Can't it be a good idea to remove all shieldbusters, because now almost everybody uses the same weapons on there ship, because everybody wants to keep up with the rest.
But if you would remove the shieldbusters, there would be a very big increase in weapon variety, and the aligning shields(almost everybody uses graviton now), because each faction has it's own 'normal' weapon, while there are only 2 lines of shieldbusters in game (1 factionalised).
(Maybe with the addition of EMP-Mines)
Or we could make a shieldbuster for every faction (awful lot of work)
We don't intend to remove shieldbusters, but a poll was around about a different change.
It was proposed that shieldbusters inflict same damage to every shield type (i.e not less damage to Graviton and more to others). Unfortunately most people didn't understand the question (as was shown in reactions) and the poll was useless.
it is not an argument to say "cause everyone uses them". - even if its so often used to nerf stuff... .
equipment, ships and loadouts are sometimes based on a learning curve ( a general one that affects the whole server ) and sometimes are just a fashion.
right now, its missiles... everyone is crying out loud about missiles... and that will last untill it turns out that missiles have certain and very specific drawbacks that guns make up for.... and then, players will stop mounting missiles and mount guns again.
nerfing is to force this continous developement of awareness of equipment.
about shieldbusters...:
a ship equipped with like 4 shieldbusters, 1 SN and 1 train CD might be good - but once it meets an opponent with 4 faction guns that is actually quite good at dodging a SN - the player with the 4 shieldbusters will realize that his only chance to do damage is a weapon that he is not able to hit with. - while he is torn apart by hull busters - much slower than maybe with a SN, but still ... . and maybe next time he ll think "lets mount hull busters, too"
besides, we would never get rid of the vanilla shieldbuster ( Tizona ) .. and if we removed all the shieldbusters ( including the inferno for that matter ) and left only what vanilla offered.... at least one faction would probably gain a great advantage over others. - on the other hand it wouldn t be OK to take away the tizona from the corsairs - it is as much corsair as the titan VHF.
Umm... no. Just... no. I'm sure some people have shield busters, but on the whole everyone likes a way to get past shields fast. If Debs/Tizonas went, everyone would start mounting Paralyzers... see the pattern? And trust me, if Debs are annoying you, Paralyzers will drive you mad... one hit drops most of your shields, while if you're good at dodging you can keep your shields for quite some time against Debs.
I'm all in favor of factionalized shield busters... LN/LPI, BAF/BPA, RM/RFP, and KSP/KNF, while Outcasts/allies have the Inferno and Corsairs/allies have the Tizona... but that's not happening, so we deal with what we got, eh?
Allright, I wasn't annoyed by my shield dropping fast by the way (I noticed before my post I still had a lvl 8 shield mounted on my bomber(made a lot of money in it anyway)), but the fact that
1 everybody is mounting civilian weapons while in real life civilian
weapons are a lot worse compared to military stuff.
2 full factionweaponsloadout (is that a word?) is rarely used.
In real life, you can't wander up to your nearest armoury and buy a tank.
We use to be able to buy arms freely, back in ye older days, when we had to look out for our own safety and laws such as revenge killing still existed but since then we have 'civilised' things and so the police/army have all the power and so are meant to be responsible.
Freelancer was alikened to a Wild West, I think, can't really remember the other options.
Also I can add here
Tizonas and Coladas both shield busters of the Corsairs and really It is the symbol of the Corsairs in terms of weaponry. And I don't think Outcasts would be happy if they lost their Inferno and same with Civilians, Military and the rest.
As for paralyzers, they are just as bad, they can drop your power core with multiple hits and your shield would go bye bye in 1-2 hits.
And pvp would be even longer in some cases.
' Wrote:I'm all in favor of factionalized shield busters... LN/LPI, BAF/BPA, RM/RFP, and KSP/KNF, while Outcasts/allies have the Inferno and Corsairs/allies have the Tizona... but that's not happening, so we deal with what we got, eh?