since it is an aoe weapon in essence something needs to be done to balance all flare ships against all energy ships For too long flares have dominated the battle field when their primary intent was to be a secondary weapon(at least that is how i interperated t). While people use AOE weapons irl that does not always make for a good gameplay I suggest we follow in the steps of previous MMOs and give AOEs a sacking penalty, as the point of twitch combat is to twitch and not to get the best AOE weapons

what do you mean stacking penalty? A penalty for knocking you off your ass and keeping you spinning? How does that even make sense?
-1

Edit: on second thought, I am completely down with this as long as there is a penalty for flying a valk with two neuts and a flare as well, just to even things out.

Nothing should be balanced and life is not fair. Warfare is even less fair. I wish the ships and weapons where less balanced artificially, but would allow for more user creativity in setting up the weapons and configurations. That would balance things out naturally.

rofl atice i guess you never took into account that this would greatly help most people i fly against in all energy set ups as they do not get a greater hit range for having two, three, or four neuts on a ship. but by design you get a much greater chance to hit with aoe weapons based on how wide your ship is.

I'm likewise confused about what pey is actually proposing.

Not that it matters, because flares don't need any more nerfing.

In thread with the ideas here, I suggest a mining flare

I think I see what you're saying. We could always make it so that you can't fire two or more flares at the same time, that seems much more realistic, anyways. What would really be nice is an "overheating" stat much similar to energy but only applied to ordinance weapons to prevent spamming... hey... I like this idea... I think I'll jack your thread... It's okay, though... it does what you ask and you didn't exactly give an example, yourself.

-Overheating would be a bar next to the energy bar, except it starts at 0 and is capped at whatever a ship's "heat resistance" stat is (usually 50-200 depending on the ship class).

-Only non-energy ammo weapons would generate heat, heat is not generated by turboing and neither is cooling impaired by turboing (this advantage of ammo weapons should always be preserved).

-"Coolant" would be a stat on the ship that dictates how quickly the the ship's tubes "cool down" (usually 'round 5 to 20 a second...)

-It is not similar to "an 'energy' stat that isn't effected by turbo" because if you are at, say... 90 heat, capped at 100, and you have a weapon that causes 30 heat per shot, you will still be able to fire the weapon (only one of them, if you have two or more... if you fire a whole bunch of different heat consumption, you will fire the one you have the most ammo for... if not you will fire the one that uses the most heat)... but once you hit the cap you will not be able to fire any heat-using weapons and it won't start cooling down for 10 seconds.

-Screamer and rails would not generate heat, they are technically energy weapons and already have their own preventions of spamming.

-This would add some more variety to bombers and bombing weapons. Ships that have been labeled bombers and never used as such could be given better heat stats... and once single-shot torpedos come out they will have an advantage for bombing over chaos swarms and gems.

A few examples of heat stats:

-fighters (including valks) would have a heat resistance rating of "50" (for cormauds and other mauds let's make the 75... just because) and a coolant rate of around "10/s"...

-Stingers would generate 10 heat/shot, gems would generate 20 heat/shot, swarms would generate 40 heat/shot, jacks would generate 40 heat/shot, ice flares 20 heat, star flares 30 heat, sunnies 40...

-Warthogs would have 25-100 heat ratings based on the variant... for example, since the Greyhound is mainly a ship meant for energy it would probably be the one with the 25 heat rating, the only ship below 50. Whereas the hog 2 might have 50, MK4 and mineral (again... just because) 75, and the WTD 100... most will have a 15/s coolant rate

-Revs/Wraiths would have around 150-250 heat and 20/s heat rate, Centaurs 125-200 and 17/s (depends on the variant, all of these examples), proms would have 175-275 heat rating and 10/s coolant rate (or some other set of stats that distinguishes it)

-Hornets and Rags and other bombers would have very high heat ratings, 300+, and a coolant rate of 20-25/s or so... maybe there will be more variants in the future that are overall very very good for their amount of ports, but with lesser heat ratings meant for energy use.

Sound good?

What about the hotter the flare tube gets the lower the fire rate is?

