Okay, so I have to bring this up since Im trying to run BS right now, and Im getting blown out of the sky from missile fire.

The bots seem to have gotten considerably more missiles, and are using them. This is making things next to impossible inside Deneb during the fights, and Im getting whacked by Valkyries and the like upon emerging from the wormhole.
I have to ask why these new missiles were introduced. We just got the Sunflares downgraded to Iceflares on the Warthogs, but then so many new missile capable fighters were introduced we might as well keep the Sunflares for all the good the swap did.

What if we cut the missiles down from the Valkyries (and Im pretty sure I saw a Vulture fire one at me) and leave missiles/rockets to the Warthogs and maybe a few of the Rags? All the new missiles are making BS just a bloody grind for players, and while I usually love BS, it's not fun to be blown out of existence before you can return fire.

Thanks.

Adding rockets to the valks was a requested thing in the prior thread. Only iceflares are being used, but it might be a good idea for me to come up with some kind of general "bot missile" with a slower refire rate.

I can also potentially drop rockets from the valks entirely. Any other opinions on this?

Well I think having rocket on bots is perfectly reasonable but maybe grant 5 casualty points for killing ships with heavy weapons Ie: flares gats missle lanchers

the sunnies on the warthog aren't overpowered there quite easy to dodge and then kill the TD but its very effective at ganking you when you taking on another target.

I love it. No one is ever happy. It's either too easy or too hard. When players say "it's fine" it typically means they can crush ten to twenty bots in a single run, regardless of weapons.

Keep as is. Valks rape bots all the time: why not give em a fighting chance?

The real trick the the BS missions is using your Cap ships as bases. Its a question of strategy. I played a few of the new ones, and had no problems avoiding getting missile Ganked by simply hanging around my capital ships and if in trouble either docking or racing around until the cap ship fire took out the bots.

I do think however that this again brings focus on what should be the primary complaint, that the Serco are forced to enter the fight from a single point, the worm hole. If Pyroman had the option of jumping into the area from a different vector, then finding his way to the capital ship the first time would be allot easier, because he wouldn't be forced to jump into the central combat zone. That would reduce the instances of bot ganking, or at least allow the player to control them somewhat.

You forget that the serco are the INVADERS.

I think the new rockets are fine... gives the bots a load out much closer to what a real player would use anyways.

On a side note I did find it a bit odd that the NPC bombers would frequently attack me, seekers and all, instead of the capital ships.

And don't forget black us on the blue side have to deal with AGT ramming proms now :p

"You forget that the serco are the INVADERS."

So, forget balance and having fun, or giving both sides a fair chance. Quite frankly I don't give a rats ass about trying to force game play to fit a 5 year old back story that is little more than water coloring for what is supposed to be fun, open, and balanced warfare.

If you can't come up with a better reason than essentially, "Inc said it was ours five years ago" for your argument to keep it unbalanced, then perhaps you should spend some time on the Serco side just to see how much fun getting killed on the way to the fight is.

The back story is keeping new players from choosing Serco side enough without you having to have that kind of advantage as well.

BWHAHAHAHAHAHA.

yes, throw away the backstory. Hey, I support it. It should be an MMOFPS as far as I'm concerned. But it's not a huge arena and it's there for a reason.

Think of something besides the "oh me oh my, us poor serco have it tough!" argument.

Study your history moldy. Serco will be in Deneb to stay, partly because of the worm hole issue. I have no reason to think of another argument, simply because you have not proven my first argument wrong. Traversing the wormhole creates a built in imbalance in favor of the Itan on the BS mission.

Here this issue is discussed in march.

http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/18531

And here Inc chimes in that in fact, in order to balance this fight and broaden the war, the entire system of Deneb will become disputed territory at some point.

"The Serco would then get a "station" (perhaps a really-hardened HAC, or a small station) in B12, and the Itani would retain a station in O3. These two areas would remain persistent to the respective sides, while the rest of the system could be conquered (including the K5 and I12 stations). I don't know exactly what the storyline explanations of all of this will be, but that's the broad strokes of the gameplay."

http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/18531#231549

So despite the situation now, Serco will have a presence, and this obvious imbalance will be resolved. My point in bringing it up in this thread, was to point out indirectly that if you keep messing with the missile/rocket mix for the now, instead of fixing the real problem, then you would most likely want/need to re-adjust the missiles/rockets after that problem is resolved. Might as well spend the time on working towards the bigger fix.

Since the primary complaint revolved around the effects of missiles on getting worm hole ganked, it seemed appropriate to address that issue again.

Ah right. The itani have to give up yet another system to appease the small faction.

Inc, when Akanese get added, can they have nukes? I might be itching to bomb SkyCommand out of existence.

Wait, the pacifist pansies with the most systems of any race in the game... might be driven from a border system that's the focus of the most warlike race in the game?!?

Say it ain't so! That's just wrooooong from a back story point of view!! Totally unsupported!!!

I think that just switching Deneb to grey and making "who owns the most sectors" is a stupid idea. It's just slapping in a Sedina B-8 in Deneb with no deeper system. And oh wow, the itani win and control deneb this week... and then....? Well, the serco just take it back next week or the week after. On and on in a circle.

That's what I'm pissed about. Don't make it weak, make it good.

Hey look, all Im saying is that the Serco face an extreme uphill battle. Our fleet gets to invade, but the pilots have to fight our way in without help. I agree missiles/rockets are important, and factual, but I also think the Backstory is critical to the game. Most games have them in some form or another, and rarely do they get as well written and followed as VO's has been.

I've been inside the new BS where the damage and rocket rate were nerfed and it's a lot better. Thanks Inc.

I separate the "warp ganking serco" issue from the general "too much NPC rocket ganking" issue. I'm trying to make continuous gameplay a bit more fun. We're trying to get some changes into the release tonight that will make NPC adversaries more enjoyable (not as many ganging up), and also moving the BS sector to Deneb B13 to help mitigate the Serco entry issues.

Moldy: I'm not sure that I'm planning to do exactly what you think. Having things oscillate on a weekly basis is a very baseline implementation.. I like to try and keep things simple while a lot of the other gameplay and code are still uncertain. But really, the medium-term BS model is laying the ground work for generalized "conflict" (between corporate factions in gray, and so on), which might be triggered by a lot of things (not just a timer). There is a larger picture that I am trying to work towards.