ever seen anyone else get that close long enough to nuke either...

One more thing...what the hell did you mean by "using the weapon incorrectly"? Are you implying that it's not proper for me to use a dramatic advantage if I get given one - that I HAVE to actually give enemy pilots a fighting chance? I'm sorry, but that's just wrong...life isn't inherently fair.
If a weapon gives me an advantage, I'm going to use it until it gets revoked. Don't like it? Then stay the hell away from me.


One edit: Arolte, this game test isn't really about the "short term." Stop thinking about that...think about the long term.

Next youll be asking the devs to nerf my left pinky toe becuase it looked at you funny.....

First of all, Im STILL unhapopy with the railgun, 1100 damg isnt justified when you use 110 energy, this makes the thing worse than before.

Second, Yes the rockets do need to have increased speed ~70m/s is cool, But prox should stay, and so should dmg.

Finally increse the Avalon power if the prox is so low, say about 15k dmg!

Ok all I have to uselessly spew at this time :D