Ok... ship balancing

[Tenacity]

My problem is with the gunboats.... What happened to making fighters even slightly useful? The second a gunboat shows up... If it can dodge BS fire, then all the fighters and bombers are as good as dead.

Fighters are intended to destroy bombers (and other fighters). Gunships, as stated, are a more expensive alternative to flying with wings of fighter escorts.

It's a player consideration as well. Think of how many people each faction has available. Is it more sensible for a player group to fly with a single gunboat as anti-fighter defense, or to use 2-3 fighters of their own? There are only so many players, and some factions dont have the players available to spam fighters at everyone.

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[Grimly]

Battleship Point-Defense Turrets
-Very Short Range (500-800 meters)
-Fast Refire Rate (8.33-10.00, think machine gun)
-Low Damage (400-500 per shot)
-Very Fast Travel Speed (around 5000 m/s)
Point defense turrets are only dangerous when the target is at extremely close ranges. These keep the fighters/bombers from exploiting blind spots on the battleship, but they take up valuable hardpoints for that task and are ineffective against anything larger than a bomber.

hey, are you crazy ????

4000 DPS with a 5000m/s projectile speed !!! its simply the ultimate defence against every fighters(all types) and bombers (with 4 turrets => 3 secs to kill a VHF)

its completly against what you said :

Battleships
Good Against:
Cruisers, Battleships
Bad Against:
Bombers, Cruisers

battleships turret may have a constant formula like :

price = damages * shot per second^1.5 * projectile speed * constant / energy used < 3 000 000 (completly a random one, it ask to work on it seriously)

the price may be lower with cruisers, ect ....



And i think bombers and gunship/gunboat may be competitives, only fighters have to kill bombers easily.

A good army is manly composed by fighters, without it, everyone will take only battleships.
(at least 5 fighters/3 bombers/2 gunboat for 1 cap ship)

try a good organisation like this one and you will see the fight will take a while (except for cap ship:P)



EDIT :

There are only so many players, and some factions dont have the players available to spam fighters at everyone.

Corsairs, Red Hessians, GC, KNF, LSF, Orders, Dragons, Bounty Hunters ... all those factions got a lot of players actives (i'm thinking about the carnage at Sigma13 yesterday, i missed it:() But for exemple, i see only Bounty hunters cap ship, I've NEVER seen any BH fighter .... (that's why we kill them so easily with our bombers)

LSF are not better, every time i got to New York, i don't see more than 2 fighters at the same time but they got a lot of cap ship !

Corsairs, RHA, GC and KNF use a lot of fighters and fights are really more better ! (1 hour for a 12corsairs v 11hessians ... i looked my clock 2 times before i believe it)

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Taking what's yours since 816 A.S.

[Tenacity]

hey, are you crazy ????

4000 DPS with a 5000m/s projectile speed !!! its simply the ultimate defence against every fighters(all types) and bombers (with 4 turrets => 3 secs to kill a VHF)

its completly against what you said :

Did you look at the range on the weapon? 500~ or so meters top range, -maybe- up to 800, but no higher.

It isnt difficult for a fighter/bomber to stay out of minimum range from a battleship.

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[mjolnir]

Right now, even a VHF can effectively take down most gunboats one on one because they dodge so well. Compounded with lag, that's a big problem.

Uhh....only chance a VHF to take down a GB is:
1. when the GB is a complete noob
2. VHF has inferno


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Looking on the current situation I see only 2 problems:

1. BS guns, Cruiser ones seem ok from my corner. (and I do fly some cruisers)

2. GBs, they are actually too good against Cruisers right now, if they loose some energy it will get better.

They are deadly enough against fighters/bombers. As I wrote elsewhere GB with 2 missile turets should win just about all GB vs 2 fighters, and most GB vs 2 bombers. They can dodge bomber SN, not by holding the thruster and flying around though, but by timing their evasive maneuvers. That some GBs (mostly around NY) are getting killed by fighters/bombers is 99% in how bad their pilots are.

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

[globalplayer-svk]

Battleship Point-Defense Turrets
-Very Short Range (500-800 meters)
-Fast Refire Rate (8.33-10.00, think machine gun)
-Low Damage (400-500 per shot)
-Very Fast Travel Speed (around 5000 m/s)
Point defense turrets are only dangerous when the target is at extremely close ranges. These keep the fighters/bombers from exploiting blind spots on the battleship, but they take up valuable hardpoints for that task and are ineffective against anything larger than a bomber.

every bomber or vhf that come to this distane to bs is destroyed... so single bs can take down big fleet of bombers ....

