Hi, so in the IMG Skype chat at the moment there is a big discussion about trying to balance the battle transporter. The name really gives it away. They are a "Battle Transport" so they should be able to physically defend them selves when they are on there own or even in a group with numbers. IMG do the numbers advantage really well but what if you are in a faction with alot less numbers and maybe you are flying on your own in one of these ships.
I have a CAU 8 Shishapangma that has had several different loadouts. My first loadout was Heavy Transport Turrets, but then I wanted the extra cargo because 50 cargo per 1 gun is alot for a battle transporter. Not only that I then switched to a full Dulzian Transport turret loadout to fend of fighters and bombers. But this still did not work. I know how to turret steer, I also know how to chain fire my turrets to make them more effective. But this still does not show me that a battle transport is able to defend itself. Going against 1 VHF and 1 Freighter that has no armor and loosing to it, it is rather humiliating especially when you have a CAU 8 upgrade and full Dulzians on the Shishapangma.
Now I have gone to the FLStats after flying several other transporters recently. This being the Stork, P Train, Raba, Atlas and others to find out some of the ships are faster than a battle transport but with more cargo space? Now this does not make sense, that means in theory that they are more capable at defending there self because they are able to dodge. Not only that but I have checked the smaller cargo ships and you look at the Gallic transporters and liners and they are faster than other 4k that are smaller in size with less guns. This makes no sense to me.
I have take the time to write up a list of the shipname, the cargo space, the armor with the turn speed. I was unable to find the gun/turret amount and number but we can get a rough idea of what my arguement is and the fact there needs to be some balance and rework on the transporters.
As you can see in this spoiler just above, alot of the ships are not balanced, for example the "Crayter Atlas Transporter" is slower than the other 4k's of it's class, but is alot smaller in size.
Here is a video I recorded a few weeks ago of the Atlas sat still turning. If you have ever flown one it feels like it is slower than a stork. The Battle transporters them self have around 0.50 turn speed less than an Atlas, which has less guns, less armor, and alot smaller in size. While the Corsair Transport is 4400 cargo space sized and is alot faster than any battle transport and some of the smaller sized ships and so on.
The transporters really need a balance buff and nerf to some of them, can we please get this done please. I am sure if the faction leaders of trade cooperation agree with me and so on they will make them selves known. But please please this needs doing.
I would also like to ask for the Atlas to become a battle transporter and a celestra to become something like the Nanda Parbat or a Serenity. Thank you.
Honestly the fact that the term "battle-transport" exists makes me cringe
Transports aren't combat vessels. They're meant to haul their bay-loads to and from desired locations- they shouldn't also be a viable combat solution to enemy forces.
A specialized combat vessel should always triumph over a jack-of-all-trades ship by reason of basic logic. The amount of equipment, internal structuring, wiring, targeting computers and power lines all make up for a rather large portion of a ship's internal volume. The benefit of transports over combat platforms is the increased size of the cargo bays at the expense of defensibly, aka at the expense of those things mentioned before that allow for the turret systems.
Disco's woeful misrepresentation of this is one of the many major disconnects between basic logic/science and that which is in place in the game- that has caused my latent apathy for the game. It is just too much ludo-narrative dissonance for my liking.
Furthermore, this could largely be the reason that transport groups don't hire escorts anymore- sure one or two are present in large convoys like the ones IMG run, but they're used primarily as lane scouts, not as actual defense vessels. I've no actual evidence or instances to point to on this one but it stands to reason that a reduction in transport weapon power or effectiveness would drive players to want to log, fly, or hire escorts more often. Interpret that as you will.
Finally, I'd like to point out an example of the overly inflated nature of combat effectiveness in so called 'battletransports." I'd ask that any and all following ignore the context of the video I'm about to link, and simply notice the PVP situation at play here.
22:43 for a good idea of the number of ships at play-
10 IMG vessels, 2 of which are snubs || 6 BD/Order vessels on-camera with another 2/3 or so off-camera that either come in later or aren't close enough to my vessel to be viewable at the timestamp.
Both sides were roughly equal in numbers, and yet the key difference present was that the IMG vessels were almost unilaterally transport vessels. And yet the BD side lost grevious amounts of ships. Combat vessels, took heavy casualties to transports. Now, a number of other factors were also at play here: IMG convoys like this are generally well coordinated meanwhile the BD group wasn't (use of Teamspeak vs lack of use of Teamspeak.) and the individual skill of the pilots at play here. Personally, I flew terribly when this was recorded. That much im fine with admitting. What im not fine with, and what I'd like to draw the reader's attention to is 22:45, wherein the transports were all firing on the battleship.
Now, the battleship exploded not long after but can we just take a moment to think about that? A massive war machine, dedicated to the destruction of other vessels at the behest of their owners, rendered obselete and destroyed by transports. Not only does that not make sense in terms of lore, but honestly- when something like this can be pulled off by assembling a few friends ( this is an extreme case im presenting, it's still possible with 2-3 people with enough patience), then what really is the point in having dedicated battleships besides genitalia compensation?
Any further buffs to transports could just make this situation worse- versus capital vessels transports just have too much of an advantage in my opinion.
