' Wrote:i think unselie spoke up for transports some times. - and thats about it
Dev is pirates. Transports are balanced, not to win an encounter, but to be able to survive it long enough to run to a safe hole, and hide. Great, we've a class of rabbits. Rabbits are fun, yeah? Running away, struggling to suvive, so on, so forth? Great fun. Greeeeaaat fun.
On the other hand, Pirating is fun. These days, its even damn profitable. More so than trading itself, apparently.
I was told that transports were being made more expensive because trading was important to the RP of disco, the food chain idea, again. I was told that routes didn't earn more than 30M/hour for the same reason. I was told that things like the Atrain got a huge price buff to encourage diversity. So, transports, more expensive because 1: devs(I'm in this group, but for a different reason: I lead a tradefaction, Join Bowex) want you, the community, trading more. A Battleship costs around a Billion, or in other terms, a minimum of 33 hours spent providing encounters as a trader for pirates, which encourages pirates to provide encounters for other groups, food chain. 2: Diversity. Dev would like to see more traders in less than 5k tradeships, and in 84, less than the Atrain. So they made a slew of new tradeships, and made it take a good deal longer to trade out of the lower teir ones..again, increasing the duration that you, the trader, are available for a pirate encounter.
Course, we come back to the Fun/not fun debate. Balance exists, I assume, because we came to the conclusion somewhere that things were more fun when they were balanced. They're certianly not realistic..so if its not about fun...what're you doing, dev?
In all serious, Transports lose their encounters. Sure, they can 'run away' and get a special ruleset that says they can come back. But they lose the fight. Balanced fights make more fun, and there was any wonder why people don't like trading? Even when it ceases to be boring, even when you run into another player...you're more than likely going to lose. Sounds like fun, yes?
I wonder what would happen if the SNAC were removed from the mod or nerfed to be no better than a codename.
Not necessarily suggesting it, just wondering what would happen to all the pilots who rely so much on it.
As I see it (I might be wrong, I'm still new compared to some people here), a lot of the balance arguments/hissy fits/troubles stem from the fact that bombers have been buffed way out of their supposed role into the stratosphere.
Now bombers only have 4 guns in most cases, and most of the others have 2 guns and 2 turrets.
The guns tend to be class 10 slots and the turrets class 5
Most HFs/SHFs have far greater gun count and should (read should) be able to cream a bomber like no tomorrow.
So why does the bomber win so much more often?
1; SNAC. Its insane that anyone with a few dozen million credits can buy a weapon that makes a nuke or a military grade torpedo look like a daisy-pansy-girly-man's weapon.
2; Hull strength. Not bad in and of itself but it is a contributing factor that allows the other ones to work
3; Power plant. Its bloody HUGE.
4; Botts/Batts. Say HOW many? I had to do a triple take.
5; agility. Its nuts to think you can pack so much more armor and bot/batt count and avionics into the same level of agility as a HF.
either bombers need their armor, bots/batts, and powerplant nerfed down to SHF level, or they need their agility sliced down significantly.
A bomber should be nothing, repeat, nothing without fighter escorts.
Yes, it is designed to have weapons that should make large ships tremble and quake in their boots I won't argue that...
But a bomber should have little to no survivability in combat without an escort, and should have little to no combat potential against fighter types.
That, and if the SNAC isnt removed, it should be military only. Strictly.
That makes no sense whatsoever. No offence intended, I just see no logic in that argument.
Hypothetically if SNAC is removed/highly restricted;
People would still use bombers because there are always capital ships. But the bombers would need escorts, so more people would buy fighters.
Bombers would be useless for pirates in single ship pirating scenarios so pirates would use fighters, thus they would have to work in packs, thus motivating traders to realistically hire escorts that could realistically do some good for them.
End result; more fighters, less bombers, same number of capitals and traders as there are now with perhaps a slight increase in traders.
' Wrote:That makes no sense whatsoever. No offence intended, I just see no logic in that argument.
Hypothetically if SNAC is removed/highly restricted;
People would still use bombers because there are always capital ships. But the bombers would need escorts, so more people would buy fighters.
