Cerberus turrets | Thoughts

[Timmy]

My personal opinion that they should be removed... They play the same role as primary turrets, but far more effective. So they make cap fights far shorter. Who think what about that?

[Omicron]

They are not that reliable when your target is moving due to varying speed in combination with regular primaries. Also they are useful against bases due to their great efficiency. I want them to stay.

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[Timmy]

I'd say that Cerberusses far more effective against mooving targets then usual primary turrets. As for bases, they should be nerfed, not other way around.

[Trogdor]

Um.

If you removed them:

* I think cap fights would take too long and cruisers would have an even bigger advantage over battleships than they already do.

* What would you carry instead? BS can only carry 20 missiles. Shock Rays are awful. That just leaves mortars. Mortars are of questionable/situational use, Cerbs are much more general-purpose.

* This would reduce variety in available equipment and basically make one battleship play the same as every other of its type.

* As it is, battleships struggle to find a purpose. What do you do with a battleship, besides kill PoBs (and how often does that happen) and other battleships? Every other ship class will either easily run away from you, or kill you by staying out of range of your guns and exploiting their maneuverability to avoid getting hit, while your lack of maneuverability almost guarantees you will be hit.
If BS is only good at killing other BS, what is the point of BS? A side would, logically, not bring a BS and invest the resources into other ships, and ignore the enemy's BS if they have one since it isn't effective at fighting anything but itself. Now you're talking about nerfing even that?

So no I don't agree with removing Cerbs, but you could instead make missiles more attractive, and/or give us other guns that are better at killing smaller ships. This will keep variety intact. Now, you can build a battleship that's focused on killing smaller craft, increasing the BS's value to a group conflict. Or, you can build a BS that's intended to kill the enemy's BS and deny them that firepower advantage. Or you can try and be a mix between the two.

PoBs are really a separate issue. If they're supposed to be combat targets, they should really be much easier both to build and destroy. If they're supposed to be investments, they should be invincible and permanent.

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[Timmy]

Um.

If you removed them:

* I think cap fights would take too long and cruisers would have an even bigger advantage over battleships than they already do.

Making cap fights longer is actually the point. It's not right that snub duel goes for 30 minutes when cap duel at best for 5. Also, removing cerbs would make cruisers far more vulnerable, since that includes cruiser cerbs as well.

* What would you carry instead? BS can only carry 20 missiles. Shock Rays are awful. That just leaves mortars. Mortars are of questionable/situational use, Cerbs are much more general-purpose.

Removing cerbs would put a question about buffing other guns. Like range for primary turrets, accuaricy for mortars and missiles, stuff...

* This would reduce variety in available equipment and basically make one battleship play the same as every other of its type.

This would not change a thing on this matter, since Cerberus are pretty much Primary turret, just with bigger range and damage.

* As it is, battleships struggle to find a purpose. What do you do with a battleship, besides kill PoBs (and how often does that happen) and other battleships? Every other ship class will either easily run away from you, or kill you by staying out of range of your guns and exploiting their maneuverability to avoid getting hit, while your lack of maneuverability almost guarantees you will be hit.
If BS is only good at killing other BS, what is the point of BS? A side would, logically, not bring a BS and invest the resources into other ships, and ignore the enemy's BS if they have one since it isn't effective at fighting anything but itself. Now you're talking about nerfing even that?

This is another question, but I will answer to you. Do not waste it in any combat. BS have specific usage. Basically they are weapon platforms that can provide cover with very heavy guns to lighter ships.

[Syrus]

I'm not to fond of the Cerberus turrets as well by now. I could very well imagine the Primaries and Mortar/Missile/Shock Ray -> heavy gun class sharing the same class again, without having Cerberus turrets at all anymore for Cruisers and BS. Also it would be good to have a much higher missile (torpedo) count on caps. BS can really use them against cruisers.

In vanilla a battleship (the Bretonian stationary battleship in Leeds at least) had Primary, Secondary, Tertiary/Defense and Flak turrets. With the few turrets vanilla Freelancer's battleships had and even with the still rather few turrets Discovery Freelancer's battleship have, I don't think it's needed to have four different turret classes. We have 3 right now on BS and 2 on Cruisers. While I'm quite happy about the classes and all, and think it's a great addition, and while I was all for how it is now, I see now, that this is still not that good. Cerberus turrets decide who wins and who loses on almost every cap fight. Agility for cruisers counts, as the one which can stay in Cerberus range will win against any battleship rather easily. And so on.

Besides removing the Cerberus turrets, Cruisers don't need a change. They already can chose between whether they want to mount a heavy or a normal turret.
I could imagine Battleships getting a more free range of choice, when the heavy and primary class were to be merged while removing the Cerberus turrets. At the same time the primary gun damage and energy usage should be reduced a bit (not too much though! Just so that "all" primaries doesn't overpower as well too much).
On a Bretonia battleship for example you would have 7 mounts on which you can slap primaries, pulses, mortars, missiles or shock rays. So you can chose between a "full primary close combat BS" or something with longer range capabilities.
I still feel like there's not enough choice though. There will always be primaries on a BS, even if it were done like that...which is a bit meh, since cruiser can have completly different setups like "full Solaris+Mortar" or such.

Oh well, just throwing in ideas.
(Yes, the Bret BS is used as an example because I own one and because I love the ship.)

