Nova "spam"

[CzeReptile]

Let's see...
We have a "buff solaris", "buff nova", "nerf nova", "nerf flak", a few "buff flaks"...

A regular day on Disco.

Yes yes, we r sorry for beign annoying with the fact that bombers are still uber and battleships got buttkicked with iron rod.

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[DarthBindo]

Shooting a bomber that is attacking a fighter is something different than shooting a bomber evading and firing novas.

Novas are so slow that if you aren't thrusting directly at your target the chance of evasion goes way up.

Yes yes, we r sorry for beign annoying with the fact that bombers are still uber and battleships got buttkicked with iron rod.

Bombers will, and always will be, "uber".
Your dreams of battleships that can take on five bombers and laugh are not going to ever happen, beacuse the only way to balance that with player count is to make battleships prohibitevly expensive, not to own, (anyone can grind out a few hundred mil credits), but to fly and operate.
Two or three bombers can easily kill a lone battleship so that a fleet of ten rheinland turtles doesn't take a quarter or more of server capacity to kill.

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gone four years, first day back: Zoners still getting shot in Theta :|

[McNeo]

Yes yes, we r sorry for beign annoying with the fact that bombers are still uber and battleships got buttkicked with iron rod.

Good job ignoring my long post. Of course, it's expected.

The only thing I think that may require a bit of a change would be flak range, which could be increased to allow the cap pilot more time to flak things away from longer ranges, forcing the bombers in closer. This would also offset the somewhat large sizes of bigger battleships in a way that more flaks can't really do.

Such a modification wouldn't change the mechanics of the flak as a counter to nova torpedoes, just lower the skill bar a bit. The problem then becomes "what happens if you mount five or six on a light BS?". I'd not change the damage, since that would change the mechanics of the weapon.

My only experience with flaks in actual combat is on a battlecruiser, and I know that once the novas start flying, you cant really fire your primary weapons for fear of letting some get through the net. Thus, flak also becomes your primary damage-dealer. It's not too bad in this and it punishes people for getting close, as they need to do, in order to make sure their nova torpedoes have a chance of hitting. I like this trade-off, and I dont think it should change.

As for changing nova torpedo hitpoints, they were specifically altered so the explosion of one nova torpedo cannot kill another, to cut down on instakills and suicides in fighter battles. This means that shooting down nova torpedoes is quite unlikely unless you target the manually and CD. This is also why 9-10k damage flaks dont kill them.

[Govedo13]

In general cutting down the instant kills makes battleships weaker then 4.85.
In 4.85 I killed snubs with double missiles and double razors- now both of those options are gone.
Instant kills are the most valuable option in group fights for capital ships. In 4.85 Solaris was actually able to hurt bombers and fighters in its range, now you have no chance if they dodge.
In 4.85 2 bombers were not able to kill normal(not retarded) battleship pilot- now 2 Bombers can smash normal battleship pilot even if he has 2 fighters to escort him.
Battleships do need better shields and Novas need less shield dmg. The relative small shield dmg of SNAC made possible for Battleship to stay longer alive in 4.85
I love to fly bombers dont get me wrong- but I feel that novas work a way too good on big ships and a way too bad on small ships right now- the increased hitpoints and novas not working vs GBs and Transports properly is strange.

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€œ

Official faction players that are often accused of elitism, never deploy them and have those weird, immersion killing "fair fight/dueling" suicidal hobbies. (yes, i've seen enough of those lolduels, where house military with overwhelming force on the field willingly loses a pilot in a duel. ffs.)

[Zynth]

Battleships do need better shields and Novas need less shield dmg.

Although I myself am a fan of dual novas that obliterate any cap ships. I think this is a good idea.

If we have novas deal less shield damage, the newly added Incapacitor Torpedoes may actually be of some usage.

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[CzeReptile]

Novas are so slow that if you aren't thrusting directly at your target the chance of evasion goes way up.
Bombers will, and always will be, "uber".
Your dreams of battleships that can take on five bombers and laugh are not going to ever happen, beacuse the only way to balance that with player count is to make battleships prohibitevly expensive, not to own, (anyone can grind out a few hundred mil credits), but to fly and operate.
Two or three bombers can easily kill a lone battleship so that a fleet of ten rheinland turtles doesn't take a quarter or more of server capacity to kill.

First off, if you bother to read at all, which you do not obviously, my aim is to have battleships as ships of line, primarily designed to engage and destroy opposing cap force, not be the queens on the battlefield, as you wrongly interpret it here, without more reading. Shameful.

Also, its never about numbers. Its always about skill. I used to demolish bomber squads in either my battleships. Not about that.

Good job ignoring my long post. Of course, it's expected.

The only thing I think that may require a bit of a change would be flak range, which could be increased to allow the cap pilot more time to flak things away from longer ranges, forcing the bombers in closer. This would also offset the somewhat large sizes of bigger battleships in a way that more flaks can't really do.

Such a modification wouldn't change the mechanics of the flak as a counter to nova torpedoes, just lower the skill bar a bit. The problem then becomes "what happens if you mount five or six on a light BS?". I'd not change the damage, since that would change the mechanics of the weapon.

My only experience with flaks in actual combat is on a battlecruiser, and I know that once the novas start flying, you cant really fire your primary weapons for fear of letting some get through the net. Thus, flak also becomes your primary damage-dealer. It's not too bad in this and it punishes people for getting close, as they need to do, in order to make sure their nova torpedoes have a chance of hitting. I like this trade-off, and I dont think it should change.

As for changing nova torpedo hitpoints, they were specifically altered so the explosion of one nova torpedo cannot kill another, to cut down on instakills and suicides in fighter battles. This means that shooting down nova torpedoes is quite unlikely unless you target the manually and CD. This is also why 9-10k damage flaks dont kill them.