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[Tenacity]

every bomber or vhf that come to this distane to bs is destroyed... so single bs can take down big fleet of bombers ....

torpedoes and supernovas have a 3500+ range for a reason. Battleships arent exactly known for quick manuevering.

Uhh....only chance a VHF to take down a GB is:
1. when the GB is a complete noob
2. VHF has inferno

I dont consider myself a 'complete' noob, just mostly noob :P

Back when I was pirating with bloodsail (rogue GB, solaris turrets) I had plenty of problems with liberty's fighters, and few used infernos. They can easily dodge GB fire if no missile turrets are being used by the GB, and even advanced debilitators are enough to burn through a gunboat shield. The VHF has much higher agility, allowing it to keep out of the GB's fire while returning fire at an almost constant rate.

Though I admit, usually the problem wasnt a single fighter. The fighter would find me, and burn up my shields and batteries while I was trying to kill him (to little effect, due to my bad aim, lag, and their manuverability) and then some liberty bomber or cruiser would come along to finish the job.

Anyways, once 4.85 is released and my Order character switches to a zoner gunboat, I'm thinking about going with 4x order missile turrets and just running away from anything scarier than a transport.

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[mjolnir]

-Fast Refire Rate (8.33-10.00, think machine gun)

This has been done to death saying how it will cause lag => therefore low refire and higher damage (think beams in Freespace 2))
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@Tenacity I was talking about 1 VHF vs 1 GB - which is what you mentioned in the first place

torpedoes and supernovas have a 3500+ range for a reason. Battleships arent exactly known for quick manuevering.

Half the BS around can dodge SN fired from over 1k - Osiris, Liberty Dread, Bretonia BS...

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

[Robert.Fitzgerald]

Tenacity, Supernovas have 1900ish range... Not +3500.

Nova Torpedos, well, those are completely useless against capitals unless they are vanilla without shields. I think projectiles disappear after a certain distance, also.

The thing is, once you mount two missile turrets, gunboats are really good against fighters and bombers. It shouldn't really matter that they are weaker against capitals, as I (and many others probably) think that it is silly for a gunboat to take down a cruiser easily.

Isn't the Zoner Gunboat a transport-style Gunboat? High cargo and stuff? It sounds interesting, that's for sure.

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~Gateway Interstellar~ Gateway)Gibraltar
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[Tenacity]

Isn't the Zoner Gunboat a transport-style Gunboat? High cargo and stuff? It sounds interesting, that's for sure.

Not really sure on the cargo yet, though jinx suggested higher cargo space than usual.

Right now, I'm pretty much relying on the hope that, because it has only 4 turret hardpoints, it will be exceptionally manuverable for a gunboat - at the very minimum at least as manuverable as a liberty or kusari GB. If not... well, i'll probably still use the ship for RP purposes but I'll cry and cut myself like an emo every time i try to pvp :laugh:

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[mrlance]

I am completely novice concerning capital ships.
I'd like to see a gunboat like a support ship for a fighter wing or as a scout in a capital fleet. With missiles they disturb fighter assault, with gun turrets they offer a fire support. It is not the "survival" ship, it is part of a wing or fleet.

I read few thing about the uber BH Gunship. Might the result is to have all the gunboat work like the BH Gunship ? What we need to avoid is to increase the attractivnes of the Gunboat, because it will force the spam of capital ship class9-10. Gunboat is spamming in the pirate side. I can see the reaction of the lane hackers trying to limit the access to affiliated and ID LH only. I think the purpose is to avoid a LH gunship spam.

I dunno where is the unbalance right now. All work with action/reaction. Unbalance is more between same class ships than between different class ships. Spam Cap ships--> spam Bombers --> spam VHFs --> Spam Gunboats --> spam Cap ships --> Spam Bomber.Today we see the gunboats all over sirius, tomorrow the battlecruiser, and the next day Bombers. After all, it is what makes the server so unpredictable.

What i like to see is maybe more advanced Light Interceptor or maybe heavy fighter. The bomber appears to be the ultimate fighter in the hand of a great pilot. About ship balancing, we barely see Light Fighters. Are they so useless ?

Edit : I realise that I have a biased opinion. I do not fly capital ships. My pleasure is with fighters. So my main action is to react against the worse ennemy of the fighter class, the gunboat. Well... in the end, opinion is never neutral and objective i guess.

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The family Lance


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