Bombers would be useless for pirates in single ship pirating scenarios so pirates would use fighters, thus they would have to work in packs, thus motivating traders to realistically hire escorts that could realistically do some good for them.
End result; more fighters, less bombers, same number of capitals and traders as there are now with perhaps a slight increase in traders.
Hahahahahaha.
Even Dusty didn't make me laugh this lot.
Remove the supernova and here will be the result in all Sirius :
Quote:
no offense to Apocalypse wing heh, that was just an illustration:)
DON'T D[color=#FFCC66]ARE TOUCH THE HOLY SUPERNOVA !
' Wrote:1) It's because transports are balanced against the VHF. The dev's would probably prefer it if people pirated in VHF, so they've placed the transports at a level where piracy in a VHF is hard but not impossible. This unfortunately makes for an easy job when it comes to bombers. Bombers can't be nerfed in any significant way against transports because that would mean adversely affecting their anti-capital role.
' Wrote:Then the devs should balance it against bombers, because I have been pirated by a VHF a total of zero times since 4.85 came out, and I can count the number of VHF piracies I dealt with in 4.84 on one hand.
Both good points. I'm sure the developers do play the game...do they run across this instance? and if so, do they care that their balance isn't working off the correct premise?
' Wrote:Traders are intended to be cash cows. Not particularly aggressive, but bulky. Like real cows. When local terrorists try to tip the cows over, they roll or run away. Then you get ships like the Shire, which is... A cow with fangs I guess. Still a cow though (and the usefulness of fangs on a cow is debatable).
More like horns on a bull. Those horns can kill you too.
' Wrote:People treat Transports like crap, but there ARE those of us who fly them as our main ship, and we'd like to stop being everybody's butt monkeys.
Tell it brother! Hear Hear!
' Wrote:Point is, you're pitting a military grade piece of technology against a supply runner. Truck Vs. RPG. The truck is big, costs a hell of a lot more than the tiny, tiny guy with the abnormally large gun, but the RPG will most probably win through.
damn good point. never actually thought of it that way. But riddle me this. That RPG is kind of a one-shot deal. That truck is probably getting RPG'd in a zone where there's pewpew power around it. If that RPG misses, the shooter of said RPG is going to get a world o' hurt put on him. Hell, the truck could run him over. As it stands now...not the case.
' Wrote:What you're asking for is for the single most non-combatant ship class of the game to suddenly grow a pair and be able to tear up bombers. I can't see it ever happening. If you don't want extra turrets, by all means slap on copieous amounts of extra hull. At least that way you've got a fair chance of making it home if you focus on running.
Just what exactly are you asking for though? Nerf the bombers or buff the transports? Nerf the bombers has been done to death, and buff the transports could be done in two ways - more turrets or more armour.
Not necessarily. What's being asked is that transports be given a chance. And more armor isn't the answer (ask a BS driver, they'll tell you). More turrets would be nice, but more of the same crappy turrets isn't the answer. It's been asked (over and over again) to give transports the ability to mount different TYPES of weapons. I've got four debbies and eight Purple Goddesses on my Shire, and yes, those are FIGHTER turrets. You know why? because they're the best defense against what shoots us now.
If there were Transport Pulse, Razor, and Missle turrets, that may not be the case.
' Wrote:So they have to work more in packs to actually do anything, look at the OPG, Buccaneers, even NPCs in tradelanes.
And those two groups, and a few others, work very well in packs. But most of the pirates on Disco are unaffiliated, and it shows, especially toward the core. Some of them do work in groups...and here's how that encounter goes.
Pirate1: Pay 2m or dai
Trader: Alright...here's 2m
Pirate1: Thank you...now my buddy has something to say
Pirate2: Pay me 2m or we'll kill you
Trader: But I just paid!
Pirate3: Don't forget me too...hahahahaaa 2m or dai.
And people sometimes wonder why traders say "just kill me".
' Wrote:I blame the economy.
I blame Zelot.
' Wrote:I blame the stockmarket...
I still blame Zelot.
