Good god, I feel like I'm talking to a brick wall. Have you all gone insane? I got a feeling this topic will come up again in the future, much like how my valkyrie complaint was unpopular at first... only to gain popularity later on. It's like this ongoing cycle, hehe. Oh well.

Okay, it sounds to me like you guys don't want the Gauss's autoaim to be reduced because you wouldn't be able to hit anything with the tachyons or gravitons as easily. Well guess what, that's the disadvantage of owning a high agility fighter. You're not supposed to be given uber weapons for uber fast ships. Duh!

Such an argument is a very weak excuse for keeping the gauss as a high autoaim weapon. Yes, tachyons and gravitons need to be sped up to make up for their lack of autoaim. Yes, sunflares also need to be sped up to prevent ramming, but at the cost of becoming a very low prox weapon (or on impact). Yes, a lot of other weapons need tweaking. But take a look at the title of this thread. We're focusing on one weapon here.

Yes, I realize it's really hard to discuss balancing one weapon without bring up other ones. Yes, I realize the other ones are weak when compared to the gauss. I'm NOT saying the other ones should be unchanged. The point of this thread is to discuss the problem of having an insanely high autoaim weapon for ships that don't need it. The reason they don't need it is because it ruins the balance of gameplay. That's why it doesn't need it. How many different ways do you want me to say it?

As for the warthog argument, it's balanced because... 1) It only has medium agility and can easily be outmaneuvered by a vulture/valk, 2) It has mediocre hull strength, 3) the advanced gatling turret has a high spread (read inaccurate) and only inflicts 500 dmg per shell (as opposed to a gauss cannon which has both 1200 dmg AND high accuracy), 4) a warthog is far easier to hit than a vulture, and 5) a gatling is easier to dodge because of its predictable continuous stream of fire.

In any case we've still left out the fact that heavy ships are at a huge disadvantage due to this weapon. Essentially all that's left to do in a ragnarok or centaur is to either ram people with screamers and sunflares, swarm spam someone, or mine the hell outta 'em. That's all they're useful for. If fighters were given more effective skill based weapons and less autoaim ones, such a problem wouldn't exist.

""___Okay, it sounds to me like you guys don't want the Gauss's autoaim to be reduced because you wouldn't be able to hit anything with the tachyons or gravitons as easily. Well guess what, that's the disadvantage of owning a high agility fighter. You're not supposed to be given uber weapons for uber fast ships. Duh!___""

arolte.. if you take away the accuracy of the gauss you aren't just affecting the small ships.. what about my wraith config (2 gauss/1 screamer) or my favorite hornet setup (3 gauss/1 rail).

You are looking at it from the point of view of 2 ships. The Gauss is a good, balanced weapon. As for needing to spend a little time at a distance and picking your shots.. that is far more interesting than a close at top speed, spray&pray while randomly spinning and dodging/rolling duel.

You can't look at it only from the perspective that the gauss on a valk is potent against a rangarok or a centaur. (duh!) a valk with anything is potent against a rangarok or a centaur because the ships turns like a couple of bricks. They have other advantages, namely larger weapons payloads and more cargo space. It's not the weapon.


""___In any case we've still left out the fact that heavy ships are at a huge disadvantage due to this weapon. Essentially all that's left to do in a ragnarok or centaur is to either ram people with screamers and sunflares, swarm spam someone, or mine the hell outta 'em. That's all they're useful for. If fighters were given more effective skill based weapons and less autoaim ones, such a problem wouldn't exist.___""

OK on to this statement. that is the biggest crock of ****. The problem with heavy ships is that people haven't figured out how to FLY BACKWARDS. You aren't supposed to be going on an offensive in a heavy ship, It's a support vessel or a Defensve ship. for the rag put an advanced gat as weap 1, a daul gauss as primary fire 2, a railgun as secondary and a screamer or a swarm to use if the enemy gets TOO close. The centaur gets more to needing to rely on swarms.. but it's a tradeship for crying out loud. it's not meant to be taken within 5 sectors of a fight.

/rant start

The Gauss cannon is fine.. you asked for names for your petition, when you didn't get many, you decided to attack us.. well i'm not a brick wall, nor am i insane (well i'm married so maybe that counts but hey) and it seems to me that if most of us think it's a bad idea.. and we posted a no, maybe you need to review your own stand on it. Just because you think it's a good idea, doesn't neccesarily make it the only point in an argument.

/rant end

"It isnt the gauss that is totally off, but the tachs and gravs that aren't worth a damn as a good offensive/ defensive countermeasure / weapon."

