renegade: That is a reasonable opinion. The problem is that it is a design philosophy that ends up creating a game that I really don't want to play, and if it turns out that the devs are making a game for people who want to play vendetta with the equivalent of Sure-Striking Light Fighters +5 of Hull Bane, then well I'll have to go somewhere else.

Not that that it would be a bad game it just would be a game that mixed two completely different design philosphies in a way that I really wouldn't care for.

In a normal RPG you don't get to swing the sword. The character does, and all you basically get to do is roll the dice AND equip the character. This design philosophy ends up creating games like Diablo, Baldur's Gate, Everquest, and Earth & Beyond. It's great, but when you get down to it combat comes down to pushing 'a' or left clicking the target and watching your character do his thing (maybe feed it potions frantically while it happens). In a game like that, finding the best stuff _is_ the mark of skill because there really aren't alot of other skills involved.

But we can fly our ships.

So the question becomes which skill would we rather emphasize: The skill in finding ships and equipment or the skill in flying the ship? To my mind that shouldn't be much of a question. Vendetta has lots of competitors that emphasize the skill in finding goodies. Where Vendetta really shines in comparison to virtually every existing MMORPG is in gameplay. I'd like to think this is a game that owes more to Warbirds than it does to Everquest. It's not that I'm whole opposed to getting equipment that gives you slight advantages. Clearly I'm not advocating making Buses and Ion Blasters the equal of Promys with Adv. Gatlings. I'm just suggesting that by and large we should not only strive for a level playing field, but that that level playing field should encompass as much of the games gizmos as possible.

Yeah I know that, but I just wanted to point out that that is what a RPG looks like,

In my eyes it shouldnt be completely like it, because I like the somewhat Rune typed interface, so being able to do things becasue of your skill with a sword, "ship", but it doesn't mean that there shouldn't be some more powerfull weapons present for every nation. It should be highly digfficult for other people to get that nations weapon, but it could be possible with a certain quest or becasue of quests or becasue of some friends or ... . But maybe only a few, or maybe not. I don't know, but I'm sure we will see.

but please stop making remarks about the valk, the prom is as much as good but in another area , as is the pizza slicer.

Me looks at the nation with the most money, me looks at the nation who are the most difficult to kill withouth teamwork and me looks to the nation with the best light fighter. They should do something against some weaponcombo's, like rate of fire or something like this, but don't start using energy or battery for it, that's the reason why we used the projectiles otherwise we would just stay using the tachyon and so on "energyweapons". The biigest disadvantage is already only having a limited supply for shooting

cheers

The problem is not in the valk, but in the spamming capabilities of the sunflares. Give them a safety fuse, a timer, or a slower reload rate dont drop everything to a ridiculously low armor level. the problem ISNT the ships any more, except mabye the prom, but the weapons are all screwy with reload times, damg factors, and speeds, not the ships.

If you try hard enough you could probably beat a Valk with an itsy bitsy Centurion, Ive seen it happen.
Same with a few busses taking down a prom.

There have got to be advantages and disadvantages! The REASON that the Valk costs 21000 and the Centurion costs so much less is because the VALK IS SUPPOSED TO BE BETTER! I know, you don't want money to be the main difference between things, with all the rich people bettering the poor people. Well, too bad. I for one don't particularly care for the valk, but I do acknowledge that two shots of a tri-rocket valk can kill three bots. It's a great thing. If you PAY 50k for that power, then power to ya! Use it! We don't want to nerf all the guns and make them so USELESS that they are specialized. Do you really want a single laser for ship-to-ship combat, a rocket that is useless and a nuke that's just for cap ships? No! Do you really want three ship classes, all EXACTLY THE SAME for all the nations? No! We want advantages and disadvantages. Do you want this to be a "get lots of points so you can get a good character where you just press a and it kills everyone" kind of game? No! We want tactics, we want differentiations. The rockets are balanced, the nukes are a little underpowered for their low det radius but otherwise ok, the rail guns are very underpowered, everything else is FINE.

The prom is perfect, a very heavily armoured bomber/defense ship. The pizza cutter (something no one complains about) is a very good ship, but could use 25 cargo at least to make its benefits obvious. The Valk is a high-speed fighter. The lasers are all fine, the charger is fine, but the other cannons are likewise underpowered and underused (they'll be cool with frigates though). The adv gatling is an excellent weapon, but worth it. Like I said, the avalon needs more damage if it is to keep this low det radius. The rockets are a little slow, but otherwise perfect. As for the missiles, well, they're all a little underpowered since they're so easy to dodge, but whatever.

Again, Celebrim is obviously going to reply that I misquoted him a dozen times. I'm used to it by now. I think that what this kind of conversations leads to is everyone in a bus with a little red laser pressing a to engage autopilot and adding [NPC] to the front of their nicks. Well, that's fine in some games. But this is one where if your problem is slow reflexes, it might not be your game. So either live with it or meet the botkiller. :)

Amen, Roguelazer.

roguelazer: I don't feel misquoted. I'd feel quite sympathetic to what you are saying except that I can't really understand how your rant is a responce to what I said. If I had been uniformly asking to nerf things down to the level of buses and red ions, if that even remotely seemed to be what I was suggesting, I'd feel pretty much the same as you. If I had been uniformly asking for anything that anyone had used to beat me with to be nerfed, then I'd feel in response pretty much as you did. If I had been asking to remove all diferences between the ships and end differientiation, the my response to that would be pretty much the same as yours.

