The biggest issue I have with them is their concussion blast, specifically how it stacks from multiple flare explosions and how the game's physics tends to cause your ship to tumble and spin instead of push it away. Sunflares are more effective concussion weapons than most of the concussion weapons...

Sunflares are OP. Valks with Sunflares are extra OP. But really most of all, chat is OP. Whine less, fight more.

Edit - back on the topic of a _suggestion_ here: The game could force ships with multiple rocket launchers to chain fire with an evenly spaced delay instead of launching simultaneously. This fixes the greatly widened prox fuse advantage that comes with dual/triple flares, but still gives the benefit of increased fire rate and ammo capacity.

Um, yes you can. The 700, even the more 'tacti-cool' police models, are just regular ole bolt action rifles. You can, state depending, get them at Walmart. If I have $10,000 or so to blow, I can even walk into most gun stores and walk out a short time later with a Barrett .50 BMG sniper rifle. Ammo cost is a bitch, though.

Got to love the good old US of A! It's a bit of a different story though in most countries in the world, and where I live, you can't even buy a pistol without going through a lengthy process of acquiring a license for it, etc. So let's rather say my misunderstanding about firearms where you stay ;)

But your misunderstanding of firearms notwithstanding, the point is good. I'd be all for more advanced weapons being limited to certain high-conflict barracks stations

I think hell has frozen over... but on a serious note, I like the idea as well. From an RP angle, it makes sense for the military to try and control the "best" weapons.
Perhaps, in the future (not short term), we could even have more powerful weapons only accessible if you join the military for a certain side... Or if you can find it on the black market of course.

Last I checked, most places regulate pistols more heavily than bolt action rifles (any of which will work quite nicely for sniping human beings as well as hunting animals). Other than that, no concerns. I now return you to your regularly scheduled TRS whining.

I have nothing more to say, I've made my suggestion I want to hear what the devs think.

Sunflares have got to be deadly to compensate for their limited ammo. Starflares are less deadly and thus have more ammo. I really don't think sunflares are OP, you just can't play balls out aggressive against them. Takes a different tactical approach to beat them. People lose against sunflares because they get impatient and are unwilling to wait for a kill. It doesn't mean they're OP.

I can kill a warthog in one shot with a quad adv rail hornet. They're not OP because I only get 10 tries to do it.

And if you nerf sunflares my energy valk will reign supreme.

...On second thought, let's nerf sunflares.

Takes a different tactical approach to beat them

Nobody wants to employ different tactics in their combat, Ghost. They want COMBAT DIVERSITY!

Which means...er. Wait. Shit.

Hmm.

When did you last see an advert that said " heh, new improved detergent. Yes our new improved detergent kills 10% fewer germs , removes 10 % less grease and takes twice as long to wash your pots"

Never happened.

So why all this we must nerf anything that might be good shite ? FFs have a look at vo and see what can be buffed . Can we make some guns faster, some ships more agile, some things go bang louder ?

Really, think about it. Does a newspost that says " We nerfed stuff since a few pvp fanatics whinged " put bums on seats . Nope . Does a newspost that says " We made quite a lot of stuff faster and louder since the net is better " put bums on seats? Hell yes....

Really, VO is a shooting things game. No military force ever nerfed its gear to make shooting things fairer. Really, buff stuff, learn to dodge it or use it.

Ecka, I have never, ever seen you oppose any nerf of military hardware used by pirates... until now, when someone started fucking with a setup you like.

Almost makes me want to take TRS's side. Almost.

2 cents from an old vet,

I had a... complicated relationship with flares.

The reason that I (and many others) didn't run them wasn't because they were bad. Mostly it was because reloading was a chore.

When it comes to Zombies, for example, I like something that doesn't need a reload.

My issue with flares was not in 1v1 combat, it was with their incredible utility in a group fight. (To the point where they have the effect of dispersing group battles.)

In a group fight, it's incredibly difficult to hit someone at medium range with energy if they are not targetting you. Attacking them from their blindspot, you can get a lock if you're good, but it takes a lot of practice.

With flares, if you jump someone in a group fight, they're just dead, that precision isn't required.

Now this being said, I think there's a role for flares, and I think the stats are pretty balanced in duels. (As Ghost points out the Valk is the big problem there, it's a flare platform that can outmaneuver an energy platform)

But, if you want to see energy dogfighting in group battles, then there needs to be some protection against getting flare bombed by a valk that only appeared on scanners a second or 2 ago.

