Forums » Suggestions
First off, I'd like to ask that those of you who did NOT participate in the FFA that we just had in S9, PLEASE DO NOT post (at least until all of us have. That would be "Not a Newb", "Fenix", "Undo", and our gracious Forum Moderator.)
Second, let me give you all the history for those of you not there.
We all started a fight with the following rules: A) No valks, B) no mining, C) no nukes, D) one flare per ship. We all quickly switched to using Vultures with dual gausses/tachs. I then switched to one flare, one gauss and grouped em together. Before that, I was getting about a 1 to 1 K/D ratio. After mounting the flare, I started to get a 2 or even 3 to 1 K/D ratio! Twice I was able to kill Fenix, Undo, AND Newb without major harm to myself.
After this, Fenix, and then I think newb added on a flare to their ship. We QUICKLY determined that a NO flare rule was appropriate!
I noticed basically two problems and one pointed out by newb with the flares.
1) As I would approach the group after dying, I was able to fire off flares going 200+ MPS. THis allowed me to QUICKLY get the weapons into the group and kill more than one person QUICKLY!
2) if one person wasn't able to avoid the flare, ALL enemies got the damage (makes sense but ties into #1 which explains why I would quickly get 2 or 3 kills.) (Newb pointed this out)
3) Again approaching the group, no more than 800 meters away, was able to fire off 6+ flares within the time it took me to close on turbo.
So, to summarize my impressions:
A) if a pilot of my average/semi above average skills is able to get kills THAT easily with a SINGLE flare, there's a problem. :)
B) That problem IMHO is a) Refire rate, and b) speed of flares.
Possible fixes:
A) Lower refire rate a little
B) Lower prox rate of the flares.
I don't think making the flares by a single speed all the time like homers are is correct. More I think about it, the missle speed SHOULD be ship velocity+XXX (in this case 55) MPS. Just feels a bit more realistic for some reason.
Now, WHY am I posting YET another thread about this? Well, when 3.75 out of 4 vets agree there's a problem with flares, there's a problem. :) Also, we were all heading out so rather than discussing it in game, I decided to post here so that we could put down our impressions of what had just occurred and then the rest of the community (even the devs) could comment if need be.
Second, let me give you all the history for those of you not there.
We all started a fight with the following rules: A) No valks, B) no mining, C) no nukes, D) one flare per ship. We all quickly switched to using Vultures with dual gausses/tachs. I then switched to one flare, one gauss and grouped em together. Before that, I was getting about a 1 to 1 K/D ratio. After mounting the flare, I started to get a 2 or even 3 to 1 K/D ratio! Twice I was able to kill Fenix, Undo, AND Newb without major harm to myself.
After this, Fenix, and then I think newb added on a flare to their ship. We QUICKLY determined that a NO flare rule was appropriate!
I noticed basically two problems and one pointed out by newb with the flares.
1) As I would approach the group after dying, I was able to fire off flares going 200+ MPS. THis allowed me to QUICKLY get the weapons into the group and kill more than one person QUICKLY!
2) if one person wasn't able to avoid the flare, ALL enemies got the damage (makes sense but ties into #1 which explains why I would quickly get 2 or 3 kills.) (Newb pointed this out)
3) Again approaching the group, no more than 800 meters away, was able to fire off 6+ flares within the time it took me to close on turbo.
So, to summarize my impressions:
A) if a pilot of my average/semi above average skills is able to get kills THAT easily with a SINGLE flare, there's a problem. :)
B) That problem IMHO is a) Refire rate, and b) speed of flares.
Possible fixes:
A) Lower refire rate a little
B) Lower prox rate of the flares.
I don't think making the flares by a single speed all the time like homers are is correct. More I think about it, the missle speed SHOULD be ship velocity+XXX (in this case 55) MPS. Just feels a bit more realistic for some reason.
Now, WHY am I posting YET another thread about this? Well, when 3.75 out of 4 vets agree there's a problem with flares, there's a problem. :) Also, we were all heading out so rather than discussing it in game, I decided to post here so that we could put down our impressions of what had just occurred and then the rest of the community (even the devs) could comment if need be.
Why did the others not boost away when you were incoming with a volley of flares? Not enough attention being paid to the radar? Wish i could have taken part in that little skirmish...
If you want me to hold this until later I will erase it...
If you want me to hold this until later I will erase it...
I know we have sounds to tell when a guided missle is closing on you, but I've never heard anything for a flare. Unless we have a sound to tell you a flare is coming, and coming right at you, not many are going to notice it coming in on radar. Why? YOUR BUSY. Fighting off an attack is enough to pay attention too without having to watch the radar at the same time incase of a flare on its way.
furball: While I agree that there are some balance issues with the flare, I don't think that they are too fast. If anything, its thier lack of speed that has subtly encouraged thier current uninteresting usage. Anyone that pays so little attention to his radar that he doesn't see a flock of yellow dots blossom and decide to get clear pretty much deserves to die in my opinion. By your own estimation, some of those flares were fired as much as 3 or 4 seconds from impact.
I don't know if you were here for 3.1, but in 3.1 everyone could mount Jackhammers in the form of 'type 2' rockets. Before the damage bug was fixed, a Jackhammer impact did about 6000 damage - 1500 more than a tri-flare. Were combats short and uninteresting? No, they were most certainly not. In fact, combats back then were usually longer and much more complex than current combats even though such combats would and could be one by hitting the enemy with just 1-2 rockets.
The fact of the matter is that most current rocket users suck, and most of them don't care if they die, just so long as they take a few people with them. The overall level of skill in the community has noticably deterioted. We are at the point that basically people just charge in close spraying rockets literally at random and hope for the best. Unfortunately, skilled opponents aren't able to really do much about this, because if they dodge, the rocket user will just empty his tubes and hop back in the nearest base (and chases are next to impossible) or else if they don't dodge then typically both parties will die either from splash or the resulting explosion of thier foe. In 3.1, one rocket was enough to end the fight before the opponent could spam off enough rockets to make your life miserable. With Valks or other similar high hull, high weapon count ships, even if you lose, you'll still have time to fill the vicinity with enough retatiation to probably kill your foe. Also the current environment doesn't much encourage the development of good skills, so people just get better and better at ramming.
Nowadays, you hardly ever see two skilled rocket jocks sniping at each other with well placed rockets and making passes at each other like lancers in the lists. It used to be, that was the way you fought.
Lets just start by dropping the cycle rate down to .75s or so and see what happens. My biggest problem with the Flare isn't how easy it is to avoid, but how its fast cycle rate encourages short, unskilled, and uninteresting combat. With a cycle rate low enough that only a few shots can be made per pass, we may get something like the old style dogfights back.