I was reffering to Aets post, not yours.
Flak and solaris = joke. You can almost outstrafe sollies at end of their range. And still, its unhittable unless yer truly dumb in bomber.

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[Knjaz]

Ok, I guess that's relatively good amount of people experience.

Novas are so slow that if you aren't thrusting directly at your target the chance of evasion goes way up.

Simply not true, specially for you logged into game and tested it on the station. Nova turning rate is quite good for a torpedo and while turning, it keeps the bonus speed (+200m/s from bomber). Also, you do not consider that it's hard to thrust directly at battleship at a range of 2.2-2.4k for <1.5 seconds?
Don't worry, he won't shoot your nova down. There's another 6-10 that are currently incoming at him from different angles and from different ranges. And there's tons of ships flying around, each with a small crosshair, and he just won't notice your nova in hot battle till it's late. Also he's constantly monitoring position of enemy capital ships and overall flow of battle, to keep situational awareness.

Bombers will, and always will be, "uber".
Your dreams of battleships that can take on five bombers and laugh are not going to ever happen, beacuse the only way to balance that with player count is to make battleships prohibitevly expensive, not to own, (anyone can grind out a few hundred mil credits), but to fly and operate.
Two or three bombers can easily kill a lone battleship so that a fleet of ten rheinland turtles doesn't take a quarter or more of server capacity to kill.

I bet he didn't mean to survive 1:7 odds. More like, have a chance of survival in 13vs16. There's a point after which Nova's limited ammo capacity and it's vulnerability to flak stops being a problem, and that "red line" is getting crossed pretty fast.

We know there's a big difference in flying capital ships and flying fighters, in combat with significant amount of people. If we summarize everything,

*Capital ships are about organization, team tactics and only then - skill. Get few medium-low skilled players, teach them how to work together, and they'll do wonders.
*Fighter fights are completely opposite. Personal skill comes first, tactics and organization last.

I've witnessed that many times, how just 1 player in 4-5 man team is worth more in fight, then the rest of his team when chasing a snubcraft, with all of them being highly organized.
I've never seen a capital ship or gunboat doing same, unless in those cases where it either involved insta-killing snubs with razor-like weaponry (sniping skill), or using ship's agility to evade targets / having better aim to deal damage to targets (agility again.)

This makes your argument about a pair of fighters tearing apart a random bomber in a minute pretty invalid, because from most of the fights I've seen (and I've been in helluva lot of them, as any of us), averagely skilled players are incapable of that. No organizational or tactical measures are able to effectively counter that lack of skill (except for sending them to a Conn "boot camp" for a week. But it's a game, not a job. Also, it's not newbies but averagely skilled players I'm talking about.) That's simply how balance is on Freelancer engine and with current ship/weapon stats.

Let's see...
We have a "buff solaris", "buff nova", "nerf nova", "nerf flak", a few "buff flaks"...

A regular day on Disco.

It's a bit too early to make suggestions, but so far it looks like Nova efficiency increases exponentially with the amount of bombers that have them, to the point where bomber effeciency far exceeds of what it was in 4.85 when turret steering mod wasn't implemented.

If I remember correctly, balance team considered gunboat missiles and battleship missiles also overpowered under certain conditions, that also(but not only or always) involve increased player numbers / large scale fights. And these conditions were easy enough to meet, and were met often enough to draw balance team's attention, what resulted in cutting RR of BS missile in half, and cutting the damage of gunboat missile to 0. Right?


EDIT: I forgot to mention another Nova role in large fights. Now, 1 Nova bomber is enough to completely disable a battlecruiser from active combat. He'll either have to watch for incoming torpedos (which will certainly be incoming from different angles), or suffer heavy damage. (yes, nova ammo comes into play here, but you don't need to do that for the whole fight. If 2 enemy battlecruisers are following your battleship, that is trying to escape, just assign 1 bomber to each of them. Job done, these bombers will buy you precious time... or severely damage them. In 85, no bomber could achieve such results (except for the very heavy ones... maybe)

[Dratai]

I find the problem not to be novas or bombers in themselves (though I have yet to fly any capital ship). But you would think a ship of that size and crew would have dedicated systems/personell to point-defense.

The fact that you have flak cannons but have to manually aim/pick the out between all the other things you're doing seems a little cumbersome in my opinion (yet again, no experience).

So wouldn't the solution be: make something that people can get for their ships that makes flaks/whatever guns else automatic, at a loss of efficiency (aiming time, accuracy, energy, that sort of thing) and only activatable for one type of gun (flak, for instance). So the pilot would still have to pick the enemy off and wouldn't maybe get as many torpedoes as they would manually, but wouldn't have to pay that much attention to it. (conversively, if you had this activated on your main guns, you probably wouldn't hit anything)
Because otherwise we're gonna keep having these discussions, and the only solution will be having two capital ships, one dedicated to sniping down torpedoes and one dedicated to very long range fire support via, I dunno, missiles.

Now I have no experience dealing with caps... but that's what I think is a functionable solution as opposed to "nerf all the things"

[Laerethe]

Two or three bombers can easily kill a lone battleship so that a fleet of ten rheinland turtles doesn't take a quarter or more of server capacity to kill.

If that was accurate, it would be fine. However, as few as four-five bombers can achieve that. Seven-eight could do that pretty safely. 500k damage each every 15 seconds or so PER bomber. Flaks becomes useless with more than three bombers.

[Omicron]

I have no issue with Nova spam itself. I am concerned with high energy usage of FLAK's to counter them. Gun itself should be automatic like any other turret/gun not semi-auto tap (missiles, razor).

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