And following up that thought, maybe the best way to go about it is an ordinance warning.

Ships carrying explosive ordinance would be specially tagged in radar, making it considerably harder to be jumped by them, and enabling pilots with good radar awareness to maneuver to avoid them.

Make flares and mines targettable entities.

^ would be kind of cool anyway..

We have add-on scanners now, Shape. You want to know what I'm packing, you give up an S-port for that info.

Heh, there's no way a scanner like that would be useful in a group combat situation.

It has to be something readily available at your fingertips, like ordinance carriers having a larger signature on radar. Otherwise you'll never get the info in time

I think rails are an example of balance done right. they take a shit load of energy especially if you are running 2 or more making it much harder to hit and run, their delay is higher (.7 to be exact) they don't have a big prox fuze on them when fired at the same time and their weight is actually high enough to have an noticable effect. for arguments sake i'll assume a valk is being used for these load outs.

2 neuts 1 sunflare 2200kg
2 sunflares 1 neut 2600kg
3 sunfalres 3000kg
3 adv rails 4500kg

As an example a few days ago I was involved in a fairly large furball in edras which while fun i think perfectly demonstraited my point of how flares are dominating combat. both sides used predominate flare layouts either dual or tri flare valks or agt/flare taurs

I find the suggestion about only letting you fire one flare at a time pretty interesting as it would prevent you gaining a huge prox fuze meaning you couldn't just turbo in and blind fire into a furbal hoping to hit but actually have to aim more.

I think rails are an example of balance done right.

So the least seriously used weapon platform is an example of balance done right? No thanks, I'll pass.

Really, if anything needs a fucking buff, it's rails, which are almost exclusively used as either a rail vs. rail 'who can aim best' duel rig or a 'gee, this could be fun for a lark even though I know I'm going to get my ass handed to me most of the time' toy.

lecter its pretty obvious that if something is balanced correctly it wont be used as often as something that is unbalanced and provides a much greater advantage.

as I have show before in this thread having 2 sunflaress + 1 neutron blaster vs 2 neutrons and 1 sunflare is a marginal difference of 400kg for the bennefit of being able to practicaly hit and run with impunity and gain a much larger prox fuze concussive blast etc. running a tri rail set up actually has downsides due to the massive energy usage and considerable weight. 4500kg vs 2200kg is actually a tangible difference.

lecter its pretty obvious that if something is balanced correctly it wont be used as often as something that is unbalanced and provides a much greater advantage.

Got it. So, all the most popular energy weapons are grossly unbalanced and should be nerfed. Fine by me.

"Got it. So, all the most popular energy weapons are grossly unbalanced and should be nerfed. Fine by me."

lecter i thought you were a lawyer this argument is pretty weak

there is not only 1 type of energy weapon being used widely in pvp 1v1 or group. if everyone was showing up to furballs with gauss and only gauss you would have a point, but back in the real world neuts/gauss/posi/ are (at least in my encounters) pretty evenly distributed hell even ravens and xgx pop up somewhat often. Maybe the next time a furball breaks out and everyone runs to get gauss cannons instead of dual/tri flare set ups you will have a point.

Peytros, your points aren't incorrect, but you're still limiting your argument about nerfing a weapon based on its use on one ship. The problem is the ship, not the weapon. Nerfing flares will make a number of other ships that relied on flares to be competitive no longer usable.

We can all agree that nothing sucks more than having a tri-flare valk sneak up on you in group combat. I argue that if you let a tri-flare valk sneak up on you, you deserve what's coming. Why do people think they should be able to remain engaged on their target while a second or even a third enemy is attacking them from behind? Flares or not, this situation will never be balanced because it's not a balanced situation. Ever snuck up on a valk with a dual gauss vulture? Dead valk.

Shapes suggestion is pointing in the direction of the real solution here which is to add more tools to increase situational awareness. Even if it's not about revealing your enemies loadout, simply increasing the visual or even the audible warning of flares coming at you could go a long way towards balancing the situation. Instead of a tiny yellow dot, make flares more noticable on the radar, or make them much much louder so you can hear them coming from further away. Things like this could fix the real problem without eliminating the viability of other flare using ships/loadouts.