These things can't be put in a vacuum though. Before the rail got nerfed, you had two choices for your primary kill weapon and which one was better depended alot on the sort of tactics your opponent would use. Bringing the rail back would solve some of the problems. Alot of the reason that the Sunflare is so 'good' is that so many of the other weapons are so bad. Another problem is that before the boost tapping exploit was removed, energy expenditure as a function of your tactical ability was actually more balanced than it is now. Now, with your ability to escape being seriously effected by low energy reserves, there is alot bigger penalty for using an energy weapon than there was. The Flare simply didn't become the only weapon to use until that change was made. Besides which, the energy weapons have always been fairly ineffective for a number of reasons. First, none of the current energy weapons is more than 2/3rds as effective as a blue ion was - and the blunt fact is that the blue ion didn't get many kills in 3.1. That means that a rocket user flying straight at his opponent on turbo isn't really risking much. Secondly, energy consumption on most energy weapons has always been too high. Thirdly, its bloody hard to hit anyone who has even the least bit of skill with energy weapons. Note for example how easily the 300 bots can dodge them. (Of course, I'm willing to bet if they realized that rockets weren't point like objects they 'd be able to easily dodge them too.) I personally feel that , among other things, Tachyons need to be speed 200.
What's my basic point? The flares may be too good, but there are alot of other things contributing to the problem and just nerfing the flares won't fix the game.
I don't know if you were here for 3.1, but in 3.1 everyone could mount Jackhammers in the form of 'type 2' rockets. Before the damage bug was fixed, a Jackhammer impact did about 6000 damage - 1500 more than a tri-flare. Were combats short and uninteresting? No, they were most certainly not. In fact, combats back then were usually longer and much more complex than current combats even though such combats would and could be one by hitting the enemy with just 1-2 rockets.
The fact of the matter is that most current rocket users suck, and most of them don't care if they die, just so long as they take a few people with them. The overall level of skill in the community has noticably deterioted. We are at the point that basically people just charge in close spraying rockets literally at random and hope for the best. Unfortunately, skilled opponents aren't able to really do much about this, because if they dodge, the rocket user will just empty his tubes and hop back in the nearest base (and chases are next to impossible) or else if they don't dodge then typically both parties will die either from splash or the resulting explosion of thier foe. In 3.1, one rocket was enough to end the fight before the opponent could spam off enough rockets to make your life miserable. With Valks or other similar high hull, high weapon count ships, even if you lose, you'll still have time to fill the vicinity with enough retatiation to probably kill your foe. Also the current environment doesn't much encourage the development of good skills, so people just get better and better at ramming.
Nowadays, you hardly ever see two skilled rocket jocks sniping at each other with well placed rockets and making passes at each other like lancers in the lists. It used to be, that was the way you fought.
Lets just start by dropping the cycle rate down to .75s or so and see what happens. My biggest problem with the Flare isn't how easy it is to avoid, but how its fast cycle rate encourages short, unskilled, and uninteresting combat. With a cycle rate low enough that only a few shots can be made per pass, we may get something like the old style dogfights back.
These things can't be put in a vacuum though. Before the rail got nerfed, you had two choices for your primary kill weapon and which one was better depended alot on the sort of tactics your opponent would use. Bringing the rail back would solve some of the problems. Alot of the reason that the Sunflare is so 'good' is that so many of the other weapons are so bad. Another problem is that before the boost tapping exploit was removed, energy expenditure as a function of your tactical ability was actually more balanced than it is now. Now, with your ability to escape being seriously effected by low energy reserves, there is alot bigger penalty for using an energy weapon than there was. The Flare simply didn't become the only weapon to use until that change was made. Besides which, the energy weapons have always been fairly ineffective for a number of reasons. First, none of the current energy weapons is more than 2/3rds as effective as a blue ion was - and the blunt fact is that the blue ion didn't get many kills in 3.1. That means that a rocket user flying straight at his opponent on turbo isn't really risking much. Secondly, energy consumption on most energy weapons has always been too high. Thirdly, its bloody hard to hit anyone who has even the least bit of skill with energy weapons. Note for example how easily the 300 bots can dodge them. (Of course, I'm willing to bet if they realized that rockets weren't point like objects they 'd be able to easily dodge them too.) I personally feel that , among other things, Tachyons need to be speed 200.
What's my basic point? The flares may be too good, but there are alot of other things contributing to the problem and just nerfing the flares won't fix the game.
In my point and as you might have noticed, I havent been on much lately.
Celebrim, your point about jackhammers, I dont care that they mount 1 jackhammer on it. Because it isnt the damage that gets you killed that easilly. It is the prox.
The prox of a jackhammer is 30.
The prox of a screamer = 20 "I never noticed it actually having a prox of 20, but hey it seemed more like 10 to me"
the prox of a sunflare = 30
You can mount 3 sunflares on certain ships, increasing the prox to about 30 + 30 + 5, that means a proxradius of about 60. In my opinion that is a little bit over the top. at least for a small type of weapon.
And if you compare that with our earlier level 2 rocket that had a max proximity of 30, then you can see a big discrepancy.
So in order to keep custumability and give some of the bigger rockets a go, like the jackhammer or the screamer. Tone down the prox of the sunnie to 10 - 15. If it was used in a double - tripple or even quadrupple set up, it would still be good, not uber but still effective.
The reason why I never liked the rocket was because I consider it more as a backup weapon, not a primarilly weapon. It should be used on a tactical level, not just a come close, point, shoot and see him burn.
Or something that would be even nicer is how much rockets you put into it, it wont have any effect on prox. So clearer.
If I put in 1, then that one has a 30m prox radius.
if I put in 2, then those 2 will in total have a 30m prox radius
If I put in 3, then those 3 will have a max of 30m prox radius
and last but not least, for 4, make the math yourselve ;).
The only advantage of having more rocketstubes is that if 1 salvo hits you, it is more destructive then if only 1 rockets hit.
This will hopefully tone down rocketsusage a bit, and improve the usage of the energyweapon.
And yes, maybe they should tone down the recycle rate a little, but I will already be mighty pleased if they toned down the prox radius to about 10 - 15.
This way my hornet with a double gauss, double sun will become usefull again against a vulture :D
Celebrim, your point about jackhammers, I dont care that they mount 1 jackhammer on it. Because it isnt the damage that gets you killed that easilly. It is the prox.
The prox of a jackhammer is 30.
The prox of a screamer = 20 "I never noticed it actually having a prox of 20, but hey it seemed more like 10 to me"
the prox of a sunflare = 30
You can mount 3 sunflares on certain ships, increasing the prox to about 30 + 30 + 5, that means a proxradius of about 60. In my opinion that is a little bit over the top. at least for a small type of weapon.
And if you compare that with our earlier level 2 rocket that had a max proximity of 30, then you can see a big discrepancy.
So in order to keep custumability and give some of the bigger rockets a go, like the jackhammer or the screamer. Tone down the prox of the sunnie to 10 - 15. If it was used in a double - tripple or even quadrupple set up, it would still be good, not uber but still effective.
The reason why I never liked the rocket was because I consider it more as a backup weapon, not a primarilly weapon. It should be used on a tactical level, not just a come close, point, shoot and see him burn.
Or something that would be even nicer is how much rockets you put into it, it wont have any effect on prox. So clearer.
If I put in 1, then that one has a 30m prox radius.
if I put in 2, then those 2 will in total have a 30m prox radius
If I put in 3, then those 3 will have a max of 30m prox radius
and last but not least, for 4, make the math yourselve ;).
The only advantage of having more rocketstubes is that if 1 salvo hits you, it is more destructive then if only 1 rockets hit.
This will hopefully tone down rocketsusage a bit, and improve the usage of the energyweapon.
