Cruiser Battle Razors

[Aeqvinox]

Cruiser Battle Razors need more love.


They received a buff to their projectile speed for a reason - someone realized they are an AA weapon, but... currently using razors is equivalent to flying "i'm scared of rape" type of cruiser, and having no anticap weaponry at all, in fear of one thing only - nova bombers.


There is simply no room for them with the current hardpoint splitting, and mounting just one where possible - is a big disadvantage to the weapon itself. We can safely call it a nerf, because you can only fight off targets that are the best at avoiding them - fighters. You need -two- to fight off bombers and gunboats. Two to kill a bomber with a lucky snipe, two to tap into your power reserves when fighting a gunboat [except on heavy cruisers].

I know that hardpoint splitting is about choices, but we could make it about compromises, and it would still be almost impossible to make a pwn-it-all loadout with just 12 hardpoints maximum.


Few possible solutions, not at all saying that the first is totally awesome and stuff:


1. Class 6 razors, but scaled down to ~2/3'rds of damage.
This way a cruiser captain faces a tough choice - stick with his 6-8 solaris, or sacrifice those to mount 2-3 razors instead, and work on his aim and timing.

Similarly to gunboat razor loadouts, where 2 are vs fighters, 3 are vs light bombers, 4 are vs heavy bombers, for cruisers:

1 razor vs light targets, 25k damage - kills LF's, HF's and light, agile VHF's up to Eagle, Touketsu.
2 razor vs medium targets, 50k damage - kills VHF's, light bombers up to Falcata.
3 razor vs heavy targets, 75k damage - kills SHF's and the rest of the heavy bombers.

2. Class 6 razors, but power usage increased by 20k-70k energy per shot.
A fair compromise - lowering the efficiency from 0.158 to 0.146-0.12 so they don't take the place of LM (0.15 d/e) as the "main cannon" in fights vs gunboats and cruisers.

This will ensure that LM or two will still have it's rightful place on every cruiser, filling the heavy slots along with cerbs/missiles, but instead primaries/solaris number will suffer, and we will have PC-NPC cruisers flying around, with every weapon possible mounted <3

3. More heavy slots for cruisers *shrugs*.
5-6 for heavies, 3-4 for mediums, 2-3 for lights. But this, of course won't work all that well.

Disagree. Discuss. Decide.

PS. I kindly ask people that have little to no experience in flying cruiser class vessels to refrain from voicing their strongly negative opinions on the matter, as you are not qualified to make an unbiased balance assessment. Thank you.

[NonSequitor]

Personally, I think option (3) might be the most universally accepted.

Razors currently draw enough energy from the powercore to make placing more than 2 on your cruiser a challenge. The larger cruisers would have the powercore to use multiple razors effieciently, an advantage that would be offset by their size and lower maneuverability.

[Slartibartfast]

Personally, I think option (3) might be the most universally accepted.

Razors currently draw enough energy from the powercore to make placing more than 2 on your cruiser a challenge. The larger cruisers would have the powercore to use multiple razors effieciently, an advantage that would be offset by their size and lower maneuverability.

Or perhaps more likely, they'd mount additional Cerbs, which deliver a world of hurt on gunboats and other cruisers.

Nah, I think the second option would represent the best compromise.

[Ursus]

This has been brought up a few times in one of the balance threads. Cruiser BR is pointless right now. A cerberus turret has 4x the refire and does 2x the damage per second, at longer range, for about the same energy consumption. Until the BR is comparable to this level of output, its only purpose is a newbie flag.

My desired fix is to double the refire rate but leave the rest of the stats alone, so that it is basically similar DPS as cerberus turret but you are putting all of your hopes on fewer shots. This would make it more useful as anti-gunboat and anti-destroyer finishing weapon, when youre powerplant is low and you don't want to wait for them to get shields back. We don't need the BR for anti-snubcraft, since we already have multiple weapons for that, not just the cerberus but also the regular turrets and especially the cruiser solaris turrets which still work quite well.

Biggest balance problem with doubling the refire is that it would be faster than gunboat razor. That one needs to be bumped up a little bit too though.

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Discovery 24/7 Negotiating Tactics:

[Knjaz]

Personally, I think option (3) might be the most universally accepted.