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[Trogdor]

Um.

If you removed them:

* I think cap fights would take too long and cruisers would have an even bigger advantage over battleships than they already do.

Making cap fights longer is actually the point. It's not right that snub duel goes for 30 minutes when cap duel at best for 5. Also, removing cerbs would make cruisers far more vulnerable, since that includes cruiser cerbs as well.

Cruisers would still have mortars, which are far more effective at hitting caps than cap mortars are at hitting Cruisers. Another issue: Now every BS has the same firepower since pretty much every BS can mount 4 prims and shoot them all day; their powercore regen outstrips the energy usage of 4 prims. Differentiation between heavy/light BS has traditionally been the number and placement of its heavy slots.

* What would you carry instead? BS can only carry 20 missiles. Shock Rays are awful. That just leaves mortars. Mortars are of questionable/situational use, Cerbs are much more general-purpose.

Removing cerbs would put a question about buffing other guns. Like range for primary turrets, accuaricy for mortars and missiles, stuff...

1) the community seems to like that BS is weak and doesn't really have effective weapons to deal with non-battleships. I can only assume this is why BS can only carry 20 missiles, far less than the number of CMs its targets can hold.
2) in line with this, I don't see what else you could give BS that wouldn't either fill the same role as you're trying to eliminate by taking out cerbs, or violate 1 because they're intended to kill lighter ships.

* This would reduce variety in available equipment and basically make one battleship play the same as every other of its type.

This would not change a thing on this matter, since Cerberus are pretty much Primary turret, just with bigger range and damage.

It would. If I have 4 heavy slots, what am I going to put in them? Would you put more than 2 missiles? No, ammo is too limited. Would you put more than 2 mortars? No, that leaves you vulnerable to cruisers, plus your powercore won't be able to sustain firing 3+ mortars anyway. So, every 4-slot BS is going to be running 2 missile 2 mortar.

* As it is, battleships struggle to find a purpose. What do you do with a battleship, besides kill PoBs (and how often does that happen) and other battleships? Every other ship class will either easily run away from you, or kill you by staying out of range of your guns and exploiting their maneuverability to avoid getting hit, while your lack of maneuverability almost guarantees you will be hit.
If BS is only good at killing other BS, what is the point of BS? A side would, logically, not bring a BS and invest the resources into other ships, and ignore the enemy's BS if they have one since it isn't effective at fighting anything but itself. Now you're talking about nerfing even that?

This is another question, but I will answer to you. Do not waste it in any combat. BS have specific usage. Basically they are weapon platforms that can provide cover with very heavy guns to lighter ships.

If BS are only to be used under certain situations, like only when you're flying as a group, what do you do with it the other 99% of the time? Let it sit and collect dust? That doesn't sound like a very good use of 1.5-2 billion credits to me. And I don't want to have to say 'oh, I feel like playing my battleship, but I can't because it isn't good for anything by itself'.
Plus that's not how every fleet operates. Zoner and BHG Bs wander around on their own all the time. Hessian BS seems intended to fight while running away from the enemy, not sitting in formation. And unless you're Bretonia, Liberty, Rheinland, or Corsair, good luck even finding anyone to fly around with you.
Finally, "weapon platforms that provide cover". They're not. The enemy is not going to let you get them in range of your guns. They will either draw the fight away from you, or, If your escorts stick close to you, they will snipe at you from beyond your weapon range and take you out first.
This has been debated a lot. How do you make BS more powerful against small ships without making them so good at it that no one wants to fly anything else?

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[Timmy]

You are not looking further then what I said. Even when I say to look further. Seriously, remooving cerbs might take more effords. Whole capital ship thing have to be changed. And in my personal opinion they should be handed to specific people only, not be free for sale. If you don't know what to do other 99% of the time, then fly snub. At least survives far longer.

And that comes from one of the biggest cap whores on this server.

Well, I suppose this thread took attention of those who fly for nonsential and quick shot pew only. So no point moving it forward.

Also, agains cruiser with mortars you can use another ship. You can't win them all, don't you?

[Trogdor]

I am looking further. I'm saying the community likes weak battleships. Therefore no matter what 'more efforts' you try to take, you are going to be doing one of two things: either replacing cerbs with something else that does the same anti-bs role, or you're going to be fighting the snub-snob portion of the community that doesn't like caps, because they don't want you to be able to kill anything.
And despite the fact that I have been pushing to buff BS firepower, I can see their argument that it would be easy to go too far and make BS the most powerful ship in the game, hands-down.

Caps handed to certain people only? Caps are a huge draw for the mod, without them you might as well play vanilla FL.
If only a few people have them, what about the rest of us that want them and cant get them? What about when you want to interact with one but they gave the BS to a guy who only plays once a month? What if you hate snubs or you just aren't any good at them, and the only reason you play FL at all is because this mod lets you play as a capital ship?

Finally, in regards to your last comment, what do you mean 'you can't win them all'? What ARE you currently winning? As I said every ship besides BS has a way to deal with the BS. If they're a fighter/gunboat/transport, they use their thruster to get away because they have no chance. If they're a bomber or cruiser, they attack you from long range.
If there is one class of ship that I think BS should be good at killing, its cruisers. They're the biggest, slowest targets that are not other battleships; they are the next size smaller fish.

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