And yes, maybe they should tone down the recycle rate a little, but I will already be mighty pleased if they toned down the prox radius to about 10 - 15.
This way my hornet with a double gauss, double sun will become usefull again against a vulture :D
"Celebrim, your point about jackhammers, I dont care that they mount 1 jackhammer on it. Because it isnt the damage that gets you killed that easilly. It is the prox."
No. It's the damage. To see how that is true, imagine Sunflares had a prox weapon with 500m radius, but did 1 damage. Imagine that they had a 10000m radius, but did 0 damage. Damage kills, not the prox radius. The prox radius only improves accuracy. My point is that a _single_ Type 2 rocket did at one time more damage than 3 Sunflares do now. So you are going to have to look for something else that has changed, not the damage.
"The prox of a jackhammer is 30.
The prox of a screamer = 20 "I never noticed it actually having a prox of 20, but hey it seemed more like 10 to me"
the prox of a sunflare = 30
You can mount 3 sunflares on certain ships, increasing the prox to about 30 + 30 + 5, that means a proxradius of about 60. In my opinion that is a little bit over the top. at least for a small type of weapon."
Please go back to high school or at least double check your math. The prox of sunflare, a jackhammer, and a type 2 rocket are all 30m. That _is_ the proximity of the ealier rockets. Nothing has changed. Firing three sunflares as a group doesn't significantly change the prox _radius_ AT ALL, much less double it. The total _diameter_ of the 'impact sphere' of ONE rocket is 60m. If you are outside that 60m sphere, then you don't get hit. In the case of the Valk, the three sunflares are all within about 5 meters of each other. (This is basically true of all the ships, since none of them have weapon ports more than a few meters from each other, with the hornet having one of the widest port separations (I'd guess nearly 10m) at least with its port and starboard weapons ports. The hornets fore and aft ports fire along the same line and add nothing.) That means that the total diameter of the 'impact sphere' of a tri-sunflare fired by a Valk is only ~65m, just 8% larger than the case of a single rocket. If you are outside that 65m cluster, then you don't get hit. Just as importantly, if you are in the outer 65m edge of the sphere, you only get hit by at most 2 of the rockets, and in some points in the cluster you only overlap 1 rockets proximity radius.
Something with a 60m prox _radius_ would create a 120m _diameter_ impact sphere. This would be much more akin to the level of the un-fixed Avalons.
So, by comparison, type 2 rockets are as fast as sunflares, have roughly the same proximity radius of a tri-sunflare (within 8%) and did 33% more damage before the bug was fixed.
"The reason why I never liked the rocket was because I consider it more as a backup weapon, not a primarilly weapon. It should be used on a tactical level, not just a come close, point, shoot and see him burn."
I always considered the rocket more of a primary weapon, and the energy weapon as more of a backup/utility weapon.
"Or something that would be even nicer is how much rockets you put into it, it wont have any effect on prox. So clearer.
If I put in 1, then that one has a 30m prox radius.
if I put in 2, then those 2 will in total have a 30m prox radius
If I put in 3, then those 3 will have a max of 30m prox radius
and last but not least, for 4, make the math yourselve ;)."
Well great, then you should be happy already because that's pretty much what we've got.
"The only advantage of having more rocketstubes is that if 1 salvo hits you, it is more destructive then if only 1 rockets hit."
Yes, that is (already) true. My point was that type 2 rockets were 33% more destructive than a triple Sunflare.
"This way my hornet with a double gauss, double sun will become usefull again against a vulture :D"
The two aren't even remotely related to each other. We could remove rockets from the game entirely, and the hornet would still be disadvantaged vs. the Vulture. Why? Because the [insert a insult here] who were demanding that all the ships have basically the same agility and all the weapons have basically the same velocity, didn't bother noticing that they weren't fixing the problem just moving it around, nor did they understand exactly what the problem was. No, they just understood that 'it wasn't fair'.
If you cut the prox radius on the Flare down to 15m, then you reduce the cross-sectional area of the impact sphere of a given Sunflare by 75%. Basically, that means you make the Sunflare only 1/4 as accurate (or likely to hit) as it is now. But, I'd imagine that it would be worse than that, because dodging something (if you are a human) is reflex based not merely algorithmic. By that I mean that probably only a tiny fraction of Sunflare 'hits' occur in the middle half of the impact sphere. Most players are probably 'nearly' evading getting hit, that is to say that more than 75% of the that you'd expect on 'average', the target is more 15m from the weapon when it goes off. I doubt you'd ever hit an aware and skilled target with your new nerfed flares, and they'd be pretty useless on your unchanged Hornet vs. an unchanged Vulture.
No. It's the damage. To see how that is true, imagine Sunflares had a prox weapon with 500m radius, but did 1 damage. Imagine that they had a 10000m radius, but did 0 damage. Damage kills, not the prox radius. The prox radius only improves accuracy. My point is that a _single_ Type 2 rocket did at one time more damage than 3 Sunflares do now. So you are going to have to look for something else that has changed, not the damage.
"The prox of a jackhammer is 30.
The prox of a screamer = 20 "I never noticed it actually having a prox of 20, but hey it seemed more like 10 to me"
the prox of a sunflare = 30
You can mount 3 sunflares on certain ships, increasing the prox to about 30 + 30 + 5, that means a proxradius of about 60. In my opinion that is a little bit over the top. at least for a small type of weapon."
Please go back to high school or at least double check your math. The prox of sunflare, a jackhammer, and a type 2 rocket are all 30m. That _is_ the proximity of the ealier rockets. Nothing has changed. Firing three sunflares as a group doesn't significantly change the prox _radius_ AT ALL, much less double it. The total _diameter_ of the 'impact sphere' of ONE rocket is 60m. If you are outside that 60m sphere, then you don't get hit. In the case of the Valk, the three sunflares are all within about 5 meters of each other. (This is basically true of all the ships, since none of them have weapon ports more than a few meters from each other, with the hornet having one of the widest port separations (I'd guess nearly 10m) at least with its port and starboard weapons ports. The hornets fore and aft ports fire along the same line and add nothing.) That means that the total diameter of the 'impact sphere' of a tri-sunflare fired by a Valk is only ~65m, just 8% larger than the case of a single rocket. If you are outside that 65m cluster, then you don't get hit. Just as importantly, if you are in the outer 65m edge of the sphere, you only get hit by at most 2 of the rockets, and in some points in the cluster you only overlap 1 rockets proximity radius.
Something with a 60m prox _radius_ would create a 120m _diameter_ impact sphere. This would be much more akin to the level of the un-fixed Avalons.
So, by comparison, type 2 rockets are as fast as sunflares, have roughly the same proximity radius of a tri-sunflare (within 8%) and did 33% more damage before the bug was fixed.
"The reason why I never liked the rocket was because I consider it more as a backup weapon, not a primarilly weapon. It should be used on a tactical level, not just a come close, point, shoot and see him burn."
I always considered the rocket more of a primary weapon, and the energy weapon as more of a backup/utility weapon.
"Or something that would be even nicer is how much rockets you put into it, it wont have any effect on prox. So clearer.
