LOCK ME!

[SevereTrinity]

Raisu, you're calculations are incorrect due to them not being well informed.

You take the way armour upgardes work as if they only build up bots; Bots restore the same level as before, you are just taking less damage. So from a 1000 hull gun, you take 2.5x less damage.

You still restore 600 per bot.

[looqas]

It just takes a different kind of flying tactic, which few people seem capable of doing unfortunately.
But, in short, don't compare bombers to fighters. They serve different roles, despite the fact that bombers can kill fighters and fighters can kill cap ships.

And there lies the problem as I see it. The tactics fighter needs to win against bomber invariably involve lengthy combat. That in it self would not be such a big problem in man versus man or in furballs.

BUT it becomes a big problem in mixed fleet engagements. Fighters that are trying to flying escort are not just effective enough. Invariably in the 30 mins it takes to wear down the bomber attacking your cap the bomber has done the deed. As of now bombers can go on about their business attacking the caps with near impunity. A good bomber pilot does not have to worry about the 2-3 fighters trying to hamper his runs.

It just takes too long for fighters to be effective against a single bomber making the runs to really fulfill fighter's role as bomber suppressant. As of now the ratio to render a bomber inefficient is 1:3 or 1:4. I'd like to see the ratio more close to 1:2

By cutting the amount of bots available to bomber this effect could be cured a bit.

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Flying under radar.

[zeinstruktor]

Nighthawk, I doubt you even read my first post.

A bombers anti-capital abilities should always be taken into account when considering nerfs for the ships and/or bombers. If bombers are no longer able to effectively kill capital ships then we get a dangerous imbalance between fighters and capital ships. So in short, if your nerf for a bombers' anti-fighter abilities somehow reduces their anti-capital abilities, then it is not acceptable.

How would my nerf affect bombers' ability to down capitals?

For example, make the SNAC do 20,000 damage against all fighter-class ships, and the normal amount against freighter-class ships.

But,

That's not possible in any reasonable way.

So my question has finally been answered after 13 pages of useless flaming.

[tansytansey]

Nighthawk, I doubt you even read my first post.

Wrong. I read your post. It was about making the SNAC do different damage to fighter class vessels, but leave freighter class vessels receiving the same damage. However, since you're such a hypocrite, did you not read my post where I responded to your first post by saying: It is not possible. There is no distinction between the armour on fighters and freighters. This thread is no longer about that, now, it seems.

And there lies the problem as I see it. The tactics fighter needs to win against bomber invariably involve lengthy combat. That in it self would not be such a big problem in man versus man or in furballs.

Not necessarily. When my shield drops in a bomber vs another bomber I use a tactic to dodge the SNAC. I don't know how to explain it, cause I do it by instinct. The same tactic is useful in fighters. You can still deal damage to bombers and dodge an SN in the same pass. I can kill a bomber pretty fast in a Greyhound with x4 Sammaels, I'd imagine it'd be a lot easier if I had x2 shield busters and x4 hull busters.

BUT it becomes a big problem in mixed fleet engagements. Fighters that are trying to flying escort are not just effective enough. Invariably in the 30 mins it takes to wear down the bomber attacking your cap the bomber has done the deed. As of now bombers can go on about their business attacking the caps with near impunity. A good bomber pilot does not have to worry about the 2-3 fighters trying to hamper his runs.

It just takes too long for fighters to be effective against a single bomber making the runs to really fulfill fighter's role as bomber suppressant. As of now the ratio to render a bomber inefficient is 1:3 or 1:4. I'd like to see the ratio more close to 1:2

By cutting the amount of bots available to bomber this effect could be cured a bit.

So... you want to nerf Bombers for carrying out their intended roles now? Right. That's what I gathered from your post. And believe me, it is a lot harder to kill capital ships in a bomber when you have a bunch of fighters on your tail who can aim worth a damn. I believe I posted an example of that earlier in this thread.