' Wrote:Dev is pirates. Transports are balanced, not to win an encounter, but to be able to survive it long enough to run to a safe hole, and hide. Great, we've a class of rabbits. Rabbits are fun, yeah? Running away, struggling to survive, so on, so forth? Great fun. Greeeeaaat fun.
On the other hand, Pirating is fun. These days, its even damn profitable. More so than trading itself, apparently.
I was told that transports were being made more expensive because trading was important to the RP of disco, the food chain idea, again. I was told that routes didn't earn more than 30M/hour for the same reason. I was told that things like the Atrain got a huge price buff to encourage diversity. So, transports, more expensive because 1: devs(I'm in this group, but for a different reason: I lead a tradefaction, Join Bowex) want you, the community, trading more. A Battleship costs around a Billion, or in other terms, a minimum of 33 hours spent providing encounters as a trader for pirates, which encourages pirates to provide encounters for other groups, food chain. 2: Diversity. Dev would like to see more traders in less than 5k tradeships, and in 84, less than the Atrain. So they made a slew of new tradeships, and made it take a good deal longer to trade out of the lower teir ones..again, increasing the duration that you, the trader, are available for a pirate encounter.
Course, we come back to the Fun/not fun debate. Balance exists, I assume, because we came to the conclusion somewhere that things were more fun when they were balanced. They're certianly not realistic..so if its not about fun...what're you doing, dev?
In all serious, Transports lose their encounters. Sure, they can 'run away' and get a special ruleset that says they can come back. But they lose the fight. Balanced fights make more fun, and there was any wonder why people don't like trading? Even when it ceases to be boring, even when you run into another player...you're more than likely going to lose. Sounds like fun, yes?
I'm just going to quote the whole blasted thing. Tell it sister!
Pirating isn't as profitable as trading I believe, but it's more engaging (no pun intended) for players than plying the lanes/jumpholes. The problem I have with pirates; and this goes toward your second paragraph, is that the standard two million (2m for those who can't read well) is a LOT more than it was in v4.84. Everything costs more, the value of the credit went up, but the economic-education challenged among the player-base hasn't (can't) figure that out.
Two million was fine when there were routes (both RP and ooRP) that could make you decent money per hour. But in the new Disco, those routes don't (really) exist. There are some that you can make a decent profit per hour, but now if you meet two pirates at 2m a piece on a one hour route, that's almost 20% of your profit. If you don't think that's alot, send 20% of your character's profits to Bowex>Majestic.Skies and see how much you miss it.
You know, that's like your third post in this thread, none of them constructive. +3 to you good sir, well spammed. [/sarcasm]
' Wrote:I wonder what would happen if the SNAC were removed from the mod or nerfed to be no better than a codename.
Fire and brimstone would rain from the sky, and the gods of Disco would smite all who do not cringe before their mighty power.
But lets take these one at a time.
' Wrote:1; SNAC. Its insane that anyone with a few dozen million credits can buy a weapon that makes a nuke or a military grade torpedo look like a daisy-pansy-girly-man's weapon.
Actually, they're seven million and change. The world we live in today is afraid of small groups (the generally western-accepted word Terrorists) getting their hands on a big boomboom (nuke). Relatively small amount of cash makes a relatively large dent in the world. (this is not a political argument, don't make it one).
' Wrote:2; Hull strength. Not bad in and of itself but it is a contributing factor that allows the other ones to work
You try doing a bombing run flying a barn door (Barghest/Waran) at a battleship with 14/16/20 turrets all shooting at you.
' Wrote:3; Power plant. Its bloody HUGE.
Just enough to fire off a SNAC and a Nuke mine, and then it's time to recharge. Wouldn't call that huge, but just enough to fire it's primary weapon. It's only "huge" in comparison to VHFs and the guns it currently can fire.
' Wrote:4; Botts/Batts. Say HOW many? I had to do a triple take.
Survivability to be able to take down it's primary target. Problem is this makes it seem invincible to the secondary targets that bombers tend to hit.
Also, as a side note, the powerplants of bombers WERE brought down significantly before the final release of 4.85 in an effort to combat this syndrome (not sindrom, although he's a good bomber pilot).