If I put in 1, then that one has a 30m prox radius.
if I put in 2, then those 2 will in total have a 30m prox radius
If I put in 3, then those 3 will have a max of 30m prox radius
and last but not least, for 4, make the math yourselve ;)."
Well great, then you should be happy already because that's pretty much what we've got.
"The only advantage of having more rocketstubes is that if 1 salvo hits you, it is more destructive then if only 1 rockets hit."
Yes, that is (already) true. My point was that type 2 rockets were 33% more destructive than a triple Sunflare.
"This way my hornet with a double gauss, double sun will become usefull again against a vulture :D"
The two aren't even remotely related to each other. We could remove rockets from the game entirely, and the hornet would still be disadvantaged vs. the Vulture. Why? Because the [insert a insult here] who were demanding that all the ships have basically the same agility and all the weapons have basically the same velocity, didn't bother noticing that they weren't fixing the problem just moving it around, nor did they understand exactly what the problem was. No, they just understood that 'it wasn't fair'.
If you cut the prox radius on the Flare down to 15m, then you reduce the cross-sectional area of the impact sphere of a given Sunflare by 75%. Basically, that means you make the Sunflare only 1/4 as accurate (or likely to hit) as it is now. But, I'd imagine that it would be worse than that, because dodging something (if you are a human) is reflex based not merely algorithmic. By that I mean that probably only a tiny fraction of Sunflare 'hits' occur in the middle half of the impact sphere. Most players are probably 'nearly' evading getting hit, that is to say that more than 75% of the that you'd expect on 'average', the target is more 15m from the weapon when it goes off. I doubt you'd ever hit an aware and skilled target with your new nerfed flares, and they'd be pretty useless on your unchanged Hornet vs. an unchanged Vulture.
I totally agree with Celebrim in pretty much everything he has said so far. Thinking back, Celebrim's right in that there was a time when 3 rocket hits were enough to kill you outright, and we didn't have the problems we have today.. fights could last 5 - 10 mins if two of the more highly skilled players got into a skirmish. So I think we need to identify what exactly has changed to alter the gameplay so much. I know for certain everyone has far more cash than ever. I was lucky to have over 100k in the earlier versions, and losing a few ships really did bite... I've got my fingers crossed that the new dynamic economy also means less cash in circulation, but we shall see...
PS: what did happen to the "Top Gun" pilot index? ;-)
PS: what did happen to the "Top Gun" pilot index? ;-)
IRT Kastin...
Dodging flares in anything less agile than a hog is hell. It shouldnt be impossible, but as it is, the tri-flare valk can kill anything. Its not the valk, its the flares. Some sort of slowing, or max speed, or less prox is needed badly.
The jackhammers should be the only heavy assault rockets, with screamers used for precision strikes. Sunflares should be cheap, cheerful, and pack a decent punch, but not be so devastating as to be as efficient as the heavy rockets.
1000 damage, 1s repeat, no tri grouping, 150m/s max speed, 20m prox. (random figures)
Or something.
Dodging flares in anything less agile than a hog is hell. It shouldnt be impossible, but as it is, the tri-flare valk can kill anything. Its not the valk, its the flares. Some sort of slowing, or max speed, or less prox is needed badly.
The jackhammers should be the only heavy assault rockets, with screamers used for precision strikes. Sunflares should be cheap, cheerful, and pack a decent punch, but not be so devastating as to be as efficient as the heavy rockets.
1000 damage, 1s repeat, no tri grouping, 150m/s max speed, 20m prox. (random figures)
Or something.
Arggh.... i totally disagree with limiting the speed of projectiles, it looks so artificial! If i'm going at 200m/s and i launch a rocket, it most certainly isn't going to go any slower! I think all the weapons should be using relative velocities. Although i suppose a true laser weapon would always travel at the speed of light, but then its practically an instant hit...
No one has mentioned damage radius yet. I think that this is an important point. Flares have a rather large damage radius, and AFIAK (not positive), it is larger than their prox radius. I know this is true for other projectile weapons, anyhow. That makes dodging harder anyhow because even if you get out of prox radius, the weapon can still hurt you. Just another addition to the discussion.
cele,I can do the same:
No. It's the damage. To see how that is true, imagine Sunflares had a prox weapon with 500m radius, but did 1 damage. Imagine that they had a 10000m radius, but did 0 damage. Damage kills, not the prox radius. The prox radius only improves accuracy. My point is that a _single_ Type 2 rocket did at one time more damage than 3 Sunflares do now. So you are going to have to look for something else that has changed, not the damage.
it is the prox, because it greatly increases the chances of hitting someone. While with the earlier level 2 rockets, the chance of hitting someone was pretty small, about 2/8 rockets, maybe 3 - 4 on 8 for the real vets. But not more.
So if I used to be able to hit 2 times, I can now hit for about 7 to 8 times.
And your so called bug, yes it was there, and people did complain, otherwise the bug wouldnt have been fixed. Its called a bug for something.
"The prox of a jackhammer is 30.
The prox of a screamer = 20 "I never noticed it actually having a prox of 20, but hey it seemed more like 10 to me"
the prox of a sunflare = 30
You can mount 3 sunflares on certain ships, increasing the prox to about 30 + 30 + 5, that means a proxradius of about 60. In my opinion that is a little bit over the top. at least for a small type of weapon."
Please go back to high school or at least double check your math. The prox of sunflare, a jackhammer, and a type 2 rocket are all 30m. That _is_ the proximity of the ealier rockets. Nothing has changed. Firing three sunflares as a group doesn't significantly change the prox _radius_ AT ALL, much less double it. The total _diameter_ of the 'impact sphere' of ONE rocket is 60m. If you are outside that 60m sphere, then you don't get hit. In the case of the Valk, the three sunflares are all within about 5 meters of each other. (This is basically true of all the ships, since none of them have weapon ports more than a few meters from each other, with the hornet having one of the widest port separations (I'd guess nearly 10m) at least with its port and starboard weapons ports. The hornets fore and aft ports fire along the same line and add nothing.) That means that the total diameter of the 'impact sphere' of a tri-sunflare fired by a Valk is only ~65m, just 8% larger than the case of a single rocket. If you are outside that 65m cluster, then you don't get hit. Just as importantly, if you are in the outer 65m edge of the sphere, you only get hit by at most 2 of the rockets, and in some points in the cluster you only overlap 1 rockets proximity radius.
Ay, I made a cough up
I always considered the rocket more of a primary weapon, and the energy weapon as more of a backup/utility weapon.
then we differ on this point. My reason for seeing energy as primary weapon is that it has +- unimited ammo. And you can use the backup rocket in some tactical way. Like for instance shooting 1 when you think the time is ripe in stead of shooting a gazillion just to be sure to hit someone "slightly exagerated"
"The only advantage of having more rocketstubes is that if 1 salvo hits you, it is more destructive then if only 1 rockets hit."
Yes, that is (already) true. My point was that type 2 rockets were 33% more destructive than a triple Sunflare
correction: bugged type 2 rockets were 33% more damageous then the tripple sun of now.
The bug got fixed and people were happier again, except some people that wanted the rocket to rule all, like it does now.
