Let's talk on the Nephthys

[Valinor]

Well that reminds me of Templar/Lynx comparison:

Templar
14000 hitpoints
76 b/b
1.0976 max angular speed (radians/sec)
0.4717 time to 90% max angular (seconds)
12400/1270 powerplant
6 guns forwards

Lynx
13200 hitpoints
72 b/b
1.1500 max angular speed (radians/sec)
0.4835 time to 90% max angular (seconds)
12400/1270 powerplant
6 guns forwards

What's the problem with it?

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Official member of the Hessian Conspiracy.

Recruitment | Message Dump | Information center | Criminal database

[... kur nubėgo?]

Neph is one of the easiest to hit fighters out there.

Oh.. and that titan like liberty ship? It needs a buff. Badly.

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Omega Pirates Guild

History of OPG | Antonio "Vilkas" Devivar

[Enoch]

What's the problem with it?

Look at it, it's obviously OP. Right? Right.

You two are clearly insulting me dont you? Maybe you should open a thread instead of throwing such cheap and provoking sentences.

Well that happened, didn't it?

As for the nomad technology and ships, as I said they were nerfed back to human tech mainly because of the scorpion full 8 x nomad gunboat turrets and labraid whines of being super fast.

Those "whines" were justified, as far as whines can be justified.

About the Nephtys/Avenger comparison, I doubt that it needs to be nerfed. I've never flown it but not a lot of people seem consider it overpowered. So the solution would be to buff (I'd prefer the term re-balance in that case) the Avenger (and maybe every other ship of the same type, too). The differences are just too big.

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[Durandal]

About the Nephtys/Avenger comparison, I doubt that it needs to be nerfed. I've never flown it but not a lot of people seem consider it overpowered.

Just because not a lot of people know something doesn't mean it isn't true. No offense to anyone intended here but how many people who actually know their way around a fighter fly Order?

[Ryummel]

Well that reminds me of Templar/Lynx comparison:

Templar
14000 hitpoints
76 b/b
1.0976 max angular speed (radians/sec)
0.4717 time to 90% max angular (seconds)
12400/1270 powerplant
6 guns forwards

Lynx
13200 hitpoints
72 b/b
1.1500 max angular speed (radians/sec)
0.4835 time to 90% max angular (seconds)
12400/1270 powerplant
6 guns forwards

You -still- trying to tell us the that Templar is underpowered? Really? I mean, REAAAAAAAAAALLY?

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[sadtranslation]

Guess that some players are obviously underpowered compared to other players;

yet they still try to blame the gear.

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[Enoch]

Just because not a lot of people know something doesn't mean it isn't true. No offense to anyone intended here but how many people who actually know their way around a fighter fly Order?

Think of it that way; if it were overpowered, we'd have people complaining about it all over the forums.

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[McNeo]

Think of it that way; if it were overpowered, we'd have people complaining about it all over the forums.

That's really more if it gets used and people win with it a lot. To some people, the Guardian was overpowered against the Wraith last version because of some experiences they'd had. An indicator of overpoweredness is actually more popularity than actual overpoweredness, but that's not to say that the two aren't linked, as people gravitate towards the best equipment.

I suspect it's just because some people have a great aversion to the Order due to a variety of factors, and even when they choose to make a character, they go for a specialist ship like a Bastet rather than your "normal" Nephthys.

[mjolnir]

First, don't use Flstat stats as the metric for determining ship handling, it's extremely incomplete.
The max turning rate in flstat lists how fast a ship turns when you move the mouse up and leave it in the top middle of the screen without moving it.
That "acceleration" calculation describes how fast the ship starts to turn when you move the cursor to the top middle of the screen again nothing else.

In real fight the cursor never goes only up/down in the center of the screen. Hence determining real turning of a ship based on flstat numbers is almost as good as guessing. This is specially true for ships that have very different turning rates in different planes (ex: Kingfisher), ships that have very different roll rates/max roll angles (remember 4.85 Raven Claw?). Extreme example is the Templar where flstat lists the only thing it's bad at, while the fact it excels in all the other areas is invisible.

What's more flstat doesn't take into account response when dodging, which also affects the movement used to initiate a slide when sliding or the moves you need to do when trying to drop a mine into the path of someone without ramming him.

