I'm not complaining because I'm losing. If you increase the distance (time?) fuse (I like the idea of doing it only for the small port flares) then you would see some much more interesting flare fighter vs. energy fights. I'm not saying that it is too difficult to stay out of 150m and jump in and out to waste the other persons flares and maybe get a shot at them for 10 minutes, I'm just saying that that strategy makes fights boring and long (and, with some ships with poor distance control matched against others, statistically impossible). I like to be unpredictable in fights, to change strategies constantly, it's just too difficult to do that against the current flares; this would be a secondary strategy.

PaKettle: I don't necessarily see how upping the grid power fixes anything, it just eliminates the use of flares as a support weapon.

I'm not saying that it is too difficult to stay out of 150m and jump in and out to waste the other persons flares and maybe get a shot at them for 10 minutes, I'm just saying that that strategy makes fights boring and long (and, with some ships with poor distance control matched against others, statistically impossible).

Translation: "I don't like that my one-trick pony of X ship with Y blasters can't always be employed in exactly the same way with a reasonable probability of success. Since I currently have to fight flares very differently than I have to fight energy weapons, flares must be broken. Pls hndl. thx."

Meh. Lecter is right, flares used to be FAR more effective, but not many people really used them well. Now that we've got a lot of flare-users running around B-8 patting themselves on the back for how uber they are with them, the folks who are experiencing the business side of them are starting to understand the power of them.

Mainly, their power is the splash radius and the way they toss around light ships like Bernie Madoff tossing salads.

Hell, I'd be probably the ONE pilot that would obtain the greatest benefit from flare nerfing. But I think they're okay as-is now.

Getting in close and STAYING in close is one way to defeat flares, increasing the radius of the dead zone will make those ships more of a target for light fighter-types, especially since flares are heavy. I think we're balanced here as it is.

If something needs to be nerfed, I'd say it would be the splashradius, dial that down a bit so that at 100 meters they can't fire flares at a 30-degree angle away from you AND still hit you.

(See diagram for why it's easy to hit with flares in close. The flare user has an AWESOME "aiming cone", they don't even need to really try hard.)

What your diagram fails to account for is projectile speed and the 3D nature of space combat, Leebs.

While it's true that the prox fuse/splash radius of a flare makes it a "larger" projectile than one fired by, say, a neut, that increase in size is more than offset by the huge difference in reaction time available to the targeted pilot. Flares show up on radar, they're easier to see coming at you, have a slow refire rate, and they move really slow relative to even the slowest PvP energy weapons. All of that, combined with the facts that the targeted ship can move up/down as well as left/right and front/back, and that the best flares have the least ammo, means that flare users have it anything but easy.

Unless your target decides to do something stupid, like take a less than manuverable light fighter right into the face of a triflare X-1, at which point said moron will instantly vaporize.

There are plenty of pilots who can take a Rev C or IBG and, using low mass blasters, destroy a Rocket SCP or tri flare valk. They do it by realizing that the flare is different, but not "more dangerous" than having energy shot at them.

Tumble, you were around for Icarus. Shame on you for agreeing with this--flares have already been balanced many times over, and little ole Sharky here has no fucking clue how much nastier they could be.

I'm glad there are those who love the unassisted energy play--it's a very zen experience, I'm sure. But don't make the mistake of thinking that's the only way of doing PvP that's valid.

Thank you Lecter. Thank you a lot.

And once again, the deadzone is between 50ish and 60ish meters, NOT TEN. Otherwise I'd never die by my own shots!

leebs has a valid point and it is only compounded by the double side by side flare firing where one flare detonated another but both hit due to the 60 meter splash radius. I say make splash radius the same as the prox fuse (30m) problem solved

Well, Doc, it's a cone of firing capability, not a triangle, and at 100m, flares are especially deadly - even a wildly off-target shot can catch you, spin you around, and once you're tumbling from the flare impact, you're dead meat for the followup blasts which finish you off, because you're busy regaining control, not dodging.

The speed of flares (75 or 85 m/s) is good, but you fail to mention that the ship's speed is added to them. So if you're travelling at 60 m/s forward and fire a sunflare, it's travelling at 145 m/s, which is still slow. But imagine that you give yourself a little turbo tap right before firing (as good flare pilots will do) which will increase your flare speed to maybe 180 m/s.

That makes it equivalent in speed to most energy weapons, except they have a small sphere of impact, the flare is essentially like firing a 60m diameter sphere at your opponent.

