uh ... the marauder has always been balanced, the prom has been nerfed beyond use and the valk has been relatively untouched since it's introduction.

The ultimate solution would be to have counter-parts for the three teams while retaining their special abillities e.g. gold would keep it's marauder but gain a less effecient valk and prom that are totally different ships. But that would take a lot of time to do and I don't want to wait for the ships to be balanced when it should of been fixed when the prom was nerfed.

Yes, the Marauder is probably the most balanced special. I am not inclined to believe the rumors of the Prometheus's uselessness though. I have only flown it once, but from watching UncleDave and others pilot it, it seems fine. They killed plenty of tri-flare valk-jocks. I have been on the recieving end of competent prometheus pilots on many a flag-cap too I might add. I think most of the whining just comes from people who are used to dodging fire instead of talking it and dishing it out. It is a bit nerfed, but not beyond use. I think dropping the agility further and giving it a tad more cargo and a lot more hull would make it a good ship.
Meanwhile, the Marauder only suffers the imbalance of being the only decent trade ship. It's fast and carrys lots of cargo. I say just give the other trade ships more cargo slots and the Marauder will not seem nearly as unbalanced. I know people complain about rocket ramming marauders, but that's an issue with rockets, not the ships using them. Basically, the only reason people complain about Marauders is that they can actually hold their own in a fight. God forbid a pirate actually work for his cargo.
The Valk however is a ridiculoulsy maneuverable ship. The way weapons work it is just about impossible to hit it from close or medium range and if a valkyrie does not want to fight, the only ship that can actually chase it is the centurion, but Valks don't run from centurions in the first place, no point when they are faster, have more weapons, and better hull. It is a bit of an uber-fighter, which is what it is supposed to be, but it gives Blues a distinct advantage over the other nations in a war.

We need normal manufacter line of ships so everyone can get a normal valk\prom\marauder

Then we have "Itani modified Valk\prom\maud" etc.
Each race has it's special modification to the ships, not sure what they would be but it would be nation specific.

"uh ... the marauder has always been balanced, the prom has been nerfed beyond use and the valk has been relatively untouched since it's introduction."

There speaks someone with a short memory. When the Valk was first introduced it had 18,000 h.p. and the manuevarability gap between it and other ships (except the Prom) was higher.

The Valk has lost over the course of its career 44% of its starting hit points, and virtually every other light fighter has lost weight over that period. Granted, it was the most broken ship, but when its hull points dropped to 12k, alot of people realized that the Prom was (then) only slightly less agile and had more than twice the hull points so the Prom became the most broken craft. Right now the edge is again probably held by the Valk, but not by as much as it originally was, nor by as much as the Prom use to rule over all other ships. The demise of the Prom is somewhat overblown.

the fact is that a ship will always be better than the rest. every person can get the ship at the same price but at different sectors. my solution is only meant to make it to where that sector is the same for all the players not just the itani. nothing more is intended by that

spectre if you do do that, isnt it maybe better to make the normal ships like that, because if we continue your line f thinking then nobody will fly the normal ships anymore.

for instance : serco : +5 k hull, speed reduced with 10% "turbo and cruising"
Itani: - 3 k hull, agility +1, speed + 5%
Neutrals: speed + 5% ,+ 3 cargoslots on any ship

But in my opinion just keep everything like it was, and maybe switch the aglity of the vult with the valk, im pretty sure that it will solve a lot of problems. "it will be between the vult(2 weapons) and the hornat (4 weapons)". And dont worry, let the devs finish 3.3 and we will see what they have in stock for us then ;)

cheers

Hmmm 3.3 .... /me jumps up and down for 30 minutes!!!
Then comes crashing back down to earth as he remembers what it was like in the early days of 3.2!!!


AnYwAy - Nice idea rene.. maybe the Secro Nation should also have +1 targeting to their auto aim. After all they are a war Nation?

The Prom was designed for the Secros as warship - not agile fighters like the Valks. The only reason for Valks being used is the simple fact that its speed and agility mixed with Triple Sunflares hurt and they can kill with ease......

/me looks to Uncle dave, Grim Battol, Blaster, Arolte..... The list is tooooo Looonnng. hehehe.

I think its a question of.. Should ppl's be allowed to link and/or be armed with more then one type of weapon?

The old centurions - armed with single engery, 1x rkt and 1x seeker waas excellent.. There was none of this -Oh u rocket Rammer!! or lamer - you cant do anything but rkt ram!! It was - duel to the death, Laugh and have fun!!!