===============================


In full handling numbers:

Guardian 150 47000 47000 190000 40000 40000 141000 1.1750 1.1750 1.3475 8400 8400 8400 5.60 5.60 22.62
Avenger 150 46000 46000 90000 41000 41000 66000 1.1220 1.1220 1.3636 8400 8400 8400 5.48 5.48 10.71
Nephthys 150 48000 48000 160000 41000 41000 127000 1.1707 1.1707 1.2598 8400 8400 8400 5.71 5.71 19.05

Out of these 3 ships Guardian is fastest in both turn intitiation and dodging. Avenger rather fast in turn initiation, but has slower max turning speed and is not so good in dodging. Nephthys doesn't start to turn so fast, but dodges good.

Size is obviously very similar, with Guardian just slightly smaller.

======================================================

Nepthys is overall better than Avenger, and has some advantages as well as disadvantages vs Guardian.
Question is does this create any problematic issues?

Order tech should not be available to mercs etc without significant nerfs.
Neither Order nor LN RP currently involves any big attacks vs each other afaik. Order lost Minor which put them even far away from LN and are more concerned with Nomad and BHG threat.

That in mind while Nepthys imo can be a "bit" better than LN ships, it shouldn't be decisively better so there surely is room for tweaks.

Keep in mind though:
While LN has guardian as main fighter and Avenger as a ship for special purposes for Order it's rather the other way around. Nephthys as main fighter and Bastet as special ship.

Nepthys vs Guardian balance is meant to be based on vanilla, where Anubis was clearly more sluggish but had more armor and firepower (though yes I know they were different "level" ships).

I assume McNeo wants Avenger improved and Nepthys nerfed, but would be nice to hear something more concrete and would specially be nice to hear from other people as well.

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Igiss says: Martin, you give them a finger, they bite off your arm.

[McNeo]

As I said, I've flown all four recently and in combat. In fact, the numbers on show make it seem that in this case, FLstat is correct. It is a bit slower than the Guardian, but faster than the Avenger. It's not hard to keep up with a Guardian, which is probably where it's meant to be, but for in exchange for being fractionally slower, it gets in an extra gun, 3500 base hp more (that's 8750 in real money), and the full fat power plant, the only disadvantage compared to the guardian is the size. A size comparable to the Avenger, which is nowhere near it right now.

I'd actually go so far as to say that I found the Nephthys to have the best response of the three, at least it felt quite nippy when flying it*. Even though you say the Avenger has a faster turn initiation, I would say that the ability to change direction quickly ie dodge is probably more representative of turn initiation in a fighter. And then, the real rate of turn during initiation is only as a proportion of the maximum turn rate, so even if the proportion is higher, the real rate of turn could, and sometimes is, lower.

As to what I'd like to see, your conclusion is correct. If it were up to me, I'd turn down the armour rating from 14500 to 12300-12700, b/b value from 78 to 72 and powerplant from 15k to 12.4k, and increase the armour/bb on the Avenger to somewhere like 14000/75. This would place it roughly in the middle of the two, with the exception of its forward firepower. Because of that, I still think this would leave it better than the Avenger or Guardian, but certainly the line would (for me) become less clear, with both ships having advantages and disadvantages compared to each other (in this case, the Nephthys would be faster than the Avenger and have more forward firepower, but the Avenger would have more power to fire and more armour). Right now, it's just in the same boat as the Guardian was against the Sabre last version; the Liberty option is the same or worse in every respect (same plant, less guns, less armour, less regens, less turning, same shape). They even have similar weapon choices, with Order having extra to choose from.

To me, it's silly that the balance requires less attention because there aren't any large scale RP confrontations between Liberty; the reason is the same as leaving the Nephthys "better" because it belongs to the Order, and the Order is meant to be high tech (take a moment to remember where the Order got all their stuff from). They're both still shooting each other, and regularly come to blows in Alaska. Atum, yes? The only reason that doesn't create a large RP confrontation is because it's invincible and nothing can be done about it in a system that Liberty is supposedly keeping under lock and key.

Honestly, I feel that the reason that the Nephthys has been overlooked is much the same as the reason why the Wraith has been the almost-universal ship of choice compared to the Guardian: the player base of each side is at varying levels of skill. Certainly, the gap between the Nephthys and the Avenger is bridgeable by skill (I tested it against a pilot in an Avenger who is better than me, and lost), but then you start penalising one side for being better.

*Of course, being an [LN] guy, I imagine you take what I say with a grain of salt, especially the part where I said "Nephthys feels faster/more responsive". Most people who concern themselves with balance will remember your spiel on subjectivity and the placebo effect, but the point is that they are even comparable in terms of maneuverability is surely too much when placed in combination with all its other features.

By asking for something more concrete, I assumed you meant you wanted me to suggest numbers. I also don't think you're going to get much more in terms of information on the performance of the Nephthys from here, but I could be wrong.