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http://i668.photobucket.com/albums/vv46/Ni...gcloudscopy.png
Image turned into a URL because it made your sig too tall. -Zuke
|Ashes and Draya's Epic Adventure|Ashes "Nighthawk" Yotaka|Nightfall|Eva Jones|
[5:50:49 PM] JakeSG (William Darkmoor) says: I like you, Ashes. You're more cynical than God.

[looqas]

So... you want to nerf Bombers for carrying out their intended roles now? Right. That's what I gathered from your post. And believe me, it is a lot harder to kill capital ships in a bomber when you have a bunch of fighters on your tail who can aim worth a damn. I believe I posted an example of that earlier in this thread.

No. That's not it. I fly mainly bombers and fighters. I've been on both sides of the fence a lot. That's why I stated my opinion like I did.

Sure fighters will have an effect, but like you said it needs a BUNCH of fighters per single bomber to get it destroyed quick enough for to affect it in the outcome of the battle. What I'm looking for is how fighters can carry out their intended role as escorts. Given time the fighters will prevail, but meantime your caps are flaming wrecks. At the moment there's no point flying escort in fighters if you do not have 2 wing mates.

I don't think reducing the bot amount the bombers have would be that bad for bomber pilots. Sure they would die faster, but still a skilled bomber pilot can stay alive very long even if he would have 20-30 bots less.

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Flying under radar.

[Dashiell]

And there lies the problem as I see it. The tactics fighter needs to win against bomber invariably involve lengthy combat. That in it self would not be such a big problem in man versus man or in furballs.

BUT it becomes a big problem in mixed fleet engagements. Fighters that are trying to flying escort are not just effective enough. Invariably in the 30 mins it takes to wear down the bomber attacking your cap the bomber has done the deed. As of now bombers can go on about their business attacking the caps with near impunity. A good bomber pilot does not have to worry about the 2-3 fighters trying to hamper his runs.

It just takes too long for fighters to be effective against a single bomber making the runs to really fulfill fighter's role as bomber suppressant. As of now the ratio to render a bomber inefficient is 1:3 or 1:4. I'd like to see the ratio more close to 1:2

By cutting the amount of bots available to bomber this effect could be cured a bit.

agreed. escorts are quite irrelevant now. the bomber can make runs quite happily with fighters on his tail.
I had this just yesterday; I was bombing an Osiris with 3 Order VHF on my tail. I am by no means an ace, but they couldn`t get me to divert from my runs. sure, my shield melted here and there but I was by no means hampered to snac the caps.

less bots would be better I think. if that is possible. it would make bombers less inclined to stay on bombing runs.

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[mjolnir]

Invariably in the 30 mins it takes to wear down the bomber attacking your cap the bomber has done the deed. As of now bombers can go on about their business attacking the caps with near impunity. A good bomber pilot does not have to worry about the 2-3 fighters trying to hamper his runs.

I'd actually say that the fighters are not good enough in that case tbh.
This was a problem in 4.84 yes, but since then BS got twice armor/bats/bots, and cruisers 50% more. So it now takes at least twice as long to down them.
At the same time fighter guns got on average 20% damage increase and missiles 55%.

To test this out we took BS escorted with 4 escorts (3 fighters 1 gb) against 4 bombers on the RP server. All bombers were dead before the BS got to half bots.


---------------------------
Btw. for those that want to be more effective escorts and don't have godly aim. There are 2 highly specialized weapons to do that:

Shieldbusters
GB missiles
(GB pulses as well)

Both have extra energy damage, which when it hits hull drain bomber energy. So you can keep the bomber shieldless and lower or completely stop his ability to fire SN. If you have shieldbusters doing 2k energy damage per second (= 4 Imp. Debs for example) and hit all shots (teoretical yes). Then the bomber will regen at some 200 or 400 energy per second. So he can fire SN every 38000/200 = 3 minutes or 1.5 minutes for heavy bomber. That is basically slower than it takes for any capshield to regen.

Yes this was extreme example, but say you have 2 fighters with 2 Debs each and they hit about half shots => the SN "refire" gets to some 35 seconds, which is half the normal number for light bombers. At the same time the shieldless bomber is perfect target for BS razors as it aligns the SN shots.