The two aren't even remotely related to each other. We could remove rockets from the game entirely, and the hornet would still be disadvantaged vs. the Vulture. Why? Because the [insert a insult here] who were demanding that all the ships have basically the same agility and all the weapons have basically the same velocity, didn't bother noticing that they weren't fixing the problem just moving it around, nor did they understand exactly what the problem was. No, they just understood that 'it wasn't fair'
Oh come on, I know that the hornet is disadvantageous against a vult as a vult is against a valk. But at least I have some extra firepower that I can use. Besides, the most used configuration on a vult is double rockets. Closely followed by double gauss. And I can outlast some of those rockets.
If you want complete equality then use the same hull and set up. But I just wanted to indicate that the chance will be a little bit higher now.
If you cut the prox radius on the Flare down to 15m, then you reduce the cross-sectional area of the impact sphere of a given Sunflare by 75%. Basically, that means you make the Sunflare only 1/4 as accurate (or likely to hit) as it is now. But, I'd imagine that it would be worse than that, because dodging something (if you are a human) is reflex based not merely algorithmic. By that I mean that probably only a tiny fraction of Sunflare 'hits' occur in the middle half of the impact sphere. Most players are probably 'nearly' evading getting hit, that is to say that more than 75% of the that you'd expect on 'average', the target is more 15m from the weapon when it goes off. I doubt you'd ever hit an aware and skilled target with your new nerfed flares, and they'd be pretty useless on your unchanged Hornet vs. an unchanged Vulture.
15m, impact sphere is 30m. change is 50% not 75%, so I make the sunflare half as accurate. I think you should take a second glance at the math yourselve. "sorry, couldnt leave it myself ;)".
Now the reason why im saying this is that sunflares shouldnt have the aspirations of their bigger brothers. If you could chose between a screamer or a sunflare, everybody would take the sunflare. the choice between the jackhammer or the sunflare would be more difficult because they ar epretty much the same, only is the jack a little bit stronger.
But in my opinion, the difference between a jackhammer and a sunflare is to small, people are more eagerly to put in 2 or more sunflares then taking 1 or 2 jackhammer/s.
I was just trying to make the difference between the sunflare and the jackhammer a little bit bigger. And dont forget, you can only put a jackhammer on a rather unwieldy ship. While the sunflare can be put on a much more agile ship and therefore making it dominant over the large port weapons. So therefore I was trying to change the small rocket slightly. And cutting the prox in half would be a first step, because reducing the prox with 1,2, ...,5% would just be ineffective. Besides in my opinion the rest of the characteristics are sufficient, so you can start playing with the prox.
But if people prefer 20m, then that will be alright for me to. I was just indicating an outer limit.
No. It's the damage. To see how that is true, imagine Sunflares had a prox weapon with 500m radius, but did 1 damage. Imagine that they had a 10000m radius, but did 0 damage. Damage kills, not the prox radius. The prox radius only improves accuracy. My point is that a _single_ Type 2 rocket did at one time more damage than 3 Sunflares do now. So you are going to have to look for something else that has changed, not the damage.
it is the prox, because it greatly increases the chances of hitting someone. While with the earlier level 2 rockets, the chance of hitting someone was pretty small, about 2/8 rockets, maybe 3 - 4 on 8 for the real vets. But not more.
So if I used to be able to hit 2 times, I can now hit for about 7 to 8 times.
And your so called bug, yes it was there, and people did complain, otherwise the bug wouldnt have been fixed. Its called a bug for something.
"The prox of a jackhammer is 30.
The prox of a screamer = 20 "I never noticed it actually having a prox of 20, but hey it seemed more like 10 to me"
the prox of a sunflare = 30
You can mount 3 sunflares on certain ships, increasing the prox to about 30 + 30 + 5, that means a proxradius of about 60. In my opinion that is a little bit over the top. at least for a small type of weapon."
Please go back to high school or at least double check your math. The prox of sunflare, a jackhammer, and a type 2 rocket are all 30m. That _is_ the proximity of the ealier rockets. Nothing has changed. Firing three sunflares as a group doesn't significantly change the prox _radius_ AT ALL, much less double it. The total _diameter_ of the 'impact sphere' of ONE rocket is 60m. If you are outside that 60m sphere, then you don't get hit. In the case of the Valk, the three sunflares are all within about 5 meters of each other. (This is basically true of all the ships, since none of them have weapon ports more than a few meters from each other, with the hornet having one of the widest port separations (I'd guess nearly 10m) at least with its port and starboard weapons ports. The hornets fore and aft ports fire along the same line and add nothing.) That means that the total diameter of the 'impact sphere' of a tri-sunflare fired by a Valk is only ~65m, just 8% larger than the case of a single rocket. If you are outside that 65m cluster, then you don't get hit. Just as importantly, if you are in the outer 65m edge of the sphere, you only get hit by at most 2 of the rockets, and in some points in the cluster you only overlap 1 rockets proximity radius.
Ay, I made a cough up
I always considered the rocket more of a primary weapon, and the energy weapon as more of a backup/utility weapon.
then we differ on this point. My reason for seeing energy as primary weapon is that it has +- unimited ammo. And you can use the backup rocket in some tactical way. Like for instance shooting 1 when you think the time is ripe in stead of shooting a gazillion just to be sure to hit someone "slightly exagerated"
"The only advantage of having more rocketstubes is that if 1 salvo hits you, it is more destructive then if only 1 rockets hit."
Yes, that is (already) true. My point was that type 2 rockets were 33% more destructive than a triple Sunflare
correction: bugged type 2 rockets were 33% more damageous then the tripple sun of now.
The bug got fixed and people were happier again, except some people that wanted the rocket to rule all, like it does now.
The two aren't even remotely related to each other. We could remove rockets from the game entirely, and the hornet would still be disadvantaged vs. the Vulture. Why? Because the [insert a insult here] who were demanding that all the ships have basically the same agility and all the weapons have basically the same velocity, didn't bother noticing that they weren't fixing the problem just moving it around, nor did they understand exactly what the problem was. No, they just understood that 'it wasn't fair'
Oh come on, I know that the hornet is disadvantageous against a vult as a vult is against a valk. But at least I have some extra firepower that I can use. Besides, the most used configuration on a vult is double rockets. Closely followed by double gauss. And I can outlast some of those rockets.
If you want complete equality then use the same hull and set up. But I just wanted to indicate that the chance will be a little bit higher now.
If you cut the prox radius on the Flare down to 15m, then you reduce the cross-sectional area of the impact sphere of a given Sunflare by 75%. Basically, that means you make the Sunflare only 1/4 as accurate (or likely to hit) as it is now. But, I'd imagine that it would be worse than that, because dodging something (if you are a human) is reflex based not merely algorithmic. By that I mean that probably only a tiny fraction of Sunflare 'hits' occur in the middle half of the impact sphere. Most players are probably 'nearly' evading getting hit, that is to say that more than 75% of the that you'd expect on 'average', the target is more 15m from the weapon when it goes off. I doubt you'd ever hit an aware and skilled target with your new nerfed flares, and they'd be pretty useless on your unchanged Hornet vs. an unchanged Vulture.
15m, impact sphere is 30m. change is 50% not 75%, so I make the sunflare half as accurate. I think you should take a second glance at the math yourselve. "sorry, couldnt leave it myself ;)".