I have to disagree with this. I honestly prefer tachyons to gauss because of their greater firepower. Just ask Laika; he was in a dual gauss Vulture I was in a dual tach Vulture, I beat him twice before he got me.

Arolte: here's a logical reason why the gauss should have high autoaim: so that it can be used on lower agility ships like the maud and the hornet against high agility ships like the vulture and the Valk. Just because something can (the horror) actually *hit* you in your Vulture isn't a good enough reason to nerf it.

"In addition to that, medium and heavy ships really don't stand a chance against gauss vultures and valks. Due to their higher speeds and higher rate of acceleration, all they have to do is plug themselves right up to a heavy ship and squeeze the trigger"

This statement couldn't be more off the mark; at close range tachs will hit a heavy just as easily as gauss, and tachs do a lot more damage per second than gauss, so the fighter would actually be a lot better off with tachs in this case. I think the real issue here is the agility of fighters vs. heavies, which is an entirely different topic.

If you nerf the gauss heavy ships will just have one less weapon to use against Valks and vultures, and you will actually be throwing the game further off balance. Just take a little time to actually consider what you are proposing from every perspective.

>OK on to this statement. that is the biggest crock of ****. The problem with
>heavy ships is that people haven't figured out how to FLY BACKWARDS. You
>aren't supposed to be going on an offensive in a heavy ship, It's a support vessel
>or a Defensve ship. for the rag put an advanced gat as weap 1, a daul gauss as
>primary fire 2, a railgun as secondary and a screamer or a swarm to use if the
>enemy gets TOO close. The centaur gets more to needing to rely on swarms..
>but it's a tradeship for crying out loud. it's not meant to be taken within 5
>sectors of a fight.

I don't know if you've actually tried or you're just being ignorant, but a fighter can easily catch up to a heavy ship that's strafing backwards. The reason being that it has higher agility, so therefore it can change direction much more quickly. Even when a ragnarok or centurion is spiraling backwards, it does so in a much more slower manner than a fighter. This is because of its lower acceleration rate. Boosting away is also out of the question, because more than half of your battery's energy is depleted on changing direction alone. No matter how you look at it, the fighter will always catch up to it.

>The Gauss cannon is fine.. you asked for names for your petition, when you
>didn't get many, you decided to attack us.. well i'm not a brick wall, nor am i
>insane (well i'm married so maybe that counts but hey) and it seems to me that if
>most of us think it's a bad idea.. and we posted a no, maybe you need to review >your own stand on it. Just because you think it's a good idea, doesn't neccesarily
>make it the only point in an argument.

Sorry, it just doesn't make a whole lot of sense why this weapon exists the way it does now. From a logical perspective it defies the general idea that higher agility ships would have weaker or lower auto weapons, whereas lower agility ships would be given more auto weapons to compensate for its sluggishness.

Of course if it's everybody's favorite pet weapon right now and it's giving them easy kills, I can see why they wouldn't want it to be tweaked or changed. I just wish more people would focus on the balance of gameplay rather than tending to their own self interests.

>Arolte: here's a logical reason why the gauss should have high autoaim: so that it
>can be used on lower agility ships like the maud, the hornet, the wraith and the
>hog against high agility ships like the vulture and the Valk. Just because
>something can (the horror) actually *hit* you in your Vulture isn't a good enough
>reason to nerf it.

The problem here is that it's too good. I don't have a personal vendetta against the vulture or the gauss cannon. I'm not here to nerf everything that kills me. I get killed by l-mines and swarms many times, but you don't see me whining about those. It's just a way of teaching me to back away from heavy ships when engaging in battle. I simply adjust accordingly. However, if I see one or two weapons/ships that are being used by 99.9% of the community, there's clearly something wrong in the area of balance.

It has been my firm belief since day one that light, medium, and heavy ship classes should be balanced out to encourage a wide variety of roles among the Vendetta universe. Isn't that what MMORPGs are about? I mean heaven forbid we see people use ragnaroks in other ways besides swarm spamming and station mining. The sad truth is they're simply ineffective when it comes to defense, and giving fighters unnecessarily easy to use uber weapons simply breaks the encouragement of diverse roles.

"However, if I see one or two weapons that are being used by 99.9% of the community, there's clearly something wrong in the area of balance."
-Thanks for proving all our points. The problem isn't with the Gauss being too good. It's with the other weapons not being good enough. Try unloading a Gauss on a rag to kill it. You can't. A fast charge battery will die before you even get it smoking. In which time the rag will unload missile after missile on you. Balance.
I say again, there is nothing wrong with the Gauss.