I am unsure if the damage a flare does drops off at all with distance. I'm inclined to think that it does NOT, since 4 or 5 flare hits will usually finish me off in my Rev C. That would be something that perhaps the devs could clear up?

Like I said, the flares are good as they are, with damage, speed and dead zone. If any changes are being made, I'd only support shrinking the splashdamage radius and/or making damage drop off with distance from the explosion if it already does not do so.

Maybe because the RevC is such a bloody flare magnet.

it really isn't Kierky. But it does have tissue paper instead of armour:)

I agree with leebs because he had the best diagram.

1v1 I'm happy to fight a flare wielding superhero, because I know I can beat them. It's not much fun, because as shape mentioned it's a waiting and baiting game to wear them down and draw out their flares. Once thats done it's easy because they can't hit me with their lone energy weps (this is when they usually run away sadly). What's frustrating is the results of leber's diagram: In a multi that guy with his giant cone of flaming destruction can spam it just about anywhere and wipe me out while I'm fighting his buddy. I'm ok with this because I do it too, but sometimes when I'm outnumbered 3 to 1 it feels kinda cheap to be bombarded with flares and agt fire. You've already got me outnumbered, at least offer me a fighting chance you know? It's more fun that way and hey maybe you'll actually land some energy fire for once!

Well, Doc, it's a cone of firing capability, not a triangle

See my point regarding refire rate being exceptionally slow.

Well, refire from that one port is slow, but multiple-flare setups are usually very effective, since you can space out the flares in such a way so as to cast a net of destruction in the general area of your opponent, or, if you catch your opponent with the first flare, you can nail him with the other "loaded" tubes for a quick kill.

Overall, flares are pretty balanced except for the splashdamage radius, I think. Maybe we can get the devs to work on radar occlusion instead of tweaking weapons that are 95% perfect as-is.

I didn't really read this thread but for whatever it is worth, I don't think that flares need to be tweaked right now. Cheers.

Pointsman +1

In fact, I'd prefer ammunition to have weight (an irrational vote for realism...), but I'm aware that that would be a silly move.

I suggested giving ammo weight a long time ago. IMO it needs to happen. Launchers should stay the same weight and ammo should add to it and dynamically change as that ammo is fired.

I also suggested being able to jettison addons during combat. You release your empty flare launcher for example and should you win your fight you can pick it up again and reequip it at station.

Hmmmmm, one possibility is to take out the dead zone and replace it, instead, with a gradually increasing proximity zone (starts out contact (0m) and gradually increases to 30m). Why stop there? You could have it increase up to 50m to discourage getting too far out of range.

Edit: and sorry if the exact numbers for the distances were off a bit, earlier.

Mass stays the same and decreases as ammo is expended. Yay to the idea of dropping empty launchers, though we've been over that ground for pages before.

Mass stays the same and decreases as ammo is expended.

If I'm understanding you correctly (that rockets should keep their current weight fully loaded), then that's a terrible idea. While I am fully supportive of ammunition having weight, especially rockets and missiles, they would need to have a somewhat significant weight for the idea to be interesting/useful, and this would be tantamount to a massive buff to flares.

As some people have already pointed out, flares aren't really unbalanced right now, more so a group of people have become proficient using them. What would be more useful in this case would be have the current weight fall nearer to the middle of the inventory (ie. 4-8 sunflares left), with advantages and disadvantages present for flying light or heavy (respectively) on the ammo.

I'm also a fan of the ability to drop addons mid flight.

Flares are heavy enough as is, there's no need to say that 1000kg is the mass of an empty tube of sunflares, for example, and that a full tube of 12 sunflares weighs in at, say, 1600kg. That's a massive nerf. A fully loaded tube of suns currently weighs 1000kg--it should drop as flares are expended, thus allowing people to choose to fly with fewer flares in exchange for a lower total mass.

No increasing mass, it's not appropriate. We already balanced these things by nerfing suns to 12 per tube.

My thought was that the launcher has a base weight empty, and each rocket or missile has a weight as well. I don't think it would effect much to be honest. If each rocket weighed 10-15 kg you're adding 120-175kg to the total when fully loaded. That's less than the difference between a MK2 and MK3 neutron blaster.

PS a rev c only weighs 3000kg empty, it shouldn't be able to equip 2/3s of it's total mass in weapons in the first place.