Now the reason why im saying this is that sunflares shouldnt have the aspirations of their bigger brothers. If you could chose between a screamer or a sunflare, everybody would take the sunflare. the choice between the jackhammer or the sunflare would be more difficult because they ar epretty much the same, only is the jack a little bit stronger.
But in my opinion, the difference between a jackhammer and a sunflare is to small, people are more eagerly to put in 2 or more sunflares then taking 1 or 2 jackhammer/s.
I was just trying to make the difference between the sunflare and the jackhammer a little bit bigger. And dont forget, you can only put a jackhammer on a rather unwieldy ship. While the sunflare can be put on a much more agile ship and therefore making it dominant over the large port weapons. So therefore I was trying to change the small rocket slightly. And cutting the prox in half would be a first step, because reducing the prox with 1,2, ...,5% would just be ineffective. Besides in my opinion the rest of the characteristics are sufficient, so you can start playing with the prox.
But if people prefer 20m, then that will be alright for me to. I was just indicating an outer limit.
Hmmmm I think this is exactly what FB was trying to avoid.
Most of you guys are pretty off topic. The problem that furball was talking about was NOT 1on1 combat, but group fights.
The situation:
4 people fighting all within 100m radius sphere.
5th person turbos towards the fight at 200m/s.
Then launches flares into the group.
Kastin, I find it hard to believe that you'd accuse me of not being able to dodge flares. Now maybe I wasn't paying enough attention and when the 4th red dot came up on my radar I should have gotten out of the fight with the other 3, but once the yellow dots appeared on the radar it was too late. Even if I got out of the way of the flares which were going at 255m/s the flare shooter's teammate wasn't going to dodge them. So they'd hit him and the splash would get me.
Now I was also the person who didn't feel that this was a problem.
The fight that we were having was an artificial construction that won't actually come up in game play, since almost always some of the people will be trying to get from point A to point B while the others try to stop them. There are other problems with flares (ramming) but this one isn't worth nerfing them over. The gauss is a much better weapon against fast ships IMO, and the tach better against slow ones (also IMO).
-Eldrad (Not a Newb (rgb))
Most of you guys are pretty off topic. The problem that furball was talking about was NOT 1on1 combat, but group fights.
The situation:
4 people fighting all within 100m radius sphere.
5th person turbos towards the fight at 200m/s.
Then launches flares into the group.
Kastin, I find it hard to believe that you'd accuse me of not being able to dodge flares. Now maybe I wasn't paying enough attention and when the 4th red dot came up on my radar I should have gotten out of the fight with the other 3, but once the yellow dots appeared on the radar it was too late. Even if I got out of the way of the flares which were going at 255m/s the flare shooter's teammate wasn't going to dodge them. So they'd hit him and the splash would get me.
Now I was also the person who didn't feel that this was a problem.
The fight that we were having was an artificial construction that won't actually come up in game play, since almost always some of the people will be trying to get from point A to point B while the others try to stop them. There are other problems with flares (ramming) but this one isn't worth nerfing them over. The gauss is a much better weapon against fast ships IMO, and the tach better against slow ones (also IMO).
-Eldrad (Not a Newb (rgb))
"""-- If you cut the prox radius on the Flare down to 15m, then you reduce the cross-sectional area of the impact sphere of a given Sunflare by 75%. Basically, that means you make the Sunflare only 1/4 as accurate (or likely to hit) as it is now. But, I'd imagine that it would be worse than that, because dodging something (if you are a human) is reflex based not merely algorithmic. By that I mean that probably only a tiny fraction of Sunflare 'hits' occur in the middle half of the impact sphere. Most players are probably 'nearly' evading getting hit, that is to say that more than 75% of the that you'd expect on 'average', the target is more 15m from the weapon when it goes off. I doubt you'd ever hit an aware and skilled target with your new nerfed flares, and they'd be pretty useless on your unchanged Hornet vs. an unchanged Vulture.
15m, impact sphere is 30m. change is 50% not 75%, so I make the sunflare half as accurate. I think you should take a second glance at the math yourselve. "sorry, couldnt leave it myself ;)". --"""
hate to point this out renegade, but celebrim is more correct, but still wrong.
30 m prox radius is a 60m diameter SPHERE
15 m prox radius is a 30m diameter SPHERE
a sphere with half the diameter is actually 1/8th the cubic volume.
volume of a sphere is pi * radius^3 (unless i really dont remember math today)
3.14 * 30^3 = 84823.0016 cubic meters
3.14 * 15^3 = 10602.8752 cubic meters
for more significant figures.. use a calculator
cross-section is only useful in 2 dimensions.. all objects here are moving in 3 dimensions, the flare would be 87.5% less effective.
15m, impact sphere is 30m. change is 50% not 75%, so I make the sunflare half as accurate. I think you should take a second glance at the math yourselve. "sorry, couldnt leave it myself ;)". --"""
hate to point this out renegade, but celebrim is more correct, but still wrong.
30 m prox radius is a 60m diameter SPHERE
15 m prox radius is a 30m diameter SPHERE
a sphere with half the diameter is actually 1/8th the cubic volume.
volume of a sphere is pi * radius^3 (unless i really dont remember math today)
3.14 * 30^3 = 84823.0016 cubic meters
3.14 * 15^3 = 10602.8752 cubic meters
for more significant figures.. use a calculator
cross-section is only useful in 2 dimensions.. all objects here are moving in 3 dimensions, the flare would be 87.5% less effective.
Eldrad, i admit that i was suprised you were getting hit by flares, as you are an amazing pilot at dodging and using energy weapons... As you said, it was an artificial melee, and as a consequence i think you were all grouped a little tighter than usual... As you say, most fights will probably take place over a wider area... You remember the large flag cap fleets, it was kinda ok then, as there was an intense centre of the battle (the capper) and lots of fights about 1km out where ppl would intercept incoming fighters...
I also think friendly fire should be ON. That is, we can kill our teammates.... but thats another issue!
I also think friendly fire should be ON. That is, we can kill our teammates.... but thats another issue!
renegade: Not only can't you do the same, you don't even get it.
"While with the earlier level 2 rockets...."
The ones I've just shown had the same proximity radius as the Flares you are using at present.
"...the chance of hitting someone was pretty small, about 2/8 rockets, maybe 3 - 4 on 8 for the real vets. But not more. So if I used to be able to hit 2 times, I can now hit for about 7 to 8 times."
Are you saying that you can hit an opponent between 7 times 8 and 8 times in 8 (100%) if you are using a Sunflare? Please. The rockets are no more easy to hit someone with than they ever were, and if there is any difference it has nothing to do with the stats of the rockets.
"then we differ on this point. My reason for seeing energy as primary weapon is that it has +- unimited ammo."
Interestingly enough, I've always seen it rockets as the primary weapon precisely because they _DON'T_ have unlimited ammo. I consider the situation analogous to the guided missiles aboard a modern fighter, or the stowed ammunition for the main gun aboard a modern MBT, or the torpedoes aboard a WWII era submarine, or the tow's stored aboard a Bradley fighting vechical for anti-tank work. All of the above have a 'gun' with relatively large ammounts of ammo for 'utility' work against relatively minor targets, but the peer to peer weapon is usually always limited tactically by a lack of ammo.