Only spammers will complain about it i guess : p

spam well : )

oh my example was going to be if you have two flares equiped there prox fuse gets reduced to 15m instead of 30m to balance out for having such a wide spread and greater damage. If you think about it, it makes sense as the more energy weapons you have on your ship the faster your battery drains so the more acurate you have to be. the more flares you have on your ship the greater the chance of a hit you have.

I have a better idea. I think flares should detonate with proximity to any object. Meaning, if there is a second flare in the air within range, they detonate. The minimum arming safe distance should remain, but if you fire flares next to each other, once they reach arming range they explode on each other. You also get the added ability to use flares for flare and missile defense. Imagine running from swarms only to turn and fire a flare which detonates on proximity to the swarms, destroying them.

It would be a pretty fun new tactic in combat.

+1 Shanktank. Looks like a good way to limit spamming and running, as most ships that could run away effectively also won't be able to fire many missiles before they hit the limit.

But... is the nerf necessary? I think we're trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist.

I'm with Atice here. Flares are not unbalanced--they just require a radically different approach for defense/offense than does energy, which leads to certain players (who are often otherwise quite experienced, even skilled, with PvP) wondering WTF happened to them.

Unlike energy, flares require a more "third-person" conception of all physics on both sides of a fight, from several moments before launch all the way through the time it takes for the ordinance to close the distance between the launch point and where the target will be later on. To get good with flares requires lots of work at feeling the right release point, based on figuring out how fast and where your opponent is moving relative to your own first person view, as well as how to add to your velocity and direction relative to the point at which you fire. Defending against flares requires a similar 'can understand and extrapolate the fight from a 3rd person view' ability, and the only way to get and maintain that ability is to fight against flares on a regular basis. In a way, they're like rails but worse--avoiding a 'choke' requires a similar "feel" for the firing sweet spot, but because they're so slow, there's more of a mental game to it because of the need to predict future movement. Really knowing distance and relative speed cannot be underemphasized.

Leaving the game, or not playing with flares, for an extended time is far, far harder on the flare flinging/dodging ability than it is on other types of combat. I ought to know, since I used to fly tri-flare valks and suns/screamers SCPs pretty much exclusively about four years ago, and flew them pretty Goddamn well. After taking ~3 years off totally, and playing maybe a couple times a month thereafter, the difference in my offensive and defensive abilities with my old explosive friends is... marked. In the end, though, you can either suck it up and invest the time, or you can accept the fact that it's an art that rewards dedication and deal creatively with those who spend more time on it than you're willing to invest.

Nerfing is not an acceptable response to getting pwned.

man you guys make this too easy



but feel free to continue discussing the idea if you want

my comment stands

Impavid, your idea sound pretty cool actually, especially the thing about exploding stuff by intercepting it with another mass. Then you could drop a cargo crate and explode the incoming flares... Guess it will never happen:)

nothing substantial ever happens in VO...

I do like the idea that flares and missles with prox fuses explode when they get near anything else including each other....

I'm with Aticephyr and Dr. Lecter on this one.

As for the "We could always make it so that you can't fire two or more flares at the same time, that seems much more realistic, anyways.", that is not really true. An attack helicopter with two Hydra pods can fire two of them at the same time, and the Hydra rocket pod is meant for spamming, to cover an area.

Overheating, on the other hand, is a good idea, and it would be interesting to have this additional variable introduced to combat, for all weapons and actions (firing a weapon - be it energy or projectile, using your engines, recharging your capacitor, picking up cargo, dropping cargo, mining...).

That way, if you run for an extended period of time, your engines go back to cruise mode (with varying turbo durations), and running after firing your weapons would be quite impossible.

Might need its own thread, but I know it exists already.

I like the idea of flares and missiles exploding on prox to mass, but not any mass. Swarms would be come totally useless, as they would explode on exiting the tubes. Bombing (which is already over looked) would become very difficult if not impossible. One flare could take out an entire stack, or even chain reaction kill a spread. And slow moving ( i assume they will be slow moving) single fire torpedoes won't ever make it to target. But if they only responded to something with enough mass, say a heavy cargo widget or mine, a well placed drop could save a cap ship from impending doom.

Overheating is a good idea too, but i have no thoughts on it :P

And neither will probably be implemented.

Hyrda Missiles only explode on impact.