CP's suggestion is better. Partially because it just makes no sense that a combat ship loses to a trade-ship, but also because John's suggestion that the way that weapons ports work should be retooled constitutes a dramatic change of game mechanics. A dramatic change that can be avoided (since the more dramatic the change, the more likely you are to find unintended consequences) if you just boost the hog's thrust.

I agree, lets give the Hog a good thrust increase, but with either no increase to spin torque, or a slight decrease.

^bump

Made a change to the Marauder balance suggestion.

Reduce the thrust 10N, increase boost thrust 50N, no Marauder should have more than 12000 armor.

This makes Marauders really good for trading, and especially for getting away from pirates, but not so strong that they are completely without risk.

hm, this will remove a lot of the multi-purpose-feeling with the mauds, I don't like it. :-/

Eww! Don't turn my harmless tradeship into a .. err .. harmless tradeship!

Well I'll concede the thrust, but I'll leave the boost thrust increase so it has an advantage over the moth. But I still think that 16000 armor is too much for a Maud.

the maud is a very very nice target. probably the easiest in the game. I see very few problems with the Axia Maud as it is.

I also note that this suggestion doesn't suggest cutting the armor of the Cents. I'd really like to see the Cents max out at around 5K armor.

What I don't understand is why all ships are bound to the same 60-70m/s speed range, and pretty much everything does about 200-240m/s on turbo...It really seems like the Trade ships should be a lot slower, particularly the 'moth and Atlas. Perhaps only 40-45m/s or so, since it's already too easy to run from pirates. Also, I do have one complaint about the suggestion about reducing the Valkyrie Rune's cargo capacity to 2, it seems to me that that variant is made to have some cargo capacity (perhaps only 5), because otherwise that variant is useless. If it was lowered to 2, then it would be totally eliminated from use, whereas it's useful for CtC right now. I also don't see a reason to kick it's drain up to 60 per second, though 55 might be more fair.

I don't see why any light figher should have cargo space to speak of. Light fighters are purely designed for combat, and any space you devote to cargo means that you take away space that you could have used for larger engines, more fuel, more armor, more ammunition, etc.

To use a light figher in CtC should mean that you're going to need a partner to collect cargo after you kill. Medium fighters should have space to kill and grab, but they're slower overall, and are more easily cut up by defenders.

I definitely see your point there, but I'd like to counter with a similar argument.

If you were a trade corporation, woudln't you want to be able fit more cargo onto a cargo hauler by making it's engines a wee bit smaller? Why don't you sacrifice space that would be used to vector your ship for cargo space? If you had less armor, couldn't you fit more in a bay also? Flying a cargo ship should not be a maneuverable experience, and like your arguments with johnhawl218 earlier this thread, I'd advise knocking down max speeds for cargo ships down quite a bit, as well as torque.

Now, with the large profile of the Valk, I'd like to see the Rune as the "CtC variant", which would be designed to be able to shoot, grab the cargo, and scram. Kill one of the ports, and keep it's armor below that of the other Valks, as well as giving it a drain of 55.

How much cargo space is worth speaking of? As it is now, most of the light fighter's don't have what I would consider "cargo space to speak of." The only exceptions are the cargo variants - which I'm OK with.

If they're all reduced to 1 or 2 cu, then the cargo variants w/ 2-4 would be completely pointless. It would be effectively removing ship variants from the game. Removing variety is a BAD thing IMO.

What I would prefer would be to make the cargo variants less effective at combat. Nerf their thrust so that (especially when they're carrying cargo) they can't accelerate well; drop their top speed by 5-20 & their turbo speed by 20-50 compared to the non-cargo variants.

^bump

Considering Beolach's concern about reducing cargo space on the centurions (and other light fighters) would remove ship variants. Yes. It would remove ship variants. But it would cause people who want to move cargo around to have to use other ships, so even if a couple ship variants were removed, it could cause more variety in the game because people would be flying more kinds of ships.

I don't know about making the rune valk, or any valk for that matter, worse. They're already quite vulnerable.

Professor Seldon said: Now, with the large profile of the Valk, I'd like to see the Rune as the "CtC variant", which would be designed to be able to shoot, grab the cargo, and scram. Kill one of the ports, and keep it's armor below that of the other Valks, as well as giving it a drain of 55.