Razors currently draw enough energy from the powercore to make placing more than 2 on your cruiser a challenge. The larger cruisers would have the powercore to use multiple razors effieciently, an advantage that would be offset by their size and lower maneuverability.

Or perhaps more likely, they'd mount additional Cerbs, which deliver a world of hurt on gunboats and other cruisers.

Nah, I think the second option would represent the best compromise.

Same opinion here. Increasing the amount of heavy slots would make cruiser basics obsolete, especially on light cruisers, where solaris are most effective. It would allow them to be excellent anti-snub platforms without losing their anti-cruiser/gunboat effeciency.


Second option would be best for those, and I'd decrease their RR, maybe.

P.S. As for battleship razors, it's whole different story that ideally would require relocation of battleship heavy slots (afaik)... =\

[Aeqvinox]

We don't need the BR for anti-snubcraft, since we already have multiple weapons for that, not just the cerberus but also the regular turrets and especially the cruiser solaris turrets which still work quite well.

Multiple weapons?

Right now i know only one reliable weapon, that somewhat works for all cruisers vs nova bombers - Light Mortar - every cruiser has one (or at least should), not every cruiser can have 2x BR's.

That is not it's role, and paradoxically it plays it with much more efficiency than solaris.

Solaris are a defensive-support weapon. You cannot hope to destroy a bomber with them unless he:
- has no idea what he's doing
- forgot where his regen keys are
- is the last guy on the losing side of the battle

Light Mortar provides you with a solution to the problem, however crude, but even if you manage to reduce enemy bomber numbers by 1 - the efficiency of this weapon is 100% more than solaris, and the damage potential of the enemy is reduced.

Everyone knows this, that in a large battle, if enemy bombers have free reign over your caps - you lose.
Battle razor is meant to be a defense against bombers, who have... 4000m range anyway. How about time for the bombers to stop being so "in your face" maybe?


PS. Oh, and regular turrets don't work against snubs. Yes, i know, you or someone else killed a guy or two with them, i did too. That doesn't count, sorry.

[Prysin]

Indeed Light Mortar is the most efficient and universally effective weapon cruisers have at their disposal.

And, its sad to say, but in cruiser V cruiser your more likely to own your opponent with 2 cerbs then 4 razors....

Cruiser razor does more then enough damage, its achillies heel is that its range and speed is far sub par.

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DHC Discord

[Govedo13]

Well I spoke about that 1 year ago only when the turret split was just a idea. Nobody listened. Nobody do anything about it, devs does not care.
They does not want caps with effective instant kill weapons as Razors.
I could write half page post explaining but.. no reason to do so. For more info see the first topic about it.
Capital ship balance is terrible right now, solaris are not working , if you put 2 Razors on any capital ship you kill yourself vs other capital ships. Novas are raping you 24/7....
Caps in 4.85 even with no zooming and steering were more stronger. People were able to put full solaris loadout or add 2 missiles or 2 razors on normal non-crappy arcs and use them on purpose defeating snubs.
Now you have the right to die to 2 double nova bombers that are not in your range.
That's all.

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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.)

[mjolnir]

Razors are ideally supposed to be good idea vs two things 1. GBs, 2. Bombers.

However one of the thing we tried to avoid was people going with maxed-out 1 purpose loadouts. High number of Battle Razor slots invites more to that.

Changes I can't see getting done to cruiser battle razors provided the stay as class 7 and the number of these slots doesn't change are either one or more of these:

- increased refire
- reduced energy use
- increased speed

Which one(s) sound best?

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

[Aeqvinox]

Razors are ideally supposed to be good idea vs two things 1. GBs, 2. Bombers.

True, that is supposed to be their role, which currently [i bet you've heard this enough times] cruisers can't afford to go for except as a fancy on those 4/8 heavies.

However one of the thing we tried to avoid was people going with maxed-out 1 purpose loadouts. High number of Battle Razor slots invites more to that.

I'm not sure i understand you correctly here - what is the developers intention:

1. To avoid cruiser loadouts that can deal with all kinds of threats?
2. To avoid cruiser loadouts that are focused on fighting only specific targets?

If it's the second option, i can post an analysis tomorrow, that will clearly show that currently it's impossible to create an all-round cruiser loadout even on heavy 12 hardpoint cruisers, and also that the closest thing will not have room for battle razors in it - hence, the need to specialize or compromise severely.