Write back soon - must go

Bye all

either way somebody is gonna complain. if the itani dont have the valk the itani will complain, if the itani do then everyone else will complain. the weapons the valk can use is a problem. you can rocket ram and still walk away with close to 1/2 your hull. i dont use the valk much so i dont ligitimatly care about it

I agree with Rene, that arguing over how to balance the special ships at this point is somewhat fruitless. We are arguing from the current 3.2.12 parameters, and I expect the 3.3 era to revolutionize gameplay as we know it. Many of these issues will become non-issues as other gameplay factors such as factions, reputation, dynamic economy, and missions are introduced.

Actually I never got to fly the very first version of the valk but it couldn't of been much faster than it is now and reducing the hull didn't make that much of a difference because the valk can dodge anything.

It's just getting boring seeing 20 different players fly the same ship with the same configuration and using the same tactics.

me taps hunter on the hands.

there arent always 20 players on, and most of the time Im 1 of the 20 players, and I dont fly a valk, except for rare occasions. example: cruising and sightseeing in your nations specific ship :D. Mostly not for fighting, it is to agile to my tastes ;(. Me prefers a lot of hitpoints, a mean punch and massive. Me feels safe then :D

"there arent always 20 players"
yes ther are, 16 blues, bountybot, and 3 other reds and golds ;)
well no necessarily, but at least 16hours a day there's 20 players.
valk AND VULTURES are a bit too strong... yeah. if you say that, and tweak prom (less agility more firepower?) and marauder (errr... lots of things possible), maybe everything will be alright.
well I'm in "wait for 3.3 mode" right now...

There are rules to this kind of thing. Rules that have existed since the dawn of time :

Fast ships are light and have low hit points because it's hard to hit them lot's of times.
Slow ships are heavy and have high hit points because they are more likley to be hit.
Medium ships are a mix of the two but aren't as fast as light ships nor have the massive hulls of heavy ships.

So, basically theres a "speed : hull" ratio which really needs to be followed for example (out of 100) a light ship would have 75 : 25, a heavy ship would have 25 : 75 and a medium ship would have 50 : 50.

At the moment the valk totally destroys this rule because it's not only fast and hard to hit it has a massive hull as well. The centaur and rag don't nearly have the hull they should have in relation to their speed.

yeah hopefully these mission things will be set soon, no offense but i can only die as a turret so much before we all get bored. so yeah i cant trade cause our pirate friends and if i botted more than likely a noob is gonna ask to cap and people are gonna join. so yeah s4 will clear out and i will have to kill boring bots with regular bounty. why cant the noobs start dying more form the bots, are the noobs getting outside training or something? im afraid a noob is gonna kill me if i dont move around enough, lol
seriously these mission things should give the game some new asspect and idea for players to change the way they play

you have a point about the valk, the hull is a little high or the speed is a little high. 1 of the 2 has too drop. at least to make this a better game

Hunter Alpha, if they had any greater hull than they do know, chaos would reign. Trust me, the ragnarok is fine. The centaur needs more cargo spaces, not more hull.

I'm only talking about 18k for the centaur and 22k for the rag nothing too big. It's hard to judge what the effects would be because I've only seen 1 or 2 people fly them in the last month and both of them were killed.

He he, that's true. The slow lumbering ships get shot down with frightening ease. Methinks that large port weapons need to have higer velocities than they do now. Makes it easier to hit a target zig-zagging at you. But I'm not so sure bombers are meant to go toe-to-toe with fighters and survive.

I remember when Tradeship was harrasing people during one of Starfreeze's cargo busts though I got in a Rag and loaded it up with 2 swarms, 2 geminis and a yellowjacket. While a viper in a vult kept him busy I just lined up and unloaded them all on TS1. It was a thing of beauty to see all those homers head towards him and watch his valk spin around in panic at the homers headed at him from all directions.
Moral of the story: If you have support the bombers are quite lethal. It's just when they're by themselves that they're sitting ducks.

as they are supposed to be, thank you Pavan!

rag has a place... maybe a 2k hull boost or something, or nothing is fine... centaur carries a lot of cargo but lack of 2 small... and it's too heavy to actually trade.

Why are people so hung up over trading ships not being maneuverable enough? The whole point of a trade ship is to carry a lot of cargo, not to be as maneuverable as a fighter. 90% of the time a cargo ship is going to be flying in a straight line from one wormhole to the next anyway. I think the centaur is just fine as it is personally. A little extra cargo capacity would be nice, but leave the maneuverability alone. If people are concerned about being pirated, then hire an escort. That's what the new Viper guild is for. You can't expect a single ship to do everything.