Noooooooo! Not my beloved Rune Valk! It needs to be BETTER! i.e. Redesigned to be less of a big target, and KEEP the 50 drain. I love the Rune because of the infiniboost. The light armor (9500) is a tradeoff for the 8 cu of space. Perfect for a CtC ship. Three (S) weapons is cool, but what about a variant with one (L) and one (S) port?

You have to have combat 8 AND at least +700 Itani Standing to get this ship. Combat 9 for the UBER Valk. I think it should be made a little better in some way. Either higher spin torque so that it's the fastest-turning ship around, to avoid the Cents and even Vults getting inside its turn radius. Or possibly a smaller cross-section/silohuette. But if we modify the cross-section, is it still a Valk?

The Valkyrie should be better than the Cent for fighting - but it's just TOO big of a target...

While I'm typing, why not make the UIT Territorial Defender Warthog a little better as well? Each race should have a good ship that can take on an SCP and win 50% of the time. (Of course, among evenly-matched pilots...)

Lebermac wrote: Noooooooo! Not my beloved Rune Valk! It needs to be BETTER! i.e. Redesigned to be less of a big target, and KEEP the 50 drain. I love the Rune because of the infiniboost. The light armor (9500) is a tradeoff for the 8 cu of space. Perfect for a CtC ship. Three (S) weapons is cool, but what about a variant with one (L) and one (S) port?

I understand it's hard to get the Valk, and I agree it should be better. However, if we were following CP's initial suggestions, then the Rune would be hurting big time:

Itani Valkyrie Series
-All Valkyries should have a 5-10 N increase in thrust
-The Rune Valkyrie should have a turbo drain of 60/s
-All Valkyries should have 1 cu of cargo space.
-The Rune Valkyrie should have 2 cu of cargo space.
-All Valkyries should have a reduction of 1000 armor points

However, I think the Valk should be less of a target, I'll design something a little later. I also think that it should keep it's armor (though it's not meant to have more armor than the other valks) AND cargo space. The 50 drain I am fine with, but I'm totally against CP's suggestion of 60 drain/s.

Valk Vengeance has top speed of 240 m/s and drain of 55.
Valk Rune has top speed of 220 m/s and drain of 50.

I think those suggestions by CP are fair. 1 or 2 cargo space is even fair. Reducing the armor below the Rune's 9500 is silly, and I'll never fly a ship with more than 55/s turbo drain. Perhaps it's the racer in me, but I like long, sustained high speed.

Can someone put together a picture of every ship that is in-scale and in-relation to the other ships? Perhaps from top, side and front views? That will help us see how the ships relate to each other, size-wise and cross-section-wise.

I think if the preponderance of valks currently is any indication, the valk doesn't need much of an upgrade. It's ability to run flares makes it absolutely lethal against light fighters.

I mean seriously, the thing can run triflare with a mass of a dual gauss vult. With that kind of weaponry, the size is almost immaterial, 2 hits and a light fighter is gone.

The only good argument for the Valk being improved is the prom. And we really need to fix that before we start fixing things to beat it.

Hrm, then I need to:
a) Try out triflares on a Valk
and
b) Go improve my aim with those flares (turbo to MAX and THEN fire... got it...)

Perhaps now someone will fear me. Anybody?

*runs headlong into Leber's flares*

*is unhurt*


No Fear

(Just kidding around, Leber. :P )

On another note, saying the Tri-flare combo to the Valk is a reason to not boost it's abilities, that seems to me like saying that we need to nerf the Hornet, because it can get off 4 flares per second. The Valk really needs some lovin' in terms of making it harder to hit.

Having used triflares on an MGC extensively during queen-hunting, I can attribute to the power of these weapons. However, a good player can avoid them, and get within the range that the rockets take to arm themselves.

^bump
There has been some interesting dicussion on this tread with a few less common issues addressed, specifically ship design. In the VO universe, form clearly follows function, just look at the thin vult, the boxy bus, and the bulky, yet effective prom. The on ship which doesn't seem to fit the VO mold is the Valk. Yes, it looks GREAT. Yes, it is fairly well balanced with the other ships. BUT, it is relatively big when compared to the vult, the cent, and (possibly) the hog. To stimulate additional thoughts on the valk and the other ship designs I will be compiling and posting some images which put each ship side by side from various angles.