Now, back on-subject with the OP after that tirade: should transports really get a buff to anti-fighter capability? Sure, but only slightly-
The turrets you're mounting are defensive tools, not offensive. They should be there to scare off would-be attackers long enough for a transport to have a chance at getting away. Anything more and we start to take away the usefulness of anti-fighter platforms like gunboats.
So whats the solution in my opinion?
-A slight increase in range and maybe refire/damage to transport dulzians
-A drastic increase in power requirements or drastic decrease in damage to Charons
-and hull reduction or cargo space reduction to battletransports to account for their increased capability
Anyway, just my opinion. I'ma go take cover in my bunker now to avoid dying to the inevitable fallout of this post. Cheers~
[ sci·am·ach ]
/sīˈamək/
A simple, angry man casually working his way through life on a personal quest to acquire copious amounts of street cred.
2nd: 10 ships of any kind would have done a lot more damage. If you pile 10 of whatever class onto 1 ship, it does damage. 10 Serenities, 10 VHF, 10 Freighetrs... the damage would have always been there.
This is the wrong way of going for balancing.
The transport class INSIDE ITSELF is borked. There are huge differences between transports, many seem arbitrary, and at least I cannot see a logic that is applied there.
A discussion on "what transports should be" mainly reflects player preferences.
I personally love flying transports, they are my class of choice. So I will obviously fight the opinion of people who say "but T should be useless prey, with nothing to do but carry cargo and die to others when attacked." because no... this is not fun for my style of playing. The Battletransport is a cool class, it can be fleshed out, BUT it is not the main part of the discussion here.
MAIN PART IS: transports are not balanced inside their own class.
This should be looked at.
Not: "what transports should be and what not" and also IMG convoys are not the point of discussion because there are actually only 2-3 factions on the server that fly transports together at all, and transports need to be looked at in their "normal" use, which is: solo flying.
Now battletransports with battletransport turrets are already solo outtanking the GBs. I'm not even talking about solo bomber piracy which is becoming nearly impossible. I do enjoy flying Akegatas and Bisons myself, but if transports are suppose to be balanced, then only in a way of nerfing. They are still no a specific combat ships after all, and suppose to use escorts at some point.
(11-18-2016, 06:26 PM)Sanja Wrote: Now battletransports with battletransport turrets are already solo outtanking the GBs. I'm not even talking about solo bomber piracy which is becoming nearly impossible. I do enjoy flying Akegatas and Bisons myself, but if transports are suppose to be balanced, then only in a way of nerfing. They are still no a specific combat ships after all, and suppose to use escorts at some point.
Sorry, this is just WRONG.
If you die in a GB to a solo Btrans, you are just one thing: horrible.
Any competent GB will not even lose its shield against a Btrans.
A Serenity or a Ptrans with Cerbs are a much much scarier target than any Btrans.
Sanja, how about reading the topic and staying on it? Sure, transports might or might not be balanced / unbalanced in regards to other classes, but this topic is about transports being unbalanced within their own class. So don't drag another classes into it, that's entirelly different discussion.
(11-18-2016, 06:26 PM)Sanja Wrote: Now battletransports with battletransport turrets are already solo outtanking the GBs. I'm not even talking about solo bomber piracy which is becoming nearly impossible. I do enjoy flying Akegatas and Bisons myself, but if transports are suppose to be balanced, then only in a way of nerfing. They are still no a specific combat ships after all, and suppose to use escorts at some point.
Sorry, this is just WRONG.
If you die in a GB to a solo Btrans, you are just one thing: horrible.
Any competent GB will not even lose its shield against a Btrans.
A Serenity or a Ptrans with Cerbs are a much much scarier target than any Btrans.
Glad to see that you are not denying that solo bomber picary is becoming nearly impossible. Speaking of GBs, I am not flying gunboats myself, but I've seen that several times, which is wrong. It's naive to think that all newbie pirates taht are buying gunboats are good, but by any logic they are suppose to win.
(11-18-2016, 06:26 PM)Sanja Wrote: Now battletransports with battletransport turrets are already solo outtanking the GBs. I'm not even talking about solo bomber piracy which is becoming nearly impossible. I do enjoy flying Akegatas and Bisons myself, but if transports are suppose to be balanced, then only in a way of nerfing. They are still no a specific combat ships after all, and suppose to use escorts at some point.
Sorry, this is just WRONG.
If you die in a GB to a solo Btrans, you are just one thing: horrible.
Any competent GB will not even lose its shield against a Btrans.
A Serenity or a Ptrans with Cerbs are a much much scarier target than any Btrans.
Clearly no one is getting my point here. Jack did about balancing the transporters into there "Categories" such as
5kers
battle transporters
3500
and so on but battletransporters are there OWN class and someone who knows more about them than me should discuss that but they should be able to defend themselves against 1 VHF and a unarmored freighter with dulzians.
But clearly what I intendend has not happened so can I get this thread locked please as a pointless useless thread.
(11-18-2016, 06:34 PM)Demonic Wrote: How about reading the topic and staying on it? Sure, transports might or might not be balanced / unbalanced in regards to other classes, but this topic is about transports being unbalanced within their own class. So don't drag another classes into it, that's entirelly different discussion.