So, I've been getting a lot of suggestions/complaints about those two ships and mainly regarding their lack of CD slots, and furthermore, a good number of people have dropped the same thing in the
suggestion box. Even though lacking a CD is supposed to be the "balanced drawback" for having gunboat firepower on a transport, I do see people's point when they ask for a CD on those ships, as both ships belong to "pretend to be lawful but also pirate" type of groups and are also shared with their unlawful allies.
Now, since I've only been getting this suggestion from people who fly those ships, and have had no input from rest of the community
(no BAF player has ever asked me to put CD on a Raba, cause well... Why should they?) I'm open to some proper input on this subject.
Please keep the 1-liners out of this thread though, and whether you're in favor of giving these ships CDs or against it, explain your take on the matter and back your stance with a thought-out list of pros and cons.
As a side note, giving those two ships CD slots would also mean giving them further nerfs to make up for the considerable advantage they'd get. Those nerfs would be anything from increasing the cargohold to 3650 or so
(yes, that's a major nerf cause then it'd make them unavailable for generic IDs), to kicking down their agility to below Liner-level, or maybe even taking their CM slot in return, or generally any other nerf that would make sure people won't be entirely happy about the CD buff, cause apparently that's how we do it around these parts.
tl;dnr - Salvager and Raba with CD and appropriate nerfs. Good or bad? Why?
Restrict both ships to their representing IDs as a special perk. That would balance it out for the CD.
However, I would rather have it that the IDs were looked at instead. Hogs were nerfed because they were camping the ore sellpoint in NT. Which is not the most used ore-route anymore. Perhaps leave non-house space for Junkers to be prats in and give Hogs the ability to hit any other house space instead of Kusari, but make everything but kusari red to them. You know...for the wellbeing of Kusari sort of thing.
Most transports are absolute toast to a Pirate Transport/Gallic Assault Transport anyway, and people can already pirate in Cruisers.
Nerfing their speed to GB speed, and nerfing their cruise drain even more so they can't fire guns right after they've EKd from cruising (while chasing a trader, so they can't take down lanes) should be enough, give them a delay when exiting cruise before they can fire too (like GBs/cruisers).
Currently if you're pirating in a GB with Cerberus turrets, you're at a huge disadvantage because you have to wait for your core to regenerate after you exit cruise, so a trader can thrust away, wait for you to have to cruise after them, and take a lane while your core is dropped, this isn't the case with Basics/Solaris, you can still fire them straight away upon exiting cruise. So what I'm suggesting is, make the Slavager have to wait, 20/30 seconds before they can fire any guns (like a BS).
I suggest to leave Salvager as it is, but make Raba the pirate transport of the Corsair alliance side. It's stupid that Corsairs and the assorted use a ship with the logo of their enemies as their main piracy transport.
Give Raba normal transport guns (those are good enough anyway), better agility and better thrusting speed - coupled with a CD of course.
For me it all depends on what happens to the Solaris GB turrets. Thes are hideously OP at the moment and give a ship that can use it a considerable advantage over everything. So I do not feel that with that amount of firepower a CD slot is a good idea.
I understand why Junker pirate players would love it. It would be just the perfect solo piracy ship.
Firepower to overcome every other transport without a chance (Gb turrets) and even fend off snubs with ease (broken GB Solaris atm). Large Cargo space for loot and to mount big armor. The other stats that could be nerfed are rather irrelevant in transport piracy business on a semi-lawful ID: you find a trader that is alone, Cd it, and stay behind it while it is running, tank his damage and overpower him with your superior damage output. If you find someone who could hurt you, you pretend to be just the Junker next door.
The Salvager as it is now is a tough enemy in 2 person piracy. Have a CDer, have the Salvager... ouch combination.
And I think cooperative piracy should be encouraged.
The way they work now, they'd need some pretty major nerfs to deserve a CD, particularly with Solaris being so ridiculously overpowered.