"I don't know if you've actually tried or you're just being ignorant, but a fighter can easily catch up to a heavy ship that's strafing backwards."
-Fight UncleDave while he's in a prom. He'll teach you a lesson in ignorance.


" From a logical perspective it defies the general idea that higher agility ships would have weaker or lower auto weapons, whereas lower agility ships would be given more auto weapons to compensate for its sluggishness."
-Whose general idea was this? It sure as hell wasn't mine. The higher agility ships get less weapons which are usually weaker, while the heavier ones get more armor and firepower. It has nothing to do with autoaim. Try turning autoaim off on a Gauss and see how well you do. The autoaim is what makes it what it is. Boost the other weapons to a reasonable level before you nerf the Gauss. If you make the tachs and gravs better, you will see more people use them. I use tachs quite often as a matter of fact.

"Of course if it's everybody's favorite pet weapon right now and it's giving them easy kills, I can see why they wouldn't want it to be tweaked or changed."
-I'll bet you money that if you nerf the gauss, everyone's favorite pet weapon will be the adv. gat. hog. The medium agility makes it plenty fast enough to pan around the screen and hit vultures if you're backtracking.

"The sad truth is they're simply ineffective when it comes to defense, and giving fighters unnecessarily easy to use uber weapons simply breaks the encouragement of diverse roles."
-We have 2 roles right now in Vendetta. Trading and fighting. (3 if you count racing.) Changing the weapon layouts will not change this simple truth. If you want more roles, wait for a mission system and more capital ships in play. Until then, this is how the game is going to be. The bombers like the rag don't have a place yet, but they will. Nerfing other ships will not magically create a niche for it.
Second point, the Gauss never was, and is not currently an uber-weapon. I have been beaten by tachyon vultures many times while flying a Gauss vult. Gauss fighters are close range weapons. The round is too damn slow to hit anyone from more than 200m. That's why weapons like adv. gats and sunflares completely nullify its advantage. You simply can't get close enough to hit them with or without a lot of auto-aim.

I vote: No.

Can we get a No count going please?

The guass is in fact an easy weapon to combat. If you know how to fly.

"Good god, I feel like I'm talking to a brick wall. Have you all gone insane? " this is part of my reason for disagreeing. You realize we know what we're talking about and repond with insults.

"I have been beaten by tachyon vultures many times while flying a Gauss vult. Gauss fighters are close range weapons. The round is too damn slow to hit anyone from more than 200m."

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought a gauss bolt went 180 m/s, just like tachs and gravs?

That's why I would be in favor of taking it down 10 m/s or so if anything. But leave the autoaim alone.

>"Good god, I feel like I'm talking to a brick wall. Have you all gone insane? " this
>is part of my reason for disagreeing. You realize we know what we're talking
>about and repond with insults.

Having a bunch of gauss cannon fanatics jump in and prevent their precious toy from becoming balanced wouldn't be considered right either. I thought the point of beta testing was to squash bugs and balance gameplay out. Gee, I guess I was wrong.

Arolte, we're not fanatics. I very rarely use the gauss. But I think that instead of making a weapon worse (which in turn leads to stagnation (sp?)), we should make all of them better, like Celebrim said.

Or just fix the dang aimbot so it can't be fooled by the barrel roll.

Either the gauss remains unchanged or mouse lock is implemented. One or the other. As it is right now, I can't hit anything without an autoaiming weapon. If the gauss (or the adv gat for that matter) gets nerfed right now, I'm pretty much screwed. :(

Shhh... don't mention mouse lock again. You'll make a1k0n's vein pop. I too want it badly, but please don't push it so far that they'll block it from their thoughts.

=)

Paedric votes no.

gauss is fine the way it is now i think, my vote goes no

An attemt at balance:
Gauss -10m/s
Tach +5m/s
Grav +10-15m/s
Cett -5deg spray
Rail -20 NRG

Is that any good?

just so you know a vult is 5x better against the larger hvy with tachs then it is with gauss. I can kill a rag b4 it can think of moving with tachs. With gauss they launch seekers and mines all over. It is a good weapon, tach is a good weapon too...though it could use a little upity. I can dodge gauss in a hog easily enough against anybody but a pure vet. If you are using anyother hvy ship then use other tactics, like keep them busy with weapons fire while you run away. If you don't want to run get in a fighter not a hvy.

I took out a ragnarok that was swarm spamming me, using only a gauss centurion today. It was pretty sad. Just an example. Carry on...

=)

Lets see.. i have taken out hoards of valks, cent, and vults, all of them with guass, in just a rag before.. it's easy. you clearly targeted a n00b.


Carry on.

I don't autoaim needs to be taken down. But the dammage down need to be taken down a tiny bit.