"15m, impact sphere is 30m. change is 50% not 75%, so I make the sunflare half as accurate. I think you should take a second glance at the math yourselves."
And I think you should just keep quiet where math is concerned. If you half the radius of a circle, you will reduce its _area_ (which I refered to in the post) to 1/4 . Since this is a 3D game and not a 2D game, I think if you think about it (especially if you think about what it means to be 'inaccurate') you'll realize its the area that is important. If you don't think about it, you might assume that its the volumn of the sphere that's important, but without explaining why it isn't I think you'll see that holding the volumn to be important only reinforces my point.
"Now the reason why im saying this is that sunflares shouldnt have the aspirations of their bigger brothers. If you could chose between a screamer or a sunflare, everybody would take the sunflare. the choice between the jackhammer or the sunflare would be more difficult because they ar epretty much the same, only is the jack a little bit stronger."
You have a point there, but not I think about the Sunflare. How many times have I said that the size L weapons were too weak? The screamer isn't a bad weapon, but I think its an excellent example of why you just can't pull these balance numbers out of the air and expect to get it right. Just lets do a simple little test here. Assume for the moment that the true speed of the weapon is something like 90m/s + v where 'v' is the weapons speed and that accuracy is exactly proportional to velocity (it isn't for some complex reasons but it's still a fairly good assumption), and that accuracy is also proprotional to the cross sectional area of the 'impact sphere' (also a fairly good assumption). Now come up with a 'damage per second' value for both the flare (3000) and the screamer (4285). It would stand to reason that the sunflare (being a small weapon) should be by our formula _less_ than 42% more accurate than the screamer? But is it? The answer is of course, 'No', because every meter of that prox radius is much more important than you might think. A weapon with a 30m prox radius is not 50% better than one with a 20m prox radius, but 125% better (or more than double). Since the screamer is only slightly faster, the net result is that the Flare is at least twice as accurate as the Screamer (is actually more than that do to the reflexes issue I mentioned, but thats something you have to playtest for).
That isn't as much the Flare's fault as it is a badly designed Screamer. Even if we dropped the Flare down to a cycle rate of .7s, we'd still need to do something about making the Screamer a better weapon.
And the choice between the Jackhammer and the Sunflare isn't difficult. The Jackhammer is better in every way.
"And dont forget, you can only put a jackhammer on a rather unwieldy ship."
I didn't forget that. Its the reason you don't see many Jackhammers. Rockets don't work well on sluggish ships because they really need the attacking vessel to contribute alot of relative speed before they become accurate at all.
"While with the earlier level 2 rockets...."
The ones I've just shown had the same proximity radius as the Flares you are using at present.
"...the chance of hitting someone was pretty small, about 2/8 rockets, maybe 3 - 4 on 8 for the real vets. But not more. So if I used to be able to hit 2 times, I can now hit for about 7 to 8 times."
Are you saying that you can hit an opponent between 7 times 8 and 8 times in 8 (100%) if you are using a Sunflare? Please. The rockets are no more easy to hit someone with than they ever were, and if there is any difference it has nothing to do with the stats of the rockets.
"then we differ on this point. My reason for seeing energy as primary weapon is that it has +- unimited ammo."
Interestingly enough, I've always seen it rockets as the primary weapon precisely because they _DON'T_ have unlimited ammo. I consider the situation analogous to the guided missiles aboard a modern fighter, or the stowed ammunition for the main gun aboard a modern MBT, or the torpedoes aboard a WWII era submarine, or the tow's stored aboard a Bradley fighting vechical for anti-tank work. All of the above have a 'gun' with relatively large ammounts of ammo for 'utility' work against relatively minor targets, but the peer to peer weapon is usually always limited tactically by a lack of ammo.
"15m, impact sphere is 30m. change is 50% not 75%, so I make the sunflare half as accurate. I think you should take a second glance at the math yourselves."
And I think you should just keep quiet where math is concerned. If you half the radius of a circle, you will reduce its _area_ (which I refered to in the post) to 1/4 . Since this is a 3D game and not a 2D game, I think if you think about it (especially if you think about what it means to be 'inaccurate') you'll realize its the area that is important. If you don't think about it, you might assume that its the volumn of the sphere that's important, but without explaining why it isn't I think you'll see that holding the volumn to be important only reinforces my point.
"Now the reason why im saying this is that sunflares shouldnt have the aspirations of their bigger brothers. If you could chose between a screamer or a sunflare, everybody would take the sunflare. the choice between the jackhammer or the sunflare would be more difficult because they ar epretty much the same, only is the jack a little bit stronger."
You have a point there, but not I think about the Sunflare. How many times have I said that the size L weapons were too weak? The screamer isn't a bad weapon, but I think its an excellent example of why you just can't pull these balance numbers out of the air and expect to get it right. Just lets do a simple little test here. Assume for the moment that the true speed of the weapon is something like 90m/s + v where 'v' is the weapons speed and that accuracy is exactly proportional to velocity (it isn't for some complex reasons but it's still a fairly good assumption), and that accuracy is also proprotional to the cross sectional area of the 'impact sphere' (also a fairly good assumption). Now come up with a 'damage per second' value for both the flare (3000) and the screamer (4285). It would stand to reason that the sunflare (being a small weapon) should be by our formula _less_ than 42% more accurate than the screamer? But is it? The answer is of course, 'No', because every meter of that prox radius is much more important than you might think. A weapon with a 30m prox radius is not 50% better than one with a 20m prox radius, but 125% better (or more than double). Since the screamer is only slightly faster, the net result is that the Flare is at least twice as accurate as the Screamer (is actually more than that do to the reflexes issue I mentioned, but thats something you have to playtest for).
That isn't as much the Flare's fault as it is a badly designed Screamer. Even if we dropped the Flare down to a cycle rate of .7s, we'd still need to do something about making the Screamer a better weapon.
And the choice between the Jackhammer and the Sunflare isn't difficult. The Jackhammer is better in every way.
"And dont forget, you can only put a jackhammer on a rather unwieldy ship."
I didn't forget that. Its the reason you don't see many Jackhammers. Rockets don't work well on sluggish ships because they really need the attacking vessel to contribute alot of relative speed before they become accurate at all.
Celebrim,
The choice between a jack or a sun is difficult, because you forgot the limiting factor, large slot.
If i can take 2 sunflares and equip a swarm or an advanced gatling in stead of a double gauss and a jackhammer. Then most of the people will choose the first set up. Same for the warthog.
So in some cases it is relatively difficult.
Are you saying that you can hit an opponent between 7 times 8 and 8 times in 8 (100%) if you are using a Sunflare? Please. The rockets are no more easy to hit someone with than they ever were, and if there is any difference it has nothing to do with the stats of the rockets.
Yes, thats exactly what im saying. Why do you bloody hell think all these threads about sunflares keep popping up. Its not when people use them at medium distances, then I would say that you are right. But at ramming distances the chance is way bigger. And that tactic is lately used by most of the rocketeers, so I generalised it a bit.