But I don't see where you get that.

I was completely against nerfing the railgun. I have been arguing since 3.2 came out that most of the weapons need to get stronger and more effective, not weaker. I have been arguing since 3.2 came out that most of the large weapons aren't capable enough to justify them being large. I have been arguing since 3.2 came out that most of the ships need to get stronger, not weaker. I argued for the increased ammo capacity of sunflares. For the life of me I can't see what I have done to make you think that what I want to see is "everyone in a bus with a little red laser pressing a to engage autopilot", especially since it was exactly that direction of gameplay I argued _against_ in my discussion with Renegade.

I just get the feeling sometimes that the arguement you are having is not with me but with some phantom boogeyman, but that this boogeyman that you fear is your own invention and not something _anyone_ (much less me) represents. What exactly is it in my position that you fear so? Change?

Hey, it wasn't all you. It's kinda... you want to nerf the ships and Arolte wants to nerf the weapons. Between the two of you, you are the phantom boogyman. Do I fear change? No. I fear the opposite. I fear returning 3.2 to the status quo of 3.1.15, which is what would happen if all the ships were "equalized" between the nations and all the guns "equalized". I fear not change, and I lead the cavalry into the bright tomorrow (misquote, you can figure out who, but it's not you!)! However, I fear progress being undone at the suggestion of the few.

Today I've encountered many more triple/dual sunflare pilots than I've ever in this past week. And this is what I've come up with...

Tri-Sunflare + Valkyrie Combo

It isn't as impossible as I had originally thought. I didn't have a problem boosting away from them, but anytime I tried to engage with them 1 v 1 with a Warthog or Hornet, I was pretty much toast. All was not lost, however. With a lot of good timing and hard work you can unload a few homers/rockets (or just tachyons) of your own into them before they get close enough to blow up in your face. While this won't save your life, it'll at least cause them to issue.

Conclusion: Try to avoid or let Tri-Sunflare Valkyrie pilots waste all their ammo by boosting away from time to time, and then engage them when they've run out. Or team up against them. If you have no choice but to engage, fight with all you've got. They'll be wasting more money when they die from their own splash damage, than by you dying with the cheaper ship.

Dual Sunflare + Adv Gatling Turret + Prometheus

This afternoon I encountered a cocky newbie in a Prometheus by the name of VoMiTo_FR. I had a Quad-Tachyon loadout while he ambushed me in a Prometheus with the above config. This guy was nearly impossible to dodge with a Hornet. Despite all my desperate backpeddling maneuvers, he'd constantly gain speed and launch dual-Sunflares at a very very close range, while at the same time spraying me with lead from his Adv Gatling Turret. I couldn't boost away, because the crappy turn rate and acceleration of the Hornet (PLEASE up the agility of this ship) would've surely gotten me killed, so I had no choice but to keep dodging. Despite the multiple hits I made on him with my quad-Tachyons, he simply managed to finally boost up to my ship and suicide on me with the Sunflare rockets while taking minimal damage.

I then tried to attack him again in a 1 v 1 battle with a Warthog. Same result. After numerous failed attempts at bringing him down in non-special ships, I simply snapped and decided to buy a Prometheus of my own with the same config. Guess what? He went down in a matter of seconds. It just goes to show you that there are in fact newbies out there that may seem skillful, when in fact they're hiding behind a tough ship with uber automatic guided weapons. Go figure. What disappointed me the most, however, was the fact that I had to match him with the ship and loadout just to take him down. Bleh.

Conclusion: Yes, sometimes it takes two or three pilots to bring down a single Prometheus. I guess it makes sense, considering how Serco has the smallest population. But now that everyone can own one... well, that's something that needs looking into. Going against one of these ships 1 v 1 in a non-special ship is a guaranteed trip to hell. Unless of course the Prometheus pilot REALLY sucks or doesn't have a suicidable config, then you're just lucky. In a way I believe the hull of this ship needs to be toned down, but just by a little bit. Or the Hornet needs to be slightly (just very slightly) more agile to provide some formidable defense against these guys.

My belief still also stands in regards to having some further disadvantage with grouping up rockets. Right now it's easy for anyone to just grab a special ship with a large hull and buy triple rockets, and just learn how to ram themselves into you while planting rockets into your hull at point blank range. It can be dealt with for now, but it's not something I enjoy seeing every now and then.

My last concern is how everyone and their frickin' dog flies a special ship nowadays. While it's true that they need to be specialized in some way, non-specialized ships should have their own advantages too. Otherwise we'll be seeing little to no variety in ships among the entire Vendetta population. The cost of the special ships should be justified by their hull points, uber fast agility, or amount of cargo space. They probably should not be priced by how many enemy ships they can kill, or by how many enemy ships it takes to bring one down, in the interest of promoting variety.

