1) I think the prices for pilots needs to be rebalanced a little bit. Right now, if you want money, it's infinitely more effective to farm low-class ships (e.g. piranhas) with crap weaponry, as better/well equipped ships (like Hammerheads with class 10 weapons) give almost nothing. Increase the weapon/other equipment drop rate and decrease the price of most pilots. Also, why do bounty hunter pilots which can be acquired from crappily-equipped Piranhas pay 10K whereas Kusari naval officers in better ships only pay 4.5K? Another idea suggested by my friend is to make "Veteran" and "Elite" pilots that are worth more.
2) The main issue: The AI sucks. A friend of mine figured out why: They never shoot all their guns! I think this is an AI bug caused by the mod, but I'm not sure. They only fire one or two of their guns at any one time. This might have something to do with their tendency to fire sideways for some reason, even in fighters. Fixing this would make fights more of a challenge and less of a grind (as they will be actually able to kill you).
3) Mines aren't great. How about you vastly increase the shield damage inflicted by mines? This would REALLY make them useful and worth the cost.
1.) Yes, this one is true. But how many places can you find to sell Bounty Hunter pilots for over 10k where Piranhas are found? The places where BHG pilots are sold for 10k+ is where you'll find Hammerheads. So you either harvest some cheap Piranha pilots and then drag them all back to Crete/Malta, or you kill them around Crete/Malta, but it takes longer to kill. Pretty balanced it seems..
2.) This is not a bug issue. Play Vanilla, ships don't fire all their guns there either. This is part of original FL. They DO fire all the guns, but not all at the same time. They fire them in sequence, or at random. It would cause loads of rebalancing patrols and NPC ship loadouts to change it.
3.) I take it you've never found the Nuclear Mine? Does PLENTY of shield damage, and if your going against a VHF/LF, kills in one hit if they hit it with shield down.
Quote:1.) Yes, this one is true. But how many places can you find to sell Bounty Hunter pilots for over 10k where Piranhas are found? The places where BHG pilots are sold for 10k+ is where you'll find Hammerheads. So you either harvest some cheap Piranha pilots and then drag them all back to Crete/Malta, or you kill them around Crete/Malta, but it takes longer to kill. Pretty balanced it seems..
Galileo is full of piranhas and you can sell pilots at a nearby pirate base for 10K
Quote:2.) This is not a bug issue. Play Vanilla, ships don't fire all their guns there either. This is part of original FL. They DO fire all the guns, but not all at the same time. They fire them in sequence, or at random. It would cause loads of rebalancing patrols and NPC ship loadouts to change it.
It would be easy to change, and you wouldn't have to rebalance anything. Right now everything's ridiculously easy, and this would just bring up the difficulty.
Quote:3.) I take it you've never found the Nuclear Mine? Does PLENTY of shield damage, and if your going against a VHF/LF, kills in one hit if they hit it with shield down.
At an absolutely massive price.
1.) You have to be friendly with that specific pirate group to do those things.
2.) I take it you've not flown against Guard/Nomad/MkII House fighters yet? You'll find that it WOULD unbalance their difficulties.. Namely, making those three types of ships be able to take on anything. Now remember, 4 fighters can take down a battleship. Now look if NPCs did the same amount of damage as we do? Battleships would die in under a minute against NPC fighters. That IS unbalanced and they would be overpowered. They are meant to be guards, not gods. Some things will upset balance in this mod, this is one of them. Go fight the Zoner Guard in Omicron-74, check out Livadia Shipyards. Then come back here and tell me that NPCs are no trouble at all.
3.) That massive price is there because they CAN be used against other player fighters. Why sell it cheap so people will mine-spam? This stops people from just mine-spamming like crazy. Same reasons for the Sidewinder Missile's price, and the sunslayer torp, and the Cannonballs, and Battleship Cruise Disrupters. They are extremely good pieces of machinery, and are as expensive as good pieces of machinery. Don't like the price, than don't use it.
Quote:1.) You have to be friendly with that specific pirate group to do those things.
No...you just have to not be hostile...Which is the same for every other faction in the game.