' Wrote:5; agility. Its nuts to think you can pack so much more armor and bot/batt count and avionics into the same level of agility as a HF.
Well, that's a bit of an exaggeration there. I've looked, but can't find one bomber that's on par agility-wise with any of the heavy fighters.
But this is where I feel the most ground can be made in bomber balance. As a bomber pilot, I know how agile some of them are. Flying my Roc feels like I'm flying my Insurgent, and it shouldn't be that way. Stepping from a VHF to a Bomber should feel like stepping from a Percheron to a Shire (If you don't get it, join Bowex).
I've suggested several times (how many bomber threads are there?) that bombers can have their agility lowered to be on par with Gunboats, BUT their strafe ability be kept at current levels. No one seems to think this idea is worth mention though, all they cry is "SNAC is overpowered!" with pitchforks and (gleam)scythes in hand (shout out to Phantoms!)
As this is a Transport discussion, this little change to bombers would make them easier to hit with current (and hopefully future) transport weaponry, and also escorts if they're flying with the beasts of burden. This would in turn strengthen the ability of the Transport to fight off (not destroy necessarily, but scare away) the nasty pirates.
' Wrote:If SNAC is removed then no one will buy fighters bcoz no one will buy bomber so there will be only caps and caps and caps
Not all right, but not totally wrong either.
' Wrote:That makes no sense whatsoever. No offence intended, I just see no logic in that argument.
Hypothetically if SNAC is removed/highly restricted;
People would still use bombers because there are always capital ships. But the bombers would need escorts, so more people would buy fighters.
Bombers would be useless for pirates in single ship pirating scenarios so pirates would use fighters, thus they would have to work in packs, thus motivating traders to realistically hire escorts that could realistically do some good for them.
End result; more fighters, less bombers, same number of capitals and traders as there are now with perhaps a slight increase in traders.
More wrong than right I'm afraid.
If the SNAC was removed, yes, people would still use bombers, because there'll always be capital ships. But without the most effective way to handle said caps, necessity would predicate a move to ships that would be able to take out the big ships...more big ships. Bombers would still be out there for certain groups, as the Outcasts and Co. still would have an effective means to taking down a large ship's shields quickly (Inferno for the obtuse), while the rest of Sirius would be stuck with Paralyzers and Debilitators. You ever try taking down a battleship shields without a SNAC? In a bomber that now handles like a Gunboat? Without it's primary weapon?
The end result would NOT be "more fighters...et al", but a decided decrease in fighters and bombers, and more of a move to Gunboats, Cruisers, and higher.
Thoughts? Comments? General Guffaws at my lack of logic and lack of Dusty-like lulz
there wouldn t be an excessive "cap-spam" if the holy SN was nerft. - saying that suggests that there are very many hidden capital ship players that just don t play a capital ship, cause they are "afraid" of the supernova / bombers.
but i think we should hold the community to higher standards than this rather weak argument. - players play the ships they want to roleplay.
personally, i don t think there d be many more capital ships. - a player that doesn t like capital ships won t suddenly play them, just cause they became stronger. - a player that likes capital ships has not suddenly stopped playing them cause the SN was introduced in 4.83.
there are many players that "discover" capital ships - and give them up after some time - cause they realize that its just not what they like. - this has nothing at all to do with being powerful, being weak, being pvped too much etc. - it has all to do with the players preferences.
saying everyone will suddenly fly battleships is really silly. - there are so many players that simply love fighters - or even transports. - players that wouldn t even fly a battleship if these were as powerful as they ought to be.
the fear of the capspam is not supported by any numbers or referrence in disco history. - there was a time when there were only 2 bombers and a dedicated anti-cap weapon doing 48.000 damage only ( of course, you could mount it on a VHF and mount 2 of them on a bomber )
but even with this lower damage - there was never a "cap-spam" - there were complaints about capspams - but never a real capspam ( at least not regarding to server statistics ) - the amount of capital ships has been pretty steady in the past. ( around 5-10% for battleships and up to 3 times more for the smaller caps ) - the population of bombers however went up a lot.
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