I partly agree with you on this. The Hornet definitely needs a little more maneuverability, just one level more is fine. Medium-rare, so to say. As for that, well, there's an easy counter to that. Try a rag loaded up with avalon, dual rockets, tachyon and adv gatling vs a prom loaded with adv gatling and dual sunflare. The rag will win unless you are a total n00b in high-inertia ships. :) Well, I guess it's possible to lose if you use the avalon (it's there "just in case", feel free to substitute a second adv gatling) at close range. But no one is THAT silly. As for your conclusion of no grouping of rockets, I think that's a bad idea gameplay-wise. After all, the rockets are there to be the heavy hitters of the small slots. Without them, it's pretty hard for any non-large ship to damage a large ship. Picture this:

A prometheus armed with an adv gatling and two Sunflares of some sort is fighting two or three smaller fighters, Vultures say. Now, with Dual-Sunflares, it's about even. However, say the Vultures were armed with a single tachy and a single Sunflare and the Promy was adv gatling, one sunflare and one tachy. The Promy can probably beat the smaller ships quite handily. The Sunflares, to me, serve a useful purpose as anti-larger-ship weapons to counter those of the large ports.

I don't mean to flame/rant/etc here, just stating my opinion...

Arolte: I definately understand your point Arolte, but I still can't help but notice that some in the community feel the rocket is too weak and others that it is too powerful. That probably means that the rockets are about right. On the other hand everyone agrees that the specials are more powerful than the non-specials. I can't help but feel that the problems you are experiencing would be solved if the Promy had 18000-19000 hull instead of 26000, or the Valk had 8000-9000 hull rather than 12000, and the pizza cutter hand 12000-13000 hull rather than 18000.

Out of couriousity, what engine are you using in the Hornet? If the Promy had a heavy engine, and you didn't, that might explain the speed problems and the relative lack of manueverability of the Hornet.

We all talk about lowering this and lowering that, but has anyone ever really considered raising things such as the hull for non-specials?

I say we raise all the nonspecials by 4500 and the specials by 3000 and the promy by 3337 (so its hull is now 31337 points :P ).

I always use a heavy engine/fast recharge combo. Except for my nuke ship, which is a different story. But anyway, even with a heavy engine the Hornet is still somewhat sluggish to be a true fighter. It works good as a support fighter where you're attacking in groups... but once you're alone your chances of survival will dramatically drop.

While I completely understand and agree with the cockpit proportion argument that Waylon presented earlier, I still can't shake off the coolness of the Hornet back in 3.1.x. Heck, the Valkyrie is huge compared to the highest agile non-special ship. Yet it flies around like it's on crack. I'm not really expecting the Hornet to be as agile as the Valkyrie, but in my opinion it could at least be around the same level as the Warthog's agility (maybe a little less). Or increase the Warthog's agility and replace the current Warthog agility with the Hornet's agility.

The Hornet has a lot of potential for being the anti-special ship, without the advantages of cargo space or hull strength. Unfortunately it's handicapped by its sluggish agility. Heck, I'd be willing to trade off the hull strength for that added agility. I mean it would seem logical that the faster the ship you have, the less mass it has, so therefore the easier it is to kill. I dunno, maybe not. Just my usual ranting.

hornets should be about 2m smaller IMO.

They can't be smaller. The problem lies within the design itself. If they get any smaller, the cockpit will be disproportionate to the huge bubble cockpits of other fighters. It would screw up the scale totally.

why can't we have a smaller cockpit shield?

Actually, when I first saw the Hornet, I couldn't help but think of how much it resembled the Formula 1 powerboats used for circuit racing. Maybe removing the slits from the Hornet texture, and adding a bigger (more wrapped) windshield would help make it look more like fighter. Example pictures below:

http://www.stlouisracing.com/STL-MRN/boat/Beckman-celebration-boat-web.JPG

http://www.freshairsystems.com/newpag2.jpg

That way, I think they can shrink it down just a little bit more, and therefore they could afford to make it a little more agile. I mean look how that guy just barely fits in that cockpit. I think it make a lot of sense in terms of scale.

This is what you meant by "cockpit shield", right?

=/

I was reading this forum and got half way to see freedom talking about how they should get rid of unguided rockets. I thought about it and the reason why unguided rockets are so highly used is the fact that guided rockets suck!! They are almost the easiest thing in the world to dodge and they are rather pointless. If they actually could hit they would be useful. Evenyone knows that when they see a flashing yellow dot on their radar and hear the beeping that they're being followed. But do they do anything about it? nope not really. Personally, i just go on with whatever i'm doing. I'll probably speed up but they aren't fast enough to touch me. Anybody else notice this?

Of course you'd upgrade the guided rockets if the unguided ones were removed.

I personally think unguided rockets have their place in the game. Some people like having manual control of their weapons. While others like to shoot and forget. It's an option that should always be offered.

Well, if people want that precise control of their weapons, they should just use lasers (unlimited [except by battery] and faster repeat rates).

In my opinion, unguided weapons have a place in Q3A, but not Vendetta.