Quote:2.) I take it you've not flown against Guard/Nomad/MkII House fighters yet? You'll find that it WOULD unbalance their difficulties.. Namely, making those three types of ships be able to take on anything. Now remember, 4 fighters can take down a battleship. Now look if NPCs did the same amount of damage as we do? Battleships would die in under a minute against NPC fighters. That IS unbalanced and they would be overpowered. They are meant to be guards, not gods. Some things will upset balance in this mod, this is one of them. Go fight the Zoner Guard in Omicron-74, check out Livadia Shipyards. Then come back here and tell me that NPCs are no trouble at all.
Okay? Even if there are a few difficult NPC encounters out there, the vast majority of encounters in the mod are still insanely easy. It would definitely be worth it to change the few ones that are currently balanced for the sake of making EVERYTHING good.
Quote:3.) That massive price is there because they CAN be used against other player fighters. Why sell it cheap so people will mine-spam? This stops people from just mine-spamming like crazy. Same reasons for the Sidewinder Missile's price, and the sunslayer torp, and the Cannonballs, and Battleship Cruise Disrupters. They are extremely good pieces of machinery, and are as expensive as good pieces of machinery. Don't like the price, than don't use it.
Alright, that's well and good, except that still makes most other mines useless. Mines cost the same as a similarly powered missile, yet generally if an enemy is in a position where you might hit him with a mine, his shields will be up and it will do little damage.
The idea of an EMP mine has been suggested, don't know where the idea went.
The idea of having an EMP mine would be great! however i find that nukes already deal more then enough shield damage to fighters, which is what you will be using a might against anyways.
Verginix Out
They're supposed to be expensive. Back in 4.80, we had Supernova mines that had a splash damage range of like 500m, and was what you're looking for. They cost 2.5 mil per mine. Nuc mines are not superbly expensive, they're, in fact, quite cheap. Mines aren't the uber-pwnge weapons. They're only to be used in tactics.
I demand a sampling pack of these so-called 'supernova mines'.
By sampling pack, I mean lifetime supply.
>.>
<.<
HarleyCo!
1.) Friendly can mean neutral. Basically I'm saying that you can't be hostile to them, and have to sort your reps out. Can't kill BHG and sell them there without getting on bad terms with Liberty.
2.) Lets assume we changed patrols to that difficulty. Now lets say someone plays SP, or plays MP the normal way (mission running for cash). Now.. That small puny starflier faces 10 Rogues in that first mission. Boom goes starflier. Not everyone who plays is a great flyer. Those patrols HAVE to be the way they are, or it becomes TOO hard for most people to get started. We don't all have level 10 VHFs and capships. Plus, NPCs aren't meant to be the equal of a player. Players are MEANT to win. Such is the same in Vanilla Freelancer. Now since you completely ignored my example of a BS, assume your fighting another player. Cruiser vs. Cruiser. Your even with skill, in the same ship. But one tries cruising away. You fire a cruise disrupter, it stops him, but turns all the ships around you to red. All of the sudden your shield is gone because 15+ NPCs just shot at it, with all guns blazing and no energy requirements that they have to follow. Very quickly, your dead. You won't stand a chance in capships against a legion of NPCs if we implemented this. Then if we rebalanced capships to be able to take that much damage and not die, normal player fighters won't ever have a chance at defeating them. Ta-da, capships become gods, fighters are no longer used, pvp is bugged if you ever use a missile or CD, dooming the fight, and running missions without a level 10 VHF or capship becomes impossible. Congrats, you've ruined the game. Done with this topic now?
3.) While your playing, please try to remember, Freelancer starts with low-level NPCs and goes to high-level NPCs. The lower mines are meant for those NPCs. Higher-damage are meant for stronger NPCs. In Vanilla, there were NO mines suited to hurting player ships. Now we have this nuc mine. On one hand your complaining that they don't do enough damage, on the other your saying this mine that DOES do enough damage, is making all the other mines obsolete, which would be obsolete anyway. Make up your mind, and get on with it. There really is nothing to complain about here. If we didn't have the Nuc mine, the others still wouldn't be used. Price is determined on the weapon's usefulness. Its expenses, deal with that. Its expensive because it aids you heavily. Enemy fighter + Nuc Mine = Dead. Hence, Nuc Mine = Expensive.