And no, the large slot weapons arent to weak. They are fine, the small slot weapons, more specific the sunflares are a teeny tiny bit to powerfull. If you have a fight between 2 heavies, then it would mostly take as long as a fight between 2 lights. And dont forget, there will be bigger ships introduced, and youll already need to improve the weapons of those ships to be effective. Ever tried out a screaer against a heavy ship? I have to say, they are pretty effective, against a light, you have not a chance in hell of hitting him, unless your lucky or a very good shot"what im not". So as you can see, every weapon has its use.
The choice between a jack or a sun is difficult, because you forgot the limiting factor, large slot.
If i can take 2 sunflares and equip a swarm or an advanced gatling in stead of a double gauss and a jackhammer. Then most of the people will choose the first set up. Same for the warthog.
So in some cases it is relatively difficult.
Are you saying that you can hit an opponent between 7 times 8 and 8 times in 8 (100%) if you are using a Sunflare? Please. The rockets are no more easy to hit someone with than they ever were, and if there is any difference it has nothing to do with the stats of the rockets.
Yes, thats exactly what im saying. Why do you bloody hell think all these threads about sunflares keep popping up. Its not when people use them at medium distances, then I would say that you are right. But at ramming distances the chance is way bigger. And that tactic is lately used by most of the rocketeers, so I generalised it a bit.
And no, the large slot weapons arent to weak. They are fine, the small slot weapons, more specific the sunflares are a teeny tiny bit to powerfull. If you have a fight between 2 heavies, then it would mostly take as long as a fight between 2 lights. And dont forget, there will be bigger ships introduced, and youll already need to improve the weapons of those ships to be effective. Ever tried out a screaer against a heavy ship? I have to say, they are pretty effective, against a light, you have not a chance in hell of hitting him, unless your lucky or a very good shot"what im not". So as you can see, every weapon has its use.
Kastin ya it was never a problem with flag capping fights, and for the same reason I would expect it not to be in mission related fighting. Which is why I don't think they should be changed for this reason.
As far as me getting hit, I don't think I was ever within 30m of the flares, except maybe the first time they were used and when the shooter was also within 30m of them (i.e. ramming). But I was still killed by them.
Tip for people in the future planing battle royals make a no flares rule.
Oh ya furball I didn't ever equip flares, not that it really matters but I don't use them (I suck with them).
As far as me getting hit, I don't think I was ever within 30m of the flares, except maybe the first time they were used and when the shooter was also within 30m of them (i.e. ramming). But I was still killed by them.
Tip for people in the future planing battle royals make a no flares rule.
Oh ya furball I didn't ever equip flares, not that it really matters but I don't use them (I suck with them).
Right Rene... let me elaborate a little:
We have a problem with pilots boosting up to a tremendous speed to increase their chance of hitting a target with sunflares. While the chance of a kill increases, the chance that a pilot will damage his ship at the same time is also great. However, since that damage is relatively small (I've tested, and found I'll take an average of 18% damage for each wart hog kill, and 30% for a vult), the pilot can make a kill without doing himself fatal damage, provided a station is nearby. If he has less skill, he may take himself out along with his opponent. However, if he restrains himself (and has unlimited cash), this is not a problem and his target will become angrier and angrier as time goes on.
We have a lack of good L-slot anti-fighter weapons that operate well at medium to long ranges. The rail is a small-sized comparable weapon. The advanced gatling is a good weapon, yet its aiming variable destroys whatever potential it may inherently have. Maybe if we had an "Advanced Gatling Mk2" with no variable, that would be an excellent weapon. But the problem is that ships like the Ragnarok are incapable of defending themselves against small, fast fighters, largely because they have no weapons that can score even 90% of the time beyond 50 - 100 meters.
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To fix the first problem, I would suggest leaving damage and all alone with the sunflare, yet up its velocity while lowering its capacity. Why is it that a small ship can carry 16 sunflares while a large ship can carry only 12 jackhammers? I preferred the 2.7.x days where a Class One Rocket had a substantially smaller prox radius, speed, damage, and capacity. Larger and slower ships received the benefits of a large prox radius, high speeds, higher damage, and 6 - 8 more rockets per tube. Right now a tube of sunflares ( ) does the same amount of damage as a tube of jackhammers (24,000 damage). Only do the Screamer and Avalon do more (48,000 each). Yet the screamer is another ram-encouraging rocket, because its velocity is so low.
To fix the second problem, I would enjoy seeing more quality Large slot weapons such as the Advanced Gatling. The plasma cannon and the jackhammer rockets are useless (unless you're a rocket rammer and don't want rockets [screamers] to interfere with boosting). The plasma is inferior to the adv gatling and has no use. I would enjoy seeing Large slot weapons get energy breaks, increases in repeat rates, and speed boosts. Damages are ok, but they cost too much to fire.
We have a problem with pilots boosting up to a tremendous speed to increase their chance of hitting a target with sunflares. While the chance of a kill increases, the chance that a pilot will damage his ship at the same time is also great. However, since that damage is relatively small (I've tested, and found I'll take an average of 18% damage for each wart hog kill, and 30% for a vult), the pilot can make a kill without doing himself fatal damage, provided a station is nearby. If he has less skill, he may take himself out along with his opponent. However, if he restrains himself (and has unlimited cash), this is not a problem and his target will become angrier and angrier as time goes on.
We have a lack of good L-slot anti-fighter weapons that operate well at medium to long ranges. The rail is a small-sized comparable weapon. The advanced gatling is a good weapon, yet its aiming variable destroys whatever potential it may inherently have. Maybe if we had an "Advanced Gatling Mk2" with no variable, that would be an excellent weapon. But the problem is that ships like the Ragnarok are incapable of defending themselves against small, fast fighters, largely because they have no weapons that can score even 90% of the time beyond 50 - 100 meters.
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To fix the first problem, I would suggest leaving damage and all alone with the sunflare, yet up its velocity while lowering its capacity. Why is it that a small ship can carry 16 sunflares while a large ship can carry only 12 jackhammers? I preferred the 2.7.x days where a Class One Rocket had a substantially smaller prox radius, speed, damage, and capacity. Larger and slower ships received the benefits of a large prox radius, high speeds, higher damage, and 6 - 8 more rockets per tube. Right now a tube of sunflares ( ) does the same amount of damage as a tube of jackhammers (24,000 damage). Only do the Screamer and Avalon do more (48,000 each). Yet the screamer is another ram-encouraging rocket, because its velocity is so low.
To fix the second problem, I would enjoy seeing more quality Large slot weapons such as the Advanced Gatling. The plasma cannon and the jackhammer rockets are useless (unless you're a rocket rammer and don't want rockets [screamers] to interfere with boosting). The plasma is inferior to the adv gatling and has no use. I would enjoy seeing Large slot weapons get energy breaks, increases in repeat rates, and speed boosts. Damages are ok, but they cost too much to fire.
I like the large plasma cannon although I'd like to see it home in slightly.
Ahhh Eld. I couldn't remember who had and who didn't have flares. :)
And actually my point was even MORE generic than what you said. My point is for those of you who don't think there's a problem with sunflares, well... here's empirical evidence to the contrary.
And actually my point was even MORE generic than what you said. My point is for those of you who don't think there's a problem with sunflares, well... here's empirical evidence to the contrary.