The problem is that they offer a uniquely effective combination for piracy: gunboat turrets and transport cargo space.
That makes them pretty much the ultimate pirating ship - a gunboat can't haul loot, and a (Charon) transport isn't effective against snubs.
I don't really see how they could be balanced as solo-pirating ships unless the weapon slots are changed - to be fair, they'd be excellent pirate ships even with transport guns.
But yeah, best leave them as they are, they're still a huge piracy asset when used together with a CDer.
(02-06-2014, 09:47 AM)Pancakes Wrote: [ -> ]I suggest to leave Salvager as it is, but make Raba the pirate transport of the Corsair alliance side. It's stupid that Corsairs and the assorted use a ship with the logo of their enemies as their main piracy transport.
Give Raba normal transport guns (those are good enough anyway), better agility and better thrusting speed - coupled with a CD of course.
You know the Corsairs got a new (pirate) transport in .87?
Hmm, as a member of [|], I approve the return of a CD slot on the Raba. It gives the Hogos the ability to pirate in a transport again like int good old .85 days (bandit). Ok, seriously now, as already mentioned, both junkers and Hogosha are semi-lawful,
being able to pirate outside house space. And there should be some sort of perk for them compared to generic pirates.
Another reason to add it back is, that also the Farmer Alliance uses the ship, hell, Raba is even sold on a FA base. And they cannot use it for piracy anymore?
What would be a nice suggestion to nerf the Raba to counter the CD-Slot:
- Reduce the amount of GB turrets on it to 50%, rest are transport turrets again (makes sense, as Raba started as failed corsair gunboat, making it a hybrid vessel) It would also deal with with the fact that the gunboat Solaris turrets are OP in their current state.
- Buff the cargo space to 3.650 to make sure it cannot be used by generic pirate IDs (or we will get the same result as it was with all the pirate ID Ascos flying around).
Perhaps this can also be applied to the Salvager...haven`t used that one actually as junker ID.
I had the Raba and the Salvager. Both ships are very good armored and its firepower is better then a liner's.
Missing CD were always a fair drawback on them. Just imagine that power and tanking ability with decent cargo going solo pirate traders. Why do we have Pirate Transports then? This ship is exactly for the solo piracy. Raba and Salvager are more for safely delivering cargo to destination with ability to fight off lone bomber or even small gunship.
For the sake of ballance Id say - do not give Raba and Salvager CDs. This will make them ultimate ships for pirates. And with broken solaris turrets for gunboats.... you dont wanna lolwuts spam those two ships.
(02-06-2014, 10:38 AM)Mercarryn Wrote: [ -> ][*]Reduce the amount of GB turrets on it to 50%, rest are transport turrets again (makes sense, as Raba started as failed corsair gunboat, making it a hybrid vessel) It would also deal with with the fact that the gunboat Solaris turrets are OP in their current state.
Wouldn't work well, transport guns have different speeds/ranges, so it would mess the ship up completely
As a player who started using a raba recently, I find the gunboat turrets and large cargo combination a plus on for the role of the hogosha, flying as a protected transport to the omicrons, doing npc cargo piracy, or acting as an enforcer of Kusari order inside the house space with the help of police, naval and other hogosha forces.
I think giving it a cd (with balances to it), just so it would be able to be fully independent in a piracy situation is unnecessary. After all, if you get some assistance from just one player in a fighter or even a freighter, you're pretty much set for some piracy action. Note that currently the Hogosha only have the borders of Kusari to conduct piracy, and losing the neutral standing to the other houses (except bretonia) would not be a very reasonable balance for a smuggling faction (even the BD would have better connections than us then).
My opinion: Giving a CD to the Raba would not benefit the hogosha and piracy much more than it does now, without a cd on it.
Since junkers have different circumstances, I'll refrain form applying the same suggestion to the Salvager.
Edit: currently the Raba as a quite long power downtime after cruise, I suppose to counter the gb weapons capabilities.