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

[me_b_kevin]

Something just occurred to me, everyone combats most questions about balance with the typical two answers; escorts and skill.

which is fine, but what was the "balance" balanced according to? is the mod balanced according to the skill of the average player or the skill of a player who's helped in development of the mod itself providing an intimate knowledge of the weaknesses and strengths of the ships they are balancing....AND if said developer is an above average player in terms of fighting skill, that would also change things a bit as well.

sure that intimate knowledge "could" eventually spread throughout the community to an extent but player skill is something that can only increase so far. some people are gifted in terms of fighting in Discovery while some (like myself) could never reach the same level.

it tickles me when i see these balance questions and i see people answer with percentages, D.P.S., angular degrees of attack, hitbox shape, size, and location....etc....etc..

example: the question is asked "i just want to shoot the gun and hit what i'm aiming at." the answer: "well i can hit it 100% of the time cause 2k damage per second. all i do is fly at a 46.7 degree angle and shoot at the ships weak spot which for that ship is located slightly to the left of the 6th window on the right side which is 1.3765 meters down the ship model. you just need to practice"

it throws me into giggle town i tell ya! :)

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Mon'Star the Red- Rated "R" : http://discoverygc.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=3224
Aboard the Necrosis- Rated "E": http://discoverygc.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=3313

[mjolnir]

It's a problem yes, we got some "average" pilots to balance after for development. And just about all of us were capship noobs.

But trough all the PVPwhoring ... ehh "testing"... on the test sever we all got much better rather fast. Dunno how to fix that really.

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

[Guest]

Yes. But Bombers are anti-capital ships. For a fighter to have these statistics, it would be unbalanced, of course. But fighters =/= bombers. Bombers aren't designed with fighting fighters in mind, they are designed to counter capital ships. Their ability to kill fighters is just a side effect of their abilities to kill capital ships. However, fighters are far more effective at killing bombers than the reverse. It just takes a different kind of flying tactic, which few people seem capable of doing unfortunately.
But, in short, don't compare bombers to fighters. They serve different roles, despite the fact that bombers can kill fighters and fighters can kill cap ships.

Yes Bombers are anti-capital ships, they arent capital ships themselves. Just because you design something to fight Capital ships, doesnt mean you can throw a bunch of armor plating on it. Again, My unarmored upholder, suffers no decrease in ability to fight a capital ship (Or even Multiple capital ships) from taking more damage when shot.
Ive seen more fighters die vs bombers than I have bombers die to fighters, and in most cases it wasnt random newbs it was experienced players.
And as its been said, the best thing you could ever have happen, is your about to finish off a bomber, he gets a lucky SNAC on someone, and boom hes refilled. And we're back at shooting through another 142-414k armor points.

Raisu, you're calculations are incorrect due to them not being well informed.

You take the way armour upgardes work as if they only build up bots; Bots restore the same level as before, you are just taking less damage. So from a 1000 hull gun, you take 2.5x less damage.

You still restore 600 per bot.

Ross, you seem to have misinformed yourself in reading my post.

Damage Reduction
Armor 2
Weapon Damage 200
Actual Weapon Damage 100
Hull Points 15000
Damaged Hull % 0.993333333

Armor Increase
Armor 2
Hull Points 15000
Actual Hull Points 30000
Weapon Damage 200
Damaged Hull % 0.993333333

Either way you look at it, Its the same. Same for Bots:
It takes 1 bot to repair 600 hull points, with 15,000 armor, thats 4% Armor that gets restored.
It takes 2 bots to repair 1200 hull points, with 30,000 armor, do the math, you'll find thats also 4% restored.

If you have a 66,001 HP ship with 110 bots and 2.0 armor
And a 132,002 HP ship with 220 bots and no armor
Guaranteed both will have 0 Bots after taking a hit from an SN.
Doing 66000 damage to the armored ship (damage reduction) being able to repair 110*600=66000 damage
While the unarmored ship will take the full 132000 damage, but would be able to repair 220*600=132000 damage.

Take notice of Key Words such as "Equivalent"