(11-06-2014, 02:18 PM)Snak3 Wrote: Freighters should lose their cruise speed advantage over snubcrafts. If they are used as trade ship, they are hardly possible to intercept unless using LF, thus completely unbalanced in this regard. If they are used as combat craft, then small gunboat should be indeed slower than snubcrafts.
I agree with Snak3 completely. Freighters are bigger bastards than the HFs/VHFs, yet they can outrun them. Makes no sense.
And yeah, make the HF's able to go with a 400ms cruise speed. +1
No Snake I don't think they should.
The increased speed helps to offset the lack of cargo space and is a benefit to having them.
A different kind of play style and one that currently fits well.
The simple fact is that if you wish to catch them then a LF will do the job and not every class of ship need to be caught by snubcraft.
what pirate would want to go through the effort to chase down a freighter with a minescule cargo hold (let alone fight it) when they can just sit at lanes and cash in on large transports?
besides chances that you'll meet a vhf or bomber would still be bigger, so it is only on very rare occasions that hf vs freighter speed comes into play.
i think a hf with 400 m/s would be more useful to bounty hunters and assassins than it would to pirates.
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(11-06-2014, 02:36 AM)Mímir Wrote: with clear drawbacks when it comes to actual combat to even it out
Are you implying the likes of the Bayonet and the Saishi aren't amazing?
The Saishi in particular is best described as 'broken', honestly. The large damage output buff it received when it went from a tiny core and weak weapon mounts to the standardized (large) HF core combined with class 7s across the board made it an incredibly potent little ship.
The Kusari HFs are nothing to scoff at either, provided their pilot doesn't dive into nukes.
What speed do HFs cruise at right now? 375? That'd be fine, in my opinion. Quick enough to outspeed VHFs, not quite fast enough to be true interceptors.
I'm all for giving the different classes of fighters actual differences, mind you. Right now the VHF class is approaching a fairly balanced state (I believe my new shield hitboxes, when they go in, will be a great help there), but the other classes tend to be filled with a boatload of crappy ships and a few ships on the 'broken' side of the spectrum. For light fighters, that'd be the Liberator et al.
i started out by saying there are a handful of hf's that are really good. bayo, moonbeam, saishi and carabela comes to mind, although maybe the latter two has to do with shields. they still have glaring weaknesses that makes them a second choice to VHF's in the hands of most players.
and they cruise at the same speed as vhf's, that's my point. i'd like them to go just a little bit faster than vhf's - not really a huge gamechanger.
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Shows how much I've played recently.
Wellp. Whatever. My point stands.
To elaborate on what I meant with 'more significant differences', here's a few things:
- Remember those horribly overpowered light fighter guns initially added in .87 (I think)? The concept was fine, but fits better with the Heavy Fighter class if you ask me. So what I'm saying is: why not make Heavy Fighters the glass cannons of Discovery? High damage output, high fragility. They should be roughly as easy to hit as a VHF, but have less armour and fewer regens. In exchange, they'd get a boatload of scary burst damage.
- Light fighters are supposed to be interceptors. Why not give them, say, dual CD and/or CM slots or something weird like that? In addition, their guns are currently kind of wonky. I'd suggest giving them high projectile speed, high refire guns that deal very little damage. Probably with an emphasis on EMP weaponry rather than 'lethal' hull busters. They should be bee stings, not the glass cannons they currently are. Ideally light fighters should somehow be made less invincible as well. There's nothing more annoying than a troll in a Liberator in orbit of Malta who simply refuses to die.
I don't think you can increase HF speed without making LFs totally obsolete. They're pretty useless as they are, being incredibly vulnerable while having no firepower to speak of.
HFs meanwhile are simply a slightly lighter VHF variant, and some of them are very good in that role.
400 cruise is plenty to serve in an effective interceptor role, and the +25 LFs will have simply won't be sufficient to make them a preferable choice, and that's the main relevant advantage they have right now.
(11-06-2014, 02:18 PM)Snak3 Wrote: Freighters should lose their cruise speed advantage over snubcrafts. If they are used as trade ship, they are hardly possible to intercept unless using LF, thus completely unbalanced in this regard. If they are used as combat craft, then small gunboat should be indeed slower than snubcrafts.
Freighters are definitely neither trade ships, nor "small gunboats".
The only people that genuinely trade in freighters don't have money to afford anything better - not really legitimate piracy targets anyway.
So, all freighters can be considered combat vessels, but I wouldn't say you can compare them to gunboats. They're much smaller and faster, while having vastly lower hit points to the point that they'll always die to a SNAC, much lower bb, firepower, and shields.
If anything they're more like super-super heavy fighters. Their role is pretty niche anyway, I wouldn't take away their cruise advantage.